The Unknown Masterpiece

by John Brooke

  That sounded right. She had to add, ‘And his solitude.’

  Huet looked at the battered shoemaker. Sniffed, ‘Well, yes,’ as if it went without saying: Work. Solitude. Dignity as a self-contained elemental energy flowing out of the craftsman and into the craft. A job to do, a job well done. Simple.

  Aliette asked, ‘Dutch? …Not as old as Watteau.’

  ‘Probably a hundred years younger.’

  ‘But not immediately recognizable.’

  ‘One of hundreds…thousands.’

  ‘Not worth much then?’

  Gregory Huet had received the basics of the situation from Gérard Richand. ‘In the grand scheme of things, no.’ A smile, bemused. ‘In and of itself, it could be priceless — in the sense of irreplaceable. But there are thousands of so-called priceless pieces in those gallery storage vaults. Steal one from a wall, they replace it in two minutes. No one will actually miss this shoemaker.’

  ‘You do a lot of business in Basel?’

  ‘Most of it. Occasionally a contract will come down from Strasbourg. Or a museum or an institution in the area. A school. A firm. A family.’ She sensed he was referring to the Watteau. ‘But if I need work, I drive down to Basel. They know me there.’

  ‘And did you know this Justin Aebischer?’

  ‘Not really. Not really my kind of person. I know he did good work. Much in demand.’

  ‘So you don’t know who he would have been working for lately.’

  ‘Inspector, almost every contract I’ve ever had stipulates silence on this issue. I assume his would too. Those insurance types are sneaky bastards. They’ll find out if you’ve been blabbing. And if you have…Well, reputation is everything. You know?’

  She nodded. OK, OK.

  ‘Justin had a different specialty. Baroque. Runs the gamut from Rembrandt to Velazquez, lots of Italians, very realistic, often highly dramatic, a lot of detail, and they gave us some incredible colours. You’ve done a good deed if you can restore a sky to Reubens’ original blue. Me, I’m a bit more modern. Rococo and onward.’

  ‘And Marcus Streit?’

  ‘Heard of him. Never met him…not sure what his line is.’

  Aliette bit into her cake, sipped tea, gazed at the shoemaker. ‘Could this one be a fake?’

  ‘This?’ Huet looked askance, not sure where she was coming from. ‘No. Couldn’t be. People don’t kill each other for fakes. Not that I’ve ever heard of.’

  ‘Unless the fake happened to be a party to a business deal gone bad?’

  A shrug. ‘I suppose. But I really doubt this shoemaker is faked. No, I’m sure of it.’

  Inspector Nouvelle decided to share a little with a man she instinctively liked. ‘My start point on this case is difficult. I can’t understand why someone would do this to a painting. The man, yes, but a lovely thing like this?’ She turned from the shoemaker, looking for ideas.

  Gregory Huet thought about it. Asked, ‘Was the man in the river the thief?’

  ‘Don’t know that either, I’m afraid. Not yet. One solid piece of evidence could bring it all together.’

  Acknowledging this with a pensive grunt, Huet ventured, ‘Price of art’s all about potential value, Inspector. Even historic value is only potential value. This painting was on a wall in a gallery. Whoever took it assumed it was worth something. They saw a chance and grabbed it. Happens all the time. In fact it’s become a bit of an epidemic. The galleries, they’ll spend fortunes on high-end security systems but they can’t seem to solve the problem of people lifting paintings off the wall, tucking them inside their coats and walking out the door. The thing is — ’

  ‘Value is only value if someone wants it.’

  ‘Exactly. No buyer, no value.’

  ‘So you might assume an amateur thief.’

  ‘You might,’ her host allowed. ‘A professional will usually have a buyer lined up beforehand. A service, then payment. But as you say, deals can go bad. Your man in the river? Maybe there was a buyer but he had wrong instructions and took the wrong piece and Mr. Buyer said forget it. Alors, back to square one as far as making some money for his risk and effort. That could cause a fight. Poor old shoemaker gets caught in the middle.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Another bite of kugelhopf, a sip of tea, enjoying herself. ‘Or the buyer punishes his careless thief, is left with a stolen painting he doesn’t want and can’t price it without a whole lot of trouble. It’s just a liability. He breaks it and leaves it.’

