The Unknown Masterpiece

by John Brooke

  They retrieved her delinquent car from the basement parking. Rudi drove. Turning into Nestléplatz, a tiny crescent off Haltinger, which in turn met a corner of Mulheimer, Inspector Nouvelle, who was not as bad at directions as some men (Claude) sometimes insinuated, assessed the route, the larger layout, and declared, ‘All quite walkable.’

  Bettelman’s dormer. Perella’s flat. And Zup.

  A man sat alone and forlorn on the steps to Josephina’s building. Franck Woerli had the look of a man who’s been locked out of his own home and is waiting for someone to show up. Helpless. Useless. ‘Hello, Franki,’Aliette said, exiting the car, ducking under the police tape.

  ‘I wanted to see for myself.’ Not locked out. He obviously had his own means of entry.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a hint of a life beyond work,’ he murmured. ‘And her mother.’ It had an angry kind of finality. Woerli’s bitter proof of a futile life. Like his. ‘Maybe you’ll have better luck.’

  ‘Won’t you join us?’

  Franck Woerli only gestured, woeful, worn out: You go. I give up.

  Yesterday’s tears had dried, but he was dazed. ‘What is it, Franki?’

  ‘We get trapped in this useless life, Inspector. Completely trapped.’

  19

  Parsing a Mother’s Message

  Woerli went home. Nouvelle and Bucholtz went up.

  Franck Woerli was not wrong in his gloomy assessment of Josephina Perella’s life. The place was stodgy and drab. Apart from some brightly illustrated books on art that were probably for work, everything from the lamps to the fraying, faded carpet was old. Worn out. An art cop with no imagination. No verve.

  Rudi seemed personally offended, noting that it reminded him of films about nervous people living grimly in East Germany.

  Aliette instinctively defended Josephina. ‘Maybe she liked it.’

  ‘What’s to like?’ he scoffed. ‘She was a senior officer. With what they get, you’d think she could have done better than this.’ FedPol Agent Bucholtz pronounced the place ‘depressing.’

  That didn’t mean there would be no clue here to her killing. Inspector Nouvelle was circling slowly, touching things, lightly, barely, like a gypsy with her fingers hovering over a crystal ball. Failure. Love. Death by violence. A home contains the seeds of everything. It’s always there.

  Rudi sat on the dreary sofa. ‘You know, we haven’t really talked all day,’ he ventured.

  ‘We’re working, Rudi.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I got mad.’

  ‘Shh!’ Standing dead still in the middle of the frumpy salon. Feeling Josephina’s space.

  Rudi watched her, wondering how to atone. After locating Martin Bettelman lost in obscene ecstasy while the pale boy/man lost himself in Romantic art, Rudi had confidently called his girlfriend to tell her, yes, the investigation demanded his presence for a second night, likely all of it this time. He’d lied to her twice. And she’d believed him. So easy… Not so, the French inspector. Last evening Rudi thought he understood her perfectly. Now he was not at all certain.

  She moved. In quick succession she looked in the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, in and out — it was like watching a cuckoo clock character on a track. She finished her quick tour by the window, where she stood looking out at a residential street, soft in the muted evening light, a quiet quarter settling in for Saturday night. ‘She had a boyfriend,’ Aliette declared.

  Rudi nodded dumbly. He shrugged — so what?

  ‘Do you know what that means, Agent?’

  ‘No.’ …yes, the French inspector was getting seriously strange.

  From across the room Inspector Nouvelle stared at Rudi fiercely for a heart-stopping moment. Then moved three steps to the small secrétaire, badly scratched and in need of refinishing. It was set against the window wall to give Josephina Perella sunlight as she worked on her bills on a lonely Sunday afternoon.

  Or maybe not so lonely. If she had a boyfriend.

  The inspector picked up the only post-modern object in sight. A cellphone. ‘Recognize it?

  ‘No.’ It was not government issue. They’d found that one with her body.

  Aliette pushed buttons. No names in the directory. One message waiting. She put the device on speaker, and played the message. A woman’s voice. Elderly. Fragile: Something in Italian, but nothing she could identify. ‘Ticino dialect,’ advised Rudi. He knew a little. She played it again. He recognized the words ‘cara mia,’ the Italian version of ‘Toussaint…’ Then, ‘Ciao.’

