Framed E-Book

John M. Green

• Herausgeber: Pantera Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 462

Beschreibung

When art conservator JJ Jego spots a long-lost masterpiece through the window of a luxury apartment, she's drawn into a dark web of intrigue, deception and murder.JJ spies what she believes is a priceless Van Gogh. Except it can't be … that painting, Six Sunflowers, was destroyed during World War II. She also glimpses what looks like a Rembrandt, one stolen in the infamous 1990 robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston.JJ sets out on a mission to discover if these works are fakes or genuine. But when she gets in too deep, she is forced to seek help from her estranged father, a Sydney detective.From the pubs of Belfast to the boardrooms of Monte Carlo and the shores of Sydney Harbour, this gripping art heist thriller exposes a shadowy underworld where JJ crosses paths with a global organised crime empire in her pursuit to solve some of art history's biggest mysteries.

Leseprobe

When art conservator JJ Jego spots a long-lost masterpiece through the window of a luxury apartment, she’s drawn into a dark web of intrigue, deception and murder.

JJ spies what she believes is a priceless Van Gogh. Except it can’t be … that painting, Six Sunflowers, was destroyed during World War II. She also glimpses what looks like a Rembrandt, one stolen in the infamous 1990 robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston.

JJ sets out on a mission to discover if these works are fakes or genuine. But when she gets in too deep, she is forced to seek help from her estranged father, a Sydney detective.

From the pubs of Belfast to the boardrooms of Monte Carlo and the shores of Sydney Harbour, this gripping art heist thriller exposes a shadowy underworld where JJ crosses paths with a global organised crime empire in her pursuit to solve some of art history’s biggest mysteries.

Praise for John M. Green’s novels:

‘Australian thriller writing at its best.’

– ABC

‘The twists hurtle in too fast for the reader to duck.’

– Jack Heath, award-winning author

‘… moves at a cracking pace and is impossible to put down … a compelling writer of master thrillers.’

– The Australian Financial Review

‘… as good as John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Lee Child or Johnathan Kellerman … knife-edge plot, sophisticated themes and empathetic characters put Green in the front rank of Australian thriller writers.’

– The Australian

‘It’s no exaggeration to say John M. Green shines as a very bright antipodean star in the international firmament of thriller writers.’

– The West Australian

‘An edge-of-your-seat action thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page.’

– Good Reading

FRAMED

Also by John M. Green

Nowhere Man

Born to Run

The Trusted

The Tao Deception

Double Deal

To Scottie and Winston Jr, and their owners

Contents

The Gardner Museum Heist

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Author’s Note

About the Author

This is based on a true story …

… but most of it is yet to happen …

‘Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth.’

Pablo Picasso

THE GARDNER MUSEUM HEIST

From start to finish, the biggest art heist in modern history lasted just 81 minutes.

At 1.24 am on 18 March 1990, two men dressed as police officers walked into Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They overpowered two unsuspecting night security guards, then duct-taped their victims to a pipe and a workbench in the museum basement.

‘Gentlemen, this is a robbery,’ the criminals announced.

The pair proceeded to remove 13 treasured artworks on display in the lavishly decorated gallery, smashing the protective glass of two Rembrandt paintings and cutting the canvases from their gilded frames. Just over an hour later, the thieves made off with a staggering collection of art that’s valued today at $500 million.

Despite a flurry of press attention – and the $10 million reward offered by the museum for the items’ safe return – the stolen works have never been recovered.

Smithsonian Magazine, 9 April 2021

1

The FarrellysBelfast, Northern Ireland2015

Conor Farrelly hoisted both hands to hush the crowd, ignoring the wash of black Guinness he was sloshing over the top of his glass. Standing on top of the long bar, the nuggety entrepreneur surveyed the jam-packed pub, which overflowed with guests and an endless supply of beer. It was a perfect brew for the double celebration – his birthday and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the CCNN Group.

At sixty-six years old – one crucial six short of the devil’s number – Conor had made himself into one of the wealthiest men in Northern Ireland. He started CCNN as a small freight operation, but his hard-scrabble drive had grown it into a massive conglomerate that spanned international shipping, pharmaceutical production in India, and clothing manufacturing in Bangladesh. Despite this, Conor remained a man of the people, which was why the festivities were in a pub and not the ballroom of a five-star hotel.

‘Niall!’ he shouted over the heads of his guests. ‘Git your arse up here, boyo.’

As the bald, muscled Goliath pushed his way through the crowd, Conor took a swig of Guinness to hoots and cheers. Niall got up on the bar and, towering over his father, was greeted with a hug, and another cheer. He had a shaved, oiled head and, like his father, his face had what the charitable would call character. This was mostly due to his large and flattened nose – a trophy from his teenage years, a brawl with the paramilitaries where a loyalist crushed it with a rifle butt.

‘Nessa. You too!’ roared Conor. For Nessa, the shouts and applause were deafening. As Niall sneered, the barkeep gave her some unnecessary help onto the countertop. She stood on the other side of her proud father, who downed the rest of his Guinness, put the glass on the countertop, and wrapped his arms around his children.

Nessa was the same height as her Terminator of a brother, but the similarity ended there. Apart from his pug nose and moustache, Niall’s dark, round face was the spitting image of their late mother Ciara’s, with the same brown eyes and pointy ears, and a cleft chin that on her was charming but which he was notorious for jabbing at people with ‘Go on … Hit me, ya shite, and see what happens to ya.’ Niall had his father’s brawn but lacked his parents’ and his sister’s brains. He was a ticking time bomb with an explosive temper, no matter how much money Conor threw at anger management and every other kind of counselling.

