The Brodsky Affair: Murder is a Dying Art (26 page)

“Run, for God’s sake, run!” He turned and saw Novikov appear in the doorway still holding his pistol, his eyes scanning. The people in the crowd had spotted the gun. Screaming and shouting, they began to scatter and rush away in all directions. Novikov weaved and darted through them, attempting to spot his targets.

“Manton, stop right there!” he shouted out, raising his pistol as he glimpsed him ducking through a startled crowd of Japanese sightseers. Lurching forward, he failed to see a swarthy man carrying a green canvass and mesh bag extend his foot out.

Novikov crashed to the ground, his gun spinning. The crowd scattered like a swarm of starlings.

Manton turned, not knowing what he would see. At the sight of the man on the ground, he knew he didn’t need another chance. He grabbed the grim faced Tamsin and catapulted her around a corner toward a taxi rank. Within minutes, he was nursing a quivering Tamsin as the cab headed back to the hotel. The assassin had disappeared.

Novikov picked himself off the ground and any people that had been there seconds ago had vanished. His gun lay next to him. He scrabbled at it and without a second glance around him, made for a public toilet. Nobody attempted to follow him. Once inside the cubicle, he locked the door, and sat heavily on the closed seat. He began rewinding the events of the last thirty minutes; from the time he left the Blue Square Gallery to the moment he fired his first shot wounding the stupid taxi driver.
I’ve fucked up
.
Another round of shit. How the fuck did all that happen and me miss my target? The bullet was meant for Manton or his woman. I’ve never missed before. I must be getting too old!

Passers-by would have alerted the police and neighbours, especially as a wounded man was involved. Now, the unimaginable had happened. Manton had escaped and someone had sent him crashing to the ground, although there had been no follow through. But, he hadn’t been apprehended or arrested yet, even when he caused the crowd to run in terror. That could only mean one thing.
Someone else knows something. Interpol? If it had been them, they would have arrested me.
It had to be a Russian FSB agent working with the police.
I don’t need this. Someone’s going to pay
.

The listening device he’d concealed beneath the frame of the Brodsky gave him consolation. It would enable him to track and listen to Manton wherever he travelled. The painting now served a valuable purpose and could be considered as merely on a short-term loan.

Chapter Twenty Eight

R
emoving the most obvious elements of his disguise was paramount.

Using the toilet paper, he wet it and wiped away the foundation, removed the false nose and flushed them away. Twenty minutes later, Vladimir Novikov looked as he always had, a man of the church. He did not look remotely like the man with the gun. His wound was also throbbing from the activity, causing an unexpected weariness to ripple through him. He sat back down on the seat, leaned back his head and closed his eyes.
A few years back, this would never had happened… never… never.

He returned to the apartment as if nothing had happened. He saw an ambulance taking away the taxi driver and the area was swarming with police. Once they had established his residency, he was then questioned. Who was he? Where had he been? What had he seen? The police took his full address and telephone number and told him they might want him for future questioning. He knew the routine procedures and handled them as his training had taught him.

Inside his room, he activated the listening device.

Two hours later, he booked a reservation on the 9:54 a.m. TGV train from Paris to Lyon.

~ * ~

Back at the hotel, Tamsin sat on the edge of the bed bathed in the pale light of a struggling moon. Her breathing had restored to its normal rate.

“Holy God!” She shuddered. “That’s the most frightening experience I’ve ever had.” She allowed her head to drop into her hands, covering her eyes.

They had not spoken since they’d arrived back.

With effort, she raised her head to look at him. She could see the pallor of his face, white, whiter then she had ever witnessed it before.

“Jack?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer but stared at the carpet. His answer didn’t surprise her.

“You must go home, Tam. I insist.”

“Oh for God’s sake, shut up, will you? We’ve had this conversation before. I want to, but my answer is the same – no, and nothing you can say or do, or whatever happens, is going to alter that. We go on. Of course I’m afraid, who wouldn’t be? Being shot at is not something I’ve experienced before. I saw that man coming and so did you, but it looked nothing like him, did it?”

