The Bosch Deception

by Alex Connor

  She needn’t have bothered. He never went near her again, taking some small comfort from his last image of her: scratched by thorns, compost smearing the polka-dot bikini …

  Sidney stared down the street as he finished off his cigarette. He wasn’t going to fail, not this time … Using his insider knowledge and contacts, he had finally discovered the identity of the other two specialists Nicholas Laverne had spoken to about the Bosch papers. The one in Holland had been unforthcoming, but the younger man in Boston, USA, had been duped by Elliott’s flattering attention. After all, his achievements looked good on paper.

  It had taken a while, but Elliott had gradually eased the information out of him.

  ‘… Of course all of th-th-this is in confidence. Mr L-L-Laverne has asked me to act as his go-between. He’s busy at the m-m-moment.’

  ‘I’ll help in any way I can. We are often entrusted with valuable and private information. I’ve spoken to Mr Laverne a few times,’ the young man had replied. ‘What d’you want to know?’

  ‘The papers. Mr Laverne wants to ch-ch-check. H-h-how many were there in total?’

  ‘Twenty-eight.’

  ‘We thought so,’ Elliott said, swallowing hard. Twenty-eight and he’d only been allowed to see one! ‘Did you s-s-see them all? Obviously I have. B-b-but did you?’

  ‘Only ten of them,’ the American had replied, ‘but you could ask the expert in Holland how many he saw. Then again, if you’ve seen them yourself, you don’t need to—’

  ‘I just wanted to ch-ch-check with you that w-w-we had come to the same conclusion, that was all,’ Elliott had replied, taking a shot in the dark. ‘Have you s-s-seen the chain?’

  ‘The one coming up for sale in London?’ the young man had replied guilelessly. ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

  Yes, it was wonderful. It was all so fucking wonderful, Elliott thought bitterly, inhaling from his cigarette and feeling a growing frustration. He needed to make that sale. He needed Conrad Voygel. The tycoon wanted the Bosch chain, but did he know about the secret? And if he didn’t, how much more money could Elliott get for finding it – uncover the deception, then take it to Voygel like a sly Salome presenting the head of John the Baptist?

  He glanced down the street, thinking of Thomas Littlejohn. A very pleasant man, a man he had met years earlier at a conference in Cambridge. A man who had hinted about some papers from the late Middle Ages that told of a deception that would cause chaos. He hadn’t told Elliott what the deception was, and at the time Elliott had dismissed it because people in the art world burbled about such things regularly. There was always something sensational about to be revealed, usually a ploy to up the price on a sale.

  But after Nicholas Laverne had been to see him Elliott remembered what Thomas Littlejohn had said … And then he remembered something else about the dealer. He hadn’t attended the conference alone, but with another man. A small, rather prim little man called Hiram Kaminski.

  Elliott knew of him, of course. He was an expert in the art of the late Middle Ages, renowned in his field. The perfect man to talk to about some early and valuable writings, the ideal person to offer advice. A respectable dealer, a considerable intellect – the one person Thomas Littlejohn would have taken into his confidence.

  And now Elliott was standing on Old Bond Street, in the cold, staring at the door marked KAMINSKI GALLERY.

  Forty-Eight

  The noise shook Hiram awake and his hands gripped the arms of the leather chair as he sat up suddenly. Trying to gather his thoughts he realised he had dozed off in his office, and then noticed the sound coming from the back rooms. Wary, he got to his feet and moved towards his office door then paused, listening. Had he locked the back exit? Yes, he was sure he had. Slowly he pushed back the door then jumped, seeing a shadow move past the window.

  He was tempted to call out, but stopped himself. It could be a trader or a cleaner, he thought. Someone from one of the shops or galleries working late. But he knew it wasn’t. This person was moving silently now, no longer clumsy. The shadow ducked and paused by the back door as Hiram watched, holding his breath.

  Then he saw the handle turn. He was immobilised by shock, his body rigid, his eyes fixed on the juddering handle. It turned to the right and stopped. It turned again and stopped again, further movement impeded by the lock. Then someone started to apply pressure to the door. An instant later Hiram heard a shoulder slamming against the wood, and yet he still couldn’t move, standing transfixed in the doorway of his office.

  The noise stopped as quickly as it had begun. For an instant Hiram thought it was over. He remained motionless, but feeling his legs tremble, his mouth dry as asphalt.

  A moment passed.

  Then another.

  It was over.

  It wasn’t.

  The next sound exploded in Hiram’s ears. A heavy foot was slammed repeatedly against the base of the door, which shuddered and creaked under the onslaught.

  This time whoever was outside was determined to get in.

  Book Four

  ‘A world of dreams (and) nightmares in which

  forms seem to flicker and change before our eyes.’

  Art historian Walter Gibson

  ‘The Temptation of St Anthony’ [detail]

  After Hieronymus Bosch

  ’s-Hertogenbosch, Brabant, 1473

  Hieronymus never discovered how his family found him, but someone betrayed him.

  For once the studio door had not been locked. (Was it his gentle brother, Goossen?) Hieronymus had taken his chance to escape and made for Amsterdam, an overcrowded and filthy city where a stranger would be less likely to attract interest. Even a sickly, pale young man wearing clothes unsuited for the cold. All around him streets had lurched into other streets, the webbing of canals banked with markets. Congested alleyways were piled with pig manure and rotting offcuts of fish and meat, dogs scavenging alongside beggars. Men who had lost legs fighting in the wars of Brabant played hurdygurdies on street corners while women carried children on their shoulders as they weaved a foul pathway through the mud. It was like ’s-Hertogenbosch but on a larger scale, seen through a fish-eye lens, grand and terrifying.

  Hieronymus found lodgings, using the little money he had managed to steal from his father’s study. Money he had earned, but never received. And in his place of safety he slept with a chair propped up against the door handle to stop anyone entering. Strange, he thought in the darkness. I was imprisoned and now – a free man – I imprison myself. A prisoner always.

  He dreamed of his chimeras, his hands moving in sleep as though he were painting. He woke, turned on the straw mattress, felt the prickle of a flea bite and fell back to sleep.

  Coughing woke him around six, because his lungs were cold and the air damp. As he had done for over three months, he coughed up phlegm and spat it into a rag, blood spotting the corners of his mouth. His forehead was tacky with sweat, his narrow chest heaving, his ribs a dull ache of pain. Then the attack subsided and he fell back into a clammy sleep.

  He dreamed he was sitting by water, drawing with a stick of white chalk on an ebonised rock. He dreamed that the studio in ’s-Hertogenbosch had burned to the ground, that his family had all perished, and felt no sadness. As the night turned over, he lay on the straw with the city fleas and dreamed of a boat coming for him, taking him through the canals of Amsterdam and into the sea beyond. As he rode the water, monsters followed him and he reached out his hand to touch the chimeras, the men fish and the flying ghouls. Animals with human heads told him stories, and under the lapping sea a shoal of demons drew the boat onwards.

  He was crying in his sleep so loudly that it woke the man in the room next door, who called for the landlady. When she found Hieronymus he was grey, shiny with fever, his fingers still clenching a stick of white chalk.

  Forty-Nine

  Uncharacteristically thoughtful, Gerrit der Keyser sat in the sauna with a towel around his middle, his bifocals steamed up. He was
trying to take his mind off his diet and the effects the medication was having on him. Like the puffy feet he had had to cram into his handmade shoes that morning. Feet and ankles like dimpled tripe, his silk socks tourniquets to the flesh. He had been quite good-looking once, but that was about five hundred years ago …

  He blew his nose loudly, looking around. But he was alone, steaming, sweating, his glasses beginning to slip down his nose as he thought back. Sabine Monette – Sabine Guillaine when he first knew her – had been absurdly attractive, and clever. Much too clever for the life of a bourgeoise. It had been summer in Provence … Gerrit laughed aloud. Fucking summer in Provence! Christ, he sounded like a travel brochure. But it had been summer and it had been Provence and he had met this scrumptious piece of French arse and fallen in love.

