The Caravaggio Conspiracy

by Connor, Alex

  ‘You used the past tense. Is she dead?’

  ‘No, but the affair is. Dead and buried.’ Catrina paused, pleased to have Gil hanging on her words. ‘They were very discreet, but it still got out. You don’t know, do you? Let me fill you in – Naresh Joshi was sleeping with Greta Huber.’

  Gil flinched as Catrina continued.

  ‘She was only seventeen at the time. I guess her parents weren’t too thrilled.’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’

  ‘Yeah. Not many knew but an old boyfriend told me. He knew because he’d been a dealer in Berlin at the time … Of course after Greta’s parents were killed the lovers had a clear run. Something good comes out of every tragedy, hey?’

  Gil thought back to Greta’s breakdown, supposedly brought about by her parents’ murder. She had been catatonic, removed from the real world, inconsolable. Had it been genuine? he wondered. Or had Greta Huber discovered something she couldn’t face, something which led to her breakdown? The only other alternative was chilling. Greta was working with Naresh Joshi.

  After all, when she finally left hospital she went to India and stayed there. She had spoken to Gil of Naresh’s kindness when she found herself alone but denied all closeness, just as the historian had done. Gil thought back. He had assumed that Luca Meriss had run from Greta’s apartment because he had spotted the photograph of her with Crammer. But maybe there had been another reason. Had Luca discovered that Greta was working with Joshi? Naresh Joshi. The one person Luca had longed to impress – the man who might turn out to be deceiving him.

  ‘Are you saying that you think Naresh Joshi’s the killer?’

  ‘No,’ Catrina replied shortly, ‘I’m just saying watch him, he’s not what he seems. But then you could say that about everyone.’ Her tone shifted. ‘I just heard that Oscar Schultz has been killed. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Meriss is in Berlin.’

  ‘Crammer’s in Berlin too. He could have killed Oscar.’

  He could hear her take a breath.

  ‘I guess you thought it would easier with all the suspects dying off?’ she mocked. ‘But then again, others are popping up everywhere.’

  Gil changed tack. ‘Were you involved with Der Kreis der Acht?’

  ‘I don’t even know what that means.’

  ‘The Circle of Eight – a group of eight dealers, of whom only Crammer and Jacob Levens remain. The others are all dead.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’ She paused, thinking. ‘They kept that fucking quiet.’

  ‘But you dealt with the Weir twins, Schultz, Crammer, Bernard Lowe and Jacob Levens.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They never mentioned their collaboration?’

  ‘I’m in New York, they were based in Europe. Sure they traded worldwide, but I was an outsider to them. They wouldn’t have liked some American broad in on their act.’

  Hoping to guard her off guard, Gil changed the subject. ‘How did you find the drug? The muscle relaxant?’

  ‘It was hidden in the base of Meriss’s bag – the holdall he left behind here.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go the police with what you found?’

  ‘What the fuck! It’s a muscle relaxant. It’s not illegal to own it.’

  ‘Unless you’re a killer. And if you really think Luca Meriss is the killer surely you’d want to stop him before he kills again? Or comes for you.’

  ‘Why would he come for me? He wanted to deal with me.’

  ‘But he didn’t, did he? He bolted instead,’ Gil replied. ‘You could have planted the drug on him. You could be lying, tipping me off to get me on your side and find out what’s going on.’

  ‘You think I’m involved with these killings!’ she laughed. ‘I’m in fucking New York. I can’t time travel.’

  ‘No, but you could be working with someone else.’

  Her voice hardened.

  ‘You’re chasing your tail, Eckhart. Yeah, I wanted the Caravaggios and I was willing to do business with the Italian. But he’s long gone, along with my opportunity. I’m trying to help because I’m pissed at being duped.’ She glanced back at the screen on her laptop, at Luca Meriss’s website. ‘The clock’s still ticking. Only now there’s something new been added.’ She paused, then read out loud.

  ‘… Mr Luca Meriss wishes it to be known that he is returning to his birthplace, Palermo …’

  ‘Palermo. Of course.’ Gil sighed. ‘That’s where The Nativity was stolen.’

