by Alex Connor
He was disappointed to see that Honor was now in jeans and a jumper, her damp hair tucked behind her ears. But he had to admit that even without make-up, she was striking. In time they would have great-looking kids.
She was staring at him. ‘Well?’
‘Pardon?’
‘What did you want to tell me about my brother?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Mark said taking the tea she offered him. ‘I found out some interesting information. I thought you should know.’ He paused. ‘I won’t pass this on to anyone else.’
‘No, that wouldn’t be wise and it might be bad for your career,’ she replied shortly, then softened her tone. ‘What is it?’
‘Nicholas Laverne was arrested in Milan for assaulting a woman nineteen years ago.’ He paused, swallowed. ‘He was released and deported. Rumour has it that someone paid the police off.’
Her expression was flat. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Mark handed her a mugshot. It was of Nicholas. Younger, dark-haired, heavier. Handsome. But calling himself Nico Lassimo.
‘Anything else?’ Honor asked.
‘Later he worked for a woman called Sabine Monette in France—’
‘I know about that.’
‘She was killed. Murdered.’
Honor shifted in her seat. ‘Yes, I know about that too.’
‘The police have no idea who killed her.’
‘It wasn’t Nicholas.’
‘No!’ he said hurriedly. ‘I wasn’t suggesting that. But Madame Monette was killed in a very odd manner. I have contacts in Paris.’ He waited for her to look impressed, but when she didn’t he continued. ‘They told me that she had been butchered and that someone had engraved the initials H and B into her flesh.’
Honor was giving nothing away. ‘So?’
‘Well, this is what’s odd,’ Mark replied, fiddling with a messy pile of notes. ‘I can’t stop making connections. You know, getting the pieces to fit. It’s almost a hobby …’ Honor’s face was expressionless as he hurried on. ‘And when I was looking at that murder of the priest again, I found out that he had had the same initials carved into his body – H and B. Someone leaked it on to the internet.’
‘I told you before: the police talked to Nicholas about that, and cleared him of any involvement.’
‘But did you know that the priest had been one of the men your brother accused of abuse ten years ago?’
She stood up. ‘Yes. Nicholas told me about it himself. It’s no secret—’
‘But what about the trouble when he was twenty? Just before he entered the Church? Did he tell you about that? Or was that a secret?’ Mark was struggling to keep his papers in order as Honor watched him intently.
‘It’s here – look.’
He held the paper out towards her and for a moment she hesitated, afraid of what was coming. It was a cutting from Le Figaro, which Mark had thoughtfully translated underneath. It read:
Giles Rodin, 45, has been arrested and charged with forgery. It is suspected that he has been dealing in faked paintings and jewellery. A museum in Germany (name withheld) has admitted to having obtained a piece of metalwork they believed was genuine, apparently dating from the Middle Ages. Enquiries are ongoing.
Rodin was arrested with his associate, Alain Belfon, 56, and Giles Fallon, 43. A younger English man, also believed to be involved, has disappeared.
‘It doesn’t mean it was Nicholas,’ Honor said, handing the paper back to Mark.
‘You said he travelled around, especially in France. He could have been visiting his brother. Henry worked in Rome and in Paris. Nicholas could have been in Paris at the time—’
‘So could a lot of people! And I’m sure a lot of them were young Englishmen.’
Without saying a word, Mark handed her another clipping. It was a photograph of three men: Alain Belfon, Giles Fallon – and ‘an Englishman’. He was much younger, his hair long, his smile infectious. He was different.
But he was still Nicholas.
Sixty-Six
Glancing at his watch for the third time, Hiram Kaminski moved across the communal garden and sat down on a bench. A moment later, he got up and moved to another bench. His nervousness was obvious to anyone watching, his hands constantly fiddling with his coat buttons or his shirt cuffs. The cold made his nose red, his ears scarlet as he pulled up the scarf around his neck.
He was certain that at any moment he would be attacked and everybody who passed him was scrutinised. Then the garden emptied and he was left alone, sitting on a wooden bench under a glowering sky. So when a tall man entered and moved towards him, he panicked and made a rush for the gate.
