by Alex Connor
They nodded, already damned.
‘… The Church will prosper and so will we,’ Antonius continued. ‘Naturally I will reward your silence in this matter, gentlemen, even though we are doing no wrong. With your help, we can make any necessary entries into the books of the Brotherhood. It should appear that Hieronymus is living a normal life. Perhaps a marriage for him in a few years’ time?’ The firelight caught in his eyes, flickering like the flames of Hell. ‘In this way, Hieronymus will never die. He will remain the pre-eminent painter in the Netherlands, his work desired and valuable. Our city’s most famous son.’
The thin cleric was suddenly dubious. ‘Is this not pride?’
‘Hieronymus will live on only to honour God,’ Antonius persisted. ‘We do this for God.’
‘We do this for God,’ the cleric agreed, sighing and shifting his position as though his body could not stand the weight of his deceit.
‘But in pleasing God, there is no reason to punish ourselves,’ Antonius continued. ‘We will keep the studio busy here. My other sons, my father and I will use it after Hieronymus has gone—’
‘But what of his burial?’
Antonius had already plotted a pauper’s interment in a village in the north. Without a headstone. Hieronymus lying penniless amongst strangers while he made money from his corpse.
‘I will organise a Christian burial for my son,’ he replied, glancing at the clerics and faking sadness. ‘He will be missed. But his work must appear to continue – for all our sakes.’ He leaned his bulky frame towards the two clergymen. ‘No one must know of his death.’
‘No one will learn of it from us.’
Antonius nodded. ‘It won’t be long now. He’s weakening every day, but still working. He works like a man possessed. Maybe he paints what he will soon see …’
‘It’s sinful to pretend a man alive when he’s in his grave,’ the thin cleric announced suddenly, chilled by what they had planned.
‘The Church serves the country, and Hieronymus’s work serves the people,’ Antonius chided the man. ‘How would they find their way to Heaven without being guided there? People are weak, fools, some barely more than animals. They revel in sin, in licentiousness. But when they look at my son’s visions of Hell and Damnation, they are fearful and turn back to God. There’s no dishonour in what we do. God will understand.’ A smile came, then went. ‘Order is everything, gentlemen. A little deception is nothing.’
Sixty-One
Hiram Kaminski’s Gallery, Old Bond Street
The incident had unnerved Hiram. Whoever had tried to break into the gallery had failed due to Judith’s intervention, but not without causing him some serious anxiety. He no longer cared about the Bosch chain, the Bosch portrait or the Bosch deception. He was scared. So when Gerrit der Keyser sauntered into the gallery, Hiram was on edge.
Wearing a raincoat that was too big for him, Gerrit nodded at the receptionist, passed three customers looking at the paintings on view, and made for Hiram’s office. From where he had already been spotted.
‘Hiram,’ he said by way of greeting.
‘Gerrit,’ Hiram replied.
‘Well, at least we know who the fuck we are,’ Gerrit said, laughing and taking off his coat. ‘It’s cold out there. Must be due to hit zero tonight. I hate the cold. Didn’t used to mind it when I had some weight on me, but now – starved to bleeding death – I feel it.’
‘You still on a diet?’
Gerrit nodded. ‘I’m about to be signed up by Vogue magazine.’
‘What d’you want?’ Hiram replied. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m a bit on edge at the moment—’
‘Wait till you hear what I have to say.’ Gerrit sat down, checked the office door was closed, and put up two fingers. ‘There are two of them.’
‘What?’
‘Two chains,’ Gerrit replied, ‘Two fucking chains. Preston has one and someone dropped one off at my gallery. When I took it over to Preston I thought one was fake, either his or mine. But he’s just rung me and told me that it’s official – there were two chains made from one antique chain.’
‘Both with initials engraved on them?’ Hiram asked, incredulous.