Nessa was a taller, more willowy version of her stocky father, with fair skin and penetrating blue eyes. Her disarming heart-shaped face – capped with a mop of black hair so wild it made her seem easygoing – meant that most people severely underestimated her the first time they met.

Only Conor could read Nessa. It infuriated Niall that his father was more like his twin than he was, not only in looks but in temperament and intellect. He fumed when they finished each other’s sentences or supported each other’s ideas, but rarely his. Unlike Niall, who would blurt the first thought that popped into his head, Nessa took her time answering questions, often causing him to slam a fist on a table, or stamp his foot and charge out of a room. But Nessa could be as volatile as her brother when it suited her. It made for torrid family gatherings as well as board meetings since the three, after Ciara’s death, were CCNN’s only directors.

Conor could sense the tension mounting in Niall, so he pulled him closer, in a warning to behave, and pushed on with a shout, ‘If you’re enough lucky to be Irish … you’re lucky enough.’ The crowd erupted in roars of ‘Dead on’ and ‘Too right’. Then Conor called out, ‘Who ever thought the Farrellys would come this far?’ Applause, shouts and stomping filled the pub.

Conor had come a long way indeed, but most of those present knew only a small part of it. The legal part.

Until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 ended the Northern Ireland conflict, Conor was the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s secret head of ‘Transport’, effectively in charge of its arms smuggling operations. Fundraising was also part of his job, although he wasn’t collecting cheques at parties in tony New York City brownstones or Chicago town houses. Conor was an ambitious, small-time, down and dirty gombeen, who branched out into running drugs in London. That line of business, a surefire money-spinner, came with a handy sweetener … the corruption of British youth.

Only a few of those present were aware of the fraught circumstances of the twins’ birth in Lisburn, a little southwest of Belfast. How Ciara’s waters broke while she was driving getaway in a stolen Ford Escort van, just after Conor shot a British soldier in the face. She pulled over into a bombed factory and hopped into the back of the van, where Conor pushed aside the guns, Molotov cocktails and cans of petrol, and delivered their babies himself.

Scuttlebutt had raged for years that CCNN was involved in more than was publicly disclosed. Nothing was ever proved and it wasn’t likely to be. Every time an allegation was printed in a media outlet, Conor would instantly swing out with a fierce right-hook libel suit that sent the proprietor and the offending journalist reeling. If it didn’t, some of his ‘boys’ would pay a visit. As time wore on, the stories stopped. No one inclined to follow any leads was left standing. For good measure, Conor also maintained a close and cordial relationship with the local constabulary. Bygones, it seemed, were easily bought.

‘Friends,’ said Conor, holding up his glass again. ‘A smart man goes before he loses it, so tonight I’m announcin’ my retirement.’

The crowd, including Nessa and Niall, took in a sudden deep breath, like a single organism.

‘My successor to take the reins as chief executive of CCNN is …’ and he turned briefly to Niall, who pasted an enormous smile on his enormous face, ‘… my daughter Nessa, and Niall here will be her deputy.’

Nessa flushed a deep red, and if Niall was a keg, he would have exploded. If it wasn’t at first obvious to the audience that Conor hadn’t discussed the plan with his family, it became crystal clear when the son threw off his father’s arm, leapt off the bar, and shouldered his way through the crowd and out into the night.

2

JJ JegoSydney, Australia2015

My parents – Lauren and Hugh Jego – only had one clash in their twenty-seven years together, one that lasted their entire marriage.

After putting up with Hugh’s … well, Hugh’s everything … Lauren finally walked out on him. It was on 1 January 2014. A new year and a new life, I heard through her sobs when she phoned to tell me.

Yet, so soon after her ‘liberation’, as she called it, here we are in a hospital though, in her case, she’s barely here.

Hugh, her husband – they never got divorced – isn’t here.

Of course he’s not.

Tears cascade down my cheeks, filling the dimple in my chin and dripping onto her pillow, grey splotches spreading across the white cotton. It’s less than two years after they separated, and four months after she got the diagnosis … stage four pancreatic cancer.

Did Hugh come running, like any decent human being would? No. He didn’t even contact her. Not even a measly text.

For twenty-seven years she’d been devoted to the prickly narcissist, giving up her career in fashion to pander to his every want. She cooked for him, cleaned up for him, cleaned up after him, and apologised for him when he offended people – which was most of the time. Yet, because she had the audacity to leave him, he snapped his fingers and magicked her into a nothing, a footnote in his history.

I can almost hear his thoughts. How could she walk out on me, a genius who knows better than everybody else, God’s gift to the police force?

The truth is that Lauren was an angel to have stayed with Hugh so long. Some people would blame her for not leaving him earlier, but they hadn’t spent decades as a victim of his vainglory and Machiavellian flair for manipulation. We both kidded ourselves that we went along with Hugh’s wishes – a euphemism for ‘demands’ – out of love. There was some love, for sure, but mostly there was fear … a Mount Everest of fear, and we had no Sherpas to help us navigate it. There was no physical abuse. But if we’d known today’s language for what Hugh put us through – coercive control, psychological trauma – both our lives might have been different. Better.

In my eighteen years under their roof, I struggled with what Hugh did to us. When mean kids at school found out he was a cop, they’d say, ‘My dad can still beat up your dad,’ and I’d clasp my hands and politely say, ‘Please.’

To people who lived outside our suffocating four walls, Hugh was sweet and charming, kind of like Prince Harry before he met Meghan Markle. Eventually, though, if they committed the crime of laughing at the wrong time or daring to disagree with him over something – no matter how trivial – they’d watch his Mr Nice Guy mask drip away to reveal the trademark sneer my mother and I wished we’d never seen.