  Which had been easy when he had all his hair, all his heart vessels were working, and his sex drive could have powered a nuclear war … He could remember Sabine very well now that he allowed himself to remember. Pushing aside the grasping obsession of his work and his lascivious chasing of money, Gerrit thought nostalgically of his younger self. If they had met a little later, when he had set up the gallery and his fortunes were on an upward course, they could have made a go of it.

  But then Miriam had come along and her father had offered to invest in Gerrit’s new gallery, and he would have been a fool to pass up the chance. Of course in return for the money he had had to marry the girl, but Miriam had been a reasonable wife. Jealous, certainly, but blissfully stupid. If he had thought of Sabine over the years which followed Gerrit might have had a fleeting pang of regret. Now and again as he remembered the brutality of his leaving … he put it down to youthful callousness. At least that was what he told himself.

  And then Sabine re-entered his life. She was in her forties, still glaringly handsome, and now wealthy. Apparently his leaving had not destroyed her. Neither had their furtive affair spoiled her chances of landing a good catch. To Gerrit’s chagrin, Mr Monette was even richer then he was. With a better looking wife … A few years later Sabine contacted Gerrit and asked about a painting he had just purchased. She spoke to him over the phone as though he were a minion. Which, in a way, he was.

  Rearranging the towel over his thighs, Gerrit took off his glasses and closed his eyes. He was so hot he thought he might expire, his heart pumping like over-boiling soup. But he stayed where he was, thinking of Eloise Devereux. His daughter … Why he hadn’t made the connection immediately he couldn’t imagine. She was so like her mother. Same elegant limbs and luminous eyes, but lacking in Sabine’s sensuality and warmth. Eloise was a beautiful woman but a chilling one.

  And of course it was possible. He had slept with Sabine and the timings were accurate to their affair. But he was strangely miffed by having been excluded from fatherhood. Then again, if he had been told that she was pregnant would he have married her? Gerrit opened his eyes wearily. He was getting old, developing that most dangerous human trait – a conscience. He had managed – profited – without one for many years. No broken sleep for Gerrit der Keyser; no fucking guilty regrets; no looking back and feeling queasy about the past.

  Until now … Gerrit scowled into the steam, the sauna a little replica of Hell. It made him think of Hieronymus Bosch and the chain. And how Sabine had cheated him out of it. Smart move, he thought with grudging admiration. Was that her revenge? After all, she would have known it was valuable. Perhaps she had even known about the papers hidden inside it.

  But he hadn’t known about the secret then. Not until later, when the chain had left his hands and the rumours began. Stories about a deception perpetrated by the Bosch family and the Brotherhood of Mary. He didn’t know the whole story, but enough to realise it was explosive.

  Gerrit sighed. Sabine had always been clever and finally she had bested him. But it had cost her. Murdered in a hotel room, initials carved into her stomach. Unexpectedly, Gerrit felt tears behind his eyes and blinked, shocked by emotion he hadn’t experienced for a long time. He could remember the young Sabine so well, her rounded stomach warm under his lips. Not grey-skinned, aged, ripped up … Even in the heat, Gerrit shivered as an image of Sabine lodged in his mind – and beside it, an image of their daughter.

  The beautiful, and vengeful, Eloise.

  Fifty

  While Gerrit was brooding in a sauna in Piccadilly, Judith Kaminski had returned to London and entered the gallery by the front. Once inside she paused, confused, hearing the battering against the back door. Dropping her handbag, she ran towards the noise, pushing Hiram aside and shouting: ‘Who’s there!’

  The banging paused.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she repeated. ‘I’ve got a gun, I warn you, and I’ve called the police. They’re coming.’

  She could hear a muffled curse and then heavy footsteps running off, dying out in the distance. Silence fell. Neither of them moved. For several moments Judith stood rigid, facing the back door, then she slowly turned. Hiram was slumped in his chair, his mouth slack.