‘Exact in every bleeding detail. Same clasp, same links, same everything—’
‘Wait a moment,’ Hiram said. ‘You said that Preston had had them authenticated—’
‘I’m ahead of you there. I checked it out with the expert who examined them, just in case Slippery Phil was trying to pull a fast one. And it turns out that both are genuine. But both could genuinely have been made last week.’
Hiram studied Gerrit der Keyser. He was surprised that the dealer had come to him and been so forthcoming. It was unlike der Keyser – unless he had another reason to throw in his lot with Hiram.
‘Why are you telling me this? If they are fakes, Preston could have hidden one and auctioned off the other and no one would have been any the wiser – apart from you.’
‘Don’t panic, I’m not losing my touch,’ Gerrit replied, fingering a maidenhair fern on Hiram’s desk. ‘You want to give this some plant food—’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I want your opinion. Something I should have asked for when all this started.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m a fucking idiot, but there you go. You know about this chain and the deception, blah, blah, blah?’
‘No, I don’t—’
‘Don’t lie. Preston told me all about it. Said you knew.’ Gerrit pulled a face as he caught Hiram’s stunned expression. ‘Judith told him everything. Said she wanted to keep you out of trouble and thought she could shift the pressure on to Philip Preston. She was worried after someone tried to break in here.’
‘Does everyone know about that!’
‘Oh, calm down,’ Gerrit told him. ‘No one has secrets for long in this business, you know that. It’s the auction of that fucking chain in two days and every nut’s coming out of the woodwork. But only me and Preston know that there are two chains. Both of which could be fakes—’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Hiram said emphatically. ‘Thomas Littlejohn tried to tell me about the Bosch chain years ago. And he sent me a letter about it. Which I only received after he was killed.’ Hiram could see Gerrit’s eyes widen behind his bifocals. ‘Littlejohn was the best – he was an expert. If he put his name to anything, it was genuine. He wrote and told me the whole story, including the Bosch portrait—’
‘What fucking portrait?’ Gerrit snapped.
‘So Philip Preston didn’t tell you everything that Judith told him, did he?’ Hiram replied, almost gleeful. ‘The Tree Man in the triptych is a portrait of Hieronymus Bosch. He didn’t paint it, but it was his likeness.’
‘Shit.’ He glanced back at Hiram. ‘You going public with this?’
‘No. I don’t want anything to do with it. It’s bad luck, all of it. And I’d be wary of what Philip Preston’s telling you. He might be right about some of it – two chains could have been made out of one long chain …’ Hiram stared at his visitor. ‘… perhaps he had them made—’
‘No way! What would be in it for him? If it comes out that there are two chains, he’s going to look like a fucking laughing stock. Nah, this is one tricky bit of business Preston isn’t involved in.’
Irritated, Hiram shook his head. ‘If there are two chains now, they could have been made to look identical in every way. But the chain Thomas Littlejohn saw was genuine. He never said anything about two chains. And he wouldn’t have lied – I’d stake my life on that. Thomas needed a witness because he was in danger, terrified that something would happen to him.’
‘Which it did,’ Gerrit said thoughtfully. ‘So which chain did Littlejohn see?’
‘Obviously the one with the papers in it.’
Gerrit laughed. ‘I heard the rumour, but wasn’t sure. And I never knew the proof was hidden in the bleeding chain. How did they do it?’
Hiram paused. Any other time he would have resisted confiding, but
now he didn’t care. He didn’t want the chain, he wanted rid of it. And if Gerrit der Keyser wanted to go after it, that was fine by him.
‘There were pieces of paper hidden in every link. Put together, they told the whole story, and the part the Church played in the deception. Nicholas Laverne found them.’
‘That basket case! He broke the arm of one of my employees the other day. The man’s a fucking nutter.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why would he break someone’s arm?’
Gerrit’s expression was guileless. ‘There was a misunderstanding. Honthorst was just trying to put his bloody point across, and that ex-priest attacked him.’
The lie didn’t ring true and Hiram stared at his visitor warily. Meanwhile Gerrit tried to make sense of what he had been told – and – failed miserably.
