The Tulip Virus

by Danielle Hermans

  Wainwright pointed at the pile on the desk. Alec went over hesitantly and picked up the one on top, a picture of the front door at Cadogan Place. A detective was crouched there, wiping the doorknob with a brush. Through the doorway, Alec could see himself standing in the hall. Wainwright plucked the photo out of Alec’s hands, pinned it to the board, and tapped it with his index finger.

  “One more time for the record, Mr. Schoeller. When you arrived, was the front door open?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re assuming your uncle let someone inside. There’s no trace of a break-in. We would even go so far as to say it was someone he knew. I don’t suppose he was in the habit of opening the door to all and sundry in the middle of the night?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Any idea who it might have been?”

  Alec shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Mr. Schoeller, did your uncle have a lot of . . . hmm, how shall I put it . . . casual encounters? Might he have phoned someone to come over and, er, keep him company that night?”

  “He didn’t go for that sort of thing,” Alec said, glaring at Wainwright.

  “No, no. Fine. Next photo, please.”

  Alec put the picture in his outstretched hand.

  “Right, the hallway. When you arrived, was the light on or off?”

  “Off.”

  “And then what?”

  Alec sighed. “We’ve covered all this before. The light was on in the study. That’s where I found him.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes.” A lump rose in his throat.

  “Your uncle was tortured; you saw that for yourself. Any idea why? As far as you know, was he involved in anything . . . dubious?”

  “How can you talk such rubbish? A seventy-five-year-old man dabbling in crime? What exactly do you have in mind? Let me guess. Drugs. I can just picture my uncle hopping from club to club with a briefcase full of cocaine, in search of customers. Or hang on, here’s an even better one. He was into child pornography, or maybe he sold children into slavery. That’s it. He smuggled Thai boys across the border, stole their passports, and set them to work in brothels until they dropped.”

  “Mr. Schoeller, I really—”

  “No, no, wait.” Alec held up his hand. “I’m not finished yet. But I am quite finished with your insinuations. This man was esteemed in the highest circles. He had friends in politics and the diplomatic corps. He taught me the meaning of respect and love. In fact, he taught me everything I know about living decently in this wretched world. And now you’re suggesting he was some two-bit crook. Who do you think you are?”

  “All right, all right, I know who I am,” Wainwright said in a placating tone. “But what about Tibbens?”

  Alec found himself momentarily speechless. “What about Tibbens?”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “I suppose you’ve spoken to him.”

  “Of course, but I’d like to hear more about him from you.”

  “What can I say? He’s been in my uncle’s service for more than thirty years. I’ve known him ever since I first came to live at Cadogan Place. He started out as a driver and never left. The only thing I really know about him is that he would have done anything for my uncle. That’s how loyal he was.”

  “Anything? How far would he have gone?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “This.”

  Wainwright went to the windowsill and picked up a brown envelope. Inside it was a photo, which he pinned to the board. It was Tibbens, staring straight ahead with a stoic expression and holding a sign with a number printed on it.

  “What on earth . . .” Alec went up to the bulletin board and peered at the photo.

  “Wilbur Tibbens has a criminal record. He was once arrested for assault.”

  “Assault? There must be some mistake.” Bewildered, Alec looked at the photo again.

  “No mistake, he beat a man half to death,” Wainwright said sourly. “Not a pretty picture. I was thinking maybe he and your uncle had quarreled, and things got out of hand.”

  “Quarrel? Those two? If they had, my uncle would certainly have told me.”

  “Hmm. A different question. Had you noticed anything peculiar about your uncle lately? How was he doing? How was he feeling? Was his behavior out of the ordinary in any way?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “I mean, no.”

  “Could his death have had anything to do with blackmail? How had he been acting recently? Did he seem upset about something, or easily distracted? Was he unusually irritable, perhaps, or nervous?”

  “You don’t have to spell it out for me; I get the picture.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” Alec snarled.

  “Was he being blackmailed?”

  “For what? For being homosexual, you mean? That’s impossible; he was always very open about that.”

  “Right. Give me those photos, and you can be in charge of these,” Wainwright said gruffly, thrusting the box of thumbtacks into Alec’s hand. He took a photo, held it up to the bulletin board with one hand, and extended his other hand toward Alec, waiting for a thumbtack. Without turning around, he asked, “After you entered the study, what happened next?”

  Wainwright stood motionless, blocking Alec’s view. Then he stepped aside, and Alec felt his breath catch. He could feel Wainwright’s eyes boring into him as he stared at the lifeless body on the parquet floor. He gulped and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, then turned to Wainwright with a scowl.

  “I told you all about it. He was lying by the hearth, and I ran over. When I saw the state he was in, I called the emergency number right away.”

  “Did you move the body or touch anything at all?”

  “Well, obviously I touched him. I’m sure you can see that. I put his head up on a cushion and checked for a heartbeat. I . . . I tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Wainwright raised his voice and waved a finger at the bulletin board. “Look at his expression. Does he seem scared to you? Is that a look of fear? Is this a man who is staring his killer in the face? Here, look at these, and these.”

