Art of Murder

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  Early on the morning of 29 June 2006, Susan's bleeper went off unexpectedly on her bedside table, and woke her from a deep sleep. She dialled her code number on the hotel telephone, and was instructed to proceed immediately to the airport. She was sufficiently experienced to know this was no routine matter. For the past three weeks she had been in Hanover, for six hours a day - with intermediate breaks - lighting a small meeting room where debates about biology, painting, and the relation between art and genetics took place. Susan had not heard a word of them, because she had been wearing ear protectors the whole time. Sometimes she was also given a mask to put on, when she supposed that the guests were well-known faces who wanted to remain anonymous. As a Lamp, she was more than used to ignoring everything. But she had only rarely been called so urgently in the middle of the night, and hardly given time to get dressed, grab her bag with her equipment in it, and rush off to the airport. There a ticket was waiting for her on a flight that left for Munich half an hour later. In Munich she met up with other colleagues (she did not know them, but that was common among decorations). They were taken by private bus guarded by four security men to the Obberlund building, a squat steel and glass complex of offices and conference halls situated very close to the Haus der Kunst, next to the English Garden. During the journey she got a phone call from the decoration supervisor, a thoroughly unpleasant young woman by the name of Kelly, who explained briefly the position she was to occupy in the room she would be working in.

  Once they had arrived at the Obberlund, she had only twenty minutes to get ready: she took all her clothes off, put on a porous swimsuit and a colour cap for her hair, and then waited for the paints to dry. After which she took off her suit and cap, checked her body painted a rosewood pink and her dark teak hair, took the lamp fittings out of her bag, clamped the base round her right ankle, and limped to the meeting room with cable in hand, trying hard not to stumble and fall. Her colleagues were also silently and efficiently occupying their positions. Susan lay on her back on the floor and took up her pose: hands on hips, backside in the air, the right leg lifted out straight and the left bent over her face. The lighting circle with four cold bulbs was attached to the ankle in the air. The cable was not wrapped round her leg, but curled off across to the plug. All Susan had to do was to stay still and let the lights shine. It was a difficult posture to maintain, but training and habit had turned her into a first-class object. Her operating time was four hours.

  A short while later, someone - Kelly, in all likelihood - came and switched her on. The bulbs were lit, and Susan began to illuminate the room. Then a workman arrived to put on her ear protectors and the mask, then she was left in darkness and silence.

  The meeting took place on the tenth floor.

  The room the Obberlund managers had offered them was square, hermetic and soundproof. It had dark-tinted windows. There were only a few non-human pieces of furniture: metal and plastic chairs on a single leg were scattered around an enormous steel-grey-coloured carpet. All the other decorations were painted human bodies. There were Tables, Lamps, Ornaments by the window and, in the corners of the room, one stationary Trolley and eleven mobile Trolleys. Apart from the latter, which had to go from one side to another serving the guests and therefore had to see and hear clearly, the rest were wearing ear and eye protectors.

  The working breakfast was served by the eleven Trolleys: freshly baked croissants, five kinds of bread, and three different butter substitutes, as well as coffee, coffee and tea substitutes -these last for Benoit, in particular, as he was very nervous. There was also a variety of fruit juices, pastas, cheese spreads and glasses of mineral water full of gleaming ice cubes. Finally, there was a selection of dried fruit in a bowl on one of the Tables (the guests had to go and get these, because the Table - a boy lying with his back on the ground, legs in the air, and a girl balancing on his feet, both of them painted a fuchsia colour - could not move) and a dish of multi-coloured sweets between the breasts of a red Marooder Trolley, its body arched backwards with hands and feet on the ground, shiny copper hair brushing the floor.

  One of the guests was eating these sweets non-stop: he would lean over, grab a handful of them and stuff them one by one under his moustache, as though they were peanuts. He was a young man with black hair and a high forehead. His eyebrows were as bushy as his moustache. His maroon suit was impeccable, and beautifully cut, although not as expensive as Benoif s. He looked like a cheerful, friendly, talkative sort: in other words, someone of little importance. But Bosch instinctively realised that this individual, this anonymous-looking young man with a moustache who was devouring all the sweets, was the most important of all the important people in the room. He was the Head Honcho.

  Bosch had been appointed moderator. When he felt he had allowed them enough time, and caught a nod of approval from Miss Wood, he cleared his throat and said:

  'Shall we begin, ladies and gentlemen?'

  The mobile Trolleys, who were not wearing ear protectors, immediately left the room. Unavoidably curious, the eyes of the guests followed the procession of tall, varnished, naked bodies out of the room. For a minute, no one spoke. Finally, it was Paul Benoit who seemed to awaken out of a dream and opened the discusssion.

  'Please, Lothar, how did he get in? Just tell me that. How did he get in? I don't want to get nervous, Lothar. Just tell me ... I want you and April to explain to me ... to us, right now, how on earth that bastard got into the suite, Lothar. How did he get into a hermetically sealed suite crammed with alarms, with five security men permanently on guard in the lifts, stairs and doorways of the hotel... How do you explain it?'

