“That is when Wong Changxing got involved.”
Ava froze. “How?” she said.
“He was evidently listening to my negotiations with May. When she kept pushing for fifteen percent, he interrupted and told her that twenty percent was fine.”
“She told me she’d keep him away from this,” Ava said.
“It was probably unrealistic of us to believe her,” Uncle said. “They are close, those two. They spend every minute of most days together. She would have found it hard not to share, especially when she knows how much it means to him.”
“This is a problem for me, Uncle,” Ava said slowly.
“When we were in Wuhan, I agreed with you. Now I do not. After my talk with May I called Changxing directly. He apologized for stepping into the middle of the negotiations. He said he overheard May talking to me earlier in the day, and he persuaded her to tell him what was going on. He seemed calm, not like he was when we were in Wuhan. He wants his money back, he said, nothing more than that. He said he was so emotional in Wuhan because we were the first people they had told about the treachery. He got carried away.”
“And you believe him?”
“I do,” Uncle said.
Ava had never told Uncle she didn’t trust his judgement. She wasn’t sure she ever could. “If you are certain,” she said.
“I am.”
(25)
By the time she reached Church Street, the Wongs were gone from her mind. Let Uncle handle them, she thought.
She got to the gallery at quarter to ten, so she walked across the street and stood in the entrance to a bakery, which gave her a clear view of the gallery’s front door. At five to ten Lisa arrived, the short red dress replaced by a twin in black. She is a magnificent-looking woman, Ava thought.
She waited for Edwin Hughes. At quarter past she thought about calling the gallery to see if he was there already, and then thought better of it. Be patient, she thought.
At ten thirty Hughes drove past in an old-model Jaguar. He found a parking spot on her side of the street, about twenty metres past the bakery. She watched him get out of the car, cross the street, and walk into the gallery. He was wearing a navy-blue suit with broad white pinstripes. It takes a confident man to wear a suit like that, Ava thought as she watched Hughes walk with long, easy strides, his back straight, his six-foot frame giving off an aura of dominance.
She gave him ten minutes to get settled and then crossed the street, the file folders pressed against her hip.
A bell tinkled when she opened the door. She hadn’t noticed it the last time — just another sign of how inattentive she had been. The bell brought Lisa out from the back, a smile on her face that instantaneously disappeared when she saw Ava.
“I don’t think he’ll want to speak to you,” she said, drawing near.
“Not his choice, I’m afraid,” Ava said.
“Ms. Lee, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t permit you to go back there.”
“Lisa, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Lisa, this doesn’t involve you. I need to speak to Mr. Hughes and I’m going to do exactly that. Please don’t interfere.”
“This place is filled with cameras and alarms,” Lisa said in rush. “I can have security here in five minutes.”
“If that’s the case, then let Mr. Hughes call for security if he doesn’t want to talk to me. Same result, yes? I’ll get thrown out. But you can stay out of it.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you.”
“Very, and equally determined.”
Lisa looked down at Ava. “Go. He’s in his office in the back.”
The office door was open. Hughes had the same brown wingtips planted on the desk but was turned sideways, talking on the phone. Ava stood quietly until he felt her presence. He kept talking. She walked into the office and sat in the chair across from his desk.
He turned, looked at her, and then did a double take. “I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up the phone. His feet dropped to the ground with a thud. “Now what the hell do you want?” he said.
“We’re going to have a talk, and this time you’re going to listen.”
“We are going to have no such thing. I want you to leave the premises.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Absolutely nothing. I just find you annoying in the extreme. You came here before with frivolous charges concerning my brother and tried to implicate me in the matter. I didn’t like it then, and I’m not about to sit and let you make a repeat.”
Ava shrugged. “All right, then we’ll change the subject. How about we talk about the fake Manet you sold to the Earl of Moncrieff?”
He didn’t move. His eyes never left her, and she watched them morph from confusion to doubt and then detected the first signs of panic. “Or how about the Modigliani you sold to Harold Holmes?” she continued. “Or the one that Jonathan Reiner bought at a Harrington auction. Tell me, what did you do? Pay off the evaluator at Harrington’s?”
“That’s nonsense,” he sputtered.
“You mean about the evaluator?” Ava said.
“That and the rest of your fantasy,” he said. “I’m going to call security. This conversation is over.”
She threw her files onto his desk. “I found Maurice O’Toole’s records,” she said. “He was meticulous. Invoices, photos, dates, shipping slips, cancelled cheques. I have them all. I think you’ll find them neatly arranged.”
He stared at the files with the look of a man who has just been told his wife is having an affair with their teenage son’s best friend, and here were the photos, graphic and unmistakable, to prove it.
“This time I’m not leaving the office,” Ava said.
He reached for the documents, read them once, twice, three times, his face draining of colour. People’s reactions to shock interested Ava. It is easy to keep up a pretence for a short while, but eventually the brain takes over, and as it absorbs the horrible reality it begins to relay messages to a mouth that gapes, to glands that bleed sweat, to skin that sags, and in Hughes’ case, an eyelid that twitched.
He closed the files and looked at her. “Interesting material,” he said coolly.
“I thought so.”
“I am slightly perplexed, though. I thought your interest and your client’s interest lay in some supposed Fauvist art forgeries. Isn’t this a bit of a diversion?”
“They are linked.”
“I fail to see any connection.”
“Your and your brother’s marks are all over these frauds. I need to know if the same is true for the Fauvists.”
“Good God, girl, we’ve been through this. I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with that crazy Fauvist scheme. That was Glen and Glen alone.”
“The truth?”
“Absolutely,” he said eagerly.
