Art of Murder

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  20.55.

  Miss Wood was staring at the watercolour, without moving a muscle. Seeing the change in her attitude, Zericky leaned over her shoulder.

  'It's lovely, isn't it? It's one of the watercolours Maurits did of her.'

  Miss Wood looked round at him uncomprehendingly.

  'It's his wife,' Zericky explained. 'The young Spanish woman.'

  'You mean this woman was Van Tysch's mother?'

  'Well,' said Zericky with a smile, ‘I think she was. Bruno never knew her, and Maurits destroyed almost all the photos of her after she died, so Bruno only had these drawings by Maurits to know what she looked like. But it is her. My parents knew her, and according to them they are a very good likeness.'

  First, the remembrance of his childhood. Then his father and Richard Tysch. Now his mother. The third most personal work. Miss Wood no longer had the slightest doubt. She did not even need to look in the remaining folders. She knew exactly which painting the drawing related to. Her hand was trembling as she consulted her watch.

  There's still time. I'm sure there's still time. Today's exhibition hasn't even finished yet.

  She left the watercolour on the table, picked up her bag and took out her mobile phone.

  All at once, something like a sudden presentiment, the shudder of a sixth sense, paralysed her.

  No, there's no time left. It's too late.

  She dialled a number.

  What a shame you could not do it perfectly, April. Doing things well is doing them badly.

  She put the phone to her ear and heard the distant screech of the call.

  Because if you let yourself be defeated in small things, you'll lose out in the big ones too.

  The telephone voice sounded in the minute darkness of her ear.

  20.57.

  Lothar Bosch had faced up to a crowd on several occasions in his life.

  Sometimes he had been part of it (but even then he had needed to protect himself from it); at others, he had been part of those trying to disperse it. Whatever the case, he had known the phenomenon since his youth. He had never been able to draw any useful lesson from his experiences: he thought he must have survived by pure luck. A terrified crowd is not something a person can learn to resist, just as you can never learn to walk in the eye of a hurricane.

  It all happened very quickly. First there was a shout. Then many more. A few moments later, and Bosch realised the full extent of the horror.

  The Tunnel was roaring.

  It was the deep roar of underground bells, as if the earth he was standing on had a life of its own and had decided to prove it by rearing up.

  The darkness prevented him from comprehending exactly what was going on, but he could hear a ringing sound from the roof's metallic structure and from the curtain walls nearest to him. My God, the whole thing's coming down, he thought.

  That was when the panic started.

  Wuyters, the guard who had been talking to him just a few moments earlier, was swept away by a surge of shouts, gaping mouths and hands clawing for the open air. A thrusting piston of bodies flung Bosch against the guide rope. For one atrocious instant he saw himself crushed by the stampede, but fortunately the torrent of humanity was not headed in his direction: it was just forcing its way past. Fear made the crowd run blindly towards the far end of the Tunnel. The stanchions securing the rope held, so Bosch clung on and avoided falling off the ramp.

  The worst of it, he thought, was not being able to see anything, plus this obscene carnival darkness, in which only a minimum of movement was possible. It was like being shoved under a woollen blanket with a lion.

  A woman was screaming next to him, trying to get out. The fact that her breath smelt of tobacco was a stupid detail that seized hold of Bosch's terrified brain. He thought he understood that she was holding a child by the hand, and was begging the monster to respect her, at least not to devour her tiny charge. Then Bosch saw her swept under (had she bent down? been swept away?) then reappear further on, waving a tremulous, wailing little creature above her head like a banner. Go on, go on, get him out of here, Bosch wanted to shout, get your child out of here. He was trying to help her when he was struck by another blow, and fell over the edge of the ramp.

  He felt he has falling through space. The darkness outside the ramp was so intense his eyes could not calculate the distance separating him from harm. Even so, he managed to put his hands out and parry his fall. For a second or two he could not even work out what had happened, why he was in this strange position of floating along horizontally. Then he understood that all the chiaroscuro lighting must have gone off.

  That must be it, because in the entire length of the Tunnel he could not see a single light, not even a speck. The paintings had been swallowed up in the shadows. And he was in the belly of the darkness.

  He tried to get to his knees, but was knocked flat again. Something, or some mass of things, swept over him. Somebody had thought that beyond the ramp there might be another exit, and now everyone was running towards this remote possibility. Perhaps it was true that the emergency exits for the paintings could also be used by the public: even though they were further off, they were much easier to get to. The problem was finding them.

  Bosch finally managed to stand up and check he had no broken bones. All around him, dumbfounded shadows heaved. He tried to guide them because he knew where the exits were. He started shouting at people who were like stampeding elephants in the black centre of a storm.

  'The far end! The far end!'

  But: the far end of what? They started running towards the lights. But the lights were getting closer, too. A magical brush painted a sudden majestic white stripe on the sweating, terrified face in front of Bosch. Then the darkness added black, and the face disappeared. Another brush sketched an outstretched hand, then a summery shirt, a fleeting silhouette. In the midst of the Guernica panic, Bosch waved his arms like a drowning man.

