The Unknown Masterpiece

by John Brooke

  ‘Good evening, Madame Bettelman?’ Yes, yes, what the hell could you possibly want? ‘My name is Inspector Nouvelle,’ flashing her card and a sad smile. ‘I regret to inform you…’

  In response, Madame Bettleman kicked the door, more angry than distraught. ‘Stupid ass!’

  There was a sleepy ‘…Maman?’ from somewhere behind her.

  ‘Madame?’ The inspector reached to place a restraining hand against the door.

  Because Madame Bettelman was already in the process of shutting it. ‘What?’

  ‘Can you help me here?’

  ‘Why?’ Peevish, sighing, no hint of bereavement. Death made some people strange.

  But the police were allowed in, the télé muted, basic information supplied. Her name was Lise. Yes, Martin worked as a security guard in Basel. Not sure where at the moment. Mostly galleries and museums, both private and public, they rotated them around — they being the agency, VigiTec. He’d been with them going on ten years. Since the kids… ‘at least the bastard cared about them,’ Lise muttered. ‘Even if he didn’t come home, he’d always show up for work.’ Small consolation. ‘It’s a pittance, but it’s regular…or was…Fuck!’

  ‘…Maman?’

  ‘Dors, chérie…c’est rien. Dors!’ It’s nothing. Just your stupid father. Go back to sleep.

  ‘Do you know where he went when he didn’t come home?’

  ‘Off with his cunts… The clubs? Partying? I don’t know.’

  Aliette waited.

  ‘So stupid. They think you can’t smell the way a stranger smells. Always said he had a night shift, a favour, someone sick, a special exhibition, it always fit but none of it was true. I know the security guard business too — it’s how we met. For my sins,’ she added in a bitter aside to herself. ‘And he knew that!… Really very stupid, my Martin. I could smell it all over him all the way round to the next night. Putes. Cheap as hell. Cheaper than all this…’ Her home, her street. Lise Bettelman massaged her eyes, deflating. ‘I didn’t get it.’

  Didn’t get how he could be so stupid? Big mystery. Bigger disappointment. Not to rub salt, just to learn more, Aliette told Lise, ‘He was wearing pretty nice stuff when we found him.’

  ‘What kind of nice stuff?’

  ‘Designer suit, high-end loafers, the whole kit. Straight out of the boutiques.’

  ‘Shows you where his priorities lay. What a prick.’

  ‘Did you confront him?’

  ‘Sure, at the start.’ Lise Bettelman paused to reflect, her tired face now beginning to collapse. But she hadn’t booted him out, her beau Martin. She needed that cheque and he always managed it. But, ‘what a useless waste of time!’ Her anger surged back in. She pounded the door.

  There was another fearful noise from a half-asleep child down the hall.

  Aliette pushed gently. ‘Beyond his…his cunts, did you get any sense of anything not right, I mean with his nights away from home?’

  ‘Not right? What the hell else do you want?’

  ‘I mean like against the law.’

  ‘Ah. No…no drugs. He always went to work. They would’ve seen it, even if I didn’t. They won’t have druggies. Clients won’t have it. Very Swiss. Everything neat and tidy.’

  ‘I mean related to the clients. His work. Art. The things he was hired to watch over?’

  Lise Bettelman snorted, bitter, ‘If he was, none of it made it here,’ gesturing at the cheap humidity-stained walls adorned with unframed, fraying posters.

  ‘You say you worked down there?’

  ‘Yeah. I should’ve stayed in school.’

  ‘Does it happen? Stealing?’

  ‘No one told me about it. But they wouldn’t have. I was just a stupid girl. Still am. Fuck!’

  ‘Did he ever mention anyone in Village-Neuf?’

  ‘No. Maybe it’s where one of his cunts lives…’ But no, Lise Bettelman did not know who Martin’s friends were. Didn’t want to know. She knew the name of some club downtown. ‘I mean in Basel — he lived there more than here. I found a card in his uniform.’ She fetched it.

  Zup. Tanzen! (dancing, in German). An address. The inspector puzzled over the pen-and-ink image of a pair of lederhosen, the traditional suspender-held, elaborately finished alpine leather shorts.

