The Unknown Masterpiece

by John Brooke

  Inspector Nouvelle murmured, ‘Our Robert has lovely taste.’

  Rudi Bucholtz hardly grunted a response. The Swiss cop was mesmerized, astounded at the range of the stolen collection. And perhaps overwhelmed by his dawning sense of responsibility. He plowed on, calling, noting, making lists…

  The day passed into evening. She ordered another meal. Tarte flambé. Perhaps some salad. A cheese plate if they could do it. Some beer, a bottle of wine. No — two. A uniform on guard brought it in an hour later. She informed him they would certainly be working late, and gently closed the door. She used Christine Charigot’s kitchen to heat and serve it out on her china plates. She brought it downstairs on a tray. They ate at Robert’s desk, took their dessert on the edge of his (unmade) bed. Coffee and biscuits stolen from the house. There was plenty of wine and beer in reserve when Rudi picked up his remote and made another call. A French cop understood his kindly, slightly entreating German. ‘I will be quite late.’ Tomorrow was implied.

  He offered her the phone. She shrugged. Claude Néon no longer expected to be informed.

  She sat with her glass of wine. And Rudi. There was unfinished business between them.

  Rudi Bucholtz put his wine aside. He lifted the glass from her hand, put it with his, but kept her hand — no longer the fool, this was clearly communicated. For her part, she was backsliding at a rapid rate, but the case was almost solved and her life as she knew it would be over.

  So, why not?

  She asked, ‘Was your tooth expensive?’

  He nodded.

  She asked, ‘Would you like to see my scar?’

  He nodded.

  In his memos to his colleagues Rudi had described Robert Charigot’s collection as a ‘secret’ — an ‘astronomically priceless!’ secret. For a few spiritually obscure but not unpleasant hours on a Saturday night in a suburban basement, Aliette Nouvelle felt she was part of it.

  Rudi was attentive. Gentle. He was deeply affected by her scar.

  ***

  Sunday morning they rose early and continued on. Smoothly. Rudi was intensely involved with his mission. No moping about ‘us’ this second time around. That did her empty heart some good. Touch for touch, cool for cool, merci, monsieur, now let’s get on with the job.

  They worked till mid-morning. Before going up to the IJ lab at rue des Bons Enfants to catalogue the paintings recovered from the river, they stopped at Kembs. Agent Bucholtz was not as impressed with the shoemaker as she’d wanted him to be. He was merely businesslike — though the Swiss cop did compliment the work of Gregory Huet. But he was as baffled as everyone else as to who had painted it and where and when, and the people in his office couldn’t help. (Yes, another call, another command first thing Sunday morning. The new Rudi was not afraid of leadership.) Then he followed her up the River Road and into the city.

  By the time they arrived, Inspector Nouvelle had more or less sorted through and accepted the difference between being in a basement jammed with beauty, and out in the world with only Rudi. By three, he’d done what he could with the remaining works drying in the lab. A Fra Angelico had been saved. That was something special too.

  He shook her hand, ‘We’ll be in touch,’ and left.

  39

  Finer Shades of Motivation

  After Agent Bucholtz departed, Inspector Nouvelle took herself down to Hôtel Dieu, thence to the Palais de Justice for a rare Sunday meeting. Christine Charigot was in a secured room at the hospital. She had been sedated and, on doctor’s orders, allowed to sleep for a full twenty-four hours before a parade of experts, medical, psychiatric, legal, and psycho-legal, tried in vain to elicit a useful explanation. Magistrate Gérard Richand had a file of first opinions.

  J-P Blismes, who knew something of the underpinning ties between criminals and mothers, had been asked to try his luck. Summoned, Blismes reported, ‘Exhaustion is the least of it. Paranoia, anger, and a very deep and loyal love for her little boy, you have to give her that, no matter what else is riding here. I think you could pull her fingernails out, do some of that waterboarding, even apply some phone directories to the kidney area, and she wouldn’t say a word. Although maybe she honestly doesn’t know,’ Blismes added with a thoughtful smile.

  Judge Richand asked. ‘But was she complicit?’

