Caravaggio's Angel (17 page)

I wondered what Joe would have to say about it all. Perhaps, now that he was in the past, I’d phone him, to see.

16

Antoine Rigaut: London, August–September

As if to focus our minds, the papers suddenly seemed full of Jean-Jacques Rigaut. As Olivier had predicted, all the many scandals that for years had hovered around the Elysée seemed to be gathering into a great head of pus that threatened to spurt out and drench the various participants in a noisome coating, one of whose effects would be to leave them at least temporarily unelectable. It seemed as though only Rigaut, severe and upright, stood apart from this uncharmed circle. Because of this, and also because he offered those tempted by the Front National a way of indulging their more disreputable instincts without actually voting for fascists, he was now a serious prospect for the Presidency, as part of either the ruling party or the new one he talked of starting.

Unable to concentrate on anything else, I passed the time listening to the tapes of my interview with Juliette. And they in turn led me to think about Jean-Jacques’ brother Antoine, whose birth had been so problematic and whose death had propelled me into this strange adventure. His agreeing to lend the picture hadn’t been a figment of my imagination – there were letters and emails confirming it. Positively charming – suggesting we meet sometime to dis-cuss the exhibition, he might have some suggestions to offer. And then, suddenly, he had changed his mind. And before anyone could ask him why, died.

Other than the fact of it, however, I knew almost nothing about Antoine Rigaut’s death. It was the consequences, not the event, that had concerned me. First the impossibility of contacting him (hardly surprising, since he was already dead), and then the fact that the discovery of his body for some reason changed Manu’s mind about putting me in touch with his grandmother. What that reason was I still could not say for certain, though I was beginning to have some inkling. But whatever might have been in Manu’s mind that day, I didn’t think he would share it with me now. On the contrary – given a choice of everyone in the world, I was probably the person he least wanted to see. I wondered if he had connected his grandmother’s death with my visit. If and when he did, it would probably be impossible to get him to speak to me ever again.

On the other hand, this might be the moment to resume contact with the Louvre. Now Rigaut was safely out of the way, might they not rethink his arbitrary refusal to lend the picture? And maybe, incidentally, shed a bit of light on the affair . . .

I picked up the phone, dialled the Louvre, and asked for Charles Rey.

This time, he was in. He answered his phone with a brusque ‘
Oui?
’ – a busy man, annoyingly interrupted in the midst of important concerns. When I introduced myself, he sighed. That seemed a bit uncalled-for, considering the terms on which we’d parted last time we’d met. Not that after twelve years one expects effusiveness, but surely, at the very least, a pleased curiosity? Perhaps the redoubtable Madame Desvergnes had filled him in on my previous visit, and he now connected me with the tangle over Rigaut and the cancelled loan.

‘
Eh bien
, Régine. I gather you called round. Sorry I wasn’t there . . . What exactly did you want?’

‘It’s about the Caravaggio St Cecilia. I don’t know if you know – you probably weren’t concerned – but we were hoping to borrow it for an exhibition here at the National Gallery.’

His worst suspicions confirmed, he dug around in memory’s far recesses. ‘Yes, I seem to recall something of the sort.’

‘It was all agreed, and then Monsieur Rigaut suddenly withdrew permission. Nobody really explained why, so I was hoping perhaps, since he’s not around any more, it might be possible to reconsider. I understand you’re in charge now, is that right? How are you, by the way?’

‘Oh, fine, fine,’ he said absently, his mind clearly else-where.

The silence that followed was so long I began to wonder if he’d rung off. Eventually, however, he spoke – but only to say, ‘I’m afraid I can’t really take that sort of decision. I’m just the acting head. They haven’t made a permanent appointment yet.’

I didn’t argue, though I could have. If acting heads can’t take decisions, what can they do? ‘Of course. It’s just – I thought you might have some idea what was going on.’

‘Why would I?’ he asked sharply.

‘No particular reason, just that you were colleagues . . . I don’t suppose you know why he refused? Or know some-one who may know?’

‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’ He clearly wanted to end this conversation.

However, I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook now I’d got him nicely dangling. You never know what little detail may jog someone’s memory. ‘Or what happened to him? It all seemed very mysterious.’