  And where Meriss said it still was.

  ‘I don’t get it!’ Catrina said impatiently. ‘Meriss was running away from everyone and now he’s advertising his whereabouts? How stupid is this man?’

  ‘He’s not stupid,’ Gil replied. ‘He’s gambling, dragging everyone out. Forcing their hands.’

  ‘So they can kill him?’ she queried, then paused. ‘Unless he’s the killer—’

  ‘And he’s calling his victims to him.’

  Eighty-Two

  Naresh Joshi’s voice held a tremor of reproof. ‘You didn’t return my messages. I was wondering what was happening. Why didn’t you call back?’

  Gil sighed down the phone. ‘I couldn’t. I was arrested.’

  ‘Arrested? What for?’

  ‘Oscar Schultz was murdered. The police seemed to think I’d done it. We were enemies, and we’d just had a fight at the Huber Gallery.’

  ‘Why were you there?’

  ‘I thought Schultz was looking for something.’ Gil paused, setting a trap, inviting the historian to fall in. ‘He told me that the paintings were hidden there.’

  Naresh laughed down the phone. ‘He told you that!’

  ‘He did. So I looked for them,’ Gil replied. ‘I knew how big a liar Schultz was, but he might have been telling the truth for once.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you found them?’

  ‘No. I just found Schultz’s body. He’d been killed in exactly the same way as the others. Stripped, tortured and scalped.’

  If Naresh had seen the trap, he had dodged it.

  ‘Then it can’t have been Jacob,’ he said thoughtfully down the line. ‘Jacob Levens has been in London, locked in his gallery for days.’

  ‘Has he? Someone locking themselves away, refusing to answer the door or the phone, might not actually be there. After all, who’d really know?’

  ‘No one. Where’s Harvey Crammer?’

  ‘In Berlin,’ Gil replied, adding swiftly, ‘Where are you?’

  There was a bristling pause.

  ‘London. And I resent what you’re implying. I’m hiring you to find the murderer, Mr Eckhart, not insult me.’

  ‘But you’ve insulted me. Withheld information. Like your affair with Greta Huber.’ When the historian didn’t reply, Gil continued. ‘I found out from a very unlikely source. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I was ashamed,’ Naresh admitted. ‘I loved Greta very much, but it was wrong to go behind her parents’ back.’

  ‘How did it start?’

  ‘I was travelling, as usual, and I came to Berlin to give a speech. Alma and Terrill invited me to dinner. They were respected dealers, very accomplished. We all got on well.’

  ‘Especially you and Greta,’ Gil said drily. ‘When did the affair begin?’

  ‘Soon after. It was madness – even now I don’t know what possessed me! But we were so attracted to each other, so alike, and I was flattered.’ His regret was genuine. ‘Looking back, it was a love affair, yes, but there was more to it. For Greta anyway. I think she saw me as some kind of father figure.’

  ‘She already had a father.’

  ‘I know. But Terrill Huber was very interested in the business, not so much in Greta. She wanted attention, affection. Terrill wasn’t a very demonstrative man.’

  ‘When did her parents find out?’

  ‘Only a week before they died, which made it even more tragic. We had an terrible argument. Alma was shouting at me – I was too old, the wrong nati
onality, religion.’

  ‘You must have borne her a grudge for that.’

  ‘You mean, did I kill her? Are you insane?’ Naresh said heatedly. ‘Alma Huber was right; Greta and I had very little in common. So I agreed not to see their daughter any more. Later that night Greta came to my hotel and begged me not to end the relationship.’ His voice petered out, then regained its strength. ‘Can you imagine how I felt when the Hubers were killed? Greta was alone. Of course she came to India after her parents died. She had been so ill, she needed someone she could trust. Who else did she have but me?’

  ‘Are you still lovers?’

  ‘No. The physical part of our relationship is over,’ Naresh explained. ‘It’s deeper now. We are both alone in this world, Mr Eckhart. I am all Greta has, and she is all I have.’

  ‘So you’d do anything for her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then isn’t it strange that you didn’t tell me all this when you hired me?’ Gil said. ‘You said that you wanted to find the killer and protect Luca Meriss because you felt responsible for him, but you never mentioned Greta.’