  'If you'll give me a chance, Paul, I will explain,' Bosch replied calmly. 'He didn't have to get in: he was already inside. The Wunderbar hotel has hyperdramatic decorations. There was one in the suite: an oil painting by Gianfranco Gigli. ..'

  'A worthless disciple of Ferrucioli’ Benoit spat. 'If he hadn't killed himself, his works would be sold by weight.' 'Paul, please.'

  'Sorry. I'm nervous. Go on.'

  'Four models take turns to be the Gigli work. Somehow, this guy managed to pass himself off as one of them - Marcus Weiss, forty-three years old, from Berlin. Weiss was the work on Tuesdays. When we discovered what had happened we went to the motel where he was staying. We found him bound hand and foot to his bed, and garrotted. The police calculate his death took place on Monday night. It was, therefore, not he who turned up the next day at the Wunderbar wearing the paint and the mask for the Gigli painting.'

  'Have I understood correctly?' asked Rudolf Kobb, from the Foreign Office. 'We're looking for a guy who disguises himself as someone disguising himself as something else?'

  'A guy who disguises himself as a model who is a work of art on show inside the suite,' Bosch corrected him.

  'No. No. No, Lothar.' Benoit shifted in his seat, straightening the crease on his trouser leg. 'I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced. Who was the idiot who let him into the suite?'

  'My men are not responsible, Paul. In any case, I have no problem assuming responsibility for them. On the dot of seven on Tuesday evening, a man who looked like Marcus Weiss, wearing the labels Marcus Weiss wears, and carrying Marcus Weiss' credentials, arrived at the Wunderbar. My men checked his papers, made sure everything was in order, and let him in. They had been doing exactly the same with Weiss for several weeks.'

  'Why didn't they search his bag?'

  'Paul, he was a work of art; he didn't belong to us. He was not from the Foundation. We cannot search the bag of a work that is not ours.'

  'Who raised the alarm?'

  'Saltzer. He phoned the suite at twelve as a matter of routine. No one replied, and perhaps that was when he made his only mistake. He chose to stay downstairs and call again later. According to him, sometimes the twins decided not to answer the phone. After ringing three times, he got worried and went up to have a look. That allowed us to have more control over things than in Vienna, because we were the ones who discovered the bod
ies and informed the police when we were ready to do so. And I can forgive him his mistake, Paul. The guy was already

  inside.'

  'OK, so he was inside,' Kurt Sorensen butted in, 'but how did he manage to get out?'

  That was the easy part. He went down the stairs to another floor. From there he took a different lift. And he probably used another disguise so as not to arouse any suspicions. Our men were trained to stop anyone entering, not anyone going out.'

  'Do you get it now, Paul?' boomed Gert Warfell. 'This bastard is a real expert.'

  There was an uncomfortable silence, after which the Head Honcho spoke with incongruous enthusiasm.

  'Excuse me for changing the subject for a moment, but I wanted to say that I had the chance to visit the Haus der Kunst and the 'Monsters' exhibition yesterday. I wanted to congratulate you. It's incredible.' He appeared to be speaking to them all, although he was looking directly at Stein. There were some things I didn't understand, though. What's the point, for example, of putting a terminally ill AIDS patient on show?'

  'It's art, fuschus' Stein replied in a level tone. 'The only reason for art is art itself.'

  'I've also seen the exhibition,' the Europol representative, Albert Knopffer, said. 'What impressed me most was that eight-or nine-year-old girl carrying that African baby who turned out to be a dwarf male model. That gave me the shivers.'

  'We could spend all day talking about the works,' said the Head Honcho as he reached for more sweets. ‘I think they're even more profound than 'Flowers'. But let's be precise. They are different, the two shows can't be compared. However, they do seem more profound to me. Congratulations.'

  'They are works by the Maestro,' said Stein.

  'Yes, but you work with him. So congratulations are due to both of you.'

  Stein nodded his acknowledgement.

  'Lothar, why don't you tell us about the girl called Brenda?'

  Sorensen asked. 'Just to fill in for our friends here’ he added, smiling at the Head Honcho.

  Kurt Sorensen was the person who acted as the link between the Foundation and the insurance companies. He had learnt to get on with everyone, but Bosch did not like him. It was not just his pale face and vampire's brows that irritated him, but his character as well. He thought he knew everything, that he had all the latest and most accurate information.

  'Fine, Kurt.' Bosch shuffled the papers on his lap. 'According to our information, the other days of the week Weiss was on show as another work, an oil painting by Kate Niemeyer at the Max Ernst gallery on Maximilianstrasse. On Monday after work, a girl was waiting for him outside the gallery. Weiss introduced her to a friend of his, another canvas. He told her she was called Brenda, and that she was an art dealer. Weiss' friend, whom we questioned yesterday, said that Brenda looked like a painting. I should point out that paintings can often recognise others of their kind. Apparently, Brenda looked very much like a young professional canvas: athletic body, smooth skin, striking beauty. Weiss and his friend Brenda, whom we don't know when or how he met, had dinner at a restaurant and then went to his motel. The following afternoon, Weiss left on his own. He said goodbye and handed his key in at reception. The receptionist knew Weiss very well, and says he saw nothing odd apart from the bag he was carrying. He didn't look too closely, but he swears it was not the bag Weiss usually carried - which, by the way, he had left in the restaurant the previous evening. Nobody saw the girl leave at any point that day, and I'm sure that whoever the receptionist was, they would have noticed someone like her. Nor did anyone go into Weiss' room. But, of course, the Weiss who left the motel could not have been the real one, because he was killed more than twelve hours earlier . . .'

