The Bosch Deception

by Alex Connor

  Paper 19

  Inside himself, working the Devil out. The Church asks Satan to deliver them in paint.

  Confused, Philip re-read the last piece. The Church asks Satan to deliver them in paint. But if that were supposed to imply that Bosch was hired to save the congregation’s souls, why was he placed in the guise of Satan? Philip looked at his watch, careful of the time, not wanting to miss his flight but reluctant to stop reading. What he was looking at was incendiary.

  Paper 20

  Forgeries passed without question, entries to … (missing word) record of the Brotherhood tell the fate of a ghost.

  Paper 21

  1479 – the whore is taken as the spectre’s bride. They sleep in winding sheets.

  Paper 22

  Antonius died this year 1480. His placing in … (missing word) Brotherhood passed down to son. Secret buried under the Catholic stone.

  Philip frowned, unable to make sense of what he was reading. He realised that the Church was being criticised, but didn’t understand why. The pieces were little more than riddles.

  A knock on the door interrupted him. He opened it half an inch and looked out to see a bellboy standing in the corridor outside.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, I’m just reminding you that you have to leave the room in the next half an hour.’ He tried to peer round the door but Philip blocked his view. ‘And a message came for you.’

  ‘The phone didn’t ring.’

  ‘It was a hand-delivered message to Reception, Mr Preston,’ the bellboy replied, passing a note through the gap in the door.

  Snatching it, Philip opened the folded paper. It was blank.

  ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s blank. There’s nothing on it.’

  ‘What?’ the bellboy said again, confused.

  ‘There’s nothing on the note!’ Philip snapped, passing it back to the bellboy and closing the door.

  Irritated, he picked up the mobile phone again. But seconds later there was another knock on the door. Philip opened it and glowered at the bellboy.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘The manager told me to tell you that he was sorry about the mix-up, but there had been a message left for you. I know you said the paper was blank, but the manager said there was a verbal message, sir.’

  Philip sighed. ‘Which was?’

  ‘Just one word. Bosch.’ The bellboy looked embarrassed. ‘I think that’s how it was pronounced—’

  ‘Who gave you the message?’

  ‘The gentleman spoke to the manager over the phone.’

  ‘Did they leave a name?’

  ‘No, sir, and no contact number,’ the bellboy replied. ‘The manager told me to tell you that they said they would be in touch.’

  Philip nodded abruptly and closed the door again. Now he knew he was being watched. He thought of Carel Honthorst and began to sweat, then turned back to the phone, his hands shaking.

  Paper 23

  Hieronymus Bosch is famous to the world … (missing word) such fortune do his paintings bring to Church and family alike.

  Paper 24

  The Brotherhood will brook no argument. Bosch is the tool to buckle sinners. His works show Hell and Heaven as must be seen. They say God would forgive.

  God would forgive … what? Philip wondered. What had Bosch done to need forgiveness? And secrecy.

  Paper 25

  Goossen, the brother, grows older, rearing against … (missing word) the name not his. Threatened by clergy, he mourns the man who was. The one he seeks to emulate.

  Paper 26

  Family and riches, church and choir, The lie that corrupts the Catholic spire.

  Paper 27

  Hieronymus the recluse, keeps … (missing word) his rooms. Unseen amongst gargoyles and the dead men. Rich in his winding sheet, under the maggot church.

  And then the last piece of writing.

  Paper 28

  In this place or abroad, none know Hieronymus Bosch is but a dead man. Died in the year of our Lord and his mother, Our Lady. 1473

  Philip gripped the phone.

  Then he re-read the entry.

  1473. Hieronymus Bosch died in 1473!

  It wasn’t possible. What little anyone knew of the artist for certain was his death date – 1516. But now he was reading evidence that Bosch had died in 1473 and that his family and the Catholic Church had kept his death a secret.

  Philip took in a long, slow breath. No wonder everyone was so keen to get hold of the chain, so eager to be the possessor of such devastating information. There had been a conspiracy, a cover-up, dating back to the Middle Ages. The Bosch family and the Church had banded together, pretending that Hieronymus was still alive. The reason was obvious – money.

