The Paris Secret (3 page)

They used to sunbathe up here, and sneakily learned to smoke too, although Freddie had drawn the line at them drinking up here – alcohol and heights weren’t a good idea.

‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ she said quietly, sitting against him. Usually they leaned back, pressing themselves against the roof tiles either to feel the sun on their faces or to
watch the moon, but today he was hunched forward like a curled-up beetle, his elbows on his knees, his head dropped low.

‘Can’t.’ He shook his head.

She clasped his arm as his words confirmed her worst fear that she wasn’t imagining this, it wasn’t her mother’s overblown anxiety that something was wrong. It really, truly
was. ‘Whatever it is, I’m on your side. You know I am.’

He shook his head, staring at her sidelong. ‘You won’t be. Not this time.’

‘Freddie, there is literally nothing that you could say that would ever make me doubt you. You’re my big brother. I adore you.’

He dropped his head down, squeezing his hands together so tightly, his knuckles blanched white. She winced on his behalf.

‘Is it why you wanted us all to be here this weekend?’ She had had to move heaven and earth to bring her diary into alignment with his unusual request that they all gather here.

‘I thought I could do it. I thought I could tell you all. I thought it was the right thing to do . . .’

‘You can,’ she whispered. ‘It is.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I was watching you all down there and you’re the same as you’ve always been. You so perfect and sarcastic and sweet, Dad so bluff, Mum making everything beautiful and
worrying about nothing.’ He paused. ‘Only now she really has got something to worry about. I’ve ruined it.’

‘Ruined what?’

‘Us – our family. And I can’t bear to see the looks in your eyes when I tell you.’

It was her turn to fall quiet, her eyes scouring his face as he pulled away again, his emotions pleating inwards as though hiding from her gaze. ‘What have you done, Freddie? You have to
tell me.’ Her grip tightened on his arm. ‘You know we’re not getting down from here until you do.’

He took a juddering breath. ‘It’s not true. You have to believe me.’

‘And I will, I promise. I already do.’

‘You don’t know what it is yet.’

‘No. But I know you. I support
you.
I love
you
.’

He nodded and dropped his head down, letting the tears come first. And then, finally, the words.

London, one week later

The auction room was packed, with every seat taken and people standing in a crowd at the back. Everyone was talking and laughing loudly, catalogues in hand and eyes skippy as
they evaluated who was here – and more importantly who wasn’t – and the deep banks of Sotheby’s staff manning the phone and internet bids.

Flora shifted position in her seat, the bidding paddle obscured in her lap by the soft folds of her pink silk skirt. She made a point of never getting involved with this pre-sale gossip and
conjecture. It might be good for networking but she didn’t like to bring attention to herself when she wanted to clinch a sale; there was something to be said for understatement, a light
touch. And besides, in her opinion, networking was always far more effective with a good dress and a cocktail in one’s hand.

She waited patiently while the Peter Doig oil painting was wheeled out by gloved porters and the room regrouped. The Warhol
Marilyn (Reversal)
, and the reason she was here, was up next
but that wasn’t why her boss Angus was texting her every third minute. She ignored his latest update through the traffic as it buzzed in her bag. If he was so anxious to see what happened
with the Bacon triptych, then he should learn not to fly in for the London Evening Sale on a New York flight that only landed forty minutes before the auction started. She exhaled her irritation
quietly. She didn’t understand his constant need for chaos and action. Her boss thrived on adrenalin rushes and perpetual near-misses, as though a result was only validated by a dramatic
narrative around it.

A man with florid cheeks and a red tie imprinted with monkeys balancing on teacups – Hermès, then – caught her eye, wordlessly communicating his question down the aisle with
hitched-up eyebrows and a glance at the empty seat – the only one in the room – beside her. She shook her head sympathetically but firmly and, tapping at her watchless wrist, rolled her
eyes. The man got the point, his mouth settling into an irritated line, and returned to the back of the room.

