The Unknown Masterpiece

by John Brooke

  Leaning close to her ear, Max said, ‘He’s got my albums. Bowie, Bette, Sinatra, Nomi. Everything! We’ve had the same reel going for a month. Addie’s getting crazy.’

  Lise nodded. ‘Your regulars too, I’d imagine.’

  Max nodded, dewy, remembering nights with Marty. ‘We danced.’

  Lise frowned into her bottle. Turned back to the crowd. She had till closing time.

  Ordering her next beer, she openly contemplated Max, assessing, like a team commander might, sizing him up for a mission. Finally decided, ‘We could go together.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Knock on the door. Demand what’s ours.’

  ‘What if he’s not there? He hasn’t been much, lately.’ His voice dropped to a whisper, and he glanced at the door, as if Adelhard might hear across the busy room. ‘…I’ve passed by.’

  ‘I have this.’ She held the key from Martin’s keychain between her finger and her thumb.

  ‘Well…’ Max was tempted. But no… ‘Addie would freak.’

  Adelhard: tending the door, slotting in the music, and watching them carefully.

  Someone called for drinks. Max attended to it. She was again jolted by the sight of his trim, bare bottom as he took his tray out to the table. And another jolt at the sight of Addie’s hand just there as Max paused to share a word, likely about herself. Martin’s wife. Yes, Addie’s brightly painted Heidi eyes were clearly weighing her in a different light.

  Lise stared back, coldly daring Adelhard to challenge her presence, her right.

  She drank. Max worked. The soft jazz tones of some American were replaced by David Bowie’s regal baritone. Oh, Oh, Oh…oh! My little China Girl. The drinkers liked it. They were getting up to dance. While Max glared at his lover, smirking on the far side of the room.

  Jealousy is mostly useless. But a cop saw leverage there. And three beers had an effect.

  Lise, qualmless, beamed a fuck-you kind of smile at Heidi. Heidi tweaked the music up.

  Draining her glass, Lise slid from the bar stool. ‘I think Addie misses Major Tom. Thanks for the beers. I guess I have to do this myself.’ She gave Max a pat on his perfect bicep, grabbed her purse and coat. Ignoring Adelhard, she stepped into the street. Where she waited, cooling off, tamping perspiration from her face. The night was cool, she did not want to catch a chill…

  It did not take too long till Max stepped out of Zup. She heard an exchange of cursing in German. Adelhard had pushed the issue. Max had responded. Good. With no idea of their destination, she began moving up the street. This would be tricky. All bluff.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘B’en…my car?’

  He snorted, still in high dudgeon from his standoff with jealous Adelhard, and headed the other way. Her cheap heels clacked as she hustled after, solicitous. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘We can walk it… I need some air.’

  She fell into step beside him and slowed the pace, letting the despondency of love abused fill the space between them. She was careful to let Max lead. ‘We spent some lovely nights in these streets,’ Lise mused, desolate eyes on the cobblestones, playing it shamelessly. Ten minutes later he had picked up the pace — indeed, Max was hurrying as they turned in to Mulheimerstrasse. She sensed Max was desperately hoping ‘Marty’ would be there. Poor guy. A mixed sense of guilt and pity helped her keep the face she needed to be Lise. They passed a few more cross streets along Mulheimer. There was nothing of the sexed-up renovated Klein Basel along this stretch, no overpriced boutiques. These shops and cafés were for the people who actually lived in the quarter. Finally, Max stopped in front of a block. Five floors built above street level, entrance between a fabric shop and a butcher. She noted a dozen buzzers.

  Max waited for her to open the door and lead the way. But which door?

  With one last push of brash pretending, Lise commanded, ‘Buzz him!’

  Max stepped back and looked up. At the top floor? The dormer? ‘Not home.’

  ‘He could be in bed.’ With someone else was clearly implied. ‘You ready for that, Max?’

  Max’s eyes tightened. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I want what’s mine. If we disturb his shitty little fun, that’s just too bad.’

  Max seemed to agree. ‘So, you’ve got your key…’ He gestured, Let’s go.