One time, a fellow detective came over for high tea, a speciality of Lauren’s. She presented it on the faux Limoges china she’d bought at the op shop, and Hugh had made her pipe her famous cupcakes with icing that spelled our surname, Jego. When Hugh went to the bathroom and Lauren was in the kitchen, the detective, with a cheeky look, held up one of the cakes and told me my father’s nickname at work, ‘Huge Ego’. I laughed so much I got a stitch, though I made sure it wasn’t loud enough for Hugh to hear me through the door.

In my last year at high school, Hugh went undercover and we didn’t see him for months. Frankly, it was bliss at home, and probably the reason I blitzed the HSC and won a scholarship to art school. But when the operation was over, we found out he’d almost single-handedly broken up a notorious drug ring, which included senior police. The trials of Mr Big and Detective Inspector Bigger made front-page news for weeks. Hugh, referred to only as Witness G6, gave the crucial evidence that sent them all down but he had to do it from behind a screen, and Lauren and I were forbidden from telling a soul it was him. It was the first and only time I was actually proud of my father, and I had to bottle it up.

During the sting, he’d got hooked on crystal meth, and after the criminals were sent down, the force put him on extended leave and sent him to rehab. Hugh came home ‘cured’, but was even more insufferable than before, not least because he was denied the celebrity he so obviously craved.

The sad thing is that all that drama gave Lauren yet another reason to stay, even when I told her I was going. ‘You go,’ she said, meaning it. ‘But how can I leave him after what the poor man’s put himself through?’

Me, though, I slammed the door on Hugh as soon as I finished my final exams and, apart from a chance run-in – at the National Gallery in Canberra in 2010 – I haven’t seen him since.

*

‘We’ve just landed in Sydney,’ I whispered to the nurse an hour ago, surreptitiously, under my sweater. It was before the cabin crew announced we were free to use our phones.

Being sneaky while crammed in economy – or coach or tourist, or whatever the back of the plane is called these days – isn’t easy. Especially when you’re in the centre seat of three, with a hulk of a man on one side, so well upholstered I couldn’t see the window past him even if I leaned forward. On my other side, a tall, gawky teenager who was so sprawly that ‘shared armrest’ clearly meant ‘his’.

Because of my mother’s decline, I’d actually said no to this work trip, a four-day Van Gogh conference in Amsterdam – all expenses paid by my employer, the Art Gallery of New South Wales – but she’d insisted. ‘It’s good for your career and, besides, you’ll only be gone a week.’ The hospital staff had told me she was stable, that it was safe to go, and promised to call me if anything changed.

That happened yesterday, on day two of the conference, right in the middle of an eye-opening talk by an Italian expert, Francesca Rossi, on ‘The Degradation Process of Chrome Yellow in Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Studied by Means of Synchrotron X-ray Spectromicroscopy’. After quietly apologising to everyone around me, I ran out of the conference room, grabbed my bag from the hotel, leapt into a cab and changed my return flight as we sped to Schiphol Airport.

‘Thank heavens you’ve made it home,’ said the nurse. ‘Come straight to the hospital. No detours. Do you understand what I’m telling you, JJ?’

*

Everyone calls me JJ. It’s short for Justine Jego, pronounced Jaygo. This is because, four generations ago, it was Jégo when our people lived in Arles, in the south of France. Hugh bestowed my full name on me, in all its toe-curling glory. Needless to say, he put it on my birth certificate without asking Mum.

The only times I’d be willing to give my full name to anyone is if I was being waterboarded or if I’ve got to comply with some government requirement, which can be much the same thing. I got more than a lifetime’s ribbing in Year 3 after my teacher, Miss Fox, asked about it in front of the whole class. ‘Justine Vincent van Gogh Jego. That’s a fascinating name, JJ. Can you tell us about it?’

I shrank into my seat, making myself even smaller than I was.

It’s why I’ve gone with JJ my whole life. Even – or especially – in my career as an art conservator, I’ve concealed my full name better than Caravaggio’s miniature self-portrait in his painting Bacchus. That’s the one he camouflaged in a carafe that virtually every art teacher makes a big song and dance about revealing to newbies in Art History 101.

I raced off the plane, and charged through the airport to the taxi rank as fast as my short legs, cabin-sized wheelie bag, ever-present camera flying on its strap behind me, and border control protocols allowed.

Carrying an almost empty Australian passport helped. No stamps from Syria, Somalia or any hotspots and just the two for Amsterdam, three years apart. From my passport photo, or even in real life, people would probably say I’m pretty average looking. That’s if you ignore my flaming red hair and my lack of height. I come in at five foot, child inches. Kind of like Lady Gaga in a red wig, but without her heels, looks or talent.

Hugh used to tell me I was so small that if I’d been born in winter I wouldn’t have made it through. He frequently saddled me with reminders like ‘Tiny silhouette, tiny brain,’ even before I knew what a silhouette was. Poring through a dictionary to find out was no easy feat for a dyslexic, making it even easier for Hugh to enjoy ‘proving’ his put-downs.

Dyslexia did have a good side. While reading is tough for me, even today – thank heavens for audiobooks and text-to-speech buttons – images have always come easily. Hence, art became my refuge. Initially, my passion was for photography. Ultimately, it led to my job as a conservator.

Unsurprisingly, given our family’s Van Gogh connection, my love of art was the one thing about me that Hugh was happy about. His full name is similar to mine – Hugh Vincent van Gogh Jego – but, unlike me, he boasts about it. Yes, I can still hear him intoning on automatic pilot, I am indeed related to the great artist. I’m his great-grandson, actually.

Sometimes he’d add, And see my red hair, and my daughter’s? Just like Vincent’s.

As if our hair colour proves a thing, especially when a cousin on my mother’s side has red hair too.

Hugh’s greatest frustration is that his – our – lineage is unacknowledged. There’s not a single mention of any Jego, or Jégo, in the official Van Gogh family history, and the recognised relatives, all descendants of Vincent’s brother Theo, won’t engage on it.

