by Roy Lewis
Arnold waited, while the American remained silent. After a little while, he asked, ‘Is this meeting to be just the three of us?’
Carmela grimaced. ‘It was thought to be the best way to move on the matter in hand. I should explain, Arnold. When I reported on the results of our meeting with Steiner I’m afraid the committee was less than impressed. As a group, they considered that we were being … how do you say … led by the nose. They had no trust in Steiner; his motive was one of revenge and this they deemed unacceptable; also, they balked at the demand he had made for funds. It was not an easy meeting: Alienor Donati spoke forcefully, Joachim Schmidt was not impressed …’ She glanced momentarily at McMurtaghy. ‘There was much opposition to further dealings with him.’
And they would have believed that she was being blinded by the history of her grandfather, Arnold guessed.
‘But what happened to Steiner?’ Arnold asked. ‘You said over the phone—’
‘As I said, the committee was unimpressed, doubtful about Steiner, so it was finally decided that I should telephone the man, explain to him that we needed further information, an earnest of good faith. He was angry, but he agreed to comply. He transmitted by e-mail a copy of a document in his possession. As far as the members of ISAC were concerned, it changed things considerably. But, even as the committee agreed that we should pursue matters with Steiner, we received the bad news.’
McMurtaghy pushed his coffee cup aside with a massive fist. ‘Which is why Carmela contacted you. We need all hands to the pump.’ He leaned forward, elbows on the table and scowled at Arnold. ‘The Surété have moved quickly on the matter, in collaboration with the Spanish police. I’ve been able to get a pile of information from them: I have a contact within the department – from way back – and it seems they’ve managed to identify the location, the position from where the killer fired the fatal shot. It was a villa close by to Steiner’s: he had rented it, or rather it had been rented for him through an agency, and they’re still pursuing that. I have my doubts about their likelihood of success. This was a professional hit. The men who ordered it, they would have covered their tracks carefully.’ McMurtaghy scowled, took a deep breath and hunched his shoulders aggressively. ‘The killer’s base allowed him a clear line of fire to the terrace that Steiner used regularly. There was only one shot. It was a clean hit. The man was – is – a professional.’
‘There is a report that he probably used a black Porsche,’ Carmela intervened. ‘One was seen in the area.’
‘The Surété is working on that line, and checking a few security camera images gathered from villas along that road from the hill. A Porsche … that’s sloppy for a professional, but it happens. Also, though the killer did a good job cleaning up all traces of his presence, inevitably there are a few little things that were overlooked. Over-confidence can do that to a man, even if he’s been in the business for a while.’
‘Things such as what?’ Arnold asked curiously.
McMurtaghy flexed his broad shoulders. ‘They picked up one print from the bathroom. And there was a discarded cigarette stub below the terrace. Reasonably fresh, probably his. It will give us DNA.’ McMurtaghy wrinkled his nose. ‘It’s enough to give us a start anyway. And already, from the print, we think we know who the killer might be. Interpol quickly came up with a match. The DNA sample might confirm that. Of course, knowing his identity is only one step in the game: laying our hands on the bastard is another thing. And then, there’s also the question of who commissioned the hit.’
‘And the motive for the murder,’ Arnold suggested.
‘That’s pretty obvious, we think. Steiner was silenced because he had come out of his rat hole and was going to embarrass some pretty powerful people.’
Arnold frowned in thought and turned to Carmela. ‘You mentioned a document he’d sent to you.’
She took a deep breath, and nodded. ‘It was a few typed notes, a description. And a rather blurred photograph of a piece of statuary.’
She stared challengingly at McMurtaghy as though they had already had an argument about what she was about to say. He stared at his hands, shoulders hunched. Whatever his views, it would seem he had been overruled by the other members of the committee.
‘You will be aware, Arnold, that in Greek mythology Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and the sister of Apollo. She loved hunting and dancing and was one of the three virgin goddesses of Olympus. But she was also notorious for her violent anger and jealousy which led her to kill many: humans, gods and goddesses. In many ways, not merely a huntress, but a goddess of death.’
