'Murnika de Verne.'
'Exactly. They would ask me if I needed anything, as if they wanted to show me that he never really forgot his friends. But I never spoke to Bruno again, and I never wanted to. How a friendship ends is as mysterious as how it begins,' Victor Zericky said: 'it simply happens.'
Miss Wood nodded. Hirum Oslo's tranquil shadow had suddenly flitted through her mind. Yes, the end is as mysterious as the beginning. And as mysterious, too, as the part in the middle. It simply happens.
'Am I boring you?' Zericky asked affably.
'No, on the contrary.'
As he was talking, Zericky was absentmindedly pulling some sheets of paper out of another folder. Miss Wood asked: 'What are those drawings?'
'They're old watercolours, pastels, carbon sketches and ink drawings his father did. I thought you might like to see them. Maurits thought he was a painter, did you know that? One of his great frustrations was that Bruno could not draw,' he said, with a brief laugh.
'From what I can see, the father could, though,' said Miss Wood as she looked at the drawings one by one. She recognised some landscapes of the village with the castle in the background.
'He wasn't bad at all, was he?' Zericky agreed. 'One day I must sort out the collection properly. Perhaps I'll write a biography of the Van Tysch family and use them to illustrate . . . What's the matter?'
Zericky had seen the sudden change in April Wood's expression.
20.05.
Bosch decided to get into the Tunnel through one of the emergency exits, at the far end. He walked down the whole length of the first side. The rain had eased to a fine drizzle. Even so, he seemed to have got drenched. Why on earth had he not picked up a blasted umbrella? When he reached the area close to the Stedelijk gardens he waved his magic card once more, and passed through the barriers. In front of him was the impressive black curtain. The way in was a labyrinth of folds to help prevent any light penetrating inside. Two guards were on duty. Although they recognised him at once, he still had to go through the rigorous checks he himself had set up. He placed his left hand on the plasma screen that analysed his fingerprints, and spoke into the microphone. He was so nervous he had to repeat the voice test twice. They finally let him through. Bosch was pleased that the security measures were working so well.
When he got inside the Tunnel his eyes closed without any need for lids.
20.20.
'What's this?' asked Miss Wood.
Zericky looked at the drawing she was holding up, and smiled.
'Oh, that was how Maurits crossed out the drawings he didn't like. He never tore them up. He scribbled on them with a red pen, and always in the same way. He was a violent man, but he liked his routines.'
It was a China ink drawing of a human figure, probably a villager from Edenburg. It was scrubbed out with big red crosses. Zericky saw something had attracted the woman's attention, because he saw her place her forefinger on the paper and mutter something. It was as though she were counting the crosses.
'He always crossed them out like that?' she said, in a very odd voice. Zericky wondered what had so intrigued her, but the years and loneliness had made him discreet.
'Yes, as I said.'
Miss Wood counted them again. Four crosses and two vertical lines. Eight lines in crosses and two parallel lines. Ten lines altogether.
My God.
She counted them again: she didn't want to make a mistake. Four crosses and two separate lines. Eight plus two. Ten in total. She picked up the remaining drawings and flicked through them. She stopped when she came to another crossed out one. It was the rough sketch of a face, traced in pencil. The crosses and vertical lines again. Four plus two. Eight and two. Ten altogether.
She turned to the historian, trying to stay calm as she spoke. 'Mr Zericky. Do you have any more drawings?' 'Yes. In the cellar.' 'Could I see them all?'
'All of them? There must be hundreds of them. Nobody has seen them all.'
'It doesn't matter. I've
got time.' ‘I’l
l get the folders.'
20.15.
When he found himself inside the Tunnel, Bosch realised immediately it was very different from seeing it on the monitors. It smelt of paint and there was a strange warmth about it: all his senses told him he was in a different universe. The feeling was similar to contemplating a lake at night and then plunging headfirst into its dark waves. The silence was awe-inspiring, and yet there were sounds: the echoes of footsteps and coughs, whispered comments. There were also the grave harmonies of a majestic music that came from the great dome of the Tunnel. Bosch recognised it:
The Funeral Music for Queen Mary,
by Purcell, with its drumbeats from beyond the grave.
In among these baroque shadows, Bosch could make out the first painting. The tumultuous crowd forming
The Night Watch
took up a large part of the bend in the horsehoe, and gleamed in the chiaroscuro lighting. Twenty painted, motionless human beings. What meaning could there possibly be to that absurd army? Like all Dutchmen, Bosch knew the original on show in the Rijksmuseum: it was a typical portrait of a military company, in this case commanded by Captain Frans Banning Cocq, but Rembrandt's stroke of genius had been to paint them at work, as though he had photographed them as they were patrolling the street. Van Tysch on the other hand had
petrified
them. And the figures were full of grotesque details. The Captain, for example, was a woman, and the red sash of his uniform was painted on her stomach. His lieutenant was a yellow monster in ruffs and a wide-brimmed hat. The golden girl with a hen dangling from her waist was completely naked here. The soldiers still bore lances and muskets, but their faces were covered in blood. Torn to shreds, their banner lashed the darkness of the canvas. The background was filled with huge structures like a Piranesi invention. A woman dressed in leather was weeping. A shadowy shape on four legs wearing a hangman's cap was crawling at the lieutenant's feet.
