by Alex Connor
‘But you couldn’t have afforded it,’ Gerrit replied regretfully. ‘I got a tremendous price from Sabine Monette—’
‘Probably took advantage of her dementia,’ Hiram snorted, watching as Philip Preston started the bidding on a small Turner sketch. Automatically, he dropped his voice. ‘You shouldn’t have sold it to her if you knew she wasn’t all there. And besides, how d’you know I couldn’t have afforded it?’
‘People talk. And let’s face it, your gallery’s not been doing too well in the recession, has it?’ Gerrit needled him. ‘Not that you’re one of the unscrupulous dealers, Hiram – we all know you’re a decent man. But decent men aren’t usually rich men.’
‘You still could have asked me,’ Hiram replied, smarting, reverting to a whisper. ‘You could have given me the opportunity to put in a bid. You didn’t even let me look at it. As a scholar I’d have relished the chance to study the chain.’
Gerrit sighed. ‘Sabine Monette wanted a quick sale.’
‘How convenient,’ Hiram replied, uncharacteristically caustic. ‘So where’s the painting and the chain now?’
‘The painting’s still at her French estate, I suppose. As for the chain, who knows? Like I say, she lost it.’ Gerrit shrugged, wondering himself just where the chain had got to and if it was, as he suspected, now with Nicholas Laverne. ‘I suppose it’s now a lost cause.’
Hiram gave him a cold look. ‘Somebody cheated you and you’re going to let it go?’
‘I have no choice. Sabine Monette is dead.’
‘Murdered,’ Hiram said, feeling his way along. Gerrit der Keyser had infuriated him. He had never trusted the dealer; he was suspicious of his methods and still stinging from his patronising comments. A kindly man, Hiram was unusually abrasive. ‘Why would anyone kill Sabine Monette? It makes no sense. Unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless,’ Hiram whispered, leaning closer towards Gerrit der Keyser, ‘they’re killing everyone who knows about the chain.’
Twenty-Two
It was drizzling when Nicholas hurried towards Philip Preston’s business premises. His coat soaked, he entered the auction room just as Philip handed the proceedings over to his assistant and left the hall.
Ducking round the back of the building, Nicholas took the fire escape steps to Preston’s office and walked in, unannounced, to find the auctioneer kissing his secretary. Embarrassed Philip jumped back and the woman left the room hurriedly.
‘Couldn’t you have knocked?’ Philip asked, wiping lipstick off his mouth with his handkerchief and glowering at Nicholas.
He was unmoved. ‘Aren’t you a bit old for that?’
‘I wasn’t the one who took a vow of chastity,’ Philip replied. ‘Where have you been anyway? I’d given up on you, thought you weren’t coming back.’
‘Sabine Monette was murdered.’
‘I know, I found her,’ Philip replied, smoothing his white hair with his hands. ‘Don’t look at me like that!’
‘You found her? How did you find her?’
‘I was going to have a chat with her—’
‘You were trying to cut me out, you mean,’ Nicholas retorted bitterly. ‘Did you find out anything useful, Philip?’
He was about to lie, then thought better of it.
‘I know what your big secret is. I took Sabine’s phone, saw the Bosch papers that you’d sent to her.’ He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. ‘Quite a revelation, I must say. The art world won’t like it, Bosch dying in his twenties – it means that all the paintings after 1473 were fakes.’
‘Not entirely. They were done by members of the Bosch family.’
‘But not Hieronymus, which is where the value lies. No one wants the also-rans.’ Philip reached into his middle desk drawer and waved Sabine Monette’s mobile in his hand. ‘Thing is, I don’t know what to do with this information. Not yet, anyway. I suppose you want to expose the part the Catholic Church played in the fraud, hang them out to dry. Certainly won’t look good for them, covering up a man’s death and raking in money for all those years. Then again, we have to think of the art world too, don’t we?’
‘Do we?’
