Art of Murder (73 page)

She took a deep breath and lifted her head, presenting it to the sacrifice as if she was running towards the outstretched arms of a loving father.

The horrible. At last.

At that moment there was a thunderous crash and everything was over for her.

22.05.

Bosch had fired straight through the mirror. A living cylinder thrashed around the floor of the room. The canvas cutter was still switched on, its blade furiously sawing the air.

Wuyters, who had obeyed his order and put away his gun, was staring at him dumbfounded. Bosch had not wanted to get him mixed up in what he had decided to do. He needed to be the only guilty one. An old policeman's scruples had led him to ensure that Wuyters did his duty right to the end.

Everything was over, but Bosch stood there motionless. He did not lower his gun even when they told him Baldi was dead. Nor when they assured him that the canvases were out of danger, and that Baldi had not succeeded in cutting the girl in his second attempt, when he changed blades after Wuyters and he had thought he had already started the destruction. The echo of the shot had already faded and the crash of the broken glass as well, but Bosch still held the gun in his outstretched arms.

It was strange - he thought - what had happened with Baldi. He had seen how the bullet had struck his head, and the blood spurting like paint, but he had not noticed any spattered organs, nothing really terrible: just a red stain spreading everywhere across the smooth white surface of his skull. Bosch remembered that once as a boy he had spilt an inkwell, which had produced the same effect on his drawing pad. He guessed it must be the cerublastyne that kept everything so neat and tidy looking. Then through the shattered mirror he saw one of his men strip off bits of the mask to reveal the destruction beneath. Baldi's face was gone. His brain was like chewed-up paper. I'm sorry, thought Bosch, staring at this unaesthetic mass, this scrawl of bones and white strands; I'm sorry. I've killed the canvas. He knew that Baldi was not the guilty one. Nor was Van Tysch: Van Tysch was merely a genius.

He, Lothar Bosch, was the only guilty one. A vulgar little man.

He finally managed to lower his arms. He could see Wuyters next to him, still staring.

'Do you know what, Jan?' Bosch said, immensely weary, by way of explanation. 'The thing is, I've never liked modern art.'

22.19.

April Wood listened in silence. Then she hung up and spoke to Stein:

'My colleague Lothar Bosch has preven
ted Bruno van Tysch from completi
ng his posthumous work. He takes full responsibility and will accept whatever consequences may arise from his actions. He also told me he has decided to resign.' She paused.
‘I
beg you to add my resignation to Mr Bosch's, but also to
put all the responsibility
for this on to me. I did not succeed in informing Mr Bosch properly about what was happening, and therefore he acted on a misapprehension. I am the only one responsible for what happened. Thank you.'

Stein burst out laughing. It was a silent, disagreeable laugh. It was like a continuation of the sobs he had produced moments before. Then he stopped. His face betrayed a certain annoyance, as though he were ashamed of the way he had behaved.

Miss Wood did not wait for any further reply, but turned and walked down the tiled corridor.

The half moon shining in the night of Edenburg had risen in the sky.

Who if I cried would hear me from the hierarchies of angels?

RILKE

Epilogue

For a while there were sounds. Then silence reigned.

As he was folding his socks and putting them in his suitcase, Lothar Bosch thought that perhaps this was the only peace and happiness people like him could hope for in this world. Nothing better, he thought, than to smooth a pair of socks and carefully place them in a suitcase. He surveyed his half-completed packing, the case yawning open on the bed. The sun outside his bedroom window brought a cool, watery Holland to his nostrils. His bed, like a mysterious soft chessboard, was covered in pieces: columns of underwear, socks, books and shirts. Bosch had begun the ritual unwillingly, but by the end was thankful for it. It no longer seemed to him such a bad idea to spend the rest of the summer with Roland and his family in Scheveningen. In fact, he was beginning to look forward to it. He had no job, so it was time for him, as his brother said, 'to start to live the life of a pensioner'.

It would also give him the chance to see Danielle. He had bought something special for her in a shop on Rozengracht.

The presents for Hannah and Roland had been easy to choose. They were expensive, as befitted his position as a widower with no children and substantial savings: a diamond brooch from Coster's, and a new digital camera. But Nielle's present was more difficult. At first he had considered a Japanese computer program which had an almost human creature on it that had to be cared for, brought up, taken to school and protected from the dangers of adolescence until the moment she left home, something which almost never happened unless the program had errors or a virus. Then in a toy shop on Rokin he found something much better: a mechanical dalmatian that could move, bark and whine if left alone for too long. He was about to buy it when in the same shop he spotted an enormous felt dog. It was a majestic, soft animal, a Saint Bernard as big as a double pillow. The
Saint Bernard did not do anything, it did not move, or bark, but Bosch thought it looked much more alive than the mechanical toy. He gave the necessary instructions for it to be sent to Roland's house in The Hague.

