False Impression (5 page)

Recently she’d
wanted to confide in Anna, but this remained the one secret she couldn’t risk
sharing.

Tina pulled open
the curtains and, despite its being September, the clear, sparkling morning
convinced her that she should wear a summer dress. It might even make her relax
when she stared up at the dentist’s drill.

Once she was
dressed and had checked her appearance in the mirror, Tina went off to the
kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. She wasn’t allowed to have anything
else for breakfast, not even toast – instructions from the ferocious dental
assistant – so she flicked on the television to catch the early morning news.

There wasn’t
any. A suicide bomber on the West Bank was followed by a 320-pound woman who was
suing McDonald’s for ruining her sex life. Tina was just about to turn off Good
Morning America when the quarterback for the 49ers appeared on the screen.

It made Tina
think of her father.

J
ack Delaney
arrived at his office at 26 Federal Plaza just after seven that morning. He
felt depressed as he stared down at the countless files that littered his desk.
Every one of them connected with his investigation of Bryce Fenston, and a year
later he was no nearer to presenting his boss with enough evidence to ask a
judge to issue an arrest warrant.

Jack opened
Fenston’s personal file in the vain hope that he might stumble across some tiny
clue, some personal trait, or just a mistake that would finally link Fenston
directly to the three vicious murders that had taken place in Marseille, Los
Angeles and Rio de Janeiro.

In 1984, the
32-year-old Nicu Munteanu had presented himself at the American Embassy in
Bucharest, claiming that he could identify two spies working in the heart of
Washington, information he was willing to trade in exchange for an American
passport. A dozen such claims were handled by the embassy every week and almost
all proved groundless, but in Munteanu’s case the information stood up. Within
a month, two well-placed officials found themselves on a flight back to Moscow,
and Munteanu was issued with an American passport.

Nicu Munteanu
landed in New York on February 17, 1985.

Jack had been
able to find little intelligence on Munteanu’s activities during the following
year, but he suddenly re-emerged with enough money to take over Fenston
Finance, a small, ailing bank in Manhattan. Nicu Munteanu changed his name to
Bryce Fenston – not a crime in itself – but no one could identify his backers,
despite the fact that during the next few years the bank began to accept large
deposits from unlisted companies across Eastern Europe. Then in 1989 the cash
flow suddenly dried up, the same year as Ceau§escu and his wife Elena fled from
Bucharest following the uprising. Within days they were captured, tried and
executed.

Jack looked out
of his window over lower Manhattan, and recalled the FBI maxim: never believe
in coincidences, but never dismiss them.

Following
Ceau§escu’s death, the bank appeared to go through a couple of lean years until
Fenston met up with Karl Leapman, a disbarred lawyer, who had recently been
released from prison for fraud. It was not too long before the bank resumed its
profitable ways.

Jack stared down
at several photographs of Bryce Fenston, who regularly appeared in the gossip
columns with one of New York’s most fashionable women on his arm. He was
variously described as a brilliant banker, a leading financier, even a generous
benefactor, and with almost every mention of his name there was a reference to
his magnificent art collection. Jack pushed the photographs to one side. He
hadn’t yet come to terms with a man who wore an earring, and he was even more
puzzled why someone who had a full head of hair when he first came to America
would choose to shave himself bald. Who was he hiding from?

Jack closed the
Munteanu/Fenston personal file, and turned his attention to Pierre de Rochelle,
the first of the victims.

Rochelle
required seventy million francs to pay for his share in a vineyard. His only
previous experience of die wine industry seemed to have come from draining the
bottles on a regular basis. Even a cursory inspection would have revealed that
his investment plan didn’t appear to fulfil the banking maxim of being ‘sound’.

However, what
caught Fenston’s attention when he perused the application was that the young
man had recently inherited a chateau in the Dordogne, in which every wall was
graced with fine Impressionist paintings, including a Degas, two Pissarros and
a Monet of Argenteuil.

The vineyard
failed to show a return for four fruitless years, during which time the chateau
began to render up its assets, leaving only outline shapes where the pictures
had once hung.

By the time
Fenston had shipped the last painting back to New York to join his private
collection, Pierre’s original loan had, with accumulated interest, more than
doubled. When his chateau was finally placed on the market, Pierre took up
residence in a small flat in Marseille, where each night he would drink himself
into a senseless stupor. That was until a bright young lady, just out of law
school, suggested to Pierre, in one of his sober moments, that were Fenston
Finance to sell his Degas, the Monet and the two Pissarros, he could not only
pay off his debt, but take the chateau off the market and reclaim the rest of his
collection. This suggestion did not fit in with Fenston’s long-term plans.

A week later,
the drunken body of Pierre de Rochelle was found slumped in a Marseille alley,
his throat sliced open.

Four years
later, the Marseille police closed the file, with the words ‘NON RESOLU’
stamped on the cover.

When the estate
was finally settled, Fenston had sold off all the works, with the exception of
the Degas, the Monet and the two Pissarros, and after compound interest, bank
charges and lawyers’ fees, Pierre’s younger brother, Simon de Rochelle,
inherited the flat in Marseille.

Jack rose from
behind his desk, stretched his cramped limbs and yawned wearily, before he
considered tackling Chris Adams Jr.

Although
he knew Adams’s case history almost by heart.

Chris Adams
Senior had operated a highly successful fine art gallery on Melrose Avenue in
Los Angeles. He specialized in the American School, so admired by the Hollywood
glitterati. His untimely death in a car crash left his son Chris Jr with a
collection of Rothkos, Pollocks, Jasper Johnses, Rauschenbergs and several
Warhol acrylics, including a Black Marilyn.

