The Rembrandt Secret

by Alex Connor

  Marshall took a moment to react, immobilised by the horror of what he was looking at. At last he moved towards his father, walking through a pool of blood and urine. His hand shaking, he felt for a pulse at his father’s neck.

  ‘Dad? Dad?’ he said softly, stupidly.

  It was obvious from the angle of Owen’s head that he was dead, but Marshall kept talking to him, mumbling comfort as he reached up to try and release his father’s hands. When he couldn’t unfasten the bonds, Marshall stepped back, shaking uncontrollably, looking round for something to cut the rope. He could feel the blood sticky under his shoes, and feel the cold air coming through an open window, but he couldn’t take his eyes off his dead father. His murdered father. Tenderly he touched Owen’s face, then took off his jacket and placed it over his father’s head. But as he did so, the body slumped, swinging from its tied wrists as it turned round to face him.

  All the elegant charm of Owen Zeigler’s face had disappeared under a coating of blood. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in pain, his scalp was split, his eyes stared out blindly, his rib cage caved in under the mottled flesh. And from the gaping cavern of his belly his intestines began, slowly, to slither to the floor beneath him.

  Owen Zeigler had been gutted.

  6

  Rosella Manners stood by the door of the breakfast room of the Barnes house, watching her husband. She was standing barefoot, having kicked off her shoes moments earlier when she entered the house. It was a habit of long standing, a way to make her husband – shorter by three inches – feel less intimidated by her height. Her expression was unreadable, her coat unfastened, her bag on the hall table. Letting herself in, she had avoided any exchange with the housekeeper; keen that no one should overhear what she was about to say.

  Mozart was playing, very quietly, the scent of the white lilies in the hallway was almost cloying. Fresh flowers twice a week. Rosella had insisted on it. Even when she was away. It was good chi, she would say mockingly, it keep the energy alive in the house. But looking at Tobar – who still had not noticed her – she realised that it was pointless to keep up any of the little pretences she had accumulated over the years. He was not a man susceptible to atmosphere. He was, she knew, immune to anything other than the materialistic. Rosella might try for an imitation of married life, but that was all it was – emotional costume jewellery.

  She glanced over to the carpet under the coffee table. They had bought it in Tangiers, Tobar haggling with the dealer, flirting with him to get the price reduced. And she had stood in the background, silent behind her sunglasses, and suspected she had been taken for his secretary or a sister. Never a wife. Her gaze moved to the mantelpiece; to the cherubs nestling together amorously. Only both putti had male genitalia and their marble perfection was a frozen moment of homoeroticism. Everywhere was the language of the boy. Of her husband’s preference, of the late-night conversations in the study and the two separate mobile phone numbers.

  It both distressed and amused Rosella that she might be pitied, that people would think her wasted. Why be a wife to a man who had no need of one? But then again, she thought, why be a wife at all? Motionless, Rosella kept staring at the back of her husband’s head. Gossip had tracked their marriage as day followed night, but she was a clever woman: she was well aware that to be perceived as a victim was her protection. Her own mock morality.

  Throwing her copy of the Evening Standard over to Tobar, she watched as it struck him on the shoulder.

  Irritated, Tobar turned round. ‘What the hell—’

  ‘Read the paper,’ she said, her mouth a thin line of disgust under the patrician nose. ‘See what your handiwork has done.’

  Immediately he snatched it up, read the passage she had marked, and lost colour. ‘Owen Zeigler killed …? What the fuck happened?’

  ‘You cheated him with that Rembrandt—’

  ‘Now, look here—’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, you little bastard. I know you, remember? I know every rotten thing about you.’ She sat on the edge of a chair, facing him, swinging one of her stockinged feet. ‘You cheated him when he needed money. If you’d sold that painting as a Rembrandt, it would have saved Owen’s business—’

  ‘But not his bloody life.’

  ‘How d’you know? Maybe he took a risk, borrowed too much, got mixed up with the wrong people. God knows, there are enough sniffing around the galleries at the moment, scenting blood.’

