The Hogarth Conspiracy

by Alex Connor

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

Could a single scandalous painting rock two British monarchies, centuries apart... and threaten the lives of everyone who knows of its existence? It could--if the painting contains proof of a liaison between a prostitute and a prince. The evidence, a painting by William Hogarth done in 1732, was supposedly destroyed. But hundreds of years later, on a private jet, Sir Oliver Peters learns that it still exists. Dying of cancer, and desperate to secure his family's well-being, Sir Oliver resolves to find the missing work. But when a fellow passenger who also knows the secret is murdered, he realizes he's battling more than time.

Release date: April 15, 2014

Publisher: Quercus

Print pages: 390

Sample

Prologue

Under the whorehouses and the taverns lie London’s dead. Beneath cobbles and alleyways, within the hearing of the molly houses and the sodomisers, cheek by jowl with the shadow of St Paul’s, and within the summer stink of the Thames. Under flagstones and feet, under weather and sewage, lay the passageway I hurried towards. Shaken, I looked back many times to see if I was being followed—but there was only the creak of a dozen inn signs and the sound of a startled horse whinnying shrilly in Drury Lane.

Mischief made mumbles in the night, and my hands were sweating as I reached the entrance of the narrow alleyway. Expecting me, a guard, silent and surly, stood back to let me enter, handing me a rush light, and then moved into the street above. As the iron gate slammed to a close, I stared into the dank open womb of the chamber below. I could see shadows of two other men, distorted into ghouls, and placed my foot gingerly on the next step. God! My mouth was thick with panic, my pulse speeding up, blood yammering like a lunatic in my veins. Turning at a bend, I stumbled, and the buckle of my shoe struck the stone wall, gouging a white scar into the brickwork.

Hearing my approach, the men turned. One, a priest, a handkerchief held over his nose, a sprig of rosemary pinned to his vestments, regarded me with indifference. Obviously, he had been to an earlier funeral where the mourners would have handed out the nosegays—rosemary for remembrance. The other man, a doctor, stood in his brocade coat, blood stiffening his waistcoat; ladybird splashes on the gilded buttons. Corpulent, he made an awkward gesture towards the back of the room as I passed under an arch into a shadowed area beyond. For an instant I could see nothing, then raised the light I was holding and watched the shallow underground room shudder in the smoking flame.

I had known her living. Polly Gunnell, one of Mrs Needham’s whores, from the best brothel in London. Pretty and plump enough for the bankers, the businessmen, the theatregoers; fresh enough not to have to work out of a room in Drury Lane; sweet enough to avoid the streets. And quick and clever enough for royalty—or so she had bragged to me as she coiled a sliver of dark hair around her index finger and bit her bottom lip into a bud with her small teeth.

‘Sit for me,’ I had said a while ago, and I had drawn an engraving of her—Courtesan at Her Toilette—which had proved popular enough to earn me money, and Polly Gunnell fame. Encouraged, my imagination had found much room for Polly Gunnell, willing board and lodging for her knowing appeal. Inspired, I had constructed a morality tale, using her as the model, and called it The Harlot’s Progress.

But Polly Gunnell was no longer sleeping or breathing or biting her lip. She was lying on a stone table, next to a pile of beer barrels stacked up against the wall like a dunghill. Apart from her shoes, laced with two ivory ribbons, the heels sullied with London mud, she was naked. Slowly my gaze travelled upwards. Both thighs had been slashed from the knees to the groin, and around her vagina were numerous tiny mutilations, much blood bearing witness to the ferocity of the attack. Dry-mouthed, I attempted to swallow and tried to look away, but instead I looked at the rest of her body: Polly Gunnell’s nipples had been cut off, and a knife slash ran from her throat down to her pubic bone.

And within her corpse a terrible emptiness where once her womb, now torn out of her, had lain.

Unnerved, I turned to look at the others. The doctor was winding his fob watch, and the priest’s straight dark hair framed an expression of dissolute indifference. Nothing was said to me as I turned back to the body. Overhead, I could hear someone rolling barrels on the floor, a door slamming closed. My lamp spluttered as I turned back to the corpse. Polly Gunnell’s face—once pert with cleverness, soft with eroticism, a perfect countenance for longing—had been disfigured by a blatantly vicious criss-crossing of cuts, laced like the pastry topping of a pie. The muscles were exposed, the eyelids cut away, the nose severed. Blood, drying thick and dark, crusted the open wounds. Not an inch of Polly Gunnell’s pretty face remained. Not a millimetre of the countenance which had smiled out from the canvas and the printed page.