Hugh used to write to them, initially via the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam which houses the works the family transferred to the state-sponsored Vincent van Gogh Foundation. It’s where I did a secondment four years ago, and where I went for the conference and, no, I didn’t reveal my full name on either occasion.

Hugh wrote to them every year on the anniversary of Vincent’s death. Always the same letter. If you really want to honour Vincent, you’ll arrange for one of his brother Theo’s descendants to join me in a DNA test. That will prove we’re related.

They did respond once, years ago, offering to take the test but on the strict condition that Hugh first sign away any claims we had on the Van Gogh estate. He was incensed and, when I got old enough to understand, it was one of the few times I was on his side. Given our Jego family folklore, why should we give up our rights?

Over the years, there’s been all sorts of speculation as to why, on 23 December 1888, Vincent went nuts and sliced off the lower part of his left ear with a razor. There’s a book about it called Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story, except it isn’t the true story.

The real true story – so says our family – is that he only did it after my great-great-grandmother, Madame Marie Claire Jégo, a married and generally respectable woman in Arles, popped by the Yellow House, where Vincent lived, and revealed that she was pregnant.

To him.

A child was the last thing the penniless artist with a precarious mental condition wanted. Hence the ear, and the stint in the asylum that came soon afterwards.

Eighteen months later, in July 1890, when Vincent got a letter from Marie Claire telling him about their little boy, he shot himself. He died two days later.

Vincent is renowned not only as a brilliant artist but also a prolific letter writer. So, when Hugh told people our story, they’d often ask how it was possible that not a single one of the hundreds of letters Vincent wrote to Theo made even a fleeting reference to Marie Claire Jégo or their baby. And it’s true … they don’t. I’m so sure of it because when I did my Amsterdam secondment, I had access to the digitised files – before the letters were posted on the website – and I did a Google search trawling for even the barest mention.

According to Hugh, and his father before him, there were indeed letters between the Van Gogh brothers that referred to the pregnancy and the baby, and also letters between Vincent and Marie Claire. But after Vincent’s death, and Theo’s own death six months later, from syphilis, Theo’s widow began to champion Vincent’s work. The idea that Vincent had an heir, let alone one who might make a claim on his estate, did not suit the narrative she spent the rest of her life spinning. She got Marie Claire to sign, in today’s parlance, a blatant gag agreement. She paid her off, buying both her silence and her letters. She then burned every letter, Marie Claire’s, Vincent’s and Theo’s, that referred to the affair or to the baby.

Hugh gets enraged every time he tells the story. Me, while I understand how he feels, I’m relaxed about it. History is messy.

*

What I’m not okay with – and never will be – is how Hugh treated my mother.

Lauren’s hand stirs inside mine, and I squeeze it gingerly. ‘JJ,’ she croaks, ‘Promise me one thing.’

I move in closer, my forehead lightly kissing hers.

‘Anything,’ I tell her.

‘Promise me you won’t let your father come to my funeral.’

3

Claude FontaineMonte Carlo, Monaco2020

The penthouse-floor boardroom at the law offices of Fontaine & Fontaine was big enough to house two squash courts and, once, it did. That was before the firm’s founder, Jacques Fontaine, bought the whole building, gutted it and, on this floor, tore down the exterior wall to install a metres-long floor-to-ceiling window.

Jacques had a good eye for value. He knew back then that opening up his main conference room to this postcard-perfect view over the famous Port Hercules marina and the Monaco Grand Prix finish line meant he would more easily get away with whacking big premiums on top of his firm’s already stratospheric fees. The squash courts’ hardwood floor became plush beige carpet, and he made the new boardroom grand enough to house a huge single-slab table of pink Italian marble and thirty capacious black-leather-backed armchairs spread around it.

Despite the steep outlay, the office had barely been used in the past few months. Even today only a skeleton staff were in, the majority teleworking from wherever. One partner, for example, picked up sticks as soon as Covid-19 struck and moved his family to their holiday house in Malta. He hadn’t left the island since. Whenever Claude Fontaine, Jacques’ only child and his successor as senior partner, asked the émigré how he was doing, he’d say, ‘Time simply Zooms by.’ Claude was growing to despise him.

The good news was that Monaco’s lockdowns and curfews had ended, at least for now, though the principality was still cautious, mandating masks in public and social distancing in private.

Claude, the newly minted senior partner, the ‘& Fontaine’ in the logo screwed into the wall, was one of the handful who still came into the office every day. This practice felt crucial now that Jacques, until recently a towering presence, could no longer manage it.

It was the tail end of Claude’s first week as senior partner. Jacques’ incipient dementia and his increasingly frequent episodes of forgetfulness and awkward, random spouting of client business had reached the point where the other partners gave Claude an ultimatum … either step into Jacques’ shoes, and sit at his desk, take over his clients and send him where he could do no harm, or they’d quit. Claude had no choice, so Jacques was now at home, cared for by the same round-the-clock team who had looked after his late wife Gisèle during her own decline.

It was a sad ending for Jacques. Under his leadership and with Claude’s support, Fontaine & Fontaine had grown into a full-service firm that quietly boasted a client list of some of the world’s super-rich … tech magnates, private equity tycoons, and two famously competitive global media moguls, who, to Claude’s surprise, were as chummy as a pair of Speedos when they’d once sat together in this boardroom. While the firm’s clients were a veritable Who’s Who of the rich and famous, Jacques had drawn the line at Russian oligarchs. Not one had ever darkened the firm’s doors.

