by Alex Connor
And now, suddenly, the stakes had been raised even higher. Now there was a murderer in their midst.
He wouldn’t admit it, but Tobar Manners had been struggling too. Not as much as some of the less successful dealers, because his coup with the Rembrandt had protected him. Of course he had lied to Owen; of course he had arranged for a second party to sell on the painting, then share the proceeds with him. His wife might know, but no one could prove it.
Pulling up his coat collar, Tobar turned, watching as Samuel Hemmings approached in his wheelchair.
‘Manners,’ Samuel said, his tone unreadable as he sat, leaning his chin on his stick, his driver waiting in the car across the street. In the dropping temperature, Samuel looked frail; whippet thin, muffled in a coat and scarf with a fur hat pulled down low over his forehead.
‘You look like a fucking mushroom.’
‘Good to see you too, Tobar.’
‘I didn’t expect you to make it up from Sussex, I thought you’d died.’
‘Oh, no. After all, it wasn’t me you robbed,’ Samuel countered deftly. ‘How are you sleeping?’
Shuffling his feet, Tobar glanced at his companions, then looked back to the old man, his voice low. ‘Don’t go throwing around accusations, Mr Hemmings. Although you’re old and most people would put it down to senility, I’d still be careful.’
‘You look thin,’ Samuel went on, unperturbed. ‘Your food not going down well? Must be all that bile in your gut, Tobar. Or a bad conscience. It shows on your face—’
‘Shut up!’ Tobar hissed, leaning down towards him. ‘Owen’s death has nothing to do with me.’
‘He was in trouble.’
‘Well, that much is obvious now,’ Tobar replied, pulling his collar up further against the cold.
‘Owen needed money, and you could have helped him out.’
‘You were his bloody mentor, why didn’t you do something?’
‘He didn’t come to me.’
‘Well, that says it all, doesn’t it?’ Tobar replied peevishly. ‘Go home, old man. You can rattle all the sabres you like there, but stay away from me.’
‘Your wife told me she’d left you.’
Paling, Tobar flinched, guiding Samuel’s wheelchair a little further away from the group.
‘She’s on holiday—’
‘I know Rosella,’ Samuel replied, his voice quiet but steady. ‘And she told me she’d had enough. Apparently what you did to Owen finished your marriage. Rosella has always talked to me, Tobar, about all kinds of things. She’s basically an honourable woman. Materialistic, certainly, likes her comfort. But she has a conscience, and living with you and seeing the things you did …? Well, it was too much for her, and she needed a confidant.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘With what, Mr Manners?’
‘That’s what I want to know.’
He was breathing more quickly, staring at Samuel and realising that he had a real enemy. And worse, that this enemy not only hated him for cheating Owen Zeigler, but for his treatment of Rosella. In that moment Tobar realised that he had underestimated the old man, believing him grown mute and toothless in Sussex.
‘Now if I told you that, you’d be as wise as me,’ Samuel retorted. ‘You think you’ve got away with it, but you haven’t. I want you to know that, Manners. I want you to think about that, and worry—’
Moving behind the art historian’s wheelchair, Tobar suddenly flipped off the brake with his left foot. Samuel sensed the movement and gripped the wheels.
‘What the—’
‘You’re an old man, Mr Hemmings.’
Samuel wasn’t about to show fear. ‘I’m old, but I have a long memory.’
‘Too long for your own good,’ Tobar replied, flicking the brake back on. ‘I’d start forgetting things, if I were you.’
Samuel could still feel Tobar Manners’ hatred as his driver pushed him towards the Zeigler Gallery. Not that he would have allowed it to show to anyone present, but he was aching with the cold and longing to be home. But nothing, he thought, taking in a ragged breath, would have prevented him from paying his respects to his protégé.
Glancing round, Samuel took in the empty gallery space, remembering what Marshall had told him about the night he found his father. The police had decided that it was a burglary gone wrong, that the gallery had been broken into and the thieves – for there had had to be more than one – disturbed; the violence intimating a drug-fuelled attack. It was further assumed that Owen had been tortured for the combination to the safe, but Samuel didn’t believe it. Owen would have handed over the money rather than die – Samuel didn’t believe his old friend had been given the choice. Leaning his hands, then his chin, on the top of his cane, Samuel looked ahead at a Jan Steen painting on the wall opposite. Why hadn’t they taken that? It was worth good money, why leave it? Why leave the Epstein bust in the back gallery? The Dutch parquetry cabinet?
Quietly a door opened in the back and Marshall walked over to Samuel. He seemed diminished; listless with shock.
‘Are you all right?’
Nodding, Marshall stared around the gallery. His actions were strained, as if the slightest movement was exhausting to him.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘About what, Marshall?’
‘Someone was looking for something. This wasn’t a burglary, too little was taken. It wasn’t just that my father surprised them and was killed by accident …’ He paused, then closed the entrance door of the gallery and clicked the lock. ‘I don’t believe that. And neither do you.’
‘Don’t I?’
‘They were looking for something very specific.’
‘What?’
‘I think they were looking for the letters. The Rembrandt letters.’ Marshall stared at the old man. ‘I can see from your face that it’s already occurred to you too. When we talked about them you said they were dangerous, that they could cause a scandal—’
‘But I was only telling you about your father’s theory. I could be wrong—’
Infuriated, Marshall cut him off. ‘Where are the Rembrandt letters?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you do think someone was looking for them?’
‘I think it’s a possibility. The letters are important.’
‘Why? You told me part of the story, but not all of it. What do the letters say?’
Samuel was discomfited, shifting in his seat. ‘Your father never confirmed he’d found them—’
‘If he hadn’t found them, how could he know what was in them?’ Marshall countered. ‘How could he have told you his theory, with all the details, the names and dates you gave me? My father must have found and read those letters.’
Samuel hesitated, Marshall’s voice rising. ‘You know what was in them, don’t you?’
‘I only know that they were letters which could damn Rembrandt forever – and prove that many of Rembrandt’s paintings were not by his hand, but painted by someone else.’
‘Rembrandt’s monkey?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who was …?’
‘Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt and Geertje Dircx’s illegitimate son.’
Marshall leaned against the door. ‘So it wasn’t just the scandal of Rembrandt having a bastard son, but the fact that he faked his father’s works?’
Samuel nodded. ‘Many of them. When he left Rembrandt’s studio, Fabritius lived in Delft, away from Amsterdam. Overworked and greedy, Rembrandt farmed out commissions to his most gifted student—’
‘The letters prove this?’
He nodded again. ‘Your father said so.’
‘And if he’d released the letters …?’
‘All Rembrandt’s paintings would have had to be reassessed. It would involve galleries and museums all over the world. Not to mention the private collectors and independent experts.’ Samuel paused. ‘The letters would undermine the art market, which relies on the Old Masters. It would be little short
of a catastrophe. If a single Rembrandt portrait – which could sell for upwards of forty or fifty million – was exposed as the work of his pupil, it would undermine his whole catalogue.’
Marshall looked at the old man. ‘I get it. The letters were dangerous …’
‘The letters are dangerous.’
‘Enough to make someone kill for them?’
Samuel folded his hands on his lap, his expression stern. ‘Yes, I believe so.’
A chill fell between them.
‘Why did Fabritius act as Rembrandt’s monkey?’
‘The full explanation is in the letters. Geertje Dircx makes it all clear—’
‘So tell me!’
‘I can’t!’ Samuel snapped. ‘I didn’t read them, I only know what your father told me.’
‘Would my father have confided in anyone else?’
‘No, I doubt it.’
A car drove past the window, sounding its horn once, the noise eerie in the gloom of the gallery. The light was fading, rain coming on, the London sky morose over the crouching roof tops.
His voice expressionless, Marshall stared at the historian. ‘Where are they? The letters?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I hope you’re not lying to me.’
Angered, Samuel’s expression hardened. ‘I was your father’s closest friend—’
‘Which puts you in danger, doesn’t it? Because whoever’s after them might think you had them.’
‘Or you. You’re his son, Marshall.’
The words cracked around them, the old historian amazed to find himself in the spotlight of Marshall’s blatant mistrust.
‘You know as well as I do, Samuel, that I knew nothing about the letters until you told me about them.’
‘That’s what you say.’
‘And it’s the truth!’
Shaken, Marshall took in a breath. His father’s death had devastated him, and knowledge of his suffering had compounded the shock. According to the coroner, it had taken Owen Zeigler a long time to die and the beating had been protracted to cause maximum pain.
Tempering his tone, Samuel continued. ‘Have you considered the fact that your father might have handed over the letters and then been killed? If his murderers got what they wanted, no one else is in danger.’
‘But we know about them,’ Marshall replied steadily. ‘Knowing is almost as good as having them.’
‘Knowledge is not proof.’
‘Are you sure you haven’t got them?’
‘How many times!’ Samuel asked, his face flushing. ‘No, I haven’t got them. I would love to say I have, but no, Marshall, I’ve never seen them. Never touched them. Never read them. Stop suspecting me, you’re looking in the wrong place.’
Still unconvinced, Marshall stared at the old man. ‘My father wouldn’t have told Tobar Manners about the letters, would he?’
Samuel flinched. ‘No. For some reason he liked Manners, but he didn’t trust him. Why d’you ask?’
‘Because if Manners knew about the letters he was preparing the ground very cleverly.’
Confused, Samuel shook his head. ‘What ground?’
‘My father had been duped into believing that his Rembrandt picture was, in fact, only the work of a second rate painter. He was cheated out of a fortune … Doesn’t say much for his reputation, does it?’
‘Manners duped him.’
‘I know. But how easily could it be made to look like my father didn’t know what he was doing? People would only have to point to his failing business to undermine him. He would have lost his credibility, and if he had then revealed the Rembrandt letters, how easily they could have been discredited. They could have been written off as a hoax, or worse, a way for him to get publicity.’
‘Your father wasn’t like that.’
‘You didn’t see him at the end, Samuel. He wasn’t like himself, he was panicked. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think he knew he was in trouble. Real trouble. Not just money trouble. I spoke to Nicolai Kapinski earlier.
Samuel thought of the dapper little man who had been Owen’s business ally.
‘And?’
‘Nicolai told me that only yesterday – only hours before he was killed – my father had been ringing everyone for help. No one gave him the time of day. The bank wouldn’t even let him remortgage the gallery. He’d been a blameless customer for decades, and the first time he really needed help, they closed ranks.’ Marshall paused. ‘Nicolai said that my father had exhausted every possibility of help. No one came to his aid—’
‘I would have done.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ Marshall replied, wary. ‘So why didn’t he go to you? You were his mentor, his trusted adviser. You’d known each other for years. So why didn’t he turn to you, Samuel? I’ve been thinking about that a lot, why didn’t he?’
‘You told me yourself, he was ashamed.’
‘Ashamed? Yes.’ Marshall stared at his hands for a long moment. ‘But if you were so close, would shame have been enough to prevent his asking you for help?’
‘Are you intimating something?’ Samuel asked, hoarse with outrage. ‘Because if you are, come out with it, Marshall. I’m too old for games.’
‘I don’t think you’ll ever be too old for games. I think they keep you alive,’ Marshall replied curtly. ‘My father was desperate. He had nowhere to turn. There was only one route left open to him – to reveal the Rembrandt letters. The letters many people would want destroyed. And others would want to own.’
‘Or steal.’
‘Yes, or steal. That was the risk, wasn’t it? That instead of leverage, the letters became a death sentence.’
‘If they exist,’ Samuel said, steadily.