  ‘But just walking in on him…well,’ Gently massaging her bruised arm, letting some wifely fear play up. ‘I mean, you never know. Right, Max?’ Nodding at the bank of buzzers, willing Max to do this one last thing. ‘We’ll give him time to get his pants on.’

  Max took a deep breath and put his finger on the top buzzer, left side.

  No response. She indicated, try again. He did. No response. No light came on. Nothing.

  ‘OK,’ sighed Lise. ‘Ready or not, my darling bastard…’ She took the key from her purse.

  It worked and they climbed the dark stairs to a door at the stop, where it worked again. They entered a small dormer apartment. Three small rooms: salon/kitchen, bed and bath. Cold, silent. No Martin, obviously. No one to pay the heating bill. What stopped the role-playing inspector dead in her tracks were the paintings. Not on the wall. The only painting on the wall was a small, cheaply framed reproduction of a kitschy alpine scene. Aliette Nouvelle was staring at the paintings on the floor, standing in five neat rows, extending from the base of the wall to the middle of the main room. They were protected underneath by a padded mover’s mat.

  Max paid short shrift to this discovery. He went straight to the bookcase and began sorting though the music discs, urgently separating out several in a pile, as if afraid Martin might suddenly appear.

  Aliette tried not to be too fascinated as she likewise took stock. The paintings were coupled back-to-back, then frame-to-frame, ensuring each canvas was shielded from hooks and framing tacks, or pointy gilt edging. Flipping through, there was no one piece that immediately jumped out at a cop whose eye had never been particularly trained — no Picasso, no van Gogh — but she recognized modern, old and very old. There were at least fifty.

  When a flabbergasted Lise wondered where all these paintings could have come from, Max glanced over and shrugged. ‘Mm, yeah, looks like a few more than the last time I was here.’

  ‘When was that?’ she asked, momentarily letting the cop slip through the guise of Lise.

  ‘Spring,’ Max mumbled, methodically removing albums to a growing pile. ‘He always had some lying around. Not much for art, myself… Said they were for his work.’

  Max was far more interested in making sure his own collection was still all there.

  11

  Game Changer

  French side

  The ballistics report from Basel Lands forensics forwarded by FedPol Agent Franck Woerli meant PJ Inspector Nouvelle would not have to become a special customs agent after all. Like the ones taken from Martin Bettelman, the bullet removed from the head of Justin Aebischer was unmarked. A comparison done against the French ballistics by the Swiss Registry included the retrieved gun and filing marks on scratched-out numbers and barrel profiles. It was not one hundred percent sure, but almost: the bullet pulled from Justin Aebischer was part of the same batch and had been fired by the gun registered to Bettelman. It meant Martin Bettelman could have murdered the Swiss earlier on Friday, prior to his own slaying. Aliette was mulling it, seeing a larger pattern beginning to form, when Monique buzzed. A call from Basel.

  ‘Good morning, Franki, I got the file. Someone’s definitely — ’

  Franck Woerli interjected, stating dully that he’d have to cancel lunch.

  There was a moment of dark silence. Very dark, she could feel it. She asked, ‘What’s happened?’ He played the stoically reticent cop for maybe fifteen seconds, then told her. She could hear his heart collapsing. ‘But how? I mean, I’m sorry, Franki. Where?’

  ‘The roadside, outside the city. A farmer found her.’

  ‘Do they have someone in mind?’

  ‘Th
is restorer she’d gone to interview. Streit…Marcus Streit. Colleague of Aebischer, apparently.’ Franck Woerli struggled through an explanation. ‘At first she said the Aebischer killing was none of her business. But your news, Bettelman, the painting — like you and I, Josephina saw the possible link. She found out where Bettelman had been working lately and sent me off to talk to the gallery people while she drove down to talk to the Basel Lands cop in charge. She thought if she could have a look at the scene, she might…’ Woerli stopped to regroup. ‘I sensed she was really excited. We were going to meet last evening but she called to say she wanted to see this other contact, Streit, in the same business as Aebischer, and not far from the scene. Said maybe he’d have some insight into Aebischer’s life, work, his clientele. That’s all. This morning I get a call from Oberwil. Came in about a minute after I sent the specs on the Basel Lands ballistics to you. So sudden…’ Aliette heard Woerli breathing through an extended pause. Heavy. Burdened. She would not push him. She had lost colleagues in the line of duty. ‘Stabbed,’ he finally uttered. ‘Lying by the side of a road. He stabbed her and threw out of the car. Poor Josephina.’

