Illegal Action (9 page)

20

L
ike the guests, supper at Sonia’s was an Anglo-Russian mix. They started with cold borscht that Sonia made a point of calling beetroot soup. “Delicious,” said Misha Vadovsky. He was a slight figure who walked with a cane. When he spoke, in fruity tones redolent to Liz of the BBC of her childhood, his Adam’s apple moved in and out like a pair of bellows.

His wife, Ludmilla, was a tiny woman who wore black orthopaedic shoes. She had been an undergraduate with Sonia at Girton—“About a millennium ago,” her husband declared tartly.

The other couple were called Turgenev-Till, an Anglo-Russian alliance of surnames which Sonia seemed to find very amusing. “Oscar taught at the Courtauld for many years,” she had told Liz that afternoon. There was a mischievous glint in her eye. “He is a descendant of the great writer, which his wife, Zara, will tell you before she gets her coat off. Though some have been unkind enough to remark that Oscar is a rather
remote
descendant.”

For supper, they sat around a dark, round oak table in the small dining room. As the light of the spring day faded, Sonia lit two tall church candles in wooden candlesticks. Next to Liz was an empty place, which Sonia explained—“Dimitri rang. He’s missed his train and will be a little late.”

Liz reckoned that the combined ages of the assembled company added up to four centuries, but the conversation proved remarkably lively. They talked and reminisced and joked about subjects from Stravinsky to rap, about Russian writers Liz had never heard of, and about the comparative merits of Sancerre (which Sonia served with the main course) and Saumur. It was all so deeply cultured, thought Liz, but without the slightest affectation. The gentility of English intellectual life from a bygone era.

But there was something different about them too, Liz felt, something setting them apart from, say, her mother’s intensely music-loving friends in Wiltshire. And she realised what it was—a persisting Russianness they seemed happy to retain. As if, in the melting pot the UK had offered these descendants of émigrés, part of them had refused to melt.

Misha Vadovsky mentioned a service he and Ludmilla had attended at a Russian Orthodox church in London. “They are ruining that church. I tell you, soon there will be a complete takeover. Sixty years members of my family have attended service there, but I predict not for much longer.”

Oscar tried to joke with him. “You mean, you’ll take your business elsewhere.”

“Business is precisely the problem.” He sounded bitter. “The likes of Pertsev think a church is just another piece of real estate. The largest donor gets the title deed.”

Ludmilla remonstrated. “Oh, Misha, don’t be so serious.” She turned to Liz and explained. “The oligarchs. Misha gets furious with them when they throw their money around. I think you just have to laugh. They have so much money and absolutely no idea what to do with it. In the next generation I’m sure they will establish foundations and do good works. But not yet.” She giggled. “Now it’s spend, spend, spend.”

“It’s disgusting,” said her husband.

“Shush,” Ludmilla reprimanded him. “Don’t be a sourpuss. It gives the newspapers something to write about. Every week I read a new article on their excesses. Or their wives’. Diamond-studded mobile phones. Taps of real gold in the lavatory.”

“I ran into Victor Adler in London,” said Oscar. “He told me the most marvellous story.”

“The man’s as bad as those oligarchs,” declared Misha crossly. “He may mock them behind their backs, but to their face he acts like a courtier at Versailles, sucking up to the king.”

“Let Oscar tell his story,” his wife said sharply.

“Victor is Victor,” said Oscar, seeming to acknowledge Misha’s complaint. “But it’s still a funny story. Apparently one of these oligarchs wanted to buy a house in Eaton Square. He commissioned some estate agents but then forgot he had employed them. Being Russian he charged in and approached the owner directly, only to be told the house was under offer. ‘How much?’ he demanded. Seven million pounds. ‘I’ll give you £10 million.’ Sold.

“Three days later Knight Frank ring and say they’ve lost the house. ‘What house?’ You know, the one in Eaton Square. We offered £7 million as you instructed, but some lunatic went and offered £10 million.”

While they were laughing there must have been a knock at the front door, because Sonia suddenly stood up. “There’s Dimitri,” she said. Liz assumed this late guest would be another Anglo-Russian septuagenarian, so she was surprised when a moment later Sonia returned with a man no more than forty. He was tall, with a handsome face and a shaggy mop of black hair that he brushed back with an impatient hand. He wore a grey polo neck sweater, dark slacks and sharp-toed boots.

“Come and sit down next to Jane,” said Sonia, “and let me get you some supper.”

