The Rembrandt Secret (22 page)

28

London

‘So it’s true?’ Tobar Manners asked, staring at Leon Williams, ‘there
are
two Rembrandt portraits coming onto the market?’

His visitor nodded, but he was preoccupied. ‘Shouldn’t you get some more bars on the window?’ he said. ‘I mean, what with all these break-ins and murders.’

‘
Two Rembrandts?
’ Tobar repeated, ‘Who’s selling them?’

‘Some Japan dealer—’

‘Hokinou?’

‘I don’t know,’ Leon replied. ‘I wasn’t really listening.’

‘Well, where did you hear it?’

‘Rufus Ariel was muttering about it. He’s been in the London Clinic for some more Botox injections and—’

‘Rufus Ariel has
Botox
?’

‘Didn’t you ever wonder why his face didn’t move and was so shiny?’

‘I thought that was just fat,’ Tobar replied, and pushed on. ‘So, what about the Rembrandts?’

‘Rufus heard the rumour a while back, and then Lillian Kauffman came to see him—’

‘While he was having Botox?’

‘I don’t know if he was having Botox at the time, maybe it was afterwards,’ Leon replied thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, Lillian Kauffman confirmed it. I think Rufus wants to handle the sale—’

‘I bet he bloody does!’ Tobar drummed his fingers irritably on his desk. No one was going to handle the sale but him. He needed it, and he had to get it. If the galleries couldn’t pay the rents, they would be priced out. So much valuable retail property up for grabs. Not only that, but a sale to a German collector had fallen through and an exhibition Tobar had been planning to put on in the summer had been cancelled. Bloody Russians, he thought, all that Moscow Mafia money was running out, just like Arab money had in the 1970s. His confidence was nose-diving, his usual arrogant bluster faltering. If Leon Williams and others couldn’t – or
wouldn’t
– see what was happening, he could. Some dealers were even stupid enough to ignore the warning signs – that nervy Tim Parker-Ross, for example, opening up a new gallery off the King’s Road although God only knew how long it would
stay
open.

Fretting, Tobar worried about his precarious future. Lillian Kauffman, he thought bitterly, that bitch would be trying to secure her position early. If he didn’t make the big Rembrandt sale and preserve his reputation, he would join the list of casualties which was growing weekly. A walk around Bond Street, Davis Street and Cork Street, once the preserve of galleries, with their private vews and parties, once the prime site for swathes of Brit Art, paparazzi and minor royals – was changing. Some of the windows were empty and ‘To let’ notices had appeared on premises which had flourished for decades. Where limousines once waited by the kerbside for their celebrities, discarded copies of the
Evening Standard
flapped round the empty gutters.

Only the previous week Tobar had put a Govert Flinck into an auction and it hadn’t reached its reserve. Regretfully he had had to pull it and put it back into storage. No one was buying, and the few that
might
buy were only going for the biggest names. Like Rembrandt … Tobar realised that unless he managed to secure the Rembrandt sale he might well be fighting to find the rent in six months time.

‘That wasn’t
all
I heard,’ Leon went on. ‘There’s a rumour going round that Owen Zeigler was killed because he knew something.’

‘Like what? The time?’

Leon, missing the point, blundered on. ‘No, no. I mean someone heard something about how he’d got some letters.’

Already unnerved, Tobar’s patience was running out. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Letters which prove that many Rembrandts are forgeries.’

‘Oh, he was always blathering on about some bloody theory of his.’

‘But there’s proof.’

His eyes glazed, Tobar stood up and faced Leon. His expression was threatening, his tone hostile. ‘What?’

‘I heard—’

‘From who?’

‘Just a rumour, Tobar,’ Leon said nervously, now sorry he had ever started the conversation. ‘Just a rumour.’

‘About Rembrandts being fakes?’

Leon nodded, wretched with misery. ‘Apparently these letters are proof that paintings which have always been thought authentic are fakes. Done by a pupil of—’

‘People have said that for centuries.’

‘But there are
letters,
Tobar,’ Leon went on, his thin face filled with panic as he watched his companion begin to sweat. ‘Proof. The rumour goes that up to half of the pictures we think are by Rembrandt are fakes. It would be bad for the market—’

‘
Bad for the market!
’ Tobar exploded. ‘It would bring
down
the fucking market. It can’t be true.’

‘There’s a list.’

Tobar felt a hot flush of panic. ‘What?’

‘With the letters there’s a list. A complete list of the paintings which are fakes.’

Tobar’s legs lost their strength as he stumbled into his chair and loosened his collar. He could feel the sweat running down his back and puddling under his armpits. If it was true, these letters – this list – would destroy the market. He would never be able to broker the sale in New York and make the fortune he needed to prevent the collapse of his business. If the letters came out, with the list, every Rembrandt would be questioned, undermined.
And what if the Rembrandt portraits due for sale were proved to be fakes?

With cold misery, Tobar thought back to the paintings he had sold to private collectors and galleries. If they were discovered to be counterfeit they would be worth a tiny percentage of the selling price. And his reputation, what of that? Tobar felt his breathing accelerate. It was a bitter irony that the Rembrandt he had stolen from Owen he had claimed to be painted by a pupil. But perhaps it had been; perhaps it was a fake after all. Perhaps it
had been
worth next to nothing.

He stared ahead, blind with shock, acutely aware he had cheated himself. ‘Where are these letters, Leon?’

‘No one knows for sure.’

‘
Where are they?
’

‘Someone said that maybe his son had them.’

‘His son …’ Tobar replied thoughtfully.

‘It’s just a rumour going the rounds, but everyone’s talking about it,’ Leon stammered. ‘Is it bad for us, Tobar?’

