The Veteran (13 page)

The valuation for insurance purposes of substantial or even not-so-substantial art collections was a service regularly performed by all the great art houses of London. There was of course a useful fee involved. But advance notice was habitually much longer.

“It’s a bugger. Perry. We’ve got the big one in four days and we’re working our tails off down here. Can’t it wait?”

“Not really. What about that young lad you took on a couple of years ago?”

“Benny? What about him?”

“Would he be mature enough to handle it? It’s not a huge collection. Mainly old Jacobean portraits. He could take our last valuation, add a bit and bingo. It’s only for insurance.”

“Oh, very well.”

On the 22nd Benny Evans left on the night train for Caithness in the far north of Scotland. He would be gone a week.

On the morning of the sale, which Slade would be taking himself, he mentioned to Mortlake that there was one extra lot, not in the catalogue, an afterthought. Mortlake was perplexed.

“What extra lot?”

“A small daub that could be Florentine. One of those off-the-street things that your young friend Master Evans handled. The tail-end jobs that he had a look at after you had left for Christmas.”

“He never mentioned it to me. I thought they had all been returned to owner.”

“My fault entirely. Slipped my mind. Must have slipped his as well. I happened to be in to clear up some details just before Christmas. Saw him in the corridor. Asked him what he was doing. He said you had asked him to look at the last forty-odd of the hand-ins.”

“True, I did,” said Mortlake.

“Well, there was one he thought might be worth a try. I took it off him to have a look, got distracted, left it in my office and forgot all about it.”

He offered Mortlake the modest valuation that purported to come from Benny Evans and certainly bore his signature, let the director of Old Masters read it, then took it back.

“But do we have authority?”

“Oh yes. I called the owner yesterday when I saw the damn thing still in my office. He was more than happy. Faxed the authority through last night.”

Seb Mortlake had a lot more on his plate that morning than an anonymous daub with no attribution and a valuation close to his personal basement price of £5,000. His star offering was a Veronese, along with an exceptional Michele di Rodolfo and a Sano di Pietro. He grunted his assent and hurried to the auction room to supervise the running order. At ten a.m.

Peregrine Slade mounted his rostrum, took his gavel in hand and the auction began.

He loved taking the most important auctions. The elevated position, the command, the control, the waggish nods to well-known dealers, bidders and pals from the inner coterie of the fine-art circuit of London, and the silent recognition of agents he knew would be there to represent some really mega player in the circus who would never dream of appearing personally.

It was a good day. Prices were high. The Veronese went to a major American gallery for more than double the estimate. The Michele di Rodolfo caused a few muted gasps as it went for four times the estimate.

As the last twenty minutes came into view he noticed Reggie Fanshawe slip into a seat at the rear and, as agreed, well to one side. As the last lot in the catalogue went under the hammer, Slade announced to a depleted hall: “There is one extra item, not in your catalogues. A latecomer, after we had gone to press.” A porter solemnly walked forward and placed a very grubby painting in a chipped gilt frame on the easel. Several heads craned forward to try to make out what it represented through all the grime covering the images.

“A bit of a mystery. Probably Florentine, tempera on board, some kind of a devotional scene. Artist unknown. Do I hear a thousand pounds?”

There was a silence. Fanshawe shrugged and nodded.

“One thousand pounds I have. Any advance on a thousand?”

His eyes swept the room and at the far side from where Fanshawe sat he found a signal. No-one else saw it, for it did not exist, but as the blink of an eye can constitute a bid, no-one was surprised.

“One thousand five hundred, against you sir, on the left.”

Fanshawe nodded again.

“Two thousand pounds. Any advance on ... two thousand five hundred ... and three thousand ...”

Fanshawe bid against the fictional rival to clinch the purchase at £6,000. As a known gallery owner his credit was good, and he took the picture with him. Three days later, much faster than usual, Mr. Trumpington Gore received a cheque for just over £5,000, the hammer price minus commission and VAT. He was delighted. At the end of the month Benny Evans came back to London, utterly relieved to be free of the bleak fastness of a freezing castle in Caithness in January. He never mentioned the grubby painting to Seb Mortlake and presumed from Mortlake’s silence that his chief had disagreed with him and that silence implied rebuke.

