The Gilded Seal. James Twining
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saw the young girl blush crimson as she wheeled away, heels firmly pressed down against her stirrups, braids bouncing frantically off her shoulders. The instructor’s searching gaze followed her as she circled past, his face set into a disapproving frown.
‘Yes, Falstaff. You know where I can find him?’
The man glanced at her sceptically, before giving a vague nod to his right.
‘They’re waiting for you upstairs. First floor. Back and right. That’s it. Good girl. Hands out in front. Now remember your posture. It all comes from the posture.’
With a faint word of thanks, Jennifer headed over to the spot he had indicated. A wide, curving ramp led up to the stabling floor above, the stone worn and gouged by generations of hooves and over-indulged Upper West Side kids.
Two more of Green’s men were positioned at the top of the ramp, transparent earpieces snaking inside their collars. They waved her down a central aisle that led to the far end of the stables, narrower passageways containing loose-boxes leading off to the left and the right. The boxes themselves were painted white and in various stages of decay and disrepair, with wooden slats missing or broken and the wrought-iron railings thick with rust and overpainting. Saddles, reins and various other pieces of tack and frayed rope were hanging haphazardly from the peeling walls or slung over skewed gates. A stereo dangled from an overhead beam, the music clearly more to the taste of the Mexican workers mucking out than the horses whose mournful heads she could see peering over the stable doors.
Another of Green’s men was waiting for her at the end of the main aisle. He silently steered her to the right. The sound of voices drew her to the final stall where a tin plate was attached to the door with twine. A name had been punched into it with a blunt nail – Falstaff.
Jennifer frowned, momentarily disconcerted. She’d assumed Falstaff was someone whose parents had either had an irrational love of Shakespeare, or a questionable sense of humour. Not a horse.
With a shrug, she stepped into the box. Jack Green had his back to her and was locked in conversation with two smartly dressed men, one noticeably older than the other. The younger man looked up sharply when he saw her. Picking up on his cue, Green spun round to greet her.
‘Browne.’ He gave her a fleeting smile. ‘Good.’
Green was one of those cookie-cutter DC insiders who seemed to roll off a secret production line in some rich white neighbourhood on the outskirts of Boston. Crisp creases in his suit trousers, ironed parting in his brown hair, plump cheeks, perfect teeth and irises like faded ink spots on crisp linen sheets, his gaze constantly flitting over your shoulder, in case someone more interesting should come into the room behind you.
He’d lost weight since the last time she’d seen him, adding substance to the Bureau gossips who contended that he’d recently re-married and that his new, much younger and richer bride, had him on a treadmill three times a week. True or not, he still had a way to go; the material around the top button of his trousers was buckling under the stress of holding his stomach in. And if there was a new wife, she’d certainly done nothing to improve his taste in ties, this morning’s offering a garish blend of different shades of orange.
‘Morning, sir.’ She shook his hand.
‘Thank you for coming. I know it’s early.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ she said generously. ‘I normally go for a run at this time anyway.’
He gave her a look that was caught somewhere between sympathy and admiration, before gesturing first towards the older man, then his younger companion.
‘I’d like you to meet Lord Anthony Hudson, Chairman of Sotheby’s, and Benjamin Cole, his opposite number at Christie’s. Gentlemen, this is Special Agent Jennifer Browne from our Art Crime Team.’
‘Call me Ben.’
Cole gave a wide, teethy grin, his dark brown eyes searching hers out earnestly and then darting away when she tried to hold his gaze. She wondered if the others knew he was gay. Probably. He was immaculately dressed in a black suit and open-necked white shirt, the glint of a thin gold chain just visible in the cleft of his collarbone. She guessed he was in his early forties, although he looked maybe ten years younger, the healthy glow of his long pointed face betraying a daily routine of wheat grass, exfoliation, free weights, soya milk, pilates and expensive moisturiser.
‘But whatever you do, don’t call him Tony,’ he continued.
Hudson looked as jaded and shopworn as Cole was bright and fit, the dated cut and frayed corners of his pinstriped suit suggesting that it was some sort of family heirloom or hand-me-down. His eyes had almost disappeared under his eyebrows’ craggy overhang, while his cheeks were lined and drooping like a balloon that has had the air let out of it, and his lips were cracked and frozen into a permanent scowl. She placed him at about fifty-five; not quite retirement age, but definitely counting the days. She had the sudden impression that he was weighing her up, as if he was gazing at her through the crosshairs of a rifle on some distant Scottish moor and estimating the distance and wind speed before pulling the trigger.
‘I recognise you both, of course.’ She nodded, reaching out to shake their hands.
Hudson was a Brit, a blue-blood distantly related to the Queen who’d been shipped in to schmooze Sotheby’s mainly North American clientele with canapés and a touch of old-fashioned class. Cole on the other hand was a Brooklyn-born hustler who, despite barely being able to spell his name when he first joined the Christie’s mail room, had risen to the top on the back of a silken tongue and an unfailing eye for a good deal. The two of them neatly represented the social spectrum of both the auction world and the clients they served.
‘Then you’ll also know why I asked you to meet us here.’ Green waved semi-apologetically at their surroundings. Hudson shifted uncomfortably in mute agreement, his eyes fixed reproachfully on the thin coat of dust, straw and feed that had already settled on his gleaming handmade shoes.
‘I can guess,’ Jennifer confirmed with a nod.
A few years ago both Christie’s and Sotheby’s had faced anti-trust cases over allegations that they were fixing commission levels through a series of illicit meetings in the back of limousines and in airport departure lounges. Huge corporate fines and even jail sentences had resulted, although Sir Norman Watkins, Hudson’s predecessor, had managed to avoid incarceration so far by refusing to return to the United States. The stables, therefore, offered a suitably discreet venue for Hudson and Cole to get together, given that in the current climate they daren’t risk being seen in the same room, let alone meeting in private as they were now.
‘Anthony,’ Green turned to Hudson, ‘why don’t you explain what this is all about.’
‘Very well,’ Hudson loosened the inside button on his double-breasted suit jacket, the lining flashing emerald green. He bent down stiffly and picked up a gilt-framed painting that Jennifer had not noticed leaning against the stall.
‘Vase de Fleurs, Lilas, by Paul Gauguin, 1885,’ he pronounced grandly, as he held it up for her to see. It was quite a small painting, featuring a delicately rendered vase of bright flowers against a dark, almost stormy background. ‘Not one of his most famous works perhaps, since he had not yet adopted the more primitive, expressive style that characterised his work after moving to Tahiti. Nevertheless it already betrays his more conceptual method of representation, as well as reflecting clear influences by Pissarro and Cézanne.’
‘Don’t worry, I don’t know what he’s talking about either,’ Cole laughed.
Hudson twitched but said nothing and Jennifer suspected he quite liked Cole and his irreverent manner; probably even slightly envied it.
‘You’re auctioning it?’ she guessed.
‘Next week. It belongs to Reuben Razi, an Iranian dealer. A good client of ours. So far, we’ve had a very positive response from the market.’
‘Is it genuine?’
‘Why