The Caravaggio Conspiracy

by Connor, Alex

  After seven years, what were a few more days?

  Seventy-Seven

  St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London

  Bette was asleep, lying with her left hand on her stomach, her breathing slow and regular. Her condition was worrying, both to her and the doctors, but she didn’t tell Gil. What he had started he had to finish, for all their sakes. Instead Bette tried to calm herself, feeling the baby moving under her hand.

  Everything was waiting its time. She whispered to the baby in her womb, reassuring it, asking it to stay still, keep growing, wait. Wait a little long, baby, wait a little longer. Soon Gil would be home and then the child could be born. Born to a safe world, its father returned.

  In her sleep, Bette moved, disturbed, dreaming of her husband and of Holly, the first Mrs Eckhart. Holly, brilliant as a comet, sly as a stoat. Holly. In her dream Holly was talking to Gil, taking his arm and pulling him towards her. They were on a street Bette didn’t know, among buildings that were unfamiliar to her, and it was raining. In the distance she heard someone call a name, but couldn’t make it out.

  But Holly heard it. Turned, alarmed, and then grabbed Gil’s arm tighter, clinging like bladderwrack to a sinking boat. She was white-faced, dressed in a red coat, and then she was gone. Relieved, Bette looked for Gil, but he was gone too.

  Restless, disturbed, she shifted in the hospital bed. And from between her legs blood, red as cadmium, seeped into the sheet below her.

  Seventy-Eight

  Huber Gallery, Berlin

  1.00 p.m.

  If Oscar Schultz had been telling the truth, he was out of Berlin, visiting London. But as Gil arrived at the gallery he could see lights on in the first-floor windows. Luca Meriss? Could be – he had stolen the keys, after all. Access wouldn’t have been a problem. But then again, would Schultz have left the gallery before he had found what he was looking for? Gil paused, looking up at the lighted windows. Oscar Schultz owned the Huber Gallery now, he had all the time in the world to search it, so why hurry? Perhaps he had had more pressing business in London.

  Walking round to the back entrance, Gil saw that the window he had used the previous day had been boarded up. Pushing against it, he felt the wood bend, but it took a few more attempts for it to give way. Finally it did so and Gil pausing, listening. A moment later he climbed the basement steps into the hallway, looking up the stairwell to the floor above. The light was on, shining half-heartedly, the sound of movement clear in the empty building.

  When he reached the first landing Gil paused, looking through an open door into the office beyond. The safe was still wide open, empty, but a chair had been pulled up to it. Curious, Gil moved towards it. There were dirty footsteps on the seat. Someone had stood on it. But why? He looked at the top of the safe. The dust which had accumulated was now disturbed, streaked. Someone had used the chair to get high enough to reach not into the safe, but behind it.

  Gil peered down the back, into the narrow space between the steel safe and the wall. The light shone through it. If there had been something there, it was gone now. Had Oscar Schultz found something? Or had Luca Meriss? As quietly as he could Gil knelt down, feeling the wall in case something had been pasted onto it. But his fingers touched wallpaper, nothing else. There was nothing there.

  Standing up, he crossed the room and pressed his foot down on the floorboards. A safe as heavy as the one in the Huber Gallery needed a strong floor to hold it. Slowly, Gil walked the length of the room. A few boards groaned, but none were loose. Next he tried the wood panelling, catching sight of the outlines of fingerprints and palm prints on the wood. He paused, trying his own hand against one of the prints. It was much smaller than his, almost feminine. Puzzled, Gil left the room and glanced down into the stairwell below.

  To his surprise he could detect heavy footsteps stomping around, hardly bothering if they were heard. Moving quickly downstairs Gil followed the footsteps. Surely Meriss would be more circumspect? Gil paused outside the door which he knew led out into the storage room.

  Carefully, slowly, he pushed it open, and a man spun round as he did so.

  ‘Was machst du hier!’

  Gil baulked, looking at the old man: a caretaker in overalls, his expression combative.

  ‘Quiet!’ Gil whispered, putting his finger to his lips to try and silence him.