He sighed. ‘I’m afraid not. All I know is what I found.’ He stopped abruptly, as though the words had slipped out before he’d realized what he was saying.

So that was where he’d been the afternoon I visited his office at the Louvre! ‘What you found?’ I said conversationally. ‘My God, was it you that found him? How terrible for you!’

He didn’t deny it. ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ was what he said. ‘And now if you don’t mind, I have to go to a meeting.’

Meetings, meetings, what convenient things they are. Still, I’d made some progress. Not professionally – I some-how had a feeling the Louvre picture had slipped irretrievably out of our grasp. But it was clear now that Charles had known Rigaut not just as a colleague but well enough to call round – to get into his apartment, indeed. Had Rigaut confided in him? I was willing to bet he had. In which case, Charles knew exactly why Rigaut had suddenly changed his mind.

So why wouldn’t he tell me?

Well, perhaps he didn’t know after all. Nevertheless, here, amid the swirling mists, was a fact: Charlie Rey had found the body. It would be nice to have another, to join it. Perhaps the press reports of Rigaut’s death might yield more, now that I was slightly better informed than when I first read them.

Googling Antoine Rigaut produced 58,802 possible web-sites. Among the first were the official obits I’d already read, followed by a number of reports, almost identical and evidently syndicated, of his death and the events that had followed it. He had been found ‘by a friend’ (presumably Rey) at his apartment. He had died of gunshot wounds, and the gun had been found beside the body. The assumption was suicide, though no one could suggest any reason why he should have wanted to take his own life. Emotional problems were hinted at.

I scrolled through the various sites, dipping in here and there when something sounded promising. Only a small proportion were of any interest. Many dealt with Rigaut’s brother, and some with his father. One told me about an Antoine Rigaut who had been born at a place called Douchy in the eighteenth century, another concerned a saxophonist with a band called CRIME. There were accounts of auctions at which my man had bid, of paintings he had authenticated, committees he had chaired, news conferences he had given following particularly interesting or prestigious acquisitions. I flicked through the pages, which became increasingly less relevant. And then my eye was caught by the words
Russian Paintings Scandal
.

When I called the page up, it turned out to be an old magazine story, dating from 1995. Someone, or some several people – a picture dealer in Zurich, an employee of Sotheby’s, various unattached names I did not recognize – had been running a scam around acquisitions for public galleries. The dealer, it seemed, was in contact with the staffs of various galleries in the ex-Soviet Union, now impoverished and looking for ways to stay alive. From time to time this meant that important artworks suddenly and mysteriously arrived on Western markets. When something potentially interesting was about to come up, the dealer would notify one or more of his contacts and a sort of private auction would take place. Then, some months later, and for considerably more money, the art-work would arrive in some public collection. The author of the story, a journalist named Janet Colquhoun whose name I vaguely recognized from the saleroom pages, had some-how insinuated herself into the confidence of a member of this ring – perhaps the Sotheby’s man, whom she must have met in the course of her work; though on second thoughts that seemed unlikely, since surely he would have known she was a journalist? Antoine Rigaut’s name featured only tangentially: the Louvre had been one of the paintings’ eventual destinations, and he had authorized the purchase in question. Interviewed by Colquhoun, he had expressed his horror at being involved, however in-directly, in a scam that not only deprived the Russian people of its patrimony but at the same time defrauded public collections in the West.

I stared at the screen for a while, then printed the item out. Switzerland. Rigaut, according to one of the obituaries (I scrolled back and found it) had made several lucky finds in Switzerland. The inference was obvious: he must have been far more closely caught up in the scam than this article implied. It was one of those pies everyone had a finger in, though they weren’t spelling that out, at least in the obits.

At this point my resolve was further quickened by the arrival of a note from the top man himself:
Dear Reggie, per-haps
you would like to give me an update on your Caravaggio
project sometime? TM
.

As usual, I found him hovering between his many windows. ‘Ah, Reggie,’ he said, sounding as always slightly surprised, as though he had half expected me to forget our appointment, or (more likely) had forgotten it himself. ‘Come in, come in. Just a bit of an update, you know. How’s it going?’

