The Caravaggio Conspiracy

by Connor, Alex

  Caravaggio’s face was half in light, half in darkness, like his paintings. But it was his mutilated side that was revealed, his rheumy eye fixed on the old man. ‘Would you lie to me?’ he repeated, leaning towards him over the arm of the chair, his black hair matted.

  ‘No, on my honour, I do not lie.’

  Tapping his lips with his fingertips, Caravaggio leaned back, his whole face now shadowed, his voice hoarse.

  ‘Come closer.’ He beckoned to the priest. ‘Come. Come. Are you afraid of me?’ When the old man didn’t reply he continued, ‘I should be the one afraid. They are trying to murder me. Wanting the reward for killing Caravaggio. Men I wronged, men with none of my talent, trying for my scalp … Do I frighten you?’

  ‘A little,’ the old man admitted.

  The painter made a grunting sound in his throat. ‘Come a little closer. Come!’ Irritated, he lumbered to his feet, taking the priest’s hand and pulling him over to the easel. ‘I have a message for the Cardinal.’ He turned the old man’s head towards the painting and the priest stared at the image of the sorrowful David and the severed head of Goliath. Blood oozed from the neck of the fallen giant, his mouth hanging open, his eyes vacant.

  ‘This is you,’ the priest murmured.

  Caravaggio nodded, then pushed the old man away. ‘Go back to Rome. Tell the Cardinal to hurry. I am ill. If someone doesn’t kill me I will die anyway if I am left here to rot. I need the pardon.’ He pointed to the easel. ‘Tell Cardinal Borghese I have a masterpiece for him. Tell the old goat I offer a bribe—’

  ‘Signore!’

  ‘Phrase it how you will,’ Caravaggio urged, ‘but tell him the painting is his. I ask nothing for a fee. Only the pardon.’

  The priest moved to the door. ‘I’ll tell the Cardinal.’

  ‘Seventy-nine …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you were seventy-nine?’

  The priest nodded, confused. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it good to be old?’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to tell you, Signore. Why d’you ask?’

  ‘I want to know about something I will never experience.’ He waved the priest away. ‘Tell the Cardinal what I offer – a painting for a pardon.’

  Sixty-Three

  Taubenstrasse, Berlin

  10.00 a.m.

  She was surprised, but pleased to hear from him, turning up at the cafe for their meeting dead on the hour. The tiny figure of Greta Huber slid into the seat opposite Gil and smiled when he ordered hot chocolate.

  ‘You remembered.’

  ‘You always liked it,’ Gil said, ‘and it’s freezing outside. The perfect morning for drinking chocolate. Jesus, it is colder than London.’

  Pulling off her gloves, Greta cupped her hands around the mug then took a cautious sip.

  ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘And you. I heard you were doing OK.’

  ‘You’re the only one who ever bothered to check up on me. Apart from Naresh.’

  ‘Naresh?’ Gil asked. ‘D’you mean Naresh Joshi?’

  She nodded, her hair white-blond, eyes dark grey, the whites bluish. ‘He was very kind to me after my parents died. I stayed with him in India.’ She smiled, raising pale brows. ‘Nothing like that! He’s like a big brother. Always very respectful. Very proper.’

  ‘He seems like that,’ Gil agreed.

  ‘So you know him?’

  ‘By reputation, for years. But I spoke to him for the first time the other day.’

  She smiled, hardly moving the corners of her mouth.

  ‘I thought you’d been hired by my uncle.’

  ‘I un-hired myself.’

  ‘Good.’ Her eyes fixed on him, her hands pink now that the flesh had warmed up. ‘Why did you want to see me?’

  ‘I need to talk to you about the murders seven years ago,’ Gil said. ‘I know I’m asking a lot, but I need help. You’re the only person I can ask.’

  ‘I wasn’t very helpful at the time, was I?’ she asked, embarrassed.

  ‘You had a breakdown. And you were very young.’

  She nodded. ‘Tell me what you want to know.’

  ‘Can you tell me about that night?’

  Her gaze moved over Gil’s shoulder and fixed on a distant point. It was almost as though she was stepping back to remember. ‘It was March the fourteenth 2007. I’d been out with friends. My mother said she’d be working late so I went into the gallery by the back entrance and looked for her. She wasn’t in the office. She was dead. In the gallery, on the floor.’

