This news-the foul play, not the All Ordinaries-was not entirely unexpected. Salina’s disappearance was bound to have raised suspicions, even if none had existed before. The ripples thrown up by Marcus Taylor’s drowning were spreading outwards in ever-widening circles. An image of Agnelli on the placid waters of Lake Eildon crossed my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder what boats might get rocked before this affair was over.
Leo accepted delivery of the boys with a wave from the Curnows’ front door. ‘See you after work,’ I told Red. ‘About six o’clock. We’ll have our pizza then, okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Red, easy-going as ever.
I was back at Artemis Prints at approximately 1.10.06. Enough time for a quick gasper. While I sucked, I perused the offerings in the front window. The least I could do, all things considered, was buy something. The Pre-Raphaelite maidens weren’t exactly my cup of hemlock. I settled on a Mondrian print. Remembering my little something for Gracie, I dashed back across the road to the car and retrieved Marcus Taylor’s stamp album from where Red had tossed it behind the back seat.
The buzzer rang as I went in the door. When Claire stuck her head around the curtain to see who’d come in, I was standing by the counter like a waiting customer. ‘Psst,’ I said and beckoned her over. She came cautiously, a questioning look on her face.
‘I haven’t thanked you properly.’ I said it deliberately low so she had to step closer to hear me. Then I took my life in my hands. I put my arm around her waist, drew her to me and kissed her gently on the mouth.
Her lips, soft and dry, yielded tentatively. I inhaled the scent of her hair, apple shampoo, dizzying. She leaned into the kiss, accepting it, returning it. We shifted on our feet, neither of us breathing. Her hands found the small of my back and pressed me closer. The kiss went on. And on.
Suddenly, she broke. We stepped back from each other, both swallowing hard, blinking. ‘Your friends,’ she said. ‘How much did they pay for this painting?’
Her eyes shone with anticipation. ‘I dunno,’ I shrugged. I’d already done the mental arithmetic, speculated on the cost of restitution. Wondered about insurance. Forty-odd paintings in the CUSS collection, total value half a million dollars. Average price, say $12,000. Drysdale one of the stars. ‘Maybe twenty thousand dollars. Why?’
‘Take a look at this.’ Claire tugged at my hand, drawing me into the workroom. At the parting of the curtain, her touch fell away just as Gracie looked up from her colouring-in. The stamp album was still in my hand. I held it out to the child. ‘Do you like stamps?’
‘Stickers?’ She grabbed the book avidly, her diffidence forgotten.
Claire stood at the work table, hands on hips, inviting inspection of her handiwork. The replacement frame was finished, indistinguishable from the original. It sat empty. Next to it was the repaired stretcher, a cross-braced timber rectangle, naked of fabric. Beside them was the unstretched canvas of Dry Gully. Ochre red and russet brown, it looked like the freshly-flayed skin of some desert reptile. Then there was another piece of canvas, the same size as Dry Gully. This one was a rather amateurish seascape that seemed to have been roughly cut down from a larger picture. Finally, propped open with a thick ruler was a reference book, The Dictionary of Australian Artists.
‘I thought there was something odd about this picture.’ With all the exaggerated staginess of a conjurer about to execute a marvel of prestidigitation, she proceeded to show me what. First, she turned Dry Gully over and invited me to examine the condition of the canvas. Before, when it hung on the stretcher, it was a dusty parchment colour. Now, it was a fresh-looking chalky white. Attached to the fabric, right in the centre, was a small piece of paper on which was printed an image, some words and a number. As I bent forward for a closer look, Claire whisked the canvas away. ‘One thing at a time.’
She pointed to the other canvas. ‘When I took the Drysdale off the stretcher, I found this underneath.’ To demonstrate what she meant, she turned Dry Gully face down on the table and placed the fragment of seascape over it, also face down. The two canvasses fitted together perfectly. Dry Gully ’s obverse side now appeared the same dirty cream colour as when it was still stretched. ‘Two canvases,’ said Claire. ‘One on top of the other-creating the impression that the painting in front is much older than it really is.’
‘Why would someone do that?’ I asked.
She now removed the false back and allowed me to examine the little square of paper. It had serrated edges and bore an image of the Sydney Opera House surmounted by the head of William Shakespeare. Australia Post, said the inscription, 43 cents. UK-Australia Bicentenary Joint Issue.
‘Big Bill in Tinsel Town,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means that if Russell Drysdale painted this picture,’ Claire said. ‘He did so posthumously.’ Her index finger settled on the biographical entry in the reference book. ‘By 1988, he’d been dead for seven years.’
‘You mean it’s a forgery?’
Jesus H. Christ. What was it about me? I’d only been in this culture caper three days and the fakes were jumping out of the woodwork at me. First Our Home, now Dry Gully. Was no representation of the Australian landscape, no work of art safe now that I was in the field?
Claire’s professional curiosity was piqued, but she wasn’t jumping to any conclusions. ‘Not necessarily. It’s certainly not an original, but as to being a forgery-well, that depends.’
‘Depends on what? Surely it’s either genuine or it isn’t.’
Claire sucked in her cheeks and held the counterfeit Drysdale up to the light, as if trying to penetrate its secret. ‘I’m no expert, but this seems to be a very competent attempt to replicate Drysdale’s work. But the fact that it’s been done with a considerable degree of skill does not, in itself, make it a forgery. Owners of valuable artworks sometimes have high-quality copies made-to reduce their insurance premiums, from fear of theft, in case of accidental damage. They lock the original away, hang the copy and let people think it’s the original. Perhaps your friends did that.’
‘What, like a duchess who keeps her diamond tiara in the safe and wears a paste imitation?’ Except there were scant few duchesses around the Trades Hall.
‘Exactly. Or maybe your friends are just engaging in a little harmless pretension. Bought themselves a replica and told people it was an original.’
What sort of friends did she think I had? ‘Not these people,’ I told her. ‘Not their style.’
‘I don’t suppose you happen to know if it came with a certificate of authenticity, do you?’
‘What’s that?’
‘A letter provided by the seller giving details of the picture’s origins and attesting that it is what it’s purported to be.’
I told her I couldn’t imagine my friends buying anything without all the paperwork being in order.
‘You don’t happen to know where they bought it?’
‘It was arranged privately, I believe. Through a firm called Austral Fine Art.’
She swung a phone book down from a shelf. ‘Never heard of them. But there’s no shortage of art dealers in this town.’ There was a page of them, including the Aubrey Gallery. But no Austral Fine Art.
‘Forgery isn’t my area, I’m afraid,’ Claire said. ‘My only experience has been with inaccurate attribution and genuine mistakes. The National Gallery has a Rembrandt self-portrait that turned out not to be a Rembrandt at all. We changed the caption to “School of Rembrandt” and left it where it was. But deliberate misrepresentation, that’s another matter altogether.’
I was deliberately letting her walk me the long way around this, covering all the bases. I already had a grim feeling that I knew what it meant. But I wanted to be absolutely sure I wasn’t jumping to any conclusion just because it was the obvious one. ‘What do you think the stamp means?’