I had known Polly Gunnel’s face as well as I knew my own: had drawn it, painted it, engraved it. I had chosen her as the heroine of my morality tale, out to tender for the populace, plying her trade from the canvas and the metal plate, willingly whoring for me—the painter—William Hogarth. Whoring for me as she had done for the pimp and the procuress, clicking her fingers at the world as she swung her leg at the stupidity of men. She had laughed at the fate of the girl in the picture without ever realising it was her own future, a prophecy she could never deflect.

Turning away at last, I tasted the vomit in my throat and swallowed hard. The rush light I held momentarily illuminated a bunch of rags in a corner. Curious, I moved over and bent down, lifting a corner to reveal a dead newborn infant, its limbs white, its lips dark.

Shaken, my voice faltered. “Was this her child? Did they cut the baby from her whilst she was still alive?” I asked of the doctor and the priest, who were now moving towards the stone steps. Towards the street. “Sweet Christ, what did they do to her?”

The doctor shrugged.

I knew what he was thinking as he looked at me, a small, stocky man, standing in front of him. William Hogarth, satirist, vicious and sentimental by turns, and now obviously sickened and trying not to vomit.

“Look,” the doctor said curtly, “The priest’s a witness. I’m following orders, that’s all. I was told to fetch you here and to pay you for your trouble. You’re to see to this.” He jerked his head to where the monstrously mutilated body lay. “I don’t know why they killed the woman; I don’t want to know.”

“But I do,” I countered, persistently,“Who did this?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know!” The doctor answered vehemently, straightening his wig, his fleshy hands shaking. “I was only ordered to bring you here.”

“By whom?”

The doctor shrugged again, feigning ignorance.

“I was sent a message; that was all.” Rattled, he reached into his waistcoat pocket, feeling around urgently, then took a snort of tobacco. When he sneezed, he wiped the snot off his nose with the sleeve of his jacket. “When I got here, I was too late. I couldn’t do anything for either of them.”

I nodded. “Very well … I’ll see to it.”

“You made her famous.” The doctor assumed a mock sympathetic expression. “Everyone in London fell in love with Polly Gunnell, but no one would know her now. Just another dead hack.” Straightening up, he looked back at me. “Mind you don’t end up the same way, Master Hogarth.”

Sighing, he pulled on his hat and followed the priest up the steps into the alley beyond. I heard the dull iron thud of the gate echoing behind them as they left. I was now alone with the dead body of Polly Gunnell and her child. I took off my coat and laid it over her face, then touched the top of her head and felt the spring of hair under my fingers. I knew why she had been killed. Hadn’t my own safety been threatened when The Harlot’s Progress was published?

I had known at the time that the potency of the series would be given an added frisson if the public could identify some of the models in the paintings. How scandalous to depict Mrs. Needham, the infamous procuress, and how titillating to recognise Colonel Charteris, a rake so dissolute that England had nicknamed him the Rape-Master General. I flinched at the recollection. If only I had stopped there, but unable to resist another jibe, I had gone too far, satirised the wrong person. Depicted with Polly Gunnell a man as her lover. An important, familiar man, a man known to everyone in Europe—Frederick, Prince of Wales.

When the painting was viewed, I at once realised my mistake, but it was too late. Manhandled and threatened in my own home, I was ordered to alter the features of the courtesan’s lover. And so the man in the picture was emasculated by paint, turned from a hero into a vacant fool with a few deft brushstrokes.

But of course I could not vandalize my masterpiece. I had simply made a copy and hidden the original. The famous image still existed, the wicked satire hidden but not destroyed. I relied on the fact that a painter admired by King George II and feted across Europe had redoubtable allies. Polly Gunnell might have had no power to protect herself, but the fame of William Hogarth sheltered me.

But only so far.

Of course they would summon me to see to the body of Polly Gunnell and her dead child. What better way to send me a warning? Secure my silence? To make me realise that any threat to the throne would be ruthlessly obliterated. My arrogance had blinded me, but from that moment on fear would ensure my compliance.

I bent down again to the dead infant. Not wanting to leave its corpse for the rats to rip apart, I gently lifted it from the floor. I would lay it by its mother, have them buried together. But as I held the little body, I noticed a muted flutter and touched the child’s neck, where I felt the faint beating of a thready pulse.

