by Connor, Alex
Old age hadn’t done the old man in: Caravaggio had killed Bernard Lowe.
Gary shuddered, sweating with fear, glancing up the empty landing. He had been afraid of being alone, but not selfish enough to go to his ex-wife’s house. Instead he had gone to the pub and stayed there, then moved on to the betting shop. Anywhere busy, anywhere he was surrounded by people. And all the time he thought about the murders, about the torture of the Weir twins and the old man being killed right under his nose.
He had told the police he’d seen no one suspicious, nothing unusual. But he didn’t tell them about a good-looking nurse carrying a holdall. He kept quiet because he was afraid – afraid that Frieda Meyer was involved with the old guy’s murder. Not on her own, but with someone else. Someone else who might just come after him if he didn’t keep quiet. He just had to keep quiet, Gary thought helplessly, and he’d be all right.
Unnerved, he jumped as he heard the lift stop at his floor, and stepped back as a woman passed with a toddler. The kid reminded him of his own daughter, reminded him of how much he had to lose. God, why had he been so stupid? Made up such a lie to impress some tart? Frieda Meyer couldn’t really have believed him, could she? Couldn’t really think he knew where the paintings were? Gary gripped the railings with both hands to steady his nerves, then scurried back into his flat, slamming the door closed and locking it.
He didn’t realise he was locking someone in, not out.
Thirty-Nine
New York
6.45 a.m.
To Luca’s surprise, the man simply walked past him and got off the train at the next station. Breathing out, he tried to relax and to calm his nerves. He had hidden out in the subway all night, then jumped on one of the earliest trains, travelling with the cleaners and early shift workers. He felt safe underground: no one had bothered him and he had even managed to sleep a little, although he hadn’t decided what to do next.
So he was anxious when a heavy man suddenly sat down in the seat next to his. Furtively, Luca stole a glance at the stranger, and was surprised by the expensive overcoat and classic leather brogues. Maybe he was just a passenger, he thought. Or some freak trying to pick him up. Luca glanced at the man again. He had large, ugly features, but his skin had the expensive look of treatments and his hands were manicured.
Uncomfortable, Luca changed seats.
The man followed him.
Then he smiled and put out his hand.
‘Harvey Crammer,’ he said, shaking Luca’s unresponsive hand. ‘I think we should talk.’
‘Harvey Crammer?’ Luca stared at him, taken aback. ‘I … I wanted to talk to you. You’re on my list.’
‘Am I in good company?’ Crammer put his large head on one side. ‘Mr Meriss, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m trying to help you.’
‘How did you know I was in New York?’
‘I spend a lot of time here, and your presence was noted and reported to me. You have quite a following since you went online.’ Crammer smiled, crossing his legs as the train passed through a deserted station without stopping. The compartment was empty apart from them. ‘I know you’ve been talking to Catrina Hoyt. How did it go?’
Silent, Luca stared at the floor, at the crusty deposits of gum trodden into the metal plating.
‘You can refuse to tell me, of course, but I don’t see why. You’re in a strange city, and you’re on your own, and people are looking for you. You need an ally, and frankly I’m the best you’re going to get.’
‘Gil Eckhart said the same.’
‘Oh, Eckhart.’ Crammer smiled at the name. ‘What does he want?’
‘He has a buyer for the paintings.’
‘Who?’
‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.’ Luca turned to Crammer. ‘The paintings aren’t for sale. I never set out to sell them—’
‘But you have them?’
Luca hesitated, then got to his feet and walked over to the door. Sighing, Crammer followed him.
‘Let me spell this out for you. You’ve told the world that you’re Caravaggio’s descendant and that you know where two of his missing paintings are. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have proof?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you show Catrina Hoyt the proof?’
‘No,’ Luca replied, turning away. The train was moving fast, picking up speed.
Thoughtful, Crammer regarded the Italian. He was jumpy. Pushing too hard might spook him, make him run again. Perhaps a softer approach would work.
‘Where did you stay last night?’
‘In the subway. I hid – it seemed safer here than anywhere else,’ Luca replied. ‘I was in a hotel, but I’m not going back. Catrina Hoyt will look for me there.’
‘Did you tell her anything about the whereabouts of the paintings?’
‘No.’
‘You can stay with me. I have an apartment in New York. Don’t worry, I’m not gay. I’m after the paintings, not your body.’
‘I can manage—’
‘No, you can’t. If you stay out here on your own you’ll get picked off, Mr Meriss. Have you heard about the murders in London?’ He paused. ‘I can see from your face that you have. You know that Bernard Lowe has been killed?’
‘What?’
‘Was he one of the names on your list? I imagine he was – Bernard would have been frantic to get hold of the Caravaggios.’ He tapped Luca on the shoulder. ‘Let me help you.’
‘You just want the paintings.’
‘Of course I do. I make no bones about that. But I’d also like to live, and three dealers being killed within days is worrying. The only thing they had in common was their interest in Caravaggio. It can’t be a coincidence that your announcement coincided with their deaths.’
‘I had nothing to do with it!’
‘Not directly, no. But indirectly, I think you did.’ Crammer gazed out of the window as they flashed through a closed station. ‘How did you find out about the paintings?’