But then, on his way home from the toy shop, he passed by a shop in Rozengracht, and saw it.

He thought for a moment, and retraced his steps. He did not want to cancel his order for the Saint Bernard: he simply requested it be sent to his own house. He would decide later on what to do with that fluffy brown monster. Then he went back to Rozengracht and finally bought the perfect present for Danielle.

The gift would probably arrive before he did. It would bark and whine like a mechanical dalmatian, but it would also do poohs and pee on the carpet and scratch the wood on doors with its claws. It would not be as well behaved as a computer or as sweet as a fluffy Saint Bernard. And - as Bosch knew - when it broke down, nothing and nobody in the world would be able to repair it, and nothing and nobody in the world would be able to restore or substitute it. When that present broke down, it would be completely and forever, and the infinite loss would tear the heart out of more than one person.

From this point of view it was undoubtedly the worst possible gift he could give a ten-year-old girl.

But perhaps Nielle would see its advantages.

Bosch was hopeful she would.

As the plane began its descent, April Wood glanced at her watch, took a small looking glass from her bag, and studied her face. She found it acceptable. The traces of sadness had disappeared. If they had ever existed, she thought.

She had got the news the day before, just as she was preparing to move to London after having dismantled her office in Amsterdam. She recognised the doctor's voice across the kilometres that separated her from the private clinic. The voice assured her it had all been very rapid. Miss Wood could not agree to that. In fact, it had all been very, very slow. 'Your father had already lost consciousness,' the voice told her. That she could believe. Where was her father's consciousness? Where had it been all these years? Where had it been when she had known him? She had no idea.

She gave all the relevant instructions. Death does not end with death: it has to be concluded with economic and bureacratic instructions. Her father had always wanted to lie under the ruins of classical Rome. All his life he had felt more Roman than British. Exactly that: Roman, because he did not care for Italy and had not even bothered to learn to speak Italian properly. It was Rome that he cared for: the grandeur of having an empire beneath his feet. Now you'll have it above your feet. Enjoy it, Poppy, she had thought. Transferring his body was going to cost her almost as much as the transfer of her paintings.

Her father would travel in a box to Rome. The paintings from her Amsterdam office would travel in private flights to London. 'A good summing-up of my life,' she decided.

She put the looking glass back in her bag, closed it and put it down by her feet.

She had not yet decided what she would do when she got to London. She was thirty years old, and supposed she had about the same number of years of professional activity left. There would be no lack of opportunity, of course: she had already received several offers from art security firms who wanted to be able to count on her. But for the first time in her life she had decided to take a break. She was on her own, and had all the time in the world. Perhaps more than she imagined. Up in the empty sky above the London clouds, with her only family and her only job both dead and gone, April Wood thought that perhaps she had all eternity on front of her.

Holidays. She had not had a real holiday in a long time. Perhaps she would go to Devon. In summer, Devon was ideal. You could have quiet or things to do, as you chose. That was it then: she would go to Devon.

No sooner had she decided that than she remembered Hirum Oslo lived in Devon. She had not given him a thought until now. Of course, she did not rule out calling on him and asking him all the questions that remained unspoken (why he had paid a woman artist to make a portrait from a photo of her, for example). She was not thinking of going to see Hirum again though.

She did not see what going to Devon had to do with paying him a visit.

Nothing at all.

Anyway, if she got bored, she could always consider it.

Money is art, thought Jacob Stein. This new phrase seemed a response to Van Tysch's famous dictum, but in fact it changed things completely. Yet the facts bore it out. In the past few days he had carried out several masterstrokes. He had held private meetings with Paul Benoit, Franz Hoffmann and Saskia Stoffels, and told them the whole truth. Together they had taken some quick decisions. Two days later, he informed the investors. To do so, he gathered their representatives on the Ionian island of Kefalonia, ten kilometres north of Agios Spyridion, and decorated the place with artefacts by Van der Graar, Safira and Mordaieff. He also acquired, especially for the occasion, five brand-new and well-trained adolescent Tongues by Mark Rodgers.

