by Anna Porter
Whatever it was that the mademoiselle was selling, it was worth more — perhaps a lot more — than half a million euros.
That he blamed himself for inviting Helena to Strasbourg made the decision to withhold information more difficult, but withhold it he did. It had been, as he told himself, a tough judgment call. He was sure that there were still gaping holes in his understanding of what the Vaszarys or their slippery employers in the Gothic castle had planned. What he thought he knew was that the original plans, whatever they were and whoever had devised them, had gone off the rails. Vaszary would not be offering a bribe to silence Mademoiselle Audet, unless she had something of value beyond convening buyers for the painting.
“She offered to give some information to Iván Vaszary in exchange for money,” he finally said. “It’s information she hadn’t shared with you and was not interested in sharing with me, but I don’t believe it’s of the kind that implicates Vaszary in your lawyer’s murder. As far as I can tell, it would have been against Vaszary’s best interests to have the guy killed because the painting he was hired to sell had not yet been sold. However, it may be the end of Vaszary’s career as our esteemed representative to the Council of Europe and of my fascinating stay in your magnificent town.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“For Vaszary, maybe twenty-four million. At least that was what the last painting by this artist fetched.”
Hébert whistled. “That’s a lot of money for a painting.”
“Apparently not if it’s by Artemisia Gentileschi.”
“Who?”
“She was, apparently, a baroque master. Italian. Not many women artists in her time, so she is rare. But don’t ask me how these things are valued, all I know is they usually go for more than the last time a painting by the same artist was sold.”
“What was Magoci’s take?”
“No idea. But the mademoiselle would know, and she expects a substantial chunk to keep or destroy the tapes of Vaszary’s dealings with Magoci.”
“You don’t think whatever their meetings were about would be of interest to the police?”
“I am not sure yet.”
“You know Magoci was good at money laundering.”
“Yes, and it’s possible that his work for Vaszary included a bit of that.”
“That could have been the reason he was killed. Someone or someones didn’t want him to take the money out of the country.”
“We need to know who would have benefited from Magoci’s death and how.”
“That is now,” Hébert said, “the starting point of the rest of my investigation. What happens in Budapest with this man Berkowitz is only of interest to me as far as it relates to our crime. After I find out who hired Berkowitz to kill Magoci, I will not care whether Tóth wants to find Berkowitz’s killer or not. I will think that is a purely Hungarian matter.”
Hébert scratched his head, walked around his office, poured them both coffee from his little espresso machine, and stood facing the window with his hands clasped behind his back. It was still a beautiful day in Strasbourg. The linden trees across the street had turned deep shades of ochre. A light wind played in the branches and what you could see of the sky was blue. When Hébert turned, he was smiling.
“I plan to take my wife and kids to the mountains this weekend,” he said. “You still have some mountains in your country. Perhaps you could take someone for a holiday.”
A great idea, Attila thought. But whether Helena would agree to a cabin in the lower Carpathians was hard to know. She would probably prefer the French Alps. “I will suggest it to her,” he said.
Hébert shook Attila’s hand. “That’s why I want to close this case before the end of the day. We both need a holiday. Do you think you are willing to help?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Attila drove to the steel-and-glass monstrosity that billed itself the Palace of Europe. He parked in the employees parking lot close to the human rights building, ran up the stairs, and made his way along the corridors to the office of Hungary’s Permanent Representation. It was an odd label for a member’s office in this rather utopian setting, where nothing seemed permanent, not even the short-cropped blue-green grass that still showed signs of having been laid in slabs.
He was surprised that Mrs. Gilbert, Vaszary’s long-suffering secretary, was not at her desk. It was even more surprising that the door to the inner sanctum was open and the minister of many portfolios, Árpád Magyar, was sitting at Vaszary’s rather ornate leather-covered desk. He wore an exceptionally fine blue linen jacket, its sleeves rolled up, his hands steepled, his lightly tanned face composed, mildly expectant, eyebrows raised when Attila entered.
“We have been expecting you,” he said with a pleasant smile as he waved Attila into the room. Attila looked around to see who else had been included in the minister’s plural, but there was no one else there, not even Iván Vaszary, the only person who had any reason to expect to see Attila here today. “Come in, come in,” the minister said, indicating a wide-armed chair across from the desk.
“Why?” Attila asked.
“Perhaps it is a conversation we should have had already, but no time like the present,” the minister said, still smiling. Attila thought that, what with the fine suit, the tan, the restrained but friendly smile, Árpád Magyar managed to look more like an Italian actor than a middle European bureaucrat, but since he was known for mixing with the rich when he and Mrs. Magyar were on vacation, he had come by the look honestly.
“Your salary, for starters, is not — how shall we put it? — adequate for your lifestyle.” Magyar said the last word in English. Perhaps, Attila thought, so few Hungarians could afford one that there was no need for a translation.
“My what?” Attila asked.
“You are divorced,” the minister said, his voice taking on a shade of regret. “Your wife, as I understand it, had desired more than you could offer her, and she left you for a more . . . more interesting companion, a better life, really, wouldn’t you say, Attila?”
“More interesting?”
