The Rembrandt Secret (16 page)

‘For whom?’

‘For us! For all of us!’

‘Jesus,’ Rufus said cruelly, ‘you
are
a coward.’

‘I am, yes. I don’t pretend otherwise. I’m not a brave man, never have been, but I liked my life until recently. I had it good, we
all
had it good round here, but everything’s changed. People you thought would be there for life are leaving, businesses closing, marriages are breaking up. You walk around this place at night and it’s like a ghost town. I thought depressions happened up North, in those bloody mill towns, not down here, not in the art market. It’s not
supposed
to happen here.’

Delighted to have rattled Leon so thoroughly, Rufus assumed a sympathetic expression. He might not have been one of the chosen few on his arrival in Albemarle Street, but the naive dealers weren’t going to be able to handle the hard times as well as he was. Now was the time when it paid to be streetwise.

‘It’s bad enough wondering if you can keep your business going,’ went on Leon, ‘but now to have to worry about being killed; worry about every person you let into your gallery; wonder about who’s walking in and what they might do …’ He shuddered. ‘You know what I think?’

Rufus shook his head.

‘That the bloody country’s ruined, and no gives a shit! I ask you, what the fuck is going on?’

Rufus’s expression was inscrutable. If he knew something, he certainly wasn’t going to pass the knowledge on.

After the first shot of whisky, Teddy Jack felt his body begin to relax. His muscles started to loosen and the panic in his chest had subsided when Marshall offered him another drink. Which he accepted. The glass felt cool between his sweating hands, but Teddy’s head still hummed with the silence of the enclosed box and his nose was still filled with the scent of wood shavings – and of his own sweat and urine. With Marshall’s help, he had got out of the crate, then turned and smashed his foot down through the lid, his heart pumping, his eyes watering.
Watering
, yes. Not crying, no. Not crying to have been rescued from suffocation.

Shrugging off any further help, Teddy had gone with Marshall to the flat above, a place he had often visited in the evenings when he and Owen would talk – sometimes about business, sometimes work, sometimes even women … But not now. Now Teddy sat and nursed his second drink, staring at the man who was sitting opposite
him. Marshall Zeigler, Owen’s son. Marshall, who had got him out of the crate.

‘How are you feeling now?’ Marshall asked.

He looked down at his trousers, mortified. ‘Jesus, I wet myself …’

Marshall said nothing.

‘I didn’t have much longer to go, you know,’ Teddy went on, coughing, his bass voice hoarse. ‘How d’you know I was there?’

‘I didn’t. It was just luck that I came back to the gallery.’ He stared at the big man. ‘You know my father always spoke well of you.’

Teddy’s head bowed, the whisky taking effect. In his head he could hear silence under Marshall’s words and even in the light he could still imagine the stifling darkness. Jesus, he thought, Jesus …

‘Who did it?’ Marshall asked finally.

‘I don’t know.’

‘All right,
why
would someone do that to you?’

‘Why would someone murder your father?’

Marshall paused, wondering how much he dared say. Teddy Jack had been his father’s confidant, after all … Surely he could trust this man? This man who would have been killed without his intervention. Surely he had no reason to suspect Teddy Jack?

But he couldn’t be sure.

‘I don’t know why my father was killed. Do you?’

Teddy’s hazel eyes blinked under their pale lashes, but when he looked back to Marshall his gaze was steady.

‘No.’

‘Maybe my father had something they wanted?’ Marshall asked, feeling his way, trying to test out what Teddy Jack knew.

‘Maybe he did.’

‘But you don’t know what?’

‘Should I?’

Patiently, Marshall took in a breath. ‘We’re on the same side, you know.’

Expressionless, Teddy studied the man in front of him. Marshall Zeigler was nothing like his father in appearance, but in manner there was a similarity. A linking of blood.

‘Which side is that?’

‘The right side. Think about it. If you were in any way responsible for my father’s death, you wouldn’t have been left to die in that box. And if I was any way responsible, I wouldn’t have got you out.’ Marshall paused, impressively composed. ‘Now – what do you know?’

Shaking his head, Teddy Jack glanced away, trying to order his thoughts. Wouldn’t Owen Zeigler have wanted him to keep his son safe by keeping him in ignorance? He thought so, but then again, they had had no time to discuss tactics. No time to plan … Taking in a breath, Teddy finished off his drink.

