The Horse's Arse Read online

  A third man – the artist’s son Martin Phelan – had been wanted for questioning, but had declined the request to give evidence by video link from the Gulf State of Khaleej where he was currently resident. The set of 12 canvases that a neighbour had witnessed him removing from his father’s property had not been traced. Their large size and square format argued against their being copies of early modern paintings and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the police had accepted the artist’s explanation – corroborated by his students – that the canvases were a decorative commission for an interior design consultancy specialising in art for high-end hotels.

  A fourth man, Nigel Vouvray-Jones – director of the auction house RazzleDeVere that had handled the sale of the fake Derain – had been questioned under caution and released. Although open to accusations of professional negligence, he appeared to have acted in good faith. As a former member of staff, Cassandra Pemberton – author of the auction catalogue authenticating the work as “quintessential blue-chip Fauve” – had explained in the witness box, scientific checks were not always performed on paintings where the provenance was sound. In this case the painting had been sourced through a reliable dealer and the provenance, though unusual, had made a good story. Good stories sold pictures and an auction house that looked too closely into a painting’s history risked discovering things it would rather not know. In the art business, uncovering fakes was to no one’s benefit; ignorance was bliss for all concerned.

  Ms Pemberton had since left the company.

  Tests on the paintings conducted by independent experts from Westerby’s and conservators at the Courtauld had revealed that, of the three completed copies, two were painted over previous images and the third – the Vlaminck – was on a form of undyed linen employed by Habitat in the 1970s for its popular design of Director’s Chair. Radiographic analysis of the Jawlensky revealed an earlier painting of a kitten playing with a ball of wool, signed Dorothy Paton and dated 1963, on a standard grade mountboard marketed by Sanders & Peyton under the brand name ‘Girtin’ in the post-war period. But X-radiography of the Derain picture connected it directly to Phelan, revealing barges on a river, possibly the Thames, with the letters PP inscribed in the bottom right-hand corner in the Roman serifed capitals typical of the artist’s signature. Examination of the large number of other signature works by Phelan in Duval’s possession demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the over-painted image was his. A similar river scene with barges bearing the same signature had appeared in evidence alongside an X-radiograph of the Derain.

  The artist’s involvement in forgery was beyond dispute, but the dealer had continued to protest his innocence. His defence was that Phelan had approached him with the pictures, claiming to have come across them among a stack of antique frames in a junk shop in Paris. If Duval hadn’t looked at the pictures too closely, it was because he felt that was the auction house’s job. After his researches into the paintings’ provenance had traced them back to the Meyer Collection, his only deception had been to embellish the truth by constructing a convincing back-story, one that an auction house would be likely to swallow. Having once headed a department at RazzelDeVere, he knew exactly what sort of story that was.

  He felt no guilt about misleading a firm that had unfairly dismissed him. What he felt guilty about was the paltry fee he had paid Phelan for a painting that would later realise £16m. But the fee was all he could afford at the time, as he was in the throes of an expensive divorce. He’d had every intention of making reparation after the sale of the work.

  Duval’s counsel, in closing arguments for the defence, assured the jury that his client was a man of previous good character and sound professional reputation. In the 30 years he had worked at fine art auctioneers RazzellDeVere as the firm’s expert in modern European art, he had become an acknowledged authority in his field.

  Unfortunately, in the current state of the market, auction houses no longer required expertise of this sort. In fact, such expertise had become an obstruction. Subjecting pictures and provenances to proper evaluation was a time-consuming and costly business that slowed the sales cycle and carried the inherent risk that the brakes might have to be applied. In today’s fast-moving global market, expertise was only of academic value; in practical terms it was a liability. What was needed for the new breed of international collector with no knowledge of western art and no time to acquire any was the appearance of expertise, and that was supplied by auction sales catalogues. This was the reason Duval’s employers had made him redundant, precipitating the financial and domestic crisis that had driven an honest man to deception.

  In the witness box the previous week Duval had taken the unorthodox step of launching a vigorous defence of his associate, arguing that in a market denuded of professionals, artists like Phelan were the last remaining experts on painting technique. In fact, he maintained, they would soon be the only people left with the time, the motivation and visual skills to investigate how historic paintings were made. A market in which artists were the only art experts was a market wide open to abuse, especially given that, of all the contributors to the art economy, artists were the most badly paid. A recent survey had revealed that fine artists in Britain earned under £10,000pa on average from their art, out of which they had to pay for expensive materials. If an artist couldn’t earn a living wage from his own art, an obvious solution was to earn it from somebody else’s.

  “You’ve seen the so-called ‘fakes’,” he told the court, “they’re good paintings. I’ve not seen better, and I’ve seen worse by these same artists. Take The Harbour at Collioure. Eight months ago it was worth £16m and now it’s worth nothing. If nobody knew it was a Phelan and not a Derain, it would be hanging on the wall of a museum where generations of visitors could enjoy it and art students learn from it. What does it mean to say that a picture is worth £16m? What does that monetary value measure? Nothing has materially changed in The Harbour at Collioure between now and when the auctioneer’s hammer came down last October. It’s the same painting. Even if the money were simply an investment in Derain futures it would be a safer place to put it than a Ponzi scheme, because the ‘fraud’ need never have come to light. Hundreds, even thousands of brilliant forgeries are hanging at this very moment on the walls of major galleries.”