  Tobar was reading the paper hurriedly. ‘It was a robbery that went wrong—’

  She snorted. ‘Odd that no paintings were taken. Mind you, the most valuable one had already gone, hadn’t it?’

  ‘I was told that it wasn’t a Rembrandt!’

  ‘You bloody liar!’ she spat. ‘I remember what you said when Owen Zeigler first bought that painting – Lucky bastard, that will ensure a rich old age.’ She leaned towards her husband, her expression taunting. ‘You wanted that painting for decades. And then you got it, but the novelty soon wore off, didn’t it? You had to make Owen look like a fool, like a third rate dealer, to compound your triumph. So you sold it on. And he trusted you. If he hadn’t have been so desperate, do you think he would have believed you?’

  Tobar shrugged. ‘I was told it wasn’t by Rembrandt. I lost money too—’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Rosella replied. ‘I’ve seen your work, and I’ve not liked what I’ve seen. Why do you think I spend so much time away from you?’

  ‘We both know you have another man.’

  ‘I have one man. You never counted as a man in my eyes,’ she replied, with withering scorn. ‘I was your beard. That’s what you call it, isn’t it, Tobar? When a homosexual needs to look married, the faux wife is his beard.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘Well, it’s time you were clean shaven.’

  Stung, he turned his pale eyes on hers, his expression flat. ‘Stop being so fucking melodramatic. You need me.’

  ‘Not any more,’ she replied. ‘I used to, but not now.’

  ‘We have an arrangement.’

  ‘We had an arrangement,’ she corrected him. ‘But now I couldn’t live in the same house with you after what you’ve done.’

  He was thin with spite. ‘I don’t know why you’re being like this. It’s business. I’m sorry Zeigler’s dead, but I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘You ruined him, you made him desperate. God knows what chances he was taking—’

  ‘And that’s my fault?’

  ‘You cheated him when he needed money. You know damn well you were his last resort.’

  ‘He could have gone to someone else! I didn’t force him to come to me.’

  ‘You were his friend!’ She sighed, her expression repelled. ‘I’ve watched you for years,’ she said. ‘I’ve watched you sell fakes for the real article. I’ve heard enough to piece together what you do, Tobar. What underhand dealings you enjoy so much. While pretending to have no interest, I did still listen.’ She could see her husband’s face tighten. ‘But business was business, and I liked the money you made. And frankly, judging by most of them, I thought the dealers were fair game. If you won a few more times than some, it was because you were a bit more ruthless.’

  ‘So what’s the problem now?’

  ‘Owen Zeigler thought you were his friend. That’s the problem. You acted like his friend, you behaved like his friend. You went to his house and invited him to ours, like a friend. We talked like friends, laughed like friends. And now, finally, I see that nothing you say or do is genuine. If you could cheat your oldest friend, what couldn’t you do to me?’

  Unnerved, Tobar pushed the newspaper away from him. ‘Owen Zeigler’s death has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  His eyes cold, he studied his wife. ‘Were you and Owen Zeigler lovers?’

  She smiled, her hands going to her face momentarily before she replied.

  ‘No … But out of all the dealers you know, all the people you mix with, Owen was the most honourable. He cared f
or you, and yet you could still ruin him.’ She stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘I’m leaving you—’

  ‘Don’t be bloody silly! Because of Owen Zeigler?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, walking to the door. ‘Because if his death didn’t matter, I’d be as bad as you.’

  7

  ‘He never liked these places,’ Marshall said, without turning round. He had heard the door open and had recognised the footsteps and the slight pressure of her hand on his shoulder. ‘He’d have said that I should just have put him in a box – one of those earth-friendly things that break down naturally – and buried him in a field somewhere.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He turned and looked at his ex-wife. ‘Aren’t you going to say something funny?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the right place.’

  ‘That’s why it would be funny. You always said the wrong thing in the wrong place,’ Marshall replied affectionately, his voice low, as he reached for her hand.

