by Alex Connor
As he recalled the day, Marshall could feel the rage as clearly as he had then; feel the hot swell of temper that flushed his face as he had stood up to his father.
‘Why do I have to stay here? Why? I hate the gallery—’
‘The gallery pays for your schooling—’
‘That’s all you ever talk about! The gallery, the gallery! You and your customers and the bloody paintings!’ He had struck out, childishly petulant. ‘I hate pictures! I’ll never work here, never! If I never saw another painting as long as I lived, I wouldn’t care!’
Without warning, Owen had slapped him and Marshall, his eyes stinging, had fought not to cry. It had been the first and last time Owen ever hit his son, and when he spoke, his voice had been uncharacteristically hard.
‘You’ve never been interested, have you? Never looked at a picture, not once.’ He had paused, all anger gone, something much worse in its place – disappointment. Disappointment and resignation. ‘I’m sorry, Marshall, I shouldn’t have hit you, or expected you to be like me.’ He had turned away, walking to the door. ‘I won’t be long, I promise. And then we’ll go to Thurstons, all right? Maybe go fishing tomorrow, would you like that?’
Marshall had nodded, dumbly miserable. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘Yes, we’ll go fishing,’ Owen had concluded, walking out.
And Marshall had known in that fraction of a second that his future would never be in the art world. He had no passion for it. The thrill his father felt at proving a picture’s provenance, of making a sale, had never interested him, no matter how exciting. Taken to auctions, Marshall had been a bored observer, unimpressed by the glamour and money, just smiling to please.
His thoughts went back to that winter day, reliving his father’s disappointment. The matter was never referred to again, but it was accepted that Marshall would never follow his father’s profession. The Zeigler Gallery might survive, but it would not be run by Owen’s son, and all the triumphs of scholarship and dealing would peter out. In this manner, father and son had split. Until now. Now that Owen Zeigler was dead, Marshall was suddenly, indelibly, drawn back into the world he had so long avoided. But he still couldn’t recall what he was trying to remember …
Exasperated, he looked around his father’s office again. Examined the desk, the books, the photographs, the paintings on the wall. Nothing. Was it something to do with the photographs? No. The paintings? No. Marshall turned back to the shelves, to his father’s books. It was something in the books, perhaps. Something Marshall had read, or been told, many years earlier when he would have been only half listening, that bored, truculent kid. He reached for the first volume on Vermeer and flicked through it, then put it down on the desk, none the wiser.
All right, Marshall said to himself practically, think about everything that’s been going on. Consider what the facts were. Stefan van der Helde and his father had both read the Rembrandt letters. Charlotte Gorday had been his father’s lover. She had told him that she knew everything about Owen, so had she known about the letters? Perhaps she had, but had not thought them important, not realised they were the reason for two men’s deaths. And now her own.
Think, Marshall told himself, think … Once again he was back to being a child in this same room. But this time it was hot, stifling summer in the middle of London, and he was standing on a chair, reaching for a book on the top shelf. The memory came back with burning clarity. Marshall could see himself on the chair, reaching for the book, that beautiful, glossy volume with its gilt lettering on the spine. So big, so heavy. He had overheard his father say that it was magic, that the book held magic, and Marshall had to look, hadn’t he? Had to see the magic for himself. So he had reached for the book but, when he pulled it off the shelf, it had been too heavy for him, and he had dropped it.
It had fallen onto the floor with a crash which had echoed around the building so loudly that Marshall was sure everyone in Albemarle Street would know what he had done. And what had he done? As though still looking through his child’s eyes, Marshall stared in his mind’s eye at the split book, its spine broken, the frail, aged paper damaged. And then the images came back to him, staring up at him hotly from the page: two colour plates, facing each other, one of a corpse with its stomach emptied, the other a close-up of the cadaver’s head, the scalp split open.
‘Oh, my God,’ Marshall whispered and turned hurriedly back to the shelves. He pulled out one of his father’s many books on Rembrandt. For the first time in twenty odd years he searched the reproductions, finally coming across the painting of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Joan Deyman. The corpse had been disembowelled, the scalp split. Just as Owen’s had been. Frantically Marshall turned the pages, pausing as he saw an image of a man being stoned. Underneath it read The Stoning of St Stephen. Stephen … Stefan … Stefan van der Helde had been forced to swallow stones …
His heart racing, Marshall kept turning the pages. Image after image passed, all painted by Rembrandt, and then Marshall paused for the third time at the painting of Lucretia. The Suicide of Lucretia, depicting a woman stabbing herself through the heart with a knife.
Marshall stared at the last image, then looked again at all three reproductions, one after the other. He could see suddenly what was happening. Someone was interpreting Rembrandt, copying his works, but not on canvas, in real life. The killer – the person searching for the Rembrandt letters – was reproducing deaths the Old Master had painted. He wasn’t killing at random, he was killing in a very controlled, artistic manner. No doubt one which gave him some intellectual pleasure. A cultured killer, trying to find the letters, and, when he failed, mimicking the masterpieces with his victims’ deaths.
Slumping into his father’s chair, Marshall stared ahead. The deaths were connected – and they were all murders. Rightly or wrongly, Charlotte Gorday had been killed because of her association with Owen Zeigler. She hadn’t killed herself, Marshall knew that now. Because the killer had spelt it out for him, reproducing Rembrandt’s Lucretia. His hand shaking, Marshall pushed the book away from him. The reason for the deaths was obvious. The victims had all been involved with the Rembrandt letters. Systematically the killer was going to pick them off – until he found the letters, or destroyed them.
Troubled, Marshall wondered who else knew of the incriminating documents. Certainly Teddy Jack did. As did Samuel Hemmings and possibly Nicolai Kapinski. And he himself … Below him Marshall could hear the pipes banging as the central heating system began coming on as the temperature dropped. He thought of the copies he had made, and wondered if he should go to the police – knowing full well that he wouldn’t. If he informed them, the Rembrandt letters would enter the public domain – the one thing his father would have avoided at all costs. With their revelations the art market would stagger globally and one of the world’s greatest painters would be reviled.
But was keeping the letters secret worth further deaths? Marshall was very tempted to give them up. Go to the newspapers, get them published and expose Rembrandt’s bastard. But if he did, how many businesses, collections and museums would suffer from the fallout? And more than that, if he told the police, the case would be taken over by them and he would be excluded, become just a relative of one of the victims. And Marshall wasn’t going to allow that. He had chosen from childhood not to be involved in his father’s world, but now a clammy guilt was nudging him and forcing his hand. Perhaps in life he had failed Owen Zeigler, but he wouldn’t in death.
An unwelcome thought which had persisted for days came back to him. If he had been closer to his father, closer to his work, closer geographically, would Owen have confided in him? Told him of the problems which had eventually overwhelmed him? If Marshall hadn’t made it so clear that he wanted nothing to do with the art world, would his father have turned to him? Samuel Hemmings was right, a parent shouldn’t force a child into following in their footsteps, but Marshall had been stubbornly averse to Owen’s profession.
Guilt, unnerving and potent, t
roubled him. He could hardly blame his father for keeping so much of his life a secret. After all, he had confided little himself. They had been closer for a while, when Marshall was married to Georgia, but when the marriage disintegrated and he moved to Amsterdam, their bond had weakened again. There had been affection between father and son, but little common ground. Owen might well have been proud of Marshall’s work, his obvious and impressive cleverness, but he could no more be involved in his son’s profession than Marshall could in his.
I owe you, Marshall thought suddenly. I owe you. Regret, poignant and troubling, moved him, and in that instant he made a promise to himself: he would find his father’s killer, and he would protect the Rembrandt letters, a memoir so valuable it had cost Owen Zeigler his life. After all, what was the option, Marshall asked himself. Destroy the letters? Never. They were of tremendous importance – which was why someone was prepared to go to such lengths to get them. The killer knew what they contained, what a hold he would have over the market if he used them to blackmail dealers.
Pay me to keep quiet and no one will know that the paintings you’re selling aren’t original Rembrandts …
With such knowledge and proof, the killer could gain a stranglehold and wield phenomenal power – but only if he got hold of the letters. He knew they existed; the one thing he didn’t know was who had them.
Sitting in his father’s chair, in his father’s study, Marshall Zeigler felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Stefan van der Helde hadn’t had the letters; Owen hadn’t given them up; apparently Charlotte hadn’t even seen them. But there were a handful of other people who knew about them. Teddy Jack, who had already been attacked. The crippled Samuel Hemmings, his father’s mentor. Were they under threat? Were they innocent? Or were they somehow involved? Would they turn out to be victims, or predators? And perhaps there were others, people that Marshall didn’t know about. Maybe Tobar Manners or Nicolai Kapinski …
The enormity of the situation struck him in that moment, along with the realisation that he didn’t know who he could trust anymore. Not only was he in danger, others were too. People that might be under threat simply because they knew him. Like Georgia. He had to warn her, Marshall thought hurriedly, and stay away from her. And he had to warn the others too … He struggled to stay calm. Only one thing was certain: the killer wanted the Rembrandt letters. The letters he, Marshall Zeigler, now had.
Somewhere, on the street outside, or in his father’s country house, walking down Piccadilly, or in an airport lounge, somewhere, someone was waiting for him. He could be the man in the queue next to him, or sitting in the opposite seat on the Underground. He could be a cab driver, a delivery man – anyone. And he was coming for him, Marshall. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week …
Maybe it was someone he liked, knew, trusted.
Maybe, God forbid, someone he never expected.
BOOK THREE
House of Corrections,
Gouda, 1654
I have been here so long. Not writing because I was ill and couldn’t put my thoughts down clearly. Couldn’t put down any thoughts, because it all became a mêlée of times and dates … But I am better now, and I have visitors. Neighbours from my old town, come to see me. Say they will talk to the authorities because I’m not well.
Am I dying?
Shame to be dying so young. Well, in my forties anyway. I dream of him. Of my son, our son … I had been in Rembrandt’s house for over a week before I saw him. Carel had been a pupil of Rembrandt’s for nearly two years, along with his brother, Barent, but it was two weeks, fourteen days, before I caught the first sight of the child I had lost. I’d been cleaning copper when I heard his name called. I put down the pan and went to listen at the door. Someone was talking to Rembrandt, offering 100 guilders for him to take on a new pupil. Ferdinand Bol.
Rembrandt was listening, then turned to the young man next to him.
‘What do you think, Carel?’
I heard the name and knew it – Carel Fabritius. The name they gave my son, Rembrandt’s child … Breathing fast, I stood on my tip toes, struggling to see through the high window in the kitchen which looked into the hallway. His shadow fell on the black and white tiles as he walked in and took off his hat, his hair thick and dusty from the road, nodding to Rembrandt as the visitor continued talking …
I bit my lip because I hadn’t seen my son for eighteen years. Bit my lip because I wanted to cry out, but I didn’t. Instead I bit down on my own flesh and felt the blood coat my tongue. I stayed on my tip toes and watched Rembrandt make a guttural sound as he looked at the prospective pupil … 100 guilders, he said … 100 guilders? The boy’s good, very good, his companion answered. He’ll be a credit to you … I’ll be the judge of that, Rembrandt replied, winking at Carel, and then looking at the boy’s hands … 100 guilders, I’ll try him out. Has he been with another teacher? No, we came to you first … And Carel was standing straight-backed as the town hall flagpole, with his wide mouth and dark eyes. My son. Rembrandt’s son.
He had my eyes …
All my family had told me was that my son had been given to a couple, the father an amateur painter. Strange that … No one suspected anything when Carel was made a pupil of Rembrandt’s. He had talent from his father, they said. Yes, he did – but not his adoptive father … For days after that first sighting of Carel I waited for another, but it was only when Rembrandt called me to the studio to sit that I saw my son again. I was placed on the dais, in the old Roman chair Rembrandt always used for his sitters. He took my chin in his hands and jerked my head left and right, until he was pleased with the light. Then he told his pupils to draw me … Charcoal sticks scraped on the thick vellum paper, breaths blown to clear the sooty dust, fingers smearing the outlines to make shadows. Sometimes a huffing of disgust as the paper was turned over and the pupil began again.
I stole a look at my son and caught his eye. I waited. But he didn’t know me and I had no right to be disappointed. I was the master’s housekeeper, sometimes model. No more to him … I doubt he even saw me. I was just something to be copied … It wasn’t a hot day, but Carel was soon flustered, red about the ears. Rembrandt came over and stared at his work and then, irritated, made changes. But I had seen his surprise, that flutter of envy … You didn’t know it then, van Rijn, but you felt it. Here was a rival. Very young, crude, untutored, a lad with dusty hair. But a rival none the less …
When the day faded you told me to get down off the dais and light the candles, and I walked past the drawing my son had done of me and saw nothing of myself … That night I didn’t sleep. I lay next to Rembrandt and heard the students moving about in the upper part of the house. Fancied I already knew Carel’s footsteps above the others. I lay, dry- eyed with excitement that my son was near me. And near his father. Even if he knew neither of us. I lay, dry-eyed, and listened to Rembrandt’s breathing.
Then I whispered Carel’s name in his ear, so his soul would hear it and know who he was.
21
Nicolai Kapinski arrived at the gallery and rang the entrance bell three times before Marshall came down from the flat above. Nodding a welcome as he opened the door, Marshall watched the diminutive Pole enter. He was obviously disturbed, his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone, and moving his briefcase from under one arm to the other. Then back again. Taking off his glasses, Nicolai breathed in slowly, as though trying to compose himself. But the action didn’t have any effect, and when he spoke his voice was rapid, intense.
‘Did you stay here last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘Alone?’
‘Why not?’ Marshall asked. ‘It was safe with the alarm on.’
‘It wasn’t safe for your father,’ Nicolai said hurriedly, walking past him and making for the stairs. Surprised, Marshall followed the accountant to the top office. He watched as Nicolai took off his coat and sat down, then asked, ‘Did you come in to work?’
‘Of course.’
> ‘But the gallery’s closed.’
‘You’re here.’
‘It’s my home,’ Marshall replied, noticing the nervous jittering of Nicolai’s right leg. ‘There’s nothing for you to do.’
‘I have a job!’
‘Not at the moment,’ Marshall said calmly. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, what I’m going to do with the gallery, but for now, Mr Kapinski, the place is closed.’
Kapinski blinked slowly behind the thick glasses smeared with his fingerprints and his hands gripped the briefcase, leaving sweat marks on the leather.
Troubled, Marshall studied him. He knew of the Polish man’s manic episodes, but had never been witness to one. He chose his next words carefully.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘I’m afraid there’s nothing for you to do—’
‘I can do the books.’1
‘Mr Kapinski—’
‘I can do the books!’ he snapped, his voice rising. Just as quickly, it fell again. ‘I’m not ill, not this time. Don’t worry, I’m fine … I just need to be here. I can help you, Mr Zeigler—’
‘Marshall. Call me Marshall. Mr Zeigler was my father.’
He nodded. ‘Nicolai.’
‘Nicolai.’
‘I can help you, Marshall,’ he said again, his glasses catching the light as he looked over the rooftops. ‘I know what happens here. I know about your father, and his business. I know things no one else knows.’ His accent intensified, his hands still clutched his briefcase tightly to him as he glanced back to Marshall. ‘I know more than you think.’