Provenance_ How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art - Laney Salisbury [70]
Myatt wondered what had precipitated the change in Drewe. He thought back over the past year or so and recalled the many occasions on which he had witnessed or heard about Drewe’s deteriorating situation at home. Once, when Myatt brought a new painting over to Rotherwick Road, he’d found Goudsmid and Drewe facing off on opposite sides of the living room. Goudsmid was in the middle of a full-blown tirade, screaming that Drewe was a liar, an impotent bastard, and a crook. Drewe stood there with no expression on his face, waited for her to finish, and then hustled the embarrassed Myatt outside. They walked to a local pub and talked until closing time.
Drewe told Myatt that Goudsmid had become dangerously unstable and suffered from a serious mental illness. She was paranoid and had been diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She had declared all-out war on him, and he feared she might harm the children. After one argument, he said, she had thrown boiling water on the family dog. Then she had put the pet goldfish live into the microwave.
For the next few weeks Myatt had received updates on the couple’s deteriorating relationship, until Drewe finally called to say that the relationship was over, that he had left Goudsmid, taken custody of the children, and moved out to the country.
One night not long after, Drewe and Myatt met for dinner at one of their favorite Italian restaurants in Hampstead. Drewe drank heavily. Afterward they went out to the parking lot to look at a new piece Myatt had brought in. Drewe was beaming, reeking of Beaujolais and puffing on a cigar. Myatt opened the trunk of the Rover and handed him the painting, a Giacometti crayon and pencil drawing of a man standing beside a tree. Drewe held it up to the bright neon lights.
“I don’t think you realize, John, that this is a classic example of the artist’s work,” he said. “It’s powerful, simple, and symbolic. You don’t know how important it is.”
“I know what it is,” Myatt said. “I bloody well painted it.”
Drewe’s jaw clenched. “Don’t ever say that again,” he snarled.
Myatt remembered wondering, in the wake of that incident, whether Drewe was losing touch with reality. He’d called him up the next day and again made the argument for quitting the game, but there was no getting through to him. He’d written Drewe a long and heartfelt farewell letter but hadn’t had the courage to send it. It was tucked away in his briefcase.
Now a cloud hung over their friendship, such as it had been. Whenever they got together, Drewe went on for hours about his problems with Goudsmid and various art dealers, and endlessly repeated his stories about MI5, his weapons training, and his expertise in methods of interrogation, assassination, and political reprisal. Myatt could no longer follow these increasingly obsessive monologues.
One night, as they were walking through the city, Drewe pulled Myatt into an alley, opened his overcoat, and showed him a pair of handguns tucked into leather holsters. He drew one, pointed it directly at Myatt’s face, and smiled, and then laughed. He repacked the weapon and walked on as if nothing had happened.
That was the last straw for Myatt. Drewe was definitely crazy, and it was no longer a question of scaling back the business. Myatt wanted out. There was just one problem. If he quit now, he was sure Drewe would go after him, and maybe even his children. He thought the professor was quite capable of killing him. Drewe, in his paranoia, would build a case against Myatt in his head and then try to eliminate him. The two men had worked together for nearly a decade, and Myatt knew nearly every angle of the con. He knew about the professor’s larcenous visits to the Tate and the V&A and the British Council, and he had met several