  ‘Christ,’ Philip said out loud. He could imagine how the art world would take the news, how the prices of Bosch’s works might plummet if it was discovered others had faked him, passing off their works as those of the dead Master. It would be a catastrophe. Philip paused, his thoughts leap frogging. How much would someone pay for such news? How much would they pay for the chain? The papers? Jesus, if he got his hands on them he was made.

  He had to admire the plot. Of course the Bosch family could have pulled it off. All of them were painters: the grandfather, the father and the brothers. When Antonius died, the writings stated clearly that his son took over. One? Or all of them? How easy to perpetuate the fraud with the collusion of the Catholic Church. The Church, which was rich and powerful. The Church, which wanted to keep its congregation under control.

  Bosch’s visions of Heaven and Hell had done just that. Goodness rewarded in The Garden of Earthly Delights, evil punished by the obscenities of Hell. When the papers were written the world was still in the grip of the Middle Ages; it was to be a while before civilisation saw the light of reason. The rich and oppressive Catholic Church wielded absolute power, the means to control the people secured by the imagination of Brabant’s visionary, Hieronymus Bosch. It had been his images of Hell and damnation, his painted tortures and distortions, which had frightened the congregation into pious submission. In a time when superstition was rife, when the world was still believed to be flat, when dragons and chimeras haunted the minds of men, there was a terrible power in paint.

  For the wicked, Bosch promised a torment of legless creatures swallowing the damned whole, of tortoises with Death’s heads and winged demons with tiger’s claws. He painted ships on fire, the naked and the doomed screaming as devils dragged them into the darkness and the lost chasms of Hell. He created men seduced by pigs; bodies impaled, halved and devoured by alligators; men with arrows in their anuses; women ridden by demons. Bodies distorted, abused, bleeding, violated – and the message was there for everyone to see. Even if the congregation could not read or write the paintings told them – this is the result of sin. This is the reward for the wicked.

  For the virtuous, Bosch painted a Heaven of plenty and beauty. But only for the good.

  It was a message the Catholic Church had preached for centuries, and it found its perfect expression in Hieronymus Bosch. Paint and panel managed to do what popes and soldiers could not – they forced obedience by the use of fear.

  Philip paused, thinking of what he had just learnt. In reality, Hieronymus Bosch had only lived for twenty-three years. Long enough to become famous, his visions and images immediately recognisable – and easy to reproduce. Hieronymus Bosch had created a template for his family to follow. God only knows how many paintings he had done while he was alive or how many sketches and drawings had been created by him – all ready for his avaricious family to draw upon. With the collusion of the Church, all they had had to do was to secure, and fulfil, the endless commissions.

  Work for a dead man.

  Paid for by a deceitful clergy.

  Hieronymus Bosch was to have no headstone, no mourning. His death was never to be acknowledged; his marriage a sham. And then Philip realised something else: the onl
y documents known to the world concerning Hieronymus Bosch were the entries in the account books of The Brotherhood of Mary. Entries that were obviously false, recording a life made up, created to keep a corpse alive. And with those entries came the counterfeit commissions. The man had died long ago, but the name had been made to work on.

  Getting to his feet, Philip hid Sabine Monette’s mobile at the bottom of his suitcase and grabbed his coat. He understood why the world would want a chain that had belonged to Hieronymus Bosch, but how much more would the Catholic Church want the secret suppressed?

  He would have to be very careful to profit from this, Philip thought. He was in trouble, and he knew it. No wonder Sabine Monette had been killed. There were a few collectors and dealers ruthless enough to employ any means to secure something priceless – and scandalous. The chain wasn’t just an object of beauty, it was a revelation. And it might well prove to be his way to a cushy life … Philip paused, his fear giving way to greed. This could be a way to dump Gayle and marry his mistress. A way to flaunt his success to his peers and relish the fortune that was sure to be his.

  Or it might mean his destruction. Only this time it would be his body in a hotel room, the notorious initials H B carved into his dying flesh.

  Bloody hell, Philip thought despairingly. Why, in God’s name, had he taken Sabine Monette’s phone?