  Georgia pulled up a chair next to him, both of them sitting beside Owen’s coffin in the Chapel of Rest. She didn’t look at her ex-father-in-law’s face. Couldn’t bring herself to – not yet. As soon as she had heard about Owen Zeigler’s death she phoned Marshall, and been there for him – on and off – over the next forty-eight hours. Talking, but mostly listening.

  Taking the scarf from around her neck, Georgia flicked her long curly hair from her face. Lying hair, Marshall used to call it. Always changing. Chestnut in the morning, fire-red in fluorescent light and amber coated in sunshine. But her eyes were constant, dark and steady, always alert.

  ‘They patched him up,’ Marshall went on. ‘He doesn’t look too bad now.’

  Slowly Georgia turned from Marshall and looked into the dead face of Owen Zeigler. The scalp wound had been closed, leaving only a faint scar line running vertically down his forehead. Puzzled, she then realised that the ochre tinge to Owen’s skin came from make-up, applied thickly to cover the wound and the bruising. Steadily she studied his closed eyelids, the long line of his nose, his mouth. Unrecognisable, fixed into an undertaker’s idea of a beatific smile.

  ‘It’s not like him.’

  ‘No,’ Marshall agreed. ‘Someone said that they always make the dead smile so that they’re less frightening, but that grimace looks odd, sinister. My father would’ve hated it.’

  He reached out, then realising that he couldn’t change his father’s expression, he withdrew his hand. Marshall stared at the red carnation in Owen’s buttonhole, taking in the light grey suit and the white shirt which he had brought into the undertakers the previous night after his father’s body had been released to the Chapel of Rest; after the pathologist and the police had done with it; after Owen Zeigler’s scalp had been stitched together again …

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘All morning.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Marshall shrugged. ‘I’m not interested in food.’

  ‘You have to eat. I’ll take you for some lunch.’

  He didn’t move. ‘People have been coming and going all morning.’

  ‘Your father was popular—’

  ‘Not with his killer.’

  Her hand tightened over his. In the corner of the small, clean room candles burned, a stained glass window depicting a Biblical scene. The glass was thick, and coloured darkly enough to prevent anyone from seeing in – or out. Georgia looked at the dead man, noticing minute, pointless details. Like the pristine way the pale blue silk lining of the coffin was pleated; was this a grim echo of birth, she wondered? Blue for a boy, pink for a girl?

  ‘The funeral’s tomorrow. I’m burying him in the church near Thurstons,’ said Marshall, quietly. ‘Only a few people will travel that far, but the reception in London will be for everyone else. My father would have preferred that, I think … I don’t know, he never said. I don’t know what he would have wanted. He didn’t leave a will either.’

  ‘He didn’t expect to die.’

  ‘Nicolai Kapinski said my father had never even thought about death. Well, in a way, why should he? He wasn’t that old a man, but still, you’d have thought it would have come into his mind now and then.’

  ‘I think people fall into two categories – half think about death too little, the other half too much.’

  He turned to look at her. ‘Which are you?’

  ‘I’m superficial, I only want to think about life.’

  ‘You were never superficial,’ he replied.

  Leaning forward, Marshall’s eyes fixed on the coffin. Varnished wood, with brass handles that looked pseudo-French. The undertaker had shown him numerous brochures of coffins and brass plaques and handles – so many bloody handles – as if the handles mattered. And Marshall, still deeply in shock, had studied the brochures and chosen everything carefully, with thought, as though he was planning a menu. And all the time he was remembering how he had found his father; reliving the same hot fear as details of the murder scene intermingled with the coffin handles. He saw again the rope which had bound Owen’s hands; recalled the hot, iron smell of blood, as the overhead light had dimmed and flickered, and the swollen insides sliding to the floor. He had wanted to pick them up, to push them back into the cavity of his father’s stomach, to hold them in, and somehow make him whole again …

  ‘Marshall?’

