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“Harry! Thank you so much for the invitation—I was thrilled my editor agreed to send me out here. This painting of yours is causing quite the stir.”
Harry stared at him blankly. Neither of Harry’s shoelaces was done up, I noticed. He was perceptibly swaying on his feet.
“Patrick, Caroline. Wonderful to see you too, of course,” Giles continued. “So I was wondering if I could ask the three of you...”
Patrick offered an apologetic smile.
“I’m afraid we can’t talk right now, Giles. We must have a proper catch-up and we’d love to give you an exclusive quote for the paper, but if you don’t mind, we need to steal Harry for a moment now to talk through the running order of the evening.”
As he was saying this, Patrick had placed his hand on the small of Harry’s back. He was now steering him toward the gallery. I followed. “Harry,” he said when we were out of earshot of Giles. “You could get yourself in trouble, being out and about here in a state like this. Not to mention, you could fuck up this whole thing.”
Harry swayed again, to the extent I thought he might actually fall over, and glared at us balefully. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he had been sleeping in his dinner jacket, and his shirt was peculiarly buttoned up. He assured us in a slurring voice that this—the gesture itself spilled some of his champagne—was the first thing he’d had to drink all day.
“Sure,” Patrick said. “Listen, Harry. We’ve got a little while before dinner starts. Why don’t you come up to my office, gather yourself?”
We walked around the side of the building, in through the back entrance of the gallery, and into Patrick’s office. Perhaps, Patrick suggested, Harry should have a nap right here on the sofa. Just a little twenty minutes to sharpen him up.
“Is everything okay, Harry?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he snapped. “I’m fine. It’s hot. I’m tired and I’ve come a long way, that’s all. The question is will it all have been worth it. I can see they are enjoying the champagne, but will any of these buyers bite? Because I’m relying on this, Patrick. I’m relying on you.”
“We are both relying on this,” said Patrick. “Caroline has thrown her weight behind the work, and with the level of media attention we’ve received, I am pretty confident we’ll secure a sale, and I am hopeful it will be swift. But nothing is ever a certainty in this business, Harry.”
Patrick paused. His tone softened. “And I know that Longhurst is important to you, but it isn’t everything,” he said.
“Oh God, you don’t understand,” said Harry, his head dropping into his hands. “You can’t possibly understand. This isn’t just about Longhurst, Patrick. If we don’t sell that painting tonight, I genuinely don’t know what I am going to do.”
PATRICK, DUBAI, 2023, THE NIGHT OF HARRY’S DEATH
“The VIPs are making their way to the dining room, Patrick,” said my assistant, discreetly sticking her head around the office door. I nodded, mouthing five minutes.
“Harry, drink this,” I said, handing him a glass of water. “And pull yourself together. There are some extremely big players out there tonight. Let’s try not to scare any of them off, eh?”
Harry looked at me. He took a sip of water and grunted his assent. At least he did not obviously smell of booze. We might be able to pass this off as just posh British eccentricity. Now was the part of the evening that really mattered—all the top-tier buyers who had expressed interest in one room, around one table. The last thing I wanted was for the only surviving Willoughby to ruin it. On the other hand, if he was not there it might look even odder.
Usually my approach to a big-ticket sale would be far more strategic—decide on a list of targets and work my way down it in order, showing each the painting privately, saying it was for their eyes only, nudging them to make an offer and moving on to the next if they did not. But with Harry’s absurdly tight cut-off point for the sale looming, I had taken the gamble of gathering them all together and giving them a deadline for sealed offers: midnight.
There were twelve interested parties in total: two Saudis, one minor member of the Qatari royal family (advised and accompanied by Athena), a French representative from the Louvre Abu Dhabi, two Emiratis, two Russians, two Lebanese, one American, and Dave White. It was like the start of a bad joke: What do you get when you put twelve billionaires in a gallery?
Rich, I hoped. Because there were only two things I knew with confidence about people this loaded, no matter what their country of origin. One: they love to hang out at extremely exclusive events with other extremely wealthy people. Two: they are always extremely competitive about just how wealthy they are.
We had pulled out all the stops to make the event feel special. There was a jazz band, a bar in the corner, and eight courses with a Surrealist theme ahead of us. There was a melting clock ice sculpture, lobster served on black Bakelite telephones, baked apples with tiny marzipan bowler hats for dessert washed down with Lapsang souchong served in furry teacups (an homage to Meret Oppenheim’s Le Déjeuner en fourrure). Caroline was to give a speech. I had originally intended to ask Harry to say a few words too, but given his current state, I had scratched the idea.
The guests were making small talk as they waited to be seated. Most seemed to know one another already, acquaintances from the international art circuit. I had agonized over the seating plan, but before anyone sat, I quietly asked my assistant to swap the name cards so Caroline and I flanked Harry. As course after course arrived, he sat there mostly in silence, breathing heavily, sweating. The few times anyone did try to engage him in conversation about the family connection to the artist, he answered briefly, vaguely. Overcompensating wildly, I did my best to ensure the conversation flowed.
Athena, sitting directly opposite, was impressive. An art advisor’s role is tricky—a tightrope. The client must feel as if you’re acting in their best interests, but your commission rises with the price they pay for the purchased work, so in some ways in the short term it’s in your best interests for them to spend more. She had done her homework and was asking intelligent questions, all the while flipping back and forth from Russian to French to Arabic with casual ease—her client’s English was faltering, so she was largely translating—talking confidently to Dave White about his business interests in the region, commiserating with the Russian about those pesky economic sanctions.
Of course Caroline answered all the inquiries addressed to her politely and animatedly, and spoke about Juliette beautifully. She could always bring that period in Paris to life—the context out of which this painting had emerged. She was radiant, her passion contagious. By the time dessert was served, the excitement in the room was unmistakable.
“Ladies and gentleman, if you would like to accompany me for your own, very private view...”
They followed me to the end of the corridor, talking among themselves, Harry and Caroline bringing up the rear. I pushed the door open and stepped through, beckoning them all inside. The only work in the room, it hung on the far wall. One by one they approached it. Leaned in to inspect. Stood back to admire. All the while I tried to read their faces, interpret their body language. They were clearly reading one another’s too. Would the person who bought this piece for the price we were hoping to reach be the envy of their peers or a laughingstock? Was it worth reminding them how many different versions of Munch’s Scream there were in existence, each one unique? How many versions of Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi were currently being restored in the hope that they might be accepted as the master’s original, despite one having sold for $450 million to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia?
I thanked them all for coming and reminded them that offers would need to be received shortly. In my office—I indicated where it was—there was a locked box for the sealed bids, my assistant on hand beside it to answer any questions about the process I had set out thus: the two highest bidders—if there were two—would then be invited to submit their best and final. There was a palpable shift of mood in the room, scattered nods, lots of poker faces.
As the band played in the background, the small talk—now slightly more stilted—continued. Athena was deep in conversation with her client. The two Saudi collectors were engaging in an animated discussion I couldn’t understand; Dave White and the American were arguing about algorithms. Not a single one of them made any sort of move toward my office.
A waiter passed by with a tray of drinks and offered me one—I shook my head, mentally adding up the cost of every martini on his tray. I stared at Harry, who appeared to be telling a story about a Labrador to an unamused Emirati, wine sloshing from his glass.