Art of Murder (36 page)

Various voices were raised, but it was Benoit who spoke for all of them.

'Miss Roman, our meeting here is aimed precisely at resolving that problem . ..' The collar of his splendid maroon shirt was stained with sweat. 'There have been failings in our security system which I am the first to recognise and regret, as you will have heard
...
but these gentlemen
...'
he gestured vaguely in the direction of Head Honcho, '. . . these gentlemen are not part of our security team. These gentlemen we have asked to help
...
do you know who these gentlemen are? .
..'

"Yes,
I know who these gentlemen are
’
Roman replied evenly. 'What I'd like to know is
how much
these gentlemen are going to
cost
us.'

Another hubbub, which immediately ceased when the Head Honcho began to speak.

'No, no, no. We won't cost the Van Tysch Foundation anything, Miss Roman. Let's be precise. Rip van Winkle is a European Union defence system. More precisely still, Rip van Winkle is a system paid for by the cohesion funds of all the member countries.' He paused to scoop up another handful of sweets from between the Tray's breasts. One of them fell and bounced off the taut naked stomach. 'Let's be precise. Neither Mr Harlbrunner, Mr Knopffer nor I are here because we will be paid more, nor because we have any economic interest in this affair. We are part of Rip van Winkle. Part of it, Miss Roman. Let's be precise. If we are here, it's simply because matters which affect our European cultural and artistic heritage affect all of us, as citizens of countries with long traditions. If a terrorist group threatened the Parthenon, Rip van Winkle would be called in. And if Bruno van Tysch's works are threatened by whatever group it may be, then Rip van Winkle will be involved. It's not about money, Miss Roman, it's about moral obligations.' Flinging his head back, he tipped the handful of sweets into his mouth.

'When people start making statements about morals, it always ends with bank statements
’
Miss Roman declared, and nobody laughed. 'But if Rip van Winkle really means no extra costs for us, we have no objections.'

'By the way
’
said a booming voice in English with a German accent, 'is it true what I heard? That the loss of those two fat monsters is the same as losing the
Mona Lisa?'

He was a man with ruddy cheeks and a bushy white moustache. He looked like the typical Bavarian beer swiller of Hofbrauhaus posters. His name was Harlbrunner. His speciality (according to Head Honcho's introduction) was as the head of the Rip van Winkle SWAT teams. At that moment he was standing next to the Table with the dried fruits, scooping up almonds in his huge white hairy paw, while at the same time staring fascinated at the varnished open legs of the Table's top half.

For a moment there was a silence while the others looked surreptitiously at each other, as if weighing up whether or not it was worth answering his question. Then Benoit spoke:

'No one can
...
No one will ever be able to assess just what the loss of "Monsters" implies. The world we live in, the planet we inhabit, the society we have built
...
none of it will ever be the same again. "Monsters" offered the key to what we are, what we have been, what we
...'

'Shit, he butchered them like pigs,' Knopffer from Europol growled, silencing Benoit. He had got up to look at the photos on the stomach of the other Table in the centre of
the room, and was study
ing them closely. The Table's breathing had led to one of the photos falling off on to the carpet.

'Why these marks?' Rudolf Kobb from the Foreign Ministry wanted to know, as Knopffer passed him the photos.

'Ten cuts on each of them, eight of them crosses,' Bosch explained. 'They're the same as with
Deflowering.
He lays them on their backs with their legs open, but leaves the labels on. We don't know why he always makes these same cuts. He uses a portable canvas cutter, like the ones restorers use to saw wooden frames. And he always leaves a recording. We found this on the floor, between the two bodies. We can listen to it now, if you like.'

‘Y
es, we would,' said Head Honcho.

Bosch was about to get up, but Thea van Droon, sitting next to him, beat him to it. Thea was in charge of the Foundation's assault team. She had just returned from Paris after interrogating Briseida Canchares. As Thea stood up, Bosch could get a better view of Miss Wood, who sat hunched in a seat further away, chin on her chest, and her thin legs stretched out in front of her. She doesn't talk, she doesn't say a word, thought Bosch unhappily. She knows she's failed again, and she feels humiliated. He would have liked to comfort her, to reassure her everything would be all right. Perhaps he would get the chance later.

Thea made sure that the two naked young men who made up the Table had their ear protectors on properly. The portable recorder had amplifiers to improve the sound. It was on one of the youngsters' chest, while the speakers were balanced on the other's thighs. Thea pressed a button.

'Art then became sacred,'
a nervous, panting voice said in English: a high falsetto voice, which the laboratories had identified as being Hubertus'.
'The figures were hying to
...
were
trying
to discover God and honour mystery
...'
There was a pause of echoing sobs. Benoit grimaced as the noise filled the speakers.
'By representing death, man was striving to be immortal.
..
All religious art involved
...
involved the same idea
...
torture and destruction were painted or sculpted with the aim of
...
with the aim of
...'
by now, Hubertus was openly crying
'of affirming life even more .
..
eter
...
eternal life
...
Pleeease
...!'

The recording broke down in a welter of hysterical sobbing, then picked up again in the calmer voice of Arnoldus.

'The artist says: my art is death
...
The artist says: the only way I can love life is
...
by loving death
...
because the art which survives is the art which has died
...
if the figures die, the works survive.'

'He must force them to read a prepared text,' Bosch said in the silence after Thea had switched the recording off.

