After an hour, Annette stood up, walked across her office, stretching. Her eyes fell on the blow-up of the Rembrandt, and she went over to it, picked it up, carried it to the back of her office, and put it in the large cupboard where she kept such things. Closing the door, she turned around, her eyes sweeping over the room, liking what she saw: a huge space with two large windows, cream walls, a dark blue carpet and a paucity of furniture. The only pieces were her desk, an antique French bureau plat, resembling a large table with drawers, two chairs, one on each side of it, and the credenza along the end wall facing the desk.
She smiled to herself as she sat down at the desk, thinking of the clients who took one look around when they first came here, and asked where the art was. Her answer was always the same, ‘I’m waiting for it,’ she would say. ‘The art you are going to sell. Or buy.’
There was a knock on the door, and her assistant, Esther Oliver, came in, carrying a folder. ‘You asked for this the other day, Annette,’ she said, handing it to her. ‘Requests for interviews from every newspaper and magazine you can think of.’ She grinned at Annette as she took the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘You’ll be busy for months if you decide to do them all.’
‘Marius said he would go through them with me when he gets back from Barcelona later this week. I think he intends to pick out only a couple. We know I can’t do them all.’
‘There are quite a few top-notch journalists asking to meet you,’ Esther pointed out.
‘Marius will make the decision,’ Annette murmured.
Doesn’t he always?, Esther thought, but said, ‘In the meantime, you haven’t forgotten your appointment at noon with Mrs Clarke-Collingwood, have you? About her two Landseers.’
‘Oh, bother, I had.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But I’m all right, she won’t be here for half an hour.’ Shaking her head, Annette explained, ‘I just got carried away with thoughts of the new auction I’m planning.’
‘It’s going to be exciting. You can certainly generate a great deal of publicity in the next few months. Where will you hold it? Sotheby’s or Christie’s?’
‘Sotheby’s. In New York.’ Esther stared at her, for a moment lost for words. ‘Fantastic,’ she responded finally, and wondered what the controlling Marius Remmington would have to say about that.
The Degas bronze was standing exactly where she had left it that morning … in the middle of the glass coffee table in the living room of their Eaton Square flat. Annette stood gazing at it, admiring it, almost gloating over it before she went to the storage room and got out two spotlights and various cameras.
Carrying the equipment back to the other room, she quickly set up, and was soon shooting the statue from various angles. She was an excellent photographer, especially when it came to inanimate objects, and after two hours she was satisfied she had a series of great photographs. Among them would be the one that would make a perfect blow-up.
Leaving everything where it was, in case she decided to take a series of pictures the following morning in daylight, Annette went into the kitchen. She found a note from Elaine telling her there was a cottage pie in the fridge that only needed heating up. Not feeling hungry, she poured herself a glass of sparkling water, and carried it to her small office at the back of the apartment, sat down on the sofa and dialled her sister.
‘It’s me, darling,’ she said when the phone was picked up.
‘Hi!’ Laurie exclaimed. ‘How did it go today?’
‘Really very well,’ Annette answered, and went on to explain, ‘I had several conversations with my New York office, and Penelope and Bryan were instantly geared up. Within minutes.’
‘I can well imagine. It’s your enthusiasm. It ignites everyone else’s.’
Annette laughed. ‘I hope so. Anyway, they’re one thousand per cent behind me and my plan to hold the auction in New York. They were bubbling over with ideas, quickly pulled up lists of their clients who would be potential buyers, were suggesting various dates, and even focusing on the design of the invitation.’
‘When do they want you to have the auction?’
‘September. After Labor Day weekend, obviously, and we finally did settle on a tentative date in the middle of the month. Tuesday the eighteenth of September. Or the next day, Wednesday, but not any later that week. I think I will settle on the Tuesday, since they seemed to think this was best. But they will have to check that out with Sotheby’s, to be certain that the date is still available.’
‘What thoughts did they have about the invitation?’ Laurie now asked, very curious, because she herself had been working on ideas for the invitation and a theme for the auction all day.
‘To be honest, they didn’t actually have anything special, or specific. I was a bit startled that they would even try to come up with something. They only just heard about the new art to be auctioned. Still, I didn’t want to discourage them.’
‘I have several thoughts,’ Laurie volunteered, ‘but only one idea works.’
‘And what’s that?’ Annette asked eagerly, knowing full well that her sister was immersed in Degas, and had a superior knowledge of Mary Cassatt’s work and her life in Paris. If anyone could come up with a theme for these two artists, it was Laurie. ‘So come on, tell me. You’re not saying anything.’
‘I went back to my research on Degas, just to refresh my memory, and I re-checked Cassatt again. As you know, they were great friends but not romantically involved. They fought. He was a difficult man, had a bad habit of slapping people down, mostly artists like himself. She stood up to him, stood her ground. She’d learned to do that with her difficult father – good practice, I suppose. Also, she was extremely independent. Anyway, to get to the point, you have two pieces of art by Degas, the great painting of the horses and carriage at the races, and the bronze dancer. But only one Cassatt. I wish you had another. Then we could build a theme on Degas and Cassatt – friends, rivals and admirers of each other’s work. Or master and pupil, since Cassatt learned so much from him.’
‘It had occurred to me that we could link them, but you’re correct, we do need another Cassatt. Incidentally where does that leave the Giacometti? He was a Modernist, and the sculpture we have was executed in the 1960s.’
‘I realize you wouldn’t want to keep that back for another auction at another time, but it might be the wisest thing to do.’
‘Oh,’ Annette said, and fell silent, thinking.
Laurie waited for a moment before asking, ‘Are you there, Annette? I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, you have, and in a way it’s not exactly my decision, is it? There’s Christopher Delaware to consider.’
‘That’s true,’ her sister agreed. ‘But he will take your advice. I mean, after all, that’s what you’re there for. To advise him.’ When Annette did not answer, Laurie decided to press on, and said in a quiet tone, ‘Listen, whatever you think, he does have a crush on you, and he’ll want to please you. God knows he doesn’t need money any more. He doesn’t have to sell the Giacometti now, not after the twenty million quid you got him with the sale of the Rembrandt.’
‘Yes, you’re right on all points.’
‘So you do know he has a crush on you?’
Annette sighed. ‘It’s not such a big crush, and I have been very cool with him, not