The Rembrandt Secret (33 page)

‘Maybe,’ he said quietly. ‘But then again, maybe not. You might not like some of the things I’ve had to do.’

She nodded, holding her breath. What was he referring to? Her imagination danced on the edges of her nerves, making jolts into half formed suspicions.

‘You’re not in trouble are you, Tobar?’

‘Let’s put it this way – without this Rembrandt sale I’d lose everything,’ he admitted, running his index finger down the length of her arm. ‘But we don’t have to worry anymore. You thought we were well off before? After New York you’re going to be married to a very rich man indeed.’ He slid his hand into hers, clasping her fingers as a child might. ‘We have to stick together, Rosella. We need each other. I know I’ve been difficult, not the best husband, but I’ll pay you back in full.’

‘I know you will, Tobar,’ she said, squeezing his hand affectionately. ‘I know you will.’

Valkenburgerstraat
Amsterdam

Walking into the bank, Marshall was greeted warmly as he asked for his safety deposit box. Dropping into step behind the manager, he was shown into the vault beyond and then steered into a small anteroom. A few moments later he was handed his security box. Marshall waited until the door closed, then locked it and glanced around the plain, unadorned room, looking for hidden cameras. There were none that he could see. Satisfied, he slid the key out of his inside pocket, he unlocked the box, and he took out the Rembrandt letters.

He felt a thrill as he touched them, smelt the faint ageing on them, and gazed at the old Dutch writing. Although he remembered most of what she had written, Marshall paused when he came to the later letters. Slowly, he began to read them again, Geertje Dircx’s voice coming down the years to him:

House of Corrections,
Gouda, 1654

My friends talk of getting me out. Surely I have been ill enough. They talk of seeing Rembrandt in the town. Not Gouda, Amsterdam. They tell me about her … She gave evidence against me, just as Rembrandt did. Hendrickje Stoffels stood in the court and told everyone how well Rembrandt had treated me and how ungrateful I had become. A madwoman, a liar, she called me, quietly, so everyone would believe her.

I was so stupid for a clever woman.

The court heard about how I had lived with Rembrandt for six years in the Sint Antoniesbreestraat. I told them I had become his lover and that he had given me several of his late wife’s rings. One to count as a betrothal. Later I sold the ring. I’d had to, to raise the money and fund my cause when I took Rembrandt to the Commissioners of Marital Affairs on a charge of breach of promise …

Rembrandt swore at that, said he would never promise to marry me, or anyone, because of the dictates in Saskia’s will. It wouldn’t profit him, he said, to lose her inheritance.

In the end the court made him pay me 200 guilders annually, for life.

I’d hired a room over a seamen’s bar. Which made me a whore, they said. My brother said, my neighbours said. She said. They all stood up in court, perjured themselves and made a slut out of me. Afterwards, people spat at me, talked about me, sneered at me. Me, who had been Rembrandt’s lover. And the mother of
his child … Once he came to see me in the room over the bar. In secret, wearing something ugly, because peasants lived there.

He warned me. Making his doughy face soft, as though he was sorry. He said I had to agree to his terms. But I argued, like the whore I was. The whore they’d made me. And then I said the name. Carel. Carel, I said, what of our son? I lost at that moment. Because he misunderstood me, thought me capable of blackmail. Thought I was like him, and would act out of spite. Tell everyone about his bastard, his secret, and how Carel had become his monkey. How he had painted pictures Rembrandt had been happy to pass off as his own.

My son had made him rich, the dealers rich, and when Carel wanted to stop working for his old master, Rembrandt had pressured him.

I didn’t find that out until a while later. And it wasn’t Rembrandt who told me.

