The False Virgin (50 page)

Michael Deverill deposited the reliquary objects, the butterfly in the hand and the skin in the crystal, beside the bones. Absently he picked up from the desk a string of worry beads or rosary
and poured the chain from hand to hand. Boris walked over to the single window in the room. He stared out across more trees and rooftops. Deverill wondered what was going through his head. Surely
Malenkov would agree to purchase these sacred treasures? He still had the means, hadn’t he? Although Deverill had heard stories that the Anesha Foundation was running low on resources.
Certainly, the Eaton Square house felt very empty now compared to when he’d made earlier visits. Apart from large Sonia down in the reception area and a man who passed Deverill as he was on
the way in, he’d seen no one. For sure Boris was not one of those ultra-rich oligarchs, he was not even a proper multimillionaire. He had no yacht or private Boeing, he owned no football club
in London or estate at Cap Ferrat. What he possessed was a driving desire to take Russia back to her spiritual roots. Somehow, Michael assumed, the amassing of these relics and objects connected
with a virgin saint was going to help in that task.

Michael Deverill liked Boris Malenkov, certainly by contrast to Vladimir Zarubin, for example. Malenkov was not intimidating. Indeed, there was something almost benevolent about the podgy
man.

‘I can’t offer you any money,’ said Boris. ‘I have cash-flow crisis. Next month maybe . . .’

Next month was too late. The next day would be too late. Somehow Deverill wasn’t surprised by any of this. He said: ‘But you do want those things of Beornwyn, don’t
you?’

If Boris noticed such an off-hand way of referring to the relics, he didn’t mention it. Instead he said: ‘I am ready to do exchange, though.’

‘Exchange, Mr Malenkov?’

‘The Madonna on desk, the one you are admiring. By Lorenzo Gelli.’

‘The Lorenzo Gelli,’ said Deverill, taking care to pronounce the name correctly (
Jelly
). ‘Well, it
is
a fine piece of work.’

‘A far exchange, as you say.’

‘Yes,’ said Deverill. He didn’t bother to correct Boris’s mistake over a ‘far’ exchange. He glanced at his watch. He had to finish the business with Boris and
return to his father. They had to catch that Gatwick flight in the early evening. More worrying, much more worrying than any to-do over relics and pictures, was the return of Vladimir Zarubin from
the Ukraine. Through Michael Deverill’s mind there flashed the image of burly brutes picking their way through the flat in Wimbledon, looking for evidence of fakery and fraud. No, not picking
their way through, but smashing things up. Not just things either. Yes, yes, take the painting. Get out of here. Get out of town. Get out of the country.

So it was concluded. Michael Deverill left the Eaton Square house with the Lorenzo Gelli unceremoniously wrapped in the same cloth in which he had carried the Beornwyn relics, inside the same
plastic bag.

When Michael returned to the flat in Wimbledon, his father was cramming things into a last-minute case.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Did our Boris go for them?’

‘Yes. But he had no money – no ready money, at any rate. I had to take this in lieu.’

‘Let’s see.’

When he saw the Gelli, Patrick Deverill let out a sound between a groan and a laugh.

‘One of mine,’ he said. ‘From the old days. This isn’t a genuine Gelli. No more than the woman in the picture was a real virgin.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m bloody sure, Michael. The model for the Madonna was your mother. Oh, but it’s nice to see her again.’

Michael wasn’t sure whether his father was referring to the Madonna or to his mother, who had been dead these many years. He said: ‘I thought her face looked familiar.’

‘And the baby is you. You were the model when I did it.’

‘Jesus,’ said Michael.

‘You could say,’ said his father. ‘Too late to return it to Boris now.’

‘Perhaps Vlad the Impaler will take it instead.’

‘That’s a joke, right? We are not staying to find out.’

Patrick Deverill dithered for an instant before stuffing the Lorenzo Gelli into the case. He did seem pleased to be reunited with the old fake. Minutes later, the taxi arrived to take father and
son to Gatwick airport.

Meanwhile, back in Eaton Square, Boris Malenkov was casting his eyes over the collection of Beornwyn relics, picking up one, now another. He considered that he had got the better part of the
bargain. That painting by Gelli he never really liked it. He had bought it in his early days in London through a dealer who later introduced him to the Deverills, father and son. But he had never
believed in the Mother or Child in the picture, to him they looked false. There was something bourgeois about their features compared to his beloved icons, there was no real suffering or
spirituality to them. So, obtaining the butterfly and the crystal was far exchange. Boris paused for a moment. A far exchange . . . was that the right expression? Anesha could have told him. And
downstairs in reception Sonia Davies was preparing to leave the house in Eaton Square. It hadn’t been much of a day. Half the sudoku book finished. One visitor. That bloke, Michael Deverill
was his name, he’d left in a hurry still carrying the Sainsbury’s bag he arrived with. Hardly paused to say goodbye to Sonia. Otherwise no callers. Not even Eric coming back. But he had
sent her a text. Rather a naughty message, as it happened, combining food and sex. So now what she was looking forward to was a takeaway from that new Thai place round the corner, followed by a
good session with Eric Butler. For a moment she wondered what the old man upstairs would make of that. A tiny part of her was concerned by Boris’s opinion. Then she shrugged. No virgin
she.

1
. See
House of Shadows