“Jesus,” I exclaimed, panicking and looking round. “Holy God.”

I was almost insensible with fear. I had to get away—and I had to take the baby—a boy, as I now saw—with me. Now! Before anyone came back. Perhaps the doctor had already sent for the undertaker; perhaps even now he was walking down the alley. Maybe someone from the public house above would come down for more beer and find me—and the child.

Wrapping the rags around the infant, I hurried towards the steps with my bundle. Tentatively I stepped into the street. As I moved further into the alleyway, I looked around me, but the priest and the doctor were long gone. Overhead, a swollen white belly of moon followed my progress as I skittered through the ginnels and crossed Drury Lane. I kept the child pressed close as I passed drunks and road sweepers, lurking around the shortcuts I had known from childhood.

Unnerved and scared, I expected to be challenged, expected to be stopped. And then what fate would befall me? If they caught me, if they realised what I’d done, my life would be forfeit. They had thought that Polly Gunnell’s child was dead, but he was still alive: the bastard son of the Prince of Wales. The child who had survived against all the odds, whose existence was a threat to the most powerful figures in the land.

And I had that child. The child who desperate, ambitious, and ruthless men would seek to find and kill.

But only if they knew he had survived.

Only weeks earlier I had had an unexpected late-night visitor: Frederick, Prince of Wales, was ushered in by my startled servant. His manner was exceedingly courteous, almost as though I had been the royal and he the commoner.

“Master Hogarth,” he had begun. “I have something to ask of you, a favour, if you will, and, of course, your absolute confidence.”

I had immediately nodded agreement. Who refused the Prince of Wales?

“This concerns Polly Gunnell,” he continued, producing her name like a face card, sure to win the hand. “Dear Polly, your model, is carrying my child.”

There had always been royal bastards, but seldom had their fathers admitted parentage.

“I think you know of our liaison?”

“Polly has not referred to it directly.”

“But you guessed, of course—otherwise there would have been no painting.”

His Royal Highness had seemed to bear me no ill will, had even been—dare I think it?—amused by my audacity.

“I need to give you something,” he said, whereupon a substantial gold signet ring was dropped into my hand. It bore the inscription

To my secret child, from his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Stunned, I gazed at him. “This is not wise, sir. This is proof that—” “As was the painting.” He held my look. “I ask you to watch over Polly. She has no family, and she trusts you, Master Hogarth. If the child is a boy, you understand what that could mean?”

I nodded mutely.

“Polly was under my protection, but yesterday she disappeared,” he said, then gripped my sleeve, imploring me—ME, William Hogarth—for help. “If she comes to you, assist her. Protect her. And keep this ring for the child. It is a testimony, proof of its lineage. Promise me, sir, you will do this?”

“I swear it.”

Satisfied, he had then nodded and left.

But I hadn’t kept my word, because she had not come to me, I had not seen Polly again. Until tonight, when what I saw was only her bloody corpse….

Afraid, I kept moving, increasing my speed, threading my way through the night crowds, passing a gin seller and ducking out of the way of a hackney coming quick from St James’s Street. I knew that at any moment someone could step out from an alley or a tavern doorway. Any man, every man. Some thug, some priest, some sergeant at arms, and ask, “What’s that, Master Hogarth? What’s that you’re carrying? What’s that, Master Hogarth?”

It’s flesh and blood. It’s breathing, it’s alive. It’s why Polly Gunnell is dead and my life is threatened. It’s the reason I’m running and have to keep running.

Out of breath, I paused momentarily and leaned against a wall, looking around me. I had to get home, get help. I had to get the child to safety. Although near exhaustion, I pushed myself on and then began to run again, dipping out of the beam of an idiot moon and the scrutiny of lighted doorways.

But no one saw me. No one saw William Hogarth that night. No one saw me panting as I finally made my way to my house. Scrabbling for my keys, the man known to have the wickedest brush in Europe unlocked the door and slammed it closed. Expecting at any moment for it to be breached, I slid the bolts and, shaking, clung to the infant in my arms.

The child was warming up against me. I could feel its heartbeat, feel the slow return of life—and I knew that the murderers must never know they had failed. All that must be reported back was that William Hogarth, painter and engraver, had organised and paid for the burial of his onetime model Polly Gunnell. And her dead bastard.