I see Rembrandt now, as though he is stood in front of me, threatening me with his fleshy hands, telling me over and over, be quiet, be quiet. Say nothing … Sssh, listen, the guard is back on duty, pausing by the window and listening. I’ve put the papers under my skirt and pretend to sleep, slumped against the straw pillow which prickles your skin and houses the bugs in summer. We itch, in every place known to man, we itch. My hair was crawling with fleas when I was ill, they bit my scalp and sucked at the blood …

The argument we had was violent, and I struck Rembrandt, like a whore. I struck him and cursed her, Hendrickje Stoffels. And his heart turned to lead against me …
Moved, Marshall stared at the letter, then leaned back in his seat, looking around the blank walls of the ante-room. He wondered how it had felt for Geertje Dircx to not only be rejected, but imprisoned for twelve years by the man she had previously loved. The cruelty hit Marshall as hard as it had done the first time he read the letters, and he was just about to continue when there was a knock on the door.

Hurriedly, he put the letters back in the box.

‘Come in.’

The manager entered, apologetically, his English fluent. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Zeigler, but there’s someone asking for you in the bank reception.’

‘There can’t be, no one knows I’m here,’ Marshall replied, looking over the man’s shoulder into the bank beyond.

He could see a number of customers but no one he recognised, and realised that he had been followed – and was now effectively trapped. Nervous, Marshall calmed himself. What could anyone do in the ante-room of a bank vault? They could hardly attack him. And even if they wanted to steal the letters, they couldn’t take them away from him while he was on the premises, in full sight.

‘Who asked for me?’

The manager turned, then frowned as he glanced around the reception area. ‘Oh, he appears to have left.’

‘What was his name?’

‘He didn’t give one,’ the manager answered, obviously embarrassed. ‘I’m very sorry, Mr Zeigler, I hope this wasn’t
some kind of hoax. Perhaps I shouldn’t have disturbed you, but he was very emphatic—’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Rough.’ He paused, looking for the right words. ‘A rather worn looking individual, sir.’

‘Worn looking?’

‘Not well dressed, casual. A working man. He seemed around thirty-five. Dark hair and eyes, clean shaven. And not Dutch.’

Marshall raised his eyebrows. ‘Not Dutch? Was he English?’

‘No, he had an accent I couldn’t place, sir.’

‘And he asked for me?’

‘Yes, I told him you were in the vault.’

Marshall nodded. ‘Then what did he say?’

‘That he would like a word with you.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No. I said I would pass on his message and when I last looked, he was waiting.’

‘Do you have security cameras here?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I think the man who asked for me was the same person who broke into my home in London,’ Marshall replied, thinking on his feet and watching the startled expression on the manager’s face. He dropped his voice conspiratorially. ‘I’d appreciate it if this could be kept quiet. You see, I think he might be a relative of my wife’s. He’s no good, into drugs, and he wanted to borrow some more money, but we were against it. So he helped himself,
and now he’s putting me under pressure, turning up at my bank.’

The man was suddenly sympathetic. ‘Oh, I see. Family troubles.’

Marshall shrugged. ‘What can you do? I’d be sure it was him if I could see the security tape. You know me well, I’ve been a client here for a long time. I’d appreciate some understanding in what is a very difficult matter.’

The manager nodded, but his tone was uncertain. ‘I can talk to our security people. They couldn’t show you the whole tape, obviously, but perhaps we could show you a still of the man?’

‘That would be enough,’ Marshall replied, turning back to the security box. ‘I’ll carry on here for a while.’

‘I’ll leave you to it, sir. Sorry for the interruption.’

Marshall, now taut with apprehension, relocked the door, then took out the letters again and rifled through them for the list. When he had it in his hand he read, slowly and incredulously – the names of the fakes, numbering almost a hundred paintings. Almost one hundred pictures which had been painted by a forger. And not just any forger, but Rembrandt’s bastard son …

Taking in a breath, Marshall could only imagine the furore which would greet such news, but as he studied the names again he could see no mention of the Issenhirst portraits. A hurried second conversation with Samuel after he had landed in Holland had given him the names of those two paintings –
Portrait of A Man and Wife
, 1653, and
Portrait of Abraham de Potter and his Wife.
The latter name
had been queried and changed, then, in the 1950s, the pictures had temporarily been referred to as the Issenhirst Portraits. But there was no mention of the name Issenhirst on the list, only an entry –
Husband and Wife
, 1653. Marshall frowned at the paper, turning it round to read a tiny entry in the margin. Something indecipherable, in Geertje Dircx’s hand, but impossible to read.