  ‘I caught the earlier train …’ she said blankly.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘… If I’d got the one I was intending to catch I wouldn’t have got here for another hour.’ She stopped, moved over to her husband, stroking his head as he rested it against her stomach. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have gone to Brighton.’

  Fifty-One

  The following morning Judith Kaminski made her way over to Philip Preston’s auction house in Chelsea. The street was greasy with rain and her high heels caught on the edge of the pavement. Righting herself, she entered the building, spotting Philip at the back of the hall.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ she asked. Philip winched up his best smile and showed her into his office. Once inside, he slid behind his desk and watched as she took a seat. ‘It’s about the chain,’ she explained.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah?’ she repeated. ‘I think ah is an understatement. My husband was threatened last night at the gallery—’

  ‘That has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Oh, hear me out!’ Judith replied. ‘I haven’t got all day so let’s get down to it. You’re auctioning a chain that belonged to Bosch. And what else?’

  ‘Should there be something else?’

  ‘You are a schmuck, Philip,’ she retorted. ‘You and I know there’s a lot more to this than a chain. You knew Thomas Littlejohn, didn’t you?’ He nodded and Judith continued. ‘He knew about the chain’s secret and he’s dead. As are Sabine Monette and Claude Devereux – three people connected to the art world murdered. Why?’

  ‘The chain’s valuable. It belonged to Bosch—’

  ‘Bah!’ she said dismissively. ‘Let’s try again, shall we? What do you know? And I suggest you tell me the truth, because if you don’t, my next stop is Gerrit der Keyser. Or maybe Conrad Voygel – I hear he’s back in London—’

  Philip put up his hands. How much to tell, how much to keep secret? Judith Kaminski had a big mouth and her husband was a leading authority on the Middle Ages. Perhaps, instead of excluding them, it might be to Philip’s advantage to bring them into the fold.

  ‘There’s a rumour going around about some papers hidden in the chain—’

  ‘Have you seen them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Relieved, Judith blew out her cheeks. ‘Well, that’s a start. So you know about the Bosch secret?’

  ‘Yes, but how d’you know?’

  ‘Thomas Littlejohn sent us a letter. He wanted a witness in case anything happened to him.’ She shrugged. ‘Hiram thought that if we said nothing no one would find out what we knew. He was wrong.’ She leaned towards the desk. ‘I love my husband more than you can imagine, and I tell you here and now I will do anything to protect him. He’s a good man, something of a novelty in this business, and I won’t see him hurt. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘I don’t intend to hurt your husband,’ Philip said smoothly. ‘You say that he’s been threatened, but it wasn’t by me. Oh, come on, Judith, every
one knows I’m a born coward. If I can’t get what I want by stealth, I back off.’

  She knew that much was true.

  ‘Well, someone tried to break into the gallery last night. Thank God I came home early—’

  ‘D’you know who it was?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  Philip paused, thinking. Would Honthorst go after Hiram Kaminski? Did the Dutchman know he was privy to the secret? And if it weren’t Honthorst, who else might it be? Sticky, he thought. It was all getting very sticky indeed.

  ‘D’you know Nicholas Laverne?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘He was the man who brought the chain to me.’

  Judith narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘He wanted to sell it.’

  ‘The chain? Or the papers?’

  ‘Oh, you have seen them,’ Philip said blandly. ‘I’m so glad you weren’t bluffing. There’s already one liar in this room.’

  Slowly, Judith began to count on her fingers. ‘So you know the secret, Hiram and I know, this Nicholas Laverne knows, Thomas Littlejohn knew and so did Sabine Monette. Six people at least … For a secret it’s pretty public. What about Gerrit der Keyser?’

  ‘He wants the chain back, but the secret? I don’t think he knows, but then again, he might. Gerrit isn’t a man to show his hand.’

  ‘What about Conrad Voygel?’

  ‘Desperate to buy the chain. Already offered me a fortune—’

  ‘Which you didn’t take?’

  ‘I think I can get more at the auction.’

  ‘If you live long enough … Why risk it?’ she asked, baffled. ‘What’s money worth to you? Isn’t your life worth more?’