Jacques had started the firm in a shoebox of an office, doing ‘international tax planning and corporate administration’ for his very first client, Conor Farrelly. In the more freewheeling 1990s, tax planning and administration were code for plain and simple tax avoidance or, without the sugar-coating, tax fraud. Today, Fontaines still did tax law – what firm in Monaco didn’t? – but the work also spanned contracts, construction, finance, corporate law, intellectual property and more.

The Fontaine and Farrelly families had risen together, though Jacques always kept CCNN’s work close to his chest, and the Farrellys themselves even closer. Jacques had never introduced Claude – or any other partner – to Conor before he died. He also hadn’t introduced anyone from Fontaines to Conor’s successors, not that Claude minded. There were plenty of other clients to look after and, besides, with the Farrellys regularly delivering twenty per cent of the firm’s billings via Jacques, Claude and the other partners felt he could do what he liked.

Now, though, Nessa and Niall, the thirty-five-year-old Farrelly heirs, had flown in from Belfast with no warning. Given the Jacques situation, Claude was intent on giving full attention to the twins whether they had an appointment or not.

Nessa’s suit, the lawyer observed, didn’t scream money like the clothes of some of their other clients, who wanted everyone to see how rich they were, even from a distance. It was a no-nonsense elegant trouser suit, grey compared to Claude’s black though with no collared shirt, instead with a white silk blouse. Nessa’s outfit plus her hair, black and shiny but unkempt, suggested a woman who was practical and direct.

The receptionist indicated for the Farrellys to take their seats on the ‘good’ side of the boardroom table, where clients always sat opposite their lawyers. Ostensibly, it was so they’d enjoy the panoramic view, but it was also to bring the light streaming into their eyes so the lawyers would have the advantage. As Nessa brushed past, a head taller than the lawyer and literally looking down her nose, Claude could almost smell the woman’s disdain.

Niall came across as a rough, nasty piece of work, equally tall but a muscled skinhead. A pumper of steroids as much as iron, Claude thought and, without knowing much Irish, the word gobshite came to mind. Niall swaggered to his seat in his I don’t give a crap clothing, a pair of ripped-knee blue jeans, and a loose-fitting, distressed black leather jacket over a too-tight white T-shirt, with loud fluorogreen Nikes on his feet.

Claude intuited that while Niall was trouble, it was super-cool Nessa who was the one to watch out for. Niall might throw the punches but she’d be the one to land them.

As soon as Niall sat down, he put his Ray-Bans on and, before Claude could utter a word, said, ‘You could start off by thankin’ us Farrellys for payin’ for a fair whack of your feckin’ view.’

Claude knew not to respond. Niall looked down at his hands, picked dirt from under his fingernails and flicked it onto the table. Nessa reached over to push her brother’s hands into his lap, where Claude couldn’t see them.

‘Claude,’ Niall said, looking up again. ‘What kind of name is that?’

‘Huh?’ the lawyer blurted.

‘Enough, Niall,’ said Nessa. To Claude, she said, ‘Your father knows everythin’ about our business affairs … feckin’ everythin’. What we conduct through CCNN and the stuff we do, you know, outside of it.’

‘And?’ said Claude, ambiguously but with a smile the lawyer hoped covered up a total ignorance of what they were talking about. Over the years, there had been rumours of underworld connections, but Jacques swore he knew nothing about them and only did legit work for legit clients.

‘And? you say,’ Niall shot back. ‘Nice one, Claude. We Farrellys have done a lot of business with your old man Jacko, and that “retirement” bullshit you wrote us about in your “Dear Sir/Madam” form letter – when you shoulda picked up the feckin’ phone – that don’t cut it with us.’

A word like feck – let alone fuck – was a rarity in the hallowed halls of Fontaine & Fontaine, yet in their first minute there Niall and Nessa were brandishing it like a fist. Claude wanted to give them a disgusted stare but was smart enough to blink it away.

‘Way we hear it,’ Niall continued, ‘your Jacko’s eejit mouth been spoutin’ stuff it shouldna to people who shouldna be hearin’ it.’

Sadly, Claude knew what he was saying was true. Jacques’ decay had accelerated rapidly. Only yesterday, when Jacques was speaking to his chief nurse at home, he called her by the first name of another significant client – a household-name tech multibillionaire – and started revealing details of how they’d shifted profits tax-free through Nevis in the Caribbean, back through Bermuda and, finally, through Lichtenstein to Ireland. It was all perfectly legal but if it got into the public domain or leaked like the Panama Papers did, the anti-corporate activists would have a field day.

‘Old Jacko’s loose lips worry the shite out of us, and the Farrellys don’t like worryin’.’

Nessa cut in. ‘You don’t have a clue what Niall’s talkin’ about, do you? Jacques never tell you about our, em, shadow business?’

‘For sure he didn’t, Nessie,’ said Niall. ‘He weren’t meant to tell no one.’

The 5000-euro ergonomic leather chair Claude was sitting on suddenly felt like it was embedded with razor blades. This ‘shadow’ business? Is that a euphemism for shady or criminal?

If, as Claude suspected, the Farrellys were embroiled in truly nefarious activities and Jacques knew about them, or worse, facilitated them, it could destroy the firm. Claude knew to remain in a state of ignorance, not a totally foreign situation for a lawyer. That way, a dose of plausible deniability mixed with a timely shot of shock might just save the day.

Claude’s doomsday thoughts got interrupted when Niall, clearly sick of waiting for a response to Nessa’s question, said, ‘We got lawyer–client privilege here, don’t we? You know … like, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?’

Claude nodded, even though the proposition was only partially correct. Client privilege did not protect communications when they facilitated the commission of a crime or, as the lawyer was starting to suspect, crimes. Claude knew Niall would not want to hear that, so stayed silent.