Holding the paper up to the light, Marshall began to see the words more clearly. They were written in the equivalent of an early Dutch dialect, hard to translate for a moment.

‘
Man with beard
,’ Marshall said finally, staring at the entry again. ‘
Husband and Wife, 1653 … man with beard.
That should narrow it down.’

Excited, he made a hurried note and then turned back to the list. Slowly he read the names of the paintings, closing his eyes and repeating them over and over again. One after the other.

All his life Marshall had prided himself on his memory, his gift for vivid and detailed visual recall. Since childhood he could look at a page and remember it. As he grew older, he retained only matters of interest, erasing unimportant details from his memory. As a linguist, the skill had proved invaluable. Not only could he remember the grammar of languages, but also the version from which he was originally translating. For example, if he was translating Alexander Pope into French, he could mentally retain both the English and the French versions, together with the nuances of speech and phrasing. His ability had
made him sought after, especially for the Classics, which demanded not only skill, stamina and sympathy but a prodigious memory.

And that memory Marshall was relying on now. Opening his eyes, his gaze went to the top of the list and he looked away, listing the names one after the other in the order he had read them. About half way through he paused, glancing back to remind himself of the next entry.

Another knock on the door interrupted him. Marshall rose and let in the manager, who seemed pleased with himself.

‘I’ve organised everything with the security team, Mr Zeigler. When you’re ready, I’ve got something for you to look at.’

‘Thank you. I just need another fifteen minutes here.’ The man nodded, glancing at his watch. ‘I’ll come back for you then.’

Marshall returned to his seat, closed his eyes again, and began to recite the list from the beginning. This time he was word perfect. Again, he repeated the process, then tucked the papers into the security box and, placing the letters on top of the list, locked it. Then he paused, considering his options.

If he left the letters in the bank they would be safe, but he would have nothing to bargain with. If he kept them with him, he would have access to them at all times and could pass them on or even destroy them. Marshall hesitated. The letters were a death sentence, he knew that, and he realised suddenly how much he wanted to live.
How precious his life seemed now that it was under threat. His friends, his work, his flat, took on a poignant resonance with the knowledge that at any moment he might lose them all. And with them, his own life …

After a few moments, Marshall unlocked the box and took out the letters. He tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket. As he left the room, he passed the box over to the manager and followed him up a flight of stairs and into a cramped office at the back of the building. A bored, corpulent man was sitting in front of a honeycomb of screens, showing every view of the bank. The lobby, reception, tellers and queues. And, interestingly, the manager’s office.

The manager gestured to a single screen that showed an image of a man standing in reception – the worn looking man he had described earlier. Marshall studied the photograph. The man was unknown to him, and didn’t resemble anyone he had ever known, yet there was something familiar about him …

‘Is that your relative?’ the manager asked, dropping his voice tactfully.

‘It’s him,’ Marshall lied, memorising the image before turning away from the screen. ‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’

‘Don’t mention it, Mr Zeigler. As you say, you’re a valued customer, it was the least I could do. If your brother-in-law calls by again, what would you like me to tell him?’

Marshall thought for a moment before answering. ‘I don’t usually like involving people in family business, but
you’re obviously a man of the world, and you’ve been very understanding—’

‘No problem, sir.’

‘So,
if
he comes back, perhaps you could tell him that I deposited some documents in my security box. And that I mentioned that I was going back to London?’

Obviously delighted to have something to relieve the monotony, the manager smiled. ‘I understand, sir.’

‘It would stop him being a nuisance here. I’m just sorry I’ve put you to all this trouble.’

‘As I say, sir, no problem. You can count on me.’

Shaking his hand, Marshall turned to go then turned back. ‘Perhaps we could keep this between the two of us?’

He nodded, flattered to be the confidant. ‘Absolutely,’ he agreed, holding the door for Marshall to pass through. ‘Absolutely.’

New York