  ‘Marcus Streit?’

  ‘It looks that way.’ When he spoke again, Woerli’s voice had dropped almost to a whisper. ‘Josephina learned something, Inspector. And got caught in the middle of it. That has to be it.’

  ‘The middle of what? …Franki?’

  ‘Probably some kind of art scam. What else could it be?’

  Based on her previous night’s discovery, Aliette was tending to agree.

  Though she elected to keep the secret apartment and what it contained to herself. It was not the time to load up her grieving friend with revelations and ideas. And, international agreements notwithstanding, Commander Heinrich Boehler could and would still try to block her. She only asked, ‘And the people looking into this other thing — the Aebischer case?’

  ‘Inspector’s name is Grinnell.’

  ‘Who is not Basel City, but Basel Lands?’

  ‘Totally different kind of people down there.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘He’ll be here tomorrow to tell us what he knows and what he thinks.’

  ‘So will I, Franki…so will I.’

  ‘It’s appreciated, Inspector. But I don’t want you to… I mean, you know how it is.’

  He meant Boehler.

  Inspector Nouvelle thought Franck Woerli understood when he’d sent the ballistics. The game had changed: Two murders. Two countries. One gun. A French police officer now had a viable reason to go into Switzerland openly and actively seeking assistance. But at that sad moment her friend was in a fog. She tried to sound encouraging. ‘We’ll work around Boehler. You and I… We’ll find this person. We’ll solve it…’ Trying to encourage him, but feeling she was speaking into a dark, desolate hole.

  Better to simply wish him, ‘Condolences, Franki. Try to rest. À demain.’

  Then Aliette went down the hall — from one despairing man to the next.

  Last night Claude had turned toward her, smelt the beer on her breath, then rolled away, back to discontented sleep. A part of her resented his disdain, another part was grateful. Who wants a screaming match in the middle of the night? At breakfast there was sullen silence, the right moment already past. Poor Claude.

  But that morning she was obliged to report: fifty or so paintings stashed in a secret love nest in Basel. Apparently intact. One painting found ruined in France beside the murdered owner of the love nest. Gun and bullets indicating a chain of murder linked to art theft. No more need for Gérard Richand’s cross-border legal manoeuvre. She assumed the Basel Lands investigators would be open to collaboration. ‘Tomorrow, at FedPol. We’ll see where that goes.’ Given her path to Bettelman’s pied-à-terre, gay romance was an obvious way in. Given the location, Boehler remained problematic. But from Basel to the murder at Village-Neuf, a bigger context now seemed clear. ‘Voila.’

  ‘Good job.’ Claude stared at his day’s agenda, unable to meet her eye. He was perplexed. Sad. ‘You’re going to ruin it,’ he muttered. ‘You’re trying to ruin it. Why?’

  She responded, ‘I’m working, Claude. Working.’ Not an answer, but all she could say.

  He shook his head, flipped a page. To tomorrow? Today had barely started. With a shrug, Commissaire Néon let his agenda page fall back to the present and indicated the end of the briefing. She challenged him. ‘But why would I try to ruin it? Why? Please find the answer.’

  ‘I believe it’s for you to give me that answer. It’s you who can’t seem to budge. Mm?’ He waited. No, she couldn’t find the proper words. Or was it that she just refused to?

  They were both guilty. It was becoming intolerable. And such a waste of time!

  He finally dismissed her. ‘Carry on, Inspector.’

  Because Claude felt it just as strongly, the intolerable weight of their shared mistake. Of course he did. And he knew there was nothing he could do to stop her from dealing with it in her own way. Ruin it? Blast it to pieces so time could move forward?

  In her own way. Which she still could not grasp clearly. But what can you do but keep moving toward the wretched inevitable? She collected her things and left him. Your job, my job, two different worlds. She was torn between sympathy and guilt, essentially sick at heart.

