The Isis Covenant (3 page)

Which left him more or less where he had been before the Doomsday affair. Not quite penniless. Not quite unemployed. A fledgling art dealer whose career had taken a wrong turn when he’d tracked down a Rembrandt stolen by the Germans from a family of Parisian Jews, destroying the reputation of one of his peers and attracting the permanent scorn of Establishment figures like Peregrine Dacre. It was only thanks to old friends like Genaro di Stefano in Rome, who recognized his innate talent for spotting an unlikely kink in an otherwise pristine provenance, and people like Samantha, who, for reasons unknown, genuinely liked him, that he was able to hover on the fringes of his
old
world, picking up enough scraps to stay in business.

She eased him effortlessly through the crowded room towards an annexe, her eyes scanning the fringes of the crowd. ‘There’s a chap I thought you should meet. We were chatting and I mentioned your name. It turns out he might have a commission for you. Where is he? Over there. Oleg, darling!’ She waved to someone walking through the door and, before they disappeared, Jamie had an impression of curling dark hair and substantial bulk surrounded by a flurry of attentive minders. ‘Bugger,’ Samantha sniffed. ‘Bloody Russian billionaires. All money and no manners. Look, this is incredibly boring. Why don’t you take me for a drink later?’

Before he could answer, something trilled in his jacket pocket, attracting glares from everyone within hearing distance, including Samantha. He remembered belatedly that he’d forgotten to switch off his mobile phone.

‘Sorry,’ he said, grinning awkwardly and putting the phone to his ear at the same time. He made his way to the door and out into the hall where a few people waited for the attendants to bring their coats. At first he couldn’t place the voice, but as the chatter faded behind him he realized it belonged to his lawyer.

‘Jamie? How the hell are you?’ The tone was suspiciously cheerful.

‘I’m fine, Rashid. I thought you’d be in some sleazy wine bar by now?’

‘Actually, I was, but I had a call from Berlin I thought you’d want to hear about.’ Despite himself, Jamie felt a surge of optimism. Here it was at last. ‘The international committee appointed by the
Staatliche Museen
is agreed that the Raphael is authentic. That it is indeed
Portrait of a Young Man
, which was taken from the Czartoryski Museum in Cracow …’ His voice tailed off into uncertainty and Jamie’s inner glow faded to ashes. ‘The problem is the two experts they brought in to rubber-stamp their report. We have one who says he can’t be a hundred per cent certain and that there’s a statistical possibility that it’s by one of Raphael’s apprentices. The other says outright that it’s a fake.’ Rashid hesitated, waiting for a response, but Jamie found he didn’t have anything to say. He noticed Peregrine Dacre staring at him from the doorway, a sleepy half-smile on his ruddy face. ‘Look, Jamie, it’s crap. The chap has no evidence, just says he has a gut feeling. But it throws doubt, and they can’t afford any shadow of doubt hanging over a Raphael, especially a Raphael with the history this one has. So it’s back to square one. A new committee—’

‘Did they say who this expert was?’

‘That’s the surprising thing. He’s English, has a fine reputation. You might know him. Sir Peregrine Dacre. Something to do with the Queen’s art collection.’

Ten feet away Dacre smiled and raised his glass in a salute. Jamie felt a roaring in his ears and his vision turned red. In his mind he covered the distance to the
door
in three strides, took Perry Dacre by his scrawny neck and twisted until he felt a satisfying crunch. But when his eyes cleared, the doorway was empty and Rashid’s voice sounded as if it came from underwater.

‘We’ll press the Princess Czartoryski Foundation for an interim payment. It’s in their interest to have the Raphael back and I know they have no doubts …’

Jamie shook his head to clear it. ‘Look, Rashid, this is a lot to take in. Can I call you back in the morning?’

When he rang off, he felt like a boxer who’d just done fifteen rounds. To go back inside and agree to that drink with Samantha, and all that would inevitably follow? No. That would mean having to endure Dacre’s smug face, and somehow he didn’t feel quite up to Samantha right now.

‘Can I have my coat, please?’ He handed the ticket to the attendant and waited. A second later the phone went off again. Fuck. What else could go wrong?

‘Rashid, I said—’

‘Herr Saintclair? I have
Polizeihauptkommissar
Muller for you, sir.’

