by Connor, Alex
Twenty-Nine
London
Surprised that he had been unable to contact Bernard Lowe, Gil made his way to Eaton Square to find Gary Rimmer in the car, waiting beside the kerb with the engine running.
Knocking on the window, Gil watched Rimmer let down the glass. ‘Yeah?’
‘You’re Bernard Lowe’s chauffeur, aren’t you?’
‘So what?’
‘I’ve been trying to reach him for a couple of hours, with no luck. Are his phones off?’
‘Mr Lowe,’ Rimmer managed to instil a potent dislike into the name, ‘never answers his phone. And if he tells the staff not to, they won’t either. He uses the one in the car.’
‘But you’re expecting him?’
‘No. Why d’you ask?’
Gil gave him a slow look. ‘Your engine’s running.’
‘I was told to bring the car round and wait for him.’ Rimmer checked his watch. ‘That was three quarters of an hour ago.’
‘And that didn’t strike you as odd? Keeping you waiting that long? Why not turn the engine off?’
‘Mr Lowe said, ‘Keep the engine running,’ so I’ve kept the engine running,’ Rimmer replied, his tone curt. ‘You do what Mr Lowe says. Everything he says. You don’t question it.’
Gil glanced over at the house, then walked up to the front door. On his third ring, a Filipino maid answered, recognised him from the morning, and let him in.
‘I came to see Mr Lowe. He’s expecting me.’
‘Just a moment, sir,’ the woman replied, walking off.
The house was very quiet, no sounds of phones or any other activity, although Gil knew that Bernard Lowe had offices in the lower ground floor. Earlier in the day Gil had heard footsteps from below and from overhead, together with the muted murmur of frenetic staff and the ringing of the doorbell. But now the house seemed emptied out, office hours over, the evening activities in abeyance.
Glancing at his watch, Gil remembered what Lowe had said earlier:
I know what the motive is. The motive in return for the paintings.
Fair swap, I’d say.
Fair swap indeed, Gil thought, as he looked through the hall window. Outside, he could see the sullen Gary Rimmer sitting in the car, the engine still running.
Then the maid reappeared from the back of the house, flustered. ‘Sorry, sir, I thought Mr Lowe was upstairs,’ she said, letting Gil into the drawing room, ‘but he must be in here.’
Half expecting Lowe to be where he had been sitting that morning, Gil moved over to the sofa. He was right: the old man was exactly where he had been before, the oxygen mask over his face.
‘Mr Lowe, I came back like you asked me to,’ Gil began. ‘You wanted to tell me something.’
Frowning, he glanced at Lowe, but the old man’s eyes were closed. He was asleep. Uncertain of what to do next, Gil hesitated. Thought about leaving. About waking Lowe up. Then he leaned closer towards him.
‘Mr Lowe? Mr Lowe?’
He touched the old man’s shoulder. And then slowly, very slowly, Bernard Lowe slid over onto his side, the mask still attached to his face. Quickly bending down, Gil felt at the side of the old man’s neck, but could get no pulse and took the mask away.
Bernard Lowe was dead.
Thirty
London
8.15 p.m.
‘We should get a post-mortem—’
‘Why?’ Simmons snapped, looking over at Gil. ‘Lowe was old, he was sick. That’s why I took him off the list of suspects. So why do we need to do a post-mortem?’
Gil knew he was treading on thin ice. He wasn’t going to tell the police that Lowe had been about to confide the motive for the murders. It was information he wanted to keep to himself. Information that convinced him that Bernard Lowe hadn’t died of natural causes. The timing was just too convenient.
If only Lowe had confided in him that morning, instead of waiting until the end of the day, Gil thought, frustrated. Or had he been bluffing? The old man had said that he had some jobs to do. What jobs had been so important? Gil wondered. What errands, what visits, what tying up of loose ends had commanded his attention? Bernard Lowe had been astute and cunning. But perhaps old age had age dulled his instincts, and he had talked to someone else about what he knew.
Or had someone overheard the conversation Gil had had with him and reacted by killing the old man to keep him quiet?