Nessa stood up and strutted around the table, almost pressing herself up to the glass and looking out at the panorama, forcing Claude to swing around in the chair. The Mediterranean’s languid late afternoon sun was spilling into the room low and long, yet strongly enough to light up the sparkles scattered through Nessa’s wild black hair. Claude hadn’t noticed them before. Ms Farrelly wasn’t as understated a woman as Fontaine had first thought.

‘Those yachts out there,’ said Nessa, looking out over the harbour. ‘One of them yours?’

No was the strictly correct but misleading answer. Claude didn’t own a yacht anywhere. But Jacques’ pride and joy – redefining ostentation as an understatement – was indeed berthed at the exclusive Yacht Club de Monaco nearby. It was a forty-five-metre super yacht that when Jacques wasn’t using her for client entertainment, was chartered out at 170,000 euros a week in the high season. Instead of answering, Claude stared at the back of Nessa’s head and said, ‘You didn’t travel all the way here to discuss boats.’

Nessa swivelled around on her heels and held Claude’s gaze, sizing up the firm’s senior partner for what seemed an hour but was less than a minute. ‘So the lawyer can speak. How about that, Niall?’ she said eventually. ‘And wow! Froggie’s got a big plummy English accent. Daddy sent you to boarding school in Old Blighty, did he?’ It was true. ‘But who gives a shite about that,’ Nessa continued, sitting back in her seat. ‘You’re right. We didn’t come here to talk boats. We’re here to talk about art.’

4

Monaco’s Freeport – a tax-free storage facility – was where numerous Fontaines clients stored valuables or papers for safekeeping. Some did it to protect big-ticket artworks, jewellery or secret documents from the grabby clutches of disgruntled exwives or husbands, tax authorities or foreign governments. For them, the Freeport was a highly effective Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

The value of the artworks the Farrellys stored in the Monaco Freeport was eye-watering. According to Nessa, it was easily 600 million US dollars. According to Niall, it was closer to a billion.

If that news wasn’t enough to throw Claude as they sat in the boardroom, there was the twins’ startling revelation about Jacques. For decades, he’d been operating as both a custodian of the Farrellys’ artworks and their trusted middleman in what Nessa brazenly called ‘our more unorthodox transactions’.

‘These deals can be extremely lucrative, Claude,’ she said. ‘But making money costs money and findin’ the readies to pay our suppliers upfront for their, em, product isn’t always a viable option … You know, cash flow an’ all that.’

‘What products do you—?’

Nessa stopped the lawyer short. ‘First our dadaí and now us have built up a big bank of trust with our suppliers, which means that all our deals are BNPL. You know, buy now, pay later. They sell us a shipment of product wholesale, and we go on and sell it retail. We only need to pay what we owe ’em once we’ve sold it through our network.’

‘How big are these deals?’ asked Claude, not really wanting to know.

‘Our last deal? What was it, Niall?’

‘Wholesale price, fifty. Street value, two hundred. After expenses, a net to us of seventy.’

‘That’s millions? Millions of dollars?’

‘Right,’ said Nessa. ‘But because we’re not tradin’ in fridges, our suppliers take a temporary mortgage over our art … It’s to guarantee that we’ll pay ’em.’

‘How does that work?’

‘How do we feckin’ know?’ said Niall. ‘Your Jacko set up all the paperwork, so go ask ’im. Oh, I forgot, he’s gone a bit gaga, right?’

Nessa put her hand on her brother’s arm. ‘Jacques writes up a bill of sale over our stash – the art, I mean – and he holds it in trust for our supplier. When we pay ’em out of our profits, he tears it up and the art’s all ours again, free and clear to pledge for the next deal.’

‘It’s like that song the little kids sing,’ said Niall. ‘The wheels on the bus go round an’ round, round an’ round, round an’ round. A feckin’ beautiful arrangement.’

‘Jacques stands between the parties?’ Claude asked.

‘Exactly. He’s made hisself quite the trusted intermediary in our circles.’

‘And if you don’t pay your supplier?’ Claude was getting paranoid.

‘Don’t worry. The Farrellys always pay,’ said Nessa. ‘In our world, renegin’ on one of our suppliers would be a life-changin’ event, if you catch my drift. Life-changin’ for us, probably not for Jacques … or you.’

Probably. Claude’s mind was screaming the f-word over and over. The Farrellys’ art was stolen – it had to be – and they were using it to finance what …? Drugs? Arms? People smuggling? All the above?

Worse – way, way worse – Jacques was more than aware of it, he was the key to making it happen.

The Farrellys were undoubtedly revealing all this because they wanted something, and it – whatever it was – was scaring the hell out of Claude.

5

To buy time, Claude pressed the host’s call button that was screwed into the underside of the marble, a handy device Jacques had installed during the office fit-out.

Seconds later, a waiter in a black tux and white gloves knocked and entered. ‘Tea? Coffee? Cakes?’ he asked, the words slightly muffled behind his white face mask with a black F&F logo. ‘Monsieur et mademoiselle, our chef bakes the best galapian in the whole of Monaco.’

While the attendant had the clients’ attention, Claude shot Madame Pasquier a quick text message. TEXT ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT JACQUES’ FREEPORT VAULT DEALS FOR THESE CLIENTS.

The elderly woman, whose desk was not far from the boardroom, was always Madame Pasquier to Claude, though when she was out of earshot the associates called her ‘Blingette’. Widely regarded as the firm’s good luck charm, she had so much jewellery clanking on her wrists and off her earlobes that she was a waddling carillon, though she carried it off with panache. That she could manage to type a letter or bring in a file seemed an impossible feat, let alone raising her hand to touch up her lipstick, which she seemed to be doing every time Claude walked past her desk.

‘I know you frogs eat horse,’ Niall told the waiter, ‘but what the feck’s a gallopin’? Horse hoof on toast?’