‘I don’t know anything about your father’s death.’

‘I don’t believe that. My father confided in you, didn’t he?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘So you must know why he was killed—’

‘It was a robbery.’

‘Did they get what they wanted?’

‘I don’t know what they wanted.’

‘The Rembrandt letters.’

Shocked, Teddy looked directly at him. ‘You
know
about them!’

‘Yes.’

‘After your father was killed, I looked for them but I didn’t find them,’ Teddy admitted. ‘I was looking when I was jumped. I never got the chance to have a proper search. The letters are either still hidden somewhere here, or they’ve been stolen.’

It was Marshall’s turn to pause.

‘Did you read them?’

‘No.’

‘But you know what was in them?’

‘Your father told me,’ Teddy replied, adding hastily, ‘Look, Marshall, I’ve told no one. Not in all the time I’ve known about them. I’ve never let one word slip. Never have, never will, even now.’ He paused, thinking of the suffocating darkness of the box, his mouth drying. ‘Don’t ask me anything else about the Rembrandt letters. The less you know, the better. Stay out of it. You were never involved in your father’s world, so don’t start now. I don’t understand what it’s all about, but I’ll find out.’ He smiled curtly. ‘Thanks for doing what you did, for saving my life, but you should get away now, Marshall. Go back to Holland, forget what you’ve found out and
put all this behind you. It’s what your father would have wanted.’

‘Somehow I doubt that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he sent me the Rembrandt letters,’ Marshall said, his tone resigned. ‘
I
have them. There’s no way I can get out of this now.’

Breaking his long-held rule, when Teddy returned to his flat in Beak Street he invited one of the working girls in. Pleased, she accepted, rubbing her hands in the chill of the evening air, her face waxy, hollows under her eyes, her hair tucked behind her ears. In a short skirt and denim jacket she stood with her knees knocking as she leant towards Teddy’s gas fire, a worn red friendship ribbon round her bony wrist, one of her earrings missing.

‘Cold, hey?’ she said.

He nodded, moving into the bedroom to change his trousers. But before he had time, she had followed him in, pushing him back onto the bed, his trousers round his ankles. Being so close to her, Teddy could see the sweat on her top lip and guessed that she had recently had a fix.

‘Hey, just a minute!’

She grinned, holding onto him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her body curled against his. ‘I’ve been waiting for an invitation for a long time, Teddy. The girls
said you never had anyone up here, but I knew you’d ask me one day.’ Her voice held a peculiar and misplaced triumph.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Shelly.’

‘Pretty name.’

‘My mother said I was named after someone famous.’

‘Yeah,’ Teddy agreed, nuzzling the top of her head. ‘He wrote poetry.’

‘Is that right?’ she asked, impressed. ‘Imagine that! A poet!’

‘Love poetry.’

She wriggled against him, satisfied by the thought, reading some romance into it.

From outside the window came the muffled sounds of Soho, a cab horn sounding, a shop’s alarm going off in another street. The doorbell from the chemist below chimed in, out, in, out, shadows floating across the ceiling as Teddy stared upwards and put his arm around the girl’s bony shoulder. He felt an unaccustomed affection for her, a need for closeness, for comfort. And yet even though he had invited her in for sex, he felt his intention shifting.

‘You’re around a lot of the time, Shelly.’

‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘Busy this time of night. We all like you, you know.’

Surprised, he glanced at her. ‘What?’

‘All the girls. We think you’re a great guy. One of the older women said you’d sorted someone out for her. You
didn’t have to do that, she said, but she was pleased. Anyone could see that. Mind you, that was a while ago.’ She snuggled against his bare legs, her knees resting against his. ‘You work at some art gallery, don’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So why live here?’

‘I like it here.’

She laughed, making a face. ‘If I had a good job I’d live somewhere nice. Not here. I wonder how you can sleep at night with all the noise.’ She yawned; the room was warming up. ‘You want to have sex now?’

‘No,’ he said simply, tightening his arm around her.

‘You’re not shy?’

‘No.’

‘Are you married?’

‘I was. Once.’

‘Kids?’

‘No. You?’