‘For those who crossed her,’ McMurtaghy muttered, almost sarcastically.
Carmela ignored him. ‘When we saw the photograph it became clear to the committee that we were probably looking at an exceedingly rare and valuable object indeed. The object is of polished bronze, maybe eighteen inches in height. Artemis. Her hair is braided across her forehead and falls down the side of her neck. She is depicted striding out to the hunt. She wears sandals, and a thigh-length tunic which falls down her body in triangular folds. There is a hunting knife strapped to her thigh, and there is a quiver strap across her breasts. She wears a slight smile on her lips, and she looks directly ahead. Both arms are missing, at the elbow. Otherwise she is intact.’
‘Your description is remarkably detailed,’ Arnold said slowly.
‘That is because she has been seen before. And recorded.’ She glanced again at McMurtaghy, who was keeping his head lowered. ‘My colleague remains unconvinced, though the remainder of the committee are on my side. This is one reason why the matter has been left in my hands, but with the support of Mr McMurtaghy.’
‘We don’t want you running away with wild suppositions,’ the American muttered. ‘It might not even be the goddess of the hunt.’
‘The statue is of Artemis,’ Carmela stated firmly, ‘and we know this is so for one simple reason. It is a classical image and three identical versions are held in collections in Europe: one in Naples, one in Florence and one in Venice. But these are all first-century Roman copies of a Greek original that dates back to the fifth century BC. The Roman copies are intact so this … find, it is a major one. It is of inestimable value. Private collectors would fight to possess it.’
‘If it is the original,’ McMurtaghy said cuttingly.
‘But what’s its provenance?’ Arnold asked. ‘You say that it has been seen before. What do you know about its history?’
Carmela stared at him, then leaned back, folded her bare arms across her splendid bosom, and was silent. Behind him Arnold caught a light splattering sound: a summer squall, driving droplets of rain on the window. He turned and saw the darkening sky above the Avenue Charles de Gaulle. When he looked back to McMurtaghy the man’s face also seemed to have darkened. Carmela was leaving this bit of explanation to him.
‘Have you ever heard of the Trophy Brigades, Landon?’
Arnold shrugged. ‘A little. Not a great deal.’
McMurtaghy nodded, his mouth twisting. ‘Then I’ll bring you up to scratch.’ He paused, as though gathering himself. ‘You’ll be aware, of course, that there was a Hague Convention against looting during wartime.’
‘Which was extensively disregarded,’ Arnold replied, nodding.
‘You can say that again. In spite of the Hague Conventions against looting, the First World War saw extensive theft and ignorant, callous wrecking of a host of precious artefacts. And even before the war began, as the Nazis began to move into new territories by 1938 they had demonstrated an obsessive, almost ideological fervour for systematic looting: pictures, sculptures, tapestries, manuscripts, silver, gold, jewellery, furniture, medieval armour, rare coins and prehistoric treasures. You name it. They grabbed it.’
‘They continued to do so during the Second World War,’ Arnold added.
‘Right. The progress of war thereafter only further encouraged the looters. Hitler took a personal interest in the whole business. In due course, the Führe
r instructed that a man called Alfred Rosenberg should be appointed as a controller of the activity.’ McMurtaghy grunted reflectively. ‘Rosenberg has been described as having the appearance of an off-duty undertaker. But then, so many of the Nazi hierarchy looked like inoffensive clerks, don’t you think?’ He sniffed contemptuously.
Arnold agreed with a nod.
‘Anyway, Rosenberg began his task by setting up headquarters with storehouses in Paris, but as things developed at speed, in order to store the loot collected he opened further branches in Amsterdam and Brussels. Rosenberg might have looked like a refugee from a Boris Karloff film, but he was an efficient organizer,’ McMurtaghy conceded. The American grimaced, scratched at his chin with an irritated finger. ‘Field Marshal Goering, meanwhile, was doing his own bit of looting: he had instructed senior officers to search out art treasures for his personal collection and they went about it like enthusiastic bloodhounds. Then there was SS Colonel Dr Kajetan Muehlmann: he plundered Holland with what can only be described as military efficiency.’
