by Connor, Alex
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jacob said. ‘But it wasn’t me.’
For a long, silent moment Gil stared at him. Every cell in his body wanted to strike out, to throw a punch at the dealer who had fooled him for so long. It would have been so easy, Gil thought, to knock him senseless. His hands itched, his heart pumped, adrenalin coursed through every nerve. But he controlled himself. He suspected that Jacob Levens wanted some form of beating for what he had done. Or what he was doing.
‘It’s a pity I can’t check your story out with Bernard Lowe. You know he’s dead?’
‘I just heard.’
‘He was murdered.’
Jacob’s head shot up. ‘Murdered …’ His spite evaporated, fear taking over. ‘Oh, Christ.’
‘Looks like it’s your turn to be surprised,’ Gil said coldly. ‘Surely it can’t be that much of a shock, can it?’
‘I warned him when he showed me the note.’
Gil wasn’t sure if the dealer was play-acting or not. ‘What note?’
‘Someone sent Bernard Lowe a message. Said they were going to call and see him – something like that. I told him not to go back to his house, but he wouldn’t listen. Made light of it, said that he had staff around, that he was safe. But he wasn’t, was he?’ Jacob paused, his voice faltering. ‘Five dealers killed. Jesus, what’s all this about?’
Gil ignored the question and asked one of his own.
‘Why haven’t you mentioned the missing Caravaggio paintings? The ones that everyone’s talking about?’
The words caught Jacob off guard. His face was expressionless but his eyes flickered. ‘Paintings are not my chief concern at the moment. What the hell d’you take me for?’
‘An art dealer, because that’s what you are. And no dealer could resist wanting to know about the Caravaggios.’
‘Five dealers have now been killed!’ Jacob wailed. ‘I could be next!’
‘Why? What d’you know?’ Gil asked him. ‘Maybe you’re not in danger at all. Maybe you’re the killer. After all, you knew all the dealers, Jacob – they would all have let you close. Especially Bernard Lowe.’
Jacob was blustering.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! My own sister was killed—’
‘Yes, I know. I worked on the case. You hired me, remember? And I think that Alma was murdered by someone close to her—’
‘I couldn’t have killed her!’ he snapped, panicking. ‘I’ve never hurt anyone. Are you crazy?’
Gil was deliberately provoking him, trying to shake out what he knew. Shocking him into a response.
‘Bernard Lowe wanted me to act as his go-between and get him the Caravaggio paintings—’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jacob roared.
Bernard Lowe had said nothing about a deal to him. For all the old man’s posturings about honesty, he had kept quiet about the Caravaggios. And how much more? Jacob wondered, maddened. Had Bernard Lowe been working alone or with the others? Was Jacob Levens the only member of Der Kreis der Acht not to know about the Caravaggios? Were they plotting against him, cutting him out? Or setting him up as a scapegoat?
Jacob struggled to think clearly, the booze inhibiting his focus. If he told Gil about Der Kreis der Acht he would be exposing his own crimes, but if he stayed silent he could turn out to be the next victim. In that instant Jacob Levens realised what a fool he had been in making an enemy out of Gil Eckhart.
‘I can’t believe—’
Gil interrupted him. ‘Bernard Lowe did a deal with me.’
‘A deal?’
Slowly, Gil drew him in. ‘I promised to get the paintings for him. In return, he told me the motive for the murders.’
‘He told you?’
Unwavering, Gil lied. ‘Yes, he told me.’
The words resonated around the office as Gil tried to read Jacob’s expression. Was he shocked or did he already know the motive? Or worse, if he was the murderer, was he now feeling threatened? As the two men faced each other Gil studied Jacob Levens. He was stocky, physically strong. Not big enough to overpower a man, but certainly capable of knocking someone out and injecting them. And clever enough – when sober – to plan murder.
But was he ruthless enough to kill his own sister?
‘Look, I said too much …’ Jacob began, desperate to repair the damage he had done. ‘Sorry, Gil, sorry. I drink, I talk nonsense.’
