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To match his phony provenances, Drewe was now showing Myatt what to fake. He sent art books, pieces of canvas of the appropriate size and age, and endpapers from old volumes. There was never a note or a return address. Myatt felt a thrill each time a package arrived from Drewe, as if he were James Bond receiving instructions from M.

One afternoon in October 1991 he drove down to Golders Green with his latest work, a Le Corbusier of a voluptuous nude standing with her hands clasped behind her head.

“That’s a lovely restoration,” said Drewe, who had taken to using the term to describe Myatt’s forgeries. Today it seemed particularly apt, because Myatt had painted the Le Corbusier over what had once been a nice old canvas of a river landscape. His father had bought the piece at a yard sale in the 1940s, but it had languished in the attic ever since. The canvas was from Le Corbusier’s time, so Myatt scraped off the river view and replaced it with his own composition. It was a common forger’s trick.

Drewe invited Myatt to dine at the Spaniard’s Inn, the Hampstead pub where they’d met when Myatt delivered the Footless Woman. There was business to attend to, Drewe said. After they sat down he handed Myatt an envelope containing several thousand pounds in cash.

Myatt had never once questioned him about what had sold or how much money had come in. He trusted Drewe and was grateful to him. Their relationship had become a full partnership, with Myatt suggesting which galleries Drewe should approach and helping him decide which fakes best complemented the provenances he had so thoughtfully taken off the ICA’s hands. For his part, the professor encouraged Myatt to keep a record of their transactions. “Put your business plans in writing and mail them to me,” he said. It would be years before Myatt fully understood why Drewe was so keen to leave a paper trail.

Drewe finished his drink and pulled out a Sotheby’s catalog for the first part of a two-part auction of impressionist and modern works scheduled for early December 1991. Inside was a full-color reproduction of Myatt’s hard-fought Giacometti. The Footless Woman was now titled Standing Nude, 1954, and was listed next to three other Giacomettis scheduled for auction later that year. Despite the awkward table hiding the botched feet, the piece was valued at £180,000 to £250,000.

Myatt noted that the other Giacomettis in the catalog were not his, and very likely authentic. It all felt a little unreal: Officially, his work had now been deemed as good as the master’s, and his talent was finally getting its due.

“People were leaping up and down buying my works,” he recalled. “I was secretly pleased that my little babies were out there.”

The nude still nagged him, especially the egregious amputation of her legs below the knee. He promised himself that his next Giacometti would be closer to the real thing. That night, back at home, he dove into his art books and began flipping through the pages for inspiration.

A few days later Myatt had a very good new Giacometti. He’d worked hard and stayed focused and come close to capturing the master’s essence. Nevertheless, he stopped before he was quite done. It was best to leave a work unfinished and a few problems unresolved. There was no such thing as a perfect painting. Perfection gave you away every time.

Myatt left the canvas on the easel and went to bed. In the morning he made himself a strong cup of coffee and took it into the living room. He glanced at the new standing nude and felt a rush of pleasure and relief.

“Not bad,” he thought.

On a scale of one to ten, he had produced only a handful of sevens and perhaps a single eight. This nude, without a doubt, was a ten—his finest achievement. Ironically, it would also be his undoing.

Paul Redfern, a burly freelance writer with a full woodsman’s beard, sat on his stool at the Lamb, a Bloomsbury bar, waiting for his friend Peter Harris, who was going to introduce him to a Professor Drewe, head of a company called Norseland Industries.

When Drewe and Harris