Jamie felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. The last time he’d met Lotte Muller had been outside the
Frauenkirche
in Dresden after landing her in the political, diplomatic and legal manure storm that had been the climax of the Doomsday affair. Somehow it didn’t seem likely that she was about to offer him her sympathy over his Raphael problems.

‘Herr Saintclair?’

‘
Kommissar
Muller. What a pleasure to hear your voice again.’

A moment passed while the German police commander tried to work out if she was being mocked, but the hint of a smile in her voice when she resumed said not. ‘I truly wish I could say the same, Herr Saintclair. Not, of course, that it is not a pleasure to speak with you, but that I wish the circumstances were different.’ A familiar chill settled in Jamie’s lower stomach. He should have known that no matter how bad things were, they could always get worse. His suspicions were confirmed when Muller’s voice took on a tone more suited to a Bavarian undertaker. ‘I was made aware of the attack that took place against you recently in London, and I was asked to make certain inquiries. You may or may not be aware that, as a result of your … relationship … with Herr Vanderbilt your name was placed on what is known as a “watch list” in the United States. You are familiar with this phrase?’

‘Yes, I have an idea what it means.’ His voice sounded oddly harsh in the earphone. Jamie was certain in his own mind that Vanderbilt had ordered his grandfather’s death, but the tycoon had escaped justice by pinning the blame on a junior executive fortuitously blown up by an Al Qaeda car bomb.

‘As a result of those inquiries, I received a courtesy phone call from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’

‘The FBI?’

‘Of course, yes, the FBI. In any case, the name Jamie
Saintclair
came up in a routine surveillance report filed in New York city two days before Christmas.’

‘More than a month ago.’

‘Yes, more than a month ago. It appears that even the Fed … FBI is not immune to the inertia of what you in England call the festive season …’

‘And this report said?’

He could imagine the thin lips pursing at the hint that she get to the point, but Lotte Muller would not be hurried. ‘On the twenty-third of December a conversation took place between two suspects known to be involved in organized crime within the continental United States. I was not provided with the location or the identity of the suspects, but I do know that the name Jamie Saintclair was mentioned in connection with a one-hundred-thousand-dollar contract taken out by a person or persons unknown.

‘Herr Saintclair?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I’m still here.’

‘Naturally, you are aware what is meant by a contract?’ There was another long silence, which she took as confirmation. ‘You must understand that the people under surveillance were third parties – I believe go-between is the term – and there is not enough evidence for their arrest. It is also not unusual in these cases for the task to be sub-contracted, perhaps to someone in the United Kingdom. However, it is the considered opinion of the FBI that as a result of the failure of the first attempt on your life, a suitably qualified
individual
will be dispatched to England in due course, with the specific instruction to kill the British art dealer Jamie Saintclair.’

IV

‘JESUS, WILL SOMEBODY
check if Charlie Manson’s still in jail?’

After five years in homicide, Detective Danny Fisher could have predicted the essentials of what she was about to see in the house just off the expressway in Brooklyn Heights, but the specifics tested even her legendary composure. She stood in the doorway and took in the scene with eyes long trained to look beyond the human tragedy to the physics and the mechanics of death. Six bodies in the spacious, open-plan room. The father, tall, slim and dark, strung up naked by the arms from a light fitting fixed to the ceiling and, from the blackened scorch marks that disfigured his body, the source of most of the burned-pork smell that almost overwhelmed the rank, sewer stench of bowels emptied by terror. The mother, blonde and tanned, with what had been a good body, was strapped to some sort of makeshift frame, her arms wide and her legs spread.
Fisher
studied her face. She would have been beautiful but for the horror that marked her end. The torn shreds of a silky peach nightgown partly covered the body, her features were a mask of blood, one breast had been sliced off and Danny didn’t like to guess what else had been done. Young folks, in their mid-thirties maybe, but she could confirm that later. The four children, three girls and a boy, aged between approximately four and thirteen, lay slumped in a row on a large couch, their blond heads matted with gore and their hands secured behind their backs with plastic ties. All of the dead had four-inch strips of brown plastic tape across their mouths.

‘You think it’s a drugs hit?’