‘If we expose this subterfuge, the value of Bosch’s works will take a beating. A lot of galleries and collectors around the world will have egg on their faces when this comes out. If it comes out.’ Philip paused, pushing the mobile into his back pocket. ‘Of course it doesn’t have to. I know of interested parties who would pay well to keep it suppressed.’
‘You’re crooked.’
Philip shrugged. ‘No, I just know how to be flexible. This is a business that requires a lot of gymnastics.’
‘The truth will come out, Philip. You can’t stop it. Remember, you’ve just seen copies of the papers, but I have the originals—’
‘And the chain?’
He nodded. ‘And the chain.’
‘I wouldn’t brag about that,’ Philip replied. ‘Sabine Monette was murdered. Like I say, I saw the body. There were details that didn’t make it into the French press and certainly not to the UK papers. Details which link her to the Bosch matter.’
Nicholas was wondering what Philip Preston wanted. He was also thinking about Eloise Devereux. It was obvious that she was determined to find her husband’s killer, and was asking for his help. Maybe he was honour bound to give it.
But helping Philip Preston was another matter.
‘You saw Sabine’s body?’
Philip nodded. ‘I did … I’m sorry. I know you cared for her.’
‘Did she suffer?’
‘Yes, I think she did,’ Philip replied honestly. ‘There were initials cut into her stomach: H and B.’
Nicholas flinched. ‘But her mobile wasn’t taken?’
‘It had fallen under a cabinet. Not easy to see, especially if someone was interrupted and had to leave quickly.’ He paused, then hurried on. ‘What did the phone matter anyway? They knew she had the chain – at least, she did have it – so they must have realised she knew about the secret …’ He stopped short. ‘Do they know about the secret or do they just want the chain?’
‘Gerrit der Keyser handled the painting and the chain so he must be involved in some way.’
‘Keyser would certainly want it,’ Philip said thoughtfully, ‘and he’s not squeamish. But then again, others would be after it too, like Hiram Kaminski and a few more I can think of. Have you heard of Conrad Voygel?’
‘Everyone has. The IT giant.’
Philip nodded. ‘He’s a big collector too – artefacts and silver. I’ve sold to him on and off for a long time but never dealt with him face to face. Voygel has runners, minions who do the deals for him. No one’s ever done business with him directly. He’s not a man to pin down. To be honest, I’ve often wondered if he even exists. I mean, the photographs that occasionally crop up in the papers could be of anyone.’
‘Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?’
Philip raised his eyebrows. ‘Why? They kept the dead Hieronymus Bosch alive for decades, so nothing surprises me any more.’ He paused, thinking. ‘Voygel has a bad reputation. Capable of anything, they say. But who knows – maybe that’s just good PR. What I do know for a fact is that he has enough money to buy – and enough power to silence – anyone.’
‘And Gerrit der Keyser has Carel Honthorst working for him, the man you denied knowing.’
‘I didn’t know whose side I was on then. I didn’t want to show my hand.’ Philip shrugged. ‘And now I’ve got in too deep. Serves me right for being greedy.’
‘You know you’re not safe? Two people who knew the secret have already been killed. I’m pretty sure I’ve been followed—’
Philip slumped into his chair. ‘And I got a warning when I was in Paris. Some note with nothing written on it, and then someone left a message which was just one word – Bosch. And I don’t think they were talking about a bloody washing machine … I should never have got involved.’
Nicholas had little sym
pathy. ‘Too late now. You’re a marked man, like me. Like Eloise Devereux—’
Philip’s eyebrows rose. ‘Who?’
‘Someone else who knows about the secret. Someone I have to try and protect.’ Nicholas paused, considering his next words. ‘We have to help each other. If we don’t, we’ll get picked off one by one. Whoever’s doing this must know the secret – the chain’s worth a fortune, but not worth killing for.’
Philip laughed, amused. ‘You have no idea about the art world, have you?’
‘That’s why I came to you. I need someone with the knowledge I don’t have.’
‘Strange, isn’t it, the ways things work out?’
