The Rembrandt Secret (31 page)

‘About what?’

‘About how little someone will kill for. If a mobile phone worth – what? Twenty quid? – is worth murder, then killing for something which could lose someone millions and millions of pounds would be pretty much essential.’ She paused, fiddling with one of her extravagant earrings. ‘You can’t hold onto those letters, Marshall. They’ll kill you for them.’

‘Who will?’

‘Don’t piss about! I can understand why you wouldn’t want to go to the police. I can see you’d want to find out who killed your father, and deal with them yourself – and get your own back on Tobar Manners. But you’re only going to get killed—’

‘What if I don’t have the bloody letters?’

‘Don’t insult my intelligence.’ Lillian was curt. ‘We have to talk about this. You can arse about with me all you like, but you must have thought of the alternatives, Marshall. You can make the letters public and bring down Rembrandt’s reputation and undermine the art market; or you could sell them to someone who would pay you a handsome price so that they could keep them quiet. And keep the market stable. Or you could sell them to someone who could use them covertly, and blackmail the dealers.’

‘I don’t know—’

Her voice hardened as she cut him off.

‘Perhaps you’ve even thought of that yourself, Marshall? I mean, you could crucify Tobar Manners, and get your revenge at the same time if you let it be known that some paintings he sold as authentic Rembrandts, weren’t.’ She drew on her cigarette, staring at Marshall intently. ‘I can see you want to keep your cards very close to your chest. I don’t blame you. But you have to do something, Marshall, or someone else will make the first move.’

He stared at her in silence.

‘They’ve killed your father,’ Lillian continued. ‘And Charlotte Gorday, Stefan van der Helde, and now Nicolai Kapinski.’

Marshall’s head shot up. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Philip Gorday is a friend of mine.’

‘Jesus, does everyone know everyone else?’

‘He’s my lawyer. He represents my American interests.

Besides, Philip has collected paintings for years, and I knew Charlotte very well.’

‘Apparently everybody did, except me.’

‘Don’t be defensive, Marshall, your father wanted to keep his private life private. After all, did he know who you were screwing?’

‘You’ve got sex on the brain.’

‘At my age, on the brain is the only place it can be,’ she replied, tartly. ‘I know that Owen wouldn’t have wanted the letters to come out, especially not in a recession, and I know you want to honour his wishes. But you can’t just sit on them, because they’ll come for you, Marshall. You must know that. They’re already watching you. God, isn’t this getting through your thick skull?’

‘I found my father’s body, so yes, Lillian, it’s getting through to me.’

She had the grace to look momentarily embarrassed.

‘When they catch up with you, you’ll have a choice: give them the letters, or they’ll kill you.’

‘And even if they get what they want, they’ll kill me anyway. If I know who they are, they won’t let me go,’ Marshall replied, his stomach clenching. ‘I’m not a brave man, Lillian. I didn’t want to get involved in any of this, but I am. And I have to deal with it the best way I can.’

‘Your father wouldn’t have wanted you to get killed,’ she said impatiently. ‘Of course, there is one other alternative. You could destroy them.’

‘I can’t do that. They’re history, proof—’

‘Of Rembrandt’s bastard,’ Lillian said slyly. ‘No, I didn’t
think you’d go for that suggestion. It would be too much like betraying Owen, wouldn’t it, Marshall?’

Nodding, he moved towards the back of the gallery, followed by Lillian, and sat down at his father’s old desk. Above him the skylight let in the day; the pilot light on the boiler made a popping sound as the heating came on. On the desk lay a pile of unopened post addressed to Owen Zeigler, and the answer phone was flicking with several messages. For a moment it seemed as though Owen was simply out of the gallery and would return in an instant, pick up his mail and answer his calls. And in the office in the eaves Nicolai would call down the stairs, while the porters brought in frames at the basement door … But they would never come back, not his father, nor the accountant. Not Charlotte Gorday. They were ghosts now, joining the murdered soldier at the bend on the stairs.

‘Marshall?’

He looked up, surprised by his own melancholia. ‘What?’

‘The letters are not worth dying for,’ Lillian said firmly. ‘They were your father’s obsession, not yours.’

He sighed, trying to read her face. ‘Who’s doing it?’

‘What?’