  But the old man wasn’t having any of it. ‘Wer sind Sie?’

  Gil frowned. ‘I’m English—’

  ‘I don’t care! You have no right here! I’ll call the police!’

  Above them, a door creaked. Gil looked up, the old man following his gaze. Again Gil put his finger to his lips then moved out into the hallway. The floorboards groaned again above, the old building giving away the intruder as Gil began to climb the stairs. He was halfway up when there was a sudden resounding crash from below, the caretaker dropping the bucket he had been carrying and staring, mouth open, at the cellar door.

  Seventy-Nine

  The noise had alerted the intruder and by the time Gil reached the upper floor, whoever had been there had gone. Exasperated, he retraced his steps downstairs and found the caretaker still staring at the open cellar door.

  The body was lying halfway up the stone steps, naked, spread-eagled. The man’s genitals were punctured by wounds, blood soaking his thighs and buttocks. It was obvious that he had been dead for hours, the murder having taken place the previous night in the deserted gallery. Leaning down to reach the body, Gil touched the head, the loose scalp moving under his fingers. Then, skirting the corpse, he made his way into the cellar below. An old worktable that had once been used for packing and unpacking paintings was smeared with blood, knife marks scored into the surface, a discarded nail gun left covered in gore.

  Der Kreis der Acht had lost another member.

  Behind him the cellar door slammed shut, the caretaker bolting it on the outside.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Gil shouted. ‘I can explain—’

  ‘Tell the police,’ the caretaker replied, ‘explain it to them. I’m not letting you out!’

  Gil could hear the old man removing the key and then the sound of his footsteps scurrying to the front door. A moment later it closed behind him.

  Silence fell. Just Gil in the cellar, with a dead man. Trying repeatedly to break down the cellar door, Gil paused to look at the corpse on the steps behind him. The smell of blood was overwhelming, along with the odour of excrement and urine. In the semi-darkness the body glowed like a starfish, the lips drawn back in pain, the teeth bared. Despite the injuries, the man was still beautiful. Even though his nose was bruised from an earlier injury and his eyes were bloodshot from a beating, Oscar Schultz remained handsome. Scalped, tortured and helpless, he had been dragged to the steps and left there to bleed out, and was now lying, milk-white, like a fallen idol.

  Sitting down opposite the body, Gil looked at his dead rival. His prediction had turned out to be even more accurate than he could have hoped.

  … if I don’t get you, the killer will.

  Well, the killer had got to Oscar Schultz, but he was going to make sure that Gil Eckhart took the credit.

  Eighty

  3.00 p.m.

  The last person Gil expected to see was Harvey Crammer, standing in the reception area of the Berlin police station. His expression was one of amusement as he watched Gil being led out of the cells.

  ‘I was having dinner with the police chief superintendent, which turned out to be very lucky for you.’ Crammer pulled on his leather gloves. ‘I’m afraid they had you down for Oscar’s murder, you two being enemies.’

  Gil picked up his belongings, pocketing them and putting on his watch. ‘I had an alibi for last night.’

  ‘I know. They spoke to the hotel staff and that cleared you,’ Crammer replied. ‘You don’t have to thank me.’

  Ignoring the comment, Gil walked out of the station, Crammer following. The rain had turned to sleet and the roads were greasy, slick puddles filling up the
gutters. Crammer turned up the collar of his cashmere coat, his large head turned in Gil’s direction.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask how I heard what happened?’

  ‘No, and I don’t expect you’d tell me the truth if I did,’ Gil retorted, changing the subject. ‘Is your father still alive?’

  ‘My father …? No, he died many years ago. Why do you ask about him?’

  ‘He was a doctor in Berlin, wasn’t he? Like his father before him. Strange you never mentioned it.’

  ‘Why would I?’ Crammer replied. ‘It never came up in our conversations.’

  ‘But it should have done. After all, your grandfather had a very interesting story to tell, one he passed on to his son Bertholt. Your father must have mentioned it to you.’

  Crammer’s intelligent eyes remained steady. ‘What story would that be?’