  ‘It’s her mother.’ Just as poor old Woerli had said.

  Rudi shrugged. Agent Perella’s mother didn’t kill her, surely.

  Aliette played the message again. Rudi was meant to be listening, but it was at that moment he noticed movement — a shadow shifting along the crack of hall light in the space between door and floor. Yes, a shadow moved across it. There was someone on the other side of the door. ‘Look,’ he whispered, gesturing. She shook her head, lost in her deductions. She played the message again and listened, pacing the room. Rudi gestured at the door. ‘I think we have an issue.’ He saw the shadow shifting, coming closer, then withdrawing, like a sinister wave.

  She stopped. ‘Of course we do, Rudi. We only need to fasten on. That’s the trick, what I was telling you last night, mm? Attention to method. And the method of the world. It’s our job to bring these two into alignment. Please…’ Pay attention. She played the message yet again.

  ‘I’m talking about here, right now.’ The shadow on the other side of the door moved again. ‘Inspector…’ Rudi tried to keep it calm, conversational. He did not want to force the matter and alert the lurking presence. Perhaps there was more than one.

  She made another trance-like turn of the room and stopped in front of him. Rudi pointed at the shadow diluting the light in the crack at the foot of the door. The inspector did not react. She pushed the button and played the thing again. Despite the presence beyond the door, Rudi caught the name of a place — ‘Savosa?’ And a person. ‘Signora Biaggi. Angelina. Amigo…’

  The inspector confirmed. ‘Some woman, right? Angelina. Her friend?’

  As the question hung there between them, Rudi heard the softest shift of a leather sole. ‘Toussaint,’ he whispered, ‘something about Toussaint.’ All Saints Day, three weeks hence.

  Aliette listened again. Rudi heard another sound outside. Aliette listened again…

  In the silent instants between cueing the machine and the fragile voice leaving information for Josephina, Rudi began to deduce a game — a high-stakes game of timing that would come down to a split second of precision force. Again the old woman’s voice flowed by in its tired sing-song cadence. He focused on the apartment door. When it finished, Rudi indicated negative: he could not make out any more of a mama’s message to her daughter — only the sad thing underlying it. So sad when you come across messages to the dead, messages doomed to stay in no-space, unheard forever. This sense was reinforced with a sixth…then a seventh hearing.

  While the shadow in the crack continued to feint and slide.

  ‘An invitation?’ Aliette pondered.

  Rudi was too distracted to consider it. A prying concierge? The shadow on the other side of the door was now showing deliberate motion, back and forth, as if it did not care who saw it.

  FedPol Agent Rudi Bucholtz was perspiring freely when the message ended its tenth reprise. An art cop, like all cops, had been taught some basic martial moves — mostly defensive, but it was not as though he practised breaking bricks with the edge of his hand.

  The French inspector gravitated back to the window, puzzling over the message, apparently unconcerned as to the crisis waiting at the door. She was looking out at the sky when she said, ‘I did not say anything to my mother about Claude. And she did not say a word about him either. Do you understand what I’m saying, Rudi?’

  Not exactly. Was this tactical, a ploy to keep the lurking presence lulled while they got themselves i
nto a more proactive position? Rudi’s work as an art cop had never brought him to a moment like this. As brightly as possible, and certainly so it would be heard on the other side of the door, he chirped, ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Claude.’

  Turning to face him, the inspector’s thumb hovered over the replay button on Josephina’s cell. Rudi sensed pressure on the door handle. He rose from the musty corduroy divan, caught between fear for life and limb and fear of being a fool. She did not respond to his signalling.

  She said, more to herself than him, ‘And her mother did not say a word about her boyfriend.’

  Far too loudly, Rudi blurted, ‘Inspector, there’s — ’

  ‘Hush! …So it means she was not telling her mother about him. I mean probably never.’

  As she paused to assess her conclusion, Rudi heard a distinct ‘click.’

  Not a door handle. The possibilities quickly grew darker, deadly.

  ‘It means it was not going well between them,’ Aliette surmised. ‘Something wasn’t right.’