Flora brushed her blonde hair off her shoulders and fanned herself lightly with the paddle. It was a close night, the sky already blooming into a bruise as she had hopped out of the cab earlier,
and thunder was forecast. She hoped she could get home before that happened. She hadn’t had time to collect her jacket from the office in her haste to get here from an overrun appointment and
she didn’t fancy being caught in a downpour in this white silk shirt and her strappy red suede heels.

The door behind the auctioneer opened and the tension in the room tightened again, like cloth being pulled across a loom, as the Warhol screen print was wheeled out. Flora remained impassive,
even though she felt the same quickening that made others gasp, murmur, smile. Unlike the bright rainbow colours of the better-known Marilyn screen prints which had been owned by stars almost as
famous as the subject, this reversal was dark and brooding, a subversion of the disco-happy original: smoky black with smudges of neon pink, the negative of a film photograph, it was perfect for
her clients, a young Russian couple who had swapped Moscow for Mayfair. She had worked carefully with them for the past eighteen months, building their bent for bold colour into a fledgling
contemporary art collection that was already worth more than £11 million. She had taken them to the Fine Art Fairs in Maastricht and Palm Beach, closed on private deals for them at Chatsworth
and in Dubai, and successfully bid in auctions in New York, Zurich and Los Angeles. Tonight, if she got it for the right price, the Warhol would fill the remaining blank wall above the bed in the
master suite. The client’s wife had already instructed her decorators to repaint the room in gold leaf in anticipation of its arrival.

The auctioneer, Giles, whom Flora knew from a (very) brief fling at university – dubious taste in pants, predilection for spanking – shuffled his papers and raised his head. The room
fell into a hush again and Flora set to work.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we come now to lot twelve: one pink-and-black Marilyn print from the
Reversal
series, by Andy Warhol. Executed 1979 to 1986, the year before his untimely
death. This is an acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas.’ As he intoned venerably, his voice ringing crisp as a bell through the suspended crowd, Flora tried not to recall the sobbing messages
he’d left on her phone when she’d finished with him. ‘Unframed . . .’

Flora listened like a teacher’s pet, even though she already knew what was coming next. She had fully examined the provenance and condition reports and was unperturbed by the hairline
craquelure at the pull margins.

She was so absorbed that it took her a moment to realize Angus had taken his seat beside her, his tight strawberry blonde curls damp with sweat, round cheeks rosy, panting slightly as though
he’d actually sprinted here from the airport. He had barely made it in time and she could see he was stressed, his favourite thing to be.

‘How’s it going?’ he stage-whispered, loosening his tie slightly as the bidding started up.

‘Fine.’ She kept her eyes on the auctioneer, her back straight as she kept track – without moving her head – of who was throwing their hat in the ring, clocking who was
sitting with whom, representing whom, who was staying silent and still, who had turned down the corners of their catalogues to this lot, circled it with fountain-pen ink . . . It was no coincidence
that she was an exceptional high-stakes poker player.

‘I thought—’

‘Don’t talk,’ she murmured, her eyes sticking on a man in a grey suit in the opposite corner, sitting angled in his chair, one arm slung across the back of it. He had placed an
early bid but then fallen quiet; she could tell from his body language, though, that he wasn’t out of the game yet.

She didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t a dealer, trader or collector that she was aware of and the fine-art world was a small one. Since graduating from St Andrews with her degree in
history of fine art six years earlier, Flora had worked in various roles at Phillips, Christie’s and the Saatchi Gallery before joining Angus’s eponymous agency, Beaumont’s Fine
Art Agents, last year as a junior partner; as such, she was exceptionally well connected. She could put a name to nearly every face in this room and had sipped Manhattans at one time or another
with most of them.

‘Sorry. Sorry, you do your thing,’ Angus whispered, sitting back and raking his fingers through his curls, as though loosening them.

The phones were busy too. Flora watched the Sotheby’s staff, looking for who was talking most to their clients. Anyone who needed ‘talking up’ would be out early; it was the
quiet ones she was interested in. She calculated there were two serious buyers there.

The guy in the grey suit was still sitting in his almost louche position but the sinews in his neck kept twitching and she could see the tension in his hands as he tried to keep from raising
them, to get back in the game.