  ‘I wanted to keep the real reason a secret.’

  ‘A secret,’ Gil repeated. ‘Trouble is, I’m now wondering how many other secrets you’re keeping.’

  ‘You cannot suspect me!’

  ‘Men have killed for less. The Hubers were in your way. They were stopping you being with Greta. I’d say that was a pretty good motive.’

  ‘But they didn’t stop us being together,’ Naresh Joshi replied coolly. ‘Greta and I married in secret seven years ago.’

  Eighty-Three

  Van der Las Gallery, London

  4.00 p.m.

  Stuart Lindsay was surprised that he hadn’t heard back from Gil. After leaving a couple of messages on voicemail, he sent him a text. It was to the point.

  CARBON DATING CAME THROUGH

  BRUSH AND PAPER AUTHENTIC

  He was tempted to add something about the man who had broken into the gallery and tried to steal the evidence, but resisted. That information Stuart would relate personally, not by text. He had already added two more bolts to the door and a security light over the back entrance. Whoever had attacked him had meant business. And they had been thwarted, leaving without the proof. Without the information which would validate Luca Meriss’s claims, prove that he had not been lying.

  The carbon dating of the brush and paper coincided with the period that Caravaggio was alive and active. The paints and ink were of the period. The pouch was stained and old, and again, of the period.

  Stuart Lindsay was agoraphobic. Had been for years. But he was also a loyal friend and that was what had driven him out of the security of his laboratory and onto the London streets. Head down, arms folded tightly across his chest, he had clasped the small package in a grubby Jiffy bag. Weaving between tourists and businessmen, Stuart had scurried to the Piccadilly bank where The Van der Las Gallery always conducted their business, one of the few London banks open on a Saturday.

  Inside, the marble floor echoed with footsteps, faint classical music pumped from unknown sources, and two potted plants the size of yew trees flanked the door. Heart thumping, dry-mouthed, Stuart didn’t notice a couple of people quickly move away from his sweaty form. He simply handed over the package to the manager and bolted out.

  It took Stuart Lindsay four minutes and fifteen seconds to get back to the laboratory, six seconds to lock the two connecting laboratory doors, three further seconds to slide the bolts.

  And an hour and a half to stop shaking.

  Eighty-Four

  Levens Gallery

  5.00 p.m.

  Jacob woke up, rolled over, and then staggered to his feet. His lips were dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he walked into the bathroom. Avoiding the mirror, he urinated into the toilet bowl and then pulled off his clothes, dropping them onto the tiles. The floor felt cold under his feet, drawing the warmth out of him as he turned on the shower.

  Time meant nothing to him any longer. He had some vague idea that it was coming into evening, but couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing. Had it been less than a week since the murders of Sebastian and Benjamin Weir? Only days since the whole maggoty mess had burst open? Stepping under the water, Jacob put back his head and leaned his hands against the tiles in front of him for support. He felt peculiarly ill – not just queasy but muffled in the head. Intrigued, he moved his left hand under the water, watching as it turned in slow elongated movements, his fingers pink and curling inwards to the palm like grubs.

  The booze was killing him.

  He didn’t care.

  He did care.

  He cared …

  Jacob let the water pelt down on his head, thinking of Alma, his dead sister, and of his niece Greta. He even remembered his late wife, someone he didn’t often think about. His past reared up at him like a drawbridge, leaving him walking into nothingness, only the drowning water below. And he thought of the Caravaggios. Of Der Kreis der Acht, of ambition and the sleek rise of fortune they had all shared. Until now.

  Jacob turned off the shower and towelled himself dry. Still avoiding direct eye contact in the mirror, he shaved and dressed himself, walking back into his office and glancing at his diary. It was Saturday, usually a day he would reserve for private viewings, taking the client into a plush room at the back of the gallery where they could view an item undisturbed. Jacob knew such treatment made them feel special and all the more likely to buy. After all, he was a master at the art of the subtle sell.