  ‘Possible. Or it might not be about the money. Art’s as idiosyncratic as the one who makes it. A question of passion,’ gesturing toward the shoemaker. ‘Same applies to the one who loves it? Sure. Love of art, I mean true love, is a two-way proposition, just as unfathomable as love between two people. Some thieves work strictly for themselves. This one, maybe because he wanted it. And then someone else decided they wanted it too. A battle. A victim.’

  ‘Un crime passionnel,’ she offered. To keep him talking a little more.

  Gregory Huet chuckled. ‘A lover’s triangle, so to speak. And the shoemaker slipped away from both of them while they fought.’ He looked out at the canal, beyond his garden and the River Road. ‘Perhaps a barge plowed over him while he floated, thinking he was free.’

  Free to get back to work on his boot? It was charming how Gregory Huet brought the shoemaker’s stake in the matter to life. She knew there was no barge. The painting had been used as a cudgel on Martin Bettelman, a gay bar crawler who worked around art and (probably) stole it. But her host did not need to know that. Finishing her tea, dabbing crumbs from her lips, she smiled. ‘Your work brings out the romance in you.’

  He shrugged away the compliment. His notion of a free-floating shoemaker was whimsy, pure and simple. A lightening effect?

  And Gregory Huet had more hair than Claude Néon. Soft red, almost chestnut coloured, that gentle curling at its edges… Oh, stop! What was the point in comparing men?

  Because he was a man intensely interested in his work. She wished she sensed this at home.

  In parting, she admonished, ‘Fix him up, monsieur. Make him irresistible. We’ll put him on the TV news. Someone will claim him. That will help us.’

  Huet bowed. He would try. Aliette happily accepted another piece of kugelhopf.

  ‘For the road,’ said Greg. She was supposed to call him Greg.

  ‘Merci. Where did you find this?’

  ‘Find it? I bake it.’ Obviously.

  Claude Néon would never bake a kugelhopf. Never in a million years.

  No. And neither would she.

  13

  Info on an Angel

  French side/Swiss side

  The Rhine canal was glinting silver sparks in the late afternoon and Inspector Nouvelle was gliding south, heading for the crime scene at the ‘beach’ at Village-Neuf, no particular strategic goal in mind, only because it was close, munching kugelhopf, getting sugary crust all over her skirt, thinking Gregory Huet should get a medal for his wonderful bundt cake.

  One Christmas, in what seemed another lifetime, she had brought her mother an authentic kugelhopf form, sometimes called a ‘turban’ because of its resemblance to the wrap of the traditional headpiece. It was made of heavy pottery, with painted flowers, a gift from her new life on the far side of France. It had been received with much gratitude, enthusiasm, a big kiss. And then forgotten. Each time Aliette saw it hanging on the kitchen wall when she returned for a visit in Nantes, she felt a twinge of regret. You can’t expect your ageing mother to love what you love. You can’t expect her to change. No. And what about a man? A man like Claude.

  Claude Néon loved the hope of a wife and family. This was the life deep inside his heart and there would be no changing it. Aliette had failed to see it until too long after allowing her life to be fused with his. Her hopes. Her body… Great body, that Claude. Energy to burn.

  Perhaps one strategic reason for visiting her crime scene was to avoid going home to Claude.

  Again.<
br />
  As she passed the signs indicating the environs of Village-Neuf, she could see the waterway widening out ahead where the canal merged with the river. At the sign announcing the pump factory, she turned off the road and bumped slowly along the dirt track. There were a few cars in the wooded area today, a few men pretending to read newspapers, casually noting the new arrival. Leaving the car, popping the last bite of buttery cake into her mouth, wiping crumbs from her lips on her sleeve, she took her bottle of water and headed to the shore. The sun was still warm. She could sit and think about murder, shoemakers, love. She wished she’d brought a beer…

  Thus it was that a momentarily emotionally suspended Aliette Nouvelle found Hubert Hunspach standing on a boulder, lanky arms outspread in silent praise, thick shoulders moving to the rhythm in his headphones. The same boulder: take away Hubert’s clothes, replace day with night, it was a replay of the strangely ecstatic tableau she’d happened on two nights before. And the sincerest form of praise is mimicry — but you have to know who you are mimicking.