‘I’m not telling you that! I don’t know who I can trust. You just want to get hold of the Caravaggios and then leave me to fend for myself.’
Crammer sighed. ‘All right, let’s try a different tack. How long have you known about the paintings?’
‘Over seven years.’
‘Seven years,’ Crammer repeated, thoughtful. ‘Seven years ago two art dealers – a husband and wife – were killed in Berlin. In exactly the same way as the recent killings in London. No one knew why. Jacob Levens found the bodies, Gil Eckhart worked on the case, and I was in Berlin when it happened. And now all of us are reunited because of the new murders. Seven years ago did you talk to anyone about the paintings?’
Luca thought of Naresh Joshi. ‘I talked to someone, yes.’
‘You showed them the proof?’
‘No. We spoke, but it never led anywhere. I didn’t tell them anything important. Certainly I said nothing about proof.’
‘But there must have been someone you confided in,’ Crammer continued. ‘Did you talk to anyone else about the paintings all those years ago?’
Luca closed his eyes and gripped the handrail, trying to hold onto himself, fighting panic.
‘I only told one other person. I’d found out about my family history, traced it back. I’d been working on it for years. Kept it a secret until I was sure that I was related to Caravaggio. When I knew, it wasn’t that difficult to work out where the paintings were. I told one person only and he didn’t even believe me. He just shrugged it off. But it was important. It was family.’
‘Who did you tell?’
Luca looked at him, desperate. ‘My father. I told my father.’
Forty
Peckham, London
2.30 p.m.
She caught him unawares, coming into the shaded hallway and making him jump.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Gary snapped, staring at the woman incredulously. ‘Frieda? Is that you?’
She was standing with her ba
ck against the light, her face indiscernible.
‘Are you OK?’
Moving over to her, he touched her arm and she suddenly dropped to the floor. Flicking on the light switch, Gary knelt down. Blood was seeping out from under her body, bubbles coming from the corners of her mouth. Her face and head had been beaten, her features swollen, pulped. He thought for a moment that she had been knocked down by a car, then realised that she could never have made it from the street up to his flat.
‘Christ, what happened to you?’
She tried to speak but couldn’t, gripping his arm instead.
‘Hang on! I’ll get an ambulance.’
But she wouldn’t let go of his arm. Gary tried to loosen her grip.
‘Let me go – you need help.’
Blood was pumping from her body and spreading across the hallway, and then her eyes went blank, the bubbles stopped coming from her mouth, and she let go of his arm.
Frieda Meyer was dead.
‘Jesus!’ Gary sobbed as he jerked away from her and fell back against the wall.
Someone had come to his flat and killed Frieda Meyer. Had they been looking for him and found her instead? Or had she come to his place to hide and been cornered there?
Wiping his hands on his jeans to get rid of the blood, Gary scrambled to his feet. He could hear music coming from the flat next door and flicked off the light. His heart thumping, he stepped over the corpse and grabbed his jacket and mobile phone, making for the door.
Peering out into the landing, Gary could see a man letting himself into another flat and a teenage girl smoking by the lift.
Should he call the police or make a run for it?
He might have deceived Bernard Lowe, but the police would find out about his conviction soon enough. Two years earlier his ex-wife had reported him for assault. It had been an act of malice and she had dropped the charges, but it was on his record and there it stayed, ready to be found by the police. And then how would Gary Rimmer explain away a dead woman in his flat?
Suddenly he realised that whoever had killed Frieda Meyer had known his history. Known that Gary Rimmer would serve as the ideal scapegoat. He could sense the body behind him, his flesh crawling, the smell of blood turning his stomach. He had never seen anyone dead before, never seen a person die. And he was afraid, terribly afraid. He pressed himself against the wall, uncertain if he should risk the outside world, but he knew he couldn’t stay with a bloodied corpse leaking fluids onto his floor.
Staggering out of his flat, Gary Rimmer headed for the stairs, running down six flights towards the street below.
Forty-One
Campolfelice, Nr Palermo, Sicily
He had no appetite for food any more. Instead Carlo moved out of the sun and walked home, keeping to the shade of the houses. Several times he glanced behind him to see if he was being followed by the man who had threatened him, but there was no one there. Not even a shadow falling on the heated cobbles. Only his shadow, smaller now, walking like a phantom.
When he reached his house he fumbled with the lock, then entered. It was cool, inviting, but he didn’t see it, instead remembering the man who had stopped at his table and overturned his life. And all because of his idiot son! Moving over to a side table, he scrabbled around inside the drawer, overturning it in his temper. Finally he discovered the note he had been searching for – a note with a phone number on it.
He had despised his son for years, thought him an embarrassment, forgotten him as much as he could. But he was damned if he was going to be threatened, or put his son in danger.
Reaching for the phone, Carlo punched in Luca’s number and waited. But there was no answer. His son was out there somewhere. Carlo hadn’t cared to know where, hadn’t asked, hadn’t wanted to know about Luca or his life, certainly hadn’t wanted to talk to his son.
But he wanted to speak to him now.