  ‘Only in the sense of ignoring it.’

  ‘An enabler. In my book, an enabler is complicit.’

  ‘Apples and oranges, Monsieur Judge.’ A smile. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘How could she ignore it?’ Claude asked.

  ‘Talk to her,’ Blismes replied. ‘She ignored it because she hated it.’

  It was her Robert’s amazing stash of art.

  Gérard Richand noted that Christine Charigot had not once uttered the word painting, let alone art, over the course of their interview that morning. ‘She has no sense of their value. None. She said it was to punish him. Teach him a lesson. A very typical mother.’

  ‘But not. Let’s hope,’ Blismes amended. Typical mothers did not ignore their child’s criminal career. ‘Especially when said child is still at home. At least none I’ve met. There was no way she could ignore it — he’d commandeered her laundry room, yes?’ This was confirmed. He added, ‘Typical mothers want good boys.’

  Aliette asked, ‘Did she mention the men who were going to hurt him?’ Her own second interview with Madame Charigot had been as unsuccessful as her first.

  ‘She does not respond to the word homosexual,’ Richand said. ‘Doesn’t even blink.’

  ‘But she says she will protect her son,’ noted Blismes.

  ‘She won’t admit to any knowledge of Martin Bettelman,’ Aliette said. ‘I’m prepared to believe she is honestly ignorant of names.’

  Richand asked, ‘Is she a sociopath?’

  Blismes laughed. ‘No, not in the least. But her son may be.’

  ‘It’s like a combination to the vault that’s been ripped in half,’ Claude Néon ventured. ‘We won’t get anywhere till we get to him.’

  Richand nodded. ‘They’re a team.’

  Blismes smiled. ‘But not a criminal team.’

  ‘A unit, then. A fundamental cog in a major crime.’

  ‘A psychological unit. Your take on it will have to wait for court.’

  Claude suggested, ‘Let’s just find him first.’ Richand and Blismes were capable of playing the matter out ad nauseam. Claude turned to his inspector. ‘Alors?’

  She could have, indeed should have, made another call to Basel. Should have made it Friday. Or yesterday. But Inspector Aliette Nouvelle had not called Basel City Police. She did not like Inspector Morenz. It was as simple as that and his own damn fault. People could try trusting. And communicating. People like Morenz and his boss Boehler, they worked at cultivating an atmosphere of suspicion. A French inspector’s decision was the natural result. Sorry, we don’t want your help, messieurs. She and Bernadette Milhau would find Robert Charigot and bring him back to France — to his mother.

  True, he could still be in France. Or anywhere. But she knew where he had to be.

  But tomorrow. They would go tomorrow, when Inspector Milhau’s bandaged head was feeling better. Bernadette badly wanted and quite deserved to be part of the final operation in this affair. It was just a bang on the head; it had been stitched and the CT scan was negative. She looked a bit like Frankenstein’s monster but had assured the inspector that with aspirin and a quiet day, she would be ready tomorrow. Aliette told them, ‘I have a solid lead. Inspector Milhau and I will collect him tomorrow. Very quietly. Rushing in with sirens blaring won’t work.’

  Judge and Commissaire both knew she meant Basel. And Boehler.

  They knew it was a wrong decision based on emotions, but neither challenged it.

  Aliette felt comfortable. The murder of Martin Bettelman had been a crime of passion, a messy, amateurish one-off act of compulsion — nothing like the systematic killings on the Swiss side. As long as Robert Charigot stayed hidden from the glare o
f media, she was sure her murder would be solved. The Swiss mess she would leave to the Swiss.

  So, moving on: ‘Obviously, Friday is now a completely different proposition,’ Richand said. They knew there would be people from as far away as Edinburgh at the media event on Friday morning. Art people as well as law officers. Now they had a treasure trove in the basement of a suburban house. For Gérard Richand, this was a huge opportunity. How could they capitalize on this confluence of international attention and an incredible cultural crimes breakthrough?