McMurtaghy rose, pushed back his chair and wandered across to the window. He stared distastefully at the driving rain. ‘Czechoslovakia was plundered first of course, then this band of predators turned their attention to Poland, which was quickly picked clean. And when the first German troops crossed into Russian territory they were closely followed by Rosenberg’s teams of ‘requisitioning officials’. Of course, in personal terms there was too much for him to cope with eventually and accordingly a special formation was established.’
Arnold nodded. ‘I believe I’ve heard of that. Wasn’t it directly under the control of Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop?’
‘That’s correct. Ribbentrop was given the task of following the invading troops with so-called ‘cultural battalions’. Russia was stripped of priceless artefacts, culturally laid waste. The Nazis behaved like the barbarians they were, these cultural battalions. What couldn’t be taken away was simply destroyed.’
McMurtaghy turned back from the window, glared at Arnold, locked his hands behind his back. He seemed irritated by what he had to relate. ‘The Allies knew about it, of course. Lists of prominent looters and collaborators were drawn up; on the American side we set up a commission under Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court. In London, your lot established a group under Lt Colonel Sir Leonard Woolley.’
‘The excavator of Ur?’ Arnold asked in surprise.
‘The same. It was all hands to the pump. The US and Britain gave the situation some priority, even as the war proceeded. When the Allied forces landed in Sicily in July 1943 the work of recovery began, hunting for locations where the Nazis had hidden the treasures they had collected. As for Rosenberg and von Ribbentrop, well, they had their own difficulties. They had grabbed so much in the looting of Europe and Russia that the problem was just where to store their looted hauls. By early 1944 the storehouses they had established were full as they used castles, storehouses and museum vaults. So they then turned to salt mines where temperatures and humidity were constant and artwork could be secured. They were in a hurry too: they knew that the Allied Art Brigades had commenced their work. As the front lines advanced the groups led by men like Lt Colonel Woolley came in behind the troops, and they found they were called upon to search basements, hay lofts, church steeples, slaughterhouses and even lunatic asylums as well as museums, bank vaults and castles.’
‘An impossible task,’ Arnold breathed.
‘For what was essentially a small group of searchers,’ McMurtaghy agreed. ‘However, the work went on and they were assisted in one way by the Nazis: Hitler and von Ribbentrop had decreed that the finest treasures of all were kept in Berlin. The location finally agreed upon was the Berlin Zoo.’
Arnold raised his eyebrows in surprise.
McMurtaghy smiled coldly. ‘In the zoo a tower had been built. Bit of a misnomer, really, referring to it as the zoo tower. It was actually a sort of flak tower that occupied an entire city block. It was highly secure. It contained air-raid shelters big enough to accommodate 15,000 people, two operating theatres, kitchens and a broadcasting station. It was there that the Nazis stored a vast collection of Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, Gobelin tapestries, paintings, coin collections, and even the famous Priam gold and treasures – actually donated to Germany by Henrik Schliemann on his death. Only when the flak tower was full did the Nazis organize a stream of barges and lorries and trams and railways to move stuff elsewhere. Consignments of art in particular were shifted to other storehouses, notably the salt mines.’ He paused, frowning. ‘But, of course, Woolley and his small group were way behind at that stage. And then everything was thrown into further chaos in 1945 with the launch of the major Russian offensive.’ He returned to his chair, sat down, placed his hands on the table in front of him and stared at them. ‘Berlin was left a ruin by May 9th, the day of the surrender of Germany.’
There was a short silence. ‘What happened to the contents of the tower?’ Arnold asked.
‘The zoo, the tower, and all its contents were turned over to the Russians.’
There was a short silence. The rain had increased, drumming on the windowpane. Carmela sat with her arms still folded, her eyes fixed on her colleague. McMurtaghy sighed. ‘You know, Woolley and his group did good work. Even so, perhaps the most effective recovery team was that of the American Seventh Army: it was they who captured Goering’s art train, and found the treasures that had been hidden away in the Altaussee salt mine in the mountains near Salzberg.’ He grimaced. He was not at ease with what he had to say. ‘I have to admit there were a few instances of … shall we say … personal acquisitions on the part of some officers and troops, but these were effectively recovery operations, with a view to returning treasures to their original owners.’ There was a certain defensiveness in his tone. ‘Of course, we know of the group of senior American officers who launched their own Westward Ho programme – over two hundred paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Eyck were “liberated for safekeeping” as they later claimed. But those treasures – then worth twenty-eight million – were eventually returned to their owners.’
