“Leave the office, go to a movie, find a distraction,” Ava said.
“How are things going?” he asked again.
She sighed. “Quite well, actually. With any luck, you and I should be able to sit down in a day or two with all the facts at our fingertips and make an informed decision.”
“I’m counting on that.”
So is Edwin Hughes, she thought, and hung up.
Ava took the elevator to the lobby and had lunch in the hotel’s Stable Bar. She then headed outdoors, where the sun was still visible through a bank of clouds that grew darker towards the horizon. She decided to take a walk around the Gardens, and was on her third circuit when her phone rang. The incoming number was for the Hughes Gallery. That was quick, she thought.
“This is Ava Lee,” she said.
“I’ve finished my paperwork. You can come by and pick it up anytime,” Hughes said.
“Have you spoken to your brother?”
“Yes, not more than ten minutes ago. I think you’ll find him co-operative.”
She checked her watch. It was just past one o’clock. “I’m on my way now,” Ava said. She was near the bridge that spanned the Serpentine, so she reversed course and headed back to the High Street. She called her travel agent in Toronto as she walked.
“Gail, it’s Ava. I need to fly to New York. Can you see if there’s a late-afternoon flight out of Heathrow, something that could get me there sometime early this evening? I won’t be near my computer for a while, so call me when you have the information. I’m not sure what part of the city I’ll be going to, so let’s hold off on a hotel until I know for certain.”
As Ava approached the gallery she saw Lisa waiting by the front door, looking embarrassed. Ava wondered if she’d read the papers she’d been asked to witness. “Mr. Hughes is in the back,” she said softly, as if it were a secret. She’s been told something, Ava thought.
Ava walked to the offices in the back and found Hughes standing by a photocopier just outside his office, feeding it notepaper with handwriting on it. “That was prompt,” he said when he saw her.
“I was just around the corner.”
He turned his back to her as he finished making the copies. He sorted the papers into three neat stacks and stapled each stack together. “One for me, one for you, and I thought you’d want one for Glen, so I took the liberty,” he said, handing her two sets.
“Do you mind if I sit to read?”
“Let’s go into the office.”
There were nine pages of notes, double-spaced, six of them devoted to the earlier forgeries and the remaining three recounting his knowledge of the Fauvist scam, including his meeting with Nancy O’Toole, the letter from Helga Sorensen, and his brother’s admission to him of his guilt. It was a straightforward account, unemotional and not the least bit self-serving. She respected him for his directness.
Ava pulled out her Moleskine notebook and checked the notes she had made that morning against the documents Hughes had drafted. “Mr. Hughes,” she said, “on a separate piece of paper I’d like you to make a list of the so-called art experts who authenticated the Manet and the Modiglianis.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, I want that information.”
He hesitated. “What bearing does it have on this? I’ve already given you a full confession.”
“It will give me additional leverage with your brother,” she said, not at all sure it would but figuring it never hurt to have extra ammunition.
“All right,” he said.
“I also don’t see any of the information I asked for about your brother.”
“That’s done, but I’ve separated it from these documents.”
“Good. Now, do you have a fax machine?”
“Next to the photocopier.”
“I’d like to send a copy of your notes to Hong Kong.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
Ava put Uncle’s name on a cover sheet and wrote, Here is an accurate description of how the Wongs were cheated. I’m leaving for New York in a few hours. I’ll be in touch. She dialled his Hong Kong fax number and fed the papers through the machine.
Her cellphone rang as the transmission started. Her travel agent told her there was a five-o’clock flight to JFK that got in at eight forty-five. Ava figured that by the time she’d cleared Customs and found her way into Manhattan it would be at least ten o’clock. She hoped Glen Hughes didn’t mind working nights. “Hang on a second,” Ava said to Gail, and walked back to Edwin Hughes’ office. “Where does your brother live?” she asked.
“On 65th Street near Lexington Avenue, on the Upper East Side,” he said.
She repeated this to Gail.
“There’s a Mandarin Oriental Hotel at Columbus Circle and 60th Street,” Gail said. “It’s on the southwest corner of Central Park. You can have a room with a park view if you don’t mind paying a thousand dollars a night.”
“Book the flight and the room,” Ava said.
“I’m finished with the list,” Hughes said, as she hung up the phone.
She read the document quickly. The only name she recognized was Sam Rice, only because Hughes had mentioned him specifically.
“And here is the information on my brother.”
“Only one address. Is that his house or his office?”
“Both, evidently. He told me he has his office on the ground floor and the living quarters are upstairs.”
“A townhouse?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Is he living alone?”
“Yes, wife number three vacated several months ago.”
Ava thought Hughes looked curiously relaxed. This is the man, she thought, whom Edwin Hughes said he detested. “So, you say you spoke to your brother and he’s going to be co-operative?”
“I did, and he said he would be.”
“He took your call so easily?”
“I used Lisa’s mobile. He probably thought it was some old girlfriend trying to reach him.”
“Was it strained, your conversation?”
“What does that matter?” Hughes asked. “You got what you wanted.”
“How hard did you have to push?”
He laughed and then slowly shook his head. “My brother has a remarkably fine-tuned instinct for survival. He can identify danger from miles away, and I only had to start talking about you and Maurice O’Toole before he had the situation sussed out. He thought the half-million was cheap. He said he’d pay it. He may posture a bit, protest, negotiate, whine, threaten — he has a whole range of theatrics he can call on — but in the end he said he’ll pay. His only concern, actually, was about my ability to pay my share. I almost thought he was going to offer to fund that too.”
“Did you go into the letters I’ve drafted for the Earl and the others?”
“I didn’t have to. Glen understood the implications of this going public far quicker than I did.”
“So he’s expecting me?”
“Of course. I told him I thought you’d be there in a day or two, and that you’d contact him directly.”
This has gone well, Ava thought. Maybe too well.
Edwin Hughes fussed with the papers on his desk. Ava tried to think of anything she might have missed. When she was satisfied she had covered everything, she stood up, put his notes in her bag, and said, “Thanks for this.”
He walked out from behind the desk. “I’ll walk with you to the door.”
She hadn’t been physically close to him before, and now that she was, she could smell a distinct body odour. Hughes hadn’t showered or used deodorant that morning, or else he had been sweating up a storm. On his breath
