The Rembrandt Secret (23 page)

BOOK FOUR

30

London

Hurrying down Beak Street, Marshall paused outside the narrow entrance of number 67, where several doorbells had names beside them. Lulu, Stacy and Kim all offered massage; but the very top bell was marked Teddy Jack. Somehow knowing that the Northerner wouldn’t answer his bell, Marshall pressed all of them at once, and the door clicked open almost immediately.

As he rounded the stairs to the first floor, a girl came out, eating a cheese sandwich and smiling morosely.

‘You looking for company?’

‘I’m looking for Teddy Jack.’

Half heartedly, she jerked her head upwards. ‘He’s on the next floor. I think he’s in. He’s not been going out much lately.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘Nah … well, you’ll see.’ She went back into her room and closed the door and Marshall made his way upstairs in the fading light. The air was clammy with incense and an underlying sourness. When he reached Teddy Jack’s door, he saw a handwritten note – DON’T DISTURB. He ignored it and walked in. The damp, mottled blind was drawn, the light shaded, and the thick odour of old food, stale beer and cannabis was cloying. On an unmade bed under the window lay Teddy Jack, dressed but dozing. His head was lolling over to one side, dry crusting sat at the corners of his mouth, his big feet were bare and dirty.

‘Teddy,’ Marshall said, leaning forward and shaking his arm. ‘Teddy, wake up.’

He murmured in his sleep, but didn’t wake.

Sighing, Marshall moved into the tiny cubicle which served as a kitchen. In the full sink, a cockroach scuttled for cover; a half-eaten tin of beans sat discarded on top of the hob. Throwing aside a slimy cloth, Marshall put some water onto boil and then made coffee before walking back into the front room and lifting the blind. Disturbed by the light, Teddy finally woke, while Marshall was opening the window and letting in some cold air.

‘Fucking hell!’ Teddy exclaimed, reaching for a blanket. ‘What on earth …’ He stared at Marshall in disbelief. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Nicolai Kapinski’s dead.’

Teddy’s eyes registered nothing. No flicker, no emotion, just an empty, almost resigned, acceptance.

‘He had the letters?’

‘No,’ Marshall replied, watching him rub his face with his ham-sized hands. ‘Are you taking drugs now?’

‘Why d’you care?’

‘Cannabis?’

Teddy leaned forwards in his seat. ‘Why d’you care?’

‘Is that all you can say?’

‘OK, try this. What’s it to you what I do?’

Closing the window again as the room temperature dropped, Marshall leaned against the wall. ‘You didn’t strike me as the type to give up.’

‘I was having a holiday,’ Teddy replied drily. ‘In my head.’

‘Go anywhere nice?’

‘Can’t remember. Don’t want to. In fact, I don’t want to be talking to you. No offence, Marshall, you saved my life and I’m grateful, but you don’t have to spend the rest of your time looking after me.’

‘Aren’t you surprised that Nicolai’s been murdered?’

Reaching for the stump of a smoke, Teddy lit up and inhaled. His eyes were puffy and unclear, his red beard mottled with food and spittle. And he stank.

‘Why should I be surprised? We’ll all be killed in the end.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yeah. I think anyone involved with the letters is as good as dead.’ He slumped back against the bedhead, his expression unreadable. ‘I don’t suppose they know who killed Nicolai?’

‘No. In fact, if Philip Gorday hadn’t told me all about it, I doubt I would have heard. You see, Nicolai was killed in New York.’

Finally interested, Teddy stared at Marshall. ‘
New York?
What the hell was he doing in New York?’

‘Apparently he was trying to find the letters.’ Marshall hesitated, wary, careful not to give too much away. ‘Nicolai thought Charlotte might have had them, or copies of them.’

‘So?’

‘Philip Gorday said that Nicolai knew who would want to buy the letters. Where to place them.’

‘In New York?’

Marshall shrugged. ‘No, apparently Nicolai just went to New York to see Philip Gorday—’

‘And save his own skin.’

