LITMIR.BIZ

       ELEVEN

       Lexington Avenue, Upper East Side, New York

       19th April – 11.25 p.m.

      ‘The thing is, Special Agent Browne… I’m awful busy.’

      If Jennifer had heard those words once since leaving Razi that morning, she’d heard them ten times.

      Each visit she’d made had played out the same way: an expectant smile from the gallery owner that had wilted the moment they realised she was not a potential client. Then a slow, deliberate nodding of the head to feign interest in her questions, their eyes glazing over all the while. Shortly thereafter came hesitation, and a sudden distracted interest in a painting that needed straightening or a chest requiring a polish – anything to play for time. Finally, an excuse along the lines of the one that had just been given.

      ‘Mr Wilson, this won’t take long.’

      With a weary sigh, Wilson took his spectacles off, folded them carefully and placed them on the desk in front of him. His pinched features and fussy, slightly arch movements, suggested to Jennifer the type of person who insisted on cataloguing their CDs not only by year of recording, but also by conductor.

      ‘Very well.’

      ‘Do you know Reuben Razi?’

      ‘Is that who this is about?’

      ‘You do know him then?’

      ‘I know of him. He’s a buyer. In this business that gets you known.’ He gestured at the paintings carefully arranged around the walls of his gallery, as if to indicate that he too was well known in the art world. ‘But I’ve never met him. He isn’t really involved in the art scene here in Manhattan.’

      ‘He’s a competitor of yours.’

      ‘Competitor is such a vulgar word,’ Wilson said, his top lip lifting off his square teeth as he wrinkled his nose. ‘We’re partners, really; partners in a shared cultural enterprise. We’re not like those sharks on Wall Street. We don’t take lumps out of each other any time someone swims too close. Our business is a bit more civilised than that.’

      Jennifer bit her tongue, wanting to pick Wilson up on almost every point he’d just made, but knowing she’d only make things more difficult than they already were. Besides, she wasn’t sure whether she was annoyed because she disagreed with him, or because of his pompous, self-satisfied manner.

      ‘But it is a business. At the end of the day, surely you’re all in it to make money?’

      ‘We’re in it for the art,’ he corrected her tartly. ‘The money is just a happy coincidence.’

      Judging from his immaculate hand-made suit and glittering Cartier wristwatch, it was a coincidence that Jennifer sensed Wilson was taking full advantage of.

      ‘Would you say Mr Razi is a well-respected member of the Manhattan art community?’ she probed.

      ‘Of course.’ Wilson nodded, perhaps just a little too emphatically, she thought.

      ‘You’ve never heard of him falling out with anyone?’

      ‘Not as far as I know,’ he said, with a firm shake of his head. ‘In fact, I heard he can be … quite charming.’ Wilson bared his teeth with what she assumed was an attempt to look charming himself. She stifled a smile.

      ‘Did you hear about a fight that he was involved in a few months ago?’

      ‘I don’t listen to gossip,’ Wilson sniffed disdainfully.

      ‘It was picked up by the press. A man had his arm broken. An attorney here in Manhattan, by the name of Herbie Hammon. Have you any idea what they were fighting about?’

      ‘I don’t follow the news either,’ said Wilson with a perfunctory shake of the head. ‘All doom and gloom and celebrity tittle-tattle. I suggest you go and ask Mr Hammon yourself.’

      ‘I have an appointment to see him later today,’ she said with a thin smile, noting a rolled-up copy of that day’s New York Times peeking out from his trash can. ‘It’s strange – not a single dealer I have spoken to today seems to have heard of that fight, or have an opinion as to what it was about.’

      ‘It must have been a private matter.’ Wilson perched his spectacles back on his nose and peered at her impatiently. ‘Personally, I find people’s lack of willingness to speculate on the causes commendable rather than strange.’

      This was going nowhere. Jennifer decided on a change of approach.

      ‘Have you ever been a victim of fraud here, Mr Wilson?’

      ‘Fraud?’ The question seemed to take him by surprise and his watery grey eyes blinked repeatedly.

      ‘Artistic fraud. Has anyone ever tried to sell you a forgery? Have you perhaps bought one without realising what it was at the time?’

      ‘What sort of a question is that?’ Wilson asked haughtily, stepping out from behind his desk and drawing himself up to his full five feet six – still a few inches shorter than Jennifer.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I take it you haven’t been working in the art world long?’

      ‘Less than a year,’ she admitted icily. His condescending tone was beginning to rile her, although she comforted herself with the thought that he was probably like this with everyone. Part of her couldn’t help wondering, however, if he would speak to a man in the same way. Probably not.

      ‘It shows.’ He took up a position close to the door as he spoke, Jennifer taking this as a rather unsubtle attempt to bring their conversation to an end. ‘A bit more experience would have taught you to tread more carefully when using f-words.’

      ‘F-words?’

      ‘Fake, forgery, fraud. Bring them up in the wrong context and you’ll find yourself on very dangerous ground.’ His tone was growing increasingly strident, almost angry.

      ‘I wasn’t suggesting…’

      ‘People’s reputations are on the line. Reputations that have taken years to establish. An accusation is made and pfff –’ he snapped his fingers ‘– it’s all gone. But what if you get it wrong? By the time you realise your mistake, lifelong relationships have been destroyed, trust shattered. Forgery is the paedophilia of the art world. Once the suspicion is raised, you’re presumed guilty even when proven innocent. It’s a shadow that never leaves you, poisoning everything you touch. So you need to be either very brave, or very sure that you’re right, before you cry forgery in this city.’

      ‘Even so,’ she said with a frown, ‘given the sums involved, I would have thought that forged works appear on a fairly regular –’

      ‘I’ve already told you,’ he snapped,

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