Everything about Wong Changxing is nondescript, Ava thought. Medium height, medium build, clean-shaven, hair neatly trimmed, and clear, inquisitive eyes. Take away the Armani suit and the Gucci loafers and he could have been any small businessman.
Wong May Ling was not quite so neutral. She was slightly taller than her husband, and striking in a pink and white wool Chanel suit. Her hair was pulled back tightly, exposing fine cheekbones and smooth, delicate skin. She had a small, pert nose and thin lips. Ava noticed that she was wearing hardly any makeup. She also wasn’t wearing any jewellery, and Ava made a note to leave hers in the room.
The most striking thing about May Ling was her eyes. They were a deep, dark brown, almost black, an effect heightened by a touch of mascara. In Ava’s world, Chinese women were, if not deferential, then often reserved on a first meeting, avoiding direct eye contact. But May Ling’s eyes bore into Uncle’s, and then they turned to Ava. She did a quick appraisal of Ava’s clothes and then moved to her face. Ava stared back. May Ling didn’t turn away, but Ava saw her eyes flicker and wondered what she was thinking.
“We’ll have dinner in about half an hour. Unfortunately we have company tonight. It is an arrangement that was made some time ago and we couldn’t cancel. You will meet some interesting people, though,” Wong Changxing said. “Would you like to go to your rooms first?”
“Yes,” Uncle said for both of them.
May Ling nodded in their direction, then wordlessly turned and left. “She needs to check on dinner,” Wong said with a slight sweep of his hand, inviting them into the house. “My man will bring your bags. Your man can leave them here at the door.”
Wong walked them to an elevator. “You will be staying on the seventh floor. Staff are there waiting for you. If you need anything, just ask. Dinner will be served on the ground floor.”
When the elevator doors opened onto the seventh floor, two maids greeted Ava and Uncle and led them to their suites. Ava looked around the room, admiring the teak floors, the walls lined in soft, iridescent white silk tinged with pink. The bamboo furniture had plush cushions that matched the silk on the walls, and in the centre of the room was a solid oak four-poster bed that led Ava to assume the suite was intended for Westerners. She went to the window and looked out on a beautifully manicured back garden and land that seemed to stretch for about a hundred metres.
She turned away from the window and walked into the four-piece marble bathroom to freshen up for dinner, and to take off her Tank Francaise watch. She was thinking about lying down on the bed when she heard a knock on the door. Uncle walked in and said, “Come to my room.”
Ava followed him to his room. Uncle motioned for her to join him at the window, which looked out on the front of the Wong property. “Look,” he said. “Those two are military cars. Generals, I would think. And those other two are government cars.”
“I hope the evening doesn’t turn into a food-and-drink binge.”
Uncle shrugged. “What did you think of the Wongs?”
“He seems more passive than I would have thought. She seems the opposite.”
“We will see.”
The other guests were already in the dining room when Uncle and Ava arrived. There were seven other couples. All of the men were dressed in business suits while the women were dressed more elaborately, in evening gowns. Ava took in the cavernous room with its six-metre ceiling, white marble floors, and dark wood-panelled walls decorated with Chinese landscapes of the countryside.
Wong stood with his male guests at one end of an immense bar in a corner of the room. He waved at them and introduced them to two generals dressed in plain military uniforms, the mayor of Wuhan, an assistant to the governor of Hubei, and two executives from Wong’s business.
Ava gravitated towards the women at the other end of the bar. The youngest looked to be in her forties. Aside from May Ling, they were all wearing floor-length designer dresses and dripping with platinum, gold, diamonds, and jade. The other women eyed Ava, in her pink Brooks Brothers shirt and black slacks, with either suspicion or disdain.
“This is Ms. Ava Lee,” May Ling said. “She is here to help us with a project.”
A few of the women nodded at her while the others continued their conversations. Ava could feel May Ling’s eyes on her again and was about to say something when their hostess said, “It’s time to sit, ladies.”
May Ling lightly touched Ava’s elbow, guiding her to the enormous dining room table, and whispered, “It is General Pan’s birthday that we are here to celebrate.”
The general sat to the right of Wong, and Uncle to the left. Ava was directly across from them, sandwiched between two wives. At each place setting was a gold-plated Dupont lighter and a pack of Dunhill cigarettes. The women on either side of her lit cigarettes, and Uncle and most of the other men did the same. He looked at her across the table, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. You are in China now, he mouthed.
The meal was served with almost military precision; each dish was brought out to a side table and served at the exact moment when the previous dish was finished. It was a meal designed to show respect, a parade of the most expensive, top-quality food. Shark fin soup. Whole abalone. Jumbo prawns in chili sauce. Slivers of filet mignon. Crispy pigeon. Fukin rice. A live fish that must have weighed two kilograms was brought to Wong before being prepared. He tapped the fish on its chin with a chopstick. The mouth flapped up and down. That redefines fresh, Ava thought. To end the meal, long boiled noodles were served with sesame paste.