  The recount was chilling in its sparsity.

  ‘When I spoke to you back then you said there had been a man hanging around the gallery in the days before the murders.’

  Greta thought for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, I remember … He looked like a tramp. My mother saw him too.’

  ‘D’you remember anything about him?’

  ‘Beard, hair dark.’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing stood out. He was very dirty. I can’t tell you any more.’

  ‘And before the murders, were your parents acting differently?’

  She paused, changed tack abruptly. ‘D’you think my uncle might be murdered?’

  Taken aback, Gil hesitated. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because he was one of them, wasn’t he? One of their group. I’ve been thinking. I even asked Jacob about it, but he wouldn’t tell me the truth. He lies, always has done – that’s why my mother mistrusted him.’

  ‘You said he was one of a group,’ Gil prompted her. ‘What group?’

  ‘The dealers. The Weir brothers, Harvey Crammer, Oscar Schultz, Jacob and Bernard Lowe. They all traded.’

  ‘So? That’s the business.’

  Greta was still staring over his shoulder, avoiding eye contact. ‘My parents traded with all of them. My uncle said that the art world’s like that, very cliquey. But I think there’s more to it — and now five of them are dead I’m sure of it.’ This time she looked straight at him. ‘When my parents were killed, I kept some of their belongings. I wasn’t thinking straight, I just piled a load of papers into a bag. I wanted their handwriting – something they’d held and written.’ She paused, placing her palm over the top of the mug. ‘I never read them until a week ago, just after I’d sold the gallery. I should have read them earlier.’

  ‘Why? What was in them?’

  ‘Have you heard of The London Galleries Limited?’

  Gil nodded. ‘Very small concern, low profile. But I don’t know much else – they were set up after I left the art world.’

  ‘So you didn’t know that they were owned by Sebastian and Benjamin Weir?’ Gil shook his head as Greta continued. ‘Did you know that Bernard Lowe owned a company called Lexington Limited?’

  Jacob’s voice came back to him:

  Bernard Lowe was bringing in pieces from the Far East. Transporting them in through his own shipping company. Holly smuggled some artefacts for him.

  ‘I knew that Lowe had a shipping company.’

  ‘Did you know that it was managed by Oscar Schultz?’ Greta paused, watching Gil’s face. ‘The same Oscar Schultz who now owns my parents’ gallery.’

  The news shook Gil.

  ‘What? When did that happen?’

  ‘The other day. I should have looked into the sale more carefully, but once I’d decided to get rid of the gallery I just wanted it over and done with. Lexington Limited made their offer and I accepted. If I’d known Oscar Schultz was involved I’d never have sold it to him. My mother hated Schultz.’

  ‘She wasn’t alone.’

  Greta dropped her voice so that Gil had to strain to hear her. ‘I’m so sorry about your wife. I know what happened. It must have been terrible for you. The accident, I mean.’

  Gil paused, staring out of the window into the Taubenstrasse. The weather was squally, a man walking past head down against the wind, sleet making itself felt as the temperature plummeted. He was thinking of Oscar Schultz and of what Jacob Levens had to
ld him. Had Jacob been lying about Holly wanting to leave him? Had there been another man? The thoughts Gil had suppressed since Jacob’s outburst overwhelmed him suddenly, along with the swelling suspicion about his late wife.

  ‘Who else knows about all of this?’ he asked, turning his attention back to Greta.

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose someone could put two and two together if they were in the trade.’ She lifted her hand from the mug and steam rose like a feather. ‘It was my uncle who introduced my parents to Oscar Schultz and Bernard Lowe. Harvey Crammer had always been around. I’d known him most of my life. He was always helping out, giving advice.’

  Gil chose his next words carefully. ‘He was in Berlin when your parents were murdered.’

  ‘You think he’s the killer?’ She sighed, looking away. ‘He loved my mother.’

  ‘How did he get on with your father?’

  ‘They weren’t friends.’

  Greta took several sips of her drink, like a white bird at a water fountain. Timid, ready to fly off.

  ‘She was afraid of my uncle.’

  ‘Did she say why?’