  ***

  She drafted a memo to Instructing Judge Gérard Richand regarding Agent Woerli’s new information on the gun, the coincident murders — but she didn’t send it. Zup, Max, et al. and a pied-à-terre in Klein Basel were still too grey to disclose. She would wait till she’d met with this Inspector Grinnell. She informed Identité Judiciaire there would be no visit from two Swiss cops to view the painting found with Martin Bettelman. She called the Rembrandt, made her apologies to Willem van Hoogstraten…What next? What next?

  Lunchtime found Aliette Nouvelle staring at the mountains, etched crystal clear that day.

  She needed to see a different kind of man. She thought of the old shoemaker pouring tea.

  She went down to the garage and rerequisitioned the car.

  12

  A Different Kind of Man

  French side

  The battered painting recovered with Martin Bettelman’s remains had been sent to an address in Kembs, another small community on the Rhine canal twenty minutes north of the crime scene. The inspector knocked at a door on a pretty street running down to the water. A large man with flowing curly reddish hair answered her knock. She flashed her warrant card and apologized for arriving unannounced. ‘Not a problem, Inspector.’ Gregory Huet led her to his studio area in the back. A partial view of the river. A nice place to work. He offered green tea and kugelhopf. ‘Just putting together my plan of attack here,’ Huet said, pulling back the plastic draping. The shoemaker, stripped of the ruined frame, was on an easel surrounded by a battery of lights plugged to a panel. There was a camera on the work table. A bigger camera on a tripod. Various lenses. A notebook. ‘First we have to look at it — as deeply as possible. And at all the different elements. Paint layers, paint composition, varnish, support, a new frame, obviously. But genuine. That is, if we want to put it back together the way the artist made it.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘B’en, if you let me.’ This with a curt sniff. Gregory Huet had worked for the police before.

  ‘Out of my hands, monsieur.’ She had no idea how much time and expense would be required. The police do not ask for miracles, they only require certain information and they operate on budgets anathema to perfectionists. She changed the subject. ‘Do you think he could be Turkish? I saw this teapot in a window the other day and — ’

  ‘I think he’s Dutch. The boot. Turks don’t wear boots like that. Or they didn’t then. And the nose. That smock. European. The light, mostly. Everyone has their own tradition of light.’

  ‘Ah.’ Tradition of light? It didn’t really matter where the shoemaker was from. The kugelhopf was excellent and Gregory Huet
enjoyed musing aloud. Aliette listened, watching his large hand move through the shoemaker’s dim yet richly golden space, pausing at certain points as he explained his thinking. She experienced an odd thrill when he parted another plastic curtain and allowed her a glimpse of the Watteau he had almost finished cleaning. ‘Mon dieu!’ Not that she’d ever want a late eighteenth-century picnic in her home. ‘For whom?’

  ‘I won’t tell you that, Inspector. Not unless you’re investigating me. And even then.’

  ‘I’m not investigating you. I’m investigating him.’

  The shoemaker. Waiting. Next in line after Watteau.

  Gregory Huet was a rangy man. Like Claude — though with more substance through his shoulders, chest and gut. And, like Claude, he stooped. She observed Huet hunched over the table, deeply alone within himself and his work, fingertips carefully feeling a web of cracked and chipped, badly yellowed varnished paint in the area of the shoemaker’s lamp. Like a blind man reading Braille. One of his lights was parallel to the painting. ‘What’s that one for?’ He flipped a switch on a panel, the room went dark, the light splayed a powerful beam across the surface of the image, revealing the extent and depth of the web of cracks, a mottling of chipped spots showing varied colouring. Then Gregory Huet restored the light in the room and turned his attention back to his guest. ‘You seem interested. You a collector like my friend Monsieur le Juge Richand?’

  ‘No, not at all. But yes, I am attracted to this man.’

  ‘Good. Why?’

  She challenged him. ‘You tell me.’

  He accepted with professional equanimity. ‘You see something of yourself.’

  ‘Which something would that be?’

  ‘The something that becomes engrossed in a problem. This shoemaker is a serious man. His work is the main thing. He’s taking a break. But the teapot, and the light, and the way he cups the bowl so fully in his palm, and his concentration as he pours, this is what makes you know you respect him. I’d guess the thing you respect is something you feel inside yourself.’