The Girl You Left Behind

been the least famous artist of the Académie
     Matisse. There are only two academics who specialize in his work, and neither of them
     knows any more than he does about
The Girl You Left Behind
.
    A photograph and some written journals
     obtained by the Lefèvre family have turned up the fact that the painting hung in
     full view in the hotel known as Le Coq Rouge in St Péronne, a town occupied by
     Germans during the First World War. It disappeared without trace some time after Sophie
     Lefèvre was arrested.
    And then there is a gap of some thirty years
     before thepainting reappears, in the possession of one Louanne
     Baker, who kept it in her home in the US for thirty years until she moved to Spain,
     where she died, and David Halston bought it.
    What happened to it between those dates? If
     it really was looted, where was it taken? What happened to Sophie Lefèvre, who
     seems to have simply vanished from history? The facts exist, like the dots in a
     join-the-dots puzzle but one in which the picture never becomes clear. There is more
     written about Sophie Lefèvre’s painting than there is about her.
    During the Second World War, looted
     treasures were kept in secure vaults in Germany, underground, protected. These artworks,
     millions of them, had been targeted with military efficiency, aided by unscrupulous
     dealers and experts. This was not the random plunder of soldiers in battle: this looting
     was systematic, controlled, regulated and documented.
    But there is little surviving documentation
     from the First World War, regarding looted property, especially in northern France. It
     means, Janey says, that this is something of a test case. She says it with some pride.
     For the truth is, this case is vital to their company. There are increasing numbers of
     organizations like theirs springing up, all sourcing provenance, listing works that
     relatives of the dead have spent decades trying to trace. Now there are no-win no-fee
     firms undercutting them, promising the earth to people who are willing to believe
     anything to get their beloved object back.
    Sean reports that Liv’s lawyer has
     tried various legal means to get the case struck out. He claims that it fallsbeyond the statute of limitations, that the sale to David from
     Marianne Baker had been ‘innocent’. For a variety of complicated reasons,
     these have all failed. They are, says Sean, cheerfully, headed to court. ‘Looks
     like next week. We have Justice Berger. He’s only ever found for the claimant in
     these cases. Looking good!’
    ‘Great,’ says Paul.
    There is an A4 photocopy of
The Girl You
     Left Behind
pinned up in his office, among other paintings missing or subject
     to restitution requests. Paul looks up periodically and wishes that every time he did so
     Liv Halston wasn’t looking back at him. Paul switches his attention to the papers
     in front of him.
‘This image is such as one would not expect to find in a
     humble provincial hotel,’ the
Kommandant
writes to his wife at one point.
     ‘In truth I cannot take my eyes from it.’
    It? Paul wonders. Or her?
    Several miles away, Liv is also working.
     She rises at seven, pulls on her running shoes and heads off, sprinting alongside the
     river, music in her ears, her heartbeat thumping along with her footsteps. She gets home
     after Mo leaves for work, showers, makes herself breakfast, drops a tea in with Fran,
     but now she leaves the Glass House, spending her days in specialist art libraries, in
     the fuggy archives of galleries, on the Internet, chasing leads. She is in daily contact
     with Henry, popping in whenever he asks to hold a conference, explaining the importance
     of French legal testimony, the difficulty of finding expert witnesses. ‘So
     basically,’ she says, ‘you want me to come up with concrete evidence on a
     paintingabout which nothing has been recorded of a woman who
     doesn’t seem to exist.’
    Henry smiles nervously at her. He does this
     a lot.
    She lives and breathes the painting. She is
     blind to the approach of Christmas, her father’s plaintive calls. She cannot see
     beyond her determination that Paul should not take it. Henry has given her all the
     disclosure files from the other side – copies of letters between Sophie and her husband,
     references to the painting and the little town where they lived.
    She reads through hundreds of academic and
     political papers, newspaper reports about restitution: about families