  There were now two small voices complaining down the hall. Lise closed her weary eyes and zapped the muted télé into oblivion. She bit down on her lower lip, trying like a million other mamas to keep it together. ‘J’arrive, mes petites.’ I’ll be right there. Exhausted, miserable, she scratched at the scab on her knee, bare and white below the frayed cuff on a pair of cheap pale blue Decathlon all-purpose training shorts.

  A not-unsympathetic cop was obliged to enquire, ‘What happened to your knee?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus… Smashed it in the park.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Being a goddamn mother!’ Adding, ‘On the bloody steps to the slide?’

  Aliette stood to go. She promised a social worker would be there first thing in the morning, sooner if Lise needed. That was shrugged off. ‘My condolences, madame. We’ll work on this, so at least you’ll know.’ Aliette did not mention there would have to be a gendarme sent along with the social worker, to take a swab from her mouth and a cutting from her shorts. It would be a formality. For Lise Bettelman, being a mother was a full-time job. Not a heck of a lot of time unaccounted for in the course of a day — no time to trail a shitty husband from the clubs in Basel to a riverside park and kill him for his selfish ways. But there was a gash on her knee and that fit. Poor Lise would have to suffer the additional indignity of a test. To be sure.

  5

  Zup

  Swiss side

  Aliette headed for the checkpoint. It was closer than the house where Claude Néon would be staring at the television, waiting. And maybe someone at this club would be able to provide a bit of direction, a name she could add to her report. Fifteen minutes later, the Swiss officer was puzzled when she showed him the card for Zup. Perhaps he even grinned. He knew the location, more or less. ‘Klein Basel. Straight ahead, over the bridge, right on Klybeck to Zahringer, right again… in there somewhere, near Alban market?’

  Merci… I mean, Danke. Geneva spoke French. Here it was mainly German.

  Basel occupies both sides of the Rhine. On the left bank, Greater Basel abuts on French territory. Klein Basel, on the right bank, touches Germany. Basel and Klein Basel are linked by six bridges. Crossing St. Johann Bridge, the inspector’s eye settled for a wistful moment on the apartment blocks overlooking the Rhine and the promenade. Must be beautiful to have a place up there. One happy Saturday that now seemed unreal, she and Claude had enjoyed riding the cute green trams, marvelling at the fountains, so many of them, at corners, intersections, in squares and parks, from the ancient to the highly modern. They’d sat on a bench and gazed at magical Tinguely fountain, a large pool filled with fantastical mechanized metal creatures. Charming.

  And there is that Swiss thing: they work at keeping Basel clean.

  Klein Basel had been working class and drab. Its edges were still lined with factories and mills within easy reach of the docks. Lots of enclaves were still home to basic apartments filled with working people, Swiss and foreign. But the rebuilt centre had gained a reputation as the fun part of the city. The ultra modern Basel Trade Fair Tower rose thirty-nine stories from the heart of Klein Basel, in daylight shining richly under its sexy blue-tint glass façade. Shopping at the Claraplatz, directly off the Middle Bridge, was as chic as you could want — bistros, cafés, clubs, boutiques, galleries. Gentrification was proceeding apace along many residential streets. There was a pretty university campus at the southern end of Klein Basel. But, after exiting the bridge, Aliette was quickly getting confused in the still-gritty enclaves of the northern end. Her destination was in one of the plain old streets almost in the factory area. Finally daring to try her Ge
rman, she asked directions. She found her way to the tiny close off Klybeck. Zup? There was no sign, but the music from inside and the dragon in drag by the doorway said she was there.

  Well, not quite. It was a basilisk, more complex than simple dragon. The mythical lizard-like creature is Basel’s heraldic beast, visible everywhere in the city’s windows and doors. Stylized: Head like a cock, tail like a snake, wings like a bat. Said to live in springs and fountains. They also say that looking directly at a basilisk can kill you. Like the Gorgon.

  Here at Zup an expertly carved and painted basilisk was fitted out in pinkish lederhosen, the rear end of his hosen not painted in to allow full room for its bum and creepy tail. The door opened immediately to the inspector’s knock. A large caricature of a woman was packed into a Heidi-inspired alpine dirndl without a millimetre to spare. Aliette enquired, ‘Zup?’ In response, she — no, he; this was now past doubting — rolled out a long tongue. It wagged and darted, dragon-like and a bit obscene. The sides of his lewdly painted mouth pulled up in a grotesque grin, he uttered ‘Zup!’ So some Swiss are more polite than others.