Quite early in the month the sensation hit the art world. The window of the Fanshawe Gallery was dressed entirely in black velvet. Alone behind the glass, on a small easel, delicately but brightly lit by two spotlamps and guarded night and day by two big and muscled Group Four security guards, was a small painting. It had lost its chipped gilt frame.

The painting, tempera on poplar board, was much as the artist would have finished it. The colours glowed as fresh as when they were applied over five hundred years before.

The Virgin Mary sat, gazing upwards, entranced, as the Archangel Gabriel brought her the Annunciation that she would soon bear in her womb the Son of God. Ten days earlier it had been authenticated without hesitation by Professor Guido Colenso, by far and away the world’s leading authority on the Siena School, and no-one would ever gainsay a judgement by Colenso.

The small notice below the painting simply said:

SASSETTA, 1400-1450

Stefano di Giovanni di Console, known as Sassetta, was one of the first of the giants of the early Italian Renaissance. He founded the Siena School, and influenced two generations of Sienese and Florentine Masters who came after him.

Though his surviving works are few in number and comprise mainly panels from much larger altarpieces, he is valued beyond diamonds. At a stroke the Fanshawe Gallery became a world player, attributed with discovering the first single-work Annunciation painted by the Master.

Ten days earlier Reggie Fanshawe had clinched a sale by private treaty for over two million pounds. The divvy-up was done quietly in Zurich and the personal financial position of each man was transformed.

The art world was stunned by the discovery. So was Benny Evans. He went back through the catalogue of the 24 January sale but there was no trace. He asked what had happened and was told about the last-minute addition. The atmosphere inside the House of Darcy was poisonous and he intercepted a lot of accusing stares. Word gets around.

“You should have brought it to me,” hissed a humiliated Sebastian Mortlake. “What letter? There was no letter. Don’t give me that. I’ve seen your report and your valuation to the Vice-Chairman.”

“Then you must have seen my reference to Professor Colenso.”

“Colenso? Don’t mention Colenso to me. That shit Fanshawe hit upon the idea of Colenso. Look, laddie, you missed it. It was evidently there. Fanshawe spotted it, but you missed it.”

Upstairs an emergency board meeting was taking place. The acidulous Duke of Gateshead was in the chair but Peregrine Slade was in the dock. Eight other directors sat around the table pointedly studying their fingertips. No-one was in the slightest doubt that not only had the mighty House of Darcy lost about a quarter of a million in commission, but it had had in its hands a real Sassetta and had let it go to a sharper pair of eyes for £6,000.

“I run this ship, and the responsibility is mine,” said Peregrine Slade quietly.

“I think we all know that. Perry. Before we reach any conclusions, would you be kind enough to tell us exactly how this happened.”

Slade took a deep breath. He knew he was speaking for his professional life. A scapegoat would be needed. He did not intend that it should be he. But he also knew that to be shrill or to whinge would have the worst possible effect.

“I am sure you all know that we offer the public a free valuation service. Always have. A tradition of the House of Darcy. Some agree with this, others not. Whatever one’s view the truth still is that it is immensely time-consuming.

“Occasionally a real treasure is indeed brought in by a member of the public, identified, authenticated and sold for a large sum, with of course a substantial fee for us. But the vast majority of the stuff brought in off the street is junk.

“The sheer burden of work, and especially in the heavy pre-Christmas period, means that what appears to be the worst of the junk has to be seen by junior valuers, lacking the experience of thirty or more years in the business. That is what happened here.

“The painting in question was handed in by a complete nonentity. He had no idea what it was or he would never have brought it in. It was in a simply appalling state, so dirty the painting beneath the grime was almost invisible. And it was seen by a very junior valuer. Here is his report.” He distributed copies of the valuation at £6,000 to £8,000 that he had himself prepared, pecking away at the computer keys in the dead of night. The nine board members read it glumly.