  'Therefore ...' interjected Sorensen.

  'Therefore we are led to believe that the false Weiss and the girl are the same person. In all likelihood what he was carrying under his arm was the disguise for Brenda.'

  'Which allows us to link this to the girl who had no papers’

  Sorensen said, looking across at the Head Honcho. 'That's right, isn't it, Lothar?'

  'Exactly. I think you all know about that already. In Vienna, Oscar Diaz met a girl with no residence papers, whom we can find no trace of. Later, a false Diaz turns up, and the body of the real one is found floating in the Danube, strangled with a wire cable. We must assume our man has repeated the same tactic'

  'If there is only one person involved,' Benoit said.

  That's true,' Gert Warfell agreed. He was the supervisor of the Foundation's Robbery Prevention and Alarms Section, an impetuous individual with the face of a bulldog.' It could be several people, a complete team of silicone experts working together. It could be a man or a woman, or several men and women. It could be . .. Dammit, it could be anyone.'

  The woman among the group of people Bosch had identified as important shifted in her seat, cleared her throat, and spoke for the first time. Her platinum blonde hair appeared chiselled. She was wearing a steel-grey suit with matching stockings. Her eyes were of exactly the same colour, too; and Bosch suspected her mind might be steely as well. He had been told her name was Roman. Her metallic eyes seemed to give off sparks.

  'In short,' she said in a high-pitched voice with an American accent, 'if I have understood correctly, gentlemen, there is someone, or perhaps more than one person, who is dedicated to destroying Mr Bruno van Tysch's paintings. They have already succeeded twice, and apparently there is nothing to stop them from doing so a third time. How, therefore, can I offer my clients any reassurance? How can I persuade them to go on investing in the creation, upkeep and security of works which anyone could destroy at any moment!'

  Various voices were raised, but it was Benoit who spoke for all of them.

  'Miss Roman, our meeting here is aimed precisely at resolving that problem . ..' The collar of his splendid maroon shirt was stained with sweat. 'There have been failings in our security system which I am the first to recognise and regret, as you will have heard ... but these gentlemen ...' he gestured vaguely in the direction of Head Honcho, '. . . these gentlemen are not part of our security team. These gentlemen we have asked to help ... do you know who these gentlemen are? . ..'

  "Yes, I know who these gentlemen are’ Roman replied evenly. 'What I'd like to know is how much these gentlemen are going to cost us.'

  Another hubbub, which immediately ceased when the Head Honcho began to speak.

  'No, no, no. We won't cost the Van Tysch Foundation anything, Miss Roman. Let's be precise. Rip van Winkle is a European Union defence system. More precisely still, Rip van Winkle is a system paid for by the cohesion funds of all the member countries.' He paused to scoop up another handful of sweets from between the Tray's breasts. One of them fell and bounced off the taut naked stomach. 'Let's be precise. Neither Mr Harlbrunner, Mr Knopffer nor I are here because we will be paid more, nor because we have any economic interest in this affair. We are part of Rip van Winkle. Part of it, Miss Roman. Let's be precise. If we are here, it's simply because matters which affect our European cultural and artistic heritage affect all of us, as citizens of countries with long traditions. If a terrorist group threatened the Parthenon, Rip van Winkle would be called in. And if Bruno van Tysch's works are threatened by whatever group it may be, then Rip van Winkle will be involved. It's not about money, Miss Roman, it's about moral obligations.' Flinging his head back, he tipped the handful of sweets into his mouth.

  'When people start making statements about morals, it always ends with bank statements’ Miss Roman declared, and nobody laughed. 'But if Rip van Winkle really means no extra costs for us, we have no objections.'

  'By the way’ said a booming voice in English with a German accent, 'is it true what I heard? That the loss of those two fat monsters is the same as losing the Mona Lisa?'

  He was a man with ruddy cheeks and a bushy white moustache. He looked like the typical Bavarian beer swiller of Hofbrauhaus posters. His name was Harlbrunner. His speciality (according to Head Honcho's introduction) wa
s as the head of the Rip van Winkle SWAT teams. At that moment he was standing next to the Table with the dried fruits, scooping up almonds in his huge white hairy paw, while at the same time staring fascinated at the varnished open legs of the Table's top half.

  For a moment there was a silence while the others looked surreptitiously at each other, as if weighing up whether or not it was worth answering his question. Then Benoit spoke:

  'No one can ... No one will ever be able to assess just what the loss of "Monsters" implies. The world we live in, the planet we inhabit, the society we have built ... none of it will ever be the same again. "Monsters" offered the key to what we are, what we have been, what we ...'