  He would imply that something valuable would suit a home, not that it might make it. His bronzes, engravings and oils were merely an accompaniment to the good taste of his client, an underscoring of their learning rather than a bought piece, an instant brag. His own demeanour and knowledge reassured them that the handing over of thousands of pounds was wisdom, not fecklessness.

  Jacob smiled to himself, but without any humour. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had genuinely laughed. Not sardonically, but with real mirth. Then he realised that no man could have a guilty conscience and a clear heart.

  For a moment he was tempted to open the curtains, but resisted. It would be dark already, so why bother looking for light? And anyway, why advertise that he was alone? Allow any passer-by look in through the window and see him?

  Turning on his computer, Jacob entered Luca Meriss’s website, reading the latest news. The clock was still ticking, and there was an announcement that the Italian was returning to his birthplace, Palermo in Sicily. He sighed, holding back the side of the curtain and looking out. Sobering up, he began to feel the full force of his situation and realised how he had isolated himself. No friends, no family, no Gil Eckhart. He was alone. Exactly as he deserved to be.

  His hand shaking, Jacob continued to stare out into the dismal street. He thought of the murdered bodies of the Weir brothers and felt his skin crawl. So much blood spilt, so much mess. The smell strong, clinging to his clothes afterwards, the heat of The Weir Gallery keeping the corpses temporarily pink.

  It had taken them a while to die. Jacob knew, because he had watched their last moments. Seen their torment, the mutilation inflicted while they were alive but paralysed. And he had done nothing, too scared to react or even try to help them. Instead he had watched their eyes milk over, shift into dead mode in less than a heartbeat. And all the time the central heating was pumping out. Too hot for comfort, too hot for the paintings, too hot for corpses.

  Walking to the door, Jacob unlocked it and paused. He was still able to function, but for how long? The booze was befuddling him, and guilt was doing the rest. Fiddling with his cufflinks, Jacob Levens stepped out into the street.

  And the world watched him go.

  Eighty-Five

  St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London

  7.30 p.m.

  ‘Don’t tell him anything,’ Bette said firmly. ‘Gil doesn’t have to know what’s going on. No
t yet.’

  Watching the doctor leave, she leant back against the pillows, her hands resting on her stomach. No emergency phone calls, no dramas, she had insisted. What could her husband do? He was abroad, he couldn’t just rush to the hospital. Instead he would have to travel back, taking hours, worrying, wondering what would face him. It wasn’t necessary, she said. It wasn’t time.

  When she talked to Gil on his mobile she was calm, reassuring. She was fine, she said, and so was the baby. Both of them would stay put, hang on, until it was time … Bette could see the impatience in the doctor’s face, but trusted her instinct. It was going to end soon. Very soon. Not long now.

  She would wait. And the baby would wait with her.

  Sunday

  Eighty-Six

  Palermo, Sicily

  A child that is bullied always finds somewhere to hide and Luca was no different. Having been raised in a village outside Palermo he had devised a honeycomb of secret lairs, some in derelict properties, others in the countryside itself. One in a local church, a crypt in the graveyard splitting open after a prolonged, torrential downpour. The ground had shifted, the door of the sarcophagus gaping wide enough for a slight boy to enter. After one wet spring and a hot summer vegetation had grown over the entrance and the inside was a comforting, cooling hiding place.

  It was one of Luca’s favourite dens. The other was in the city, away from the country, in the Via Cipressi. The Catacombs of Palermo. All his childhood Luca had visited, saving pocket money for the entrance fee to go from the heat of the Sicilian day into the musty shadowed interior of the catacombs. But he wasn’t there now. Now he was watching his father’s house from the road outside. He could see the familiar outlines of the windows lit from inside, the door badly painted, the handle thick with rust. And he thought of his father, of the workman hands, the rage at having a son who was different.

  Later the rumours drove him to be cruel. A homosexual son was shameful, something that scored out love and made a parent remote. Carlo didn’t ask where his son went, was only grateful that the child didn’t hang around the house, or dream in corners. He was relieved that the village boys went somewhere else to taunt, that the old gates weren’t slammed backward and forwards on their hinges as they cried Luca’s name.