Picture You Dead

3

Friday, 16 October 2015

Very reluctantly the Frenchman had agreed to leave the painting with Porteous overnight, for him to examine it further and to check with the Art Loss Register.

After the man left, Porteous knew that if he put the sale of this picture through his normal system, he would have to do all the due diligence on the Frenchman, and he doubted it would check out.

To mask his enquiry, he emailed a list and photographs of fifteen paintings, including this one, to the Art Loss Register. The following morning, he’d debated taking it to a trusted picture restorer, without revealing the artist’s name, to ask his opinion on it, but had decided against, knowing the man would ask him awkward questions.

Among the fifteen enquiries that came back from the Art Loss Register, nothing was flagged up about the Fragonard.

Later the following day, after Charlie Porteous was satisfied enough to take a punt that the picture was not stolen, or a fake, and keeping it a secret from most of his staff, for one of the few times in his career he’d paid Jean-Claude Dubois for it from the cash fund he kept for such purposes in his safe.

During the past two weeks since then, he’d discreetly put word out to the more dubious dealers in his contacts list. None of them had been offered this painting, nor any of the three other Four Seasons of Fragonard. He’d also put word out to these same people that he was interested in finding anyone who had any of the three other missing paintings, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and that he would be willing to discuss a deal.

These were all dealers operating beyond the fringe of the coterie of respectable dealers, who’d helped him out on the occasions when he’d made an error of judgement either in acquiring a hot painting, or one that had turned out to be a fake, that he needed to dispose of in a hurry, with no questions asked.

Still concerned about the legitimacy of his purchase of this Fragonard, and wary of formally putting it up for sale, he had also discreetly notified a few of the wealthiest collectors among his clients, people who could comfortably afford to buy a painting of this value, and who would trust him.

One of these, George Astone, who had amassed one of the finest private collections of French masters in the country, had come straight back to him, very interested.

But Astone, a charming, ebullient character, who lived in grand style in a stately home ten miles north of Brighton, was immobile following a stroke. He couldn’t easily travel to London – could Porteous bring the picture to his home? From the photographs Porteous had emailed him in strictest confidence, he was very eager to buy it. Porteous had agreed to bring it over to him in the morning.

By sheer serendipity Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’, from his Four Seasons, was playing on Radio Three on the Bentley’s sound system as Porteous turned into his street. A good omen. He smiled, everything was good tonight!

He drove along the dark, tree-lined avenue, turned in and pulled up outside the wrought-iron gates of his home, in the faint glare of the street light across the road. He was looking forward to the crazy greeting he would get from his lurcher, Poussin, and hoped his barking wouldn’t wake his wife. It was 12.40 a.m. – Susan would be well asleep by now. He reached down into the cubbyhole below the dash, found the clicker and pressed it.

Nothing happened.

He pressed again, but still the gates did not move. He frowned. Was the battery dead? He pressed again and the little red light came on. But the gates didn’t move.

It wasn’t the first time this had ever happened. Cursing and making a mental note to call the gate people in the morning, he lowered his window and reached out to the panel to punch in the key code manually. But he was too far away.

Cursing again, he opened the car door and leaned across, oblivious to the shadow moving towards him from behind a tree as he tapped in the code: 7979 followed by the plus sign. Instantly the gates began, jerkily, to open and the bright security lights came on.

At the same instant, lights exploded inside his head as he felt a blow just behind his ear. It was followed immediately by a crashing whack from an iron bar. Shooting stars. Meteorites. The wildest fireworks display of his life going on in there while he stumbled forward and hit the ground, all his lights going out.

He never heard the words of his assailant, cursing him for being such a fat, heavy bastard as he heaved Porteous back into the driver’s seat of the car.

He never heard the slam of the driver’s door as blood oozed from the back of his smashed skull into the tan – with contrast cream stitching – Connolly leather headrest.