Tobar ignored the question, unsettled. If it was true that Owen Zeigler had found the letters, was it possible he had been killed for them? A memory nudged Tobar, his recent conversation with Rufus Ariel. Something about the death of Stefan van der Helde … And then there was the suicide of Charlotte Gorday, Owen’s lover. His hand shaking, Tobar reached for his glass of water. He sipped at it, tried to swallow. He had been close to Owen; if he had
kept
close Owen would have confided in him, told him about these letters. Given him insider knowledge.

And it was then Tobar realised that by cheating his friend he had inadvertently cut his own throat.

29

New York

Drenched by the heavy downpour, Philip Gorday ran into the entrance of the office building, taking off his coat and shaking it impatiently. Water flicked onto the polished floor, throwing flecks up onto the front of the reception desk. Philip smoothed back his damp hair with his hands as he walked to the elevator. Staring at the illuminated floor numbers, he watched them change, thinking of the conversation he had had with Nicolai Kapinski the previous day.

He wanted to dismiss it as a hoax, but the words had jammed in his head and rattled around his dreams that night. Charlotte was alive again, walking into the sitting room of the apartment and then laughing. But as she laughed, her portrait over the mantelpiece faded, dying back into a blank canvas until there was nothing left of her. Jerked awake, Philip had got up and padded into the kitchen, making coffee and petting the dog. He had known instinctively that what Nicolai Kapinski had told him was true. Charlotte hadn’t committed suicide, whatever the police said. Which meant that someone had broken into the apartment and killed her while she was sleeping in their bed, alone. Philip had been out walking the dog that morning, so there had only been a short space of time for the killer to act. Uneasy, Philip wondered if he had been watched, if someone had waited for him to leave the building, before they broke in. But then again, the lock hadn’t been forced, and Philip knew only too well he had not left it undone.

Which meant that Charlotte’s killer had a key. Was it someone she knew? Philip paused, stirring some cream into his coffee. Was it someone they both knew, in New York? Or someone only Charlotte knew, from London …?

Sighing, he stepped out of the elevator and walked to his office. ‘Any messages?’ he asked Nicole.

‘Just these.’ She passed him a few notes. ‘Nothing urgent.’

‘Anything from Nicolai Kapinski?’

‘No.’

Nodding, Philip sat down at his desk. If Charlotte had been killed, he wanted to find her killer. Wanted him brought to justice. Wanted him punished for taking away a woman he had loved so much. And missed more. Once again he wondered whether Charlotte had known her killer, and then his thoughts turned to Nicolai Kapinski. Kapinski said he had known Charlotte for a long time in London, but was he genuine? Had he come to confide in Philip or to try and trap him into handing over copies of these phantom letters? Had he been lying about being afraid for his life?

But if Nicolai Kapinski was Charlotte’s killer, he would have already got the letters, Philip thought.
Unless Charlotte didn’t have them.
Perhaps Kapinski had been bluffing, trying to discover if she had passed them over to her husband. Uncertain of everything, Philip took a note out of his middle desk drawer and punched the number into his phone.

‘Hotel Melmont. Can I help you?’

‘I want to speak to Mr Nicolai Kapinski,’ Philip said, glancing back to the piece of paper. ‘He’s in room 223.’

‘One moment, please.’

There was a long pause, during which Philip heard the phone ring several times before the operator came back on the line.

‘No answer, sir. Would you like to leave a message at reception?’

‘No,’ he said hurriedly. ‘No, thanks.’

It was after lunch before Philip had time to think about Nicolai Kapinski again. Pushing away his coffee, he stared at the phone and then decided that he would visit the man at the hotel. He strode out of his office, past Nicole, without uttering a word, and hurried into the street. The rain had stopped and a truculent sun pitted the shiny road. Hailing a cab, Philip gave his destination and then leaned back in his seat, staring out of the window until the car drew up outside the Hotel Melmont. He paid the cabbie and walked into reception, surprised to notice a number of people milling around, talking. Curious, Philip was about to get the elevator, when he decided to take the stairs instead. On the second floor he walked towards room 223.

As he turned into the next corridor he almost collided with a policeman who was standing at the half-open doorway. Craning his neck, Philip could just make out two other men inside, standing over a covered heap on the floor.

‘Hey, sir. You can’t go in there,’ the policeman on the door said, putting out his arm to stop Philip.

‘What’s happened?’

Inside, one of the detectives turned to Philip. ‘Why would you want to know?’

‘Is Mr Kapinski all right?’

Noticing that the two detectives exchanged a glance, Philip raised his voice. ‘
Is Mr Kapinski all right?
’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’m his lawyer,’ Philip lied, and the policeman on guard dropped his arm to allow him into the room.

‘Correction,’ one of the detectives said flatly. ‘You
were
his lawyer.’

The hairs rising on the back of his neck, Philip looked at the body covered with a sheet.

‘Can I see?’

‘Well, it’s more than he can.’

Frowning, Philip looked questioningly at the detective.

‘His eyes were gouged out.’

Tentatively, Philip lifted the sheet which covered the remains of Nicolai Kapinski. He was naked from the waist up and his eyes had been pushed in by some terrific impact or object, splattering blood outwards and coating his face and chest. His hands had been tied behind his back so tightly that the wire had been driven into the flesh, and in his struggle he had managed to sever a vein. Another repugnant detail lay on the floor around the tortured body. Nicolai Kapinski had had little hair, but now his scalp was totally bald. In places his hair had been pulled out, the roots still attached, while other parts of his skull had been shaven, white and eerie as a bone.

And in his left hand was his tongue.