The Brodsky Affair: Murder is a Dying Art (41 page)

Manton took a sharp breath and Tamsin matched the hard squeeze of his hand. Standing in a smiling semi-circle around a large table covered in black velvet cloth, stood Captain Boris Kolosov, Augustus Moss, Clovis Munroe from Christie’s, and towering over them all from a skyscraper height, was Emile Boin from Paris. The most surprising of all, beaming smiles, stood Ilya and Maria Bromovitchova. Mounted on the centre of the table stood the catalyst of it all. Applause broke out as they made their way forward.

“Dear God! I can’t speak.” He let his jaw sag and looked at Tamsin, his face contorted with disbelief.

“You’d better believe it,” she whispered up at him. “It took some arranging.”

“You
knew.
What on earth… Valentina, what’s happening here? I don’t know what to say.” He swung his head around, feeling only astonishment.

From the centre of the table, VaVa picked up
Girl of Peace
and walked over to him. “No need to say anything, Jack. Be happy. This is for you. Take it please.”

Jack shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t possibly. I really don’t know what I should say.” His eyes went glassy and his hands began trembling

“You’ve said everything you ever need to say. Take it. She’s married to you, and she’s yours. She inspired you, and us, so now let’s just enjoy the evening – but before we do, there’s somebody you must meet.” She beckoned towards the corner of the room.

Still reeling from the unexpected events, Manton looked across the room as an elderly, dignified man with silver hair, wearing a blue suit, moved around the table.

“Jack Manton, meet God’s gift, Mateusz Borchovski. He is Polish, speaks only a little English, but fluent in Russian. Tamsin, will you please…”

Valentina stood back and Manton didn’t fail to notice her contented expression. Tamsin moved forward and greeted him. Manton, feeling more bewildered, shook the man’s outstretched hand.

Tamsin spoke to Jack. “His surname in Polish literally means ‘God’s gift’.” Then, she turned to Mateusz and began speaking. They seemed to talk for an age.

“What’s happening here?” Manton interrupted Tamsin, who was beginning to smile.

“I’ll tell you. Mateusz is the son of Alesky Borchovski.”

Manton shook his head. “Who’s he?”

“Alesky Borchovski was imprisoned in Majdanek Concentration Camp, near Lublin in Poland, with… guess who?”

“Mikhail?”

“None other.”

“Oh, great God, this gets stranger and stranger.”

“Mateusz.” Tamsin spoke in Russian. “Show him, please.”

Mateusz stepped forward. Manton sensed a hush descend around the room as he placed his package on the table, and with agonising slowness, he began to unwrap it.

He took off the final layer of wrapping, stood back, and with a surprisingly loud voice that filled the room, said, “
Bot bab!
”
–
There you are!

The work lay face down, but Jack could clearly see the number thirty-two painted on the back. Next to it, was an inscription in Russian Cyrillic.

“Tamsin, before I turn this over, what does that say?” He felt himself getting short of breath.

“It says, ‘
1941. Golovchino’.
”

Mateusz, with slow reverence, turned the painting over. Jack and the others in the room crowded in to stare at something that few had ever seen.

It was a triptych. The left-side canvas had an artisan aspect, with blocks and lines of colour suggesting the four seasons, lovers, the movements of land, workers in fields, and town workers in factories, together with faint impressions of birds that resembled doves swooping across an anaemic yellow sky. The light filtered darkly to the right, where he had intimated the beginnings of a dark solar eclipse. This led the eye to the central part of the work.

The eclipse had been positioned at top centre and suffused the scene below in forbidding hues of greyness, streaked with reds and blacks. Implied in the faces of people were the agonies of war, pain, and suffering, stretched out from exaggerated mouths. Eyes and torn flesh being hacked and shot by soldiers resembling Wagnerian Valkyries, were painted alongside a small crucified Christ spattered with the blood stained flag of Russia, revealing the name
Golovchino.
Surrounding this, dark bodies filled ditches, and dispirited broken trees stood on the soil, raped and violated… and overflowing with blood. A faint glimmer of light drew the eye naturally to the right unfinished canvas.

The right Triptych looked back with the eyes of mothers grieving for their children, young and old, their bodies in wraps and tumbled into graves.

“That’s unbelievable,” Clovis gasped. “It’s unfinished.”