  Aliette could only smile and step inside. There was a cover charge — this communicated in the Alemannic Swiss German dialect so difficult for her pure French ears. Euros? Offering a ten. She had no Swiss francs. Lifting it from the inspector’s fingers, the strange greeter turned dour.

  ‘Ten more.’ In English now.

  Twenty euros to walk through the door. ‘A joke, right?’

  Another salacious, in-your-face display of tongue. ‘Very special here!’ And, ‘We gonna give you a beer into the bargain.’ Great. Merci. They were playing Frank Sinatra, if she wasn’t mistaken, a fairly upbeat thing about that’s why the lady is a tramp. Three couples danced. One couple had done it up for a Tuesday evening out at Zup, he in a tux, ‘she’ in a satin gown, pencilled brows, fake lashes and an incongruous 1940s kepi pinned at a jaunty angle anchoring a wavy wig. But a regular, at ease with her partner; no one paid the least attention. It was the new presence. A well-tuned French inspector felt all the eyes were on her as she made her way through a maze of tables to the bar, where, presenting her ticket, she was given a bottle of Boxer beer by a lovely blond man dressed in leather lederhosen shorts and nothing else. His hairless, well-pumped pecs were shiny against the dusty leder suspenders as he poured out half, then placed glass and bottle in front of her.

  Sipping… Not bad. Nice to sample something new. Boxer. She smiled at the barman.

  He cocked his head. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Meeting someone.’

  She understood why one might ask that question. She was the only actual girl.

  She drank and perused the scene. Johnny Halliday was a jolt after Frank Sinatra. When Johnny finished growling, she turned to the barman. ‘No Martin tonight? Martin Bettelman?’

  His reply was a pained look. An abrupt shake of his head. Bon. Lise Bettelman had steered her straight. The barman knew Martin and was obviously chagrined at the sound of his name.

  Sensing something, the canny cop mirrored the pained look with one of her own.

  Empathy’s an easy ploy. It moved the barman to exclaim, ‘Such a waste!’

  ‘Yes, a shame.’ Voila: she saw anger flash across his boyish features as he uncorked a bottle, poured Scotch over ice in a glass waiting on a tray. Aliette encouraged his reaction to the missing Martin by looking hopeful. ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be here. He’s a regular.’

  ‘Not with me. Never again.’

  ‘No?’ It was starting to come clear.

  ‘Fucking con artist.’ The barman lifted his tray and headed out to a table.

  Like the basilisk guarding the door to Zup, the barman’s leather shorts were minus a bum — his behind was there in all its tight and hairless glory as he passed among the patrons and bent to serve the ordered drink. The tuxedo-clad dancer was now seated at the next table. He gave the barman’s behind an admiring pat and got a coquettish wiggle for his trouble. But it prompted the Heidi doorman with the horrid tongue to stride directly over to slap the admiring gentleman in the face and give him a piece of his mind. The elegant man was contrite and cowed, no match for Heidi. And his extravagant date did not look pleased with his less than elegant behaviour as she examined the red spot on his cheek. Heidi dragged her lovely barman back to the bar, where they argued in harsh German, an arm’s length from where the inspector stood. They were Adelhard and Maximilian. They were oblivious to her presence. It didn’t matter, she could hardly catch a word of it, though it was clearly a lover’s quarrel. The glaring truth of Zup had left her feeling slightly stupid. She sipped her ‘complimentary’ beer and rolled with it, humming along with an unknown but not unpleasant version of “La Vie en Rose.”

  One often stumbled onto revelations, stupidly or otherwise. It was part of the job.

  When she finished her beer, Max the barman was sulking. Adelhard, weird keeper of the door, was looking too mean for a foreign cop on an unofficial fishing trip to push any further. As for the rest of them, the inspector was arriving at the realization that her presence here did not mean much to anyone. She was heading for the door when a voice behind her asked in English, ‘Are you lost?’ It was the gentleman in the tux with the sneaky hand.

