Art of Murder

  He, Lothar Bosch, was the only guilty one. A vulgar little man.

  He finally managed to lower his arms. He could see Wuyters next to him, still staring.

  'Do you know what, Jan?' Bosch said, immensely weary, by way of explanation. 'The thing is, I've never liked modern art.'

  22.19.

  April Wood listened in silence. Then she hung up and spoke to Stein:

  'My colleague Lothar Bosch has prevented Bruno van Tysch from completing his posthumous work. He takes full responsibility and will accept whatever consequences may arise from his actions. He also told me he has decided to resign.' She paused. ‘I beg you to add my resignation to Mr Bosch's, but also to put all the responsibility for this on to me. I did not succeed in informing Mr Bosch properly about what was happening, and therefore he acted on a misapprehension. I am the only one responsible for what happened. Thank you.'

  Stein burst out laughing. It was a silent, disagreeable laugh. It was like a continuation of the sobs he had produced moments before. Then he stopped. His face betrayed a certain annoyance, as though he were ashamed of the way he had behaved.

  Miss Wood did not wait for any further reply, but turned and walked down the tiled corridor.

  The half moon shining in the night of Edenburg had risen in the sky.

  Who if I cried would hear me from the hierarchies of angels?

  RILKE

  Epilogue

  For a while there were sounds. Then silence reigned.

  As he was folding his socks and putting them in his suitcase, Lothar Bosch thought that perhaps this was the only peace and happiness people like him could hope for in this world. Nothing better, he thought, than to smooth a pair of socks and carefully place them in a suitcase. He surveyed his half-completed packing, the case yawning open on the bed. The sun outside his bedroom window brought a cool, watery Holland to his nostrils. His bed, like a mysterious soft chessboard, was covered in pieces: columns of underwear, socks, books and shirts. Bosch had begun the ritual unwillingly, but by the end was thankful for it. It no longer seemed to him such a bad idea to spend the rest of the summer with Roland and his family in Scheveningen. In fact, he was beginning to look forward to it. He had no job, so it was time for him, as his brother said, 'to start to live the life of a pensioner'.

  It would also give him the chance to see Danielle. He had bought something special for her in a shop on Rozengracht.

  The presents for Hannah and Roland had been easy to choose. They were expensive, as befitted his position as a widower with no children and substantial savings: a diamond brooch from Coster's, and a new digital camera. But Nielle's present was more difficult. At first he had considered a Japanese computer program which had an almost human creature on it that had to be cared for, brought up, taken to school and protected from the dangers of adolescence until the moment she left home, something which almost never happened unless the program had errors or a virus. Then in a toy shop on Rokin he found something much better: a mechanical dalmatian that could move, bark and whine if left alone for too long. He was about to buy it when in the same shop he spotted an enormous felt dog. It was a majestic, soft animal, a Saint Bernard as big as a double pillow. The Saint Bernard did not do anything, it did not move, or bark, but Bosch thought it looked much more alive than the mechanical toy. He gave the necessary instructions for it to be sent to Roland's house in The Hague.

  But then, on his way home from the toy shop, he passed by a shop in Rozengracht, and saw it.

  He thought for a moment, and retraced his steps. He did not want to cancel his order for the Saint Bernard: he simply requested it be sent to his own house. He would decide later on what to do with that fluffy brown monster. Then he went back to Rozengracht and finally bought the perfect present for Danielle.

  The gift would probably arrive before he did. It would bark and whine like a mechanical dalmatian, but it would also do poohs and pee on the carpet and scratch the wood on doors with its claws. It would not be as well behaved as a computer or as sweet as a fluffy Saint Bernard. And - as Bosch knew - when it broke down, nothing and nobody in the world would be able to repair it, and nothing and nobody in the world would be able to restore or substitute it. When that present broke down, it would be completely and forever, and the infinite loss would tear the heart out of more than one person.

  From this point of view it was undoubtedly the worst possible gift he could give a ten-year-old girl.

  But perhaps Nielle would see its advantages.

  Bosch was hopeful she would.

  As the plane began its descent, April Wood glanced at her watch, took a small looking glass from her bag, and studied her face. She found it acceptable. The traces of sadness had disappeared. If they had ever existed, she thought.

  She had got the news the day before, just as she was preparing to move to London after having dismantled her office in Amsterdam. She recognised the doctor's voice across the kilometres that separated her from the private clinic. The voice assured her it had all been very rapid. Miss Wood could not agree to that. In fact, it had all been very, very slow. 'Your father had already lost consciousness,' the voice told her. That she could believe. Where was her father's consciousness? Where had it been all these years? Where had it been when she had known him? She had no idea.

  She gave all the relevant instructions. Death does not end with death: it has to be concluded with economic and bureacratic instructions. Her father had always wanted to lie under the ruins of classical Rome. All his life he had felt more Roman than British. Exactly that: Roman, because he did not care for Italy and had not even bothered to learn to speak Italian properly. It was Rome that he cared for: the grandeur of having an empire beneath his feet. Now you'll have it above your feet. Enjoy it, Poppy, she had thought. Transferring his body was going to cost her almost as much as the transfer of her paintings.

  Her father would travel in a box to Rome. The paintings from her Amsterdam office would travel in private flights to London. 'A good summing-up of my life,' she decided.

  She put the looking glass back in her bag, closed it and put it down by her feet.

  She had not yet decided what she would do when she got to London. She was thirty years old, and supposed she had about the same number of years of professional activity left. There would be no lack of opportunity, of course: she had already received several offers from art security firms who wanted to be able to count on her. But for the first time in her life she had decided to take a break. She was on her own, and had all the time in the world. Perhaps more than she imagined. Up in the empty sky above the London clouds, with her only family and her only job both dead and gone, April Wood thought that perhaps she had all eternity on front of her.

  Holidays. She had not had a real holiday in a long time. Perhaps she would go to Devon. In summer, Devon was ideal. You could have quiet or things to do, as you chose. That was it then: she would go to Devon.

  No sooner had she decided that than she remembered Hirum Oslo lived in Devon. She had not given him a thought until now. Of course, she did not rule out calling on him and asking him all the questions that remained unspoken (why he had paid a woman artist to make a portrait from a photo of her, for example). She was not thinking of going to see Hirum again though.

  She did not see what going to Devon had to do with paying him a visit.

  Nothing at all.

  Anyway, if she got bored, she could always consider it.

  Money is art, thought Jacob Stein. This new phrase seemed a response to Van Tysch's famous dictum, but in fact it changed things completely. Yet the facts bore it out. In the past few days he had carried out several masterstrokes. He had held private meetings with Paul Benoit, Franz Hoffmann and Saskia Stoffels, and told them the whole truth. Together they had taken some quick decisions. Two days later, he informed the investors. To do so, he gathered their representatives on the Ionian island of Kefalonia, ten kilometres north of Agios Spyridion, and decorated the place with artefacts by Van der
Graar, Safira and Mordaieff. He also acquired, especially for the occasion, five brand-new and well-trained adolescent Tongues by Mark Rodgers.

  'We've not only controlled the situation, we've succeeded in profiting from it,' he told them. 'We've let it be known that Van Tysch committed suicide, which strictly speaking is true. We've said that what happened with the Christ was an accident that nobody is completely responsible for, although we have half-suggested that Van Tysch knew what was going to happen and had planned it. The public is quick to forgive madmen and the dead. And we've revealed part of what Postumo Baldi was up to. We've said he was crazy and was intending to destroy Susanna Surprised by the Elders. All this has caused a great commotion. It's too soon to speak of definitive figures, but since last week the "Rembrandt" works have increased spectacularly in value. In the case of the Christ for example, the price has gone sky high. The same with Susanna. That's why we've dismantled the "Rembrandt" collection and decided to send the original models home after removing their priming and rubbing out the signatures. We'll soon be able to use substitutes. Now the Maestro has disappeared and can no longer authorise any substitutes, it's vital to play down the importance of the originals, and use substitutes straightaway so that the collectors can get used to the idea. Otherwise we'll be running a risk that the paintings fall in price almost to the level of unofficial copies.'

  With the Ionian sun tanning his face, Stein uncrossed his legs and moved his feet. The Tongue lying on the ground in front of him, completely naked and painted rose and white, blind and deaf due to the protectors it was wearing, groped forward with its straw-coloured head until it bumped into his other shoe, and went on licking.

  'We've decided not to make public the destruction of the originals of Deflowering and Monsters,' he went on. 'All the interested parties will keep quiet about it, and we'll secretly substitute both works. As far as the transfer is concerned ...'

  Stein paused while he settled back in his chair. As he did so, he noticed that the back supporting his own yielded a little. This was not a design fault: it was simply making an adjustment to please him. He was slender enough for the two athletic bodies which made up this Mordaieff Armchair to be able to bear his weight easily. From time to time the slight tremors in the youthful backside where he was resting his own made him sway gently, but they were calculated, controlled and delicate movements. Mordaieff made excellent pieces of furniture. One could write with neat lettering sitting on these fleshy seats, or illustrate a book of miniatures without one's hand shaking. And best of all: it was so pleasant to slide one's hand down and touch them while one was talking business.

  'Fuschus, the transfer was quite simple, believe me’ he said.

  It had not been so straightforward, in fact, but he was trying to convey the idea that money can resolve everything. This was false, but it could become true in the future on one condition: if there were more money.

  It was a couple of years earlier that he had first seen a work by Vicky Lledo. It was Body Lines. It was on show in London as part of an exhibition by artists living in the city. He had not much liked the canvas, who was British and was called Shelley, but Stein knew how to recognise a good work of art painted on a mediocre canvas. Of course, he said nothing to anybody. A few months later, when the canvas was substituted, Stein parcelled Shelley up and took her to Amsterdam on the pretext of doing some tests on her, although he never spoke to her personally. Shelley enthusiastically answered all the questions. The list included some enquiries into the character and private life of Miss Lledo. Stein stored away the information for future use. The Foundation had to hand over power - the 'transfer' as the investors called it - because Van Tysch was in decline, and although Stein knew the Maestro had not said his last word, it was essential to be prepared. He spent months collecting information on unknown painters. Everyone was in a panic over the transfer. Stein was in a panic over everyone's panic. He set himself to teach them all that the miracle of creating a genius is much easier than the effort of keeping one alive.

  By the start of 2006 he had already decided that the successor would be Vicky Lledo. That the balance of posterity should tilt towards Lledo had several advantages: she was a woman, which would be useful to counteract the macho idea certain sectors had of HD art; she was not Dutch, which helped show that the Van Tysch Foundation was happy to welcome any European artist; and lastly, choosing her would put a brake on the worrying rise to power of people like Rayback. The first step had been to give Vicky that small Max Kalima Foundation prize. ‘I can assure you that the Maestro has seen Lledo's work, and is fascinated by it', he told the investors. That was not true. The Maestro saw nothing beyond himself. Stein was sure he was not even aware of the existence of a young Spanish artist called Vicky Lledo. Van Tysch only cared about preparing his swan song, his farewell to the world, his last, most risky work. Stein had taken all the decisions.

  The end was near, and he had to invent a new beginning.

  Shade would remain untouchable and unfinished in Edenburg. And so it would be until the world was ready to look on it, and its appearance would be profitable. The former might happen at any time, or perhaps had already happened (the world was almost always ready for anything). As for the latter, a committee of investors headed by himself and Paul Benoit would take care well in advance of all the steps necessary to reveal the work to the world. There would be talk of 'the Maestro's testament', of his 'swan song', of his 'terrible secret'. 'A miracle requires a revelation and a secret, Jacob,' Benoit had rightly concluded. 'We already have the revelation. What we need is a secret.'

  'Let's allow the idea to mature,' Stein told the investors, pensively stroking the long thighs of his chair.

  For a while there were sounds. Then silence reigned.

  She had received an avalanche of phone calls: above all from Jorge, desperate at first but calmer when he could talk to her. When was she thinking of coming back? I don't know, Jorge, we'll see. I want to see you. Weil see. All of a sudden she realised she did not miss him. To her, Jorge was like the voice of the past: undeniable, but finished with. She also got calls from Yoli Ribo, Alexandra Jimenez, Adolfo Bermejo, Xavi Gonfrell and Ernesto Salvatierra. Calls from painters and canvases. One of the most affectionate was from Alex Bassan. They were all delighted she was fine and had been signed by Van Tysch. One night she heard her brother's voice. So even her brother was interested in the painting's welfare! Without completely abandoning his natural reserve of a lawyer outside court, Jose Manuel talked of their mother, of how much they missed her, of how she had told them nothing. 'We didn't know anything about all this,' he said. 'We only heard about it thanks to Jorge Atienza.' How was she? Fine. Would she be back soon? Yes. They wanted to see her. She wanted to see them, too. When it came down to it, it occurred to her, life and art are based on the same thing: going and seeing.

  And Vicky? Vicky did not call her.

  She suspected she would have to be the one to take the first step, now that the painter had become so important.

  Vicky was going to hold a retrospective for the Foundation: Stein had announced it at a press conference. Among the twelve works on show were two for which Clara had been the original: Instant and The Strawberry. Stein had also said that Vicky Lledo was one of the great exponents of orthodox modern hyper-dramatism, and that the Van Tysch Foundation, 'now that the Maestro was missing', would strongly support the work of this young artist.

  The news had made a great impact on her, to the extent that for some time she did not know what to feel. Eventually she decided she was pleased for Vicky, but then concluded that she felt this way because she did not love her enough to feel sorry for her.

  'Both of us immortal, as we wanted. Good.'

  After the calls dried up, she switched off the television, too. The news was always the same, and she knew it by heart. Nor did she allow herself the consolation of the many jazz records that Conservation had given her to help pass the time. She felt fine as she was, submerged in her own s
ilence. Or her own noise.

  Because life had a noise of its own, she suddenly realised. She could feel life returning to her just as one hears a different wave travelling to shore. They had decided to remove her priming, rub out the signature, and send her home. They would let her rest for a while and then, if necessary, would call on her to show Susanna again. She would, of course, keep the money, that would not change. They stopped her F&W tablets, and soon afterwards she realised that a human being is something that wants things. Art stays still and content with itself, but life demands continuous satisfaction. After that they stripped off her priming. When she got back to her hospital bed and looked at herself in the mirror, there could be no doubt about it: she was Clara Reyes again. Her blonde hair, her skin with its open pores, old scars, the graphism of her life, her smells, the shapes from her past. She still had no body hair, of course, but this was an image she had come to accept. Her unprimed face recovered its old expressions, so different from the yellow monster that had so astonished Jorge. She was no longer painted, had no labels. It was not easy living without labels or paint, but she would have to get used to it.