“Your owing me a favour is worth more to me.”
“Done,” she said.
Ava hung up the phone and threw on a clean black Giordano T-shirt. She picked up her cellphone, checked the incoming call list, and saw a Chinese area code. May Ling Wong.
She sat on the edge of the bed and dialled Helen Byrne’s number. If this didn’t work out, then Ava’s next calls would most certainly be to Uncle and May Ling.
“Ms. Byrne, my name is Ava Lee. I’m calling you about Nancy O’Toole and Maurice O’Toole.”
“Do I know you?”
“No, you most certainly don’t, and I apologize for calling out of the blue like this.”
“What kind of name is Lee?”
“Chinese.”
“You don’t sound Chinese.”
“I’m Canadian.”
“I have a brother who lives in Canada, in Hamilton.”
“Hamilton is quite close to the city I live in.”
“What is it you want with Nancy?” Helen said with some force.
“I understand you inherited her estate.”
“I’m her sister. We were close all our lives.”
“It must have been difficult, her dying so young and so soon after Maurice.”
“Cancer is a terrible thing.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Now you still haven’t told me what you want with Nancy.”
“It’s actually Maurice I’m more interested in.”
“That useless piece of shit?”
“Yes, him.”
“I never understood what my sister saw in him, never. He didn’t work a day in his life, just painting, smoking, and drinking. He didn’t womanize, thank God, but I always said that was because no other woman wanted anything to do with him.”
“Still, your sister obviously loved him.”
“She did that.”
“And he did make some money.”
“Oh, the last few years weren’t so bad for that. He left her comfortable, though a lot of good it did her. She died of lung cancer, poor girl, and she never smoked a day in her life. It was second-hand smoke, the doctor said, that killed her. I always thought it was Maurice’s way of reaching out to her from the grave.”
“I’m not fond of smokers myself,” Ava said, trying to find some common ground.
“Well, they’ve passed all these new laws here. You can hardly smoke anywhere outside your own house.”
“Canada is the same.”
Helen paused. “What is it you want with Maurice, then?” she finally asked.
“I’m trying to trace some paintings he did for a client of mine. I was wondering if he left any records behind and if Nancy kept any of them, maybe passed them down to you.”
“I’ve got a shed full of it.”
“Pardon?”
“My garden shed is stuffed with his boxes and things.”
“You’re serious?”
“Nancy couldn’t bear to part with his things after he died. She hung on to it all. She lived here with me and kept it in the shed. I just haven’t bothered getting rid of it.”
“Do you know what’s in those boxes?”
“Paper.”
“What kind of paper?”
“I have no bloody idea. It could be anything. Maurice was a real pack rat — he never threw anything away.”
“Ms. Byrne, is it possible that I could stop by to take a look at those papers?”
“You’d come all the way from Canada for that?”
“Actually I’m in England right now.”
“Still, that’s an awful lot of trouble for Maurice’s leftovers.”
“Ms. Byrne, this is quite important to my client. He has some art that he thinks was painted by Mr. O’Toole, and he wants it confirmed. I am prepared to pay you for any assistance you can provide.”
“How much are we talking about?” she said swiftly.
“How about a thousand dollars?”
“We use euros here.”
“A thousand euros then.”
“All right, Ms. Lee, bring the cash with you and you can poke away in Maurice’s boxes to your heart’s content.”
“I’m going to try to catch a flight out of here this afternoon.”
“Do you have my address?”
“I do.”
“We’re about fifteen kilometres from the Dublin airport. Any taxi driver will know where Donabate is.”
“Do you mind if I drop by when I get in?”
“As long as you bring the money, you can come at midnight if you want.”
(20)
At a quarter to four Ava stepped outside at Dublin Airport into wet, cold, mean weather. She was beginning to think that all of Europe was sitting under one giant rain cloud. She pulled a Steinum sweater from her bag and put it on.
She had called Helen Byrne as soon as she could turn on her cellphone and was now officially expected. She lined up at the taxi stand; to her right was a mass of people huddled inside a fenced area, partially hidden by small trees. “Stupid smokers,” the woman in front of her said. “They call that area Sherwood Forest because of the trees. Those idiots would stand there even if it was hailing on them.” She was holding a large umbrella and moved it towards Ava so they were both covered.
“Thank you so much,” Ava said.
“Are you Vietnamese?”
“No, Chinese-Canadian.”
“There are lots of Vietnamese in Dublin these days. Them and Poles. Don’t know what restaurants and hotels would do without them. Shut down, probably.”
The line moved quickly, and Ava was in a taxi before most of the smokers had finished getting their fix. She asked the driver to take her to Donabate. “A pretty little town,” he said. “The surrounding area, Fingal, is just as nice.” Ava couldn’t see any of it through the rain and mist. “The town is on a peninsula overlooking the Irish Sea,” he went on. “It has some fine beaches.” Ava wondered how many days a year those beaches could be enjoyed.
The cab stopped in front of a small whitewashed cottage four doors down from a miniature Tesco and six doors from a Boots store. Ava paid the driver, walked up to the front door, and gave the brass knocker a solid rap. She pressed close to the house, trying to keep dry.
The door swung open wide and Ava almost fell inside. “You’re not what I expected,” a woman said.
Neither are you, Ave thought as she stared up at a tall, gangly woman wearing jeans and a red fleece top zipped to the neck. For some reason she had imagined a small, thin, grey-haired old lady. Helen’s hair was dyed blonde, dark at the roots, and combed over to one side. She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, though it was hard to tell through the thick layer of makeup.
“You’re young,” Helen said.
“Not as young as I look.”
“And I thought you’d look more professional somehow.” Ava glanced down at her training pants and running shoes. “Did you bring the money?”
She passed Helen the wad of euros she’d withdrawn from the ATM at the airport.
“Come in,” Helen said.
Ava put down her bags in the narrow hallway.
“Do you want to go directly to the shed?”
“Please.”
The cottage was tiny, with no more than six rooms. They walked past two closed doors on either side to the back, where the kitchen door opened onto the yard. There was an empty pizza box on the counter. “That’s the shed; the door is open,” Helen said. “There isn’t a light in there and it will get dark in a couple of hours, so you’d better work fast.”
The shed couldn’t have been more than three metres square, big enough for a lawnmower and some basic gardening equipment. Ava pushed the door open and was immediately hit by a musty smell, the kind that damp paper generates. Geez, she thought, all that way for this.
Four rows of cardboard boxes were stacked against the far wall, three boxes high. She opened one and saw a row of neatly hung files, each of their tabs clearly marked. Her spirits rose. Then she noticed that the boxes were dated, starting with 1984-85 and the last dated 2004. She loved tidiness.
She scanned the tabs in the most recent box. Many of the files contained mundane documents, business expenses, bank statements. There was a file marked Jan Sorensen. She opened it and saw copies of all the correspondence that had gone back and forth between the two men. There was another marked Hughes Gallery. And one identified Derain. She opened it with a touch of excitement. Inside was a complete record of the life of a painting: the letter from Glen Hughes requesting the work; Maurice O’Toole’s reply; an invoice for the finished work, sent to an address she didn’t recognize; and a Polaroid photo of the painting itself, with the completion date and a title written across the bottom. You beautiful man, she thought.