‘Who brought the second chain to you?’
‘Some woman.’ Gerrit said sourly. ‘And no, I don’t have a bloody name. My secretary was busy – she just took the parcel and hardly glanced at the person who delivered it. Stupid cow.’
He lapsed into a disgruntled silence. His visit had not proved to be as useful as he had hoped. Certainly Hiram believed that there was a genuine conspiracy, but it was obvious that he wasn’t curious to discover more, or likely to join forces. Gerrit was going to have to work it out for himself, he realised, remembering the old man who had given him the painting to sell. The man called Guillaine. Which just happened to have been Sabine’s maiden name. But Sabine couldn’t have been the woman who brought the chain to his gallery. Ghosts don’t do deliveries.
Then a clammy feeling crept over Gerrit. Sabine was dead, that was true. But her daughter wasn’t.
Sixty-Two
Church of St Stephen, Fulham, London
It was past three in the morning and Nicholas was awake and listening. There were noises outside. He tried to sit up but was unable to move, paralysed, his throat dry. Panicking, he struggled to breathe, his eyes wide open, the room filled by an ominous black shadow. The shape moved towards his bed, its shadow crossing the window, its right arm raised as though about to strike.
Unable to cry out, Nicholas stared blindly, his body useless. He could feel sweat on his skin, his mouth working soundlessly. The shadow moved towards him and bent down. Closer, closer it came, until its face was only inches from his, a feeling of pressure crushing his body as the shape spread over him.
Sixty-Three
Conrad Voygel left Chicago and came back to London late. Angela was at the airport to meet his private plane, and with her, Sidney Elliott. He was sitting in the back seat of the chauffeured limousine as Angela got out to greet her husband.
‘This man’s been pestering me,’ she whispered. ‘Some man called Elliott, Sidney Elliott. He came to the tennis club and was watching me, then he called by the house.’ She looked into her husband’s face earnestly. ‘I don’t like him, Conrad. There’s something wrong with him.’
‘Why didn’t you call security?’
‘He said he was desperate to talk to you,’ she replied, pulling up her coat collar against the cold night. ‘I thought if I brought him with me tonight you could deal with him and then it would be over and done with. Besides, I wasn’t on my own with him in the car, was I?’
Thoughtful, Conrad kissed his wife on the cheek. Then he bent down and beckoned for Elliott to leave the car and follow him. Without another word, Conrad moved towards the airport building but didn’t enter. Instead he stood just outside and waited for Elliott to catch up with him.
Out of breath and jumpy, Elliott frowned against the wind which was blowing hard. ‘I had to s-s-see you. You w-w-wouldn’t answer my calls—’
‘You had no right to involve my wife.’ Conrad replied as an aeroplane started up nearby, its engines howling into the headwind. ‘I want no more to do with you—’
‘I can help you!’ Elliott all but screamed. ‘L-l-listen to me.’ His eyes were wide, dilated. ‘I’ve g-g-got one day left—’
‘Not any more. You’re fired.’
Enraged, Elliott caught hold of his arm, Conrad shaking him off and putting up his hand to his bodyguard who was about to intervene. Then he turned back to Elliott. ‘Listen to me. I don’t want you working for me any longer. Approach me again and I’ll call the police—’
‘I’ll tell th-th-them about you.’
His face was expressionless. ‘Tell them what?’
‘You must have something to h-h-hide. All this secrecy …’
‘I’m a private man, nothing more. I don’t like people interfering. You would do well to remember that.’
But Elliott wasn’t listening. ‘You’re a c-c-crook …! You used me …’
‘You came to me with information. You offered me a service which you could not supply.’
‘I told you about the Bosch p-p-papers—’
‘But you didn’t get them for me, did you?’ Conrad replied. ‘You failed. End of story.’
‘You said I h-h-had one more day!’ Elliott yelled over the sound of the plane engines. ‘You p-p-promised me—’
‘I promised you nothing,’ Conrad replied warningly. ‘Contact me again and you’ll regret it.’
