by Mark Hebden
Uplifted a little by his chat with a beautiful girl, Distaing walked back to his position by the door of the gallery. The two pictures still stood on their easels glowing in the light that came from the windows. Despite his loyalty to the great masters, Distaing considered it a bit silly that a painting and an exact copy of that painting, treated with loving care, every brushstroke counting, every nuance of style taken into consideration, should have different values. Surely to God, he felt, they were the same thing. The only difference was that one was painted a century before by a name that had become famous, the other by a girl who was twice as beautiful and probably just as skilful. It was a matter of inspiration and original thought, he supposed.
He imagined his job the following day would be to return the paintings to their frames and the frames to their places on the wall. He went to them and studied them. He enjoyed looking at them. Funny, though, he thought, old Douanier Rousseau, the customs official turned painter, sometimes got his colours not quite the same. On this one, there was a touch of red on one of the background trees that seemed to jar.
Distaing peered a little more closely. Then he reached out his finger. The paint in the corner was still tacky. He straightened up, frowning, his mind working slowly. If the paint on this one was tacky, he thought, then the one that had been carried out of the museum by Colette Esterhazy must have been dry. And if that painting were dry, then the one on the easel which was still tacky must be the copy. In which case the one the girl had carried out of the museum must be –
‘Name of God,’ he yelled. ‘She switched the pictures.’
The news of the theft hit the Hôtel de Police just as Pel and Darcy were organising their forces for the hostage situation at the Banque Crédit Rural. The siege wasn’t their baby but they were already involved because the sooner they could establish the identity of the robbers the easier it would be.
Pel looked up as Annie Saxe brought the news. He frowned, thinking bitterly how inconsiderate it was of villains to commit two crimes one on top of another. The police already had enough on their plate with the Crédit Rural job.
‘Get Nosjean,’ he snapped irritatedly. ‘Tell him to handle it.’
Nosjean always got the art jobs these days because he shared a flat with Marie-Josephine Lehmann, known as Mijo, who worked at the University and knew more about art than anyone they knew. She had helped the police on more than one occasion so that whenever anything like this came up they used Nosjean and he flew to her at once.
When he appeared in her office, she emerged from behind the piles of art books that stood on her desk and hooted with laughter.
‘It’s the oldest dodge in the art business,’ she said. ‘Copy a painting and at the last minute switch them to take away the real one and leave the copy. It’s been done before and it’ll be done again.’
‘Isn’t it a bit silly to allow people to copy masterpieces?’ Nosjean asked.
She kissed him. ‘You’ve a lot to learn, mon brave,’ she said. ‘All galleries have people copying their paintings. You can go round the Uffizi and the Pitti galleries in Florence and find people making perfect copies of people like Barbari or Tintoretto, even Botticelli. Sometimes you can hardly tell the difference.’
‘Isn’t it dangerous?’
‘Mostly it isn’t, because the people are known to the owner of the gallery. They’re usually students. Scholarship in art requires knowledge of the methods of the old masters and the best way to acquire that surely is to copy them, brushstroke by brushstroke.’
‘What will she do with them?’
Mijo shrugged. ‘There are various ways of handling a stolen picture. She could sell it at once, for instance, and make a profit. Or she could keep it and copy it several times and make a bigger profit. But that requires work and concentration and mostly they prefer to get rid of them quickly and vanish. When Canaletto’s View of Venice was stolen they copied it so many times word got around that dealers were growing suspicious so they stopped and got out of it and looked for another. Perhaps this is it. All we have to do is put the word round the dealers. I’ll do it for you.’
‘Where will she be?’
‘Depends on what she intends. If she’s intending to copy she’ll disappear somewhere she can’t be found and the copies will be sold. In the States. South America. Canada. Japan. Places as far away as possible from the source of the original. There’ll be a little provenance. But not much. Just enough to whet the appetites of the prospective buyers who’ll want to believe they’ve bought a lost Rousseau or a lost Paot.’
‘What will they pay for them?’
‘A lot. When they’ve sold them all they’ll have done very well indeed. You’ll probably find the museum will wake up one day to find the originals on their doorstep. When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, it was returned unharmed but by that time there were a dozen copies believed to be floating around in private collections across the world.’
‘Surely the people who bought them realised they were fakes when the original was returned?’
‘Did they? They weren’t even sure that the one that was returned was the original. And the buyers would never admit receiving a stolen painting.’
As Nosjean had discovered before, the art world was a curious one with more mysteries in it than facts.
Mijo paused. ‘This time,’ she went on slowly, ‘I have a feeling they’ll disappear abroad.’
‘Why do you feel that?’
‘Just a hunch. There’ve been so many things appearing lately the market’s tightened up. Some type stole a Tiepolo from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice a little while ago and had to post it back because he couldn’t sell it. People have become wary. A lot of last century rubbish is being offered these days as masterpieces. Your paintings will end up looking like last century rubbish.’
‘Can they be disguised that easily?’
‘Of course. You paint them over with acrylic. It’s easy to put on and just as easy to take off. They’ll look like two more examples of last century rubbish that will bring in just enough to be worth exporting but not enough to be worth investigating.’