Immediately Liz found herself engaged in animated conversation with the new arrival. He looked exotically Russian: high Slavic cheekbones, black eyes and long eyelashes that would have seemed feminine if he had not been such a powerful-looking man. He spoke good English, with a strong guttural accent, and had the gift, rarely found among English men in Liz’s experience, of making everything she said seem worth listening to. He talked without inhibition, but his bluntness was refreshing, and when he told Liz how pretty her dress was, the remark sounded genuine rather than smarmy or flirtatious.

“You are really very English,” he said at one point admiringly, and Liz found herself blushing like a child complimented out of the blue.

“Not like us?” teased Ludmilla. She gestured at the rest of the table.

“Definitely not like you,” Dimitri said. “You are Russian. Maybe, one century from now, your great-grandchildren will
think
they are English. But we know better. Russia never leaves the soul.” He beat his chest like Tarzan.

It turned out that Dimitri, far from being an actor, or a member of the Moscow State Circus, was a curator at the Hermitage, a world authority on Fabergé and Russian expressionism. “Mix and match,” he said puzzlingly of his two specialities, one of many English expressions he seized on without regard as to their precise meaning. He was in Cambridge as a visiting Fellow at King’s, and explained to Liz that he had gone to the British Museum that day to talk about a forthcoming Russian exhibition.

How had she come to be at Sonia’s? he asked. Liz explained that she was interested in Pashko. His face lit up. “The master,” he said simply, but to Liz’s relief, before he could pursue the subject, Sonia started talking about the influence of Fauvism on the cubists, or was it the other way round?

Eventually Misha Vadovsky yawned, his wife stirred, and the party broke up. When Sonia came out with Liz’s coat, Dimitri appeared as well, wearing a leather jacket. “May I walk with you?”

At his insistence they avoided the middle of town and walked along the west side of the Backs. It had turned cool again after a warm cloudless day, and Liz wrapped herself up in her raincoat and wondered when they would turn towards the town to reach her hotel. Suddenly Dimitri took her elbow and, striding forward, led her across a small bridge spanning the Cam. In the dark she could hear the mild gurgle of the river, and saw looming ahead of them an elaborate iron gate, leading to an avenue of trees.

The gate was locked when Dimitri tried it. Now what? thought Liz, feeling cold and a little annoyed by this elaborate detour. “The privileges of a visiting Fellow,” Dimitri announced, and produced a key.

A minute later they stood on the back lawn of the college, staring up at the looming shape of the chapel. Lights flickered on the massive stained-glass window and Liz, who had only seen the building in photographs, thought how beautiful it looked silhouetted against the night sky. When Dimitri moved closer, she thought, Please don’t spoil it.

He didn’t. “Lovely, yes?” is all he said, then led her through the college on to King’s Parade. It was almost deserted and they walked in ghostly silence, broken only by the sharp staccato of their heels on the pavement. At her hotel, Dimitri stopped outside. “You are very nice to meet,” he said.

“Likewise,” said Liz.

“You go back to London soon?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“No doubt you are very busy until then.”

“Well, I have work to do with Sonia.”

“I would like to meet you in London, for dinner perhaps.”

Touched by his seeming shyness, Liz agreed.

He smiled. His hair fell over his forehead, and he pushed it back abruptly. “Au revoir then.”

On their last day together, Sonia talked exclusively about Russian art, and in the afternoon she concentrated on Pashko. “All his life he was moving towards the abstract—first abroad, when he lived in Ireland and Paris, then in Russia when he went home after the revolution. Always in his pictures I find there is something deeply Russian, even when he had left. You must have observed last night,” she said wryly, “how Russia lives on in the people who have left her.”

Later, as Liz was leaving, she tried to thank Sonia for her help, but the older woman shook her head. “The pleasure was mine,” said Sonia. “You have a good eye and a clarity with words. I am not worried about that.” She hesitated. “I am not aware of exactly what you’re going to be doing, which is as it should be. But there is one thing I think it is important to say. People sometimes become a little starry-eyed about Russians. They are a romantic people, with great souls and passionate intensity. Many of them are utterly charming. Like young Dimitri.” She smiled mischievously, then grew serious again. “But deep down they are all
hard
. Please don’t forget that.”