‘M. Farrelly,’ said the waiter, ‘it is a sweet tart. Cantaloupe, cherry and almond glazed with honey. They really are to die for,’ he added, words Claude would have preferred he hadn’t used in this company.

The phone vibrated. Claude looked down to read a reply, of sorts, from Madame Pasquier. JACQUES NEVER PUTS ANYTHING ABOUT THE VAULT IN WRITING.

The phrase perverting the course of justice flew into Claude’s head and couldn’t be shaken out. What had the Farrellys done to Jacques? Claude had always known him to be principled, ethical, incorruptible. Was that not the case, or was there an explanation for why Jacques might have crossed a line he’d always told every member of the firm to stay on the right side of?

Claude deleted both messages, and decided to get Madame Pasquier to do likewise on her phone once the Farrellys had left. It was a deceit the goody-two-shoes lawyer would never have contemplated until now.

The waiter took the clients’ orders and left. Claude’s was always the same … a double-strength macchiato with a dollop of extra froth on top, and a side of iced water with a zest of lemon, although right now the double shot Claude really needed was scotch or vodka.

‘So,’ said Niall, ‘about those text messages of yours with old Blingette out there—’

‘What?’ said Claude, so stunned that the phone slipped and fell to the floor. ‘How did—’

Niall raised an eyebrow behind his Ray-Bans at the same time he lifted up his own phone. Even from across the table, Claude could see Niall’s screen. Both the initial message and Madame Pasquier’s reply were embarrassingly visible, neither text having been deleted.

Nessa tossed back her shock of hair and sneered. ‘Silly thing to do when you’re in the presence of the world master of man-in-the-middle.’

Niall took off his sunglasses, placed them on the boardroom table and stared creepily into Claude’s eyes. ‘There’s nothin’ I love more than bein’ the man in the middle, if you get my drift.’

‘Niall! Just show the fecker.’

He shrugged off his sister’s words and pulled a small device out of his jacket, a black box with three short, thick antennas sticking up from the sides. ‘This little baby squeezes Nessa and me into the airspace between your phone and the local cell tower. Whatever you type on your phone goes through us, so we can read it on our phones. What you receive, we get to read too. What you speak, we hear. It’s pretty dope, eh?’

‘That’s … that’s illegal. You can’t … I’m going to call—’

‘We can, we are and you won’t,’ Niall laughed.

‘Niall’s a thousand per cent right about that, counsellor. You’re callin’ nobody no time. Sure this is illegal, but what’s a felony or two between friends, eh? Especially when your precious dadaí’s been committin’ lots of them for us all these years. You’re dyin’ to know why we’re here, right? Because, dear Claude, today’s your lucky day. Today’s the day that you really step into your dadaí’s shoes. You, my friend, you are our new Jacques.’

Claude was momentarily stuck for words. ‘You can’t just burst in here and—’

Niall slammed his hand on the table. ‘Are you feckin’ listenin’? We feckin’ well can and we feckin’ well did.’

‘Claude. It’s simple, really,’ said Nessa, her voice low and purposeful, her eyes locking onto their lawyer’s. ‘We Farrellys have owned your father and his firm for years, he just couldn’t tell you. Now he’s passed the firm on to you, we own you too. So, Claude Fontaine, senior partner, from this moment on you will do exactly what we tell you when we tell you, no questions asked. Just like your good father did before he … you know.’

‘If I don’t?’

‘A great question that gets you the same answer our late dadaí gave your dadaí when he asked it,’ said Niall, ‘except for swappin’ the names around. If you do what the Farrellys want, you and your firm continue to make lots of dosh and, on top of that, you and your dadaí get to live long and fruitful lives. Maybe not so much Jacko anymore. But if you screw with us …’

‘Claude, you’re askin’ yourself why your dear old dadaí did all of this for us,’ said Nessa. ‘It’s simple, really. He wanted to save his wife and, with her gone – the light of God on her dear departed soul – he wanted to save you, his heir. So now it’s your turn to return the favour, if you get our drift. Niall, I believe we’re done here,’ she finished and started walking to the door. ‘We have a plane to catch.’

‘I’m the pilot,’ said Niall, winking at Claude as he pocketed the hacking device and his sunglasses, got up and followed his sister out.

6

JJSydney2020

How long is this Covid thing going to last? The state government’s just extended Greater Sydney’s lockdown, again, so we’re all still working from home. WFH is 2020’s new buzzword, not that it’s a word and, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be a thing either, not for people in my line of work anyway.

It might be fine for people in admin, like Goldberg, my friend at work … people whose job is to spend their whole day tapping away at their computers. But how’s an art conservator supposed to repair a tear in a Sidney Nolan or clean off the varnish on a Grace Cossington Smith when those works can’t leave the gallery, and I’m stuck inside my poky studio apartment twiddling my thumbs, too scared to go out because some mad jogger will breathe all over me, or someone will attack me in the supermarket because I nabbed the last roll of toilet paper?

And what about these virtual video meetings, where we’re all little squares, waving at each other and trying to talk at the same time with the wi-fi cutting in and out? How long are we going to be doing that? It’s four months so far.

My phone rings where I left it, over on the kitchen counter. It’s probably work calling to tell me I’m being furloughed, a word I’d only ever heard in American war movies until now. Not being a big reader – dyslexia! – and with less experience of life than other people my age, movies and TV shows are a bit of a thing with me, a crutch. If I’m nervous, that’s where I’ll often turn – the older, the more comforting.

I let the phone ring out, to delay the inevitable. Maybe I’ll pretend I never got the call.

I hear a beep, so it must have gone to voicemail. I get up to listen to the bad news, and even before I press play I know it’s worse than I thought.

It wasn’t work calling.