“Money, as you know, makes for better options. She needed better options than your limited means could offer.”
“I don’t think my divorce is any of your business, Mr. Magyar,” Attila said.
“That’s exactly why we are having this discussion, Attila. I can very easily make it our business. You have two lovely daughters, for example. Wouldn’t you like to give them more of the things that little girls desire? My daughters, for example, have a keen sense of fashion. They like to wear pretty clothes. They like to go on interesting vacations. You see, there is that word again, interesting. Little girls can be quite demanding. Haven’t they told you they are tired of the zoo? It’s a great zoo in Budapest, one of the best in the world, but they must get bored with it, Attila. And aren’t you bored with your car?”
Attila had an overwhelming desire to slap the minister’s jowly face but held back. Waiting.
“I thought so,” Magyar said, with growing confidence. “I think you would find us very understanding. Very generous. And not too demanding. A few little things, maybe, from time to time that you could do for us. No, nothing onerous, I assure you.” He had his hand up as if to ward off whatever objections Attila offered.
“For example,” Attila prompted.
“For example,” Magyar repeated. “There is a small, irritating local matter,” Magyar said.
“What sort of small matter?”
“The matter of Magoci’s unwelcome interference in something that did not concern him. A business matter, really. You know he had the nastiest reputation. Money laundering. He worked, you must know this by now, for the Sicilians. Dirty, small-time crooks. The man had no sense of honour.” He breathed a long sigh and waited for Attila’s response.
Attila composed his face into what he hoped was suf
ficiently keen, without being an easy mark. The longer he held out, the more the minister would reveal. He was already close to admitting that he had Magoci killed.
“What is it, exactly, minister, that you are offering, and what are you expecting of me?”
“Well now,” Magyar said, leaning back in Vaszary’s chair, he knew how to sink into this sort of negotiation. “We wanted the . . .” Was he searching for the right word or playing for time? He settled on “elimination” and smiled, “of this unsavoury character. Usually, you understand, Attila, we would be on the side of law enforcement, but this is a completely different matter. The man was a pariah. A waste of fresh air.”
“I am not sure I understand,” Attila said, drawing out the moment and building Magyar’s confidence.
“It’s like this,” Magyar said. “He had interfered in what was none of his business.”
“The painting,” Attila prompted.
“The sale of the painting — which did not belong to him; therefore, he had no right.”
“Vaszary’s painting?”
“Vaszary’s?” Magyar snorted. “That’s the point I am trying to make here, Attila. Not Vaszary’s. That fool . . .”
“He told me he bought it from Biro.”
“That’s another thing we need to settle, Attila. We were surprised you took it upon yourself to track down Biro, and then your little friend” — emphasis on the little — “followed our man in Budapest. We hadn’t expected her to get into the middle of this. But we are willing to overlook that. For your sake.”
“Berkowitz was working for you,” Attila said.
Magyar sighed ostentatiously, as if he had finally succeeded in making his point with his rather thick pupil.
“So, it was you who had Magoci killed,” Attila said.
Magyar placed an envelope on the desk in front of Attila. They both stared at it for about a minute before he motioned toward it with his chin and said, “You can look inside.”
Attila picked up the envelope. It was full of purple euro notes.
“You can count it,” Magyar said. He rose from Vaszary’s chair, walked around to Attila’s side of the desk, and stood, his butt leaning against the desk, looking down at Attila.
Attila stroked the flap as he positioned the envelope back on the desk, slowly, hesitantly, still staring at it. He thought there could be at least forty banknotes inside. Twenty thousand euros.
“I need to think,” Attila said.
“Not much to think about, but if you need a couple of hours, that’s okay. For the little we expect. All you need do is stop mucking around in this business. That local policeman who has been asking questions, you can convince him this thing has nothing to do with Hungary. It’s not the place for him to look. We told that idiot Tóth, but I am not sure your man, Hébert, will listen to Tóth. Get him to look for other suspects. There are a lot of people this son of a bitch dealt with who could have wanted him dead.”
Attila was nodding.
“Two hours,” Magyar said, sweeping the envelope off the table and pocketing it.
* * *
When Attila drove to the house on Rue Geiler, it was overcast with a sprinkle of rain. He had suggested to Helena that she should arrive about fifteen minutes after him. That would give him a chance to talk to the Vaszarys in Hungarian about Mademoiselle Audet’s dismissive attitude to Iván’s generous offer. The question was, What had Vaszary been saying to Magoci that was worth more than half a million euros? And how exactly did Magyar fit into the picture? Now that he knew that the hit on Magoci had been engineered by Magyar (and whomever he had included in this “we”), what was Magyar’s expectation of the painting? Attila had called Hébert, but he did not mention Helena. He was reluctant to drop her into the soup Magyar and his cohorts were cooking.
Hilda, not wearing her full maid’s uniform today — no apron, only the black dress — opened the door. “I think, finally, I will be able to visit my mother in Karcag,” she said. “She has been ill for the past week, but they wouldn’t give me time off until I told them I would quit if they didn’t. I have not had one day free since we came here. Why do you work for these elfajult rohadékok?” she asked.