‘Mr Kaminski?’
Hiram stopped short, his back to the man. Praying.
‘Mr Kaminski?’ Nicholas repeated as he hurried up to him. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’
The dealer turned round slowly, then sighed with relief. ‘Mr Laverne?’
Nicholas nodded, gesturing to a bench where they could talk. Fastidious as ever, Hiram brushed a stray leaf away before he sat down, crossing his ankles as he hunkered further into his coat.
‘It’s about the Bosch deception,’ he began. ‘I wanted to tell you that I believe in it.’
‘You should,’ Nicholas replied. ‘It’s the truth. I saw the proof. I took the papers out of the chain myself.’
‘One chain?’
‘There is only one chain.’ Nicholas paused, staring at the dealer. ‘There is – and has only ever been – one chain. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.’
‘Yet some people are now claiming there are two chains—’
‘No.’
‘– and that the deception is a fake, something created for malice.’
‘By me?’
Hiram nodded. ‘As a way of getting revenge.’
Stunned, Nicholas stared at the dealer, his voice raw. ‘Have you been talking to my sister?’
‘No.’
‘Someone from the Church?’
‘No!’ Hiram replied, aghast. ‘I wouldn’t speak of this to anyone. I am merely passing on what I was told. Some people believe that you faked the papers and pretended to find them. That all of this is a fabrication—’
‘I am not lying!’
‘I know you’re not – that’s why I’m here,’ Hiram retorted, dropping his voice as a man passed by. ‘You don’t know the art world as I do. I have been working in it for decades and I understand that greed makes people into monsters. Liars, cheats, even killers.’ He paused, blowing on his gloved hands to warm them. ‘I know the conspiracy is true because I knew it existed years ago. I had no details then, you understand, but later a colleague told me everything. Thomas Littlejohn sent me a letter. He needed a witness because he was scared. Somebody was after him. Somebody caught up with him …’
‘So you know when Bosch really died?’
Hiram nodded.
‘Have you seen the papers?’
‘No, I just know of them,’ he replied. ‘Who wrote them?’
Nicholas paused for a moment before answering. ‘Someone desperate to make a record. Someone who had watched what happened and been a witness to it. Perhaps one of Bosch’s brothers? Certainly it was someone who couldn’t live with the knowledge, but couldn’t expose it either. It had to be a member of his family.’ Nicholas continued, ‘No one outside knew about it – except for the Brotherhood of Saint Mary.’
Hiram nodded. ‘No one ever knew much about Hieronymus Bosch, there was so little information to go on. Now I know why.’
‘They made a mock life for him.’
Hiram nodded again, ‘A mock life—’
‘A mock marriage. A mock death. Hieronymus Bosch was imprisoned, abused by his family and tortured by demons that never let him be.’ Nicholas’s voice fell. ‘It was chilling. It was cruel. And it was true.’ Nicholas stared ahead. He was stunned that people – even his own sister – doubted him. That they thought him capable of such deceit.
‘You know of the po
rtrait? I can see from your face that you don’t,’ Hiram said, answering himself. ‘The Tree Man is a likeness of Hieronymus Bosch. It must have been painted by a member of his family because by the time the image was created, he was already dead. It’s a memento mori.’ Hiram leaned closer to Nicholas. ‘I know you want to expose the Church’s part in this, but the whole truth about Hieronymus Bosch must come out. One of the greatest painters who ever lived was treated abominably. His talent was hijacked by his family. His vision was bastardised by them.’ Hiram paused, taking in a breath. ‘Think me an old fool – maybe I am. What’s Bosch to me, after all? I’ll tell you, Mr Laverne. All my life I’ve studied the works of the late Middle Ages. I’ve become an authority on the matter, and I’m proud of my reputation. Perhaps too proud.’
Nicholas hesitated, queasy again. His skin was waxy, sweat beaded his upper lip.
‘Are you all right?’ Hiram asked anxiously.
‘I’m just tired. I don’t sleep well … It’s an old problem, slows me down.’ His eyes seemed to glaze over for an instant and then he looked back at Hiram. ‘What were you saying?’
‘That I was a coward … Are you sure you’re all right?’
