The Collector

by Anne-Laure Thiblemont

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because we’ll sell the objects one at a time to avoid saturating the market. We have years of work ahead of us. And Gaudin will have all the time in the world to look at his clay figurines.”

  Marion could see the upside of this arrangement. She had no interest in business or finance. But there was a downside too. She didn’t want to be connected to this man for life.

  “Sell me your sculpture. Just name your price,” she said in a final attempt to come out on top.

  “You know very well… I have no interest in selling.”

  “Why do you want all of them?”

  “They’re part of an ensemble.”

  “What about the one from the Louvre?” she asked, wondering why the fifth piece, The Tattooed Man, was absent from this discussion, as well.

  “It’s out of play. It won’t ever appear on the market again.”

  The precision of his response took her by surprise. Marion clutched her cup and brought it to her lips to gain some time. Duverger had done his homework. He knew, or at least suspected, that there was a problem with the sculptures, and she had only a few seconds to decide before making her move.

  “Would they instill doubt regarding the rest of the collection?” Marion saw an instant reaction on the appraiser’s face: a hint of panic in his eyes and tension in his jaw.

  “You realize that your fortune doesn’t depend on just you, don’t you?”

  “Same goes for your fortune. Without my silence…”

  “Hence, a mutual understanding.”

  The appraiser was still using his as-few-words-as-possible strategy. Marion wanted to make sure she was following along. Was it Duverger’s intent to quietly take the sculptures out of the picture because of their suspicious nature and the threat to the market that they posed? Was she ready to seal the deal?

  “You were nothing to your father. Nothing but a cog in his power-hungry machine,” the appraiser said, as if he needed to hit her with that reality to convince her to team up with him.

  Marion took it on the chin. Hearing this come from someone else’s mouth was really no shock. Her father had never extended himself to her. For her, he had been dead for a long time.

  “There’s still the collection,” she said. “At least he’s given me that. And I’ll remain the sole owner. No guardianship and definitely not yours.”

  “So we are in agreement over the most important factor then?” he said, practically ecstatic.

  “What is the most important factor, in your opinion?”

  “Those sculptures never existed. Apparently I have more to lose than you do. But all things considered, it could be the reverse…”

  “So you’ll let me have your jaguar then?”

  “Yes, I will lend it to you. And at the right time we’ll destroy them.”

  “And what about the rest of the collection?”

  “You will surely end up calling on me,” Duverger responded, a smile returning to his face. “You see, I’m the best.”

  21

  With Chris right behind her, Marion climbed the stairs to Magni’s mansion two at a time. She was moving with the ease of a woman who thought she owned the world. She was prepared to tell Gaudin the truth and put him in his place for once and for all. But she’d be generous. She wouldn’t kick him out. Not right away. After all, if she was going to be a permanent fixture here, what was the rush?

  Just as she was about to push the doorbell, Marion heard a phone ringing inside the apartment. Gaudin wasn’t picking up. He was usually home at this time of day. Marion didn’t know why, but she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach. She looked at Chris. Seeing the worry on her face, he asked for the key and opened the door himself. The phone was still ringing, and the sound was lingering in the otherwise deadly still apartment. Gaudin wasn’t there. And yet Marion felt someone was there. The place smelled of sweat: strong, rank, and sickening.

  Marion cautiously stepped into the parlor. It was a wasteland: drawers on the floor, paintings yanked off the walls, armchairs knocked over, carpets rolled up…

  But oddly, there was something methodical about the chaos. The place had been tossed, but nothing had been destroyed. No broken glass on the floor, no papers strewn about, no smashed lamps or vases. Once the paintings were hung again, the chairs were turned right-side-up, and the carpet was rolled back over the floor, the parlor would look the way it always had.

  “Don’t touch a thing,” Chris instructed. His face had turned ghostly pale, and Marion, who assumed she was looking just as white, couldn’t help but crack a nervous smile. His cautionary order sounded like something out of trashy horror movie.