“As you will see Mr. Benny Evans thought it might be Florentine, circa 1550, by an unknown artist and of modest value. Alas, he was wrong. It was Sienese, circa 1450 and by a Master. Under all that grime he just did not spot it. That said, his examination was clearly rather cursory, even slipshod. However, it is I who now offer my position here to the board.”

There were two who pointedly stared at the ceiling but six shook their heads.

“Not accepted. Perry. As for the slipshod young man, perhaps we should leave him to you.”

Peregrine Slade summoned Benny Evans to his office that afternoon. He did not offer the young man a seat. His tone was contemptuous.

“I don’t have to explain to you the nature or extent of the disaster that this affair has visited on the House of Darcy. The papers have had a field day. They have said it all.”

“But I don’t understand,” protested Benny Evans. “You must have got my report. I put it under your door. All that about my suspicion it might really be a Sassetta. About having it cleaned and restored. About consulting Professor Colenso. It was all there.”

Slade icily proffered him a single sheet of headed paper.

Evans read it without comprehension.

“But this isn’t mine. This is not what I wrote.”

Slade was white with rage.

“Evans, your carelessness is bad enough. But I will not tolerate mendacity. No-one who attempts to offer me such pathetic lies has any place in this house. You will find Miss. Bates outside. She has your cards. Clear your desk and be gone within an hour. That is all.”

Benny tried to have a word with Sebastian Mortlake. The kindly director listened for a few moments, then led the way to Deirdre’s desk.

“Pray punch up the report and evaluation file for 22 and 23 December,” he said.

The machine obediently regurgitated a sheaf of reports, one for Item D 1601. It was what Benny Evans had just seen in Slade’s office.

“Computers don’t lie,” said Mortlake. ‘On your way, lad.”

Benny Evans may have had no A levels and little knowledge of computers, but he was no fool. By the time he hit the pavement he knew exactly what had been done and how. He also knew every man’s hand was against him and that he would never work again in the art world.

But he still had one friend. Suzie Day was a cockney, not a classic beauty, and with her punky hairstyle and green fingernails there were some who would not have appreciated her. But Benny did, and she him. She listened for the hour it took him to explain exactly what had been done and how.

What she knew about fine art could have filled an entire postage stamp, but she had another talent, the precise opposite of Benny. She was a child of the computer generation. If you drop a new-hatched duckling into water, it will swim. Suzie had dipped her first forefinger into cyberspace with computer games at school and found her natural environment. She was twenty-two and could do with a computer what Yehudi Menuhin used to do with a Stradivarius.

She worked for a small firm run by a former and reformed computer hacker. They designed security systems to protect computers from illegal entry. Just as the best way to get through a padlock is to ask a locksmith, the best way to break into a computer is to ask someone who designs the defences.

Suzie Day designed those defences.

“So what do you want to do, Benny?” she asked when he was finished.

He might have come from a back street in Bootle, but his great-granddad had been one of the Bootle Lads who went to the recruiting booths in 1914. They ended up in the Lancashire Fusiliers and in Flanders they fought like tigers and died like heroes. Of the two hundred who went, Benny’s great-grandpa and six came back. Old genes die hard.

“I want that booger Slade. I want him dead in the water,” he said.

It was that night in bed that Suzie had an idea.

“There must be someone else out there as angry as you are.”

“Who?”

“The original owner.”

Benny sat up.

“You’re right, lass. He’s been swindled out of two million quid. And he may not even know it.”

“Who was he?”

Benny thought hard.

“I saw the hand-in ticket briefly. Someone called T. Gore.”

“Phone number?”

“None listed.”

“Address?”

“I didn’t memorize it.”

“Where would it be logged?”

“In the databank. Vendor Records or Storage lists.”

“Do you have access? A personal password?”

“Nope.”

“Who would?”

“Any senior executive, I suppose.”

“Mortlake?”

“Of course. Seb would be able to enquire for anything he wanted.”

“Get up, Benny luv. We’re going to work.”

It took her ten minutes to log on to the Darcy database. She posed her query. The database asked for an identification of the enquirer.