by Peter May
But Enzo just shook his head. ‘Franck will do that later, no doubt. Just be grateful I haven’t shopped him to the gendarmes.’ Pause. ‘I’d like a word if I may, madame.’ He glanced towards her husband and son. ‘In private.’
Elodie sighed her frustration, hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
She and Enzo walked slowly away across the car park as the two men in her life returned to their car. ‘What is it, Monsieur Macleod?’
‘I understand you’re going to inherit your aunt’s house.’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And what else?’
She stopped to frown at him. ‘I’m not sure what business that is of yours.’
Enzo said, ‘I can make it my business if I choose to make it official.’
She exhaled theatrically. ‘My aunt was quite well off, but I wouldn’t describe her as wealthy.’
‘I think you know I’m not talking about money.’
She held his eye briefly before hers flickered away.
‘I assume you know the full story of your grandmother? How she happened to be here, how she came to acquire the house.’
‘Of course. I’ve heard all those stories since I was knee-high. I could recite them backwards.’
‘Then you know what I’m talking about.’
This time she met his gaze full on and said boldly, ‘I know nothing about that painting, monsieur.’
Enzo nodded. ‘Well, maybe that’s just as well, then. After all, if Georgette had already made the switch and hidden the original before her confrontation with Lange, who knows which one went back to the Louvre.’
She pulled a face that reflected her scepticism. ‘They would have known,’ she said. Then, as a doubtful afterthought, ‘Surely?’
Enzo raised a solitary eyebrow. ‘You would think.’ He paused. ‘But, then, maybe they wouldn’t have wanted the world to know that they had commissioned a forgery and somehow lost the original.’
It was clear from her face that this was the first time that such a thought had ever crossed her mind. She searched for some response, but no words came.
Enzo said, ‘Well, who knows?’ He smiled. ‘Every tale has its time, and its place. And all stories of human endeavour, of frailty and betrayal, will pass eventually into history. Out of mind. And out of memory.’ He exhaled deeply, as if shedding some invisible burden. ‘I wish you a very good day, madame.’
And he turned to walk briskly back to his car.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Paris, spring 2021
With the lifting, at last, of restrictions to movement around the country, Enzo, Dominique and Laurent, with Sophie and Bertrand and the baby, made the trip to Paris in a rented people carrier. The first family get-together in more than a year, and the first opportunity for Kirsty to meet her new nephew.
There was a large gathering around the table in the salon at the back of the apartment in the Rue de Tournon. The coming of spring seemed to have imbued the pianist in the building with fresh vigour, and he or she was thumping out a stuttering rendition of Schubert’s Scherzo in B flat.
Raffin had opened champagne, and was in better form than Enzo had seen him for some years. He was still enthusing about Enzo’s exposé of the alleged existence of a Mona Lisa forgery commissioned during the war by the Louvre itself. It had fed him material for a whole series of articles in the Paris daily, Libération.
‘Dropped like a hand grenade into the world of international art,’ he said gleefully, pouring himself a second glass. ‘And of course the repeated denials of the Louvre have only fed all the claims and counterclaims of every would-be art critic and hack in Europe and America.’
Kirsty said, ‘And those excerpts you published from Wolff’s diaries last month, Roger, have just set the whole thing on fire again.’
Raffin took a long draught of champagne, bubbles breaking around his lips. ‘It’s the story that just keeps on giving.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Enzo.’ And everyone raised their glass.
Enzo blushed and took a small sip from his own. And then he leaned towards Kirsty and asked in a low voice, ‘How long till dinner?’
‘We’ll eat about seven, for the kids,’ she said. Then narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Dominique and I have a prearranged appointment this afternoon. But seven’s fine. We’ll be back long before then.’
‘Where are you going?’
Enzo glanced at Dominique. ‘The Louvre.’
It was Dominique’s first visit to the Louvre, although Enzo had been many times. There was so much she wanted to see. David’s The Death of Marat, Arcimboldo’s Four Seasons, the Great Sphinx of Tanis. And it took them nearly two hours to reach the Salle des Etats. Enzo had indulged her and hidden his impatience, but now at last they were there, in Room 711 of the Denon Wing, gazing upon the Mona Lisa mounted behind glass on her freshly painted wall of midnight blue.
A socially distanced crowd, still wearing masks, stood gazing at her in awe. A hubbub of whispered excitement filled the room, a hushed sense of being in the presence of greatness. But Enzo was oblivious. He only had eyes for the smile beneath the eyes that wouldn’t leave his. All the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up. And he felt not so much in the presence of greatness, as in the presence of history. As if it were Georgette herself who sat before him. He wanted to reach out and touch her, and tell her how sorry he was. But it was all too late for that. It had all been too long ago.
Dominique whispered, ‘She looks genuine enough.’ Then, ‘She is, isn’t she?’
Enzo had difficulty speaking without his eyes filling up. ‘She is what she is,’ he said eventually. ‘And who among us could ever say that she was anything else?’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to offer my grateful thanks to those who gave so generously of their time and expertise during my researches for The Night Gate. In particular I’d like to express my gratitude to Dr Steven C. Campman, M.D., Medical Examiner, San Diego, California; Mike Baxter, former Head of Forensic Science Services at the Police Forensic Science Laboratory, Dundee, Scotland; Madeleine J. Hinkes, PhD, D-ABFA (American Board of Forensic Anthropology); Charles Berberich for his insights into genealogical research in Germany; the Gouffre de Padirac for facilitating my private tour of the caves; and my wife Janice Hally for taking on the role of research assistant in delving into conditions and events in wartime France.
Many of the characters described in the book are real – Jacques Jaujard, Rose Valland, René Huygue, Sturmbannführer Christian Tyschen. And many of the events actually occurred – the evacuation of artworks from the Louvre during WW2 to various châteaux around France; the burning of paintings by the Nazis (although I took a small liberty with the timing and precise location); the shooting of Maquis fighters in Saint-Céré, and the prevention of a massacre of that town’s civilians by the intervention of brave Berthe Nasinec; the installation of a radio transmitter by resistance fighters in the Tours Saint-Laurent; the extraordinary courage of Rose Valland in cataloguing stolen Nazi art and tracking it down, post-war, to return to its rightful owners; the presence of the huge, rolled canvasses from the Louvre in an apartment above a double garage in the Lotois village of Bétaille.
As for the existence of a Mona Lisa forgery, I leave my readers to decide if that is truth, or a fictitious construct of the author.
Table of Contents
The Night Gate
Also By
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER
TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS