by L. S. Hilton
‘Er, er . . . Georgina?’
‘Nope. Like the lateral thinking though. George Stubbs, The Duke and Duchess of Richmond Watching the Gallops? Remember that picture? You should.’ I pointed to the photographs of Li’s hands, laying in the ground for the Gauguin. ‘The same guy altered it for you, back when you fancied going into business with Cameron Fitzpatrick.’
‘I don’t know, I promise, I really don’t – oh. Oh.’ The moment of his epiphany was really quite beautiful to see.
‘Judith? Judith?’
‘Bingo, Rupert. You got there.’ I began to gather up the papers, keeping the Caracal trained with one hand.
‘Judith. I don’t understand, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry if—’
‘Save it. What is it they say, “Never complain, never explain”? Though I’d prefer another cliché. Shall we go with “water under the bridge”?’
Rupert knew how his pal Cameron Fitzpatrick had died. Murdered on the riverside in Rome. The painting they had been faking, the one that got me fired, disappeared.
‘Shall I tell you how Cameron died, Rupert? What I mean is, would you like to know the details?’
I got his torso over the quay in one heave. He arched back, and the back of his head cracked against the stone embankment. I put my knee on his chest to ease the stuffing from his mouth, then shoved against his thigh to work the body round until it rolled into the water.
‘That was you.’ He said it flatly.
‘That was me. Right again. But I don’t really have time for a chat about the good old days at British Pictures, Rupert. Now, in a minute, I’m going to leave. You can recall the Gauguin if you like, or you can sign the chit and wave it off to Baku. I imagine you’ll do the latter, because your integrity is in inverse proportion to the size of your revolting arse. Speaking of which – undo your trousers.’
‘What?’
‘Do it. Now, stand up. Hands on the desk and bend over please. Now spit.’ I held out the gun. ‘Spit on the barrel.’
As da Silva had once explained to me, there’s quite a vocabulary for snitches amongst the Mafia. Vomitini (‘pukers’), muffuti (‘moulderers’) or, my favourite, ammalati di sbirritudine (‘sufferers from coppitude’). It’s rare that they live very long, but if they do find themselves in prison with ‘men of honour’, a particularly degrading punishment for their betrayal is buggery. I’d wondered if, like the blond hair and blue eyes which sometimes pop up in the gene pool of the Italian south, whether this was an atavistic custom retained from the Vikings, who were given to raping their male prisoners after a successful battle. Once the gun was good and slippery, I circled round Rupert’s slumped body and gingerly approached the elastic of his Y-fronts, easing it down with the barrel.
‘Now if you can just keep quiet a bit longer, I think we can keep this meeting to ourselves, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, Christ. Yes what?’
‘Yes, Judith.’
I had no wish to get any more intimately involved with Rupert’s anatomy, but I took my finger off the trigger and nosed the barrel gently into place.
‘You might want to put a fist in your mouth. Careful when you take it out, it’s still cocked, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
Heigh-ho, in we go. Tensing my right forearm, I hit it hard with my left fist, just under the elbow. Most of the Caracal disappeared into Rupert, who managed a stiff upper lip.
‘As I said, gently does it. Don’t whatever you do touch the trigger or your breakfast will be back at the Wolseley. Bye, Rupert.’
I picked up my briefcase and sashayed out of the door in my high heels.
On the staircase, I saw Angelica. She almost walked right past me as I descended in my black suit, until something made her turn.
‘Oh hi – Elisabeth? Elisabeth?’
I gave her a little wave.
*
Most artists don’t die artistically. Artemisia, exhausted and fevered with plague, Caravaggio, a helpless staggering pilgrim, on an empty Italian beach, Gauguin crazed and starving in his spoiled paradise. We prefer to make our ideas of their lives from the images of the work. The three of them linked by violence, by sacrifice, by blood. Caravaggio only ever signed one of his pictures, and he did so in a saint’s blood. He had killed a man in Rome and the Pope had offered a reward for his head. Ending up in Malta, at the headquarters of the Knights of St John, Caravaggio offered his talent as a plea bargain. Membership of the order would commute a potential sentence. The books said that Caravaggio failed to comprehend the nature of the deal, that he was exchanging the scaffold for a prison of his own making, but I like to think that he was afire to paint again, and thought he’d chance it. He always preferred trouble to obedience. Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John was the largest altarpiece of his career, made for the cathedral in Valletta where he would be received as a knight. He placed the saint in the grim courtyard of a night-time prison, a version of the frigid stone enclosure where Gauguin watched Prado’s execution. The party’s over, the palace is sleeping, the hall where Salome danced is abandoned to the wraiths of wine fumes and incense. Somewhere within, she dreams her prize. The executioner bends over his bound victim, his sword on the ground at his side. He has done his work, but the job is not finished. The sword has sliced deep into John’s neck, but the head is not yet severed, the wound gapes and gushes. Grasping John’s hair for purchase, the executioner reaches impassively for the knife at his belt to wrestle the last bone and sinew from the still-living trunk. The victim neither lives nor dies; he is petrified in endless, remorseless agony. Blood spools in a crimson skein and when you look, its creeping tendrils embroider Caravaggio’s name. It might be understood as a portrait of redemption, the painter re-baptised, washed clean of his murderous sin in the blood of the saint’s ebbing mortality. Or, perhaps, Caravaggio is saying, this is where I am, forever, brutally frozen on the cusp of a pitiless mercy.
*
It was about six in the evening, the time when the city churns again on its axis. I was waiting on the platform for the Piccadilly Line at Green Park, just another woman in a black suit amongst the resigned, sallow-faced commuters. I do what is in me. Inside my tatty leather briefcase, a card with a number, the provenances for a fake Gauguin, a small but genuine Rembrandt, a pair of one-hundred-carat diamond earrings, a passport. In a vault in France, a painting and a box full of headless remains. In Amsterdam, the man who held the current record for the world’s bestselling art forgery was waiting in a hotel. In the South of France, another man would be expecting me. In New York City, a third. Behind me, a low, collective groan rippled through the crowd. Someone on the tracks, probably.
THE END
Acknowledgements
I should like to thank the following people for their passion, dedication and immense hard work:
Jane, Kate, Julian, James, Stephen, Angie, Georgia and Imogen at Bonnier Zaffre. Bill Massey, Emily Burns at Brandhive, Annabelle Robinson, Carol and Andrea at Roca, Camille, Glenn and Sandrine at Laffont, Giuseppe, Tommasi and Raffaella at Longanesi, Stefano, Cristina and Achille Mauri. Meenakshi at Bloomsbury India, Henrik at Norstedt, Tomas at House of Books, the irrepressible Jochem Bouwens. Frank McGrath for poisons, Erikkos, again, Rosie Apponyi for more than I can ever say. Dominique de Bastarrechea and Christopher Maclehose, who made it happen and Michael Platt who did the hard bits.
And Mark Smith. Publisher extraordinaire, visionary, Ernie. Mark, you changed my life. I will never be able to thank you enough. Also Kate Smith, whose patience and generosity made that possible.
If you enjoyed Ultima, why not join the L.S. HILTON READERS’ CLUB for exclusive writing, giveaways and news from L.S. HILTON by visiting www.bit.ly/LSHilton?
Dear Reader,
Ultima is the last in the Maestra trilogy, and I’d like to thank all the readers who have stayed with Judith to the end. Thank you for your letters, your lovely messages and your very helpful suggestions. One of the great privileges of working on this series
has been the chance to meet so many of you – in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, India, Germany, Sweden and the US, and to hear from you in places as diverse as Bulgaria, Singapore, Norway and Ukraine. When we were bringing the books out, my publisher, Mark Smith, talked about the forty-two countries which have published the Maestra series as a ‘family’, and I’m honoured to have you as part of that family.
Ultima will, I hope, keep you turning the pages right up to the last (and first?) scene. The ending is one I’m keen to hear your opinions of – in a way Judith Rashleigh has come full circle, but where could she go next? I was pleased to bring back Yermolov, Dave, Rupert and Carlotta, and hope that the story will prove satisfying as part of a coherent narrative, as well as an independent read. One of the questions that came up in editing is why, after Artemesia Gentilleschi and Caravaggio, I chose Gauguin as ‘the’ artist for the last book. Party, I think, because the first two are Baroque artists, and I believe that as a symbolist Gauguin owes much to the baroque, and partly because these three painters are connected through a sensuality and a violence which adapts them to Judith’s (very idiosyncratic) take on the world. And more distinctly, without giving too much away – well, severed heads . . .
Judith is a complex and disturbing character in many ways, but I have found writing her to be immensely pleasurable. Her world is one to escape into – violent, sexy, exotic, but also humorous. So, whilst Ultima is in some ways the darkest of the books, I think it’s also the funniest. The series has provoked some pretty strong reactions, both positive and negative, but as a passionate reader myself, I think any book that makes people talk, makes them angry, makes them laugh, makes them engage, is doing its job. I can’t wait to hear how it will make you feel.
If you would like to hear more, you can visit www.bit.ly/LSHilton where you can join My Readers’ Club. It only takes a few moments to sign up, there are no catches or costs and new members will automatically receive an exclusive message from me. Bonnier Zaffre will keep your data private and confidential, and it will never be passed on to a third party. We won’t spam you with loads of emails, just get in touch now and again with news about my books, and you can unsubscribe any time you want.
And if you would like to get involved in a wider conversation about my books, please do review Ultima on Amazon, on GoodReads, on any other e-store, on your own blog and social media accounts, or talk about it with friends, family or reader groups! Sharing your thoughts helps other readers, and I always enjoy hearing about what people experience from my writing.
Thanks again for your interest in this novel, and I look forward to hearing from you and sharing your reactions to Ultima.
With all best wishes,
Lisa
Find out where it all began . . .
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
GLAMOUR’S WRITER OF THE YEAR.
WHERE DO YOU GO WHEN YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR?
By day Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a London auction house.
By night she’s a hostess in one of the capital’s unsavoury bars.
Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She’s learned to dress, speak and act in the interests of men. She’s learned to be a good girl. But after uncovering a dark secret at the heart of the art world, Judith is fired and her dreams of a better life are torn apart.
So she turns to a long-neglected friend.
A friend that kept her chin up and back straight through every past slight.
A friend that a good girl like her shouldn’t have: Rage.
Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook now
And don’t miss . . .
THE GLOBAL THRILLER PHENOMENON
Judith Rashleigh has made it. Living in luxury amidst the splendours of Venice, she’s finally enjoying the life she killed for.
But someone knows what Judith’s done.
Judith can only save herself by finding a priceless painting – unfortunately, one that she’s convinced doesn’t even exist.
And she’s not the only one seeking it.
This time, Judith isn’t in control. Outflanked and out-thought, outrun and outgunned, she faces an enemy more ruthless and more powerful than she ever imagined.
And if she doesn’t win, she dies.
Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook now
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Zaffre Publishing
This ebook edition published in 2018 by
ZAFFRE PUBLISHING
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Copyright © L.S. Hilton, 2018
The moral right of L.S. Hilton to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-49986-199-0
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78576-089-1
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