Nicholas stared at him. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I remember my father doing business with your parents and your uncle. Then I traded with Henry. But you – you were never in the picture, if you’ll forgive the pun.’ He sighed. ‘It just seems odd, that’s all, that it’s you that’s ended up with a priceless artefact. The one person who has no interest in Bosch.’
‘Just the part religion played in all of this,’ Nicholas replied. ‘Remember, I do know all about the Church.’
‘Well, let me educate you about the art world. In this business there are a number of factions: criminals, buyers and sellers, and a few dealers who employ any means to get what they want. You think the chain’s not enough to create havoc? Let me tell you something: people kill for a thousand pounds so a prize like that would be well worth murdering for. The piece belonged to Hieronymus Bosch, I could auction it for a fortune tomorrow. As for the secret – what wouldn’t an interested party do to keep that quiet?’ He glanced at Nicholas. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to take the Catholic Church on again?’
‘They were complicit in a deception—’
‘How you love your conspiracies,’ Philip said slyly. ‘But no one listened before, so why should they this time?’
‘This time I have proof.’
‘That’s lucky,’ Philip replied. ‘Last time your proof hanged himself.’
Stung, Nicholas stared at the auctioneer; at the lush white hair, the brilliant, calculating eyes.
‘If I agree to help you,’ Philip said evenly, ‘I want a reward.’
‘And there was I thinking you just wanted to live.’
Philip ignored the comment. He was concentrating on the money – enough money to change his life, enough to leave his wife well looked after and finally escape. Go abroad with his mistress, Kim Fields. Enough money to indulge himself.
Still watching him, Nicholas rose to his feet and walked to the door. There he beckoned for Philip to follow him. Exposed in the daylight, standing in the open doorway at the top of the fire escape steps, Nicholas handed Philip a package.
‘What the hell—’
Nicholas cut him off, whispering. ‘Tuck it into your jacket and smile at me.’
He did as he was told, muttering under his breath, ‘What are you doing?’
Nicholas smiled back at him, as though they were friends talking. ‘If anyone’s watching us they’ll assume I’ve just given you the chain. Keep smiling!’ Nicholas hissed at the auctioneer. ‘That’s it. You almost look like a happy man.’ He turned and glanced up at the sky. ‘It’s stopped raining.’
Unnerved, Philip kept smiling, talking through clenched teeth. ‘You bastard, you set me up—’
‘You set yourself up when you went to Paris and tried to cut me out,’ Nicholas replied coldly. ‘Question is, what are you going to do now?’
There was a momentary pause before Philip responded.
‘OK … I’ll help you find out who’s behind all this. But in return I want the chain.’
‘You can have the bloody thing,’ Nicholas replied, making a public show of shaking hands with the auctioneer. ‘We have a deal, Philip. You go after the art world, I go after the Church.’
Twenty-Three
Kim Fields was lying with her head on Philip’s lap, her hair dangling over his expensive pinstriped trousers. In the three years since she had come to England from Poland she had worked her way up from secretarial temping to a life of subsidised insolence and the promise of future matrimonial security. No need for Philip to know that she passed half of the money he gave her to relatives back home. No need to tell him that her family’s future depended on her getting her lover to commit. After all, in law the wife was due half of her husband’s property; a mistress was due nic, i.e. nothing.
But she had to admit that it was taking longer than she had expected to prise Philip away from his hysterical wife. Her sensual persuasion would pay off, she reassured herself – unless the philandering auctioneer left her after eighteen months of hard labour, and found someone else.
Originally Kim had come to work for Philip in the auction house, but soon her talent in bed superseded her talent in the business and within six months she had been ensconced in a flat in Bloomsbury, living above a PR agent and next to a solicitors’ office. This meant that it was quiet at night when Philip usually visited. But lately his visits had been less frequent and Kim was worried that his interest had waned.
But it hadn’t, and now he was stroking her hair and explaining. ‘Gayle’s getting worse, she’s unbalanced. Says it’s because of the menopause.’ He wrinkled his nose at the word, at the dropped flag of desire. ‘She hears voices and see things, you know. Like her dead father and people from the past, old friends we used to have. ‘I see dead people,’ he mimicked, taking the line from the film The Sixth Sense.