He would have been easy to kill. Bernard Lowe had been frail, unsteady on his feet, breathless. A child could have overpowered him and no one would suspect anything, because he had been ill for years, surviving on an oxygen machine, grasping at the fag end of his life.
Gil was certain he was right.
‘Please get a post-mortem done.’
‘OK, OK, but it’ll be a waste of time. He was old. He died. End of,’ Simmons said brusquely. ‘After all, who the hell would need to kill Bernard Lowe?’
Thirty-One
Jerking awake, Luca Meriss looked around him. In the aeroplane seats across the aisle, two men were talking and drinking. The seat in front of him was empty, but the one next to it held an overweight woman doing a crossword puzzle. At regular intervals she paused and tapped her pen against her front teeth as though loosening words from her brain.
Luca glanced behind him. A family – two warring parents and a couple of fractious kids – were arguing, but there was nothing suspicious or threatening about any of the passengers.
Breathing out, Luca leaned back in his seat. He was safe, he could go back to sleep again. But sleep wasn’t about to make another appearance and instead he got up and walked down the aisle to the toilet. It was occupied. Leaning against the wall, Luca looked around – and suddenly caught the gaze of a solitary man at the back of the plane.
He swallowed.
The man stared at him.
Luca glanced away.
Then looked back.
The man was still staring at him.
Unnerved, Luca heard the toilet door open and pushed past the woman leaving. Inside, he locked the door and looked in the mirror. His forehead was shiny, his cheeks mouldcoloured under the unflattering light. His hands shook as he washed them and then splashed cold water on his face.
His actions seemed suddenly ridiculous. Childish, stupid. To blurt out what he knew on the internet! God, was he mad? Luca thought of the conversation he had had with Gil Eckhart. The warning. He was an investigator, possibly an ally. He needed one, Luca thought, and he didn’t know if Catrina Hoyt was the right person to trust. Maybe neither of them were. Maybe he shouldn’t go to New York at all, should go home instead, to Palermo, to his father. Hide away for a while, until everyone forgot what he had said.
Then Luca remembered what Gil Eckhart had told him about a double murder. Two double murders. Trembling, he sat on the toilet seat and thought about the danger he had put himself into. Could he risk endangering his father by going home? No. He had committed himself to Catrina Hoyt. But she was a dealer, she might only be interested in the paintings. Would he better off with Gil Eckhart? He was an investigator, he knew the art world – but what did he want?
Luca bowed his head, confused. No one seemed interested in his lineage. All they wanted were the paintings. And he realised that, unless he was very careful, he might turn out to be a dispensable nonentity.
Unlocking the toilet door, Luca walked out and moved down the aisle. The man seated at the back of the plane was no longer looking in his direction as Luca approached his seat. Then he stopped dead. A folded piece of paper was lying there, waiting for him. Several moments passed before he had the courage to read it:
NEW YORK IS NO SAFER THAN BERLIN.
WAIT TO BE CONTACTED.
His legs gave way and he sat down in his seat, struggling to control his breathing. He was thirty thousand miles above the Atlantic, on a plane, being watched. Among the crying children, laughing men and sleeping executives was the person who had written him the note.
His blood fizzi
ng in his brain and his heartbeat echoing in his ears, Luca slowly got to his feet and moved to the back of the plane, heading for the man who had been watching him earlier.
‘Did you write this?’
The passenger looked up, blank-faced, taking off his headphones. ‘What?’
‘This note,’ Luca said, waving it in front of him. ‘I left my seat and when I got back this was waiting for me. What d’you want?’
The man was surprised, but also unexpectedly amused.
‘You’ve got the wrong person, mate. I broke my leg yesterday – I can’t get anywhere without help.’ He pointed to the plaster cast on his thigh. ‘I don’t know who left you the note, but it certainly wasn’t me.’
Thirty-Two
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London
After she had left a message on Gil’s mobile phone, Bette leaned back against the pillows of her hospital bed. Outside, sleet was slapping the pavements and making the roads greasy. Gil had visited her around eight, and although he had insisted everything was fine, Bette hadn’t been convinced.