  Chris started inspecting the room, carefully avoiding the objects scattered on the floor. He lifted the curtain hanging over the cellar entrance and tried unsuccessfully to open the door. With an unsettled look on his face, he began examining the far side of the room. He approached the overturned sofa in front of the fireplace. Still at the entrance to the parlor, Marion was following him with her eyes. When her friend peered around the sofa and cried out, she rushed over.

  Gaudin was lying in a pool of dark-red blood. He was curled in a fetal position, and his hands were shielding his head. His face, partially concealed by his fingers, was oozing blood clots and pus. His cheekbones and nose were smashed, making his open mouth look all the more grotesque. Placed triumphantly beside the torture victim’s body was a bronze sculpture—a beautiful pregnant woman with voluptuous breasts and hips—which reinforced the macabre esthetic.

  Marion clutched Chris’s arm. Her head was whirling, and her stomach was churning. They stumbled back to the door.

  “Here, take my cell,” she whispered, handing him her phone. “Call Combes, quick.”

  “Are you sure you want me to do this?”

  “Call him,” she ordered. “Tell him… Tell him we’re waiting for him.”

  And with that, she ran out of the mansion and released her disgust, her incomprehension, and her disappointment over the wrought-iron railing.

  ~ ~ ~

  How long had they been in Chris’s car, clinging to each other in a stupor? Combes was taking an eternity. But when he knocked softly on the car window, she looked at the time and saw that only ten minutes had passed.

  “Unlock the doors,” the detective ordered. He slid into the backseat and didn’t bother asking them how they were before laying everything out for them. “Okay, this is what we’re doing. It won’t be long before homicide shows up, and I don’t want you to be seen here. We’ll talk about all this first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Neither Chris nor Marion responded.

  “Do you understand me? You cannot go home tonight. I’ll be at this hotel tomorrow morning.” Combes handed Marion a card. “Do not go home! Is that clear? You’re in danger!”

  Marion’s eyes filled with tears, and her voice felt thick. “I threw up. Behind the stairs.”

  “Nothing else, though, right? You didn’t touch anything?”

  The two friends shook their heads, but Chris quickly corrected himself.

  “The door leading to the cellar.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “In the main room, on the right.”

  “Nothing else—are you sure? Okay, let’s get out of here. And try to get some rest. I’ll be needing both of you.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The vinyl wallpaper with gigantic red petunias was peeling. The shabby drapes were threadbare, and the gray carpet was worn. But the huge and inviting bed in the middle of the room was covered with a fluffy white duvet and plush pillows. Fully dressed, Marion and Chris slipped under the covers. A sign in the lobby had informed them that each room was furnished with a brand-new American-style bed. And the hotel had delivered. The mattress had the lush feel of a featherbed from another era.

  Finally, Marion and Chris felt safe. It didn’t matter that a neon light was flashing outside their window or that noises were coming from the other side of the wall
. The concierge, a friendly guy, seemed to have gotten specific instructions to take care of them. He told them he would be bringing up breakfast around six o’clock, and he would be available all night if they needed anything.

  Marion, her hands behind her head, spent a long moment staring at the ceiling before turning to her friend.

  “Let me handle Combes. Whatever you do, don’t get involved.”

  She looked up at the ceiling again, torn between a compulsion to talk about the slaying and the need to digest the shock. Chris broke the silence.

  “About these murders related to Magni. How come you and I have been able to escape? You were attacked, and then we were followed, but we’re both still safe and sound.”

  “Magni made sure we were protected so we could carry out his plan.” Marion had realized this shortly after her meeting with Duverger.

  “You were nothing but a cog,” he had said. “Magni used you.”

  “We should try to get some shut-eye,” Marion suggested, even though she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep.

  “I can’t. Maybe some whiskey would help.” Chris jumped out of bed and headed straight to the mini-fridge.