‘Who are the killers, Lillian? You should some have some idea. You know everyone, you hear everything. You’ve got a clever mind and a quick brain, much smarter than mine. Christ knows, you’ve told me that often enough. You know everything that goes on. So who’s mad enough to being doing all this? Who’s clever enough? Come on,
Lillian, even I know that the Russians have bought up some of the prime galleries. The rents getting raised again? Too high? Is someone putting pressure on?’

‘The Russians are just bully boys.’

‘Maybe. But you can’t deny that they’d jump at the chance to get hold of the Rembrandt letters. Much less work to blackmail the dealers, rather than have to go around collecting all those rents.’

‘I’d have heard something.’

‘Of course, you are the eyes and ears of this neighbourhood. In fact.’ He paused. ‘What’s to stop it being you?’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid! I might have stolen the letters, but I’d never torture someone I liked.’

Marshall smiled. ‘But don’t tell me you haven’t thought about who it might be. There must be
someone
you suspect? I’ve suspected damn near everyone. I thought for a while it might be Nicolai Kapinski, then Teddy Jack, and even Charlotte Gorday—’

‘A woman?’

‘A woman could kill, with help. That’s what the police said, anyway,’ Marshall replied. ‘She wouldn’t be strong enough to do it on her own, but if she had an ally she could.’

‘Charlotte wasn’t capable of killing anyone.’

To her surprise, Marshall laughed. ‘You know something? I even doubted Samuel Hemmings, and he’s in a wheelchair, for God’s sake!’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve suspected everyone. And now most of them are dead, and I’m no nearer to knowing who killed my father.’

‘The police—’

‘Have no idea! They’ve never even made the connection between the murders. Why should they? They don’t know about Rembrandt or the letters, so why should they connect killings in Holland, New York and London? I’ve asked around, and in Amsterdam Stefan van der Helde was thought to be a gay murder. Charlotte Gorday’s death was put down to suicide. As for Nicolai, they said he was just unlucky, that he was killed while being robbed, probably by some addict. For the police, there’s no reason to connect the deaths – and I’m not giving them the reason.’

‘Just making yourself bait?’

He ignored the comment. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I could have known my father’s killer. Spoken to them. Broken bread with them, gone to the same exhibitions. They could have come to the gallery, or even visited our house in the country, and I wouldn’t have known. And that’s what sickens me, that when I find out who killed my father, I’ll have known them. Maybe even liked them.’

She snorted impatiently. ‘Or then again, they could be complete strangers.’

‘No,’ Marshall said. ‘There was no forced entry at Stefan van der Helde’s flat. No forced entry here. My father let his killer in.
He knew them.
Charlotte Gorday was stabbed without a struggle. Someone got so close to her there was no disturbance in her bedroom. And as for Nicolai, poor little Nicolai, he let them into his hotel room. He was terrified, in a strange city, and yet he let them in.’

‘Which means?’

‘That the killers aren’t threatening. He, or they, are known to the victims, they seems harmless, familiar.’ Marshall rubbed his eyes. ‘Which makes me wonder: will I let them in too?’

Impatiently, Georgia dialled Marshall’s mobile again, and was told – again – that the number was not valid. Thoughtful, she returned to the kitchen and made herself a sandwich, wondering where Marshall was. Certainly not at the gallery. She had called and left a message on the answer phone, even dropped by early that morning. But no one came when she knocked on the door, and the sign read CLOSED DUE TO BEREAVEMENT. The only person whose attention she did catch was an overdressed, over-bejewelled woman who was watching from across the street.

Her anxieties about her ex-husband had been growing, and were even keeping her awake at night. Beside her, Harry would sleep undisturbed while she stared into the darkness, thinking. Sometimes, in the small hours, she decided she would go to the police in the morning and tell them about the letters, explain what was going on. Damn what Marshall thought.
He wasn’t safe.
But then daylight would come and Georgia would realise that it wasn’t
her decision to make. Besides, she didn’t even know where the letters were … Taking another bite out of her sandwich, she thought about Owen Zeigler, remembering her father-in-law’s effortless charm. Owen: so respectable, so safe. So dead.

She put down her half-eaten sandwich and picked up the phone again. This time, she didn’t call the gallery or Marshall’s defunct mobile. This time she dialled a number she hadn’t used for many years, and waited patiently for Philip Gorday to pick up.

Struggling to hear Marshall’s voice against the background noise from the airport, Samuel asked him to repeat what he had just said.

