The Dealer's Call: A DI James Fitzgerald Novel by JJ Moriarty

Author:JJ Moriarty [Moriarty, JJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

fourteen

James looked in the window. Imprinted on the glass in gold lettering it said ‘TANAGER GALLERY’. The doors were old, brown, and made of solid wood. James knocked gently.

Behind the glass, on the gallery’s main floor, James could see two women talking. When he knocked, one walked to the back of the gallery, the other came to the front door and unlocked the complicated mechanism holding the wooden doors closed.

She poked her head out.

“Hi there,” she said.

James took out his ID.

“I was expecting Aine,” the woman said, frowning.

“She’s my partner. I’m going to be doing the questioning today.”

The woman opened the door fully.

“Come on in.”

James stepped inside and the woman shut the door behind him.

“I’m Emma.”

They shook hands. She was wearing round, horn-rimmed glasses, and dressed in a very bright yellow jumper and jeans that ended before her ankles.

James looked around the large room. The walls were bare white, with eight paintings hung around the room. There were five sculptures int eh centre of the floor. Four of them were small and stood on raised columns. One of them, a sculpture of a woman wrestling a fish, was James’ height.

“Do you see anything you like?” Emma said.

“I don’t even know what I’m looking at,” James said.

“It’s all Irish. That’s what we sell.”

“Only Irish art?”

“Both living and dead, but only Irish artists.”

James found himself stepping closer to one of the nearest paintings. It was a blurred blue sky and a white horizon. There wasn’t much else.

“Do you like it?”

“I don’t have forty-five thousand Euros, whether I like it or not,” James said, reading the small price written on the wall beside the painting.

“Your partner seemed nice. How long have you been together?” Emma said.

“I meant partner as in my detecting partner.”

“My mistake.”

Emma became a little embarrassed.

“That’s Ok.”

“She said you wanted to ask questions about Josh?” Emma said.

“I did. We found your name on his computer. You two emailed a lot, and he called you a few times in the last few months”

“I dealt with Josh a bit.”

“Why was that?”

“I’m one of the head curators here. I sold the first piece Josh bought from us, and from then on, I contacted him whenever something came in I thought he would like. I was sad to hear he’d died.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Only as an art buyer. As a buyer, I knew him well.”

“We reviewed his financial accounts. He spent a lot of money here.”

“More than three million Euro, yes.”

“That’s a lot of forty-five grand paintings.”

“He didn’t buy many of the forty-five grand paintings.”

“What did he buy then?”

“It depends. Most of them were older though. Much older,” Emma said.

“Still Irish?”

“Always. That’s the only kind of art I’m an expert in.”

“What kind of man was Josh?” James said.

“I only know about his taste in art. Not anything about his personal life.”

“And what was his taste in art?”

“Particular. He wanted something very specific.”

“Did he?”

“It’s the same with any private art buyer. When you work in private sales, you must find exactly what your buyers like, then try to keep supplying it to them.

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