“Same as you, I think,” Attila said. “I need the money. And did you quit?”
“Not yet. I agreed to stay if they give me the bonus they promised when we moved to this wretched place and I get two weeks off to go to Karcag. They were all excited about some higher-up’s visit. They wanted little sandwiches and cakes. I think they would have given me much more if I had had sense enough to ask.”
“Then you are coming back?”
“Not if I can get another job.”
Lucy followed Attila into the living room, sniffing loudly up and down Attila’s trouser legs from the ankle to below the knees at about Gustav’s full height. It was not a friendly sniff. Ignoring Hilda’s warnings, Lucy accompanied him to the living room.
The room was strangely still and murky with the rain now beating on the windows. No one had turned on the lights. The Vaszarys were sitting on the sofa, holding hands. A third person, a tall man wearing a suit with an old-fashioned long jacket, stood facing the painting, his back to the door. He did not turn when Attila entered.
“We were not expecting you,” Iván Vaszary said in Hungarian. “At least not here.” He spoke so quietly that Attila had to approach the sofa to hear him. “You were supposed to come to my office.” He looked down at his wife’s fingers woven through his own.
“I did,” Attila said, “but you were not there.”
“So you came here,” Vaszary said, stating the obvious.
“I assume you are not getting divorced,” Attila said.
“We changed our minds.”
“Mademoiselle Audet told me that Mrs. Vaszary had not hired Magoci.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“That your offer was insufficient.”
“Insufficient,” Vaszary repeated in a whisper. “How?”
“I think she imagined that your painting would sell for enough money that you could afford to give her a much bigger slice of the proceeds. At least as much as you had agreed to pay Magoci to find the buyers and conduct the sale.” Attila was now close enough to the sofa to see Vaszary’s face, damp with perspiration, his shirt front wet and stuck to his chest.
“I had already paid a retainer. The rest was not due till the deal was concluded, and it has not been concluded.”
“I don’t think she cares about those details, and she didn’t get any part of the retainer.”
“We were going to pay him a percentage.”
“Mademoiselle Audet may not be willing to wait for her share.”
“I have nothing to give her now,” Vaszary said.
“You know Gyula Berkowitz?” Attila asked, changing tack. Vaszary’s face remained impassive, but Gizi looked scared.
“I don’t think I . . .” Gizi began before Vaszary squeezed her hand, then she stopped.
“We don’t know anyone by that name,” Vaszary said.
“That’s strange. He had a photograph of you in his apartment.”
“Me?” Gizi squawked.
“Both of you.”
The man who had been facing the painting in the murky room now turned and stood looking at Attila, then he walked over to the standing lamp near the sofa and turned on a light. He had a pale, narrow, doleful face with a pronounced brow. “Waclaw Lubomirski,” he said. “Et vous êtes?”
“Attila works for me,” Vaszary said in English. “He used to be a policeman and now he is my bodyguard. He is also a close friend of the appraiser, Helena Marsh. We were expecting her today.”
“In that case, we can conclude today,” Waclaw said. He didn’t offer to shake Attila’s hand. Perhaps he thought bodyguards were beneath him.
“Everything has
gone wrong,” Gizella whined. “Everything.”
“You know Magoci was murdered,” Vaszary said to Lubomirski.
“I don’t see how that changes our arrangement,” Lubomirski said. “Magoci was dead more than three days ago and that’s when you told me to proceed with the payment, and I have moved the funds you required into your account in Canada.” He spoke almost perfect English.
“There was a delay with Miss Marsh’s report . . .”
“We have already discussed that as well. I accept your word for what she has already told you.”
“Miss Marsh,” Hilda said with a hint of a smile as Helena, Lucy the rottweiler, and another woman entered the room. Lucy was showing an unhealthy interest in the other woman’s bottom. “Lucy,” Hilda warned, and tried to pull the dog away from her quarry. The tall woman with the ruffled shirt and chocolate-coloured jacket slapped the dog’s snout with her matching purse.
Waclaw already had his hand stretched out as he bore down on the two women, his face expressing sheer delight. “Such an honour,” he said, pumping Helena’s hand. “Waclaw Lubomirski,” he announced. “And I have been wanting to meet you for so, so long, Miss Marsh. I hope we can entice you to come to Warsaw to see our collection. So many more works since you were last there and this one,” he indicated the painting he had been studying, “this one will, of course, be the new star of the museum. We plan a whole show around its acquisition. We will feature some of Artemisia Gentileschi’s other works. A great retrospective exhibition. We are contacting the galleries that have lent works to her show in London, and we plan to assemble the entire lifetime of Artemisia’s art. She is such a seminal figure in the baroque. Maybe as soon as next summer, and you would be an honoured guest with us, maybe we could persuade you to be a speaker at the opening of the exhibition itself . . .”
“There may be a problem,” Helena said, extricating her fingers from Waclaw’s grasp.
“No problem we can’t overcome, Miss Marsh,” Waclaw rushed on. “We understand if you have a conflict. If the timing does not entirely suit you, we could reschedule your lecture as part of our planned series of talks and a film about the baroque and that could be any time while the exhibition is open to the public.”