Sixty-Four
Church of St Stephen, Fulham, London
The thud woke him. Grabbing his cane, Father Michael hurried into Nicholas’s room as fast as he could, only to find him on the floor. Concerned, he reached down, but Nicholas pushed him away and clambered back on to the bed.
‘What happened?’
Dazed, Nicholas shook his head. ‘A nightmare,’ he explained, trying to calm his own panic. ‘I thought there was someone in the room, someone coming for me, but I couldn’t wake myself up.’ He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘Night terrors, they call them. I used to suffer from them when I was kid, but I thought I’d grown out of it. God, what the hell is happening to me?’
‘Stress. You’re restless and you dream a lot.’ Father Michael poured some water from the carafe by the bed and passed it to Nicholas. ‘You dream a lot. I often hear you cry out.’ He lowered himself into the bedside chair. ‘Can I help you?’
‘No.’
‘You can trust me if you want to talk. We’re old friends, Nicholas. We’ve known each other for years. I know I let you down once, but that’s in the past. Now I want to help you.’ Father Michael’s face was lean, anxious. ‘What’s troubling you? Is it what’s happening now? Or what happened before?’ When Nicholas didn’t reply, he waited. The light from the bedside lamp glowed faintly, revealing a cramped room covered in striped paper from the 1960s, an electric fire secured halfway up one wall. One bar was lit, its red light eerie. ‘Whatever you tell me will go no further.’
‘The past is done with.’
‘No, the past is never done with until we come to terms with it, Nicholas … Do you regret what you did?’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I exposed wrong-doing.’
‘You betrayed your Church, your colleagues—’
‘And they betrayed Patrick Gerin and the Sullivan boy!’ Nicholas turned to look at the old priest. ‘A few years ago I went to Ireland to talk to David Sullivan, but he refused to see me. He wrote to me instead and said that I deserved everything that was coming to me.’
The priest was shocked. ‘Why would he say that?’
‘Because I failed, Father. No matter what I did, it was too late. I was too late … Mine was a pyrrhic victory.’
‘Is there nothing else?’
Sighing, Nicholas closed his eyes. He was feeling drained, limp as a glove. The nightmare had disturbed him, along with his most recent dreams. Dreams that were familiar, but altered. Changing, growing malignant, making him doubt himself and his memories. It seemed that all his mind’s silt had been scuffed up, his thoughts polluted. I need sleep, Nicholas thought. Sleep is what I need.
‘Is there nothing you want to tell me?’ Father Michael urged him. ‘Nothing?’
<
br /> His voice was coming from a long way away. Somewhere beyond the dank bedroom and the meagre fire. Somewhere hidden beneath the old wallpaper and the water casting blurry shadows in the confines of the glass.
Sixty-Five
Honor was just coming out of the shower when the intercom buzzed. Pulling a towelling robe around her, she answered. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Mark … Mark Spencer.’
‘It’s past ten. What d’you want?’
‘It’s about your brother.’
She buzzed him up, wrapping the robe tighter around her body, her hair wet as she answered the door. ‘Come in and take a seat. I’ll get some clothes on.’
He was about to say don’t bother for me, then thought better of it. Honor wasn’t impressed by him yet. She would be in time, but not yet. His clumsy attempt at blackmail hadn’t worked. It was clear that she wasn’t going to desert her brother, and although Mark knew it would be wiser to walk away, he found he couldn’t. His admiration for Honor was too entrenched. So instead he had decided to become her confidant and win her over that way.
As he waited for Honor to return, Mark looked around the flat. There were many rows of shelving holding hundreds of DVDs and CDs and some worn legal books. At eye level there was a photograph of a little girl. Curious, he touched it as Honor walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
He jumped, just as she had hoped he would. ‘D’you want some tea?’
Flustered, Mark returned the photograph to the shelf, ‘Tea? Yeah, tea would be good.’