  He’s going to overdo it, Marion thought as she watched him down the contents of one of the tiny bottles. That one emptied, he opened another and then another. When all the bottles were empty he crawled into bed again, turning his back to her.

  “Good night,” he muttered. Even facing the other way, he stank. Highly annoyed, Marion tried to push him out of bed. He didn’t budge. She tossed and turned and finally put her pillow over her head to block the smell. She was just nodding off when someone knocked on the door. Marion tried to ignore it, but the person at the door knocked again, louder this time.

  Marion finally got up and found herself face-to-face with a grinning Didier Combes, who was carrying a breakfast tray. The nerve of him, arriving unannounced at the crack of dawn. “I haven’t had the chance to collect my wits yet.”

  The detective set the tray on the nightstand and poked Chris, who was still in a comatose-like slumber. He awoke with a start. “What’s going on?” he shouted, jerking his head off the pillow.

  “It’s the moment of truth,” the detective announced ambiguously.

  Chris turned to Marion, who was quietly stirring her coffee. She gulped it down and poured herself another. It was watery and lukewarm, but it was doing the trick.

  “We need some more,” she told Combes.

  “I thought you would. Another round is on its way.”

  Combes opened the drapes and sat down in a chair by the window. It was dark outside. Still groggy, Marion paced the room.

  “May I smoke?” the detective asked, breaking the silence.

  “No,” Marion answered. She was nauseated. She walked over to the breakfast tray and picked up a slice of toast, hoping it would settle her stomach.

  She finished the toast, and Combes started in. “What were you doing at Magni’s place yesterday?” he asked.

  “You mean my place?” she said, shooting him a defiant look.

  Combes didn’t waste a second. “It’s not yours yet, unless you know something that I don’t know.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Why’d you bring him with you?” Combes asked, pointing his chin at Chris.

  “Gaudin scared me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was excluded from the inheritance.”

  “That’s not a response.”

  “Is the coffee coming?” Marion asked.

  “Why were you scared?” Combes pressed.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore, Didier. Nothing’s making sense to me. I thought he had every reason to stop me or squeeze me out. My father’s will had conditions. As long as I didn’t recover the three sculptures, Gaudin could control the collection.

  “Did you find them?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Marion. I need more. Who tried to drown you?”

  “You know about the pool?”

  “You should have told me. So who was it, then?”

  “Can we take a break, Didier? I can’t think straight, and my stomach hurts.” She sat down on her floor, her back against the wall. She thought she could concentrate better with Chris out of her line of vision.

  “We don’t have time for a break, Marion. I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. You’ll have to be more talkative than this. I wasn’t the one who discovered the body. Make a little effort. It could spare you some unpleasantness. I’ll ask you one more time: who tried to drown you?”

  “How do you expect me to know that? My disappearing from the picture serves nobody’s purpose, except maybe Gaudin’s, and he’s gone now.”

  “What about Duverger? He has one of your sculptures.”

  “He’s not the only one.”

  “Yes, but he’s the only one suspected of murder.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have several clues leading us to him. He’s no doubt an excellent appraiser, but he’s a poor murderer. He wiped down the weapon, but he left prints everywhere else.”

  “Duverger killed Chartier?”

  “No, he killed Gaudin.”

  Marion shrank inside as she absorbed the news. So now she was colluding with a murderer.

  “But why would he kill Gaudin?” she forced herself to ask, remembering how Duverger had apparently put the personal assistant entirely out of his mind when they met to negotiate their deal. There he was, all smiley, relaxed even. And he had just killed the man. Could you murder someone that easily? Would he have done the same to her if they hadn’t struck a deal?

  “Have you met with Duverger?” Combes started again, unwilling to give up.

  “Yes.”

  “Marion,” Chris cried out.

  “He was trying to get in touch with me…”

  A knock at the door. Combes practically jumped out of his chair to let the concierge in.

  “I’m listening,” he said, after tipping the concierge and setting down another tray.