Nosjean was still puzzled. ‘How did she get permission to have the paintings removed from the frames?’
Mijo’s view was the same as Distaing’s. ‘Have a guess,’ she said.
Leygues was in the States buying. He had been telephoned and was already on his way back, and it was left to his deputy, a man called Lepic, to meet Nosjean.
He was a small man with spectacles and he was distraught. ‘It should never have been allowed,’ he insisted. ‘I said so. More than once. Copying’s always permitted. But to take the paintings from their frames and place them on easels was asking for trouble. They would be very light and easy to carry. And two.’ His voice rose. ‘Not just one. Two.’
‘Why was it allowed in this case?’ Nosjean asked.
Lepic shrugged and flapped his hands. ‘I can only think it was because this girl, Colette Esterhazy, is pretty.’ He paused. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘she’s more than pretty. She’s beautiful. I believe she’s modelled for artists. She’s very, very beautiful and very, very clever. I think there was a man behind her.’
‘Who gave this permission?’
‘Monsieur Leygues.’
‘Was this usual?’
‘No.’
‘Then why this time?’
Lepic flapped his hands again. ‘I suspect’, he said discreetly, ‘that Monsieur Leygues was more than normally attracted to the girl.’
‘This telephone call that came?’
‘It was said to be from Editions Lafayette in Paris. They’ve contacted us before. Occasionally they come with their cameras to photograph a painting for publication. They’ve worked for us, producing prints, pamphlets and booklets which we sell at the museum shop.’ Lepic fished among the papers on his desk and pushed across a book. It was large and in full colour. He riffled through the pages and indicated an illustration. ‘That’s the Rou
sseau.’ Another page turned. ‘That’s the Paot. Lafeyette also take pictures for their own use, for which they pay us a royalty, of course. Whoever made the call convinced the staff that it was genuine. They insisted on talking to Distaing, the gardien. This we allow. The gardiens acquire a surprising amount of knowledge about the paintings they watch over. Distaing’s particularly good. But it was nothing but a sham, to draw his attention away while the girl switched the pictures.’
‘I think I’d better talk to Distaing.’
Distaing was still a bit upset by what had happened. ‘She’d been so often before.’ he said. ‘She was here in the summer copying a Picasso. She said it was for her degree.’
‘How many paintings did she need for her degree?’
‘I don’t know. It was nothing to do with me. Monsieur Leygues told me to take the pictures down and remove the frames and stick them on easels for her. That’s what I did.’
‘What about this telephone call that came?’
‘It must have been an accomplice. He kept me talking a long time.’
‘So you weren’t watching her all the time?’
‘I took my eyes off her only while I was answering the telephone. It was at the far end of the gallery and there was a piece by Rodin between me and her. But I wasn’t worried. She’d been in the gallery so often – and with permission from the top brass – she was almost part of the fittings. When I returned from the telephone, she was on her way out. It was only after she’d gone that I examined the pictures on the easels. They were the ones she’d been working on. The originals had gone.’
‘You went with her to the stairs, I believe.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Distaing looked sheepish. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘because…well… well, just because she was so beautiful, I suppose. You don’t see faces and figures like she has all that often. I like art myself. But I prefer it in the flesh. If I had a daughter who looked like that I wouldn’t rest till I’d got her married off.’
Nosjean studied him. Could the man behind Colette Esterhazy be Distaing? He was young enough to be attracted to her. He knew how the museum was run. But there had been someone else, someone waiting with a car. According to Distaing, she had got into the car and it had driven off immediately. So who was this man? It must have been a man. Nosjean’s experience told him it wasn’t another girl. It had all the hallmarks of a man who had got a naïve girl under his influence.
It seemed a good idea before he did anything else for Nosjean to see if Colette Esterhazy was at home. He might – though he very much doubted it – just catch her before she vanished into the blue.
She lived in a block of flats owned by a Madame Sadon in which she had rented the top one. It had a skylight that whispered under a shower of rain as Nosjean stepped inside. There were one or two canvases lying about, but nothing that had been finished, and there were no personal belongings.
‘She took it because she said the light was good,’ Madame Sadon said. ‘She painted a lot. Sometimes a man called Courtrand came and painted her, using her easel and materials. She posed for him. Her lips pursed. ‘In the nude,’ she added. ‘What else they got up to, I don’t know.’
‘What about other men?’
‘One or two. From the University. My daughter’s there. She knew them.’
The daughter, a mousy girl called Eloise, was willing to talk.
‘She was so beautiful,’ she said in a breathless whisper. ‘She was like a film star. A bit like Catherine Deneuve but taller. She was wonderful. I thought the world of her. She was always so kind to me and it wasn’t because I’m beautiful and brilliant because I’m not and I know it.’
She was plump and unattractive but it was clear she had had a heavy crush on Colette Esterhazy who, in addition to being beautiful and easygoing and happy, was also, it seemed, unfailingly kind to girls less fortunate than she was. It was something that didn’t often happen with beautiful girls, Nosjean knew. He had suffered in his youth from beautiful girls who had been cruel enough to jeer at his habit of blushing and his general unhandiness as a courtier.
