The Relic (19 page)

‘No,' Viktor muttered. ‘You don't. You may have found your missing factor. We can't take any chances. We bring Volkov home. Once here, we can make sure he gets inside the brandy bottle and stays there.'

Leon Gusev said, ‘I'd like to investigate a little deeper. I'd like to run some cross-checks on Varienski. Before you take any action. Will you give me forty-eight hours?'

Viktor looked up at him. ‘I know you, Leon. There's a bee buzzing between your ears, isn't there? What is it?'

‘There's more to this than Volkov and the girl.'

‘We both agree he has a limited potential, but he
could
be used to detonate a big political explosion. Isn't that enough?'

‘It should be,' Gusev said thoughtfully. ‘It should be, Comrade, but I still feel there's something we've missed. Let me research Yuri Varienski. Right down to the time he was born.' He smiled at Rakovsky in his friendly way. ‘If there's nothing to find, I won't find it. If there is, we'll still have Volkov back in Russia.'

Viktor stood up. ‘I'll make sure of that,' he said.

Müller flew to London. He was popular in the trade. He was amusing and knowledgeable, and he'd made no enemies. He started with the top dealer who specialized in Fabergé and Russian works of art. He called on Wartski in Conduit Street. Collectors from all over the world went to the firm for advice and to buy the exquisite objects fashioned for the Imperial family and the old nobility. If a collector had acquired the ancient cross, Wartski's experts might have heard of it through the dealers' grapevine.

An hour later, after admiring some of the rare and beautiful pieces in the shop, Müller left, having learned nothing. He was advised to consult Eckstein, who also specialized in Russian and Eastern European art. He had perfected a glib story. He had a client who thought he had missed a fabulous bargain when he refused to buy a paste cross from an impoverished Russian aristocrat.

This client was not only obsessional, but extremely rich. Müller had offered to help in the hope of persuading him to invest in something less fantastic. Heads were nodded in sympathy. Clients like that were not uncommon among the super rich. It irked them unbearably to let something slip through their fingers. But they had to be humoured before they could be diverted from the unobtainable to the treasure that was actually for sale.

From the best in the business he worked his way down. He went from the reputable experts to the shadier middlemen, who traded in dubious goods, and from them to those who traded in anything without asking where it came from. Shops and dealers who specialized in old paste, in decorative objects, phoney icons and faked religious relics. He made two calls to contacts who sold to a private collector in New York. The collector was a woman. She hoarded like a magpie. The house in Long Island was referred to as Xanadu in the specialized trade that supplied her. It was crammed from the cellars to the roof space with furniture, pictures, sculptures, jewellery and
objets d'art
.

They were never displayed. Her criterion for any purchase was that it was the only example of its kind. Then she bought whatever it was and paid their price without worrying too much about the provenance. She was the kind of acquisitive neurotic who would hoard a medieval cross or a Papuan shrunken head.

Nobody could help him. One even suggested he try a firm of theatrical costumiers. They had a mass of worthless artefacts from crowns to Papal tiaras that they hired out. Müller realized he was being ridiculed and hung up.

He decided to stop over in Paris and spend a couple of days following a similar route. He paid calls to Le Vielle Cité, famed for its antiquities, where he was politely entertained and actually bought a little Renaissance bronze relief, but no one had heard of a cross coming on the market in recent years. He knew the fakers and the fences in Paris as well as London, and he skimmed through them, without any hope of success.

He was tired and frustrated by the end of his stay. The charming little bronze was a compensation. He decided to sell it to the Americans who had bought the tryptich.

He always stayed at a high-class hotel on trips abroad. He liked comfort and it was part of his image. He was packing in his room at the Georges V when his telephone rang. He supposed it was his wife, Susan. Or maybe Eloise. He'd kept in touch with her since he left home. She'd told him the nurse was coming to see her lawyers and make a statement at the end of that week. Things were moving, she'd said, and the steely note in her voice had excited him.

‘I'll be with you,' he'd assured her. ‘I'll hurry back.'