‘After considerable international pressure,’ Carmela commented coldly. McMurtaghy glared at her.
‘The flak tower,’ Arnold murmured. ‘I would guess that the Russians would hold a somewhat different view from the British and American searchers.’
‘The Russians certainly saw things differently,’ McMurtaghy agreed. ‘They were more interested in reparations.’
Carmela leaned forward, arms crossed across her ample breasts. Her tone was soft, almost musing. ‘Precisely. In a way, one can almost understand their point of view. It was they who had probably suffered most; they felt morally superior; they wanted revenge.’
McMurtaghy grunted agreement. ‘On the other hand, we know that the Russian soldiery behaved like savages, smashing anything they could not carry away. But also, before the final push into Germany, Stalin took a policy decision. He set up a number of Trophy Brigades.’
His dark eyes turned to Arnold. ‘The Russian Trophy Brigades were, like the British and US groups, small groups of art experts. Each member of a brigade carried the rank of major. But they were ordered to behave not in the manner laid down for Woolley and the US groups. The task of the Trophy Brigades was to scour the countryside for desirable art objects and bring them back to the Soviet Union. There was no intention of returning the loot to their original owners.’ McMurtaghy glanced at his watch. ‘I’m starving. Have you arranged something for this evening, Miss Cacciatore?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve reserved a table at a restaurant in Rue Jacques Coeur. They’ll be expecting us in about half an hour.’
‘OK. I need fuel! Anyway, the Trophy Brigades … One of the more prominent of these experts in the Stalin brigades was a certain Major Druzhin. In his former, civilian life, he had been curator of the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow. He was efficient. And he knew what he was doing. He entered the flak tower. He did some kind
of deal with Rosenberg, it’s believed. Nothing was destroyed. Rosenberg handed over everything. But by the time Major Druzhin had finished with Berlin’s Department of Greek Antiquity he had made off, it is estimated, with truckloads of loot, including seventy thousand Greek vases, eight hundred statues, six thousand five hundred terracotta and Tanagra figurines. In effect, he emptied the zoo tower storeroom.’
‘This all went back into the Soviet Union?’ Arnold asked.
‘Of recent years there’s been a flurry of diplomatic initiatives,’ Carmela interrupted. ‘Major Druzhin was interviewed several times by international experts in the last two decades. He confirmed that he had supervised the transport by military plane of many treasures, including those from Schliemann’s Troy, sixth-century BC Eberwald fifth-century AD Corbus and eleventh-century AD Corbus. He had kept notes. He was able to identify the actual flights that were used to transport these treasures.’
‘That’s right,’ McMurtaghy agreed. ‘The flight he referred to in particular, the one that interests us right now, was that of the 5th April 1945.’
‘Interests us in what way?’ Arnold asked.
McMurtaghy stared at him almost owlishly, then glanced at Carmela as though wishing her to make the statement. She straightened, unfolded her arms. ‘Included in the manifest for that flight was a list of items from the so-called Treasure of King Priam, discovered by Schliemann. It also was the last recorded sighting of the original Greek statuette of Artemis, believed to be the model for the later Roman copies. The artefact which I believe was photographed by Peter Steiner and sent to me days ago.’
‘Last recorded sighting?’ Arnold queried. ‘You mean that the manifest—’
‘The statuette appeared in the manifest: with their customary efficiency the Nazis had recorded in detail all that was handed over to the Russians under Major Druzhin. But at some point, during the flight to Moscow the Artemis statue, along with certain other items, disappeared.’ She paused, sighed, glanced at McMurtaghy then consulted her watch. ‘Like you, I am hungry. Perhaps we should continue this discussion over dinner?’