  ‘No. But when I was little Jacob came to Berlin and stayed with us. He took the flat over the gallery. And then one evening there was a terrible argument between him and my mother. My father wasn’t there, and in the morning Jacob had gone. They hardly spoke after that. But a year before she was killed Jacob was back in touch with my mother and they were trading again.’ She blew out her cheeks, unexpectedly emotional. ‘I told her to cut him off, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Said she couldn’t. That there were things I didn’t understand.’

  ‘You have no idea what she was afraid of?’

  ‘No,’ Greta said firmly. ‘But she was tied to Jacob somehow. It was almost as though he had a hold over her.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I think he killed her.’

  ‘He can’t have done. I checked your uncle out seven years ago. He was in London when Alma was murdered.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. He didn’t lay a finger on her but he frightened her to death. He told her something. Shared something he shouldn’t have done. My mother was keeping a secret from me and my father. I don’t know why she couldn’t tell us, but she didn’t. It was the secret that killed her. The secret her brother gave her.’ Greta’s eyes were blurry, tears barely held back. ‘One of those bastards – or all of those bastards – killed my parents. My mother was hounded to death and I want you to find out who did that to her.’ Greta picked up the mug, her hands shaking. ‘I ran away before – I couldn’t face it, but I can now. I have to. I’ve come back to live in Berlin again.’

  Gil was surprised. ‘You think that’s wise?’

  ‘It’s not home but it’s where I have to be, close to my parents.’ She nodded as though making a promise to herself. ‘You’ll find the murderer, I know you will. Finish it, Gil. Then we can all move on.’

  Sixty-Four

  The Royal Academy, London

  12.00 noon

  Naresh Joshi had come to London to give a lecture on the Italian Baroque Painters and he was heartened by the turnout – a full house. Students who had followed his research pressed him for information and news of the next book he was preparing to write, but when he left the exhilarating confines of the Academy and walked out into Burlington Gardens, Naresh paused.

  There was a definite charge in the atmosphere; it was static, fizzing with unease. As he stood outside The Weir Gallery, Naresh touched the police tape, glancing at the empty window behind the metal grille. He remembered the Weir twins and turned to find himself being watched by a dealer across the road. When he realised that he had been seen, the man turned away and Naresh moved on into Cork Street.

  The terror was palpable. Fear was in the air. The murderer struck and disappeared. No one had any clues as to his identity and where, or when, he would come again … For some reason the old London fable of Spring Heeled Jack came to Naresh’s mind. The killer, who, in folklore, jumped into places, killed, and jumped out again.

  Spring-heeled Jack … He glanced up at the banner outside Jacob Levens’ gallery. The wind had caught it and wrapped it around the suspending pole, bunching it up like a chrysalis that would never hatch. The tourists were still on the street, but no dealers. No little groups of men muttering over catalogues, or brandishing glossy inventories from Sotheby’s. Where once cafes sported dealers drinking coffee and talking on their mobiles, now there were only empty seats.

  The art world had closed in on itself.

  Naresh glanced at the door of The Levens Gallery, then rang the bell. A young woman answered, smiled as she recognised him and let him in.

  ‘I’m so sorry, but Mr Levens is busy.’

  ‘I see,’ Naresh said pleasantly, dropping his voice. ‘Busy or drunk?’

  ‘Drunk,’ she replied, relieved. ‘He hasn’t come out of his office for over twenty-four hours. Won’t answer his phone or the door. I don’t know what to do about the customers.’

  ‘Tell them he’s travelling,’ Naresh replied. ‘Can you let me into Jacob’s office?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to.’

  ‘I’ll take full responsibility,’ he reassured her. ‘Someone should check on him, to see he’s all right.’

  Jacob Levens was lying full length on the leather Chesterfield. He had loosened the collar of his shirt, pulled off his tie and removed his shoes. Three empty bottles of whisky sat on his desk, a fourth lying by his right hand. He had wet himself.

  ‘Jacob?’

  Naresh moved over to the immobile figure.

  ‘Jacob. Wake up. Come on, Jacob!’ Alarmed, he moved closer. ‘Jacob, wake up!’

  Sixty-Five

  Taubenstrasse, Berlin

  Gil was just saying goodbye to Greta when his phone rang.