  “He entrusted SearchArt with finding a sculpture that had been stolen from him. It was at Magni’s. I checked.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He definitely wanted me to believe that he could pressure me.”

  “Do you have reason to think Duverger was blackmailing anyone?”

  “How would I know? If my father wasn’t such a mystery man, maybe I could tell you more.”

  Marion caught the detective’s skeptical look and noted his silence. She couldn’t decide: another cup of coffee would probably upset her stomach even more, but she still felt fatigued. She tried to pull herself together.

  Combes, meanwhile, had opened the window and lit a Gitanes. Marion understood. She was frustrating him. This man, who cared for her in an almost fatherly way, was losing patience. How far could she go with her evasiveness and secrecy? Combes was a shrewd detective. It was possible that he was aware of much more than he was letting on.

  Marion looked over at Chris, who hadn’t yet gotten out of bed. His back was to them, and he had pulled the covers over his head. “Okay, I can see that I’m on my own here,” she said to herself.

  Combes started in again. “So, to sum things up: in the last ten days we’ve had two murders, one attempted drowning, sculptures that just vanish and reappear, an heiress who’s so evasive she might very well inherit nothing, and a researcher who follows her around like a puppy dog. And then, perhaps most important, a detective who is being made to believe that a wealth estimated at over thirty million euros hasn’t incited the slightest interest, the smallest bit of excitement.”

  Marion was silent. Combes was giving her one last chance to come around. But she wasn’t going to give in.

  “Since you’re unwilling to reveal anything, I’m going to take another approach,” he finally announced. “The sculptures are fakes, Marion. And Duverger knew that.”

  Shocked, she looked a
t Combes and then at Chris, who was sitting up now and shaking his head, silently telling her that he hadn’t divulged a thing. How did Combes know? There wasn’t any way…

  “But that’s not the worst part. Magni’s value system wasn’t the same as ours.” Combes said, apparently weighing his words. “Would a madman with his resources and proclivities be satisfied with just creating fakes, aware of the small art world’s willingness to do anything to protect itself?”

  Marion felt her heartbeat speeding up.

  “Chartier,” Combes continued. “The way his body was mutilated…”

  “The way his body was mutilated? What are you saying?”

  “The lacerations…” Combes paused. “I wanted to talk to you about it, but you ran off. The killer reproduced the sculpture’s designs on Chartier’s body. And he cut off the thumb of his right hand.”

  Horrified, Marion hugged her knees to her chest. Her mind flashed back to Ozenberg and their lovemaking. The designs he outlined on her body.

  “He engraved them on the right side of Chartier’s torso. He took out his eyes and made holes in his cheeks in the same places where the emeralds were.”

  Marion recalled how Romarel, Magni’s former lover, described the way Magni had disfigured his own face. Marion was shaking.

  “Similar markings were found on bodies in Peru,” the relentless detective continued. “No one there ever established a connection. We wanted to make one. They were all artisans whose deaths had never been figured out. Curiously, they lived quite close to one another in the same region of Piura. Magni had entrusted each one with creating a fake sculpture.”

  Combes stopped, as if to let Marion take the information in.

  “But Magni wasn’t alone. He had an associate. A man named Ozenberg.”

  Tears were streaming down Marion’s face now.”

  “Yes, I believe you met him the other day. He had shady networks in South America, and he helped Magni carry out his plan. After making sure the men who made the sculptures were dead, your father gave Ozenberg the assignment of ensuring that they reached you and eliminating those who might get in the way. My partner from homicide arrested him this morning and will soon charge him with Chartier’s murder. Nobody thought for a moment that he and Magni were in cahoots. Actually, their partnership went back further than that. Ozenberg was working for Magni for a long time—tracking down widows who had the misfortune of inheriting whatever Magni was interested in, making sure competitive collectors never got in his way and keeping tomb robbers under his thumb, all while maintaining a fairly clean front with his Paris gallery. He even bought one of the fakes at the auction to keep up appearances.”