  She approached. Hubert was likewise emotionally suspended, too preoccupied with his music lifting him to some other level to sense the intrusion of the police. When he finally turned, she knew he’d been smoking his pot again. As if to confirm it, Hubert registered her presence with a laugh, rather loud, like a deaf person’s. It was not belligerent or mocking; more a laugh of stoned-out wonder. And he offered a broad smile.

  What to do with this delinquent boy? Hubert stood, smiling blandly, bobbing to his music, not in the least concerned with a cop deciding his immediate fate. She decided there was no point scolding him again, or taking legal action. This blasé adolescent would learn, or not. Whichever, his value to her had nothing to do with the presence of an illegal substance. The inspector spent a good portion of her time talking to people who were quite removed from the daily grind thanks to one substance or another. The fact that they had a drug temporarily added to their perspective did not automatically delete what they knew. The information was usually still there to be gleaned. It was just a question of listening differently. Asking differently — going direct to the object of his dreaming. ‘Is he really so beautiful, Hubert?’

  ‘Totally. Impeccable.’

  ‘Have you talked to him?’

  ‘No way. I’ve barely seen him.’

  ‘Has he seen you?’

  ‘Even if he did, he wouldn’t. He’s up there. Like a god. I’m nowhere.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  A shrug. No idea. He turned back to the place of the beautiful vision and with a touch of his thumb he boosted the music high.

  She had to yell. ‘I saw him!’

  He heard. ‘Voyons!’ Don’t bullshit me. Removing his phones, facing her, Hubert Hunspach could not believe it. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. Right where you’re standing, as naked as that stone.’

  This was a revelation. ‘He’s like completely white? Like a vision?’

  Aliette nodded. Something like that. ‘He dove into the river and disappeared.’

  ‘You have to be able to do stuff like that. I mean, if you want to matter.’

  ‘Yes, I think I understand that. Who knows him?’

  ‘No one I know.’

  ‘I think the man you found did.’

  Rather than challenge this barely circumstantial assertion, from deep inside his adolescent soul Hubert Hunspach intoned, ‘Death is part of love.’

  An ancient sentiment and not untrue, God knows. The inspector wondered which heavy metal band he’d got it from. ‘He may be at risk, Hubert.’

  ‘No… No way. He’s above it. He’s safe.’ Hubert gazed across the water.

  ‘Does he live on the other side?’

  ‘For sure.’

  ‘I mean in Germany.’ Not the land of the gods.

  The boy hadn’t the slightest clue. ‘Doesn’t really matter where he lives. It’s like, his soul, you know? Out there. Far away. Safe on the other side.’ This, Hubert knew for sure.

  The inspector considered Hubert Hunspach dreaming of the benign far away, out there, a life safe on the other side. Today, without a murder, threatening police, noisy media circus, his resolutely normal family ready to pounce if he acted out, she perceived something needful.

  And afraid? ‘Do your parents know, Hubert?’

  Stoned and otherwise preoccupied, it didn’t matter, he knew exactly what she meant. Eyes glued on the distance, he admitted, ‘Just my mum.’ Giving his music another boost, moving with it into another wistful thought, he fairly yelled, ‘If my mother could see him…’ moving like he was dancing with a ghost.

  Aliette called, ‘Yes? …What would happen if your mother could see him?’

  ‘What?’ Reluctantly lowering the volume a fraction.

  ‘Why should your mother see him?’

  ‘Because he’s beautiful. Not bad…’ then, ‘Yeah!’ This in response to something in the music only he could hear. ‘If Maman saw him she would stop being so fucked up and understand.’

  ‘What about your father?’ He didn’t hear that. Or else ignored it. She called, ‘You should tell him, Hubert!’ He shook his head with adamant force. No! She called, ‘If I need you to come and look at pictures, we’ll have to tell them.’ But he would not respond to this advice.

  And she couldn’t force him.