Four glasses were placed in front of each guest. One held cognac, another beer, the third wine, and the fourth maotai, a Chinese liquor made from fermented sorghum. Two servers with a bottle in each hand were in constant circulation behind the diners. This is sophisticated China, Ava thought.
Once all the courses had been served, one of the servers brought out a huge mango cake with one lit candle. A magnum of Dom Perignon was opened and the group sang “Happy Birthday.” Red pockets — small envelopes filled with cash — were passed to the general.
The Wongs invited their guests to retreat to the karaoke room. Ava sat quietly for an hour as the guests became increasingly drunk and more adventuresome in their song choices. Out went the Chinese revolutionary marching songs and in came Rod Stewart, Elton John, and Celine Dion. In the midst of a murderous rendition of a Joe Cocker-Jennifer Warnes duet, May Ling slipped into the seat next to her. “Come upstairs with me,” she said, her hand sliding into Ava’s.
Wong and Uncle had already left without Ava noticing.
They rode the elevator in silence to the eighth floor. “Over here,” May Ling said to Ava when the elevator doors opened, directing her to the right.
Wong and Uncle were standing in the middle of a huge foyer, looking at a large glass case that showcased some of the most beautiful Chinese ceramics Ava had ever seen. Wong looked over at her, and Ava saw a tension in him that she hadn’t noticed before.
“We started collecting these about fifteen years ago,” May Ling said. “The paintings came a little later.”
The other cases in the room were in small lit alcoves. They housed more ceramics, some earthenware vessels, and several small statues, many of Buddha.
“I don’t see any paintings,” Ava said.
“Come with me,” May Ling said.
They walked through a door at the far end of the foyer and into a cauldron of intense colour.
Twenty paintings hung on the walls of a tiny room not more than six metres across. Its diminutive size seemed to add to the intensity of the colours in the paintings, none of which were Chinese. Ava felt as if her senses were under attack.
“Wong Changxing was in London as part of a trade mission and they were taken on a tour of the Tate Gallery. You’ve heard of the Tate?”
“I’ve been there.”
“Well, he went and he fell in love.”
“I don’t understand.”
May Ling pulled her towards one wall. “Have you heard of the Fauves?”
“No.”
“It means ‘wild beasts.’ It was a French art movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. As you can see, the artists were in love with colour and were famous for their bold brushwork.”
Ava walked up to one of the paintings and looked down at the signature. “Matisse?”
“Yes, these are all supposedly by Matisse,” May Ling said. She turned and pointed to another wall. “And over there, Andre Derain, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, and, of course, our Monet.”
“This is spectacular.”
Uncle and Wong Changxing entered the room. Ava saw surprise register on her boss’s face, while the tension she had detected in Wong’s was now ripping across his.
“When my husband came back to Wuhan,” May Ling continued, “he told me about the paintings he had seen and how much he loved them. He bought some art books, and though he couldn’t read them because they were in English or French, he used to stay up at night, poring over them as if he was looking at pictures of his children. I started looking into the movement myself, and I began to share his passion for the Fauvists. It was the colour and the simplicity of the paintings that attracted him, and then me.
“I bought the first one — that Derain painting of the Tower Bridge in London — for his birthday. He was upset with me for spending so much money, but after I explained what a good investment I thought it would be, we decided to buy more. Our little gallery here became the largest private Fauvist collection outside of Europe.
“Our Chinese friends never saw the sense in it and didn’t appreciate them. Among the Westerners, though, it changed their perception of Wong Changxing. He was no longer just another newly rich Chinese businessman, a man with no education, no breeding, no manners.”
“This is such a beautiful collection,” Ava said. “It does speak well of its owners.”
May Ling exhaled and then seemed to struggle to catch her breath. “Except — many of these paintings are fakes.”
Ava turned to look at Uncle. His face was impassive.
“Fakes?” Ava said.
“Yes, forgeries.”
Wong Changxing opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. He waved an arm at the paintings. “Fakes!” he finally yelled, his arm rotating like a windmill, his eyes squeezed shut in rage.
“Can we go somewhere to sit and talk?” Uncle said.
May Ling looped her arm through Wong Changxing’s. “Calm,” she said.
They walked through the living quarters and entered a kitchen. It was a Chinese kitchen that could have been found in a hundred million homes: a small round table with four chairs, a standard fridge and oven, and on the counter a rice cooker and hot water Thermos.
“Your guests?” Ava asked.
“They’ll sing and drink for another four hours,” May Ling said.
“What happened with the paintings?” Uncle asked.
Wong Changxing banged his fist on the table.
“Calm,” May Ling said again to her husband, resting her hand on his arm. She turned to Uncle and Ava. “It began when I bought the first one. I was ignorant about how to proceed, so I went to the art dealer in Hong Kong who helped us acquire our ceramics — they are genuine, by the way. I talked to him about the Fauvists and asked him to find me one. He called me in two months, saying he had located the Derain in a private collection in Switzerland and that it was ours if we wanted to pay the price. I did. When it got here, we loved it and we decided to buy more. I commissioned the dealer to do exactly that.”
