Authors: Karen Swan
On the floor were her shoes – some feathered, others robed in velvet and satin – and a large crocodile-skin trunk was pushed against the wall. Flora lifted the half-closed lid,
jumping back, startled, as a moth fluttered out, its crêpe wings stretching in the new space.
The windows rattled lightly in the breeze, the iron hook-lock only just doing its job. Flora walked over and, after a brief struggle, released the catch. The air inside the entire apartment was
stuffy and stale, and she was beginning to feel cloistered, overwhelmed somehow. She closed her eyes with relief as the fresh day blew in.
Leaning on the pretty balcony, she looked out. In the apartment opposite, one floor down, a girl in her twenties was lying on a bed in just her underwear, headphones on and her foot tapping as
she watched something on her iPad. She was oblivious to Flora’s stare, just as she’d been oblivious to this treasure trove staring her in the face. On the street below, a small van was
trying to get past a guy on a moped who was talking on his mobile; a couple of women with ripped jeans and white sneakers swung their bags as they headed for the river.
Flora turned back into the room, astonished by the difference in light quality now that everything wasn’t filtered through a gauze of dust, and in the fraction of the moment it took to
raise her head, she caught something of the original lustre of the coral curtains, the satin thread on the champagne counterpane glistening like a fish slipping through the water.
There was something else too, barely visible – it could almost have been confused for a trick of the light – a thin slip of white peeping out from the mattress, like a pocket
handkerchief in a gentleman’s jacket. She walked over and, lifting the mattress just enough to release the weight, pulled free a letter.
Flora felt her curiosity swell, and then her disappointment as she saw it was written in German. Her knowledge of that began and ended with the basic manners of
Danke
and
Guten
Tag
. She could only make out that the name signed at the end matched the one typeset in grey ink at the top –
Birgita Bergurren
– and that it had been written on 14 October
1940. The paper had darkened with age to a nicotine tint and there were a few faint coil shapes of rust which must have come from the bed springs. It was so old and so delicate, it was a wonder the
letter had survived this long, especially given its precarious hiding place.
Flora looked back under the mattress, checking for other letters or perhaps the envelope to say where it had come from, but there was nothing. She stared again at the paper – it was
crinkled, as though it had been crushed in a fist before being smoothed open again. Was that simply the effect of being hidden under a mattress on which people had slept and turned and made love?
Or perhaps something in the letter had upset the reader? A lover’s quarrel?
Why had it been hidden there?
She had to know, not least because it might contain some vital information for the family. If it was important enough to hide, then it must be important, full stop. She folded the letter and
slipped it carefully into her pocket. Angus would know someone who could translate it for them.
She straightened the mattress, just as – further down the hall – she heard him dragging something across the floor. ‘Flora!’ he called. ‘I need a hand!’
‘Coming,’ she replied, noticing how her footsteps in the dust traced her path round the room like a deer’s in the snow.
Angus was standing beside a painting he’d propped up on a chair, one hand on his hip, the other on the frame. It was large, but more than that – arrestingly beautiful, showing a
woman sitting on a garden bench in a long, vibrant yellow dress, her dark hair caught in swags, her face in profile as a parasol kept her in the shade. Indistinct blooms in lilac and rose clustered
behind and a navy ribbon clasped her throat.
Flora stopped in her tracks as she absorbed the deftness of touch with the sable brush, the interplay of shadow and light, the exquisite mastery of texture and form. It was a masterpiece, of
that there was no doubt, and she didn’t need to read the name in the bottom right to know who had rendered it.
‘Go on, say it,’ Angus beamed, looking as pleased as punch, closing his eyes. ‘I want to hear those words said out loud.’
Flora crossed her arms and smiled at him. Always so dramatic. ‘Why, Angus,’ she exclaimed wryly, playing along, excited herself. That overdraft was about to be paid off. ‘You
appear to be holding a Renoir.’
The moon was high in the sky before Flora put her key in the lock of the vast oak door and stepped into the inner courtyard. Judging by the number of Vespas and bikes propped
around the honey-coloured walls, everyone in the building was home – even those who’d been out for the evening. Her travel bag clattered noisily over the scrubbed cobbles as she walked
towards the apartments at the far end, her eyes too weary to notice the night-blossoming jasmine climbing the walls, her mind too distracted to hear the distant music that tumbled down into the
space and filled it like coloured vapour.