‘One, a boy. My mother looks after him.’ She picked at something in the corner of her eye. ‘I tell her that when I’m off the drugs I’ll come for him. You know, get a little place, out of London. Be like a family. Maybe meet someone. Someone all right …’ She paused, surprised to find that Teddy had taken hold of her hand and was holding it gently. ‘Can’t get on with those rehab programmes. I tried twice, but it didn’t feel right. You know? You know what I mean? Like they were going to make me into someone I’m not. Oh, I know what I am is pretty skanky, but I
know
it. Feels all right. Being all clean and
clear, what’s that about? You can’t go back, can’t never have been an addict or a working girl. You can never go back …’

She moved her other hand towards his thigh, Teddy sighing. ‘I’m good at this, why don’t you let me? No charge, honest. And it’s not a mercy fuck.’

He stared at her, bewildered. ‘A what?’

‘You know, when you feel sorry for someone. But I don’t feel sorry for you, I like you. It’ll be a pleasure, honest. It’ll be a pleasure.’

Her mouth moved over Teddy’s, her tongue finding his, and he responded, holding onto her, rolling over so that she was under him. Pulling up her skirt, he entered her and began to thrust. But as he did so, his excitement suddenly faded and the room shrank. He felt suffocated as his breathing speeded up, until he fell back onto the bed, gasping.

Startled, she stared at his face.

‘You all right? You sick?’ she asked, sliding off the bed and getting him a drink of water. ‘Here, luv, drink this. Go on, have a little sip.’

Tenderly she held it for him. And, as he sipped at it, tears rolled down his face like those of a child.

Tobar Manners clicked off the phone in his study. On the desk in front of him lay the Sotheby’s catalogue, together with an invitation to a private view at the Fine Art Society and a note from Rufus Ariel inviting him to dinner at the weekend. Tobar wondered why Ariel would suddenly be
so sociable: dining at Le Gavroche? How extravagant … They had known each other for years, but Ariel had made no secret of the fact that he suspected Tobar’s hand in the Rembrandt scam, and for the past two weeks they had not exchanged so much as a nod.

Wondering fleetingly who else was invited, Tobar thought of phoning Rufus Ariel, but resisted. No point in looking too interested; the dealers were all jittery at the moment, after Owen Zeigler’s murder, yet Ariel wasn’t the jumpy type. Too smart, the fat bastard, too smart by half. Tobar thought of Rufus, of his podgy hands, of his white hair framing the smooth, plump face. Fat as a spoilt baby, Rufus had limited his Old Masters and bought into the Brit Art market, making enough money in the Eighties and Nineties to expand his gallery and indulge his culinary greed. But where Rufus Ariel had been really clever was in spotting the
end
of the Brit Art boom. Cutting back, he began to court dead painters, advising his customers to buy into eighteenth-century French art. So when the crunch came, his backside – always amply cushioned – was covered again.

It was obvious to everyone that Rufus Ariel was astute and adept at the long game, but his arrogance had made him enemies. He could never resist accusing others of stupidity. The secretaries were stupid, the dealers, the customers, all were stupid. But he had one weakness – his vanity. Rufus Ariel knew he was not a good looking man. He also knew that a rich man might be forgiven a great deal, but women seldom fell for a fat man who made
clumsy advances. Because he paid well, he kept his staff, giving the secretaries and the receptionist enough perks to endure the hand on the lower back, or the imbecilic tweaking of a bra strap. He might call them all darling and bring back cakes from Patisserie Valerie, but he despised them for despising him. Everyone hoped that it was just a matter of time before Rufus Ariel hit the buffers. It might not be the recession which downed him, but a claim for sexual harassment brought by some wily upper-class girl he hadn’t been able to pay off.

Tobar tapped his front teeth with his finger nail. Maybe Rufus Ariel wanted to talk business. A deal, perhaps? Still pondering, Tobar looked around him. He liked this room, liked the thick beige carpet, the rich, embossed wallpaper, the drapes from Colefax and Fowler. When he had called the interior designer in, he had told her, ‘Make it look like an English country drawing room; one owned by a lottery winner.’

He was paying the woman enough to comply. Cleverly, she had blended faded English elegance with the brashness of the naked bronze figures which flanked Tobar Manners’ desk, and with the showy mirror behind him, which had had to be screwed to the wall for support. Complete with intertwining snakes and sinuous, gilded reeds, the mirror was topped with a coronet, a smirking nod to the fact that Tobar – although self-made – was married to a member of the Venetian aristocracy.