He nodded.

“Bloody hell. What have we done to deserve this?”

“C’mon, let’s have a good look at the picture. Comrade Brodsky’s got a lot to answer for.”

She looked back at him and in spite of her concerns about their relationship, she knew she loved him. Standing, she moved over to the covered painting, stood it upright and pulled off the towels.

“Behold, the
Girl of Peace.
”

Manton stood back and gazed. She saw appreciation shine from his eyes.

“Wonderful, just wonderful.”

She understood why. It had been painted in a mixture of styles: cubistic, abstract, but mixed with a tantalising touch of Soviet realism. The girl, naked, exuded an enigmatic quality.

“It’s beautiful, utterly simple, and conveys such a quality of hope and peace. Is that what you see?”

Manton remained quiet and shook his head in disbelief. “It’s just phenomenal.”

“Enjoy it for a few minutes more before we pack it away. It’ll fit in the bottom of the suitcase, so we won’t have to lug it around everywhere tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes. We’re off to Lyon. Remember? We catch the 9:54 from the Gare De Lyon, and in two hours we’ll be in Lyon Part Dieu station”

“My credit card’s taking a hammering.”

“We can use mine. And don’t forget, you’ve some emails to send while I do the packing.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” An hour later, he’d finished typing a detailed report of the events that had transpired since early February when he first suspected the two paintings were by Brodsky. He outlined the break-in at his flat, Toby Walker aka Professor Grigori, the murders of Katherine Danilovova and Nikita Brodsky, the Bromovitch’s paintings and the postman, and the police and the shocking events of the last twenty-four hours. In it, he included all the details he had about the assassin. He read it through twice. Nothing needed changing. He attached a jpeg of
Girl of Peace
to the message. Pressing the send button, he knew within minutes both Moss and Kolosov would receive a copy.
 

Chapter Twenty Nine

T
amsin had earlier made a train reservation, but it didn’t prevent Manton from moaning. The TGV had been cancelled due to a major electrical failure, and had been replaced with a slower train and rolling stock complete with corridors and a bar. They were given a fifty percent refund on their tickets and their own compartment.

Jack grumbled, “Bloody French trains; there’s always something not right about them. I’ve been on them before. I remember being wedged up tight next to an overweight, garlic salami sausage-eater carrying a parrot in a cage.” She didn’t reply. He noticed her face remained pale as they walked along the length of the carriages, her arms folded in a defensive posture across her chest as if it was freezing. His last remark, however, caused her to give a wry smile. Her pace didn’t quicken as she scoured each window sticker looking for their seats.

“It’s here,” she said, pointing toward an open door. “Up we go.” She proceeded up the carriage step and headed down the aisle to the first class area. She heaved open the door and Jack hauled the cases onto the overhead luggage rack.

“We’re in. Have you got the tickets, passports and all that stuff?”

“All in my bag.’ She slumped down in her seat.

“Well, I hope that bloody painting stands up to the journey after all we’ve been through.”

“It will. If I sit here, can you get a couple of drinks? A large drink would be nice.”

“When it moves off I’ll get them. Let’s stretch out and relax, if we can.”

Five minutes later, the train started moving and Jack glanced at his watch. They were leaving on time: 9:54. He headed for the bar compartment. Ten minutes later, he slid the door to their compartment open.

“Two large
G ‘n’ Ts
as ordered, with a lemon wedge.”

“What are we going to do when we get there?”

“We go to the Quartier Tête d’Or and attempt a trace on any Brodsky we can find. First, we go through the phone book, the Internet, and then the municipal records.”

“Do you think he knows where we are?” interrupted Tamsin, sipping at her drink with a joyless expression.

“I think it’s a good bet we’ve lost Novikov.”

“Let’s drink to that.” She raised her glass.

“Let’s see Moss and Kolosov’s reaction to my email.”

Tamsin raised her eyebrows, said nothing and took a long pull on the gin.

The train, although no match for the TGV, still managed a respectable speed as it began its course southwards, hurtling past the outlying suburbs of Paris as they headed into the countryside of France.

