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‘Tryon is sorry he couldn’t join us. He was most intrigued by your communiqué.’

Jacques took another sip of his wine and contemplated the young Englishman in front of him.

‘Tell me a little of this Tryon, please?’

Max now occupied himself with his wine glass to buy himself some time. ‘Well, obviously, I can’t say too much. But he is my immediate boss. Though he’s based in London, he keeps an eye on what’s going on around the world. He is the overview, let’s say. Out of interest, how did you come to contact him?’

Jacques thought about this question for a moment, as if it were a trap, and was silent. Max didn’t fill in the silence. He wanted to draw the old man out. Eventually, Jacques answered.

‘I have a friend in French Intelligence – through my work. When this problem got out of hand, he gave me Tryon’s number.’

‘And that is why I am here. To sort out this problem. But I need you to explain it all to me.’

The prospect clearly did not appeal to Jacques. He sipped his wine, tore off a piece of bread and then drank some more wine.

‘I was a forger,’ he finally volunteered.

‘Unusual profession,’ Max interjected.

‘I was brought up to it. It was all I knew. When I was a child, I swept the floor of a great man’s studio. He was a genius. And he took me under his wing. Han Van Meegeren. You have heard of him?’ Max nodded.

‘Everyone said he hated people. And passed on nothing. But he taught me everything.’

‘How many paintings have you forged?’

‘Hundreds,’ Jacques answered matter-of-factly.

‘So how does that work? How do you pass them off ?’

Again Jacques paused and thought about his answer.

‘Can you help us?’

‘Yes. But only if you tell us everything. We’re not the police. We don’t care how many paintings you have forged.’

Jacques seemed to accept this.

‘The forger has to deceive the so-called experts who pretend to know everything. I think Van Meegeren was more interested in fooling them than making money. I just did it because I was fortunate to be chosen by him. You pick an artist and create a work that he might have painted. So Van Meegeren created an entire period of Vermeers and managed to fool the idiots that they had discovered a whole lost period. During the war he fooled Göring into thinking that he was buying great masterpieces. And then the idiots threw him into prison for collaborating with the Nazis.’

Max kept nodding. He knew about Van Meegeren. It was Jacques he wanted to know about.

‘So how did you pass off your forgeries?’

‘By creating provenance. It is one thing to create a new painting. It is another to place it. So I would forge invoices, letters, magazine articles, pages from auction catalogues – anything that would place the painting in the past. You would be surprised by some of the people who have helped me. If you own a large château, and you can’t afford to put a new roof on it, what could be easier? Go to some Parisian expert and tell him you’ve discovered a great work in your loft. Just pretend it must have been in the family for generations and no one realized.’

The memory seemed to cheer Jacques up. A philosophical smile spread across his face and he took another sip of wine.

‘How come you got into copying paintings for Pallesson? It doesn’t sound like you needed the money.’

The smile left Jacques’s face as quickly as it had appeared.

‘There is no art to copying paintings. No creativity. Any idiot can do it.’

‘Why do it then?’

‘Pallesson. He’s a clever bastard. He caught me.’

‘How?’

‘He bought a Jan van Goyen that I created. Usual subjects – boats, windmills … The painting was perfect. But I made a mistake with the provenance. I forged a magazine article that referred to the picture, amongst others. Only for some reason the magazine wasn’t published the month I chose. Pallesson checked it out, which was bad luck, and then traced the picture back to me.’

‘What did he do about it?’

‘He said I had to copy some paintings for him. All Dutch masters.’

‘Which you did?’

‘I had no choice. He said bad things would happen to my family if I didn’t.’

Max nodded. That was Pallesson all over. First you find a way of compromising someone. Then you blackmail them.

Max smiled. ‘As I’m sure Tryon has told you, art forgery or copying are not really our business. So why have you come to us? And why now? Why not before?’

Jacques tore another piece from the roll in front of him. He ate it slowly, considering what to say next. While he was thinking, the maître d’ sidled up to their table and asked if they were ready to order. Jacques had the menu open in front of him. Max was pretty sure he hadn’t looked at it; or the label on the wine bottle, for that matter. Which was strange for a Frenchman.

Jacques asked the maître d’ about the specials and went for the carré d’agneau. Max chose the eggs florentine followed by oysters. He had no truck with the bollocks that oysters didn’t go with Solaia. While the maître d’ refilled their glasses, Max casually took the Vacheron Constantin brochure out of his top pocket and pushed it across the table.

‘These are beautiful, don’t you think?’

A look of concern spread across Jacques’s face. He didn’t reply.

Max had figured out that Jacques’s near vision had deteriorated.

‘Jacques, why don’t you tell me what the problem is, exactly?’ Max asked bluntly.

The confidence and control that Jacques had up until this point been trying to exude rapidly evaporated. He suddenly looked vulnerable. He drank some wine and paused. Max waited.

‘It’s my daughter, Sophie,’ he said at last. ‘She is a very talented artist. And recognized, unlike me. She has a great future. She has work hanging in Paris, London, Milan, Amsterdam …’

‘So what does she have to do with Pallesson?’

‘I should have told Pallesson that my sight was gone. Finished. But I was too frightened of the consequences. Sophie helped me. I didn’t want her to be involved, but she saw that I was struggling and how distressed I was. And then he tricked me. He worked out that she had helped me. Now he is blackmailing both of us. He says he will finish her career. That is why I come to you now. Can you protect her?’

Jacques’s shoulders were stooped as he stared at the tablecloth. Max felt sick for him. His mind cast back to Pallesson trying to compromise him at Eton. And blowing Corbett’s head off. He had to destroy him before his evil spread any further.

Max stretched his hand across the table and placed it on the old man’s wrist. But compassion wasn’t the foremost emotion churning in Max’s stomach.

‘Jacques, when did you send him the copy?’