‘Can you blame him?’

Teddy’s eyes narrowed as he inhaled again. ‘I think
you’ve
got those fucking letters.’

Marshall ignored the comment. ‘Why don’t you put that out?’ he pointed to the joint. ‘You’ll think more clearly.’

‘Why do I want to think more clearly?’

‘Because you could be the next victim.’

‘Why? I don’t have the letters.’

‘Neither did Nicolai,’ Marshall said pointedly.

‘I didn’t like the little creep. We never got on.’ There was a long pause. ‘How was he killed?’

‘He was tortured. His eyes were put out. Nicolai was held down on the floor, and a sharp instrument blinded him. First one eye, then the other. Then they cut out his tongue.’

Wincing, Teddy stubbed out his smoke and got to his feet. Barefoot, he padded into the corridor. Marshall could hear a cistern flushing a few moments later and watched as Teddy came back into the flat and splashed water on his face.

‘Why would anyone kill him like that?’

Because they were copying
The Blinding of Samson
, Marshall thought, because it was the fourth death which emulated one of Rembrandt’s paintings. Teddy Jack wouldn’t have understood, but Marshall had got the message.

‘The last time we talked, at the gallery, I said some things I regret.’ Teddy paused for an instant. ‘I said Owen used to laugh about Nicolai behind his back, mock him about his missing brother. Well, that wasn’t true. Your father
did
tease him about it, because Nicolai used to go off on these weird depressions, but there was more to it.’

‘Like what?’

‘I found Nicolai’s brother.’

It was the last thing Marshall expected to hear.

‘Nicolai didn’t mention it to—’

‘Because he didn’t know. I only found Dimitri – as Luther now calls himself – a few days before your father was killed.’ He rubbed his beard vigorously with the towel. ‘I’d had no time to talk to Owen about it, ask him what he wanted to do, so I let it be. Anyway, after what I found out, I thought maybe Nicolai wouldn’t want to know that his brother had been found. You know, maybe it was better if he remained lost.’

Marshall stared at the big man. ‘Why?’

‘Because he was no good. Dimitri Kapinski wasn’t abducted. His father sent him away, paid for him to be taken on by another family. The mother never knew, but Dimitri was sent to work in a farm in the backwaters of Hungary. He was only a kid, and by the time he’d been there for a couple of years he’d been starting fires, and when he was seventeen he’d started thieving. He had some odd ways too. Wasn’t all there. Moody,’ Teddy went on, tapping his left temple. ‘By the time he was twenty odd, Dimitri had spent time in jail and been married. Then he’d bunked off to London, worked there for a short while, selling drugs. He’d become pretty violent too, then he went back to Poland, and finally returned to his wife in Hungary.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Last I found out, he was in jail abroad. Someone said Turkey. After that, I lost trace of him. I mean, Nicolai was a bit of a creeping Jesus, but he wouldn’t have wanted to know that his brother turned out to be just one more East European scumbag.’ He thought back. ‘When Nicolai had one of his funny turns he used to talk about his brother constantly, obsessively, and make him out to be something special. You know, a kid someone
would
steal, like he was Merlin or something. Your father never stopped him, just let Nicolai talk. And he’d go off on one and start speaking to his brother – like Dimitri was in the bloody room with him! Weird, but then Nicolai was pretty strange at times. He wasn’t a bad man, though. Not like his brother.’

‘Perhaps it was better that Nicolai didn’t know about him.’

‘Yeah, that was what I thought.’ Teddy took a breath and looked round the sordid room as though suddenly disgusted by it. ‘Let myself go a bit, haven’t I?’

‘Understandable.’

‘Is it?’ He stared at Marshall for a long instant. ‘Why did you come here?’

‘I need your help.’

‘You found
me
in the packing case, remember?’

Marshall laughed, then became serious. ‘I’m being followed.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I thought someone was behind me on the street, then I saw them reflected in a window. They went everywhere with me this morning.’ He paused. ‘And the gallery’s being watched. There were two men last night who didn’t belong in Albemarle Street.’

