by Alex Connor
When the van finally arrived at Palace Gardens, Nicholas tapped on the glass which separated him from the cabbie. ‘Can you pull over?’
He did so, looking at Nicholas through his rear-view mirror. ‘Don’t tell me you live here? I mean, no offence, but this address is a bit rich for your blood.’
Nicholas smiled, watching the van continue along the road, then paid the driver. Keeping to the shadows, he moved down the Gardens, walking next to the high hedges and walls, aware that most of the embassies or private properties had intruder lights which would give away any trespasser. He could see the van draw up to the gates of a large house, then pause. The driver spoke to someone over the intercom and a moment later the vast gates opened to allow the van to enter. As it did so, the powerful outside lights came on, illuminating the drive and the front of the house. Drawing back, Nicholas waited. Ten minutes passed, then finally the van left, the gates closed, and the lights went off again.
Nicholas didn’t need to be told that this was Conrad Voygel’s house. Voygel, the man who now owned the Bosch chain; the man who had hired Sidney Elliott; the man who had approved murder to keep a secret. And all for what? Nicholas thought. He had published the exposé and now the world knew about the Bosch deception. Four people had died for nothing, and he had nearly been one of them.
‘Mr Laverne,’ a voice said suddenly, ‘will you come with me?’
Eighty-Two
Conrad Voygel’s house, Kensington, London
The room that Nicholas was shown into was surprisingly intimate, with soft lighting. A coal-effect fire burned in the grate and a Piranesi architectural drawing, ornately framed, hung over the fireplace. Next to a walnut desk was a statue of a blackamoor and beside it, incongruously, a child’s drawing book. Only moments after Nicholas had been shown into the room, the door opened and a man walked in.
Conrad Voygel was tall, dressed casually, his smile hesitant. The surgeon had done well. Despite the severity of his cancer there were no obvious scars, just a faint, hollowed area on the left side of his face and the overall appearance of tightened flesh. But when he spoke his voice was hoarse, the disease having affected his vocal cords.
‘Did you want to see me?’ he asked, sitting at the desk, the lamplight blurring his features.
Nicholas wasn’t fazed. ‘You bought the Bosch chain. It cost you a lot, not just in money.’
‘It cost me well above the reserve, yes.’
‘I don’t mean that,’ Nicholas replied. ‘Four people are dead because of you.’
‘No,’ Conrad replied. ‘But I should congratulate you – after all, you managed to expose the deception. Although no one’s taking you seriously – people think you’re a bit of a nutter.’
‘At least I don’t kill people.’
‘But you think I do?’ Conrad smiled awkwardly, the flesh pulled tight around his mouth. ‘No, not me. But I believe the police want to talk to you, and to Mr Kaminski—’
Nicholas bristled. ‘Why him? He’s done nothing wrong. He’s just backing me, that’s all.’
‘Backing you doesn’t seem a wise move, Mr Laverne. Backing a loser never is. You see, one thing I’ve learnt in life is that people don’t change. If you’re a whistle-blower, you stay a whistle-blower. If you’re reckless, you stay reckless.’ Conrad paused. ‘Why did you have to attack the Church?’
‘What they were doing was wrong!’
‘But it’s a haven, religion. You could have stayed safe, a beloved priest, living a quiet life. If you had, no one would ever have heard about Nicholas Laverne. But instead you had to create chaos. And where did it get you? Excommunicated.’ Conrad shrugged. ‘What amazes me is that you didn’t learn your lesson—’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘For a while you seemed to. You were quiet for ten years and then – boom! – back you came with the Bosch deception. I tried to stop you, but you just kept going.’
Nicholas stared at the figure in the chair. Conrad Voygel knew a lot about him, but that would be easy to find out. There was something else, something about him which disturbed Nicholas and stirred an old memory. He was back in his teens and early twenties, the disgrace of the family, the kid that no one could control. Mixing with crooks and petty thieves.
‘Do I know you?’
‘I think you would remember my face if you did.’ Conrad replied as a telephone began to ring beside him. Smiling, he picked it up. ‘Hello, darling … No, I won’t be much longer. Just a little while …’ He was listening intently. ‘… what am I doing? Nothing much – I’m just talking to my brother, that’s all.’