No one must know the child survived and certainly not know who its father was: such a revelation would bring only tragedy, the reverberations of which could undermine history.

Remembering the hidden picture, I determined to hide the signet ring with it. For a fleeting moment I was shamed by my own conceit, considered destroying the damned work. What had been merely a satire, an ill-aimed joke, had found a target so dangerous and volatile it had already resulted in murder.

Only I had caused it. Only I could make amends.

It was the year of Our Lord 1732.

One



STUMBLING IN THE AISLE OF THE PRIVATE PLANE, SIR OLIVER PETERS grabbed the back of the nearest seat and righted himself. He wondered for a moment if his medication was making him unsteady as he concentrated on making his way along the narrow aisle to the restroom. Entering, he leaned against the sink gratefully, catching his breath.

Over the last few months he had hidden his illness so adeptly that no one—not even his wife, Sonia—knew about it. His weight loss he had attributed to his new gym membership, his shortened hours at the gallery to a lull in sales that nobody had anticipated. His tailor, in his confidence, had discreetly altered his clothes to conceal any telltale slackness, and a smaller shirt-collar size prevented the giveaway gape at the neck.

But in truth cancer had infiltrated Sir Oliver Peters’s plush life with all the viciousness of an arsonist setting fire to a child’s nursery. The disease had attacked suddenly, hijacking the confines of his good luck with squatter’s rights and aiming to take over each organ consecutively as it worked its way through the rotting majesty of his body.

Hearing a noise from beyond the door, Oliver stared into the mirror and winced. The noise was faint, but it was the unmistakable sound of sex, coming from the back of the plane and just audible through the restroom wall. There was female laughter too, then a man moaning. Oliver turned on the faucet to try to drown out the sound. He had never liked Bernie Freeland, finding his Australian camaraderie at odds with his own British reserve, and suspected that Freeland’s friendliness covered a brittle, unstable personality. Admired as a hedonist and a determined collector, Freeland had bludgeoned his way into the art world, using connections bought by his wealth. Bullish and affectionate at the same time, he had sucked the life out of lesser personalities and intimidated many dealers.

The Australian’s sexual greed was legendary. His private plane was a personalized brothel, servicing him as he traveled the world. From London to New York, the Far East to Dubai, and back to his home in Sydney, Bernie Freeland conducted his business with frequent interruptions for sexual gratification, using Viagra for longer trips and vials of amyl nitrate for a shorter hit—even, on occasion, crystal meth.

All this Oliver Peters knew from the gossip over the last decade. And all this was the reason why he normally never would have accepted a journey in Bernie Freeland’s plane. The cancellation of the flight home from Hong Kong and the prospect of waiting over twenty-four hours for another had persuaded Oliver—feeling weak and desperate to keep his illness a secret—to accept the proffered invitation.

Once on board, he had found two other art dealers availing themselves of Freeland’s generosity. Both men were known to him. Kit Wilkes was the illegitimate son of James Holden, MP, and Lim Chang, a Chinese dealer in ceramics, was an enthusiastic buyer of British art. Oliver had suspected that Lim Chang was as keen as he was to get back to London and as uncomfortable with his surroundings. But Kit Wilkes had been another matter. Sleek as a water vole, with pale green eyes and a full Cupid’s bow of a mouth, Wilkes was a languid bisexual whose constant travels and hops over the equator made short work of the world. Often accompanied, Wilkes paraded his boys in their Ralph Lauren uniforms or his nymphets in all their prim pubescence, but he was more of a voyeur than an active participant. Wilkes had an obsession with hygiene and was known to demand a full examination of every male or female he hired; a certain Texan, Dr. Eli Fountain, provided the service from his offices in Wimpole Street. No one slept with Kit Wilkes who hadn’t been examined thoroughly first.

A jolt in the plane made Oliver grab the edge of the sink to steady himself. Despite his reputation, Kit Wilkes was traveling alone—had even refused an invitation to watch Bernie Freeland and the three girls on board, preferring to try to sleep, resting his narrow head against one of the plane’s windows. At one moment, caught in sunlight, his gaze had flickered briefly over to Oliver, his green eyes momentarily as yellow as the skin of a gecko.

The plane jolted again. Oliver heard the sound, louder now, of the women laughing and screaming playfully.

“Why don’t you have some fun? I won’t tell anyone,” Bernie Freeland had said earlier, pointing through an open door to the girls sitting on the huge divan in a cabin that was decked out as a bedroom.