She entered the building code and trudged up the stone stairs, half-hoping that her friends would have retired to bed, leaving her free to march straight to the spare bedroom – hers, by
long-standing agreement, whenever she was in the city – and conk out on top of the bed, fully dressed, teeth unbrushed, whatever. She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so
tired and yet she wasn’t convinced she’d be able to sleep either, her entire nervous system feeling wired from the day’s strange and magnificent discoveries.
Angus had left hours ago now, jumping onto the 13.13 Eurostar and heading straight back to London, his entire head glowing magenta with excitement, and she wondered how he had got on with his
enquiries at the Art Loss Register, the ALR. It was the absolute first step on this path; nothing else could be decided without the feedback from those records and their wildest hopes and dreams
would be dashed in an instant if the Renoir (and the Faucheux, although it wasn’t quite in the same bracket) was registered as lost or stolen. The authorities – perhaps from several
countries – would immediately become involved and put intense pressure on their clients to explain how it had come to be in their possession. A Renoir – especially one of this size and
beauty – was a world-class fine-art treasure and precious few were left in private collections; most had been sold to museums worldwide. It was a once-in-a-lifetime discovery and the person
who had left it in the apartment, positioned away from the others in a separate crate in the dining room, must have known its importance.
Of course, if Angus reported back with good news, then the next imperative would be to ascertain its authenticity; although it was signed, extensive tests would still need to be run, and
provenance was paramount to explain how it had ended up here, locked in a forlorn, abandoned apartment with lawyers holding the keys and its existence deliberately kept secret for seventy-plus
years.
They couldn’t afford any delays. The new activity in the apartment meant word was bound to get out quickly amongst the neighbours and the sheer scale and value of the recovered haul
– if glimpsed or suggested – would become a honeypot, not to the common-or-garden burglar or thief, but the organized crime gangs that traded fine art as collateral in their shady
dealings.
Angus had left her with instructions to compile a preliminary inventory – numbers, lists of artists, rough estimates and potential values – before he returned for their meeting
scheduled with the family tomorrow afternoon, but she had barely been able to lock the door on it all this evening. Her instinct to call the security firm they worked with, to come out and protect
the premises, at least until tomorrow when Angus returned with news and a plan of action, was still ringing loud and clear in her head, but he had been insistent that doing nothing was the best
protection. It had survived over seventy years locked up. It could last another night. The less activity around the apartment, the better.
A strip of light escaped under the door of Apartment E and she opened it with the spare key she’d been given, peering down the long bone-white hall. The door to Bruno and Ines’s
bedroom was ajar, top notes of a tagine – Ines’s signature dish – still lingering in the air, the soft strum of an out-of-sight guitar telling her that her friends were still
awake.
She glanced at her watch – a gift from her father when she’d landed her first job at Christie’s and growing increasingly important to her as all her friends and colleagues
switched to finding out the time from their phones and iPads – and saw it was 1.30 a.m. She sagged in the doorway and looked yearningly at her own bedroom door. The light was on in there too,
meaning Ines had received her text and was expecting her.
The two women had met in their gap years backpacking around Asia, and in a classic case of opposites attracting, had instantly become firm friends. If Flora was everyone’s perfect Head
Girl, Ines had been the rebel, the cool girl who knew all the gossip and didn’t care what anyone thought; Flora found Ines’s curious mix of bohemian languor and international polish,
hewn from years at top-notch Swiss school Aiglon, absolutely irresistible and they had made a pact that Flora would live with her friend whenever she was in the city.
Wishing she could take a running jump towards the bed, she instead dropped her bag and walked down the hallway, past the giant discs covered with turquoise feathers on the walls, her shoes
clip-clopping on the old parquet floor. An open bottle of tequila was sitting on the polished concrete worktop in the kitchen and, from experience, she knew to pour herself a shot before heading
out to the roof terrace.