  ‘I think I’m starting to get my bearings, thank you.’

  ‘Ah, you’re French.’

  She smiled. In English, she asked, ‘Are you a friend of Martin?’

  The man returned the smile. ‘I was…for one beautiful night.’ The extravagantly gowned transvestite beside him stiffened, controlling automatic jealousy, assessing an out-of-place visitor. Her debonair chum patted her hand, assuring, ‘But that’s all in the past.’

  ‘And Max?’ Gesturing toward the bar.

  ‘Same. Well, longer than a night, poor boy…Eh, Greta?’ Greta nodded darkly to confirm. The bow-tied man told Aliette, ‘Martin was our beau Français but now we seem to have lost him. Haven’t seen him for weeks. But we all feel a little safer, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Maybe I do. Where would he get to?’

  ‘Greener pastures, I’d imagine.’

  ‘Another club around here?’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘No… Merci, messieurs…madame.’ To the one pretending to be Greta Garbo. May as well play the game. She sensed she’d be returning. As the music flared and dancers rose, Aliette left Zup feeling poor Lise Bettelman didn’t know the half of it where it came to Martin’s cunts.

  6

  Angel on a Rock

  French Side

  Aliette was tired, but she was resisting going home. Claude would be in their bed by now and she did not want to be. Once back on French territory she stopped at a riverside lay-by and sat for a spell, going over the details of the case in her mind: a chaotic crime-of-passion scenario made the most sense. A visit to a gay nightclub added a new range of possibility. Yes, an outraged wife taking revenge fit. Poor Lise. Though a fine painting smashed and ruined on the head of the victim who was likely already dead still did not make sense, at least it was clearly related. Or could be. Martin Bettelman. Security guard. A gay security guard who minded some of the finest art around. Who had, it seemed, screwed his way through the regular crowd at Zup. What had he said, that elegant dancer?…they were safer without Martin. Why? Was it strictly sexual innuendo? Or had Martin brought something criminal into their madcap midst?

  It was a warm night in the final days of Alsace summer, surely one of the last they’d have. The inspector started the car and continued on, in no great hurry, mulling, heading back to the scene of the crime. If the ‘beach’ was what they said it was — a dark meeting place for anonymous sex, a nexus of forbidden need — could violent death be a tempting extra? The Day-Glo-treated yellow-blue remains of a police barrier ribbon were clear and bright in the glow of the pump parts factory. The inspector turned off the road and bumped along the track through the trees, pulled up at the edge of the unkempt field, cut motor a
nd lights and waited, peering into the haze of moist air rising off the canal.

  Her eyes adjusted. She saw no cars parked surreptitiously among the trees. A tiny sliver of new moon made it impossible to see the shore from this distance. She sat with the window down a crack, listening, waiting for a car to come rolling into the woods and stop beside her. Or for someone to come walking out of the misty dark.

  She smiled at the thought. She was comfortable. This was her job.

  What I’m supposed to be doing, Claude.

  Aliette Nouvelle had spent a strange six weeks sitting in a car with Claude Néon, driving the streets, searching for a man who was supposed to no longer exist. You could say it was how they’d met. She had been his boss, then. Claude had been her pain-in-the-ass assistant. She had found the missing man, but her methods were questioned. Claude Néon had won the promotion.

  It was difficult to divine how those six weeks had led to passion, but they had. Eventually. Something to do with a sharing of experience too inchoate to define. Which is why it was a miracle. Eh, Claude? A miracle within a mystery. Now Claude preferred that she cook supper.

  Brooding on what might have been and should have been was not constructive. It probably put her briefly to sleep. But something broke the spell. She jolted awake, then froze, alert.

  What? Slowly rolling the window fully open. Eyes straining.

  There was a faint cracking sound, stones or branches…Where?

  The inspector exited carefully, stepped onto damp grass, walked cautiously toward the water, listening, watching. She had no gun. She never did. She had a can of pepper spray and a Swiss army knife Claude had given her after they’d argued to a stand-off as to her need for a gun. She could smell the water, then hear it. Water barely moving. She froze mid-step and listened. Sounds in the bushes to her left. She moved in that direction, eventually came to the edge of the bank and moved down the rock-strewn slope. Heard a splash downstream and froze again.