‘I wasn’t sure they did. Until now. Now I know for certain that those letters are still around. No one would destroy them, because then there would be no proof, no concrete evidence of Rembrandt’s bastard. The letters have to be preserved so that someone can use them. That someone might have been my father – only he was beaten to it.’
Uneasy, Samuel stared at the younger man. He felt very tired, his astute brain stalling, letting him down. He wondered if it was because Tobar Manners’ aggression had unsettled him, or if he was still shocked by Owen’s death.
Wearily, he looked at Marshall. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Find them.’
‘Find them? You think they’re still here?’
‘The pathologist said that my father held out for hours under torture. They said that finally he was lowered onto the floor and they stamped on his ribs, punctured his lungs, and then his chest was cut open. The pathologist said he was kicked and beaten with such savagery it could only be pure hatred and uncontrollable rage.’ Marshall held the old man’s gaze. ‘Now, you tell me something. If his killers had got what they wanted, why would they be that angry?’
9
As he touched the outside railing leading to the basement, he felt the cold iron through his glove and winced. He had to be quick; the gathering of mourners outside the Zeigler Gallery would disperse soon and people would start coming back indoors. Gordon Hendrix and Lester Fox might try and get down into the basement, even though it was cordoned off with police tape, and at any moment someone could want to take a furtive, curious look at the murder scene. Ducking under the tape, he moved towards the back door, unlocking it, and moving into the porch which separated the outside from the basement.
Through the glass top half of the door he could see the darkening blood stains on the floor, the surfaces dotted with malign Easter Bunny markings of fingerprints powder. Above him, he could hear talking and paused, recognising the voices of Marshall Zeigler and Samuel Hemmings. Noiselessly opening the inner door, he passed into the basement, skirting the blood stains and made his way towards the shelved area by the stairs. He could hear loud footsteps above, but they faded as the person went upstairs.
Time was short, he knew that, as he moved along the shelves where the p
aintings were racked up, sandwiched between stored frames and unexhibited canvases. He gazed carefully over the storage. Where were they? Owen had never been obvious in his actions, so he was hardly likely to have chosen an obvious hiding place. Breathing quickly, the man tensed as he heard the voices above suddenly raised. A moment later, they dropped and he relaxed a little, his heart beating less violently in his chest.
Observing the police tape wafting slightly in a winter breeze from the half opened door, he wondered again why Owen hadn’t told him exactly where he’d hidden the letters. Why? Suddenly angry, his hands sweated in the gloves. Or maybe Owen had been about to tell him. After all, they had been supposed to meet that night, but he hadn’t kept the appointment. Owen Zeigler had been killed at the same time that he was sitting in a bar across London, waiting for him … Another sound overhead made him jump. Was the inner basement door locked? Jesus, if it wasn’t and someone walked in they would catch him redhanded.
Quickly, he made for the stairs, thinking he would slide the bolt on the door and lock it from the inside to give himself more time to search. But just as he reached half way, a scuffle of footsteps sounded outside the door and he hurtled down the steps again and hid under the stairs. Breathing laboriously, he heard the door open and then saw a pair of feet descending the stairs. Was it the police? The feet stopped moving. He could hear his own breathing and was sure the stranger would hear it too, but after another moment the feet retraced their steps upwards and the basement door was closed again. And locked.
Then the light was turned off. Surprised, the man tried to remember where the light switch was in the basement and felt his way towards it. He was just about to flick it on, when he paused. Was someone waiting for him to do just that? Would someone see the light from outside? Or coming from under the door? His hand dropped from the switch as he took a torch from his pocket. Turning it on, he ran its subdued beam along the rows of shelving. Owen had been talking about a painting he had just sold – a small Pieter de Hoogh – and the torchlight fell on the second shelf, half way along, where the painting had been stored. But the space was empty. Hurriedly, the man felt around in the emptiness, but there was nothing. No painting, no letters, only dust.