Eighty-Three
The carpet seemed to be shifting under Nicholas’s feet, the walls sloping away from him as he watched Conrad Voygel lean forward into the lamplight. But it still took him several moments to recognise the old face under the reconstructive surgery. There was a flicker of some vague recall, then he stared into the eyes and the years fell away. Nicholas was suddenly back in the past. He and his siblings were living with the irascible David Laverne, and Henry was just leaving university, flushed with his success at acquiring a position at a prestigious architectural firm in Paris, secured on the glowing recommendation of Raoul Devereux.
It had been a much vaulted and much envied position. Any flicker of scandal or ineptitude would have meant disgrace or even dismissal. Henry Laverne would have to be, and behave like, a gentleman … Nicholas looked at his brother, an old memory returning.
‘You killed our parents—’
‘I didn’t—’
‘You missed the last train! If they hadn’t had to pick you up they would never have had the crash. It was your fault. It was all your fault and I’ll never let you forget it.’
‘Their deaths weren’t down to me! I was fourteen years old,’ Nicholas said, facing his brother and remembering his accusations. ‘I was fourteen and you made me feel like a criminal!’ His rage almost choked him. ‘You held that over my head for years. You played me, relied on my guilt. And you could, because you were perfect. But you weren’t, were you?’ Nicholas leaned towards his brother over the desk. ‘You fooled everyone but me.’
‘I got away with it though, didn’t I?’
‘Only because you had a ready-made scapegoat,’ Nicholas said bitterly. ‘How many times did I cover for you? Took the blame for that assault on the woman in Milan. I remember that group you fell in with – the ones who were faking and dealing in stolen art. You stole that landscape painting from Raoul Devereux – and you made me the culprit. And why did I let you? Because you were the father figure. I admired you, I wanted to be like you, I couldn’t say no to anything you asked. I remember you, you bastard!’ he snapped. ‘Crying like a kid and begging me: “Tell them it was you. They’ll throw me out of the company if you don’t. Please, Nicholas, please …”
‘And so I said it was me. Always me. Every rotten thing you did, I took the blame. And everyone believed it. How could you be responsible for theft? How could you take drugs, be violent? No, not Henry. But Nicholas – well, I was the wild card, wasn’t I?’
‘You were a difficult boy—’
‘Because you screwed me up! You made me believe that everything was my fault! In the end I believed it myself. I was nothing, the boy no one liked or cared about. I had nothing, so why not sacrifice myself to the burning light that was Henry Laverne? And you relied on that, didn’t you?’ He paused and looked around him, incredulous. ‘We thought you died in that fire. We buried you—’
‘You buried a gardener.’
Nicholas sat down and stared at his brother’s altered face. ‘I see you now. I see every rotten part of you. Why did you let us think you’d died?’
‘I didn’t want to be Henry Laverne any more. It was limiting. I wanted more, and suddenly there was a way I could get it.’ He grimaced. ‘You think you had it hard. Try being perfect – it gets wearing after a while. I wanted a new life—’
‘As Conrad Voygel?’
; ‘Oh, he came a little later. For a while I just drifted, got into a bit of trouble, but that didn’t matter any more because I wasn’t anyone. Not Henry Laverne, no one. Slowly I began to build up a property business abroad, then I went into computers. I heard about you exposing the Catholic Church because of what happened to that boy.’
‘Patrick Gerin.’
‘Did he remind you of yourself, Nicholas?’ he asked. ‘You wanted to save another lost boy. Then the scandal was over. Suddenly you were banished and disappeared – and my star was on the rise. I chose a new name, and when I got cancer I saw it as a plus. My face changed, my voice too. Henry Laverne might not have been buried, but he was well and truly dead. And my reputation grew. No one knew where I came from, or anything about my past. I’m a respectable, revered, philanthropic tycoon. I am on a par with politicians, royalty, celebrities. People admire me.’
‘You’re a crook—’
‘No, Henry Laverne was the crook.’ He paused, smiling that tight smile. ‘But you had to ruin it, didn’t you? You had to come back, because you had another cause to fight for – that bloody chain. Who cared what happened to Hieronymus Bosch? Well, you did, because here was another lost boy. Of course you couldn’t give up on it – it would have been like giving up on yourself.’ He laced his fingers together. ‘I had to stop you.’
‘You were going to kill me?’
He seemed genuinely taken aback. ‘Kill you? No.’
‘You hired Sidney Elliott—’
‘Only at the beginning, to find the chain. Elliott approached me after he’d worked for you. He told me about the Bosch conspiracy and the chain. But he was unstable, crazy, – anyone could see that. So I fired him. What he did has nothing to do with me.’ Conrad paused. ‘I killed no one and I had no one killed. I’m a respectable businessman with a fortune; my reputation is everything.’
‘Which you’d do anything to protect,’ Nicholas said coldly. ‘And I was the only person who could ruin you. The only one who could expose you for who – and what – you really are.’
‘Exactly,’ Conrad agreed. ‘With this latest passion of yours you were all set to be a celebrity again. People would want to know you, know all about you – and, by extension, your family. I couldn’t risk it. I know how it works, Nicholas: secrets always get sucked out. Like Bosch. I had to stop you, and the only way I could effectively do that was to discredit you. Make the world think of you as a barmy ex-priest with another conspiracy theory. People knew you were confused. You had bad dreams, you saw things—’
‘You hired Father Michael?’
He nodded. ‘And Carel Honthorst. Who does have a mighty faith. Honthorst would have ripped you limb from limb just for betraying his Church. But I wouldn’t let him go that far. I didn’t want to kill you—’
‘Just drive me mad.’
‘It was the lesser of two evils. People don’t listen to lunatics or fantasists. You would have been a laughing stock, almost as good as dead.’
‘You had me poisoned, drugged. I kept wondering about the dreams, why they were changing. I thought I’d done something unforgivable. Something I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remember.’ Nicholas looked at his brother. ‘But that was just guilt, wasn’t it? That guilt you instilled in me when I was a kid took over. I felt responsible, like I always had done.’
‘It was a good plan—’
‘Which should have worked.’
It was Conrad’s turn to look surprised. ‘It did work.’
‘No, the story of the Bosch deception is out. It’s gone global.’
Sighing, Conrad rose to his feet. ‘No one believes you, Nicholas. And when they dig deeper into your past they’ll discover your crimes and misdemeanours. You mixed with crooks and fakers; how suspect does that make your theory? And then they’ll wonder about the death of Father Luke and how you’re involved with three other people who died. It doesn’t look good for you, Nicholas. Not good at all.’
‘I’ll expose you!’ Nicholas snapped.
‘Another exposure? Do you really think anyone will listen to you claiming to be the brother of Conrad Voygel?’ He straightened up. ‘By morning you’ll be fully discredited. Probably in jail.’
‘I never killed anyone!’
‘Ah, but you have to prove that, don’t you?’ Conrad responded. ‘You hated Father Luke. You were close to Claude Devereux, you had access to Sabine Monette—’
‘She was killed in Paris while I was in London!’
‘You could have had an accomplice. Someone like Sidney Elliott …’
Nicholas was too shocked to speak.
‘… By the time you’ve been arrested, people will be baying for your blood. The art world wants to discredit what you’re saying about Bosch. And the Church – well, the Church isn’t going to come to your aid, is it? As for Hiram Kaminski, he’s already being pressurised. I dare say he’ll withdraw his support before tomorrow’s out.’
‘But I have the papers!’ Nicholas blustered. ‘The evidence of what happened to Bosch. I have proof!’
‘Which Gerrit der Keyser will authenticate. After all, you’re not a specialist or an art dealer and Mr der Keyser is. He will publicly state that an associate of yours stole the chain from his gallery. That it was all part of your plan.’ He shrugged. ‘Bring out your bits of paper, Nicholas. Wave them in the face of the world. Der Keyser will swear you took them from him. Once a thief, always a thief. Admit it, you’ve lost.’
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
‘I wouldn’t have hurt you, Nicholas, if you’d stayed in the Church. Out of the world, out of the public eye. Unknown, without any embarrassing connection to me. I had to do it.’
‘So what now? You’re going to let me walk out of here?’
‘Why not?’ Conrad replied. ‘You’re not going far.’
Eighty-Four
Honor was staring at her computer screen, reading the website Nicholas had put up, together with his blog. The responses had been quick and often vitriolic, some calling Nicholas a fantasist, others accusing him of sensationalism. It didn’t take much imagination to guess that most of the comments had been made by members of the art world. And BBC TV was trailing portions of Hiram Kaminski’s interview, followed by a mention that the police ‘would like to talk to Mr Nicholas Laverne with regard to accusations made against him’. In trying to support Nicholas, Hiram had inadvertently thrown suspicion on him. And now he was on the run.
If he had hoped for recognition, he had got it. Nicholas’s face was in the news and the papers, his image all over the internet. Not so much a whistle-blower, more a common fraudster. And worse, a suspect in the murders of four people.
Eighty-Five
Hiram Kaminski’s gallery, London
It was Judith Kaminski who picked up the phone, without recognising the number. Nicholas was using the new mobile he had bought. With an outward appearance of calm, she glanced at the police officer sitting next to Hiram and smiled.
‘What’s the matter, darling?’ she asked the caller.
Nicholas picked up on his cue immediately. ‘I need to talk to Hiram.’
‘He’s busy – just a minute.’ She looked at her husband. ‘It’s Helen, my dear. She’s a bit upset.’ Covering the phone mouthpiece, she gave the policeman a whispered explanation. ‘She’s our daughter. Lovely girl, but having trouble with a man. She wants to talk to her daddy.’
She passed the phone over to a puzzled Hiram. ‘Hello, darling?’
‘It’s me,’ Nicholas said, hurrying on. ‘I know there’s someone there, but just answer yes or no, will you?’
‘Yes,’ Hiram replied, smiling at his wife.
‘You said that many dealers used Sidney Elliott?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he ever work for Philip Preston?’
Hiram could feel the eyes of his wife and the police officer boring into him but kept his tone steady. ‘Yes, he did. You don’t want to trust him, sweetheart – he treated you badly four years ag
o, with that business in Holland.’
Nicholas understood immediately what he meant. ‘Holland?’
‘You ask his wife – he has a mistress,’ Hiram said, feeding Nicholas information while pretending to talk to his daughter. ‘He’s no good, no good at all.’ Shaking his head, Hiram put down the phone, shrugging. ‘Women. What can you do?’
Moments later Nicholas received a text from Hiram. It was a phone number and Nicholas rang it immediately. A woman picked up, her voice agitated.
‘Philip! Is that you?’
‘No, I was wanting to talk to your husband.’
Gayle Preston was almost hysterical. ‘He’s gone! He’s left me for some bitch.’ She was crying, hopelessly desperate. ‘The bastard, the bastard …’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘He thinks I don’t have any idea,’ Gayle said, her tone sly, unbalanced. ‘He thinks I don’t know about his little hiding place. He thinks I’m a fool. Running off with that woman—’
‘Where has he gone?’
Gayle didn’t stop to ask who she was speaking to or why he wanted to know about her husband. Distracted, she blundered on. ‘Our lawyer let it slip. Milan, he said. PHILIP PROMISED WE’D GO THERE!’ she screamed. Nicholas could hear a voice in the background. A woman’s voice, with the soothing intonation of a nurse. ‘You tell that bastard I hate him!’ Gayle hissed. ‘Tell him not to come back here. I DON’T WANT HIM!’ And with that, she slammed down the phone.
Nicholas knew he had to move fast. The police were looking for him and his face was in the papers and on the internet as a murder suspect. A man who merited the warning ‘Dangerous to the public. Do not approach.’
Leaving the safety of Kensington Gardens, he moved out on to Kensington High Street. It was still raining as he hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to Heathrow airport. He had been outsmarted and outmanoeuvred. Der Keyser wasn’t the villain, neither was Conrad Voygel. Sidney Elliott had been the killer, but his paymaster was Philip Preston. Nicholas had been tricked by the auctioneer, trussed up like a Christmas goose. If he didn’t stop him, Philip Preston was going to escape punishment and leave the country.