Athena (novel)

Athena is a 1995 novel by the Irish author John Banville, the third in a series that started with The Book of Evidence and continued with Ghosts.

[2]  He is asked by a businessman called Morden to authenticate a number of paintings which are old and supposedly valuable.

Morrow becomes romantically involved with a woman he simply calls A. who appears to have stepped out of his canvasses.

The police have been watching Morden, led by Chief Inspector Hackett (who also appears in Banville’s Quirke series).

The police bring in their own art expert, who declares that the paintings are all fakes; Morden then claims that he simply had copies made for his own use.

For reasons which are not clear, Morrow takes her away from the residential care home where she lives and brings her to his inadequate flat, where she eventually dies.