"This guy is an insane bastard!' Warfell shouted. 'It couldn't be clearer! He may be very clever, but he's off his head!'

His features etched by the slender naked legs of a Marooder Lamp next to his seat, Benoit turned towards Warfell.

'If s all a bluff, Gert. They want us to think it's the work of a madman, but it's all a damned piece of make-believe that one of our competitors has dreamt up. I'm sure of it.'

'How is it possible for works to survive if the figures die?' Head Honcho wanted to know. 'What does that mean?'

Everyone was expecting Stein to answer. But it was Benoit who spoke.

'It doesn't mean a thing. As far as the figures for "Monsters" are concerned, their death means the work has vanished forever as well. There are no substitutes for them.'

Harlbrunner's grave cello boomed out again, from his post next to the dried fruit Table. As he talked, he carelessly stroked the shining surface of the thighs of the girl making the top half.

'Can anyone explain to those of us who are new to this what on earth this ceru
...
cerublas
...
is?' Several voices completed the word 'cerublastyne' for Harlbrunner, but he did not seem able to finish the word himself. 'According to the reports, Weiss' face and hands were covered in it, weren't they?'

Now it was Jacob Stein's turn. He spoke very softly, but the sepulchral silence surrounding him made it seem louder.

'Ceru is a material similar to silicone, but much more advanced. It was developed in labs in France, England and Holland specifically for use in hyperdramatic art. . .
Galismus,
I think you, Mr Kobb,' he pointed at the man from the Foreign Ministry, 'have had your portrait done by Avendano, so you know what I'm talking about.'

Kobb smiled in agreement.

"Yes,
it's identical to me. Sometimes it scares me, it's so real.' Remembering the portrait of Hendrickje, Bosch also shuddered.

'In art, ceru is employed in many ways,' Stein went on, 'not just for models as portraits, but for official and fake copies, for complicated make-ups, and so on
...
a ceru expert can literally become
any
body
,
man or woman. All you have to do is put a thin layer of it on the part you want to copy, let it dry, then remove it very carefully. It's the perfect disguise. Yet I must stress that you have to be a real expert to be able to handle the ceru moulds properly. They're even more fragile than the layer of skin you get on boiled milk.'

'From what I've heard so far,' said Head Honcho, 'our man
is
a real expert.'

There was a moment's silence. Then Stein, who seemed to be in a hurry, called on Benoit to sum up the conclusions from this preliminary meeting. Feeling the spotlight fall on him, Benoit sat up in his chair, put on a pair of reading glasses, and picked up the sheets of paper in front of him. He leaned slightly to his left so that the light from the Marooder Lamp would shine on the text.

'On 29 June 2006, in these offices kindly put at our disposal by the management of the Obberlund building, Munich, a crisis cabinet has been formed with the aim of . . .'

Their aims were clear enough. Conservation and Security had drawn up an emergency twin-track strategy: defence and attack. There were three items under defence: withdrawal, identity and secrecy. The first consisted in withdrawing all the works by Bruno van Tysch on public display, first in Europe, then in the United States, and finally the rest of the world. 'Flowers' would be the first collection to return to Amsterdam, followed by 'Monsters', and then individual works like
Athene
in the Centre Pompidou. All the works would be kept in secure places. As for identity, this involved a system of checking all the employees who had any contact with the canvases using voice tests and fingerprint checks. Benoit suggested that all those who had been properly identified should then wear labels.

'But that would make us works of art as well,' Warfell objected.

'Is there really no other way to detect a ceru mask?' asked Head Honcho.

'Fuschus,
no there isn't,' Stein replied. 'When ceru dries, it's like a second skin. It takes on the same temperature and consistency. You'd have to scratch the suspect to make sure who he was.'

The labels idea was left for further consideration. Then the secrecy angle was discussed. From now on, the anonymous criminal was to be known by the code name the 'Artist', as he called himself in the recordings.

'Only those of us in this crisis cabinet,' Benoit went on, 'will know everything about the Artist. All other experts or assistants will only be aware of part or even nothing at all of the information concerning the Artist, including details of the attacks and the progress of our investigations. Neither the insurance companies nor any investors who are not clients of Miss Roman here, nor it goes without saying the press or the public, will have access to any of this information. From this moment on, the very existence of the Artist is strictly confidential.'

The attack plan had a single heading: Rip van Winkle. Bosch had already heard of this European security system. It was controlled from a special department of Europol. Head Honcho defined it as 'self-defence and feedback'. Like the character in Washington Irving's story, the system could be 'sleeping' for years until a specific crisis 'woke it up'. Its chief characteristic was that once it had been awakened it could not be stopped until it had achieved its objectives. These objectives were an absolute priority. Each objective achieved became a 'result'. If necessary, Rip van Winkle could ignore all legal norms, all constitutions and ideas of sovereignty in order to obtain results. It was also self-correcting every week. If it was discovered that in that length of time no result had been achieved, all its agents were changed.

'Today it's us,' said Head Honcho. 'Tomorrow it could be others.'

Rip van Winkle would do everything necessary to get rid of the problem, and would use any means at its disposal. 'There are bound to be victims,' Head Honcho announced dolefully, 'and almost all of them will be innocent, though necessary. I repeat: necessary. The number of victims will grow exponentially in relation to the amount of time we need to achieve our objectives. It's like a secret war.'

In this instance, the main aim of Rip van Winkle was simple: to capture and eliminate the Artist, whoever he was, and whoever might be hiding behind that name.