“And we all know why,” Moss added.

“That must have been his last ever work. It’s astonishing.” Manton felt unable to take it all in. “Tamsin, what does Mateusz have to say?”

She turned and spoke with him for several minutes.

“He knows it’s unfinished, and that it’s Mikhail Brodsky’s greatest work. He also says he will never part with it. Since he has no children, he has bequeathed it to the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow in his will. He also said, if it hadn’t been for you, Augustus, and all the worldwide media coverage, he would never have guessed its importance. He really wanted you to see it and tell you its story, as his father told him. Alesky was a friend of Mikhail in the Lublin concentration camp. Mikhail had told Alesky that he would be unlikely to survive because of his illness, and entrusted his unfinished work to him. Alesky survived the horrors of the camp, and when the war was over, returned to his home city of Siedlce in Poland, miraculously, with the painting. He revered it, especially since he witnessed Mikhail’s execution.”

A silence wrapped around them all.

Manton looked at Valentina who wiped away tears from her eyes. He took the initiative.

“Tamsin, tell him we are deeply moved and honoured by him being here.” He moved across and embraced Mateusz. There could be nothing more he could have ever wished for.

Epilogue

Monday, 15 December

F
rost glazed the neighbourhood with a white crust, and Manton shivered as he looked up at the clear sky, still letting starlight through the vanishing darkness. His nerves jangled in his stomach.
Today is going to be far worse than the auction in Perth.
He knew the global media; the press, TV cameras, and others, would all be congregating at Christie’s for the Russian art auction. Whatever happened, the happy owners of Mikhail Brodsky’s works – himself, Valentina, and the Bromovitchs – were about to become far wealthier than when they walked in. Brodsky’s paintings had become hot property, and if more were ever located, the owners would be fortunate indeed. There had to be a plethora of early student works that would soon surface.

Tamsin had recovered well and her pregnancy was proceeding normally. Night times continued to bring on nightmares of crucifixions, and massive Russian icons transforming into leering demons. One recurring theme was of Novikov. He would rescue her from the monsters and take her from her bed, and she would willingly go with him. In the embrace of his arms, she wanted and loved him. This part of her nightmare, she had never been able to tell Jack. It was disturbing, and she feared an element of truth in it. For her secret wish was to forgive him.

That morning, in bed, he could see from her distracted look that she had another one of her nightmares.

“We need to get away from here for a while, at least until the baby is born. We are about to be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. We can afford to stay in a sun-drenched beach somewhere, and get the best possible care for the baby. What do you think?” He produced maps and showed her. “Where do you fancy? Maldives, Cuba, or the USA? Just say when and where and I will arrange it all!”

The whole Brodsky affair and the baby had changed him.  Here he was now, offering to take her on a vacation where he could care for her and their baby. The unbelievable part? He’ll handle the arrangements.

“That sounds like a good idea. Just give me a few hours to think about it.”

The nightmare began fading.

“That’s fine… so, start thinking. I’ll just stretch my legs, and get the newspapers down at the shop.”

Five minutes later, Manton began walking down the stone steps into the street.

Something niggled away at his thoughts, but he couldn’t work out what it could be. He reached the bottom step, pulled his scarf tighter around his neck, and headed briskly along the street.

“Good morning, Peter.” He spoke to the postman who had delivered mail to his house for many years. “Anything for me?”

“Not today, Mr. Manton.” He waved and headed on further.

Following close behind him was a tall blonde woman, dressed in an expensive fur, walking with a slight limp and exercising her small dog.

“Good morning,” she said with a slight nod of her head.

“Good morning,” Manton responded. He had walked several steps before he came to a crashing stop. He spun around as the woman began to turn the corner.

She turned with a trace of a smile before vanishing.

“It can’t be!” He sprinted back the way he had come. “Tamsin! Tamsin!” His shouts filled the apartment. “Get here fast.”

Tamsin tumbled from the bed in alarm.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer, but dragged the
Girl of Peace
from its position in the centre of the wall. “Get me a knife, quick!”

She handed him her nail file. He inserted it directly into the corner of the painting, prodding and wriggling with a suppressed intensity. He pulled it out.

Sitting on the blade was Novikov’s listening device… alive, still active, and transmitting. He held it up.

“It was never taken out. You’re not going to believe this…”

At that moment the phone began to ring.

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