  ‘About how your grandfather smuggled Caravaggio’s portrait of Fillide Melandroni out of the flak tower in 1945. How he cut it out of the frame and took it with him, hidden under his coat.’

  ‘Really? And what did he do with it then?’ Crammer replied, shaking his head. ‘It was a joke!’ He laughed. ‘A tall tale he used to tell, because he was in the flak tower with his wife. Yes, they did shelter there for a while and I imagine he saw the works of art that were housed there – but steal a Caravaggio? Never! Anyway, my father and grandfather fell out in the 1950s. They never spoke again and I never saw Bertholt after that. We moved from Germany to Canada and the family split up.’ He gave Gil a sidelong glance. ‘Don’t you think I’d have been on to it if I thought the story was true? You really think I’d have let a Caravaggio slip through my fingers?’

  Gil smiled. ‘Maybe you weren’t on to it at first. Perhaps you didn’t know the story when you were a child, but found out later. Maybe that’s why you became involved with Der Kreis der Acht.’

  Crammer shrugged, brushing the remark aside. ‘That was just a business arrangement.’ Rubbing his gloved hands together, he grimaced. ‘It’s cold. Snowing now, damn it!’ He glanced at Gil. ‘You want something to eat?’

  ‘I want some answers.’

  Without replying, Crammer walked off, Gil following him into a restaurant. On entry, the collector was greeted warmly and ushered to a table in a booth by the window, the waiter taking his coat and gloves and then turning to Gil. After a moment’s hesitation, Gil gave up his jacket and slid into a seat opposite Crammer. Putting on his glasses, the collector began to read the menu, then leaned forward and tapped Gil’s copy.

  ‘I recommend leber und zwiebeln,’ Crammer said, translating, ‘liver and onions – delicious. You’re not a vegetarian, are you? I’m always suspicious of people who won’t eat meat.’

  ‘No, I’m not a vegetarian,’ Gil replied, watching as Crammer ordered. ‘Did the police chief superintendent tell you about Oscar Schultz’s murder?’

  ‘How else would I have found out about it so soon? And your being taken to the station?’ Crammer queried, looking over the top of his glasses. ‘Beer?’

  Gil nodded.

  Although it was early, the restaurant was filling rapidly, businessmen and tourists taking the tables, the windows beginning to steam up as the snow fell outside. Heavy German woodcuts plastered the walls, together with some over-ornate carvings of wildlife and a stuffed deer’s head, its glass eyes staring bleakly at the corpulence below.

  ‘Why were your grandparents in the flak tower?’

  ‘It was the end of the war. They were hiding from the Russians who had just invaded Berlin,’ Crammer replied, thanking the waiter as he delivered their beers. He raised his glass to Gil. ‘Cheers.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’m not your enemy.’

  ‘That’s strange, Bernard Lowe used the same words to me just before he died,’ Gil replied. ‘Just after he warned me about you.’

  ‘Bernard had a wonderful sense of humour.’

  ‘Seems like everyone you know was a comedian,’ Gil said drily. ‘What about Oscar Schultz?’

  ‘He had no sense of humour at all.’

  ‘He certainly didn’t die laughing,’ Gil replied, leaning back as two plates of liver and onions arrived.

  Crammer inhaled the aroma.

  ‘Ah … Nothing like good food on a cold day.’ He cut into the liver, the inside of the meat still pink. ‘Did Oscar die like the others?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘I wasn’t there. You were.’

  ‘I was there after he died. Perhaps you were there when he died.’

  Crammer paused. ‘You think I killed him? I was having dinner with the police chief.’

  ‘You could have killed him. The pathologist can usually only tell within a couple of hours when a victim died, so you could have managed it – murdered him and then gone on to dinner. You would only have had to cross Berlin. You could have done it.’

  Amused, Crammer leant back in his seat. ‘All right, let’s play your game. Why would I kill Oscar?’

  ‘Why would you kill any of them?’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m responsible for all the murders, am I?’ He chewed his food thoughtfully, then took a sip of beer, looking around him. ‘I used to come here years ago, when I was married to Alma.’

  The change of tone took Gil by surprise. ‘How long were you two married?’