It was Hugh. His number is still in my contacts.

We haven’t spoken since Mum died. The man hasn’t even sent me a single birthday or Christmas card. In truth, I haven’t sent him any either.

I haven’t sent him any Father’s Day cards either. I mean, what would they say?

Dear Dad, thanks for all your support. No way.

You were there with me when I needed you the most. Not that either.

I wouldn’t be who I am without you, which is true but in this case it’s not a compliment.

Ours is a love that leaves nothing unsaid because there’s nothing to say.

Yet, out of the blue, Hugh decides on a whim that he’s going to crash back into my life.

At first, I don’t listen to the message. I’m fuming over him invading my space – what little I have.

Ignoring him – which makes me feel marginally better – I make myself a cup of coffee. It’s coffee in name only, since it’s instant, just like Hugh’s not really a father. I sit back down with my mug and log in to Netflix, deciding I better get as much of it in as I can before I lose my job and can’t afford the subscription.

But later, as the end credits roll on Schitt’s Creek, I pick up the phone, grit my teeth and play the message.

Ah, JJ … hey … hello. Hi. It’s me. Hugh, I mean. Your father. But you know that. Obviously. I’m, ah, ringing because … well … I want to apologise. Need to apologise, really. Since we last … you know … saw each other, a lot’s happened. I’ve changed. I’ve really changed. I’m sure you won’t believe that but … Anyway, if you’re willing to meet me, I’d like to try and clean our slate …

I hear a woman’s voice in the background. Go on, tell her. Explain.

I throw the phone at the sofa, pick up the remote and settle down to watch the next episode of Schitt’s Creek. It’s called ‘Rebound’.

7

JJThe present day

The pandemic is now a tragic, lingering memory. We’ve all got stories, but my mother’s great-aunt Felicia … I still can’t talk about her story.

For a while now, for most of us, life has got pretty much back to normal, though a different normal, to be sure. My current normal is a lot different from my old normal, hence my smile stretching ear to ear. For starters, it’s because I’m in command of this swanky motor yacht … I’m sitting on it right now. And I’m living in the ritzy apartment that comes with it. Or is it the other way round?

In command is a bit of an overstatement. It doesn’t mean I’m actually at the helm and steering the boat. Truth be told, my captaincy hasn’t moved us an inch off the marina berth. This is the first time I’ve been on a boat that isn’t a ferry, and the only thing I’m really in command of is the vodka and tonic I’m drinking while I’m sitting up on the flybridge and taking photos of the sunset, so I can post the best one on my Instagram later. I’m pretty good at Instagram. While I don’t have a zillion followers – not even close – my numbers are slowly building. Same with my views on TikTok.

Taking shots while my bare toes are being licked and tickled is a weird new experience. But that’s Biscotti Pippen, or Scottie, for you. He’s named after some American basketballer who played with Michael Jordan, apparently. Him I’ve heard of. Scottie’s the third of my short-term charges. Like the boat, he comes with the apartment I’m house-sitting. Scottie’s a black-haired two-year-old lurcher, a term for a greyhound–whippet–collie cross I’d never heard of until a week ago.

The final rays of the summer sun are raking down over the hillside onto my face from Mrs Macquarie’s Point, the peninsula across the other side of the narrow slip of Woolloomooloo Bay that’s right in front of me. With my second V&T slipping me into chill mode, I gently place my camera beside me on the soft white leather captain’s chair I’m slowly sinking into. My camera is Sony’s latest digital powerhouse – an Alpha. With all the lenses a budding camera queen would ever need, it was my early Christmas present to myself. I saved for years to buy it.

Saving isn’t so hard if you kept your job during Covid, like I did, with my everlasting thanks to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. For two years, I had pretty much nothing to spend my money on. Even if I was big on socialising, which I’m not, there were no concerts, shows, restaurants, vacations. Pretty much just Netflix and books though, in my case, audiobooks.

Still, shelling out thousands for a camera was not a big leap for me. Most people don’t get it, thinking photography is game over because the lenses on their smartphone are a zillion times better than the one on the box that used to swing off their wrists for taking holiday snaps. Who needs a real camera? they say.

Photographers, I reply. People like me.

Of course this isn’t my first camera. That one was secondhand. My mother put money aside out of her housekeeping allowance to buy me a used Pentax MZ-5 single lens reflex 35mm film camera for my thirteenth birthday. I loved that camera but we had to keep it hidden from Hugh, or he would’ve gone ballistic – at her for buying it, and at me for taking my focus off all things Van Gogh.

My new baby is by far my best. It comes with a 50-megapixel sensor. Fifty! It can capture bursts of images at thirty frames per second and record 8K video. The autofocus – a feature that previously I scoffed at – does stuff I don’t pretend to understand. Its machine-learning algorithms – whatever they are – can pick out faces and eyes over a huge distance, and in the dark. Watch out, David Attenborough, I’m coming for you.

As well as 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses, I splashed out on a 70-300mm zoom, though what the camera store called lightweight doesn’t reflect how my triceps experience it. After taking as many shots as I have, I reckon I’ll never need to lift weights again.

I’m pretty sure that carrying the gear around so often has given me a shoulder lean. But that’s a price worth paying. You’ve got to be ready at all times, say the super-famous photographers. I’ve listened to all the audiobooks of their memoirs and biographies. You never know when the frame that’ll make your reputation is going to pop up in front of you. Imagine Max Dupain walking along the sand at Culburra Beach and the Sunbaker guy is laying there, but Max didn’t have his camera. A disaster!

That said, even photographers need some shut-eye. I close my lids and lean back, letting the leather embrace me as the incoming tide rocks the boat with a motion that normally would be pacifying but is making me a little woozy. It’s probably the vodka.