  The song ended. He removed his music and faced her. She tried again. ‘You were here that night. I know you were.’ A resigned nod, yes. ‘So tell me, Hubert. A man was killed. Another one may be. This beautiful man — he’s real and he may be in very real danger.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything. I was back there.’ Gesturing at the woods.

  In the woods. That was sad, but not her problem. ‘Come down often?’ A nod. ‘Out your bedroom window?’ Another nod. ‘With your friend, René?’ No. ‘Does René know?’ No. And some tears were starting now — yes, just a frightened kid. ‘What did you see, Hubert?’

  He blinked, looked past her. ‘Just the usual. Cars. Fogged up windows. Then there was noise over by the river. Like here. Like yelling. And some pops. Sounds like pops… I went to see but everyone was running the other way, just wanting to get away. So I ran too.’ Voila.

  She tested this. ‘This was the night before you and René found him?’

  ‘No. Friday.’

  Bon. Truth. ‘You didn’t come on the weekend?’

  Hubert wiped his tears. ‘I never come on the weekend. Too much happening. Friends, all that, I can’t just… Weekends are when I pretend.’ And it had rained.

  ‘Can you give me any names?’

  ‘No one has a name here.’

  ‘Faces?’

  He shrugged. Put his phones back on. She mulled and paced, looked across at Germany.

  But then the song was over and they talked some more. About many things. He was not the worst kid in the world. He understood her feelings. She did not want to go home? Neither did he.

  He seemed to be trusting her. At a certain point, she asked,Was he interested in helping her?

  His eyes brightened. ‘Like an informant?’ Un indic. ‘Like on the shows?’

  ‘More or less, yes… Be my cousin, Hubert. Could you handle that?’

  ‘Maybe…’ What was he supposed to do?

  ‘Keep an eye out. And talk to me.’

  He considered it. He considered the shows. ‘Cousins. Cool.’

  ‘Good.’ Maybe the beautiful man on the rock lived in the area.

  Hubert doubted anyone as special as that could live anywhere as boring as Village-Neuf but promised he would keep his eyes peeled. And that he would be careful when he snuck out to come looking for sex in the park. She did not push him on that one; being careful was as much as she had a right to expect. Then he talked about his friends and who he thought might be ‘like me’ till inevitably it was time to go. Supper. Hubert’s mama would be wondering. So would Claude.

  Aliette promised she would be in touch. Hubert Hunspach walked away.
r />   She lingered.

  She was not an adolescent. She could go back home. Or she could go back to Basel.

  She chose Basel. It was closer now — and closer in her mind. Martin Bettelman had brought a stolen treasure from his love nest to a public trysting place by the river. As a gift? A gesture of his passion for a beautiful man? Or was it nothing of the sort? The opposite. Strictly business. A deal? As she passed slowly through the rush hour at Saint-Louis, heading for the checkpoint, she realized something Gregory Huet had said was drawing her back to the tiny flat. She needed to have a closer look at the collected art in Martin Bettelman’s fuck pad.

  Baroque. Rococo? Maybe those pictures could help her understand a murder.

  I’m working, Claude, working. Then I’ll come home…

  Thirty minutes later she found a spot along Mulheimerstrasse and parked. Working, working, working, working… It was like a stubborn mantra as she climbed the long, steep stairs to the fifth floor and again, thanks to Lise Bettelman’s fit of disgust, let herself in.

  Empty. Martin Bettelman’s art collection was gone. The only thing left was the department-store reproduction of the mountain village scene hanging by the bedroom door.

  ***

  As night fell on Basel, Aliette Nouvelle was sitting in a corner café nibbling at a fast-food version of raclette, sipping from a glass of uninspired Swiss wine. She had been up and down the long stairs to Bettelman’s hideaway, knocking on doors, interviewing — though hiding herself behind poor Lise Bettelman.

  ‘Have you seen my husband? He came to move some things and didn’t come home.’

  She learned at least one useful thing. It was likely there had been two visits to the apartment that day. That morning residents had heard a lot of up-and-down. None had bothered to look. They assumed a tenant was moving in or out. As for vans being loaded down in the street, well, there were many vans in the street during the course of a day. And someone had gone up later on. She got varying estimations as to when they’d left. She gathered she had probably missed the second visitor by an hour, not much more.