  Rudi grasped an empty vase from the side table. A tacky Polish folk-art piece. Why did Josephina live with an ugly thing like that? Rudi shuddered, aware of a useless thought. The situation was splitting his thinking in a dangerous way.

  Inspector Nouvelle finally moved toward the door, musing, ‘If it was good, I mean a good relationship, her mother would have known all about him and invited him for Toussaint too. No? What I mean, Rudi, is why didn’t I say word about Claude? Because it’s turned to shit, that’s why. No, let’s not put too fine a point on it. Let’s be honest here, mm?’

  Rudi deduced a signal. Let’s do it. Heart in overdrive, he reached for the door handle.

  Aliette said, ‘Mothers urge daughters to bring their boyfriends home. I know this, Rudi.’

  Door yanked open, Rudi Bucholtz stepped into open space, arm raised, ready to strike.

  Hans Grinnell punched him square in the face. Rudi made no sound. For some reason he did not drop Josephina Perella’s cheap vase. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps Grinnell perceived a continued threat. He kicked Rudi in the gut with the hard toe of the leather shoe which Rudi had correctly identified. Now Rudi dropped the vase. It hit the floor and smashed. Rudi did the same.

  A French cop did not understand the German epithets spewing from Inspector Grinnell’s mouth as he hovered over Rudi Bucholtz, but she had no doubt at all as to the device he’d been in the process of affixing to the door handle casing. From one cop’s patch to the next, a listening post is universal. In his free hand (it had only taken one to knock poor Rudi senseless) Hans Grinnell still held the tiny heat rod that would fuse the miniscule wafer to the brass casing.

  Ceasing with his invective, resisting an obvious desire to give Rudi another kick, Grinnell went into a pocket, found a packet, removed a piece and recommenced his operation.

  Staying calm, the French inspector commented, ‘But surely you did all this. Your team? You said you had a team here.’ She watched bemused as he carefully lifted a tiny disc from the floor where it lay near a puddle of blood and saliva from Rudi’s mess of a mouth.

  The Basel Lands investigator wiped it on his sleeve, put it in his pocket. ‘Wrong frequency.’

  She commiserated. ‘Two crime scenes will stretch your resources.’

  ‘You want it right, you have to do it yourself.’

  ‘True enough, Inspector. True enough.’

  They both contemplated Rudi Bucholtz, curled on the floor, a bloody tooth near his nose.

  Rudi appeared to be watching them from one eye — waiting like an injured dog. That Saint Bernard had been hit by a truck. Hans Grinnell removed a facial tissue from his pocket. Crouching, he appeared slightly remorseful as he manoeuvred the art cop’s front tooth onto it, and folded the tissue once. He left it by Rudi’s nose. Rudi’s eye took it in, but he made no move to claim his tooth. He waited. Grinnell was finally compelled to help Rudi to his feet. ‘Come on, get up, you’re going to live.’ He put the wrapped-up tooth in Rudi’s pocket.

  Agent Bucholtz stood before them, wobbly, swollen face askew, the missing tooth creating a glaring gap in his credibility. In a slurred, lisping voice he accused Grinnell. ‘You arrogant bastard.’ Or German words to that effect. ‘Bastards like you are the reason she did what she did. You’re the reason she was killed.’

  The Basel Lands cop shrugged his denial. ‘I never met her before Wednesday.’

  ‘You’re all the same, with your shitty little patches. Too fucking proud to ask for help from someone who actually knows…’ Rudi was fighting tears. ‘…all the fucking same.’

  ‘You’re not really trained for this, are you, Rudi?’ Grinnell smiled. ‘Agent Perella sure as hell wasn’t — no matter which side she was playing.’ He came across like a kindly, if slightly psychotic, scout leader. ‘Believe me. Far, far out of her depth and she paid for it.’

  The battered Rudi made a universal gesture: Hand to elbow; fist up hard: Fuck you.

  Aliette said, ‘Rudi, you could learn a lot from Hans.’

  Eyes burning with shame and anger, there was horrid saliva flying through the gap in his teeth as he told her, ‘And you are a bizarre French cunt!’

  Grinnell moved to intervene. Aliette put up a hand. She knew Rudi would never hit her. And she could not be bothered to slap his face. She said, ‘I was counting on your help, Rudi. But there is a learning curve that has to be respected here. Mm?’

