Free The Wild Beasts of Wuhan by Ian Hamilton Page B

real paintings were bought from three separate galleries, two in France and one in New York. First-rate firms. The questionable ones are more of a mixed bag. I recognize some of the names attached to them, but not all.”
    “The fakes?”
    “Nearly all of them bought from individual collectors, sometimes through agents and some through galleries. The paperwork was always complete and always bogus.”
    “How would he have been able to contact all those people, or they him?”
    Torrence threw his head back and then shook it as if it needed to be cleared. “My guess — actually, my opinion — is that none of it was random. There’s no way that all those fakes could have found their way to Wuhan without some orchestration. I think you’ll find that Kwong was working with an agent. So rather than hunting down Fauvist works himself, Kwong entrusted that job to the agent. You find that agent and you’ll be on your way to finding your perpetrator.”
    “You make it sound simple.”
    “It isn’t. There’s nothing in the paperwork I saw that hints at one person. All the bills of sale are from a myriad of individuals and galleries and addressed to Kwong.”
    “You do know that all the records from his business have been destroyed?”
    “Yes. It doesn’t leave you much to go on, does it.”
    “I have a few ideas,” she said.
    “Like what?”
    She shook her head. “They’re not important,” she said. “Let me go back to the fakes for a minute. If someone was going to organize this kind of fraud, they would need a painter, or painters, yes?”
    “They would indeed, unless they scoured the world looking for fakes that already existed. But given the consistency in the quality of work I saw, though, I would think most of them could have been done by one person.”
    “One, or more?”
    “Given the time frame over which it took place, it could have been one. It would have been more secure that way. And they were all Fauvist works, and these forgers do tend to specialize.”
    “So this agent, he just contacts an artist and says, ‘Paint me a Monet’?”
    “Something like that.”
    “And in this case you think an agent commissioned an entire range of Fauvist paintings from a forger or forgers and then passed them along to Kwong with dummy paperwork?”
    “I think that’s probably the case.”
    “What would the artist get paid?”
    “I have no idea. It might depend on whether or not he had to sign it. Remember what I told you earlier: if the painting isn’t signed, it isn’t a forgery. So I imagine there would be a premium attached for a signature.”
    “These forgers, how easy are they to locate?”
    “Well, they don’t have a union or anything, but within the art world there are certainly some who are known. Elmyr de Hory was one — he did Monets, by the way. Then there was John Myatt, who did versions of Matisse and Dufy. David Stein did Picasso and Chagall. And then there was Hans van Meegeren, who managed to do more than a passable imitation of Vermeer.”
    “You’re using the past tense.”
    “They’re all dead.”
    “How about current artists?”
    “Not my field.”
    “Who could I talk to?”
    “We have a chap in London, Frederick Locke, who’s very good at this kind of thing. He’s the one I referred the Wongs’ questionable paintings to.”
    “Would he speak to me?”
    Torrence said, “I don’t see why not. I’ll make a call for you.”
    “Thank you.”
    He looked at his watch. “We seem to have talked away a lot of the afternoon. Is there any way I can interest you in extending your stay to dinner?”
    “I’d love to, but it will have to be another time,” she said. “I have some other business I need to attend to.” She took out her business card and passed it to him. “My cellphone number is on the back, my email address on the front. Could you call me after you’ve contacted Frederick Locke? It’s just about the start of the workday in London, so you might be able to