  ‘Sie akzeptieren ein R-Gespräch kostenlos?’ A voice asked Gil. Frowning, he beckoned to Greta, passing her the phone. She listened, then translated.

  ‘The operator wants to know if you’ll accept a collect charge call.’ She spoke quickly in German. ‘Wer ist es?’ Greta turned back to Gil. ‘It’s someone called Luca Meriss.’

  He nodded, taking the phone from her. ‘Luca, are you all right?’

  The voice was shaky, barely decipherable. ‘You have to come and get me—’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘They came for me, they were going to kill me!’ Luca shouted, then dropped his voice. ‘I had to hide. I had to hide!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a garage. The lock was broken on the men’s room door. I’ve been there all night, until now. I had to sneak out to get to a phone.’

  ‘Are you out in the open?’

  Luca shivered down the line. ‘You have to get me! You said I’d be safe in hospital! You promised me!’

  ‘Luca!’ Gil snapped as Greta looked at him curiously. ‘Calm down. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Neukölln, near the Stadion Britz-Süd.’

  ‘Neukölln?’

  Greta’s eyebrows rose as she listened to the one-sided conversation.

  ‘Don’t hang about in the open, Luca,’ Gil advised him. Neukölln was a rough area, hardly the place for someone on the run. ‘You said you were in a garage nearby?’

  ‘It’s derelict, near the Stadion entrance. Have you got a car?’

  ‘Hire car, Audi,’ Gil told him, hurrying on. ‘Why didn’t you call me last night—’

  ‘I couldn’t find a public phone!’ he almost screamed. ‘I’m freezing and I’m scared. They wanted to kill me—’

  Gil interrupted him.

  ‘Go back to the garage, Luca. Go back to the garage and wait for me. I’ll find you.’

  The Italian was shivering so badly that he could barely talk. ‘Hurry! Please, hurry.’

  Sixty-Sixe

  London

  ‘What the fuck!’ Jacob exclaimed, waking up and pushing Naresh away. His face was flushed, his eyes bloodshot. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Naresh was t
aken aback. ‘I thought … I thought you were dead.’

  Glaring, Jacob wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then walked into the bathroom. Naresh could hear him urinating, then the tap running. Finally he came out, drinking a glass of water. His expression was hostile as he stared at the historian.

  ‘I haven’t see you for a while.’ He struggled to put his shoes back on, still inebriated. ‘First Greta, now you. All hoping I’m dead, are you? You very close to my little niece, Naresh? I bet you are. Bet you’ve got your eyes on the money she made selling the gallery.’

  ‘I didn’t know she had,’ Naresh said honestly. ‘I’ve been travelling. I haven’t spoken to Greta for over a week.’

  ‘You want to catch up. Little Greta’s in the money now.’ Jacob belched, his breath sour as he tried to compose himself. ‘I told my secretary that she wasn’t to let anyone in—’

  ‘She was worried about you. I said I’d take full responsibility.’

  ‘Good. You can be the one to tell her she’s fired,’ Jacob replied, flopping back onto the couch.

  ‘Dear God, what happened to you?’ Naresh asked, glancing around the room. ‘Why are you drinking again?’

  ‘Why d’you care?’ Jacob replied. ‘You and I aren’t friends, so why the concern? Why are you even here? … It’s the murders, isn’t it? Or is it the Caravaggios you’re after?’ He could see he had hit the mark and pursued it. ‘I thought so! You despise us dealers, but you’re the same as we are underneath. You don’t want the paintings to sell, you want to “talk about them” and puff up your own reputation at the same time. You’re fooling no one, Joshi, with all this holier-than-thou crap. You’re as keen on making a reputation as the rest of us, it’s just that you don’t like getting your hands dirty. “I want to protect and preserve culture.” He mimicked Naresh’s cultured voice. ‘Bloody outsider. Why don’t you go back to India and worship your bloody elephants or whatever it is you people idolise?’

  Naresh flinched. ‘I was educated in this country!’

  ‘Doesn’t make you any less of a foreigner,’ Jacob replied. ‘You’re Asian, Naresh. You’ll never get accepted by the art world. Not really. They pay you lip service, but they despise you behind your back.’