  Levene had overruled the prosecuting counsel’s objection that Duval was digressing. He had been keen to hear the dealer out, and he wasn’t alone. Throughout his evidence you could have heard a paperclip drop. In the media gallery the reporters bent over their notepads scribbling; in the front row of the public gallery the women leant over the railing, displaying their décolletages to advantage. The dealer was clearly enjoying his moment, and he wasn’t finished yet.

  “For nearly a year my stockroom has been stuffed with paintings with this artist’s signature, the double ‘PP’ you’ve seen on his ‘autograph’ pictures. The pictures are of subjects similar to the ‘fakes’ he is accused of painting – river scenes, still lifes with flowers, nudes – all painted in a signature style, the style of the artist. He has spent a lifetime developing that signature style, a style that only a top class faker would be able to copy, but the signature is worthless because it is not a recognised name. If I put the lot on the market tomorrow I’d be lucky to raise a few thousand pounds. That’s the price of a lifetime’s work in today’s art market.”

  A murmur of appreciation ran through the public gallery before Levene allowed a second objection from the prosecution to stand, and the dealer was led back to the dock. He had had his say.

  That was a week ago. This morning the judge would give his summing up and the jury would withdraw to consider their verdicts. He didn’t expect them to take long. After the verdict was delivered, defending counsel would have the chance to put forward mitigation.

  Phelan, who was representing himself, had appointed a McKenzie friend to advise him. The fact that the man was a former solicitor was unlikely to affect the sentence. Whatever
the rights and wrongs of the case, the law was clear.

  * * *

  Southwark Crown Court looked more like a bunker to Daniel than a seat of justice. At 9.30 on a Tuesday morning the place was buzzing, with the queue for security checks stretching to the street. A young woman reporter from the Evening Standard explained the procedure: empty pockets – keys, phone, pen, pad, money – at the security gate and cross to the unmanned reception desk to the right of the lobby to consult the printed list of cases being heard that day.

  When Daniel reached the desk, a young black kid was riffling through the list. “That’s me,” he announced with pride, finding his name among the defendants on trial in Court No. 13.

  Daniel was taken aback. He’d somehow expected those on trial to arrive through a different entrance from the general public, but apparently the Manichean binary didn’t operate in the lobby where innocence and guilt remained grey areas. It kicked in on the other side of the courtroom doors.

  The trial of Patrick Aloysius Phelan and James Gerald Duval was in Court No. 2.

  The lift disgorged Daniel onto a long wide corridor full of barristers in wigs and gowns, walking back and forth with bundles of papers under their arms or holding whispered conversations with their clients on the benches along the walls. Above the benches were framed reproductions of wishy-washy watercolours of flowers and fruit, the sort of anaesthetic art you’d expect to find in a dentist’s waiting room.

  It was Daniel’s first visit to a law court. Pushing open the swing doors into Courtroom No. 2 felt like entering an ethical decompression chamber: outside, the familiar messy world of moral uncertainty; inside, an alternative universe of forensic certitude.

  From his seat in the second row of the media gallery, Daniel found himself surveying the two men in the dock from the point of view of a court illustrator. The overlapping profiles gave him a reassuring sense of déjà vu. There was no illustrator in court today – the case wasn’t high-profile enough for the profile treatment – but the contrast offered by the overlaid silhouettes was a missed opportunity, he thought, for a caricaturist. Between the crisp lines of Duval’s chiseled nose and chin jutting smartly over the collar of his laundered shirt and the shapeless scrawl of Phelan’s bulbous proboscis and dimpled jowls sinking into the sagging neck of his purple T-shirt, a latter-day Leonardo would have had a field day.

  The judge would have made an interesting study too, though more for an artist of Gillray’s era. Unusually, his features perfectly fitted his wig. He was an 18th century figure, small, wiry, birdlike, with sharp disconcertingly pale blue eyes. Daniel suspected that under his judicial robes he might, in silk stockings and buckled shoes, have displayed a finely turned calf.

  As he got out his notepad, Daniel became aware of another pair of eyes fastened on him, as pale as the judge’s but more rheumy. The new editor of RDV magazine was sitting three along from him, behind the reporter from the Evening Standard.

  Crispin Finch would have his work cut out reversing the damage to RDV’s reputation from Cassandra Pemberton’s widely reported outburst in court. It would have been difficult to imagine him looking tighter-lipped than in his dying days at Marquette, but he was looking it now. Daniel felt a twinge of pity for his predecessor. Hard enough to lose your job of 30 years to a greenhorn with no experience who didn’t really want it, worse to trade the peppery but warm-blooded FLP for the bloodless, notoriously cruel NVJ.

  As the judge prepared to begin his summing up, Daniel noticed a slight disturbance in the public gallery opposite. An elderly lady in a lilac straw hat had arrived late to find all the seats taken and a swarthy, burly man stood up to offer her his place. She smiled her thanks and sat down quickly, removing the hat and putting it in her lap.