‘How’s the case going?’
‘Fine. It’ll blow over soon.’
‘You said that yesterday,’ she had teased him. ‘It’s going to take a while, isn’t it?’
‘No, not long. Not long.’
It wasn’t like Gil to lie, Bette thought, but then again she was heavily pregnant and he wasn’t going to do, or say, anything to worry her. She didn’t want to worry him either, so she wasn’t going to mention the fact that Jacob Levens had visited her late the previous night, looking for Gil.
Closing her eyes, Bette thought about the coming baby. She had convinced herself that when the case was over, the child born, life would settle. Gil would step back, he would solve the investigation and close the porthole on the past which had caused such a bitter draught. Then he would walk away.
But that was before Jacob Levens had come to visit her.
He had been looking for Gil, hoping to find him visiting his wife. An old employer, an old friend. And although he smelt of peppermint and cologne, the odour of whisky had still lingered faintly underneath.
‘Sorry to disturb you, my dear, I just thought Gil might be here.’ He had pulled up a seat but not taken it, hovering around the bed instead. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Good, good,’ Jacob had replied.
Bette watched him carefully.
‘Can I pass on a message? Gil’s bound to call me later.’
‘It’s about … Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ Jacob had said, stout in his bespoke suit, flushed around the jowls. ‘It’s probably not important.’
Bette hadn’t been convinced. ‘Come on, Jacob, you look like it’s very important.’
‘Gil doesn’t answer his mobile.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But he always picks up his messages eventually.’
‘I don’t know why people have mobile phones and don’t answer them.’
His unease had unsettled her.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘God, Jacob, who are you trying to kid? I used to work for you, remember? I know you inside out. Just tell me what’s bothering you.’
Reassured, he had turned to her, blurting it out. ‘It’s Holly.’
The name slammed into the room, leaving Bette stunned.
‘Holly?’
‘She left some computer disks with me and … well, you see, someone’s just broken into my gallery and stolen them.’ Then Jacob had suddenly altered, panic turning to composure, as though he had realised he was talking to a pregnant woman in a hospital bed and had badly overstepped the mark. ‘I’m sorry, Bette. I shouldn’t have troubled you. Forget what I said, just forget it.’
That was the last thing she would do.
‘Holly left some disks with you?’
‘Forget I said anything! I’ll talk to Gil myself. You just look after yourself, you hear? That’s all you should be thinking about.’ Jacob had then kissed her on the forehead and scurried out.
For a long time Bette had stared at the door, thinking. And she decided that she wasn’t going to pass the message on. The news wasn’t going through her. She touched her stomach protectively, feeling the baby inside. Whatever was coming – whatever threat from the past – it wouldn’t be her letting Holly Eckhart back in.
Thirty-Three
St. Thomas’s
As he walked into the morgue, Gil could see Dr Dunning standing next to a dissecting table. In silence, he watched as the pathologist paused to dictate into a recording machine suspended from the ceiling by a cable, his gloved hands held waist-high, palms upwards.
When he had finished speaking, Gil moved closer. ‘Simmons told me what you’d found.’
Dunning turned, nodding a welcome. ‘So you heard that Bernard Lowe didn’t die of natural causes?’
‘Murdered?’
‘He certainly was,’ Dunning replied, taking off his gloves and moving over to a side table where he had the file notes. ‘Bernard Lowe fell into a state of unconsciousness, coma, then death.’
‘Because?’
‘Because someone tampered with his oxygen cylinder. It wasn’t oxygen – Bernard Lowe was breathing pure nitrogen.’
Gil frowned. ‘I thought we breathed in nitrogen every day?’
‘We do – mixed with oxygen. With the two combined, nitrogen is harmless. But on its own, it’s lethal. With an old man like Bernard Lowe, in poor health, with compromised lung function, it was a quick and certain killing.’
‘Would switching the cylinders be difficult to do?’
‘Not if you disguised the colour of the bottle. Under some freshly applied paint the cylinder Bernard Lowe was using was green. It should have been black. Someone painted it to look like an oxygen cylinder. Mr Lowe wouldn’t have realised what was happening to him.’