  Aliette pretended to mull it. But her focus at that moment was personal. Gérard Richand’s tendency (read Gérard’s ego) showed much the same profile as Rudi Bucholtz’s. Looked at historically, it gave one pause: Gérard had been her first lover in this nice but dull border city, and she knew Rudi would be her last. What did that say about her profile? One more strong bit of evidence confirming she should leave this place behind. What’s more, Gérard Richand knew as well as she that the shoemaker was an orphan, and that when all was said and done he would likely still be. Then he would be discreetly claimed for a spot in a French magistrate’s home.

  To the judge’s proposition, she replied, ‘No, Gérard.’ Senior Inspector Nouvelle was quietly adamant. ‘Friday remains what it was designed to be: one murdered man, one unidentified painting recovered at the scene. That will be lost in a twinkling if we introduce this weekend’s information. Which may or may not be related, don’t forget.’ Adding, ‘My FedPol contact has agreed to this.’

  Claude looked up. ‘Rudi?’

  Aliette nodded Oui, and cringed.

  J-P Blismes was sitting there, smiling back at her. So was Claude.

  Though from one man to the next, they were very different smiles.

  ‘Of course it’s related,’ replied Richand. ‘One little unknown painting hardly matters now.’ In the face of Robert Charigot’s grand collection, how could it?

  It was a wrong notion, born of wrong motivation. Aliette challenged, ‘What about one murdered man? A French citizen, Gérard.’ Which was a right notion but not an entirely honest riposte. Her motivation had been the shoemaker, not Martin Bettleman… Oh yes, everyone at the table that day had a deep and ongoing relationship with the concept of motivation. Where it pointed. To whom. And she knew them all too well.

  Yet another reason to move on, get out of town.

  Still, the judge had to back down. ‘Fine.’ He smiled his own sort of smile and made a note. ‘I presume all is in order at Kembs?’

  ‘I was there this morning,’ Aliette reported. ‘All fine. Gregory’s waiting for the truck.’

  After the meeting, she and Claude went their separate ways, to Sunday nights alone.

  40

  If Della Hadn’t Been So Nervous

  Dieter Taub had seen the reports of the paintings in the Rhine. And he had overheard the French inspector’s brief directive to Della Kyreosus. It was his business to overhear such calls. He had spent a solitary Sunday locked in a private room at the Kunstmuseum reviewing security footage of Martin Bettelman, such was his concern. In the interest of optimal security service, he of course had access to master discs that went back much farther than six months. No, as far as he could ascertain, Martin Bettelman had made no mistake till recently — it was there in the footage Della and the FedPol agent had uncovered back in October. A big mistake. A huge lapse in judgment. Taub hoped Martin was somewhere in hell, regretting it. But then, what do cretin French know about the deeper levels of service in the purest interests of the clientele? Monday morning he returned to the private room, his agenda freed up for the entire day.

  Dieter Taub was in a state of controlled fury as he searched the discs again, determined to get a clear view of this pale boy who was the cause of all his grief. True grief, of a weight a shallow man the likes of Martin Bettelman could never know. Dieter regretted ever knowing Martin. Trusting him had been absurdly unwise… A knock on the door was almost too much to bear.

  ‘What?’

  Della Kypreosus could never really speak the language, but she had learned the business, the mentality that drove it. She’d felt Herr Taub’s rage when he’d limped into the surveillance suite that morning. She’d heard the anger in the steady thump of his cane, too plainly, as he’d crossed the room and locked himself in the private screening room. It had left her confused and nervous. She had to follow orders — her livelihood depended on it. Herr Taub’s order was the same order as the French inspector’s secret favour. Was he watching her? Della was shaking as she faced her boss.

  The ivory-skinned man had returned. She had found him installed in front of the painting of the kneeling boy in the Swiss Early Modern area. A kneeling boy, alone by a river. She had hit a button and immediately knew it was a work by someone called Hodler, titled Adoration V. The information meant nothing to Della — she was no art expert. But as she’d watched, entranced and bothered, Della realized the fragility she discerned in the pale man was echoed perfectly in the image on the wall. An instinct took hold. Della Kypreosus experienced a need to protect the fragile man as much as the painting she was paid to protect.