It wasn't his wife and it wasn't Eloise Brückner. It was a woman; she had a vulgar Parisian accent. She had heard, she explained, that he was enquiring about an old Russian cross.

Müller kept his voice cool. Yes, he agreed. He was asking around. Did she have one? No, she answered. But she had some information. She could come to his hotel if he liked.

Müller didn't like the sound of her. He suggested they meet at a bar he knew round the corner from the Place de Grève. Six o'clock, she suggested. He paused; he'd have to catch a later flight.

‘My name's Levison,' she told him. ‘I'm wearing a red dress.'

‘Six o'clock,' he said and hung up.

He was five minutes early, but she was already there, conspicuous in the red dress which was too tight for her. She wasn't what Müller expected. She was middle-aged, overweight and ill at ease in the chic little bar. He came up and introduced himself. She got up and they shook hands. Her bag and shoes were cheap. He had expected some kind of tart from Les Halles and found a respectable Jewish matron in an unbecoming colour.

‘Would you like something to drink?' he asked.

‘No thank you. I don't drink.' She brought out a man's handkerchief and loudly blew her nose. People at nearby tables looked round.

Müller said, ‘I do have to catch my plane, Madame Levison, so if you don't mind, I'd like to get down to business. How did you hear about me?'

She had gentle brown eyes; they were her best feature.

‘I've got friends in the business,' she said. ‘My father was well known in the old days. He had a fine shop in the Avenue de l'Opèra. Everybody respected him.' She put the handkerchief away. ‘Excuse me,' she said. ‘I've got a nasty cold. Summer colds are always the worst. My friend called me and said you'd been to see him and were asking about a Russian cross. He knew my father very well. He thought I might know something and he wanted to do me a good turn.'

‘That was kind,' Müller said. ‘Who was this friend?'

To his surprise she named a reputable dealer in fine art that he had been to see that afternoon.

‘Times have been hard since my father died,' she explained.

‘He took in a partner and we got married.' She shrugged. ‘He was not like my father. He ruined the business. When he died I had to sell up. There wasn't much left. I do a little dealing from home. Small things. People offer me stuff they don't want.'

Müller had wasted enough time. He interrupted. ‘You said you had information about the cross.'

She nodded. ‘My father used to talk about it. He was nearly eighty when he died, but he had such a memory! Someone came to the shop and tried to sell him an old cross with paste stones in it. A long time ago—twenty years or more. He didn't offer for it. When he was telling the story, he used to bang his fist on his forehead like this. “I wouldn't offer for it! I ask you!”'

Müller was on the edge of his seat. Brückner's investigators had found a jeweller who'd refused to buy a cross that fitted the description of the Holy Relic. Twenty-five years after the war ended a man had gone in to the shop and been told that his treasure was studded with spinels instead of rubies. Paste wasn't accurate, but it served well enough. There the search had ended. Until now.

‘He never got over it,' Madame Levison said. ‘He only found out what he'd missed a few years ago when some German came in asking questions. By chance, he said. The Germans were asking everywhere, advertising, making enquiries all over the trade.

‘My father remembered the man with the cross; he remembered him because he was young and so nervous. He didn't want to sell the cross unless there was a lot of money. The German wanted to know about the man. My father got suspicious. He just said he was a foreigner, he couldn't remember anything else. He didn't want to help a German. Forgive me, but you can understand why. He'd lost a lot of relatives in the war.'

‘I understand,' Müller said. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘It's not your fault,' she said simply. ‘You weren't even born. I don't think you can hate forever.'

‘No,' Müller agreed. For a moment he felt the old shame rise in him. ‘Tell me about the man. Tell me what your father said about him. You're being very helpful, Madame.'

‘He was a Russian,' she said. ‘My father talked Russian. He'd learned it from his grandparents. They left Russia after one of the pogroms. He told the man it was very old, but the gold work was too fragile to be reworked and the stones weren't worth anything. He said the Russian said to him, “Then it's God's will I keep it.” And he walked out. My father didn't think of it again till this German visited the shop and showed him an illustration. He recognized it. Then he looked it up and found it was some priceless Tsarist cross he'd turned down.