  The photos he tossed on the desk showed Frank’s corpse from every conceivable angle. Wainwright moved in closer to Alec.

  “Mr. Schoeller, I’ll be perfectly plain. I’ve read the reports from the pathologist and the scene-of-crime officers. There are a couple of things that just don’t match your version of events. I think you haven’t been quite straight with me. I believe you’re hiding something.”

  Alec swallowed. “Why would I do that?”

  “Well, that’s what I don’t understand.” He jabbed his finger into Alec’s chest. “But you know all too well that some things don’t make sense.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the bloody fingerprints your uncle left on one of his bookshelves. Just in one spot. That suggests he took something off the shelf after he was attacked. Presumably a book. The strange thing is, we couldn’t find a single book with bloodstains.”

  “So supposing you’re right about this. Why are you assuming I was the one to find it? Why not the murderer? Besides, given the state my uncle was in, do you really think he got up and fetched a book? It sounds pretty implausible to me.”

  “Is it possible he said something to you?”

  “Said something? Is that the latest Scotland Yard investigative technique? Asking the corpse who killed it? He was dead when I found him. How often do I have to tell you that? I put a cushion under his head and gave him mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.”

  “Why would you put a cushion under his head?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Mr. Schoeller, why would you put a cushion under his head? You enter the room, and there’s your uncle, dead. The first thing you do is reach for a cushion and slide it under his head? It’s simply absurd.”

  Wainwri
ght saw Alec blink as he said, “Listen, it was just the first thing that popped into my head, to make my uncle as comfortable as possible.”

  “You wanted to make a dead man comfortable? Interesting. So you put the cushion under his head before you tried to do mouth-to-mouth.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you thought he was still alive?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is that helpful, putting a cushion under someone’s head before you perform mouth-to-mouth? Is that what they taught you in your first aid course? First a cushion, then the kiss of life?”

  “I don’t know; I’ve never taken a—”

  “The paramedics say you knew just what you were doing. Too bad, I was hoping you could help us work this out. Oh, well.”

  Alec shrugged. “I did say you were wasting your time on me.”

  “Mr. Schoeller, there’s something you’re not telling us. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know why. But I’d like to make a deal with you. If you think of any way at all you could help, please contact us. Sleep on it, why don’t you? Who stood to gain by your uncle’s death— besides yourself, of course? Who would he let into the house at night? As soon as you think you have any information that might be useful to us . . .”Wainwright fished a tattered business card out of his inside pocket and held it out to Alec.

  “You mentioned in passing that I stood to benefit from his death.” Alec slipped the card into his pocket. “If you suspect me of something, why don’t you tell me to my face? I assume you’ve checked me out pretty thoroughly by now, so you know I don’t need his money. I do quite well for myself, if I may say so.”

  Wainwright looked at him. It was true: He’d instructed Dawn to find out everything she could about Alec, and earlier that day he’d studied her report. Alec had been seven years old when his parents died in a plane crash. Frank Schoeller, Alec’s paternal uncle, became his guardian and brought the boy to London. In later years Alec had studied history, but he never graduated, instead throwing himself into painting, a decision that proved financially rewarding. Since then, Alec Schoeller had become one of the top-selling artists in Western Europe. His paintings were hot items, fetching an average price of about two hundred thousand pounds apiece. Dawn Williams had also discovered that just a few years earlier Alec had spent six months in rehab, battling a cocaine addiction.

  “Money’s an odd thing, Mr. Schoeller. Not many people ever think they have enough of it— though it depends on their needs, of course.” Wainwright shot Alec a meaningful look. “Besides, money’s not the only possible motive. You know that as well as I. By the way, have you been told you can go into the house again? They’ve finished examining your uncle’s body. I understand the funeral will be in Holland, so you can go ahead and make the arrangements.”

  He held out his hand. “See you around, Mr. Schoeller.”

  After the door shut with a bang, Wainwright went to the bulletin board and put up one last thing: a photo of Alec.

  SIX

  Standing beneath the awning at the entrance to Scotland Yard, Alec buttoned his coat and flagged down a cab. As he settled into the backseat, he was suddenly overwhelmed by such a powerful wave of loneliness that he thought he was going to scream. He dug his nails deep into his palms and pressed his weight into the cushion behind him. Calm down, he thought, calm down. After taking a few deep breaths, he leaned forward and closed the little window between himself and the driver.

  His sense of powerlessness hung over him like a dense cloud, too impenetrable to breathe. It was back: the rage he’d thought was gone forever, that had haunted him since his earliest childhood. The rage at the thought of everything taken from him, at the desperate loneliness to which he was condemned. Wainwright’s vulgar insinuations that he’d had something to do with his uncle’s death only made it worse.

  Alec pressed the switch, and the window slid down. The cold air rushed over his face as he closed his eyes.

  Images of his life with Frank flashed through his mind. Alec’s first, illegal driving lesson, late at night: maneuvering the stretch Mercedes around the empty parking lot of a soccer stadium and almost dozing off at the wheel, while Frank, in the seat beside him, was brimming with energy. Frank rushing out ahead of him in the twilight at Bermondsey Market, where he combed the antiques dealers’ stalls with a flashlight in search of “hidden gems.” His profile as he read to his nephew by the dim light of the bedside lamp. All the times Frank had held him and comforted him. These moments of happiness were burned into his memory.

  He opened his eyes and felt his body crying out for something to ease the suffering, for a moment of oblivion. The need preyed on his weakness, and he felt himself plunging into the hollow, insatiable depths of his craving with such force that the pain was almost physical.

  His cell phone bleeped; someone was texting him. He picked it up and saw a message from Damian: Call me if there’s anything I can do, and let me know what time you’re getting in. I’ll pick you up.

  Alkmaar

  JULY 21, 1636

  The Old Archery Hall was the most popular tavern in town, the pride of the Alkmaar Crossbow Archers’ Guild. Its shutters were normally wide open, the aroma of a hot meal tempting passers-by. But now it was deep in the night, and the inn looked deserted.

  Wouter Bartelmieszoon Winckel looked up with a start when he heard the pounding on the door. Before closing his ledger, he scribbled one last entry. Then, with a groan, he bent down to pick up the pouch that lay on the ground beside him. He filled it with the guilders stacked on the table, then hurried down the steps and crossed the taproom to the tavern door, where he undid the latch and threw open the shutters of the cross-casement window.

  “Who goes there?” he asked, poking his head outside.

  He saw the silhouettes of two men, one tall and broad shouldered, the other short and squat.

  “Good evening, Wouter. It’s Cornelius,” the smaller man said, stepping forward and removing his hat.

  “Oh, Cornelius, I didn’t recognize you. What brings you here at this late hour?”

  “I must speak to you. I know it’s late, but this is a matter of great importance.”

  “All right, give me a moment. I need to finish up here.”

  Wouter closed the shutters and went to the open cabinet at the back of the taproom. The shelves had been removed and propped against the wall, and the pitchers, plates, and dishes were stacked on the tiled floor. He stepped into the cabinet, turned the key in the lock of the oak panel in the rear, and pulled it open.

  The space was five feet high, five feet wide, and six feet deep. Wouter shuffled in on his knees, with a candlestick in one hand and his pouch in the other. The shelves on the right-hand wall sagged under the weight of the coins. He put the pouch on the bottom shelf and moved the candle to his left, illuminating a chest with dozens of tiny drawers. On the front of each drawer was a slip of paper inscribed with words and a few numerals.

  Wouter smiled. Stretching his upper body as far forward as possible, he pressed his nose against one of the drawers. Through the perforations in the wood, the scent of damp earth reached his nostrils. He opened the drawer cautiously and cast an affectionate glance at the small, onion-shaped bulb inside it.

  “The scent of freedom. The future of the world in a drawer,” he muttered, carefully sliding it shut with his index finger. He crawled out of the hole feetfirst.

  Before shutting the panel, he leaned forward again, holding out the candle as far as he could reach. The pamphlets lay stacked against the back wall. Again, Wouter smiled.

  SEVEN

  “Would you hurry up, Em? We really have to get going. It starts at three o’clock.”

  Damian’s deep voice boomed down the long corridor of their canal-side town house, echoing from the marble wainscoting.

  “I’m on my way. Another two minutes,” a distant voice replied.

  “Another two minutes? My God, she’s taking forever. Why do women always take forever?”


  Sighing, he checked his watch and turned to his chauffeur, who was standing beside him with his arms crossed and a faint smile on his lips.

  “What are you smirking about? Care to let me in on the joke?”

  “It’s nothing, sir.”

  “Well, you can wipe that smile off your face. You’ll have to work miracles to get us there on time.”

  He was worried. Alec had arrived in the Netherlands the previous morning. His appearance as he entered the arrivals hall had startled Damian. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his unshaved stubble cast shadows over his face. But what worried Damian most was his friend’s look of furious determination.

  He thought back to the moment many years ago when he’d seen Alec for the first time, on orientation day at their English boarding school. The new pupils were gathered in the courtyard of a medieval castle transformed into a finishing school for the children of well-to-do parents who envisioned international careers for their little darlings. Damian spotted Alec immediately, keeping his distance from the cliques that were forming with dizzying speed. The courtyard was mobbed with loud polo shirts and fresh faces, as if it had been overrun by a pack of young dogs, all the same breed. Alec, on the other hand, was nearly drowning in his gray-blue army coat, the fur collar turned up so high you could barely see his face. With his duffel bag at his feet, he looked more like a Russian soldier on his way to the front than a fifteen-year-old pupil at an elite British boarding school. Damian went up to him and held out his hand.

  “Hello, I’m Damian Vanlint.”

  “Alec Schoeller.”

  Alec’s broad, paint-flecked hand felt rough in Damian’s.

  “Where are you from, Alec?”

  “London. How about you?”

  “Oh, I’m from Holland.”

  “That’ll come in handy,” he replied in Dutch. “We can speak Dutch when we don’t want to be understood.”

  Alec grinned at the startled expression on Damian’s face.

  “I’ve been living with my uncle in London since I was seven, but I’m originally from Holland too.”