Ines saw her before Flora’s eyes could adjust to the darkness – the flickering Moroccan tea lights throwing out about as much light as they did heat – and she reached for Flora
with outstretched arms and a scatter of throaty laughter. ‘You are here!’
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Flora replied with characteristic understatement as she walked towards her friend, who was sitting sideways in a fringed linen hammock, and leaned over to
kiss her cheeks. Camellia perfume embraced her as much as Ines’s slim brown arms, her riotous and untameable coal-black hair flapping like a pirates’ flag in the night breeze. ‘I
hope you didn’t wait for me.’
‘Not likely!’ Ines laughed, indicating for Flora to squeeze in next to her. ‘There would have been mutiny on the ship.’
‘Hello, boys.’ Flora blew air-kisses at Bruno, sitting on the low wall, and Stefan, sprawled in a Missoni chair; Bruno caught his with an extravagant flourish; Stefan merely nodded,
his eyes still, the index finger of one hand rubbing across his mouth as he watched her. They’d had a one-night dalliance a year ago that had left her satisfied and him wanting more.
‘Are you hungry?’ Ines asked, affectionately squeezing her thigh. ‘There’s some left, I think.’
‘Thanks but –’ Flora waved the offer away and held up her shot glass briefly before downing it with a smack of her lips. That would have to pass as dinner for tonight.
Ines tutted. ‘No wonder you are skinny.’
‘So tell us, Flora,’ Bruno said, picking up his guitar and propping one foot on Stefan’s chair. ‘What brings you back to Paris?’ He strummed a chord and looked up
at her, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners, his smile all the brighter for the beard surrounding it, his washed-out shorts almost falling off his narrow hips. ‘And what – or
who
– has been keeping you up so late?’
Flora smiled enigmatically. ‘Oh, you know me – people to see, places to be.’
‘Ah,’ he grinned. ‘So it’s someone famous then. Or powerful. Perhaps both?’
Flora shrugged off his teases. ‘It’s not a secret.’ It was true – it wasn’t. The Vermeils hadn’t requested anonymity. They rarely bought or sold, and most of
Angus’s work for them, till now, had been curation and preservation management; perhaps they felt that kept them sufficiently below the parapet – unlike the newly minted Russians and
Chinese splashing their cash at the auctions? Either way, a request for anonymity hadn’t been specified. ‘Although you’ve probably never heard of them. They are
very
private.’
‘Try us,’ Stefan said, a challenge in his eyes; as the European editor-at-large of
Vanity Fair
, there wasn’t anyone he didn’t know and Flora was hoping he could
add a bit of colour and perspective. Angus’s background notes had been formal and dry: principal client, Jacques Vermeil, now seventy-five; only child of Magda and François Vermeil;
married late to Lilian, fifty-nine; two kids, Xavier, twenty-seven, and Natascha, twenty-one . . .
‘The Vermeils?’
Bruno snorted as though she’d said something funny. He held a hand up by way of apology.
Ines shot him a look. ‘Ignore Bruno,’ she said with an expression of stretched patience before inclining her head to rest it on Flora’s shoulder, her long legs looking brown as
they swung in the candlelight.
‘What’s so funny?’ Flora asked lightly.
‘The idea that they are private,’ Stefan smirked. ‘Jacques and Lilian Vermeil have just funded the extension at the Opéra and she sits on so many charity boards, you
would think she was applying for sainthood.’ He paused. ‘Not that that’s likely with their kids.’
‘Their kids?’
‘They’re out of control. The parents keep it out of the papers – God knows how, but they do – but everybody knows they’re cokeheads. Xavier thinks he is God’s
gift and Natascha’s a party girl.’
Flora jogged Ines. ‘Is this true?’
‘I’m afraid so. She’s got a real bad-ass reputation – sleeps with anyone, hasn’t eaten for three years, just lives on Diet Coke and jelly babies. I know people who
know her and they say she’s seen and done it all. She’s already bored with the world.’ She inspected a teal nail carefully, arched an eyebrow. ‘Someone who knows these
things told me she OD’d on cocaine and the lead singer of a
very
famous band she was partying with had to give her an Adrenalin shot direct to the heart.’