Above his head a clock read four thirty, and outside a sick dog scratched itself helplessly in the last dying rays of a late sun.
Forty-Two
London
Gil was visiting Bette when his mobile rang, and he walked out into the hospital corridor to take the call. The line was bad, the worried voice familiar.
‘Mr Eckhart, it’s Luca Meriss.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Berlin,’ the Italian replied. ‘I was in New York, but I came back home. I’ve been talking to Harvey Crammer.’
‘He found you?’ Gil said, glancing out of the hospital window into the car park below. ‘I expected him to get in touch with you.’
‘I saw Catrina Hoyt too.’
‘And?’
‘It went badly,’ Luca confessed, dodging into a shop doorway. He had bought a new mobile and his first call was to Gil. ‘Look, you were right, this is all getting out of hand. My father needs help.’
‘What’s your father got to do with any of this?’
‘I told him about the Caravaggio paintings. I told him about the proof,’ Luca replied. ‘He didn’t believe me, but I told him. I’ve put him in danger.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Harvey Crammer was talking about the dealers being murdered and how it was strange it had all happened when I came on the scene. Then he told me about the earlier killings in Germany. Said you were involved, and Jacob Levens, and that he was there too.’
‘Yes. So?’
‘Crammer asked me when I first knew about the Caravaggio paintings. And I told him it was seven years ago.’ Gil took in a breath as Luca continued. ‘Then he asked me who I’d confided in and given the details to – and I said no one. Except my father.’
‘You told your father where the paintings were?’
‘Not exactly. I told him I knew where they were. But I left something with him – some proof. It’s in his house, hidden. At least it was seven years ago. I don’t know if it’s still there.’
Gil kept his voice steady. ‘Did you tell Harvey Crammer?’
‘No. I just told him that my father knew about the paintings. Nothing about the proof or what it was.’ Luca looked around him. ‘I’ve tried ringing my father, but there’s no reply. And he can’t get hold of me because I dumped my old phone. I’ve still got my passport, but only a bit of money left.’ He was talking in jerky sentences, short of breath. ‘You’re the only person I’ve called, the only person with this number. I won’t give it to anyone else.’
‘You shouldn’t have made an enemy of Catrina Hoyt.’
‘I know, and I know she’ll be after me. And Harvey Crammer’s trying to get me to trust him but I don’t.’ He snatched a breath. ‘I can’t stay in Berlin either. I’m going back to Palermo.’
‘Don’t do that. You could be walking into a trap. You don’t know that what Crammer said was true. Your father might not be in any danger—’
Luca cut him short.
‘I confided in him! Of course he’s in danger!’ he retorted, slinking back into the doorway and watching the passers-by outside the airport. ‘He’s an old man. If they get to him they might hurt him. Jesus, they tortured those dealers – what’s to stop them doing that to my father?’
Finally Gil had a connection between the Berlin murders and the London killings seven years apart. The news about Caravaggio had leaked out from Palermo. But from Luca? Or his father? Another thought occurred to him. Why were the Hubers the first victims? They dealt in Baroque paintings and admired Caravaggio, but so did many other dealers. So what was the link? Who, or what, sent the killer to the Friedrichstrasse that March night?
‘You’ve lived in Berlin for a while,’ Gil said. ‘Did you know the Hubers?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re sure you didn’t tell anyone else about Caravaggio?’
‘No!’ Luca snapped.
‘But if you had the information over seven years ago why didn’t you go public then? Why wait?’
Luca paused.
‘Are you still there?’
‘I have to help my
father,’ the Italian replied, but his tone had altered, a chilling distance about it. ‘I have to get home.’
‘Why did you wait for so long?’ Gil persisted. ‘Why?’
‘I couldn’t speak out then.’
‘Why not?’
‘I was ill.’
I was ill.
‘Hospitalised?’
‘Yes.’
Gil was feeling his way along. ‘What was wrong with you?’
Silence.
‘Luca? What was wrong with you?’
‘I had a breakdown,’ he said finally. ‘That’s why I couldn’t speak out. I was committed to a mental institution.’
Gil paused, remembering the conversation he had had with Bette days earlier:
But if it was the same man, where’s he’s been for seven years?
Abroad. In prison. Hospitalised. Who knows?
‘Seven years is a long time.’
‘I was very ill. I had a lot of treatment: drugs and therapy.’ The Italian went on. ‘I’m not crazy, Mr Eckhart – I recovered. It was a good hospital, outside Berlin. They had all the latest equipment, the best doctors, psychiatrists. It took a long time to get better, but I did.’
The confession was troubling, raising more questions than answers.
‘When were you admitted?’
‘March 29th 2007.’
Gingerly, Gil felt his way along. ‘What was wrong with you?’
‘You mean am I mad?’ Luca countered. ‘No, I was suffering from depression, hearing things – the world scared me so much I withdrew, shut myself off. I might still be cut off if it hadn’t been for the hospital. They brought me back to life.’
‘With medication?’
‘At first, yes.’
‘You had a therapist?’
‘We all did.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Not about Caravaggio. I’d learnt to keep that quiet because they thought it was a symptom – that I was delusional when I said I was related to him.’