Gil shook his head. ‘Forget it. You’re on your own now.’
‘But you have to help me! You have to!’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’
‘But they could kill me!’ Jacob shouted, grasping Gil’s arm.
‘Saves me the problem,’ Gil replied, shaking him off and walking out.
Betrayed by his closest friend, cuckolded by his dead wife, Gil left the gallery a changed man. He had lied. He didn’t have the motive for the killings – but Jacob Levens didn’t know that. It had been an unsuccessful bluff to try to force a confession from the dealer, but now the lie would now find its own nasty hole. Would worm itself into Jacob Levens’ guilt, or call out someone far worse.
Gil had claimed a knowledge he didn’t have. And it might well kill him.
Thirty-Six
New York
Luca thought back. He had gone down into the subway and jumped on the first train, slumping into his seat. His left leg had been heavily bruised from his frantic jump onto Catrina Hoyt’s fire escape, his breathing rapid. He had lost everything that had been in the holdall: a change of clothes, a razor, toiletries. But nothing important. He had had more sense than that.
Reaching into his inside jacket pocket Luca had taken out a notebook, and felt into the inner, concealed pocket, relieved that his passport and money had still been there. Likewise the plane ticket back to Berlin. Wary, he had looked around, but no one had been paying him any attention, so he had turned back to the notebook and a list of names he had made:
Bernard Lowe
Jacob Levens
Catrina Hoyt
Harvey Crammer
Oscar Schultz
Naresh Joshi
Gil Eckhart
The names Bernard Lowe and Catrina Hoyt he had scored out, knowing he had made a dangerous enemy of the latter. But that hadn’t been his only problem: his most pressing concern had been who to contact next.
On edge, Luca had leaned back in his seat. A group of teenage boys had been sitting across the aisle talking, a solitary woman reading a magazine. Above her head had been an advertisement for toothpaste, an all-American beauty displaying a set of impressive veneers. The train had come to a jerky halt at Harlem station, a name which had meant little to Luca, but he had decided he would stay down in the subway until he worked out what to do next. Maybe wait until dark before he risked the streets again. At the next station a few people had got on the train and Luca had studied each of them, but no one had even looked in his direction. Thoughtful, Luca had remembered the shock on Catrina Hoyt’s face, the sheer disbelief when he had hit her.
The train had continued, juddering through a tunnel. As the lights had gone out then come on again, Luca had clung on to his notepad. He had realised Catrina Hoyt would come after him. Not in person – she would send someone – but he knew he could never have worked with her, couldn’t have shared his treasure with a philistine. Luca knew he had been too trusting, too quick to throw in his lot with the dealer. And as a result he had been forced to run. Again.
He had thought then of the note on the plane. Of the gory photograph which had been sent to scare him. Within three days Luca Meriss had managed, single-handedly, to catapult himself from obscurity into notoriety and danger, making the biggest blunder of all when he had put his own image onto his website.
It had been an act of hubris. Placing his likeness against that of Caravaggio and saying, See for yourself. See the characteristics from the fifteenth century repeated in the twenty-first. But, in reality, it had ended up being little more than a WANTED post
er.
Panic had set in fast, as Luca realised he had to disguise himself. Buy a baseball cap to cover the thick dark hair, get some glasses and another jacket, anything to make himself less conspicuous. Then what? He had paused, glancing back at the list of names. Who to go to? He hadn’t known them and wouldn’t have recognised any of them.
At that moment Luca hadn’t known who to trust. His little list had seemed pathetic, simply the names of Caravaggio devotees – something anyone could have drawn up. It hadn’t been surprising that they had all contacted him after he went public. Of course they would have done, hoping that he was an amateur, easy to manipulate. But besides the dealers, Luca had wondered how many other people had seen his website? How many others had seen his image? Read his declaration that he, Luca Meriss, knew the whereabouts of two Caravaggio paintings?
That he had had proof.