An old school
friend advised Chris that the way to double his money would be to invest in the
dot.com revolution. Chris Jr pointed out that he didn’t have any ready cash,
just the gallery, the paintings and Christina, his father’s old yacht – and
even that was half owned by his younger sister. Fenston Finance stepped in and
advanced him a loan of twelve million dollars, on their usual terms.

As in so many revolutions,
several bodies ended up on the battlefield: among them, Chris Jr’s.

Fenston Finance
allowed the debt to continue mounting without ever troubling their client. That
was until Chris Jr read in the Los Angeles Times that Warhol’s Shot Bed Marilyn
had recently sold for over four million dollars. He immediately contacted
Christie’s in LA, who assured him that he could expect an equally good return
for his Rothkos, Pollocks and Jasper Johnses. Three months later, Leapman
rushed into the chairman’s office bearing the latest copy of a Christie’s sale
catalogue. He had placed yellow Post-it notes against seven different lots that
were due to come under the hammer. Fenston made one phone call,
then
booked himself on the next flight to Rome.

Three days later,
Chris Jr was discovered in the lavatory of a gay bar with his throat cut.

Fenston was on
holiday in Italy at the time, and Jack had a copy of his hotel bill, plane
tickets, and even his credit-card purchases from several shops and restaurants.

The paintings
were immediately withdrawn from the Christie’s sale while the LA police carried
out their investigations. After eighteen months of no new evidence and dead
ends, the file joined the other LAPD cold cases stored in the basement. All
Chris’s sister ended up with was a model of Christina, her father’s much loved
yacht.

Jack tossed
Chris Jr’s file to one side, and stared down at the name of Maria Vasconcellos,
a Brazilian widow who had inherited a house and a lawn full of statues – and not
of the garden-centre variety. Moore, Giacometti, Remington, Botero and Calder
were among Senora Vasconcellos’s husband’s bequest. Unfortunately, she fell in
love with a gigolo, and when he suggested…

The phone rang
on Jack’s desk.

‘Our London
embassy is on line two,’ his secretary informed him.

‘Thanks, Sally,’
said Jack, knowing it could only be his friend Tom Crasanti, who had joined the
FBI on the same day as he had.

‘Hi, Tom, how
are you?’ he asked even before he heard a voice.

‘In good shape,’
Tom replied.
‘Still running every day, even if I’m not as fit
as you.’

‘And
my godson?’

‘He’s learning
to play cricket.’

‘The
traitor.
Got any good news?’

‘No,’ said Tom,
‘that’s why I’m calling. You’re going to have to open another file.’

Jack felt a cold
shiver run through his body. “Who is it this time?’ he asked quietly.

‘The lady’s
name, and Lady she was, is Victoria Wentworth.’

‘How did she
die?’

‘In exactly the
same manner as the other three, throat cut, almost certainly with a kitchen
knife.’

‘What makes you
think Fenston was involved?’

‘She owed the
bank over thirty million.’

‘And what was he
after this time?’

‘A
Van Gogh self-portrait.’

‘Value?’

‘Sixty,
possibly seventy million dollars.’

‘I’ll be on the
next plane to London.’

A
t 7.56, Anna
closed the Wentworth file and bent down to open the bottom drawer of her desk.
She slipped off her sneakers and replaced them with a pair of black high-heeled
shoes. She
rose
from her chair, gathered up the files
and glanced in the mirror not a hair out of place.

Anna stepped out
of her office and walked down the corridor towards the large corner suite. Two
or three members of staff greeted her with ‘Good morning, Anna’, which she
acknowledged with a smile. A gentle knock on the chairman’s door – she knew
Fenston would already be seated at his desk. Had she been even a minute late,
he would have pointedly stared at his watch. Anna waited for an invitation to
enter, and was surprised when the door was immediately pulled open and she came
face to face with Karl Leapman. He was wearing an almost identical suit to the
one Fenston had on, even if it wasn’t of the same vintage.

‘Good morning,
Karl,’ she said brightly, but didn’t receive a response.

The chairman
looked up from behind his desk and motioned Anna to take the seat opposite him.
He also didn’t offer any salutation, but then he rarely did. Leapman took his
place on the right of the chairman and slightly behind him, like a cardinal in
attendance on the Pope. Status clearly defined. Anna assumed that Tina would
appear at any moment with a cup of black coffee, but the secretary’s door
remained resolutely shut.

Anna glanced up
at the Monet of Argenteuil that hung on the wall behind the chairman’s desk.
Although Monet had painted the peaceful riverbank scene on several occasions,
this was one of the finest examples. Anna had once asked Fenston where he’d
acquired the painting, but he’d been evasive, and she couldn’t find any
reference to the sale among past transactions.

She looked
across at Leapman, whose lean and hungry look reminded her of Cassius. It
didn’t seem to matter what time of day it was, he always looked as if he needed
a shave. She turned her attention to Fenston, who was certainly no Brutus, and
shifted
uneasily in her chair, trying not to appear fazed by
the silence, which was suddenly broken, on Fenston’s nod.

‘Dr Petrescu,
some distressing information has been brought to the attention of the
chairman,’ Leapman began. ‘It would appear,’ he continued, ‘that you sent one of
the bank’s private and confidential documents to a client, before the chairman
had been given the chance to consider its implications.’

For a moment
Anna was taken by surprise, but she quickly recovered and decided to respond in
kind. ‘If, Mr Leapman, you are referring to my report concerning the loan to
the Wentworth Estate, you are correct. I did send a copy to Lady Victoria
Wentworth.’

‘But the
chairman was not given enough time to read that report and make a considered
judgement before you forwarded it to the client,’ said Leapman, looking down at
some notes.

‘That is not the
case, Mr Leapman. Both you and the chairman were sent copies of my report on
September first, with a recommendation that Lady Victoria should be advised of
her position before the next quarterly payment was due.’