Wretchedly embarrassed, Oliver had smiled his regal smile and shaken his head. “I don’t think so.”

“No one would know.”

But they would, you bastard, Oliver thought, suspecting that Bernie Freeland might have the bedroom taped, every sound recorded. What a splendid way to secure business: provide the services of a call girl to sweeten the deal. Or, if the client was unwilling to deal, blackmail him into submission afterward.

“No thank you, Bernie. The lift home is more than enough.”

He had seen Bernie Freeland’s expression shift as he looped one arm around Oliver and guided him to a seat beside the bar at the far end of the plane. Surprised, Oliver had felt the weight of the Australian’s arm and winced inwardly, wondering if Freeland could feel his loss of body tone, the giveaway wasting of muscle.

But Freeland’s mind had been elsewhere. Sipping a tonic water, Oliver had glanced around. Kit Wilkes was asleep, and Lim Chang was talking to one of the call girls, a redhead perched on the side of his seat.

“You okay?”

Smiling stiffly, Oliver had nodded. “Fine, thank you.”

“You buy anything in Hong Kong?”

“No.” Oliver studied the man’s broad, tanned face, the dark mustache that disguised a corrected hair lip. “Did you?”

“A Corot. Nothing else.” He jerked his head toward the private compartment, knowing he was embarrassing his companion and enjoying it. “That redhead, Annette, gives the best blow job in Europe. And the brunette in the back is at this moment going down on the other girl.”

His expression unreadable, Oliver had stared at the Australian. I’m being eaten alive by cancer, he had thought, medicated so heavily that sex is a memory. I can’t get an erection even if I wanted to. So I can look at you with your big, pumped body and your private plane—and not envy you in the least.

But he hadn’t said it.

“You’re married, aren’t you?”

Oliver had nodded.

“Are you happy with her?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” Freeland repeated. “I’ve got no one to share my life with. Well, whores, but no one special. And I’m thinking that if this plane crashed now, no one would really care if I died.”

Oliver had been more than a little worried that the conversation might slip into mawkishness.

“I’m sure you have many friends.”

“In this business?” Bernie had exclaimed. “You are fucking joking! You can’t have friends in the art world. Too many people trying to get their hands in the same till at the same time. I was offered a Turner in Dubai—Dubai, of all bloody places—but before I got back to the broker, he’d sold it. Whole deal completed in an hour.” He sniffed. “That’s technology for you. That son of a bitch was on his BlackBerry faster than the naked eye could follow.”

“It’s not like the old days,” Oliver replied, shifting in his seat. “You took your time then—”

“Time’s money,” said Bernie, cutting him short. He threw a glance in the direction of the “bedroom” and continued. “These whores, for example; their madam—Mrs. Fleet—knows almost as much about art as we do, but instead of running a gallery, she runs flesh. Uses the girls as bait or to close a deal. You talk about contacts? Fleet has contacts in the art world you and I could only dream about. All the dealers use her, but you won’t find one who’ll admit it.”

“Well—”

As Oliver attempted a reply, Bernie carried on, warming to his theme. “Imagine the kind of pillow talk that goes on between the girls and their punters. Imagine how much Fleet tucks away for use at a later date or to sell on to the highest bidder. Her and her girls are like the fucking Resistance in the war, except the girls don’t do much resisting.”

After that conversation, Bernie Freeland had ordered dinner for himself and his guests before moving back into the bedroom—where he still was, judging from the sounds coming through the washroom wall.

Oliver urinated into the bowl, flushed the toilet, and rinsed and dried his hands. He didn’t want to leave the bathroom, didn’t want to reenter the hothouse atmosphere of the jet. But embarrassed and out of place, he slowly made his way back to his seat just as the call girls emerged and went over to the bar. In their underwear, they eyed the newly awakened Kit Wilkes—who instantly waved them away—then turned their attention to the other men.

The redhead, Annette Dvorski, began talking to Lim Chang as the brunette, Marian Miller, sat down next to Oliver.

“Can I do anything for you? Can we?” Marian Miller asked, taking in Oliver’s expensive clothes and rightly assuming him to be married and rich. “Anything you want?”

“ Er … no. Thank you, no.”

The girl—tipsy and smelling of sex—rested her hand on Oliver’s thigh. She pouted when he removed it, saying, “You’re not like Bernie’s usual friends. In fact, you don’t even like him, do you? He could turn out to be a real fly in the ointment.”