  Distracted from the memory, he became aware that he had been grasping Georgia’s hand so tightly her fingers were white. ‘Sorry,’ he said, letting go. ‘I was just thinking.’

  Nodding, she glanced through the small round glass window in the door. Someone was passing and paused, looking in and smiling a kind, professional smile. She responded, wondering how anyone could work in an undertakers’ office, where there was only one ending – death. As a teacher, Georgia was involved with children; little humans for whom life was beginning, not ending. With luck, none of them would die too young, and she hoped that, in twenty years time, they would seek her out and tell her what a difference she had made to their lives.

  It was a familiar daydream, which Georgia already had when she was married to Marshall. They had met at a private view at the Zeigler Gallery, Georgia invited there by friends and finding herself quickly bored. Rescued by Marshall, she had been amused at how little he was interested in his father’s illustrious business. He could so easily have slid into ready-made affluence but, as he told her later, his heart wasn’t in the art world. Georgia had liked that about Marshall Zeigler. Liked a man who didn’t take the easy way out.

  Their marriage had fallen apart after six years because they were both too young and too independent to settle into domesticity. Friends yes, lovers certainly. But a married couple? No. That hadn’t been written into either of their charts, so their decision to separate had been amicable, their divorce good natured. Georgia had quipped to her friends, ‘I was very good to my husband. I left him.’

  In time they both found other people. When Georgia had had her heart broken, she had turned to Marshall, and when the heady intoxication of his affairs fizzled into flat champagne, they had always commiserated. In fact, they had remained fixtures in each other’s lives, and their bond was such that they could talk every day for a week, and then have no contact for two months without it being a problem. When they spoke again, they picked up where they’d left off, and if one of them needed the other, they were always there.

  ‘You never think your parents will be frightened, do you?’

  Surprised, Georgia glanced at her ex-husband. ‘Was Owen afraid?’

  ‘Terrified, the last time I talked to him … He was supposed to be spending the weekend with me, not lying in a bloody coffin.’ He stared angrily at the corpse. ‘They made him look like a ghoul.’ He fiddled angrily with his father’s tie. ‘And he never tied it like that! They’ve done a crap job. I told them. I told them exactly how it had to be, how everything had to be. You’d think they’d have listened. You’d think that, wouldn’t you?
’

  Georgia put her arm around him.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I never said goodbye.’

  ‘Say it now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Say goodbye now.’

  ‘He’s dead. I don’t believe in life after death.’

  ‘I’d still say it, Marshall. You never know.’

  Georgia got to her feet and walked out of the chapel. She leaned against the wall in the corridor, took a few deep breaths, and then looked in through the porthole in the door. Marshall was standing at the head of coffin, looking down. She could see his lips move, but could only decipher the last six words: I’ll make someone pay for this.

  8

  Dressed in their heavy overcoats and black armbands, Gordon Hendrix and Lester Fox stood in the gallery doorway and watched the street. Next to them, Vicky Leighton, the gallery receptionist, was crying softly. They could see Marshall talking to a dealer, and Lester nodded respectfully to Samuel Hemmings, who had come up to town for the funeral of Owen Zeigler. Off to one side, on his own, stood a tiny, shaken Nicolai Kapinski, drained of all colour, his balding head a pale orb against the dark collar of his winter coat. Tufts of other people dressed in black clustered like barnacles on the bow of the London street. Faces, pallid from emotion or cold, exchanged murmured remembrances of a dead colleague. And at the corner of the street, the pinched figure of Tobar Manners watched. Surrounded by a bevy of his cohorts, his metallic eyes flicked from the mourners to Marshall, and back again.

  Rosella had kept her word and left him, but no one knew. Everyone thought it was just another of her holidays. And Tobar would leave it like that … His face turned slightly against the wind, he stared at the back of Marshall’s head, only half listening to what someone was saying. Of course there had been talk about the Rembrandt sale – a good deal of whispering behind Tobar’s back. Some people had even intimated that he had cheated Owen Zeigler, and implied that he was indirectly responsible for his friend’s murder.