21

A
s the Bentley nosed down New Bond Street in the early evening’s light rain, Liz, sitting in the front seat, watched Jerry Simmons out of the corner of her eye. The cream leather driving seat was pushed far back to accommodate his long legs and his large, muscular frame amply filled it. His face was expressionless as he wove the big car through the traffic with calm confidence but his eyes were alert and she noticed that the rear-view mirror was angled so he could see the passengers in the back seat. Michael Fane had told her that Simmons was fully on board and Liz hoped he was right. If he was cooperating he could be very useful, and in a fight you would certainly want him on your side.

Nestled comfortably next to Brunovsky, his girlfriend, Monica Hetherington, was checking her make-up in her seat’s vanity mirror. She was quite lovely to look at, with fair, flawless skin. She could have passed as Russian or Polish with her blonde good looks, and although her surname was English enough, there was a trace to her accent which suggested years spent abroad—South Africa or Australia, Liz guessed, rather than an Eastern European country. Introduced to Liz, she had been friendly and polite but she gave no hint of being interested in anyone much beyond herself.

Next to Monica, Brunovsky fidgeted, peering impatiently over the driver’s shoulder to check their progress. He had greeted Liz like an old friend when she’d arrived at the Belgravia house, seeming to forget that her role as a Pashko enthusiast was a fabrication—and his own idea. “Tomorrow the gap in the dining-room wall will be filled,” he had crowed, like a little boy on Christmas Eve. Now as they drew closer to the saleroom, his excitement was growing.

Across from him on a jump seat, his PA Tamara spoke briskly in Russian. Brunovsky glanced at his watch and shrugged. Unlike her boss, Tamara had been tight-lipped seeing Liz again, almost frosty. She flicked back a strand of corn-coloured hair now—dyed, Liz decided, her mocha brown eyebrows gave that away. She had on the barest hint of make-up, and her gaunt face looked pale, though not unattractive. She was wearing the same maroon jacket and skirt she’d had on all day, and her only jewellery was a thick gold ring on her middle finger.

“Stop here, Jerry,” Brunovsky said, leaning forward to speak to the driver. The car slid effortlessly to the curb, and the chauffeur got out quickly and opened the back door.

Inside, the saleroom was already crowded and buzzing with conversation. Most of the seats were occupied and people were standing in the aisles on either side of the long room. A television camera crew had set up near the rostrum, a complication that Liz had not expected—she had no wish to have her cover blown on TV—and she was relieved to see that the camera was focused on the rostrum set up on an elevated dais, rather than on the bidders.

Spotting Brunovsky, an attendant came up and led them to a row near the front, where seats had been held for them. Liz noticed that Tamara had disappeared. She found herself sitting between Monica and a stranger in horn-rimmed glasses who promptly introduced himself. “Harry Forbes,” he said, extending a hand. “Hi, Nikita,” he said loudly to the Russian, who was on the other side of Monica. Turning back to Liz, he said more quietly, “I’m Nikita’s banker.” Then added with a chuckle, “Or one of them.”

Forbes wore the banker’s uniform of grey pinstriped suit, and Liz caught the flash of red braces beneath his jacket. Chatting easily in his East Coast American drawl, he explained that he wasn’t at the auction in a professional capacity but as an art lover in his own right. Learning that Liz was a recent acquaintance of Brunovsky’s and new on the London art-auction scene, he began pointing out people in the crowd, most of them Russian—an Abramovich sidekick and Rostrokov, a political dissident, said to be worth £2 billion.

“See that fellow,” Forbes said, gesturing towards a tall, lean figure with a shaved head and a stubbly beard who was sitting several seats along the row from them. His face was lined with deep grooves and he looked tense and uneasy. “That’s Morozov. He likes to compete with Nikita. We might see some fireworks tonight as the bidding gets going.”

Liz nodded. She’d heard of Morozov, but she was surprised to see him at such a high-profile occasion. He had a reputation as a quiet family man; she’d read something in a newspaper recently about his son, though she couldn’t remember offhand what it was. Her attention returned to the brightly lit, expectant room. She knew that it was not just the calibre of the painting that was attracting so much attention, but the fact it hadn’t been seen for over sixty years. Called
Blue Field
, it had been painted by Pashko during the years before the Bolshevik Revolution when he lived in self-imposed exile in Dublin, with the Irish artist Mona O’Dwyer. When Pashko left Ireland to return to Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he left many of his paintings behind with her. On her death in 1981, they had gone to the Irish National Gallery.

With one exception.
Blue Field
was one of a pair, painted by Pashko in 1903. Its complementary picture,
Blue Mountain
, had been ruined by a burst water pipe in Pashko’s Dublin flat. Nothing was heard of
Blue Field
for sixty years, then a young woman had walked into a Dublin art gallery. She’d inherited a picture from her great-aunt, she said, and wondered if it was of any value.