Fisher pursed her thin lips and glared at her partner, who wore the same shapeless blue protective suit. Hank Zeller should have known better than to ask her to speculate in front of the help.

‘I doubt if even the Colombians would have tortured the kids. Time of death?’

The coroner’s technician looked up from where he was working over the body of one of the children.

‘Best estimate? Between one and three this morning. Maybe I can narrow it down more when I get a core temperature. The adult male is no good – there’s too much residual heat from his burns affecting the body. My best chance is with the female, but I’ll need more time.’

Fisher nodded. It meant the killings had probably
happened
between five and seven hours earlier. She had uniformed cops checking with the neighbours for signs of any unusual activity. If they were lucky some insomniac would have seen or heard the killers’ vehicle. The gags explained why no one had been alerted by screaming and called 911.

She and Zeller waited another hour while the forensics and fingerprints people checked every inch of the house for possible evidence, sifting through the piles of paper strewn across each room from drawers that had been torn out and upturned, and taking minute samples of dust and fabric.

‘We’re done.’ The crime scene manager wiped a hand across his brow.

Fisher gave him a look that didn’t require any translation. He produced a noncommittal shrug. ‘The place is smothered in prints; all shapes and sizes, but I think you’ll find they’re mostly either family or friends. We have smudges on the light switch, the light cable and on the tape used to gag the victims. My guess is that your perp or perps wore gloves. Big help, huh? One thing: from the position of the smudges on the tape, I’d say the material used on the father and mother had been positioned and removed more than once. Okay? I’ll send in the medical examiner. Let me know when you need the coroner’s guys for the bodies.’

The tall detective nodded and waited until she and Zeller were alone with the dead.

‘So what do we think?’

Zeller stared intently at the scene. ‘They were after information. But what kind of information? The dead guy is a hardware store manager. No known criminal contacts. We sent a blue-and-white to check out the store. There was no sign of illegal entry. No sign of a search. Whatever they were looking for, they found it here.’

He studied his partner as Fisher took up the story. Tall and rangy, with piercing electric-blue eyes, Danny Fisher was an enigma even to her closest colleagues at the 84th Precinct building on Gold Street. She had a reputation for never socializing with her fellow detectives, which, in their peculiar male-dominated world, had led to the inevitable questions about her sexuality: never proved. Zeller had heard the stories about the guys who had tried to make a move on the thirty-three-year-old and the painful consequences that followed. He had no intention of joining their number.

‘Silent entry,’ Fisher said confidently. ‘They didn’t force the front door and the chain was in place, so most likely they got in through the French doors at the back of the house. They were quick and they were efficient. Parents first. Gun to the head while they were sleeping, maybe, and threaten the kids. That would be enough to keep them cooperative. Bring them down. Truss them up and gag them. That’s when the real fear would have come. Maybe they brought the kids in to watch, maybe not.’ She paused and stared at the four lifeless pyjama-clad bodies. ‘I think probably not. That came later.
They
would have started with the father. Just a little light grilling with the blow torch to loosen him up. He must have known by then there was no escape, that no matter how long he held out he was going to die. He should have talked.’ She turned to the woman, still splayed obscenely against the frame. ‘But we know he didn’t, because then they used the wife as leverage. He had to watch and he knew she was screaming at him inside to tell them what they wanted. Anything to save her from what they were doing. But he didn’t.’

‘Or he couldn’t.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Because he didn’t know what it was they thought he knew.’

‘Jesus, the poor bastard.’

‘That was when they gave him the full works.’ She stepped in front of the scorched figure and crouched, inspecting the areas of carbonized flesh. What kind of human being would burn a man’s balls off? ‘The kids were their last chance to get what they wanted. They brought them in, eldest first, baby of the family – his favourite? – last. They must have known they didn’t need to use the blow torch, the threat would have been enough. But they did, and that,’ she paused to chew on the thought until it turned into a conclusion, ‘that, and the fact that the woman’s breast has been cut off, makes one of them a sadist. Because it was gratuitous. First they tortured them, so he could feel their pain, then they questioned him. And when he didn’t answer, they killed them. One by one.’ She looked down at the
matted
blond curls of the eldest of the four dead children, a slim girl just beginning the transformation to womanhood. ‘By smashing their skulls in with a hammer.’