‘Morning, Felicity,’ Toby said on Thursday morning, as he passed the front desk at Goode & Floore’s, with its familiar bunch of beautiful trainees of both sexes.
For the first time he wondered if it could have been his lack of good looks that had made the directors refuse him a gap-year job here all those years ago. At the time he’d taken it as yet more evidence of the world’s hostility and hated them for it.
‘Good morning, Mr Fullwell.’ Felicity offered him her customary radiant smile, so he must have achieved a reasonable version of his old jauntiness.
It didn’t help him force himself up the stairs to the principal saleroom. Every step was such an effort that he thought he might have to haul himself up by the banisters. He’d often seen elderly collectors do that, with their sticks bunched in their free hand and their faces contorted to hold in the pain. Just now he felt weaker even than they had seemed.
‘Hi, Toby!’ He didn’t recognize the speaker for a moment, but raised a hand and a smile for him. ‘You buying or selling today?’
‘There are one or two things I like the look of. You?’
‘Of course not,’ said the man, looking at him as though he was mad.
Oh, yes, of course, Toby thought, wondering how he could have forgotten. Was he losing his memory now, along with
everything else? This was Mark Sapton, in search of dirt for his column in the unspeakable
Daily Mercury
.
‘There’s plenty of money around today by all accounts,’ Sapton went on. ‘So you may have stiff competition if you do decide to bid. Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ Toby passed the desk where customers without his reputation and backing had to register, provide details of how they would pay for anything they might buy, and be given a number with which to bid.
He walked on through the anteroom, where the less important lots were still hanging. The Hieronymus Bosch he had to buy would already have been taken down, ready to be carried in by the porters and put on the great easel in front of the auctioneer when he reached its lot number.
Toby wished it could have been the first lot, so that he could get it over with quickly, but important paintings were never put on so early. The auctioneer would want to warm up his audience first. They’d have to feel money flowing before they would spend with the kind of freedom he’d want for a serious piece like the Bosch.
Here was the saleroom door. Toby hesitated on the threshold, feeling like a boy on his first day at boarding school. He wanted to turn and run, but he knew he had to stick it out. Several faces turned towards him. Most were smiling. A lot were familiar. He couldn’t see Ben and wondered if he’d sent someone else to spy for him.
There was no sign of Henry Buxford either. Maybe he’d been held up in the States. That would be a relief. It was bad enough having to pretend in front of everyone else.
Familiar icy needles began to prickle and he knew Ben must be somewhere in the building. Then he saw the tall, thin, dark woman again. She was pretending not to look in his direction.
How many more of Ben’s people were there in the room, ready to cut him off if he tried to escape?
‘Are you all right, old boy?’ said another acquaintance, whose name Toby couldn’t remember. ‘You ought to sit down.’
‘Thanks. A bad oyster last night,’ he said, grabbing the first excuse that occurred to him.
‘You ought to be in hospital then. I was once poisoned by a dodgy oyster and was on a drip for days. It could have gone either way, you know.’
‘Mine’s not nearly as bad as that. And I couldn’t miss a sale like this,’ Toby said, sure that his smile must look like the rictus of a corpse. ‘But I’ll be fine. I’m all drugged up.’
‘Sensible fellow. But you ought to find yourself a seat soon or you’ll pass out, drugs or no drugs.’
A stranger was sitting in Toby’s usual seat at the aisle end of the fourth row, perfectly placed to catch the auctioneer’s eye, so he had to make do with one on the wrong side of the room, and six rows further back.
Looking around, he could see six of the younger members of Goode & Floore’s staff behind the telephones that were ranged to the right of the auctioneer’s rostrum. That meant a lot of interest from absent buyers. Dealing with phone bidding was expensive. The auctioneers never allowed it for trivial sums. Several people were looking at their watches. Any minute now.
The chatter round him quietened. A slim man in his forties walked unobtrusively into the room and took his place on the rostrum. He was wearing a perfect but inconspicuous suit. Some of the auctioneers behaved like conductors of major orchestras, expecting flurry and fuss to greet them wherever they went, but not Marcus Orgrave.
Toby believed he was the best in London: he knew a lot; he never went in for theatrics; and he never faked a bid. There were plenty of his rivals who would pick non-existent bids out of the air to encourage the real punters. But not Orgrave.
Trish relaxed as she watched Toby sit down. She’d been afraid
he might pass out after he caught her eye and all the blood drained away from his face. Now she understood why Buxford had been so worried. She had never seen anyone pale so quickly and sway like that. Who did he think she was? And what on earth was he up to that scared him so much?
She saw Henry Buxford stroll into the big room and watched him walk unhurriedly behind the auctioneer and choose a seat in the second row. Toby flinched and shrank back in his seat, almost as though someone had hit him.
Trish didn’t think Buxford’s choice of seat was very sensible. He wouldn’t be able to watch anything Toby did from there, unless he twisted round like an ill-disciplined guest at a church wedding. But then from her position, she could see only the back of Toby’s head and about a quarter of his face, as well as the movements of his hands on the catalogue.
Watching carefully, Trish saw nothing useful until the auctioneer knocked down lot 48. Then Toby’s shoulders tightened and his head lifted, which made him look like an animal that has felt its hunter’s breath on the back of its neck.
He’d never make a poker player, she thought, wishing she could see his eyes as well.
Toby felt almost paralysed by terror. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to bring this off. And when he failed, Ben would turn on Mer. The thought of what they might do to him sent Toby’s guts into spasm, as though he really had been poisoned. The icy needles were sharper, too, as though Ben was coming closer.
Lot 49 was knocked down for five hundred and forty thousand pounds. Toby forced himself to check his catalogue to see what painting had just been bought. That’s not a bad price, he told himself, fighting for calm. Mark Sapton had been right: there was money in the room today. Thank God for that. At least it should mean he wasn’t going to have to fling a bid of several million pounds into an empty auction.
He braced himself. Any minute now he would have to do his stuff, convincing Ben and the auctioneer and Henry and the other trustees that he was acting in everyone’s best interests, while still not betraying his bids to anyone else in the room.
Trying to keep the familiar bored expression on his face, he looked up towards Orgrave to make sure he understood that there would be gestures of interest later. Orgrave gave his usual, almost imperceptible signal of acknowledgement and Toby looked down again, leafing through the catalogue, as though he was looking for some later lot.
What a stupid pantomime it all was! He’d never seen that in the past, only enjoyed the brilliance of his own performances in salerooms like this, buying or selling for other people. He’d never had the money to buy anything for himself.
‘And now we have a very exciting painting. Lot number 50, ladies and gentlemen. A very fine Hieronymus Bosch of the Holy Family.’
The blue-aproned porters brought in the panel and hoisted it up on to the easel.
‘Paintings of this quality do not come up very often. So who will start the bidding at one million pounds?’
Toby didn’t move. Everyone else seemed to be holding back, too. He couldn’t be the first. The auctioneer said something else, but Toby didn’t listen. He was waiting for the numbers to start rising. You had to come in once the money had begun to get big, but not until then. One of the women taking phone bids raised her hand and they were off.
The bidding moved quickly through two million eight hundred thousand pounds and Toby raised his head. He knew Orgrave would have been looking towards him as each new sum was reached. There was a rare air of excitement about him today, which suggested that a lot of people were bidding. Thank God for that.
They were already past four million now and Toby knew he
had at least two rivals in the room. He wished he knew who they were and what their resources might be, but he couldn’t look round. In any case, there would be no point; they’d all be hiding their interest in exactly the same way he was hiding his. But he could see that three of the phone bidders had dropped out.
‘Four million five,’ Orgrave said, beginning to look happy. They must be way past the reserve now. ‘And six. Thank you. And seven,’ Orgrave said, looking back at Toby. ‘Four million seven?’