‘He loved telling the story. My friend must have heard it from him, and after you left remembered and telephoned me. He said you were a gentleman who'd pay a fair price for anything I could tell you.'

‘What do you consider a fair price, Madame?' He could think of some people who'd say she'd told him nothing he didn't already know and offer a few hundred francs. But Müller had never done business that way, and it was evident that she was her father's daughter. She was a trader.

‘Five thousand francs was what my friend suggested.'

Müller smiled. ‘And how much are you giving him out of that?'

She blushed. ‘He made the introduction,' she said. ‘Fair is fair.'

‘I don't have that much in cash. Do you mind a cheque?'

‘No. A cheque is fine. Thank you.' She opened the bag, took out the handkerchief and made a louder noise than before. ‘I hate colds,' she said morosely. ‘Especially summer colds. Goodbye, Monsieur Müller. If you're looking for this cross, I hope you find it. It must be worth a fortune!'

‘Money couldn't buy it,' Müller said. ‘Goodbye, Madame.'

Müller got to the airport and caught the seven o'clock flight home. He had gone as far as he could go. He had no more resources to call upon. The cross had never surfaced since that one appearance in the shop owned by Madame Levison's father. Who ever had it then still had it, or had passed it on. A German would have thrown away worthless loot. A Russian who talked of God's will would have kept it. It was up to Moscow to start checking among the
emigrés
and escapees who'd gone to Paris after the war ended.

That evening he showed his wife the little bronze relief. Afterwards, when she was preparing dinner, he slipped into his study to telephone Eloise.

‘I'm home,' he said in his warm voice. ‘I just wanted to you know I've been thinking of you.'

He was thinking of her. And thinking that if he pleased her as much as he hoped, she might be persuaded to part with the Fabergé desk set.

The letter reached Irina by special courier. She was at the clinic when it was delivered, working on some case notes. The Italian lady suffering post-natal depression was proving difficult to treat. Her husband and relatives were virtually camped in the clinic, driving Irina mad with their interference. She had been tempted to banish them and forbid all visits, but they wouldn't be intimidated. The director of the clinic was a reputable Swiss psychiatrist. He had no idea of the real identity of one of the major shareholders in the enterprise and he regarded Irina as a dedicated and skilful doctor. He insisted that the Italians should be humoured. They were related to the Agnelli family and he was impressed by the connection with such wealth and power. Irina suspected that his own Italian origins made him sympathetic to the fuss they created.

She slit the envelope open. It was written in Cyrillic. There was no heading on the paper, but she knew the signature. The
chargé d'affairs
in Geneva was Moscow Centre's top man.

The message was brief. ‘A civil action is pending against you brought by Adolph Brückner's widow, alleging mistreatment of her husband. You are recalled to Russia as a matter of urgency. Your husband is to accompany you. You are responsible for his return.'

She felt her pulse rate double; she flushed hot and then went cold. She was recalled to account for what had happened. Why had her methods been exposed? Why had Brückner died, putting the clandestine operation at the Amtel clinic at risk? Serious charges could be brought against her when she got home. Unless Viktor Rakovsky took responsibility. She snapped at her lighter; her hands trembled. At last the little flame flared and she set it to the paper, watching the end blacken, smoulder and curl as it burned. It lay in a charred heap in her ashtray among the cigarette butts.

Who had betrayed her? Who had given information to Brückner's wife? A civil action alleging misconduct leading to her patient's death. It was Rakovsky's fault. She pushed her chair back and threw the debris from the ashtray into her wastepaper basket. Rakovsky had pursued his private vengeance. Then she paused, realizing that he had a faultless motive. The Holy Relic was his alibi. Brückner couldn't be left alive with that knowledge. His defence would stand. Hers wouldn't.

She'd aroused suspicion in some member of the staff and they'd reported her to Brückner's widow. And she realized at once who it was. The sister who'd protested and overruled her by bringing in another doctor to relieve Brückner's suffering. She'd seen the hostility in the woman's face and had her moved to another ward. That must be who had accused her.