‘When did she leave?’ he asked.
The girl shrugged. ‘No one saw her go,’ she said. ‘She must have gone straight off from the museum. I think she moved most of her belongings the day before without us knowing. She looked after herself so we didn’t go into her room. She left a note. It said there were some things she didn’t want that I could have.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Clothes. They were beautiful. She was kind enough to think of me even then.’
Eloise gave Nosjean a sickly grin and he left hurriedly.
Five
At the Crédit Rural nothing happened. Nobody had expected much to happen but the fact that it didn’t left them angry and frustrated. The thought that six men in the Banque Crédit Rural were holding a city to ransom was infuriating but there was little the police could do about it. It was policy to do nothing and it was a policy with which Pel was in complete agreement. Criminals were too often hyped up with booze or drugs or by the sheer exhilaration of being criminals, and it was an emotion that faded quickly when the exploit they’d planned unexpectedly died away into a dull and tedious exercise. Criminals weren’t always good at being patient.
‘They want drinks sent in,’ Turgot reported.
The Chief, who by this time was becoming speechless with anger, merely waved and the drinks were placed outside the door of the bank. The door opened and the drinks vanished inside.
‘Can’t we rush them?’ Turgot asked in desperation. ‘Next time they ask for anything and open the door, can’t we have a squad ready to batter the door wide open?’
‘And have the hostages shot?’ the Chief asked.
The sharpshooters arrived from Lyons and began to throw their weight about, demanding the best positions. They were followed by a squad from the Search, Assist, Intervene and Dissuade Brigade, who were normally used against terrorists and whom the Chief had been grudgingly forced to call in.
‘Paris insisted,’ he said witheringly.
Since the bank was virtually in the centre of the city, the traffic snarl-up was tremendous. It lasted all through the morning until Traffic succeeded in devising a deviation round the area. Busy over his Plan-Guide Blay, Inspector Pomereu, whose job it was, could be heard muttering to himself, ‘Rue de l’Arquebuse’ or ‘Boulevard de Sévigné’ or ‘Rue de la Liberté’ until finally he handed the fist of street names he had decided on to his deputy.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Get it organised. Get a city street map xeroxed and marked out. Yellow marker along the streets we’re using. The Chief will want a copy. So will Pel and Turgot. It might have to be changed here and there if it doesn’t work but that will do for the time being.’
‘It’ll be hell,’ his deputy observed.
‘Aren’t all deviations?’ Pomereu said.
As he turned away, his men went out with barriers and signs and posted traffic cops, and the snarled-up traffic slowly began to move. Turgot was still in touch with the spokesman for the bank robbers. He was uncertain what to do next.
‘Wait,’ Pel advised. ‘Just wait.’
In the streets around, there were dozens of would-be spectators, kept from close proximity to the scene by the police. Most of those who had been there at the beginning had long since wandered off, but new ones had arrived, together with many small boys caught by the excitement. Pierre la Poche, only recently out of 72, Rue d’Auxonne, by which name the local jail was known, was among those who had seen the possibilities of the situation. He had been picked up with his hand in a spectator’s back pocket, and a woman’s handbag had been snatched. There were opportunities everywhere if you only looked for them.
As the afternoon arrived they were still waiting. Turgot had been in touch with the men in the bank again. ‘They haven’t changed their demands,’ he said as Pel appeared beside him. ‘They’re still insisting on a car to the airp
ort with a plane standing by.’
‘They’ve left it too late,’ Pel observed. ‘Where are they intending to go?’
‘Romania’s been suggested.’
‘Well, perhaps they deserve each other.’
‘They’re still threatening to shoot the manager.’
‘They said that early this morning. They haven’t done it yet.’
The telephone that had been linked to a line into the bank shrilled and Turgot snatched it up. Pel and the Chief listened on the extensions.
‘We haven’t changed our minds,’ said the heavily disguised voice at the other end of the line. ‘We’re still waiting.’
Pel wondered if the caller was talking into a handkerchief or into a box of some kind. His voice was certainly effectively muffled.
‘Send out the women,’ Turgot insisted.
‘We’ll think about it,’ replied Pel, unwilling to commit himself at least for the moment.
A psychiatrist was brought to the scene to see if he could suggest a new approach. Pel observed with irony that he was thin and wild-eyed and looked as though he were badly in need of psychiatric help himself. But he talked to the crooks and then returned to announce they were in a no-win situation and were desperate.
‘Name of God, we know that,’ the Chief snapped.
‘They’re living off excitement,’ the psychiatrist confided earnestly. ‘It’s something we’ve learned from examinations.’
The Chief glared at him. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ he snarled, ‘policemen learn that within the first month of their service. Without the benefit of psychoanalysis.’
The psychiatrist didn’t last long.
The CRS men began to demand action. They’d been sent there to provide action, they said. They were cold and they couldn’t see any sense in just sitting around. They were armed with stun grenades and every one of them was trained for such a situation.