“ We commissioned,” Wong Changxing said.
“Yes, sorry, we did make the decision together. His name — the dealer — was Kwong Kan and his gallery was near Lan Kwai Fong. We told him to call us whenever a Fauvist painting came on the market. Over the following years we bought the twenty you just saw. Braque. Dufy. Matisse. More Derain. Vlaminck. And the Monet, which cost fifteen million dollars. Then two years ago our dealer died — cancer — and we took a break.
“Our collection was already impressive and, more important, we loved it. My husband started every day with tea, hot and dry noodles, and time alone in the room with the paintings. But he was never really comfortable with the Monet Water Lilies because it was clearly Impressionist. About six weeks ago we decided to sell it. We had no idea how to go about this, so I called Harrington’s auction house in Hong Kong and told them what we wanted to do. They sent an appraiser here to look at it.”
“A tall gweilo with no manners and bad teeth,” Wong Changxing said.
“He was just doing his job,” May Ling said. “He spent more than two hours with the painting and then he spent another two hours on his laptop. When he was finished, he told us he thought the Monet was a fake.”
“How did he know?” Uncle asked.
“There was no record of it. It had never been catalogued anywhere. And when he checked the provenance, it was fictitious,” she said.
“Do you understand this?” Uncle said to Ava.
“Some of it.”
“What did you do?” Uncle asked May Ling.
“I asked him to look at our other paintings.”
“He did?”
“He spent close to a week here. I never knew just how much detail they go into, and how much detail is available.”
“What was the outcome?”
“He was certain that ten other paintings were fakes, three were probably genuine, and the rest were problematic.”
“What did you do?”
“We gave him a cheque for eighty thousand Hong Kong dollars and asked him not to say anything to anyone until we had a chance to investigate.”
“He agreed?”
“He did, and so far he has kept his word.”
“So where does this leave us?”
“We apparently have seventeen fake paintings that cost us more than eighty million U.S. dollars,” she said.
“And a dealer who is dead,” Ava added.
“And whose shop was closed when he died and whose records were destroyed by his family. I spoke to Kwong’s brother last week, and he told me he didn’t see the point of keeping all that paperwork when there was no more business.”
“What do you want us to do?” Uncle asked, the difficulty implied.
“Find the people who cheated us,” Wong said.
Uncle glanced at Ava. “Wong Changxing, you must understand how complicated this could be.”
“Find them.”
“Find who? The dealer is dead.”
“He wasn’t smart enough to do this on his own. He had help. He worked with someone who knew his stuff, someone who orchestrated this.”
May Ling said, “Actually, he may not have known they were fakes either. Looking back, we made a mistake going to him. He was an expert in ceramics, not paintings. We — I just assumed he would apply the same degree of due diligence. Now it is obvious that he didn’t.”
“Who did you pay?” Ava asked.
“His company, but that means nothing.”
“There are a lot of paintings. What if he was dealing with a lot of people?” Ava said.
“Then find them all,” Wong said.
“Let’s suppose I do, then what? How do I get your money back? They sold to the dealer and he sold to you.”
“I don’t need the money.”
“What are you saying?” Ava asked.
Wong stared at Uncle. “You can make them pay in some other way.”
“I’m an accountant,” Ava said carefully. “My job is to find and recover funds that have been stolen. I’m not in the revenge business.”
“I have heard that, from time to time, you employ unconventional methods,” said May Ling.
“Not with any pleasure, only when necessary, and always as a means to an end, not as the end itself.”
Wong turned to Uncle. “Is this your view?”
“Ava and I need to talk,” Uncle said.
“We’ll wait,” Wong said.
“No, this is a very complicated business and it could take some time. And I have to tell you, I am not sure it is right for us.”
“You are our best hope,” May Ling said.
“We do not perform miracles,” Uncle said, standing up. “So, if you will forgive me, we will go to our rooms and let you return to your guests. We can meet again in the morning.”
Ava saw that Uncle’s remarks did not sit well with Wong, but before he could speak, Uncle was already halfway out of the kitchen. She followed, feeling two sets of eyes boring into her back.
“Could you find the person — the people who did this?” Uncle asked when they were in the elevator.
“Maybe. But it’s messy, old.”
“Did Wong’s request for retribution bother you as much as it seemed to?”
“Yes.”
“He is no different than many of our other clients. They all feel the same; they just can’t bring themselves to say it.”
“Is that why he brought us here? Because he thinks that’s what we do?”
“He probably had nowhere else to turn,” Uncle said, sidestepping her question.
The elevator doors opened on the seventh floor and they stepped out into the hallway. “Do we really need to talk about this anymore?” Ava said.
“No. I will tell them in the morning that we have to turn down their project.”
“He’s a very powerful man. It isn’t my intention to cause him offence.”
Uncle shrugged. “Even powerful men need to be reminded now and again that there are things in this world they cannot control or command.”