Nicholas nodded, but his head felt like putty, his neck floppy. Jesus, he was tired …
‘Yesterday I wanted to run, to forget everything I knew,’ Hiram continued. ‘My wife’s worried. She doesn’t know I’m talking to you – she wants to pretend ignorance. But today I realised that I can’t stand by and do nothing … You seem to be very alone, Mr Laverne. And I wonder if you are as afraid as I am. Someone tried to break into the gallery the other night. I don’t know if they wanted to harm me or scare me, but they succeeded. Have you any idea who it was?’
Recovering his senses slowly, Nicholas shrugged. ‘It could be anyone. Some hired thug. There’s a man called Carel Honthorst—’
‘He works for Gerrit der Keyser!’ Hiram said hastily. ‘Gerrit told me that you’d broken his arm.’
‘If I hadn’t, he’d have done worse to me,’ Nicholas replied. ‘I don’t know if it was Honthorst who came after you. He can’t be the only person involved. Someone’s been watching the church and following me for days.’ He thought for a moment. ‘D’you know a man called Sidney Elliott?’
‘Only by reputation. He works in Cambridge.’
‘He translated one of the Bosch papers for me and then wanted to get involved. He was desperate. When I said no, he got very angry, overreacted completely. He’s working for Conrad Voygel now.’
Hiram stared across the darkening garden. ‘The elusive Conrad Voygel.’
‘Is he a crook?’
‘The Italians have a saying – “behind every large fortune is a small crime.” Everyone pretends not to know how Voygel made his money, but it’s simple. He grabbed every opportunity that came his way and made his own luck.’
‘Legally?’
‘If not, no one will ever find out. Actually, I met him a few years back.’
Nicholas raised his eyebrows. ‘Not many people can say that. What was he like?’
‘Nondescript, like an accountant. His need for privacy isn’t that remarkable really. Voygel had face cancer and lost the left side of his jaw and his nose. They were reconstructed very well, but it left him shy about his appearance. He’s not Howard Hughes, he just doesn’t like having his picture taken.’ Hiram pursed his lips, remembering his earlier meeting. ‘Gerrit der Keyser’s a sly one, but I don’t know how far he would go. To be honest, I don’t know how far any of them would go.’
‘Philip Preston’s hired security, so he must be scared.’
‘He has every reason to be. He has the chain.’ Hiram glanced at Nicholas. ‘D’you think it will get to auction?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what – or who – will make it through the next two days.’
‘The art world can be a dangerous place.’
‘So can the Church,’ Nicholas remarked. The drowsy sensation was threatening to overwhelm him and it took all of his concentration to continue the conversation. ‘At least in the art world you can see your enemies coming. With the Church, you never know who will bless you and who will damn you.’
He paused and Hiram looked at him intently. ‘You’re ill.’
‘No, just tired.’
‘Are you sure?’
Nicholas tried to nod his head, but the action was too much for him.
‘You look drugged.’
Nicholas shook his head, his voice slurred. ‘I don’t take drugs. I had food poisoning.’
But as he said it, Hiram Kaminski’s face was coming in and out of focus.
‘Watch out for yourself, Mr Laverne,’ he said kindly. ‘No one is ever what they seem.’
Here I am, amongst the yew trees leading to the outhouse that is changing as I look at it … Nicholas frowns, turns in his sleep, sweat oily as his skin. Walk in, he tells himself. Walk in. Look and see. Look and see, and remember.
I can still count the bottles, beer bottles in rows along the chipped window ledge behind the broken lawnmowers that don’t work and the old discarded bird’s nest. This is the same as always. The bottles are where the boys left them, and where Father Dominic, sly as a stoat, found them. Taking the first bottle, greasing its neck and forcing it down Patrick Gerin’s throat until he choked. He heaved, bringing up bile over the priest’s shoes …
I didn’t see it, Nicholas thought. I was only told. I explained how it was, as always, as ever. I wasn’t there, just told what had happened by a boy with bruises around his mouth. He was waiting in the space between the yew trees while David Sullivan hung back under the dull arc of the oak. He says – I want to go home. Do something. Help me … Nicholas stirs in his sleep, sweating, turning … I’ll talk to them, I promise. I’ll talk to them …
I did talk, Nicholas thinks, eyes moving under closed lids. But I was too late. As ever, as always, too late … He sees the perished roof of the outhouse, the door swinging open to reveal the dark gut of the cupboard inside. And on the floor lies urine and faeces, dropped from a boy hanging.