Kim laughed, teeth blazing white against her pearly complexion. ‘I feel sorry for her.’
‘You should feel sorry for me,’ Philip replied, leaning down to kiss her and then realising that his back wouldn’t bend that far. Deftly, Kim rose up to kiss him, her hand around his neck. You had to make allowances, she told her friends. When men get older they aren’t so supple.
‘I feel sorry for you every day, darling,’ she murmured. ‘I want you to be happy – that’s why you have to leave her. I don’t want to be cruel, but your wife’s a very sick woman and you have a life of your own. There’s nothing more you can do to help her, you’ve taken her to see so many doctors already. You’re such a good man – she doesn’t realise how lucky she is.’ Gently Kim stroked the back of his neck, her copper-coloured eyes fixed on his. Exotic, almost as striking as Gayle had once been. ‘I know you have to do it in your own time, but sweetheart, it’s so hard on you and Gayle’s not going to get any better, is she?’
He could feel an erection coming on and wanted to stop talking about his wife, wanted to stop Kim pressurising him and wanted, above all, to get into the bedroom, which was costing him nine hundred pounds a month.
‘Darling—’
‘I love you so much,’ Kim interrupted. ‘We can sort this out and be together—’
He kissed her eagerly, his hand moving under her skirt as Kim tilted her head back so that he could nuzzle her throat. He liked that, she told friends. It turned him on. Over his shoulder Kim glanced at her watch as she began to move against his crotch, increasing the rhythm and moaning. In twenty minutes she had an appointment across town and she couldn’t be late.
That was the good thing about sex with older men. It never took long.
Twenty-Four
Church of St Stephen, Fulham, London
They were having choir practice, twelve children of assorted sizes entering by the side door and then filing neatly into the wooden pews beside the altar. At the back of the church sat Father Michael, watching in silence, glad of the company although the children were scared of his dour, cadaverous figure. Pulling a black cardigan over his vestments, the old priest noticed the flutter of the incense in the burner and the soft footfall of someone approaching.
He flinched, but it was only the music teacher passing, walking up to the children and placing his score on the lectern. He tapped the wood twice, then once more, and the children fell silent as the organist made his first faltering steps into the chords o
f Bach. The old priest didn’t move or turn. In the church, with people around him, he was safe. No violent Dutchman to question him; no furtive footfalls in locked quarters. In amongst the simmer of incense and the dry scent of old hymn sheets he was protected. He was secure. He was safe.
From everything but his memory.
Twenty-Five
On the other side of Chelsea, Nicholas waited in a shadowed doorway. He had been there for over an hour, watching the back entrance to Philip Preston’s auction house. He could see the half-hearted moonlight strike the side of the fire escape steps and dribble listlessly over the office windows. He could hear various cars drive past or park, and the sound of an argument coming from a nearby street. But nothing made him move. Even the cold, pressing against him, unwelcome as a leper, didn’t force him to desert his post.
And while Nicholas waited he thought of his sister, Honor. Maybe, finally, he would contact her. She had come to the forefront of his mind because Eloise had mentioned her, and suddenly Nicholas had felt an urgency to see his sibling again. But he had checked the impulse. He had had his chance and left it too late. Why get in touch when he was in trouble? When any involvement with him might be catastrophic?
Nicholas knew he had been a poor brother, difficult to know, harder to love. He had deliberately cut his sister out. They were only a few years apart and should have been close. They could have made a family – but he had smashed any chance of that, alienating himself from everyone until he had decided to change his life while he still could.
For a time he was God’s child, all passion turned into a religious passion. He found celibacy easy after having been promiscuous, and poverty appealing when it came with a home and three meals a day. He even conquered obedience, becoming an honest priest and a stable man. But the glimmer of anarchy within him didn’t stay dormant forever. And when his disgrace came it was absolute – but contained. He kept his family out of it and instead went away. Went to ground. Which was why he knew the right thing to do for his sister was to stay away from her, even more so now.