  'Stay calm, stay calm,' he heard a voice say.

  Just hearing words that made sense reassured him a lot. It was a shred of coherence that might lead to some communication. Then there were the lights, which must be torches. He ran towards them as though the darkness engulfing him were flames, and his body needed to douse itself in light. He struggled to push away another person desperate to reach the privilege of light. Darkness is cruel, he thought. Darkness is inhuman, he thought.

  'It's Lothar Bosch here!' he shouted. He felt his jacket lapel, but his ID badge had been torn off.

  'Calm, stay calm,' the voice offering the gift of light repeated.

  A beam struck his face, blinding him. It did not matter: he preferred to be blinded rather than to be blind. He raised his hands, begging for light.

  'Stay calm, nothing has happened,' the voice said in English.

  Bosch wanted to laugh. So nothing had happened?

  It was then he realised that it was true that whatever had happened was over. He could no longer hear the sinister creaking of the Tunnel's metallic structure.

  The torch painted another face: a woman from the crowd who was weeping as she tried to speak. Bosch contemplated this mask of tragedy as carefully as he had studied the paintings only a few minutes earlier.

  He staggered out of the Tunnel inferno, guided by the rescuing torches, but feeling as lost as everyone else around him. Night had not yet fallen, and it had even stopped raining, but the dense ceiling of grey clouds made the sunset even more impressive. Under this colourless sky, the central square was a riot of colour. It was as if the Rijksmuseum had burst open and peopled the streets with Rembrandt's dreams.

  The Table and Maid from The Feast of Belshazzar were being helped into their robes by people from Conservation. King Belshazzar, swathed in a heavy painted turban, was panting loudly. The soldiers from The Night Watch were still holding aloft their lances and muskets, and looked for all the world like an army of dead men, astonishment filling their bloody faces. The girl with the chicken at her waist, naked and gold-painted,
was a flickering flame at the foot of the recovery vehicle. At the opposite end of the horseshoe, The Syndics were climbing into more vehicles, while the students from The Anatomy Lesson ran about in their white ruffs. Kirsten Kirstenman's pale blue body was being carried on a stretcher. The paintings were all jumbled up with ordinary people. Out in the open, Van Tysch's masterpieces looked like the final nightmare of a painter on the point of death. Where could Danielle be? Where exactly had Young Girl Leaning on a Windowsill been on display? Bosch could not remember. He was completely disorientated.

  Suddenly he recalled that the painting had been on show beyond The Feast. He remembered he had decided not to spend much time on that one so he could get to her as soon as possible.

  He saw a man from Conservation whom he recognised. He was nervously attaching a label round the neck of Paula Kircher, the Angel from Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. Paula was wearing a huge pair of wings in a gleaming pearl-grey colour, fixed on her back like a monstrous, useless parachute. Another assistant had run over to protect her priceless ochre nakedness in a robe, but it was impossible to put on without removing her wings, so Paula just wrapped herself in it like a towel. People milling round her knocked against her feathers with their heads or shoulders: a fireman tore one out with his helmet. It was Paula who replied to Bosch's desperate question: she seemed a good deal calmer than the man trying to put her labels on.

  'She's with the Christ.'

  She pointed towards a side exit. But there was no vehicle there. 'My God, where is she? Has she already been evacuated?' He ran wildly over to the exit. A female security agent from the inside team was consoling a woman who, probably, was a person rather than a painting. Bosch decided this because she was not painted. Next to him was a figure who was a painting: maroon clothing and a face like a cardinal by Velazquez: perhaps one of the characters from The Night Watch. Bosch interrupted the agent with his hasty question.

  'I don't know, Mr Bosch. She might have been evacuated already, but I can't be sure. Why don't you call up control on your radio?'

  ‘I haven't got one.'

  'Use mine.'

  The girl unhooked the microphone and passed it to him. As he was putting the headpiece on, Bosch realised there was a piano tune coming from his chest. It was his mobile phone ringing in his inside pocket. Bosch had no idea when it had started. Then all at once it fell silent. He decided not to worry about the call for now. He would track it down later.

  Calm, stay calm. First things first.

  The radio operator sounded in his ear with a marvellously clear voice. Like the voice of an angel in the midst of disaster, thought Bosch. He asked to speak to Nikki Hartel, in Portakabin A. The operator seemed more than happy to comply, but first she needed the code that Bosch himself, on Miss Wood's instructions, had insisted everyone must have in order to talk by phone or radio to the people in charge. Shit! He closed his eyes and concentrated, while the operator hung on. For security reasons he had not written it down anywhere: he had learnt it by heart, but that was in another century, in another era, in a time when the universe and its laws were different, before order was abolished by chaos and Rembrandt and his works had taken Amsterdam by storm. But he usually had a good memory. He remembered the code. The operator confirmed it.

  When he heard Nikki's voice, he almost felt like crying.

  Nikki sounded even worse.

  'Where did you get to?' he heard her energetic, youthful voice in his earpiece. 'Everyone here was ...'