‘Well, that’s something. At least it was a painless death – not like the Weir brothers’.’ Gil thought for a moment. ‘Could a layman organise something like that?’
‘Yes, if they had access to the cylinders. And, let’s face it, someone could easily have stolen the nitrogen, or even obtained it illegally. Or legally – for commercial or laboratory purposes. It’s not a banned substance.’ He took off his surgical cap. His hair looked like his mother had cut it. ‘Bernard Lowe had rabbit skin glue in his mouth. Only a tiny amount, but it was there.’
Silent, Gil let him continue.
‘I wanted to ask you something. It was something you said – or rather you didn’t say – before. The wounds on the Weir brothers: there were eight of them.’
Gil was giving nothing away. ‘So?’
‘You reacted when you heard me say that. I wondered if it was important. If it had anything to do with the Berlin murders. You said they were similar killings, the same scalping, similar injuries. Did Alma and Terrill Huber have eight wounds?’
‘Yes.’
‘D’you know why there were eight wounds?’
Gil paused. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘Because Bernard Lowe had been stabbed. Tiny stab wounds—’
‘Where?’
‘In his scrotum. They were little more than nicks at the skin. But they were deliberate.’ Gil said nothing, forcing the pathologist to continue. ‘I counted them. There were eight marks, Mr Eckhart. Eight. Just like there were eight stab wounds on Benjamin and Sebastian Weir and the Hubers. It’s no coincidence, is it?’
He dodged the question. ‘Bernard Lowe wasn’t scalped.’
‘He was.’
Gil flinched.
‘He wore a wig, so it wasn’t obvious at first. It was a bad wig, but glued down firmly. Thing is, the killer scalped him, then put the wig back afterwards.’
‘What?’
‘He scalped him, then re-glued the toupee in place.’
‘With all the blood?’
‘It was done after Bernard Lowe was dead, so there wasn’t as much blood because his
heart had stopped pumping. Besides, someone had taken their time. He’d been well cleaned up. That’s why you didn’t notice it.’
Gil stared at the pathologist.
‘So whoever did it was prepared. They knew about the oxygen and the wig. A stranger couldn’t have done that. It had to be someone with easy access to Lowe.’
As he said the words the double doors to the morgue opened and Phil Simmons walked in. The detective was red-faced, the rash raw from where he had scratched it, his collar undone. Rain had splattered the shoulders of his coat and dampened his hair.
‘OK,’ he said, ignoring the pathologist and talking to Gil. ‘So how did you know Bernard Lowe was murdered?’
‘I thought it was possible.’
‘Why?’
‘He was an importer and collector, well known in the art world—’
‘So are hundreds of others. Should I be expecting a massacre?’ Simmons stared at Gil. ‘You think this killing is related to the other three murders?’
‘It could be.’
‘But the Hubers and the Weirs were tortured, Bernard Lowe put to sleep. What connection did Lowe have with the Hubers or the Weirs?’
‘They were all dealers. They traded.’
‘So they could have been rivals?’ Simmons asked, scratching the skin on his neck. ‘If I find out that you know something I don’t, and you’ve held it back, I’ll—’
Gil stalled. ‘I don’t know anything.’
He wasn’t going to tell him about Luca Meriss. Gil had been hired by Jacob Levens, not by the Metropolitan Police Force. Levens was paying his fee, and deserved his loyalty. But there was something else that kept Gil silent. Bernard Lowe might now be off the list of suspects, but Jacob Levens wasn’t. Gil wondered if Lowe had spoken to Jacob about the motive. After all, if the old man had been prepared to confide in him, Lowe might well have confided in a friend. Especially as that friend’s sister had been one of the first victims.
Unless Bernard Lowe had suspected Jacob Levens of some involvement.
Gil thought back. Lowe had been desperate to get the paintings and Jacob would want them too. He dealt in Italian Baroque. And yet he hadn’t shown any interest in the Caravaggios. The thought made Gil uneasy, and suspicious.