  Twenty

  Church of St Stephen, Fulham, London

  ‘I thought I’d find you here.’

  Nicholas turned, surprised to find Eloise Devereux standing in the doorway of the vestry. She was bundled up against the cold in a tailored coat, her blonde hair tucked under a black hat. Elegant, groomed as always, although her eyes were swollen from crying. ‘I have to talk to you about Claude.’

  Closing the vestry door so that Father Michael wouldn’t overhear them, Nicholas showed Eloise into the church, and settled into one of the back pews. She hesitated, then sat down next to him, pulling off her gloves, revealing her right hand bandaged to the wrist. Quickly she pulled down her sleeve to cover it.

  ‘Claude was killed—’

  ‘What?’ He wanted to reach out to her but resisted. They had been friends, but only because of Claude. And at times Nicholas had noticed envy on Eloise’s part: a jealousy for a history that had not included her.

  ‘He was murdered two days ago.’

  ‘I didn’t know …’ He stared at her. ‘You said he was killed. Why?’

  ‘You know why,’ Eloise said quietly, her skin bloodless in the cold church. A shiver ran through her and her lips parted for an instant, then closed again.

  ‘I don’t know, Eloise–’

  ‘Hieronymus Bosch … Don’t deny it, Nicholas. I don’t blame you for anything. I didn’t know anything about the chain until yesterday when I went through Claude’s papers. His will …’ Her English accent was perfect, polished. ‘He was too young to make a will. You’re supposed to do that when you’re old. But he made one, in great detail. He took care with it, almost as though he knew that it would be needed.’ She stopped, stared at her hands, at her wedding band. ‘That Bosch painting originally belonged to Claude’s father, Raoul.’

  The news surprised him. ‘Raoul Devereux owned the painting?’

  ‘Until it was stolen from his gallery. The following year he died, and the Bosch was never seen again. But apparently it re-emerged in England, and was bought by an elderly man. The same man who gave it to Gerrit der Keyser to sell for him …’

  The name went like a bolt into his spine, but Nicholas said nothing.

  ‘… The person who bought it was Sabine Monette. Of course you know that. But although the painting was valuable there was more to it. A secret, hidden in the chain by which it was hung. Apparently every connector between the links had a piece of paper in it. A note. Twenty-eight in all, which made up a testimony. Did Sabine know that? Did she read it?’ Her eyes turned on Nicholas. ‘She was murdered. Like Claude. But then you know that too – you and Sabine were close. So now tell me, Nicholas, why have my husband and your friend – who both knew about the Bosch secret – been killed?’

  ‘I didn’t know that Claude was privy to any of this. We never discussed it—’

  She was composed, but brusque. ‘Where’s the chain?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Liar,’ she said softly. ‘You can’t protect me, I don’t want you to. You aren’t my husband or a member of my family. I’m not your responsibility, Nicholas – I am my own person. I mean to find out who killed my husband, and why. Claude said the notes told of a conspiracy, but he didn’t say what it was.’

  ‘I’m sorry he told you any of it—’

  ‘You have no right to judge my husband!’

  ‘He was also my friend, and as such I can judge him,’ Nicholas replied, glancing up at the altar. ‘Have you still got the letter he wrote?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then destroy it. And forget what you read—’

  ‘How very presumptuous of you,’ Eloise responded. ‘You can’t tell me what to do. I want to know more, not less. What did the papers say?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  A soft sound escaped her lips as Eloise rose to her feet and looked around her. ‘Strange that you should come back here. I thought you weren’t allowed to enter a church again.’

  ‘Excommunication doesn’t mean I’m banned from the Church. It’s a penalty, dished out in the hope I’ll repent.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘So it’s reversible? Not much of a punishment.’

  ‘It is to a priest. I can’t receive the Eucharist and I won’t get a Catholic burial. Unless I repent, of course.’ He held her gaze, feeling the animosity. ‘Which I won’t. I despise the Catholic Church. I’m not here for forgiveness, but for another reason entirely.’

  ‘What reason?’ she asked, without turning to look at him. ‘I believe there was a murder here recently—’

  ‘How did you hear that?’

