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David could always come back to Lily as a person and who might hold a grudge against her, but once you let a witness start filling the void, you had to be willing to listen, even if it sounded like an unnecessary detour. You also had to know when to reel your witness back in if he got too far afield. For now David was willing to go where Fitzwilliams took him.
“Tonight, for example,” Fitzwilliams went on, “we have about twenty artworks that Lily found at Cathay Antiquities. It’s an old and reputable company run by the Leong family, but now that the old man’s dead his son Roger is running the place. Lily got him to put up six jade pieces, which are estimated to sell for about two hundred thousand Hong Kong—twenty-five thousand dollars U.S.”
Those could be the jade artifacts that Dr. Ma had told David about.
“What was Lily’s role in all this?” he asked, hoping to draw Fitzwilliams out without being too obvious.
“You have to understand,” Fitzwilliams said, “this is Hong Kong—the great global shopping mall—where every merchant thinks about inventory and supply. There are only so many Chinese antiques in the world. Roger didn’t know the value of what he had, and he was also selling to customers who didn’t know what they were getting. Lily identified what was genuine, potentially profitable, and aesthetically pleasing.”
“What about provenance?” David asked.
Light refracted off Fitzwilliams’s glasses as he answered. “Lily always validated Cathay’s claims of provenance. I was skeptical of several of those documents, but wrongdoing in the art market is hard to prove even for us here at Cosgrove’s. We can’t and don’t condone criminal activity. What I’m trying to tell you is that I had no proof and I couldn’t very well fire Lily without it.”
“People have been fired for less than what you’re telling me now.”
“Unfortunately that wasn’t possible. Lily was a strong-willed woman.”
Fitzwilliams was an English gentleman of the old school. And although his debonair manner must have served him well in the art business, he was as readable as any other man. Beneath the smooth answers David heard fear, and he’d caught Fitzwilliams’s unconscious glance at his wife’s framed photo as he’d spoken about Lily’s disposition.
“You had an affair with Lily,” he surmised.
Fitzwilliams took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Actually no, but how could I prove otherwise? It would have been her word against mine, and Lily could be very persuasive. She was an excellent saleswoman.”
“So you were concerned about personal embarrassment.”
“Wouldn’t you be in the same situation? I love my wife very deeply, and I saw no reason to cause her needless pain. I hope and believe that she would have known the truth, but gossip can do a lot of harm to a marriage. I was worried about Cosgrove’s reputation as well. Our industry has suffered in recent years from scandals of various sorts. Fortunately Cosgrove’s has remained out of the press.”
Which, David noted, did not mean that Fitzwilliams was denying any wrongdoing on Cosgrove’s part—only that any whiff of indiscretion had not yet found its way to the media. In fact, from where David sat, Cosgrove’s was a lot closer to a sophisticated artifact-laundering operation than an art purveyor. Objects came in with dubious credentials and came out with the legitimate provenance of having been sold at Cosgrove’s.
“When was the last time you saw Lily?”
“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re implying. I can prove that I haven’t left Hong Kong for several months.”
The image of this prim man draining the blood from Lily’s body flashed through David’s mind. No, he didn’t see Fitzwilliams as the killer.
“When did you last see her?”
“Lily was here about a month ago. She brought in several artworks, which we’ll be selling tonight. I was quite aggravated with her frankly, because we’d missed the deadline for the catalog. She’d given us descriptions, of course, but we didn’t have photos. The prices we realize are very dependent on catalog photos, because they attract interest from people who can’t bid in person. But Lily assured me that these pieces would bring in record prices even without the photos.” Fitzwilliams lifted his shoulders, suddenly at a loss for words. “Did you ever meet her?”
“Briefly, and I know that she was not the person she pretended to be.”
Fitzwilliams sighed regretfully, but the English accent, the elegant surroundings, and his pseudo-pious demeanor didn’t change the fact that Lily had probably been selling illegally obtained artifacts through Cosgrove’s. David knew, though, getting the man before him to admit that would be difficult. “I believe there are some items to be auctioned tonight that came from an archaeological dig on the Mainland,” he said.
Fitzwilliams looked at David in stark indignation. “We don’t have anything like that!”
“The jade pieces you mentioned earlier are probably from Site
518. I’ve also heard that you have a ruyi going on the block tonight. Unfortunately, Lily Sinclair is the prime suspect in the smuggling of several artifacts matching these descriptions, if not the thefts themselves.”
“Well,” Fitzwilliams responded hesitantly, “I’d need to see documentation with those objects properly identified.”
Knowing that wasn’t possible, David offered another option. “I was hoping you’d show me the documentation for the pieces that go on sale tonight.”
“All of them?” Fitzwilliams inquired with false sincerity. “We have one hundred artworks on the block this evening.”
“Just the pieces that Lily brought in,” David amended, realizing full well that Fitzwilliams had known exactly what he was asking for.
Fitzwilliams shook his head in abrupt little jerks. “That won’t be possible. Our files contain privileged information. However, I think what you’re looking for is readily available in the auction catalog, which provides a thorough description according to our standards. I’ll make sure that you’re given a complimentary copy before you leave. This will also serve as your ticket into the preview, if you’d care to see the items before the auction begins.”