Toby gave his signal, but when Orgrave came back to him with the bidding way over five million he had no idea what to do. He could see Henry’s face, twisted round to look at him. And in his mind he could see Mer and Tim bleeding and broken in front of him. He could even hear their screams. But how could he bid more? There was no more money to spend. Even at four million seven hundred thousand pounds the collection would be badly out of pocket, paying buyer’s and seller’s premiums on the two paintings, with VAT added, on top. He had no credit anywhere to cover the shortfall. He couldn’t do it. And then there was the tax to pay on the de Hooch sale, too.
Ben must understand. Toby tried to believe he wouldn’t mind much in any case. After all, today’s auction had already served his purpose. The fake was now established in everyone’s mind as genuine and extremely valuable. Even more important, the name of its supposed owner had also been established in public as that of a serious collector.
But would Ben see it like that? The chills and pain in Toby’s spine didn’t give him any confidence.
Orgrave was still looking at him. He couldn’t have moved, even if he’d known what movement to make.
‘Any more?’ Orgrave said, pushing him to bid again. ‘We have five million six for this superb example of the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Ah, thank you.’ He was no longer looking in Toby’s direction. ‘Yes, five million eight, and nine, and six
million. And one and two and three. Any more? All done? We’re all done at six million three hundred thousand pounds.’ The gavel came down.
Toby knew his legs wouldn’t hold him up if he tried to stand now. Had he just signed his son’s death warrant?
Trish watched Toby battle for control and felt all the admiration that any display of real courage aroused in her. Whatever he was doing, it terrified him, yet he was fighting the fear with everything he had.
He hadn’t looked like any kind of money-launderer today, and certainly not a voluntary one. No one tough enough to have chosen to be involved in organized crime would let himself appear so vulnerable in public – or draw so much attention to himself.
Trish still didn’t see what she could do to help him or Henry Buxford. He should have gone to the police in the first place, or even Customs & Excise, who dealt with all forms of smuggling and their financial implications. Only they had the power to bug a suspect’s phones or have him watched. She didn’t think anything less would turn up the evidence of whatever Toby was doing now. Or being forced to do.
Toby could see Henry shifting in his chair. Would he have the wit to wait? Or would he storm out, letting everyone in the world know that he had some connection with either the seller or one of the bidders for the Bosch? No, he obviously knew better than that.
The bidding on the next few lots was desultory, as though no one had any interest left, but it picked up again at lot 56, which was the iffy Dürer drawing. At last Toby could go. He ostentatiously flicked through his catalogue and made a mark against a very much later lot, idly looked at his watch, shrugged and got up to shuffle out of the row. At the doorway, he looked
back and saw Henry hold up a hand. Toby nodded. He waited at the top of the wide staircase. Henry caught up with him two minutes later.
‘You had me frightened in there,’ Henry said. ‘Would you really have paid several million for that rather ordinary-looking religious picture?’
Toby wasn’t sure he was going to be able to speak, but the words came out without conscious thought. ‘For a Hieronymus Bosch? Of course. They’re bloody rare, you know, and we ought to have one if we’re to be taken seriously.’
‘But how do you know we haven’t already got one? There are still tubes you haven’t yet been able to open, which means you can’t yet have identified all the paintings inside them. Mightn’t there be a Bosch among them?’
Toby recognized the answer emerging whole and convincing in his brain. Perhaps this ease with Henry was the payoff for fighting the terror Ben had inflicted on him. Perhaps today had been a kind of rite of passage, through which he had at last achieved the toughness he’d always wanted.
‘Bosch painted on panel – wood, you know – not canvas, which is presumably why our Jean-Pierre didn’t include any in his rolled tubes.’
Henry laughed. ‘That would certainly explain it. But perhaps that’s a reason for us to avoid anything on panels, too. We can’t possibly expect to cover every aspect of European art, whatever Jean-Pierre Gregoire wanted when he started collecting. Shouldn’t we confine ourselves to works on canvas, too?’
‘That’s definitely something I’d like to discuss,’ Toby said, wondering whether Ben would see the point, too. He was somewhere close by. Toby could feel it. He had to get rid of Henry fast. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t stay to talk about it now. I’ve got to get back straightaway.’