  ‘Bullshit! You need my eyes? Why? You need someone to watch you making speeches in your underwear?’ He spat blood on the floor. ‘I am such a fool. Such a total fucking fool!’

  That made two, and perhaps three, fools on the FedPol roster. What could one say?

  ‘Go home, Rudi. Hans and I will take it from here.’

  Agent Bucholtz was truly wretched as he slouched away, down the apartment stairs.

  20

  Deeper into It with Hans

  Basel Lands Inspector Hans Grinnell eyed her. ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Not much. A fantasy?’ Shrugging Rudi away. She watched him, down on his knees installing a new listener. He had a steady hand. She said, ‘Looks like it’s just us now, Inspector.’

  Gathering his tools, he muttered, ‘There is no us. There are two different cases.’

  ‘Why don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Short answer? Because I don’t need to.’

  ‘I would say you’re a man without much curiosity. Eh, Hans?’

  That hit a nerve. He stood and dusted the knees of his pants. ‘And I would say you are one of those women who cannot handle being wrong.’

  ‘Au contraire. I am usually wrong, at least in part. But there was a man in her life and that will be part of our solution here. And I bet you think so too. Why else would you be here making sure this place is wired right? On a Saturday evening, no less.’

  Hans Grinnell sniffed the same half-nasty, half-exasperated little snigger he’d expressed in demolishing Franck Woerli. ‘If there was anyone, it was a woman.’

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘I’m betting boyfriend.’ Police Judiciaire Inspector Aliette Nouvelle was not some abstract Swiss FedPol agent. She could and would stand her ground.

  Perhaps Hans Grinnell accepted this as fact. He moved past her, into the apartment and over to the salon window. He surveyed the street. ‘We did some canvassing. A neighbour — just there,’ indicating the building opposite, ‘says she saw a woman in the street some time in the early evening the day Perella died. Pink topcoat. Had to have a key because she went in and up. Neighbour saw lights go on. Then off. Wasn’t there ten minutes. She left on foot.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Hardly. The pink coat… Middle-aged. Blondish. Biggish…’

  ‘Like Josephina Perella.’

  A moment of silence as two cops stared out the window.

  Aliette reconfirmed her bet. ‘Everything here says a man.’

  Grinnell repeated, ‘We are not working t
ogether, Inspector.’

  ‘Come.’ She marched to the kitchen. Grinnell followed, skeptical but amused. She took two bottles of beer from the refrigerator, proffered them. He took them. She gestured. ‘Two steaks for a Thursday night? One definitely large. First, a girl does not have her girlfriend over for steak, Inspector. At least not where I come from. And if she does, who gets the bigger piece of meat?’ Shutting the fridge, pointing at a drawer: ‘Opener.’ She headed for the bedroom. She waited till he joined her. ‘Her side…’ Big dramatic whiff of the left side pillow; ‘and his…’ sticking her nose into the right side pillow. ‘A man smell. I know this. Your wife does too.’

  Grinnell gave her an opened beer. They touched bottles.

  He smiled. ‘Why are you people such a pain in the ass?’

  ‘Good question. We ask each other all the time. The fact remains, someone came in here to wipe her phone and clean the place of everything indicating another presence in her life. The things that person forgot or didn’t think to remove all indicate a man. A man who’s more than likely in this city.’

  ‘And don’t forget her mama’s message, Inspector. Irrefutable proof if ever there was.’

  His Swiss sarcasm did not quite work in French.

  She met his twinkling eyes. ‘Does that mean your fist was meant for me and not poor Rudi?’

  He actually looked abashed. She absolved him. ‘At least you were paying attention…’ Then she went for the kill. ‘Inspector, if you don’t need me, you need Commander Boehler. And surely you don’t need him. Mm?’

  ‘All right!’ Hans Grinnell sat himself on the threadbare corduroy divan. ‘I’ll tell you why I don’t need help from the French police. Or Boehler. And then you will bugger off. Yes?’

  Dodging the commitment, Aliette plunked herself down beside him. ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘Three things. One: I have the painting, and it’s not moving till I get a resolution.’

  ‘And I have the gun and it is staying in France till I get a resolution.’