Flora looked again at the phone bank. They were down to one there, the paddles in the air growing fewer as the numbers increased and the painting steadily slipped out of reach of the majority,
like a yacht that had loosed her moorings and was heading for the horizon.

The auctioneer was looking round the room, the phone bidder now alone in the ring.

Flora looked at the grey-suited guy just as he nodded his head. Back in the game.

Satisfied by her accurate prediction, she let the two of them play for a bit. The estimate had been set between £1.2 and £1.8 million but they were at £1.92 million now and the
pace of the sale had slowed down, with longer pauses between the bids. The bidder in the room was nearing his limit; Flora could tell from the way he spread his shoulders wide and forward, trying
to release the tension in his neck. He was looking round the room more, too, checking no one else was coming in. He hadn’t spotted her – or if he had, he hadn’t considered her a
threat.

Which was a mistake. This was why Angus had hired her. When it came to the saleroom, she had a fine pedigree for winning, but she was regimented too, never overspending her clients’ money.
That was for amateurs.

She tossed her head lightly, feeling warm and relaxed, sensing that her moment was approaching. She sat straighter, her fingers clutching the paddle in readiness. They were at £2.1 million
now, which was clearly not a number either bidder was comfortable with. She wasn’t thrilled with it herself – every increment over £2 million cut into potential growth profit, but
the research she had undertaken in readiness for today had taken into account expansion in the contemporary market as well as global factors such as the Chinese economic slowdown, and she was happy
to go to £2.3 million max, having estimated a minimum 2 per cent growth in the next five years, 8 per cent in the next ten. Even at that it would be a good return, a sound investment. Worth
it. She was paid to make that judgement call.

Giles was pointing at Grey Suit now, his gavel in the air. He was scanning the room but with no real conviction of another bid.

‘Two point one five,’ he called. ‘Going once . . . going twice . . .’

She flashed her paddle, bringing an audible gasp from the people sitting immediately in the vicinity who already had their hands poised to clap. Giles’s auctioneer’s eyebrows shot to
the top of his head as he saw her, his arm already raised above his head in anticipation of dramatically swooping down and concluding the sale.

‘I have two point two!’ he cried, in disbelief as much as happiness.

Grey Suit swivelled in his seat, his languid pose completely banished as he looked to see who was gazumping him at this last moment. Flora didn’t move a hair.

Grey Suit’s arm shot up – angrily, defiantly.

‘Two point two five.’ Giles looked back at Flora and she nodded again. ‘Two point three.’ He looked across at Grey Suit.

‘Two point five!’ the man shouted, with an imperial flourish of his hand.

There was another collective gasp, murmurs of appreciation, some chuckles. The gauntlet had been thrown.

Flora tutted and sat back, shaking her head. She was out. She wouldn’t breach her ceiling.

Grey Suit smirked and faced the front again, clapping himself as the gavel came down a few moments later and the prize was his.

‘Oh, bad luck, Flora,’ Angus murmured as the crowd cogitated.

‘Not really. Christie’s Palm Beach have got the Elizabeth Taylor next month. I wasn’t happy about going over two anyway. He’s paid way over the odds, typical amateur
getting carried away. Are you staying for the Bacon?’

‘I can’t believe you’re not,’ he said, shifting his legs as she stood up and made to pass.

‘Dinner plans.’

‘Date?’

‘Something like that. See you tomorrow. I’ll be in late. I’m having breakfast at the Wolseley with the new head of Old Masters at Phillips.’

‘Have fun,’ Angus called after her as she politely made her way down the row, past all the angled legs.

‘Which one – dinner or breakfast?’

‘Both!’

She smiled, reaching the aisle at the same time as Grey Suit. She held out her hand for him to shake.

‘Congratulations,’ she smiled. ‘It’s a wonderful piece.’

‘I think so,’ he said with a triumphant smirk.

They began to walk towards the back. Flora needed to return her paddle; Grey Suit needed to pay.

‘It’s a shame you couldn’t stretch to it,’ he said, motioning for her to go ahead as they squeezed past those people still coming in, hoping to see – or bid for
– the Bacon. ‘It was just getting interesting.’