by Connor, Alex
Twenty-Six
Departure Lounge, Berlin Tegal Airport
The one person Luca Meriss didn’t expect to contact him was Gil Eckhart. But while he waited for his plane to New York the call came through. Luca picked up nervously.
‘Hello?’
‘Luca Meriss, can I talk to you? I’m an investigator.’
‘Police?’
‘No, I’ve been hired privately.’
Luca struggled to control his thoughts. ‘What d’you want with me?’
‘I need to talk to you about your website.’
‘You didn’t send me that photograph, did you?’
‘What photograph?’ Gil replied, hearing the background noise of a tannoy. ‘Where are you? An airport? You said you were based in Berlin. Are you leaving the country—’
‘Why d’you want to know?’ Luca replied, out of his depth and floundering. ‘Have you spoken to Ms Hoyt?’
Gil took a stab in the dark.
‘You’re going to see her in New York?’
‘It was her idea. I had to get out of Berlin,’ Luca continued, looking around him.
He was spooked, jumpy. Unsure as to whether he was doing the right thing. It had been a long shot, but it had worked. Pretending that he had been attacked had forced the dealer’s hand and brought forth the invitation to New York. Temporarily out of Berlin, and danger, all Luca had to do was to make sure no one discovered his deception.
‘Who did you say you were?’
‘Gil Eckhart. It’s OK, you can trust me.’
‘I doubt that! I don’t think I can trust anyone.’ Luca hurried on, sticking to his story. ‘How do I know who you are? You might be the man who attacked me.’
‘I didn’t attack you, Mr Meriss,’ Gil said, surprised. ‘I’m in London, but I think that the person who attacked you might have something to do with the case I’m working on.’ He could sense that the Italian was starting to relax. ‘Did all this happen after you put up your website?’
‘Yes.’
‘You said you were sent a photograph. Of what?’
Luca was torn. Should he trust Gil? Or was it was just a ploy to get him to open up? But then again, he needed help. He hadn’t imagined the photograph, or the fact that someone was after him. Luca looked round at the people in the Departure Lounge, many of them checking the board overhead. No one was looking at him. He was on his way to New York, but how well did he know Catrina Hoyt? He was trusting her – but why? He didn’t know her. He might simply be jumping from one danger into another.
‘Mr Meriss, are you still there?’
‘What’s the case you’re working on?’
‘There’s been a double murder in London,’ Gil replied. ‘I think it might be connected to another double murder in Berlin seven years ago.’
‘What have I got to do with that?’
‘You might have nothing to do with it. I only wanted to talk to you about the Caravaggio paintings. But after what you’ve just told me, I’ve got to warn you.’
‘Warn me?’
‘You don’t know what you’ve got yourself into. You’re setting yourself up, Mr Meriss. You publicly announced that you know the whereabouts of two valuable paintings – and now you’ve been attacked.’ Luca was silent, listening as Gil continued. ‘You should have gone through a dealer.’
‘I’ve nothing to hide!’
‘It’s not a question of hiding anything, it’s going through the proper channels,’ Gil continued, thinking of Bernard Lowe. ‘Dealers will be glad to deal with you—’
‘And cheat me!’ Luca snapped. ‘Don’t you think I don’t know what the reaction will be? That people will sneer at what I’ve got to say? Of course they will! That’s why I wanted to do it right, but no one would listen.’ He thought back. ‘I talked to Naresh Joshi a long time ago, but he thought I was a crank.’
Surprised, Gil thought of the historian.
‘You went to Joshi?’
‘I wanted him to believe me. I am a descendant of Caravaggio and I do know where the paintings are. I have proof. Naresh Joshi’s respected. If he’d believed me other people would have done. I wanted to do it right!’ Luca said, his tone plaintive. ‘I didn’t want to go public on the internet and bring all this down on my head.’
‘Drop your voice—’
‘You think someone’s listening?’
‘Someone attacked you, so yes, I think someone might well be listening.’ Gil’s first instincts about the Italian were mixed. ‘What d’you want out of all this? Fame? Notoriety?’
‘Respect!’ Meriss hissed. ‘I want respect!’
‘Well, you went the wrong way about it. The Nativity was allegedly stolen by the Mafia – you want them after you?’
‘They didn’t take it!’
‘You know that?’ Gil pushed him. ‘And the Fillide Melandroni portrait that was supposedly burned – you think you can just declare that you know where it is and not expect a reaction? What’s the angle? You want to push up the price? Work up a frenzy before you sell the paintings?’
There was a pause on the other end before Luca replied.
‘Sell them? They’re not my property.’
‘I thought you said you knew where they were.’
‘I do, but they’re not my property! They belong to everyone!’ His voice plummeted. ‘That’s why I went to Naresh Joshi, to put them in his hands, to make sure that they would be safe, protected.’
Gil sighed. Luca Meriss was either stupid or naive.
‘But you can’t have believed that no one would come after you. Those paintings are worth a fortune. People would do anything to get hold of them. I’m not talking about recognised dealers, I’m talking about the runners, the thugs that get hold of works of art for collectors. They use any means, Mr Meriss. Didn’t you know that?’
‘I never thought …’
‘You say you’re a descendant of Caravaggio.’
‘I am! I have proof.’
Gil cut across him.
‘Don’t go online again. Stay away from the internet. Don’t answer your calls. Stay quiet. You’ve set yourself up, Mr Meriss, so now do what I’m telling you. It’s good advice. Call me when you get to New York. I know the art world, I can help you—’
‘But I don’t know you.’
‘You don’t know who sent you that photograph either. Or who attacked you.’
‘No.’
Gil thought for a moment. ‘Go to Catrina Hoyt if you want, but be careful.’
‘Can I trust her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Gil answered frankly. ‘But you can trust me.’
The Italian was unnerved, wavering. ‘I just wanted to tell people who I was.’
It was suddenly clear to Gil.
‘That all that matters, isn’t it? Not so much the paintings –they’re secondary. You want the world to recognise who you are.’
‘It means everything to me.’
‘More than your life, Mr Meriss?’ Gil queried. ‘Because that’s what it might cost you.’
Twenty-Seven
London
6.00 p.m.
Tipping back his chauffeur’s hat, Gary Rimmer stared at the approaching woman. He had tried his luck a couple of times with the nurse, but she had played hard to get, treating him like a nobody. He wondered unkindly if she was after her patient, if she had designs on the old bugger Lowe, but knew she would be out of luck there.
Frieda knew she had Gary’s full slavering attention and surprised him by walking over to the car.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi.’
He loved the German accent, shit hot. ‘How you doing?’
‘OK,’ she said, leaning against the door and running her finger along the top of the half-opened window. ‘I just thought I’d say hello, seeing as how we’re both working here.’
His luck had changed.
‘Yeah, well, it’s nice to chat. How’s the old man doing?’
‘Mr Lowe’s fine. I’m jus
t coming to relieve the night nurse. She’ll kill me if I’m late.’
‘You tell me if she gives you any trouble, OK?’
She smiled at him warmly, looking at the Rolls. ‘Lovely car. But then Mr Lowe’s got a lot of money, hasn’t he? All those antiques and paintings in the house. I’m so scared of knocking into something. I walk around with my arms by my side all day, just in case.’
Enchanted, Gary smiled. ‘You’re tiny. You couldn’t knock anything over.’
She peered in through the car window. ‘God, it’s a beautiful car. And he’s got a car phone.’
‘Yeah,’ Gary replied, bigging himself up. ‘And I get to hear some pretty interesting things, I can tell you.’
‘About what?’
‘His business.’
‘Oh.’ She looked unimpressed, and Gary was eager to hold her interest. ‘He talks to some important people.’
‘He’s pretty important himself, isn’t he?’ Frieda replied, her attention wavering. ‘But business talk is always dull.’
‘Not Bernard Lowe’s business. I heard something interesting yesterday – and this morning …’ Gary continued. ‘He’s onto some famous paintings. Caravaggio.’
Her expression was blank.
‘One of them might have been stolen by the Mafia.’
‘Mafia?’
‘But now it’s turned up. At least that’s what I think’s going on.’ He could see that she still wasn’t impressed and upped the stakes. ‘I looked up the artist on the net. His work’s worth millions, rising every day.’
She was listening now.
‘Millions?’
Gary nodded. ‘Made me think, I can tell you. I mean, what’s the old man going to do with millions? He’s damn near dead – can’t take his money with him, can he? It’s all wrong. Why waste it on him?’ Confident that he now had her interest, Gary dropped his voice. ‘And he was also talking about the Weir murders yesterday. The victims were tortured, you know. Blood everywhere.’
Her eyebrows rose.
‘I heard about that. Who killed them?’
‘I dunno. No one does. But – I mean I’m just guessing – maybe it’s connected with this Caravaggio business?’
She was listening, taking it all in, ready to pass every word on to Oscar Schultz.
‘Did you know the men who were killed?’
Gary whistled between his teeth.
‘Been to that gallery many times. They looked like a couple of ponces, but they say not.’ His voice dropped again. ‘Not a word to anyone—’
‘I promise.’
‘—but I did overhear one thing that made me think.’
‘What?’
‘It was just a chance remark, a throwaway line really. Old man Lowe had been to see another dealer, Jacob Levens, and when he got back to the car he made a call. I don’t know who he was talking to, but he was rattled, I could see that.’
‘What did he say?’
Behind them, her name was suddenly called out. On the top of the front steps stood the night nurse, irritated and eager to leave.
‘You better get going,’ Gary said, jerking his head towards the irate woman. ‘We can talk again later.’
Frieda didn’t want to wait. ‘But what was it?’
‘What was what?’
‘What did Mr Lowe say?’
‘Oh, that.’ Gary dropped his voice again. ‘He said that it had just been a matter of time. And that he knew it would catch up with them one day.’
Twenty-Eight
Berlin
Walking in at the back entrance of the gallery on the Friedrichstrasse, Greta Huber froze, a queasy feeling in her stomach. Seven years earlier she had walked through the same doorway at nine thirty on the evening of 14 March. She had been out with friends and was tired, but had promised to call in to see her mother, and had dropped by on her way home.
The back door of the gallery had been locked. Greta remembered opening it with her key, and had been surprised that the lights had been turned off. Earlier her mother had made a point about how she would be working on the gallery accounts, saying she would be at there until at least ten p.m. So the darkness that greeted Greta had been unexpected as she made her way to the desk and flicked on the lamp.
As her mother had said, she had been working on the accounts. The ledgers were open, the safe door yawning wide. A cold mug of coffee was still sitting by the phone and Alma’s jacket was draped over the back of her chair. Looking around, Greta had expected her mother to walk in at any moment, but when Alma didn’t appear, she called out.
‘Mutter? Mutter?’
She had checked the private lavatory off the office, only to find it empty. Likewise the staff kitchen. Growing anxious, Greta had then moved into the gallery itself, opening the door to find her mother facing her, slumped on the floor. Naked, bound, covered in blood, her breasts mutilated. Obviously dead.
Rigid, unable to understand what she was seeing, Greta had stared at the grisly image, shaking uncontrollably. Then she had run – run as fast as she could, screaming into the street.
The police had interviewed her soon after, but by then she had hardly been able to speak. Words had fluttered out of the back of her mind. Nothing lodged, only the image of her dead mother. The police called an ambulance. The hospital called in a doctor. The doctor called a psychiatrist, and Greta Huber stopped talking. For eighteen months she had remained mute, eating what was given her, doing what she was told.
You walk, you sit, you eat, you watch the television.
But you don’t, Greta had thought to herself. You don’t watch anything. Because there is only one image in your mind – the murder.
You think and see and hear and smell everything about that. Nothing now, nothing of this time, only that evening of the 14th of March, on the Friedrichstrasse. I can still smell blood, feel the cold handle of the gallery door as I wrenched it open. I can hear my running footsteps and taste that burnt, acrid odour of terror.
You think I’m recovering? I’m suspended, eternally hanging from the killer’s rope. And I’ll stay here for as long as he wants me to.
The shock had been so intense that the news of her father’s death was withheld from Greta. The doctors never realised that she knew. That she had guessed. Because if Terrill Huber had been alive he would have been with her. Another door closed. Months passed, a year, then another. Greta had had no siblings to confide in, there had been no sharing of grief. The load had been hers and hers alone. Sometimes people visited her – the staff from the gallery, an old friend of her mother’s. But finding her uncommunicative, they stopped calling. Another door closed.
To Greta’s relief she found herself beached in her own mind, with the sound of the sea in her ears and the cawing of gulls, which, at night, had sometimes sounded like children. Slowly she recovered and the murder scene was no longer her only thought. Occasionally Greta found herself thinking back to her time teaching English in Berlin, and her mind could – if she pushed it – go back home. For a little while.
A door opened.
In the time it took Greta to return to sanity the only person who came to see her more than once was Gil Eckhart. He was a big man, very still, composed, breathing slowly. He had asked her questions and when she didn’t answer, he hadn’t even seemed surprised. But he had come back and asked her again, and on the third occasion she had answered him. Hardly making words, but turning in his direction when he said the name Jacob.
Her uncle, in London. Her mother’s brother, Jacob Levens. Would you like to see him? Gil Eckhart had asked. Her head had remained turned in his direction, but she had said nothing. Because she hadn’t been close to her uncle. And any chance of a closeness in childhood had been destroyed by their later distance apart.
Then Greta remembered the last time she had seen Gil Eckhart, noted the change and known he was suddenly like her. Suffering some incredible, unbreachable loss. She had never known what had caused his grief, and had never seen him again. One year
and five months later, Greta left the institution. She abandoned Berlin and went to live in Munich, where she taught German to students. Later she went to India to teach. She made no close relationships and developed anorexia, but she kept teaching, grubbing out some sense in words.
And now she was back in Berlin, opening the same door, walking into the same gallery that she had entered seven years earlier. The legal arrangements had been finalised only that afternoon, the premises Greta had inherited sold on after years of being leased out. The lawyers had wanted to tell her everything about the purchaser, but she had not been interested in any personal details. The money for the sale would be invested, but not in the art world. The gallery held nothing for her. The place was little more than a catacomb for her parents. She had only returned to hand over the final set of keys.
If you bring them around yourself about five o’clock, the solicitor had said earlier, I can introduce you to the new owner.
Greta had made her own plans instead. She would leave the keys on the office desk early, with a note, then pull the door closed as she left. That way she would never have to see the new owner, offer good wishes she didn’t feel, or pretend interest for someone who had just obtained premises she believed cursed.
But her plan had failed, Greta realised as she walked into the gallery. The place wasn’t empty.
Slowly she moved into the main viewing area and looked around. A Persian rug lay over the place on the floor where her mother had been slaughtered, and she could smell turpentine, not blood. But what surprised her the most was the presence of someone sitting at the desk where her mother had once worked. A man Greta knew. A handsome man, who turned as he heard her walk in.
‘Greta!’ Oscar Schultz stood up and walked over to her, smiling. ‘How good to see you.’
She was openly hostile. ‘What are you doing here?’
Despite her animosity, he was friendly to a fault.
‘My dear, your lawyer tried to tell you the news, but you didn’t want to know … I’m so sorry if it’s come as a shock to you …’ he shrugged, ‘… but I’m the owner now.’