‘You scared?’

‘Yeah, of course I’m scared,’ Marshall admitted. ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘Well, we’ve got that in common.’

‘Can you find out who it is?’

‘That’s following you?’

Marshall nodded. ‘I have to go to Amsterdam as soon as I can, and I want to go alone. I’m not just worried for myself, but I’d like you to keep an eye on my ex-wife, Georgia.’

Surprised, Teddy raised his eyebrows. ‘Is she involved?’

‘I told her about the letters,’ Marshall replied, hurrying on. ‘It was just after my father was killed and I needed someone to talk to. Unfortunately I chose her. She’s pregnant, and I don’t— Well, just look out for her, will you?’

Nodding, Teddy pulled on his socks and shoes. ‘When are you leaving for Holland?’

‘Tonight. On the six o’clock flight.’

‘OK.’

Marshall took in a breath. ‘It might mean trouble.’

‘It
always
means trouble.’

‘I can pay you.’

‘I could do with the money, no work around.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought about going back up North, but it’s just as bad there, so I just decided to sit on the bed and get stoned for a while.’

‘Did it help?’

‘A bit maybe. I thought about your father. Kept going over what he did and said about those fucking letters, trying to think if there was something I’d forgotten. And I thought about the people he knew, and what I’d done when I was working for him, and I kept wondering who’d kill him like that – him, and the others. Killing someone, yeah, I can understand that. In temper, I can understand it. In the heat of the moment. But torturing someone? Making it last? No, I don’t get that. And I’m not going to let them do it to me.’

Marshall nodded. ‘Good, because we have to work together now, Teddy. I think it’s the only way we’ll survive.’

‘Even though you don’t trust me?’

‘I never said that.’

‘You didn’t have to,’ Teddy replied. ‘Maybe if I was in your shoes I wouldn’t trust anyone either.’

‘I’m asking you to look out for my ex-wife. I must trust you.’

‘How long are you staying in Holland?’

‘I’m not sure, I’ll keep in touch.’ Marshall paused. ‘But don’t let Georgia know what you’re doing. She’s smart, she won’t be easy to fool.’

Teddy nodded. ‘And you know what you’re doing?’

‘Not really.’

‘I thought not.’ Teddy smiled. ‘No plan?’

‘Well, I know they’ll come after me. I can draw them out that way. And if they’re coming after me, they’re not going after anyone else.’

‘Which means that you’re going to set yourself up?’

Marshall hesitated. ‘They won’t stop. That much is obvious.’

‘Is there anyone else left – apart from you, Samuel Hemmings, and me – that knows about the letters?’

‘Only Georgia.’

‘
And then there were four
…’ Teddy said quietly. ‘Four down, four to go.’

‘Don’t let anything happen to her!’ Marshall snapped. ‘You keep her safe, you hear me?’

‘I hear you. But who’s going to do the same for you?’

House of Corrections,
Gouda, 1654

He hired a new maid, younger than me, called Hendrickje Stoffels. She came to help me out, and I hated her from the instant I saw her. Knew in her cat’s eyes what she was after. Titus didn’t like her, clung to me, but she wasn’t going to be his nurse. Just keep house, help me. Jesus, she helped me. She helped me out of my master’s bed. She watched, feline, plumply sleek, never once looked at the painting on the landing. Didn’t believe in ghosts. I know that.

She will, when she hears them walk the house at night and sees Saskia’s face at the window, looking in, or drawing back the curtains around the bed … I’m jumping in my story. Did I tell you that Carel became so clever? So very very skilled. I watched him work and used to creep back into the studio late at night, and lift the cover over his canvas. And wonder how the child – that had kicked me in my ribs as he grew in my belly – could paint so well. So well he impressed his father … Carel knew I admired his work and was kind. Never patronising or dismissive, like Gerrit Dou, with his round, bird’s-eye glasses and his clever verbal barbs. Carel didn’t know I was his mother, he was just kind. Because kindness became him.