  Daniel recognised the lady painter from the allotments. She seemed to have brought half the garden with her: the brim of her hat was a cornucopia of flowers.

  The court fell silent as the judge began to speak.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence in this case. Whilst the personal circumstances described earlier in court may have aroused some sympathy among you in offering an explanation of the accused’s motivation for committing the offences, this does not lessen the gravity of the offences in the eyes of the law. You are adjudicating on a case of fraud and the task before you as a jury is simply to decide, on the evidence before you, whether the man you see before you is guilty of committing the fraudulent acts of which he stands accused.

  “In a case such as this involving a high degree of skill and ingenuity, there is a risk that the very cleverness of the deception may be a factor in favorably influencing a jury’s decision. But one can never condone the practice of fraud by making a false representation, and there should be no doubt in your minds that passing off an article for sale as something other than it is is wilful deception. We are talking here about a very large sum of money, such as most of us would not expect to earn in a lifetime. If the offences described were indeed committed by the accused, then they amount to deception on a grand scale.”

  It took the jury less than an hour to reach a unanimous verdict of guilty on the various counts of which James Duval was accused, although Daniel thought he detected a trace of regret in the forewoman’s voice as she delivered it.

  A ripple of unrest passed through the public gallery as the judge declared the morning session closed. The lady with the lilac hat pulled out a lace-trimmed hanky; the swarthy man standing at the back wiped his brow on his sleeve. The court would reconvene for sentencing after lunch.

  * * *

  At 2pm everyone was back in their places, if they had ever left them. The tension in the public gallery visibly tightened as Patrick Phelan was asked if he wished to put forward mitigation before sentencing. He nodded, and after a murmured consultation with the man beside him stood up a little unsteadily and was led from the dock by an usher. In the witness box he pulled a crumpled sheet of notes from the cargo pocket of his shorts and smoothed it carefully out on the lectern in front of him. He spread his hands, which were quivering slightly, and cleared his throat.

  “My friend Dino over there,” he nodded towards the public gallery, “who is an architect, by the way, not a lawyer, tells me that where he comes from they have a proverb: ‘The man who defends himself has a fool for a lawyer’. Well, I’m a fool, always have been. If I wasn’t I’d never have gone into this rum business called art. But I can’t see the point in hiring a lawyer to waste hours of everyone’s time saying what I can say myself in five minutes. So here goes.

  “An artist’s life is a struggle, and mine has been no exception. I struggled to keep my wife – lost her – and my son Marty, doing night jobs and bits of teaching to earn a crust. In the early days I had a couple of sell-out exhibitions and some mentions in the press as up-and-coming, but after coming up, if I ever did – no one told me – my career ‘plateaued’, as I think the expression is.

  “In the past fifty years I’ve painted a few thousand pictures and in a good year sold a dozen, through open exhibitions, competitions, studio shows, that sort of thing. Without a gallery to represent you, those are your options. The most I’ve earned from a single painting, after deducting the commission, is £900.

  “I don’t paint pictures simply for my own pleasure, I paint them to go out in the world and spread themselves around. But of course it’s also an addictive habit: ‘Never a day without a line,’ as the poet said. I’ve painted subjects I knew would never sell just because they were crying out to be painted. Unprofessional, I grant you, and no way to make a living.

  “Since this is a court of law, I’ll make a confession. I don’t regard the daubs you’ve seen as a crime, nor do I regret the time I wasted on them, although they did take me away from my life’s work. As Picasso freely admitted, all artists are thieves – the good ones, anyway. We learn our trade by copying other artists and stealing their best licks. Even later in life, when we’re wizened old pros, it can be a useful ex
ercise to return to the practice.

  “The only copy I regret, for a number of reasons, is the Modigliani.” A nervous glance towards the public gallery drew a smile from a pretty young woman in the front row, who shook her head disparagingly, jiggling her earrings. “That was inexcusable and gratuitous – I did it for the money. I’d nothing to learn from the Eyetie’s sloppy drawing.

  Sorry Dino, no reflection on your countrymen,” he picked out the swarthy man standing with his arms folded at the back, “but it’s not good enough for the nation of Michelangelo.

  “The other copies I’m reasonably pleased with, especially the Jawlensky. I like to think the old Ruskie would have approved. That was just the warm-up exercise needed for my final assault on my life’s work, which is now completed thanks to the pressure of this prosecution. For that I’m grateful to the Crown,” he addressed the judge. “There’s nothing like an extended period of bail to focus the mind and sharpen the perceptions.

  “One final thing. If I’d known what that Derain would sell for I’d never have painted it. No painting by any artist, dead or alive, is worth that sort of money. That is the only crime I’m ashamed of, the crime of colluding with an art market that has no understanding of the value of art.”

  As Phelan pulled out a red paisley handkerchief to blow his nose the public gallery erupted into applause and, in defiance of the judge’s cries of ‘Order!’, a rose sailed through the air and landed at his feet. In the second row of the public gallery the allotment lady was standing holding her hat. For a frail old woman, she was a surprisingly good shot. Seeing an usher moving in to eject her from the court, Daniel pushed past the other reporters and out of the courtroom in time to catch her being escorted down the corridor.