'We've not only controlled the situation, we've succeeded in profiting from it,' he told them. 'We've let it be known that Van Tysch committed suicide, which strictly speaking is true. We've said that what happened with the
Christ
was an accident that nobody is completely responsible for, although we have half-suggested that Van Tysch knew what was going to happen and had planned it. The public is quick to forgive madmen and the dead. And we've revealed part of what Postumo Baldi was up to. We've said he was crazy and was intending to destroy
Susanna Surprised by the Elders.
All this has caused a great commotion. It's too soon to speak of definitive figures, but since last week the "Rembrandt" works have increased spectacularly in value. In the case of the
Christ
for example, the price has gone sky high. The same with
Susanna.
That's why we've dismantled the "Rembrandt" collection and decided to send the original models home after removing their priming and rubbing out the signatures. We'll soon be able to use substitutes. Now the Maestro has disappeared and can no longer authorise any substitutes, it's vital to play down the importance of the originals, and use substitutes straightaway so that the collectors can get used to the idea. Otherwise we'll be running a risk that the paintings fall in price almost to the level of unofficial copies.'

With the Ionian sun tanning his face, Stein uncrossed his legs and moved his feet. The Tongue lying on the ground in front of him, completely naked and painted rose and white, blind and deaf due to the protectors it was wearing, groped forward with its straw-coloured head until it bumped into his other shoe, and went on licking.

'We've decided not to make public the destruction of the originals of
Deflowering
and
Monsters,'
he went on. 'All the interested parties will keep quiet about it, and we'll secretly substitute both works. As far as the transfer is concerned
...'

Stein paused while he settled back in his chair. As he did so, he noticed that the back supporting his own yielded a little. This was not a design fault: it was simply making an adjustment to please him. He was slender enough for the two athletic bodies which made up this Mordaieff Armchair to be able to bear his weight easily. From time to time the slight tremors in the youthful backside where he was resting his own made him sway gently, but they were calculated, controlled and delicate movements. Mordaieff made excellent pieces of furniture. One could write with neat lettering sitting on these fleshy seats, or illustrate a book of miniatures without one's hand shaking. And best of all: it was so pleasant to slide one's hand down and touch them while one was talking business.

'Fuschus,
the transfer was quite simple, believe me
’
he said.

It had not been so straightforward, in fact, but he was trying to convey the idea that money can resolve everything. This was false, but it could become true in the future on one condition: if there were more money.

It was a couple of years earlier that he had first seen a work by Vicky Lledo. It was
Body Lines.
It was on show in London as part of an exhibition by artists living in the city. He had not much liked the canvas, who was British and was called Shelley, but Stein knew how to recognise a good work of art painted on a mediocre canvas. Of course, he said nothing to anybody. A few months later, when the canvas was substituted, Stein parcelled Shelley up and took her to Amsterdam on the pretext of doing some tests on her, although he never spoke to her personally. Shelley enthusiastically answered all the questions. The list included some enquiries into the character and private life of Miss Lledo. Stein stored away the information for future use. The Foundation had to hand over power - the 'transfer' as the investors called it - because Van Tysch was in decline, and although Stein knew the Maestro had not said his last word, it was essential to be prepared. He spent months collecting information on unknown painters. Everyone was in a panic over the transfer. Stein was in a panic over everyone's panic. He set himself to teach them all that the miracle of creating a genius is much easier than the effort of keeping one alive.

By the start of 2006 he had already decided that the successor would be Vicky Lledo. That the balance of posterity should tilt towards Lledo had several advantages: she was a woman, which would be useful to counteract the macho idea certain sectors had of HD art; she was not Dutch, which helped show that the Van Tysch Foundation was happy to welcome any European artist; and lastly, choosing her would put a brake on the worrying rise to power of people like Rayback. The first step had been to give Vicky that small Max Kalima Foundation prize.
‘I
can assure you that the Maestro has seen Lledo's work, and is fascinated by it', he told the investors. That was not true. The Maestro saw nothing beyond himself. Stein was sure he was not even aware of the existence of a young Spanish artist called Vicky Lledo. Van Tysch only cared about preparing his swan song, his farewell to the world, his last, most risky work. Stein had taken all the decisions.

The end was near, and he had to invent a new beginning.

Shade
would remain untouchable and unfinished in Edenburg. And so it would be until the world was ready to look on it, and its appearance would be profitable. The former might happen at any time, or perhaps had
already
happened (the world was almost always ready for anything). As for the latter, a committee of investors headed by himself and Paul Benoit would take care well in advance of all the steps necessary to reveal the work to the world. There would be talk of 'the Maestro's testament', of his 'swan song', of his 'terrible secret'. 'A miracle requires a revelation and a secret, Jacob,' Benoit had rightly concluded. 'We already have the revelation. What we need is a secret.'

'Let's allow the idea to mature,' Stein told the investors, pensively stroking the long thighs of his chair.