Nicholas is walking forward. He can hear the sound of broken glass under his feet and sees Patrick Gerin look at him, pleading for help … He sees him, as ever, as always, only this time Nicholas turns away and locks the door behind him.
As he moves back through the yew trees they fold over his head and he begins to run. Away from the bird’s nest that holds nothing and the roof that is long gone. As ever, as always, towards the grey hump of the church. Away from the bottles, the cupboard and the broken glass …
And away from the boy hanging.
Sixty-Seven
Eloise Devereux sat in her hotel room and stared at the papers in front of her. Her conversation with Honor had stirred her curiosity and her growing suspicions about Nicholas Laverne. In truth she had told Honor everything she knew, but as she had recounted Nicholas’s history, Eloise had developed a sudden and queasy unease. Events that had not worried her before seemed strange, his reluctance to involve her less like caution and more like evasion. Her hands reached out for the report which had been brought to her that morning: the chequered past of Nicholas Laverne assembled by a private investigator, the facts and counter facts alarming.
Who had this man actually been? Eloise thought. This treasured friend of her dead husband. Claude had never told her anything about the alleged assaults, the faking or the thefts. Had he not known – or had he not believed it? Eloise leaned back on the sofa, curling her legs under her, staring at the incriminating evidence. If she were honest she had always found Nicholas evasive, but had put that down to his being the third wheel, caught between his old friend and his wife. But now she wasn’t so sure.
A memory of Sabine came in that instant. Her mother. Not that people knew that … Sabine was young when she became pregnant and her parents hadn’t wanted the scandal to become public, so she had given birth to Eloise in Switzerland and the baby had been adopted. It had been discreetly arran
ged, childless friends of Sabine’s parents taking over the baby and raising her. The families never referred to it, and Sabine had married Monsieur Monette soon after.
It would have remained a secret forever, had Sabine stayed silent. But when Eloise was sixteen, she contacted her daughter and told her the truth. Relieved that she was not related to her dull adoptive parents, Eloise had soon become close to her mother. She was thrilled by their similarities and by the interests they shared. From the first, Eloise had understood why she had been adopted: the pressures of a bourgeois French family would have been impossible for a young girl to withstand. She had no grudge against her mother; Sabine’s presence in her life had been merely postponed.
Few people knew the truth. Except Claude, in whom Eloise naturally confided … Her glance went back to the papers on the coffee table in front of her. Nicholas Laverne, suspected of involvement in fakery and theft. Surely it was no coincidence that Sabine had been robbed while he was working for her? But did it go further than that?
She remembered Claude’s father, Raoul Devereux, talking about Nicholas in guarded tones. And now she knew why – Nicholas Laverne had stolen a painting from him and only the intervention of Henry had prevented his being charged. She could imagine that Claude would have supported Nicholas too, defending him, pleading with his father not to destroy his relationship with one son because of the actions of the other. Raoul had been Henry Laverne’s mentor for years, had admired him and encouraged his progress. Yet all the while the shadow of Nicholas hovered in the background.
Were they always wondering when he would cause a scandal? Always wondering when the reputations of Raoul and Henry would be undermined by Nicholas’s erratic behaviour? Their relief when he entered the Church must have been immense. When Nicholas Laverne was transformed into Father Daniel, ensconced far away in London: a priest bound by the strict rules of the Catholic Church.
But it hadn’t lasted.
Eloise stared at the notes, her mouth tight, doubts troubling her. Claude was dead, presumably killed because of his involvement with the Bosch deception. A conspiracy that Nicholas had uncovered. History repeating itself … Hurriedly she snatched up the papers and sifted through them, then found what she was looking for. Nicholas and his alleged faking. Faking art works and jewellery … Eloise took in a breath.