~ * ~

The man stood unnoticed behind an iron roof support, together with his suitcases and a laptop bag hanging from his shoulders. Dressed in a grey T-shirt, blue jeans and wearing a large straw hat, he looked like a thousand other travellers. He’d pretended to be reading his morning newspaper.

Staring over the top of the paper, he watched each passenger boarding the train. It didn’t take long for him to see them walking down the length of the train looking for their reservation. Their seats stood four carriages behind his. Picking up his bags, he briskly strode forward.

~ * ~

The M6 Motorway to Manchester, England

Augustus Moss adjusted his bow tie and pulled back hard on his Chinese silk waistcoat, making himself comfortable, leaning back in the rear seat of the Lexus as it rushed on at an illegal speed up the M6 Motorway. He was heading for the Northern Art and Antiques Dealers Fair at the Manchester Central Convention Complex (MCCC). He flipped open his laptop, accessing his Hotmail account. A quick glance revealed six messages, but the one that grabbed his attention came from Manton. He opened it as a priority. To say that he was shocked would be an understatement.

Manton had outlined everything, starting with the time he suspected the whereabouts of two Brodsky paintings in Perth, Australia. This was followed by a litany of events involving police, murders, attempted murders, theft, getaways and pursuits. Manton’s final observations suggested a potential news scoop.

He noted that the email had also been copied in to a Captain Boris Kolosov.
Who’s he, a policeman?
Leaning back into the headrest and closing his eyes, it didn’t take a genius to calculate what danger Manton had found himself in. If he published this information, he knew he couldn’t name names. But he could make allusions. With luck, the dailies would pick up the story. For the next hundred and fifty miles, he turned the story around and around. By the time the Lexus had pulled up at the MCCC, he knew what he needed to do. He began tapping out his reply.

~ * ~

The Lenin Café, Kharkov, Russia

Kolosov’s English had always been better than he let on. Ignorance, at times, had advantages. Opening his laptop, he reread Manton’s communiqué. Who Moss was, he had no idea, but suspected he had to be involved in the press and media.
That could be useful.
Manton, not without obvious risk, had supplied him with interesting information that had to be investigated in depth and with discretion. As was his custom, he acknowledged Manton’s message, adding only that they should remain in close contact.

He looked around the smoky interior and at the various patrons, all of whom seemed to stare deeply into their cups or plates,
Good. Nobody seems interested in what I’m doing.
Pulling up his briefcase, he opened it and spread his notes around the café table, and began to write further notes in the margins and in a separate black notebook.
Why and who would want to acquire paintings by Mikhail Brodsky? Why weren’t those in display stolen from museums?
There have been no reports of any attempts, or of the whereabouts of privately owned paintings. Often, stolen art found its way back to the museum in exchange for the insurance money – for the thieves, a lucrative, low key and highly secretive operation that nobody wanted to talk about. The Brodsky problem was that there few paintings to be found, and those that have been found sat in high security institutions like the Tretyakov and too risky to even think about removing.

Manton’s message had suggested the existence of a fanatical private collector, more than likely a native Russian. The few obscure works of Brodsky had appeared since the mid-eighties, and had undergone an astronomical escalation in value, due partly to their scarcity and social importance. That importance and quality had been recognised by the internationally-regarded art historian and critic, Orlando Sewell-Jones, in his biography of Brodsky’s tragic life and works,
Mikhail Brodsky: An Undiscovered Genius.
That biography, summarised and syndicated in newspapers and art publications across the globe, started an unprecedented surge of interest and sent Brodsky’s value into orbit.
Holy Shit. How am I to sift through all this arty-farty bollocks. Bollocks or not, it’s big money for someone.

The pretty waitress interrupted his thought processes.

“Another coffee sir?” she asked shyly, holding aloft a full hot decanter.

“Err… well… okay, yes please.”

“Milk?”

“No, thanks.” He paused only to hear the hot liquid pour into his cup. He gave her a glancing smile.