  ‘I come from a wealthy family. The only child of an over-indulgent mother and a rich – if absent – father. I married Claude for love – money didn’t matter to me then. But now I recognise its value. You see, now I can find out anything I want, because I can buy information. Money is a wonderful lubricant. It oils people’s memories.’

  He was surprised by her. The Eloise he remembered had been a reserved woman, discreet, without particular opinions. The wife of his best friend, the woman who had made Claude happy. Nothing more. But the person Nicholas was now listening to was altogether different. He didn’t know this woman.

  ‘The man who was murdered here was a vagrant,’ Nicholas explained. ‘His death isn’t related to what we’re talking about.’

  She turned, walked back to him and looked down into his face.

  ‘What are we talking about, Nicholas? Two murders, an ancient mystery, something so dangerous that you’re here babysitting an old priest.’ She nodded. ‘I told you, I can find out a lot of things when I want to. And I will find out who killed my husband and Sabine Monette.’

  Nicholas stared at her, trying to work out what she was offering.

  ‘Where’s the chain?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  She walked to the door and paused. ‘I’ll come back and we can talk again. In the meantime, think about what I’ve said. I can help you – so we might as well work together.’

  ‘I’m not putting you in danger.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s spreading, Nicholas. The secret’s leaked out and it’s claimed two lives already. Trust me or there’ll be more. And next time it might be someone you love.’

  Twenty-One

  Philip Preston’s Auction House, Chelsea, London

  There was an auction already in progress. Philip was on the rostrum and a large video screen was throwing up magnified images of the lots so that the audience could see – in glaring close-up – exactly what they were bidding for. Of course most d
ealers attended the previews and picked over the goods before the auction, making a note of lot numbers and the estimate of how much each piece was expected to reach. But there were always latecomers, and the inevitable opportunists.

  Positioned at the back of the hall, Gerrit der Keyser spotted Hiram Kaminski and beckoned for him to approach. He scuttled over, peeling off a pair of pigskin gloves and laying his hat on his lap. He was, as ever, prim, his feet crossed at the ankles.

  ‘I heard about Sabine Monette,’ Hiram whispered, shocked. ‘What a terrible way to die. I read that she’d been murdered.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Hadn’t she just bought a painting off you?’

  ‘Shit!’ Gerrit said feigning irritation. ‘So the secret’s out, is it? Yeah, the old bat bought a small Bosch picture – and stole a chain off me.’ He watched as Hiram’s eyes widened. Nice man, Gerrit thought. Good dealer. Honest and trusting. Poor fool. ‘She nicked the fucking chain off the back of the painting. Thought I wouldn’t notice—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did she steal the chain?’ Hiram asked, his tone perplexed. ‘Sabine Monette was a rich woman. So why would she need to steal? And besides, she’d bought the painting so the chain was hers by rights anyway.’

  Damn it, Gerrit thought, Hiram Kaminski wasn’t quite the innocent he seemed.

  ‘She had dementia,’ Gerrit lied, tapping his forehead. ‘Early onset Alzheimer’s. I mean, I wouldn’t have pressed charges, I just wanted to get the chain back. But apparently she’d lost it – her mind and the chain – so I let the matter rest.’ He touched Hiram’s sleeve. ‘Don’t repeat a word of this, hey? I mean, I don’t want to look like a mug.’

  Hiram might have seemed guileless, but he wasn’t that big a fool. Piecing together what his wife had told him and this last bit of information from Gerrit der Keyser, he asked, ‘Was the chain valuable?’

  ‘It was old—’

  ‘Original to the painting?’

  Gerrit shrugged, lying deftly. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘So it dated from Hieronymus Bosch’s time!’ Hiram said crossly. ‘I have to say, Gerrit, rivalry or not, everyone in London knows that I’m an expert on the late Middle Ages. You could have contacted me – I might have wanted to buy it.’ He was flushed with annoyance, overheated in a worsted suit. ‘Bosch is one of my favourite artists and any artefact which had belonged to him would have been of tremendous interest to me.’