  And the job she felt was sorely threatened.

  She had to protect herself, her job.

  But if she just sat there…

  And if Herr Taub was observing her…

  It had taken a good twenty minutes to get up the courage. She watched the day’s first tour enter the room, swirl slowly around the pale figure on the bench, then leave. She watched the subject glance after them — saw his face clearly for an instant — boyish, but something else there — before he turned his gaze back to the image of the kneeling boy.

  No… She had to. She had to report it. Della had keyed the image in the Swiss Early Modern area and dutifully crossed the room and knocked on the door. She liked the French inspector. She felt like a traitor. It was difficult to speak.

  ‘What is it, Della? I’m very busy.’

  Looking at him, at his hooded eyes, his fleshy mouth, it occurred to her that he always seemed like an animal with one foot on its prey, checking the air before killing and feeding. ‘I find him.’

  ‘When?’ He thought she meant more footage from the recent past.

  ‘Now. He is here now.’

  Herr Taub moved past her. He hovered over her monitor. When she moved to take her place at the controls, he held out his cane like a railway crossing gate — Keep away! Muttering in a guttural German she still couldn’t catch after ten years in this country, Taub enlarged the image, went in as close as the camera would take him.

  Not close enough. The man was lost in the painting of the boy and his oversized hood kept the better part of his face in shadow. But the fixed jut of his delicate chin, the lips pulsing ever so minutely, these were signs of a person deep inside a moment of adoration.

  Della watched her boss from inches away. She smelled the over-sweet tang of skin lotion on his freshly shaved and polished scalp, sensed his frustration, his need…and the perpetual sadness he always carried as he leaned closer and closer to the screen, as if that would enlarge the image. His piggy eyes narrowed in a way she had seen before and instinctively withdrew from.

  Something mean there. Predatory.

  She tried to sound coolly professional. ‘I send a team?’

  He seemed jolted from his thoughts. He smiled. The thing Della saw was grotesque as he rose and backed away, instructing, ‘Carry on, Della. I will look into this.’ He left.

  Della Kypreosus sat stunned for a full four minutes before realizing the image in front of her was frozen. Fighting panic, she stabbed a button and resumed her watch in real time:

  Herr Taub was standing in the Swiss Early Modern area observing an empty space on the wall. Della punched buttons. She found the thief on the stairs to the terrace, floppy hood hanging over his white face, calmly heading for the door. She did not see the painting, of course — it had been secreted away inside his baggy garment. But she knew he had it.

  She d
id not sound the alarm. Herr Taub was handling it. She would wait for Herr Taub to instruct. On monitor one, Taub was still in front of the empty space on the Early Modern wall, scratching his nose, as if the answer were there, in the very absence he was studying. Della watched him bring his phone from his pocket and lift it, about to enter a code.

  But Herr Taub decided against the alarm. He put his phone back in his pocket and left the room. The thief was on monitor two, blending into a tour group of camera-laden seniors filing slowly in past the woman on the door. He quickly became over-exposed and indistinct as he walked out into the daylight, then lost behind the Burghers of Calais. Della switched to monitor three, picked up the thief as he entered the street and headed off in the direction of the bridge.

  On monitor two she watched Herr Taub following, nodding good-day to the same woman at the door, then leaving the premises, limping at a carefully measured pace. In no hurry at all.

  Della Kypreosus was left watching the museum courtyard, the steady trickle of visitors coming and going on a December morning. She was frozen, sifting dully — too slowly! — through a spectrum of feelings, none of them good. At the heart of it was this: She knew Dieter Taub did not like women. She had no proof, but after the years of being around him, she knew.

  There was that, and the ugly thing in his eyes. And the fragile boy-like thief.

  It brought her to an awful impasse.

  Dieter Taub was going to hurt that boyish man. She had no proof, she just knew.

  The impasse lasted. She battled through it, but not quickly. Della was feeling decidedly wretched as she took the business card from where it leaned against her monitor board and picked up her phone. Losing her job was not important. She was ashamed of her selfish fear.