‘Quite well, actually,’ I said, and told him about Freddie Angelo.

‘How very interesting,’ he said, in that airy voice of his. ‘Quite a character, isn’t he, Freddie. I do seem to remember mentioning something about your project, but he never said a word then. Well, well. A positive shower of Caravaggios. If you find any more we’ll be overwhelmed. How about the one that was in private hands? Did you ever get anywhere with that?’

Yes, I told him. I’d found that, too, in France, as I’d sus-pected. Been to see it again only two weeks ago.

‘Excellent,’ he said approvingly. ‘I can’t wait to see all this in the catalogue. The lost Caravaggio . . . We’ll have quite a popular hit on our hands if it keeps on this way. Well. Keep up the good work. We’ll have another review soon and perhaps set a definite date. What d’you think?’

I told him terrific, and hurried back to my office. To my relief, he hadn’t asked anything about whether or not people were prepared to lend. Perhaps he assumed that in a sane world – the kind of world he inhabited – there would be no problems on that score. Or perhaps he simply wasn’t bothered. He was past the point where life is a constant low-level hurdle-race. I, on the other hand, still had to keep jumping. If I jumped high enough often enough I, too, might one day achieve a room with three tall windows. In the meantime, holding on to my job would be an excellent start.

Back at my desk, I surveyed the course ahead. To get any further, I needed help. Specifically, inside information. TM could almost certainly have told me at least some of what I wanted to know. But asking him would have been unwise on a whole raft of levels. For one thing he wasn’t a natural gossip. He could do it, I’d seen him, but always with a slight aura of distaste, as though this wasn’t something chaps – decent chaps – should really indulge in. For another, my project, as far as he was concerned, was whole, sound and progressing steadily, and that was the way I wanted to keep it. My questions would have introduced a note – more than a note, a whole chord, a virtual orchestra – of uncertainty, not to say a certain flakiness. No. In a situation like this, Freddie Angelo was my man. Something told me that uncertainty and flakiness were no strangers to him.

‘Reggie!’ he exclaimed when I introduced myself, his delighted tones balm to my hypersensitive ears. ‘How clever of you to call, I was just thinking about you. I had the picture out for another little think, and one thought led to another.’

‘I need a bit of help,’ I said, ‘and I wondered if you had a moment.’

‘Absolutely. About Caravaggio? Of course, what else. Why not tell me over lunch? How about that? Do you hap-pen to be free?’

I admitted that might just be the case, and we agreed to meet at a winebar he knew, just off Bond Street.

He was waiting when I got there, bald head shining, red braces extensively displayed over a blue and white striped shirt, making him look like a living Union Jack, or perhaps a tricolour. He waved and said, ‘I’ve ordered us a bottle of Sancerre. Hope that’s all right. Need something to keep you going through the afternoon, that’s what I always say.’

I reflected that half a bottle of Sancerre wouldn’t so much keep me going as shut me down entirely, but it would have been rude to say so. Besides, I like Sancerre. I ordered some fizzy water on the side, to at least dilute the effect, and some smoked salmon sandwiches to act as blot-ting paper. Freddie was having the cold beef, which he assured me was excellent here. He tried to persuade me to have some too, but I didn’t feel strong enough for anything so unequivocally meaty.

‘Well,’ he said, filling our glasses. ‘Fire away.’

I fired, straight in. ‘I was wondering if you happened to know Antoine Rigaut.’

‘Rigaut? Yes, I knew him, poor fellow.’ He looked at me shrewdly. ‘Hadn’t seen him for a few years, but at one time we were great mates. What did you want to know, exactly? If it’s gossip you want, I’m afraid I’m not current. It must be at least five years since we met.’ In other words, if I wanted to know about recent events, Freddie Angelo was making it quite clear he was not my man.

I at once disclaimed all interest in such things. ‘No, what I’m interested in is further back than that. Did you ever know anything about some scam based in Switzerland? About ten years ago. Pictures coming out of the old Soviet Union, being bought up cheaply and sold on later for much more.’

‘I seem to remember something of that sort,’ he agreed vaguely, without, however, specifying exactly what. ‘Was Antoine involved? Surely he must have been at the Louvre by then.’