The train had stopped suddenly, ticking over in a tunnel as Luca looked around nervously. The teenage boys had got off, the woman had still been reading, but Luca had noticed a man standing at the far end of the compartment. His arms had been folded and he had stood immobile, then turned.
And had begun walking towards Luca Meriss.
Thirty-Seven
Campolfelice, Nr Palermo, Sicily
‘Ciao, vecchio mio. Come stai oggi?’ A man called out to his friend.
‘Più giovane di te!’ he replied, laughing and shaking his fist in mock anger.
There had been rain that morning, but the village had dried out and the square was busy again. The ever-present tables and chairs had been caught in the unexpected downpour and now steamed weakly in the cool sunshine, pigeons coming down low from the church overhead.
Having lived his whole life in Sicily, Carlo Ranuccio had no desire to travel, no interest in other countries. He had resigned himself to his existence, and when his wife died had accepted the role of widower as though born to it. His emotional freedom resulted in longstanding friendships and flirtations with women who knew not to take him seriously. Card games and heated discussions about wine and politics quickened the passing of the hours.
At fifty he had been working, harassed, married. At seventy he was retired, relaxed and widowed. His children – three girls and one boy – had all left Palermo, his daughters often visiting with their latest men or offspring. They came, they went, they caused no anguish to the old man. Except for one. His son, Luca.
I don’t know where he is, Carlo had said when questioned the previous night. We don’t talk.
A lifetime’s lack of curiosity hadn’t failed him. Carlo had no interest in his son, or anyone who might be looking for him. Luca’s life was off limits to his father, his activities unknown. A few years earlier there had been postcards, sent from various addresses abroad, while Luca travelled. Doing what, his father never asked. He didn’t know, simply remembered – with regret – his only son being a sickly child, prone to moods. Later there had been other rumours. Luca didn’t have a girlfriend. Was he homosexual? In a place like Sicily such leanings were hazardous.
Luca’s artistic ability had further estranged his father. When he developed a fascination for Caravaggio his intensity made him a laughing stock. But then something changed – Luca changed, became focused. Soon he was researching the family history on his mother’s side, pressing his father for details, visiting local churches. He discovered libraries, records, later the internet. His mother died and he moved away from Sicily. He kept reading. And then silence. For four years nothing was heard from Luca. Until the previous day.
A man had asked Carlo where Luca was. A man no one had ever seen before. A man in a city suit, with a Roman accent. Smiling confidently, like a judge.
‘Are you sure you don’t know where Luca is?’
Carlo had shrugged. ‘I told you, I haven’t seen him for years.’
‘He’s becoming famous,’ the man continued.
Carlo was reluctantly curious. ‘Famous? Luca Ranuccio?’
‘Luca Meriss.’ The man corrected him. ‘He’s claimed his ancestor’s name.’
‘Il suo antenato? What are you talking about?’
‘Your son has announced that he’s a descendant of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘Your son did. He told the world, put it up on the internet. You do get the internet here, don’t you? Look him up – www.meriss.icon.com. And he’s also declaring that he knows the whereabouts of two of the artist’s missing paintings. One of them taken from Sicily in 1969.’
‘From Palermo?’ Carlo asked, knowing the story full well. At the thought of the Mafia, he began to sweat. Dear God, he thought, what is Luca involved in?
Uninvited, the stranger sat down, drumming his fingers on the marble table top.
‘Your son assaulted a dealer in New York—’
‘Luca? You’re wrong. My son never fought any man.’
‘He struck a woman. Robbed her too, they say.’
Carlo couldn’t take it in. His son a thief, a thug. His son a liar, a fool.
‘Was it you?’
The old man blinked. ‘What?’
‘Was it you that put these stories in his head, about Caravaggio?’
‘I’m a trader!’ Carlo snapped. ‘Done manual work all my life. I don’t know about artists. He never heard this rubbish from me. He’s mad – è pazzo.’ Carlo didn’t want to hear any more. He wanted to slip back into his life, into where he had been only minutes before. ‘I can’t help you. I don’t know where he is—’
‘You have a phone number for him?’