‘Nicolai Kapinski’s been murdered in New York.’

‘Dear God,’ Samuel said, shaken, and automatically glanced out of the window. Greg Horner was leaning against the garage wall, smoking, idle as a statue but oddly comforting. ‘Where are you?’

‘On my way to Amsterdam.’

‘Why?’

‘I have something to do,’ Marshall replied. ‘Don’t be alone, Samuel.’

‘I’m not. I’m fine. It’s you that has to be careful. Has anyone approached you?’

‘No, but I’m being watched. Or rather, I
was
being watched. I don’t think anyone followed me to the airport.’

Samuel could feel his hand shake and gripped the phone tightly. ‘You have to be careful—’

‘I
am
being careful. The person who killed Nicolai was copying Rembrandt’s painting of
The Blinding of Samson
.’

‘They blinded him?’

‘They blinded him,’ Marshall said. ‘And it’s come out about the letters. It’s all over London, everyone’s talking about it.’

‘
How
did it come out?’

‘I don’t know,’ Marshall admitted. ‘All of a sudden, my father’s theory is fact. People know there are letters that prove which Rembrandts are authentic—’

‘And which aren’t,’ said Samuel, finishing the sentence for him.

‘Yes.’ Marshall glanced warily around him. His gaze ran over the crowd in the departure lounge, where a few businessmen, one of them slightly drunk, were talking morosely in a group. Alongside them, a woman nursed a small child. Behind her, a gaggle of schoolboys in uniform chattered frantically, giggling at a good-looking woman across the aisle. Only two people were alone, one a scruffy young man reading a book, the other an elderly man watching the planes through the window of the lounge. No one seemed to be paying any attention to Marshall.

‘Samuel, are you still there?’

‘I’m here.’

‘There are two Rembrandt portraits coming up for sale in New York—’

‘The Issenhirst pictures.’

‘Is that what they’re called?’

‘They’ve had a few names, because they’ve been reattributed a couple of times.’

‘They’re not by Rembrandt?’ Marshall asked.

‘Oh yes!’ Samuel answered. ‘Yes, they are. At least, that’s what everyone believes. They were re-authenticated around the same time that the Duke of Wellington’s pair of Rembrandt portraits were attributed to Carel Fabritius …’ He paused, sighing down the phone. ‘You’ve got Geertje Dircx’s letters
and
the list of fakes. Are they on it?’

‘That’s what I’m going to find out,’ Marshall replied. ‘I memorised the list, but I can’t remember any paintings called the Issenhirst portraits.’ He paused, listening to the overhead intercom that was calling for people to board the Amsterdam flight. ‘Samuel, I have to go now.’

‘Marshall, those portraits are worth a fortune. The sale’s been put together very hurriedly, and it’s supposed to be the biggest for a decade. It’s meant to bolster the market. The Rembrandts are expected to make at least forty million. If they’re not genuine, then—’

‘I’m not sure yet. I have to check the list.’

‘Dear God, be careful,’ Samuel said, gripping the phone even more tightly. ‘If they
are
fakes, people will do anything to stop it coming out. They’ll be desperate to save the sale. You must watch your back—’

‘I have to go, Samuel,’ Marshall said hurriedly. He clicked off his mobile and walked towards the boarding gate.

He didn’t notice the scruffy young man put down his book and stand up, keeping his eyes on Marshall; didn’t notice him as he moved behind him in the queue.

Rosella Manners unlocked the front door of the house in Barnes and let herself in. As she moved through the hall she could smell stale cigarette smoke and opened the window. So Tobar was smoking again, was he? Well, who cared? He could kill himself for all it mattered to her. Looking around the immaculate, untouched kitchen, Rosella realised that her husband had been eating out and that he’d forgotten to put the rubbish in the bins. As usual. Lifting the bag out, she moved into the back yard and dropped the bin liner into the refuse, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

Her return had been prompted by her decision to divorce Tobar. After so many years Rosella had become used to his devious ways, but his treatment of Owen Zeigler had been the final straw, the lever between marriage and divorce. Rosella was back in London, but she wasn’t staying. After the divorce, she would leave the city and never come back. There was nothing left for her in London; better to return to her own country and family and begin again.
She sifted through the post, extracting the letters addressed to her for reading later and glancing idly at Tobar’s mail. An envelope caught her eye, Rosella picked it up, staring at the thick black letters, which read: