Art of Murder

  Or almost everyone. Perhaps the people interrogated by Rip van Winkle had different views, thought Bosch.

  But nobody had listened to them.

  'By the way,' Sorensen said, 'tomorrow we have a meeting with Rip. In The Hague. Did you two know about it?'

  Bosch and Warfell knew about it. The meeting had been announced in the latest report. Apparently, Rip van Winkle had produced some fresh results, and wanted to discuss them face to face. Sorensen and Warfell were of the opinion this meant the Artist had already been caught. Bosch was not so optimistic.

  At midday, close to lunchtime, Nikki appeared in Bosch's office. She was holding up her hand and making a W sign. Bosch almost leapt from his seat, until he realised this did not mean 'victory', but 'two'. Well, that's a kind of victory anyway, he thought enthusiastically. Yesterday there were four.

  'We've managed to eliminate another two suspects’ Nikki announced. 'Do you remember I told you Laviatov spent time in jail for theft? Well, he's given up being a canvas now and is trying to establish himself with a hyperdramatic gallery in Kiev. I've talked to him and some of his employees, and they confirmed his alibi. He hasn't been out of the city in weeks. And we've had confirmation that Fourier committed suicide six months ago after a failed relationship with one of his previous owners. The company that sold him kept it quiet so as not to scare the other canvases. So we're left with only two without alibis.'

  She spread out her sheets of paper on the desk. Two photos, two people, two names. One face framed by long chestnut curls, with a piercing blue gaze. The other almost child-like, featureless, shaven-headed.

  'The first is called Lije’ Nikki explained. 'He or she is about twenty, but we're not sure which sex. He's worked mostly in Japan with artists such as Higashi, but he's not Japanese. He specialises in transgender works and art-shocks. We know more about the other one. His name is Postumo Baldi, he was born in Naples in 1986, so he is twenty as well, and male. He's the son of a failed painter and a former ornament, who are now divorced. There is evidence that the mother took part in marginal art-shocks, and that she used her son with her from a very early age. Baldi also specialised in transgender work. In 2000, Van Tysch chose him as the original for Figure XIII, one of the few transgender pieces the Maestro has done. Since then, he's been in art-shocks and portraits.'

  Bosch stared at the two photographs as though hypnotised. If Miss Wood's intuition was correct, and if the computer screening process had not let anything slip through, one of these two was the Artist.

  'Just think,' Nikki said with a smile, 'Lije could be in Holland as we speak. In fact, he might even be in Amsterdam.' 'What?'

  'That's right. His trail disappears after he took part clandestinely in two art-shocks at Extreme, a place for illegal works in the red-light district. That was in December last year.'

  'I've heard of Extreme’ said Bosch.

  The owners haven't been very forthcoming. They say they have no idea what became of Lije after that, and they refused to give any information to the team of interviewers we sent to talk to them. I'm thinking of sending Romberg's people to pull their teeth out, if you authorise it.'

  Bosch was staring at Lije's expressionless features, unable to make up his mind whether they belonged to a man or a woman.

  'What about Baldi?'

  'We lost trace of him in France. The last work he definitely took part in was a transgender piece by Jan van Obber for the dealer Jenny Thoreau, but he didn't even fulfil his contract. He walked out and vanished off the map.'

  Bosch thought for a moment.

  'It's up to you,' Nikki said, raising her blonde eyebrows.

  'Van Obber lives in Delft, doesn't he? Call him and fix an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. I have to go to The Hague in the morning, so I could visit Delft on the way back. Tell him no more than that we're looking for Postumo Baldi. And send Romberg's men to Extreme.'

  After Nikki left his office, Bosch still sat contemplating the two faces, these two anonymous youths whose smooth features stared back at him from the photos. 'One of these two is the Artist,' he thought. 'If April is right - and she always is - one of them is him.'

  5

  Light is the very last touch. Gerardo and Uhl are installing it in the farm living room. They have been at it since early in the morning, because the equipment is very delicate. The chiaroscuro lamps have been specially created for the exhibition by a Russian physicist. Clara stares at the strange fittings: metal bars from which protrude arms with bulbs on the end. They look to her like steel racks.

  'You're going to see something incredible,' said Gerardo. They closed the blinds. In the dense darkness, Uhl flicked a switch and the lamps gave off a golden glow. It was light, but it did not illuminate. It seemed to paint the air a golden colour rather than to reveal objects. Thanks to the flashing speed of electricity, the entire room had become a seventeenth-century oil painting. A minimalist still life by Franz Hals; prêt-à-porter Rubens; postmodern Vermeer. Standing opposite her, the only figure in this domestic tenebrist canvas, Gerardo was smiling.

  'It's as if we were inside a Rembrandt picture, isn't it? Come on, you're the protagonist.'

  Barefoot and naked, Clara walked towards the light. It was a friendly, tempting light, the dream of a suicidal moth: she could stare at it endlessly without it harming her eyes. There were gasps of admiration.

  'You're a perfect work of art,' Gerardo praised her. 'You don't even need painting. Do you want to see yourself? Look.'

  There was the sound of wood scraping along the floor, and she could see one of the mirrors being brought over.

  She caught her breath.

  Somehow, in some way, she knew this was what she had been searching for all her life.

  Her silhouette stood out from the darkness of a classical painting as if painted with golden brushstrokes. Her face and half the curtain of her hair were incrusted with amber. Clara blinked at her gleaming breasts, the lavish crown of her sex, the outline of her legs. As she moved, she sparkled like a diamond under the light, and became a different kind of work. Each of her gestures painted a thousand different canvases of herself.

  ‘I wouldn't mind having you at home under these lights,' she heard Gerardo say in the darkness. 'Naked Woman on a Black Background.'

  She could hardly hear him. It seemed to her that everything she had dreamt of ever since she had discovered Eliseo Sandoval's artwork in her friend Talia's house, everything she had scarcely dared say or admit to herself when she decided to become a canvas, was here now in the reflection of her body under the chiaroscuro lights.

  She understood she had always been her own dream.

  *

  That morning the poses were easier. It was what Gerardo called 'filling in'. They had already chosen the exact colours: a deep red for her hair, drawn up in a bun; mother-of-pearl mixed with pink and yellow for the skin; a fine ochre line for the eyebrows; chestnut eyes with a tinge of crystal; her lips outlined in flesh tints; the areolas of her breasts a matt brown colour. After she had showered, washed and returned to her original primed colours, Clara felt better. She was exhausted, but she had reached the end of a long journey. The previous fortnight had been full of harsh poses, colour experiments, efforts to concentrate, and then the masterly brushstrokes Van Tysch had used to define her expression as she stared into the mirror, the slow passage of time. Only the final detail was left.

  'The signature,' Gerardo said. 'The Maestro will sign the works in the rehearsal room at the Old Atelier this afternoon. And you will all pass into eternity,' he added with a smile.

  Uhl drove the van. They turned on to the motorway and soon saw Amsterdam in the distance. The sight of that city, which had always seemed to Clara like a pretty doll's house, lifted her hypnotised spirits. They crossed several bridges and headed for the Museumsplein along narrow, tidy streets, accompanied by never-ending streams of bicycles and the clanking procession of trams. They spied the impressive bulk of the Rijksmuseum. Beyond it, in th
e pearly-grey midday light, they could see a huge mass of dense shadows. The sun's rays filtering through the clouds gave the massive structure an opalescent sheen. It was as though a tidal wave of oil were sweeping over Amsterdam. 'Rembrandt's Tunnel.'

  They had decided to have a look at it before they went to the Old Atelier for the signature session. Clara was excited about discovering the mysterious place where she would be exhibited. They parked close to the Rijksmuseum. It was not exactly a hot summer's day, but she did not feel at all cold beneath the padded light sleeveless dress she was wearing. She also had on a pair of lined plastic slippers as well as the three labels that identified her as one of the original figures for Susanna Surprised by the Elders.

  They walked into Museumstraat and found themselves face to face with the Tunnel almost unintentionally. It looked like the mouth of a huge mine covered with curtains. It was a horseshoe shape, with the U open towards the rear of the Rijksmuseum. The main entrance was protected by two rows of fences, flashing lights and white and orange vehicles with the word Politic written on the side. Men and women in dark-blue uniforms were on guard at the fences. Some tourists were taking photos of the colossal structure.

  While Gerardo and Uhl went to talk to the policemen, Clara stopped to get a good look at the Tunnel. From the entrance, which was easily as tall as any of the great classical buildings in Amsterdam, the curtains rose and fell, dipping down or rising up to the clouds in the sky like a majestic circus tent, snaking in among the trees and enveloping them, blocking streets and cutting off the horizon. In between the two wings of the horseshoe was the central area of the Museumplein, with its artificial pond and monument. There was something strange and grotesque about this vast black shape squatting like a dead spider on Amsterdam's delicate cityscape, something Clara found hard to define. It was as though painting had become something else. As though it was not an art exhibition that was involved, but something infinitely more challenging. The entrance was covered by one of Rembrandt's famous last self-portraits. His face beneath the cap - his bulbous nose, the scrawny moustache and the wispy Dutch goatee beard - peered sceptically out at the world. He looked like a God weary of creating. The curtain over the exit was a blow-up of the photo of Van Tysch facing away from the camera. We go in through Rembrandt's chest, and come out through Van Tysch's back, Clara thought. The past and present of Dutch art. But which of the two geniuses was more enigmatic? The one who showed his painted face, or the one who hides his real identity? She could not decide.

  Gerardo came up to her.

  'They're checking our documents so we can go in,' he said, pointing to the Tunnel. 'What do you make of it?' 'It's fantastic'

  If s almost five hundred metres long, but it's bent in the shape of a horseshoe so it will fit into the park. You go in this end, and come out over there near the Van Gogh museum. Some parts of it are forty metres high. Van Tysch wanted it erected near the Rembrandthuis, cutting off streets and even emptying buildings, but of course they wouldn't let him. The curtains are made of a special material: it blocks out all exterior light and keeps the inside as black as a well, so the works will only be lit by the chiaroscuro lights. We can walk through it. But keep close to us.'

  'Why? What could happen to me?' Clara asked with a smile.

  'Well, tramps spend the night in there. And drug addicts slip in under cover of dark. And then there are the protest groups, the BAH and the others ... yes, the BAH, the Bothered About Hyperdrama. You must have heard of them, haven't you? . . . They're our most faithful followers,' Gerardo smiled. 'Tomorrow they're holding a protest outside the Tunnel, but there are always a couple of trouble-makers who try to get in to put up posters. The police are on patrol inside the Tunnel, and arrest one or two of them every day. Come on, let's go.'

  Clara was pleased at Gerardo's concern for her. In other circumstances she might have thought he was worried about Susanna, but this time she was sure it wasn't that. It was her, Clara Reyes, that he was afraid of losing.

  Uhl was waiting for them beside a small gap in the entrance curtain. It's as though we were going in under Rembrandt's head, thought Clara. Dim lights from bulbs fixed in the curtain showed them the way. But as soon as they were properly inside they were enveloped in an unknown darkness. The street noises had disappeared, too: all that could be heard were distant echoes. Clara could scarcely make out Gerardo's shape in front of her.

  'Wait a moment; your eyes will get used to it.' 'I'm starting to see something.'

  'Don't worry, there's nothing in the way. The path to follow is a gentle narrow ramp, indicated by the lights. All you have to do is walk forward. And once the works have been installed and are lit by the chiaroscuro lighting, they'll be reference points. Can you feel the guide rope? Stay close to it.'

  Gerardo went ahead. Clara was in the middle. They went forward slowly over the smooth ground, groping like blind people for the rope at the edge of the track. All she could see of Gerardo were his feet and part of his trouser legs. The rest of his silhouette was swallowed up in the darkness. It seemed to her as though she was walking through the night of the world.

  ‘Is everything all right back there?' she heard Gerardo say.

  'More or less.'

  Uhl said something in Dutch, Gerardo replied, and the two men laughed. Gerardo translated for her:

  'Some of the works say this place gives them the creeps.' ‘I like it,' Clara said firmly. 'This darkness?' "Yes, absolutely.'

  She could hear Gerardo and Uhl's footsteps and the flapping of the labels on her wrist and ankle. All of a sudden the atmosphere changed. It was as if the space had suddenly got bigger. The sound of their footsteps was different. Clara stopped and looked up. It was like peering into an abyss. She felt a kind of upside-down giddiness, as if she was in danger of leaving the ground and plunging up into the heights of the tent curtains. Whole choirs of silence converged in the pitch-black air above her head. She suddenly remembered Van Tysch's pronouncement that absolute darkness did not exist, and wondered whether the Maestro had not been trying to contradict himself with the design of the Tunnel.

  'They call this part the "basilica".' Gerardo's voice floated in front of her. 'It's the first dome. Almost thirty metres high. There's another even higher one in the other wing of the U. In the centre of this one they're going to put The Anatomy Lesson, and further on The Syndics and The Slaughtered Ox, which has several figures hanging from the roof by their ankles. You can't see the background now because there's no lighting.'

  'It smells of paint,' Clara murmured.

  'Oil paint,' Gerardo said. 'We're inside a Rembrandt painting, after all. Had you forgotten? But come on, don't get left behind.'

  'How do you know I'm being left behind?'

  'Your yellow labels give the game away.'

  Clara's legs were shaking as she walked. She thought it must be that her muscles were unused to this perfectly normal exercise after all the tough days of holding poses, but she suspected as well that it was because of the emotion this infinite darkness aroused in her.

  'We've still a way to go before we reach the spot where Susanna will be exhibited,' Gerardo said. 'But look, can you make out those dark struts in the distance?'

  Clara thought she could see something, but perhaps it wasn't what Gerardo meant. She could barely make out his hand pointing into the darkness.

  'We've almost reached the bend in the horseshoe. That's where The Night Watch will be: it's an incredible mural, with more than twenty figures. Beyond that, Young Girl Leaning on a Window Sill and the small portrait of Titus, Rembrandt's son. On this side there'll be The Jewish Bride ... and now we're coming to the spot where they'll show The Feast of Belshazzar.'

  As they edged forward, Clara suddenly saw something amazing in the depths of the darkness: will-o'-the-wisps, glow-worms moving in straight lines.

  'The police,' Uhl explained behind her.

  It must have been one of the patrols Gerardo had told her were on duty in the Tunnel. They passed
by them. Ghostly forms with berets and light flashing off their badges. Clara made out smiles and words in Dutch.

  Then they continued on into the bowels of an abandoned universe.

  'Do you believe in God, Clara?' Gerardo asked all of a sudden.

  'No,' she replied simply. 'What about you?'

  'I believe in something. And things like this Tunnel prove to me that I'm right. There is something more, don't you agree? Otherwise, what led Van Tysch to build all this? He himself is the tool of something higher, even though he doesn't know it.'

  'Yes, he's Rembrandt's tool.'

  'Don't try to be funny. There's something above and beyond Rembrandt, too.'