Now at the front of the saleroom, a tall, elegant grey-haired man strode on to the dais and stepped behind the rostrum. At once the audience was hushed and the sale began.

The Pashko was to be auctioned last and Liz sat patiently for almost an hour as the sale moved slowly through some seventy lots, mainly early Russian religious paintings. Bids slowly edged up from the low thousands to six figures for a full-sized portrait of Peter the Great.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we turn now to the final items of the evening, Russian paintings of the twentieth century. May we have Lot 71 please?”

The attendant held up a large canvas which Liz recognised as a constructivist painting, a mechanical-looking assemblage of neat circles and squares ascribed to Vladimir Tatlin. After a gentle beginning, bids suddenly blossomed all around the room and the picture was sold for £320,000.

Things were heating up. Suddenly the mute conventions of a British auction—the nods, the lifted catalogues, the head shakes—were replaced by raised hands and loud voices. A Russian woman in a mink coat tried to bid after the hammer, and protested loudly when told by the suave auctioneer that it was too late. “You should see the sales in Moscow,” said Harry with a laugh. “It’s like a meat market.”

Then suddenly, without any particular fuss,
Blue Field
was held aloft, and the auctioneer was saying “Lot 77, an early Pashko from 1903. We will start the bidding at £4 million. Do I hear £4 million?”

At first there was no reaction from the audience, because everyone was still looking at the canvas. It was medium-sized, with a rich background of blue-black paint that stretched in waves across its surface. Curiously, for an abstract painting, the sea of dark paint did look vaguely to Liz like a field; a short vertical slash of yellow could perhaps be taken for a distant tree. But who’s kidding? thought Liz. If it had been called
Blue Water
, I’d see the sea.

The room was hushed, almost in homage, then an almost imperceptible movement in the front row caught the auctioneer’s eye. “Four million pounds. Bids for £4.1 million.” This time it was someone at the back of the room who caught his eye. Liz noticed Brunovsky hadn’t moved.

In fact he did nothing until the price reached £6 million, when she saw him give a short sharp jerk with his chin. Almost at once the bidding reached £6.5 million.

Suddenly the early bidders fell away, like blue tits scared off by a magpie’s arrival. It was now that Morozov, down the row from them, also made his move, signalling with jerky movements of his hand. Another nod from Brunovsky followed, then Morozov’s hand waved again. Within sixty seconds the bidding reached £8 million.

The auctioneer looked over at the aisle, where an attendant stood against the wall, listening to a telephone and raising his hand in the air. Cupping the phone between his collarbone and chin, he used both hands to show nine fingers. Nine million pounds, Liz realised, and turned to Brunovsky to see how he would react to this jump in the bidding war. Almost imperceptibly he raised his catalogue.

Morozov waved excitedly, and suddenly the bidding had reached £10 million. The atmosphere in the room was now electric. When the bidder on the phone jumped by another million, Brunovsky looked distinctly annoyed. He seemed to hesitate, as if no longer so certain of his commitment. The auctioneer looked at him but Brunovsky refused to meet his eye. His face was impassive. Liz noticed that Morozov was leaning forward in his seat, his shaved head perspiring now and shining in the lights. He was watching Brunovsky anxiously. When the auctioneer’s gaze swivelled towards Morozov, he chopped sharply at the air: £11.5 million.

The phone bidder must have been unimpressed, for the bidding moved swiftly to £12 million. Each move saw Morozov uneasily match the anonymous punter, while Brunovsky sat, unmoved. Finally, at £13 million Morozov faltered, and putting a hand to his forehead failed to match the latest bid.

“Ladies and gentlemen, do we have any addition to £13 million?” The auctioneer scanned the room carefully, but nothing stirred.
Bang!
went the hammer. The picture was sold to the anonymous bidder.

Liz looked over at Brunovsky to see how he took the result. You had to hand it to him—he’d seemed to have his heart set on buying the picture, but he was hiding his disappointment very well. When Monica took his hand in sympathy he even managed a smile.

Further down the row, Morozov stood up to leave. Liz noticed his face had relaxed and he was smiling, too, presumably to mask his own disappointment. She said to Harry Forbes, “Morozov must be very put out.”

The American snorted, then said knowingly, “Look at him. Does he seem upset to you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “All he cared about was keeping Nikita from buying the Pashko. For Morozov, this wasn’t about art. This was about power.”