Portrait of a Spy

hype.”
    “I’m sure you’re right, Nicky. You’re always right.”
    Lovegrove didn’t bother to dispute this. Instead, he drew a mobile phone from the breast pocket of his blazer and scrolled through the contacts. Oliver being Oliver, he snuck a quick peek at the screen after Lovegrove placed the call. Now isn’t that interesting , he thought. Isn’t that interesting indeed .

Chapter 45
St. James’s, London

    T HE PAINTING ENTERED THE ROOM at the midway point, like a pretty girl arriving at a party fashionably late. It had been a rather dull party until that moment, and the pretty girl did much to brighten the room. Oliver Dimbleby sat up a bit straighter in his folding chair. Julian Isherwood fussed with the knot of his necktie and winked at one of the women on the telephone dais.
    “Lot Twenty-seven, the Titian,” purred Simon Mendenhall, Christie’s slinky chief auctioneer. Simon was the only man in London with a suntan. It was beginning to smudge the collar of his custom-made shirt. “Shall we begin at two million?”
    Terry O’Connor, the last Irish tycoon with any money, did the honors. Within thirty seconds, the bid in the room stood at six and a half million pounds. Oliver Dimbleby leaned to his right and murmured, “Still think it was hype, Nicky?”
    “We’re still in the first turn,” Lovegrove whispered, “and I hear there’s a strong headwind on the backstretch.”
    “I’d recheck the forecast if I were you, Nicky.”
    The bidding stalled at seven. Oliver, with a scratch of his nose, nudged it to seven and a half.
    “Bastard,” muttered Lovegrove.
    “Anytime, Nicky.”
    Oliver’s bid reignited the frenzy. Terry O’Connor steamrolled his way through several consecutive bids, but the other contenders refused to back down. The Irishman finally lowered his paddle at twelve, at which point Isherwood accidentally entered the fray when Mendenhall mistook a discreet cough for a bid of twelve and a half million pounds. It was no matter; a few seconds later a telephone bidder stunned the room by offering fifteen million. Lovegrove pulled out his phone and dialed.
    “Where do we stand?” asked Mr. Hamdali.
    Lovegrove gave him the lay of the land. In the time it had taken him to place the call, the telephone bid had already been eclipsed. It was back in the room with Terry O’Connor at sixteen.
    “Mr. O’Connor fancies himself a pugilist, does he not?”
    “Welterweight champ at university.”
    “Let’s hit him with a stiff uppercut, shall we?”
    “How stiff?”
    “Enough to know we mean business.”
    Lovegrove caught Mendenhall’s eye and raised two fingers.
    “I have twenty million in the room. It’s not with you, madam. Nor with you, sir. And it’s not with Lisa on the telephone. It’s in the room, with Mr. Lovegrove, at twenty million pounds. Do I have twenty million five?”
    He did. It was with Julian Isherwood. Terry O’Connor immediately took it to twenty-one. The telephone bidder countered at twenty-two. A second entered at twenty-four, followed soon after by a third at twenty-five. Mendenhall was twisting and turning like a flamenco dancer. The bidding had taken on the quality of a fight to the death, which was exactly what he wanted. Lovegrove lifted his phone to his ear and said, “Something doesn’t smell right to me.”
    “Bid again, Mr. Lovegrove.”
    “But—”
    “Please bid again.”
    Lovegrove did as he was instructed.
    “The bid is now twenty-six million, in the room, with Mr. Lovegrove. Will someone give me twenty-seven?”
    Lisa waved her hand from the telephone desk.
    “I have twenty-eight on the telephone. Now it’s twenty-nine at the back of the room. Now thirty. Now it’s at thirty-one with Mr. O’Connor in the room. Thirty-two now. Thirty-three. No, I won’t take thirty-three and half, because I’m looking for thirty-four. And it looks as though I may have it with Mr. Isherwood. Do I? Yes, I do. It’s in the room, thirty-four million, with Mr. Isherwood.”
    “Bid again,” said Hamdali.
    “I would advise against it.”
    “Bid again, Mr. Lovegrove, or my client will find an adviser who will.”
    Lovegrove signaled thirty-five. In the space of a few seconds, the telephone bidders ran it past forty.
    “Bid again, Mr. Lovegrove.”
    “I would—”
    “Bid.”
    Mendenhall acknowledged Lovegrove’s bid of forty-two million pounds.
    “Now it’s forty-three with Lisa on the telephone. Now it’s forty-four with Samantha. And