By comparison, the modest, solitary figure of
Titus
on show a few metres away on a small plinth seemed to lack interest: it was a young boy - Rembrandt's son in the original - dressed in furs and wearing a cap. But the play of lights and paint lent him a constantly changing look. The optical effect was similar to the shifting gleams of a diamond's facets. Bosch screwed up his eyes and thought he could see by turns the head of an unknown animal, the luminous face of an angel, a porcelain doll, and a caricature of Van Tysch's features.
The guy is completely crazy,' he heard a visitor say in a clear Dutch voice as like him he filed past in the darkness, 'but he fascinates me.'
Bosch could not make up his mind whether he agreed with this anonymous declaration. He went on, without stopping in front of
The Feast of
Belshazzar,
with its banquet of human beings. What most interested him was further on, floating in a lake of glittering browns.
When he reached her, Bosch tried to swallow, but discovered his mouth was completely dry.
Danielle was standing still, quietly beautiful in the midst of all the ochre tones. The
Young Girl Leaning on a Windoiusill
was a truly magnificent work, and Bosch could not help but feel proud. She was leaning against a chestnut-brown sill, staring into space with eyes that looked like jewels set in a face the colour of alabaster. The white paint was so dense it seemed almost obscene to Bosch. He could not understand why Van Tysch had wanted to shroud Danielle's pretty features in this snow. But what most amazed him was to realise it was
her.
He would not have been able to tell how he knew, but he would have recognised her from a thousand similar figures. Nielle was there, inside that bloodless mask, and there was something in the position of her hands or the tilt of her shoulders that gave the game away. Bosch lost himself in contemplation of her for several moments. Then he continued on his way.
Like a powerful condor, Purcell's music was soaring up into the far reaches of the darkness.
Bosch still did not understand. What had the painter been trying to say with this timeless, black world, this mystery of lights and music pouring down from the heights? What kind of message was he trying to convey?
20.45.
It was unbelievable. There they were. A girl standing on some flowers. Two fat, misshapen men. There were two drawings: the first in pastel, the second in China ink. They were not crossed out. She had come across them while she was looking for more examples of Maurits' crossing out.
Deflowering
and
Monsters,
Miss Wood thought, scarcely able to believe her eyes, Van Tysch's most
personal
works: they are
based
on
his father's old drawings,
and no one knows it, not even Hirum Oslo. Nobody has taken the trouble to look at Maurits' legacy closely enough. Perhaps not even Van Tysch himself suspects it. Maurits wanted him to draw, to become the successful artist he never managed to be. But little Bruno did not know how to draw. So what he did was adopt some of his father's drawings for his own art. It was a kind of compensation
...
She had separated these drawings from the pile, and went on looking. Zericky returned after a few minutes with yet more folders. He put them down on the table, raising clouds of dust, and began to undo the ribbons.
'These are the last,' he said. 'That's all I have.'
'Van Tysch saw these drawings as a child, didn't he?' said Miss Wood.
'Possibly. He never talked to me about it. Why do you ask?'
Instead of replying, she asked another question. 'Who else has seen them?' Rather confused, Zericky smiled.
'As thoroughly as you, nobody. A few researchers have glanced at a folder or two here and there
...
but what is it you're looking for exactly?'
'Another one.'
'What?'
'Another one. The third.'
There's one missing.
The third most important work.
It must be here somewhere. It's not an
exact
copy of one of the 'Rembrandt' paintings. In fact, neither of the other two is an
exact
copy of Van Tysch's work
...
the adolescent for example is not naked, and there aren't any narcissi at her feet either .
..
but her pose is
identical
to Annek's .
..
there has to be
something linking it to
one of the works: a character, or a group of characters
...
or perhaps . . .
She tried to remember the paintings as she had seen them during the signing session the previous day: the characters; their poses; the clothes they wore; the colours. If I could identify
Deflowering
and
Monsters,
I must be able to spot the third one.
'Hey, calm down,' Zericky begged her. 'You're throwing all the drawings on the floor..'
Swear that you're going to find it
...
Swear you're going to do it. . . Swear you're not going to fail this time .
..
Every so often she came across a crossed-out drawing: always four crosses and two vertical lines. But it was not the moment to try to unravel the meaning of this other incredible coincidence. Nor could she worry about the most troubling mystery of all: how had the Artist managed to see the drawings? Could it have been one of the 'researchers' Zericky had mentioned? And if he hadn't seen them, how else had he chosen the third work to destroy?
One thing at a time, please.
The last drawing in the folder was of a flower. Miss Wood threw it down so violently that Zericky got annoyed.
'Look, you're going to tear them if you treat them like that!' the historian exclaimed, reaching out to take them from her.
'Don't touch me,' whispered Miss Wood. In reality it was not so much a whisper as a rattle in her throat that froze the blood in Zericky's veins. 'Don't even try it. I'll soon be finished, I swear.'
'Don't worry,' Zericky said haltingly. 'Take your time
...
make yourself at home
...'
She must be ill, he thought. Zericky was not a conventional sort, but solitude had made it hard for him to accept any shocks. Anything unexpected (a crazy person in his house going through all the drawings, for example) horrified him. He started to think of a plan to get close to the telephone and call the police without this psychopath noticing.