Unnerved by the remark and wondering what she was implying, Oliver took a moment to reply.

“We aren’t friends,” he began tentatively. “We’re colleagues.”

Shifting in his seat, he listened to the plane’s engine and began to feel the rip of pain building inside his stomach. Before long he would have to take more medication, then wait for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes in which the pain would build, the race on to see how severe it could become before the medication took effect, curtailing the message traveling from Oliver’s stomach to his brain, crushing the synapse telegram and muffling the spasm.

While he waited for that relief, the journey began to seem interminable as a slight blond girl slid into the seat beside Marian. She took a sip of wine, then ran her tongue over her bottom lip; the third girl, Liza, sat down opposite Oliver. They were both pretty and knowing and wanting to talk to stave off the boredom of the long flight. And they both realized that Sir Oliver Peters wasn’t going to be screwing anyone.

“You an art dealer?”

“Yes.”

Marian Miller nodded. “It’s worse than politics, isn’t it?”

“Sorry?”

“The art world. You’re all so nice to each other’s faces, but you stab each other in the back at the first chance.” She had a faint Scottish accent and a tight line about her chin. Oliver realized she would lose her looks quickly as her face hardened with age. “I’ve never heard about your gallery, though …”

Oliver tried to smile but failed.

“… I know about Kit Wilkes’s place. And about him. Everyone knows about him.” She beckoned for Annette to come over. Reluctantly the redhead moved toward the group.

“Hey! Why drag me away?”

“That prick’s not up for it,” Marian replied, jerking her head toward Lim Chang. “Why waste your time? We’re just having a few drinks and a chat here. I was just talking about Wilkes. The bastard’s pretending to be asleep again, but he’s listening. Doesn’t miss a trick.” She turned back to Oliver. “I did a party with him a while back, rough stuff. He likes—”

“I don’t think you should tell me.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, continuing anyway. “He was celebrating some deal in Russia, said they’d seeded a painter. Built up a whole history about some artist that doesn’t even exist. He was laughing about the killing he’d made and said that the Russians were stupid and ignorant—which he said was even worse.”

Surprised, Oliver glanced at Kit Wilkes. Underestimating the Russians was folly. Twenty years ago they hadn’t known much about the international art trade, but now they were as well versed, as ruthless, and as rich as everyone else.

“He’s a bastard,” Marian said flatly, turning her attention away from Wilkes and back to Oliver. “So I take it that you’ve never been on one of Bernie’s hunting parties,” she said.

Oliver frowned. “Pardon?”

“When there’s a big international show on in London or New York, he gets a group of dealers together with a group of whores and then gives the girls money to buy a painting. If the painting the girl buys turns out to be more valuable than the dealer’s, she gets to keep the money.” She smiled, taunting Oliver. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Money? Liza pulled off a real coup last year. Not bad for a whore. But then again, whores get to hear and find out all sorts of things.”

They both watched Liza walk over to the bar, where she ignored the young male attendant and accepted a tray of snacks from the older man who had attended to Bernie earlier. Un-self-conscious in her bra and panties, she returned to the group and passed the platter around.

Liza sat down and then stared intently at Oliver.

“Jesus,” she said, sounding alarmed. “Are you all right?”

Two



OLIVER FLINCHED, WELL AWARE THAT THE GIRL HAD SPOTTED something, some intimation of illness. Or was it just his wretched unease with the conversation?

“I’m fine.”

“You just look so pale. Are you sure you’re okay?” Liza persisted. She helped herself to a couple of prawn canapés and crossed her legs in the lotus position, revealing the crotch of her panties. Oliver glanced away, and Marian turned to Liza. “I was telling Sir Oliver about Bernie’s hunting parties. How you’d gotten really lucky last year,”

She turned back to Oliver. “God, you should see your face!” she exclaimed, her expression defiant, her tone confrontational. “You think we’re just whores, don’t you? We are, but we’re also the best, most cultured whores. I’ve a degree in the history of art, with honors, and I worked in a gallery on Cork Street until I realized I could make more money on my back than behind a desk.” The alcohol didn’t seem to have had the slightest effect on Marian’s brain; she was sharp as a tack.

“We all work for the same woman: Mrs. Fleet. Bernie hires her girls because we fuck the best and we can talk about art—because most of her clients are dealers. We fit in, you see. We impress the collectors, make them feel at home. We know