  ‘Only five years. Alma was a sweet woman, but she wanted a proper home life and a family and I didn’t. I like to travel – can’t stay anywhere for too long.’ He cut into the liver again, the knife severing the meat. ‘She was happy with Terrill. And when Greta was born she was overjoyed. Her daughter was her life. She meant everything to Alma.’

  ‘Why didn’t you marry again?’

  ‘With these good looks?’ he asked, laughing loudly, then shaking his head. ‘Oh, no, I’m not interested in commitment. I like the life I lead.’

  ‘Free to come and go as you please.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he agreed, pointing to Gil’s plate. ‘Are you enjoying that?’

  ‘It’s not bad.’

  ‘Better than prison food, which you could have been eating,’ Crammer joked. ‘Everyone knows why you hated Schultz so much.’

  ‘You mean because he was my late wife’s lover?’

  Crammer’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You’ve found that out?’

  ‘I told you, I know about Der Kreis der Acht and Holly’s involvement with it. I know that she told you about Luca Meriss and the Caravaggios.’

  ‘Holly never told me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your late wife never told me about any of it,’ Crammer said smoothly.

  ‘So who did?’

  ‘Jacob Levens,’ Crammer replied. ‘It was Jacob who filled me in.’

  ‘But you were rivals, competitors. Why would he do that?’

  Crammer let his knife and fork drop onto his plate, clattering noisily against the china. His expression was cold.

  ‘I’ve told you, Mr Eckhart, you’re looking in the wrong direction. I’m not your killer. You think I’d help you to get out of jail if I was guilty? I’d want you to stay there, wouldn’t I? A man who had something to hide would want to keep an investigator off his tail.’

  ‘Unless it was a double bluff to throw me off track,’ Gil responded. ‘A clever man might try that. An arrogant one certainly would.’ Gil pushed his half-eaten meal aside. ‘Travel’s second nature to you. You speak God knows how many languages, you use planes like most people use buses. You could get from one country to another easily. You have no wife, no family. Your work is everything to you. You’re respected, admired, almost revered. And you’re thorough too.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Your research. The way you track down artefacts, paintings. I’ve looked at your writings and they told me a lot about your character.’ Gil leaned across the table towards Crammer. ‘You’re methodical, intelligent and, above all, patient.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You can wait. You can plan, run down the item you want, e
ven if it takes years. You have resilience, tenacity. Seven years’ waiting would be easy for you.’

  The collector held his gaze. ‘A man cannot hide his true nature.’

  ‘No,’ Gil agreed, ‘but a certain kind of man could disguise it. A man who travels constantly, who has no family, no fixed friends. A man who comes in and out of other people’s lives, never spending more than a few hours anywhere. He could manage it.’

  Leaning back in his seat, Crammer finished his beer, wiped his mouth with his napkin and tossed it onto the table as Gil continued. ‘You took the keys off Oscar Schultz, didn’t you?’

  ‘Which keys?’

  ‘The keys to the Huber Gallery. You wanted them so you could search there in your own time.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Eckhart,’ Crammer said wryly, ‘you’re mistaken, very mistaken. I wouldn’t need to kill Oscar for a set of keys I already own.’ He paused for effect. ‘I’ve had keys to the Huber gallery for many years now. And you know why? Because Alma gave them to me.’ He stood up, smoothing down his jacket. ‘Why did she do that? Because she trusted me. And I suggest you start to do the same.’

  Eighty-One

  New York

  ‘So, did you find the little bastard?’ Catrina asked as soon as Gil picked up.

  ‘No. Luca Meriss is on the run again.’

  ‘Shit!’ she snapped. ‘How did you lose him?’

  ‘Hey! I’m not working for you.’

  ‘You’re not working for Jacob Levens either. I heard you’d deserted him for Naresh Joshi.’ She paused. ‘Don’t be fooled by the honourable historian; he’s not snowy white. There are a few rumours clinging to the bottom of his shoes.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like his girlfriend.’

  Gil was listening. ‘Who is?’

  ‘Who was.’

  He took in a breath. Not Holly, please God, not Holly …