‘No!’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
Belligerent, Carlo jutted out his chin. ‘It’s the truth. I don’t have an address or a number. Lasciatemi in pace!’
The man shrugged, seeming almost regretful.
‘I’d like to leave you alone, Mr Ranuccio, but I can’t. So I want you to think very carefully about where your son might be. Because I have to find him. It’s important, for me and for you. Perhaps you remember some place he used to visit? Some person he knew? Somewhere he might hide?’ The words hung in the drying air. ‘And when you remember, tell Luca Meriss to contact me.’ He slid a number across the table. ‘Remind him that five people have died already – nobody wants to make it six.’
Shaken, Carlo could barely speak. ‘You want me to help you? So you can kill my son?’
‘You misunderstand, Mr Ranuccio,’ the man replied. ‘Unless Luca contacts me the next death will be yours.’
Thirty-Eight
Peckham, London
It had been a bad day for Gary Rimmer. Not only had he lost the best-paid job he had ever had, he had been questioned by the police and had then fallen out with his ex-wife. Smoking a cigarette on the landing outside his council flat, he leaned on the railings and thought of Frieda Meyer. Thought of what he had told the police about seeing her leave the Eaton Square house, heading for the pharmacy two streets away.
He had just brought the car round to the front entrance, and called out to her:
‘Hey, where are you going?’
She had jumped, turned. ‘Oh, I’m just off to get a prescription.’
‘Fancy a coffee later?’
‘A coffee?’ She had nodded. ‘Yes, yes, that would be good.’
Then she had walked off and he had watched her and fantasised about having sex with her – then wondered why she was carrying the holdall. It had looked heavy. She had been struggling a little. Why would anyone take a holdall to the chemist? he had thought, then forgotten about it. Until an hour later, when Gil Eckhart had found Bernard Lowe dead.
For a while Gary had wanted to tell the police, but he had stopped himself, even when Frieda didn’t come back and a rumour started about Bernard Lowe having been murdered. A rumour that had built up a head of steam, connections being made with the other dealers who had been killed. Maybe, Gary thought, he had been a bit reckless with Frieda, giving her a key to his flat so that she
had been able to let herself in the other night, after her landlord had locked her out. His generosity – fuelled by his sex drive – didn’t seem too clever in the cold light of day.
Tossing his cigarette butt over the railings, Gary picked at the skin around his thumbnail. Maybe he’d been a bit stupid, showing off like that. But he had wanted to impress Frieda and she’d been interested. What was the harm?
What was the harm? His fucking employer had been murdered and the nurse had gone missing. And he – stupid bastard he was – had told her about Caravaggio. And worse, he’d talked about Harvey Crammer and exaggerated about how well he knew Jacob Levens, and then he’d topped it all off with a stupid boast.
She had let him kiss her and was promising a lot more – it was just a lie. A way to impress her.
‘I know where they are.’
‘What?’
‘Those paintings I was telling you about.’ He’d nuzzled her neck and slid one hand up her skirt. ‘They’re worth a fortune. Quick way to make money.’
He had seen how excited she’d become. ‘You can get them?’
What was one more lie after so many?
‘Yeah, I reckon I can,’ Gary had boasted. ‘If I knew where to go, I could sell them on. Set me up for life, it would. Me – and anyone else I fancied having around.’
‘We could go on holiday,’ she had said, kissing him, her hand moving to the bulge in his trousers. ‘We could have some real fun.’
‘Oh yeah, a good time.’
‘So where are the paintings?’
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Gary had repeated, grabbing hold of her. ‘Have a bit of patience, hey?’
Still picking at the skin around his thumb, Gary thought of Bernard Lowe and shivered. He had been in the car outside, talking on the phone, while the old man had been topped only yards away. Alive one minute, dead the next. And it wasn’t hard to guess why. Bernard Lowe had been talking about the Caravaggios. He had been spooked, visiting other dealers, talking to the likes of Harvey Crammer.