  'Listen, Nikki...' Bosch interrupted her. Then he paused for a second before going on.

  Above all, it's important to speak calmly.

  ‘I guess you've got a lot to tell me,' he said. 'But first of all, there's something I need to know ... Where is Nielle? Where is my niece?'

  Nikki's reply was immediate, as if she had been expecting his question right from the start. Yet again, Bosch was thankful for her immense efficiency.

  'She's safe, in an evacuation vehicle. Don't worry. Everything's under control. The thing is, Young Girl Leaning on a Windoivsill is a painting with only one free-standing figure, like Titus and Bethsabe, and so Van Hoore's team evacuated her before the other more complicated works.'

  Bosch understood her explanation perfectly, and for a second the relief he felt kept him from saying anything else. But then he realised something.

  'But most of the works are still here. They're even getting out of the vans again. I don't understand.'

  'The evacuation was suspended five minutes ago, Lothar.'

  'What? That's absurd!... The earthquake could happen again at any moment . . . And perhaps the curtains wouldn't withstand ...'

  Nikki butted in.

  'It wasn't an earthquake. And it wasn't a fault in the Tunnel construction, as we thought at first. Hoffmann has just phoned. It was something Art dreamed up without telling any of us, not even Conservation or most of the people in Art either ... something to do with the Christ painting, which apparently was an interactive performance piece with special effects that no one knew about.'

  'But the Tunnel shook from top to bottom, Nikki! It was about to collapse!'

  "Yes, here in the Portakabin we thought the same because all our screens vibrated, but it seems it would never have fallen. It was all staged. At least, that's what Hoffmann says. He says everything is under control, that there is no damage to any of the paintings, and that he doesn't really understand why there was such a wave of panic. He insists the Tunnel's shaking wasn't that violent, and that it should have been obvious it was an artistic detail because it happened just after the Christ "died" on the Cross with a shout.. ‘

  As she spoke, Bosch remembered that everything had begun when he heard a shout.

  'Well,' said Nikki, 'here we didn't understand a thing, of course, but it's modern art, so we're not supposed to try to understand it, are we? . .. Ah, and nobody can find Stein or the Maestro. And Benoit's climbing the walls .. .'

  In spite of the double feeling of relief Bosch felt at knowing that not only was Danielle safe and sound but that the apparent catastrophe had been less serious than he had thought, he felt a growing sense of irritation. As the day drew to its end, he looked round at the flashing lights and the crush of policemen on the other side of the barriers. He could hear ambulance sirens wailing. He could sense the confusion on the faces of the paintings, conservation experts, security agents, technicians and guests: the bewilderment and fear in the eyes of all those he had shared those anxious minutes with. A trick staged by Art? An artistic detail? And there was no damage to the paintings? What about the public, Hoffmann? You're forgetting the public. There might well have been people badly hurt. . . He couldn't understand it.

  'Lothar?'

  'Yes, Nikki, what is it?' replied Bosch, still indignant.

  'Lothar, before I forget: Miss Wood has phoned at least a hundred times. She wants to know, and I quote: "Where on earth you've got to, and why you don't answer your phone" ... We've tried to explain what happened, but you know what the boss is like when she's angry. She started to insult us all. She couldn't have given a damn if the whole world had crumbled with you underneath it, she insisted she had to talk to you, only to you, to nobody else but you. Urgently. Right now. Have you got her number?'

  'Yes, I think so.'

  'If you press the recall button it's bound to be her. Good luck.' Thanks, Nikki.'

  As he was phoning April Wood, Bosch looked at his watch: twelve minutes past nine. A sudden breeze that brought with it the smell of oil paint lifted the flaps of his jacket and cooled his sweating back, giving him some thankful relief. He noticed that the Art technicians were taking the paindngs out of the central square. They must be intending to get them together in the Portakabins. Almost all of them were wearing their robes. The Angel's wings shone in the crowd.

  He wondered what April Wood had to tell him that was so important.

  He raised the phone to his ear and waited.

  21.12.

  Danielle
was inside the dark evacuation vehicle. It had stopped somewhere, but she had no idea why. She thought perhaps the driver was waidng for someone to arrive. He did not speak to her or explain anything. He simply sat in silence at the wheel in the darkness, his silhouette only dimly lit by the glow through the windscreen. Strapped into her seat by four safety belts, Danielle was breathing deeply, trying to stay calm. She was still dressed in the long white shift for Young Girl Leaning on a Windoivsill, and was painted in the four layers of oil paint her figure required. When she felt the earthquake, she was sure one of the layers must have fallen off, but now she could tell it had not. She had started to think of her parents. Once she had got over her fear, she wanted to talk to them, and also to Uncle Lothar, to tell them she was fine. In fact, nothing had happened to her: seconds before the Tunnel had started to tremble, this friendly man had appeared and shown her out, lighting her way with his torch. Then he had strapped her into the back seat of the van and made his way out of the Museumplein. Danielle had no idea what route he had taken. Now he had parked in the darkness and was waiting.