Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle

Author:Peter Mayle [Mayle, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-79196-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Bernard Denoyer was a troubled man as he performed his dutiful fifty laps in the swimming pool at Cooper Cay. Claude’s call from Cap Ferrat had woken him at six, and what Claude told him had made a disquieting start to the day. Initially, he had thought—he had hoped—that his wife, Catherine, might have been organizing some redecoration as a surprise. But when he had asked her, she knew nothing about it; nor did she know anyone called Paisley.

He reached the end and turned, lowering his head in the cool water as he pushed off, watching the slow progress of his shadow on the bottom of the pool. If this scheme of Holtz’s didn’t work out, he would be in trouble. It had sounded so foolproof, too. A simple substitution of the Cézanne by a wonderful forgery, the original discreetly sold, the proceeds hidden away in Switzerland. No death duties, and plenty of cash to cover those unfortunate losses incurred during the Credit Lyonnais fiasco. And now this. Why was the young photographer so interested, and who the hell was this Paisley? He finished his laps, put on a toweling robe, and went to his study, shutting the door behind him before picking up the phone.

For once, Rudolph Holtz was unable to provide any reassurance. He, too, was a troubled man as he finished speaking to Denoyer and climbed down the steps from his bed. The photographer was becoming a pest; more than a pest. He was becoming dangerous. Holtz shaved and showered, and sat brooding over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. The scam he devised had seemed foolproof, and indeed had worked for two years without a hitch. Like all the best scams, it was relatively straightforward. Camilla, through DQ, could gain access to the homes of the rich. She could spend hours, even days, roaming through the art-encrusted rooms, ingratiating herself with the owners and their servants, taking Polaroids, making notes. By the time she was finished, she would have the material for one of her predictably fawning articles. But that was merely the front.

The other purposes of her research—and these, naturally, never appeared in print—were to establish two things. First, the owners’ pattern of absence, the dates on which they regularly left their principal residences for the delights of the Caribbean or the ski slopes. And second, the extent and sophistication of the security arrangements, which were often out-of-date or surprisingly inadequate.

Armed with this information, Holtz then briefed the specialists: his forger and his removal men. A chosen painting would be copied (and the Dutchman was a genius, no doubt about it), and when the owners were safely on some distant alp or beach, the removal men—artists, too, in their own stealthy way—would tiptoe in and substitute the fake for the original. To all but the most expert and suspicious eye, nothing would have changed. The original would find a new home in a gloater’s vault or a Tokyo penthouse. The Swiss accounts of Holtz and Camilla would swell in comfortable secrecy.

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