Art of Murder (21 page)

Lothar Bosch stepped to one side, and Annek's three-dimensional figure came together again in pure silence, just as water flows back around the void when a finger is withdrawn from it. Miss Wood pressed the pause button, and the adolescent hung immobile in the centre of the room.

‘I’
d already finished,' Miss Wood said with a yawn. 'It's all much of a muchness.'

She pressed the rewind, and Annek started a strange Saint Vitus' dance. Miss Wood took off her virtual reality visor and left it on the table, dismissing the apparition. The table was a half-crescent moon built out of the wall. It was the only wooden-coloured piece of furniture in this small audio-visual room in the MuseumsQuartier. Everything else was black, including the stiletto-like chair legs. Miss Wood was seated in one of them, her pink cardigan and suit gleaming in the dark. Next to her lay a pile of virtual reality tapes. On the wall to her left, cameras and loudspeakers stuck out like gargoyles.

Bosch, wearing an elegant grey suit in which the red label shone like a wedding carnation in his lapel, sat in a chair opposite her and pulled out his reading glasses.

'How long have you been here?' he asked.

He was concerned about her. They had been in Vienna for five days including this Monday 26 June, working non-stop. They had suites in the Ambassador, but only used them to sleep in. And no matter how early Bosch appeared at the MuseumsQuartier, she was already there, working away. The thought suddenly crossed his mind that Wood probably did not go to sleep at night either.

'For a while
’
she said. 'I still had to check a few interviews Support had done, and my father always told me never to leave work undone.'

'Good advice,' Bosch agreed. 'But be careful not to overdo the virtual reality visors. They can damage your eyesight.'

As Miss Wood sat back in her chair, the cardigan opened like a pair of wings, and Bosch was treated to a wave of perfume. The mounds of her breasts pushed against the pink dress. Embarrassed, Bosch lowered his eyes. He liked everything about this woman: the sudden smell of her perfume, her tiny, cutglass body, even the extremely slender legs of hers, and the knees peeping over the top of the desk. And the sombre gravity of her voice, which he was now listening to.

'Don't worry, I have been taking walks. There is something soothing about Vienna at dawn on a Monday morning. And I've realised something: people here buy a lot of bread, don't they? I've seen several men with a baguette under their arm, like in Paris. I almost thought they were deliberately parading the bread under my nose.'

'In fact, they're Braun's men keeping an eye on you.'

Her smile told him his joke had hit the mark. It was dangerous to talk about food with Miss Wood.

‘I
wouldn't be surprised
’
she said, 'although they'd do better to keep an eye on other things. Our bird has flown, hasn't he?'

'Completely. Yesterday was Sunday, so I couldn't talk to Braun, but my friends in CID tell me no one has been arrested. And don't go thinking the other news is any better.'

'Go on anyway.' Miss Wood rubbed her eyes. 'God, I'd kill for a decent cup of coffee. A cup of black, black coffee, a good Viennese
schwa
rzer
,
hot and strong.'

'An ornament is serving the people in Art this morning. I told her to pass by here.'

'You're a perfect gentleman, Lothar.'

Bosch felt naked. Luckily, his flaming cheeks soon died down. At fifty-five, there's no fuel that can produce a lasting blush, he thought to himself. Old blood is too thin.

'I'm beginning to know your habits
’
he said.

The papers were trembling between his fingers, but his voice sounded firm enough. Miss Wood leaned forward on the desk, head in hands, as she listened to him.

'We said the other day that there were three legs to this particular construction, didn't we? The first, Annek; the second, Oscar Diaz; and the third what we could call the Competition.' He saw Wood nod in agreement, and went on: 'Well, the first has produced no results. Annek's life was a mess, but I haven't found anyone capable of harming her for any personal reason. Her father, Pieter Hollech, is a madman. At the moment he's in jail in Switzerland after causing a traffic accident while drunk-driving. Annek's mother, Yvonne Neullern, divorced him and got custody of Annek when she was four. She works as a press photographer, specialising in animals. She's in Borneo. Conservation has been in touch with her to tell her the news
...'

'OK, so the painting's family had nothing to do with it. Go on.'

'Annek's previous buyers don't offer much either.'

'Wallberg fell in love with the canvas, didn't he?'

'Yes, he liked Annek,' agreed Bosch. 'Wallberg bought Annek in three works:
Confessions, Door Ajar,
and
Summer.
The last of these was a performance. Do you recall the meeting we had with Benoit, when he insisted we should find out what Wallberg
really
felt for Annek?
...
No, that's not quite right. "We have to distinguish between Mr Wallberg's artistic and erotic passions"
...'

The baying laugh (cut short by Wood) pleased him. So his Benoit impression had gone down well. 'My God, I'm making her laugh. That's fantastic'

All at once the sense of satisfaction drained from Bosch's face: it was as sudden as a dark cloud passing in front of the sun. His grin faded; his mouth turned down at the corners.

'Poor Annek,' he said.

He blinked several times, then shuffled the papers on the table in front of him.

'Whatever the truth, Wallberg is on his deathbed in a hospital in Berkeley, California. Lung cancer. There's nothing suspicious about any of her other purchasers either: Okomoto is in the States, searching for paintings; Cardenas is still in Colombia, and his record is as dubious as ever, but he didn't bother Annek when she was on show in
Garland,
and he hasn't touched any of the substitutes
...'
He coughed, and his finger pointed to the next paragraph. 'As for all the other madmen
...
according to our information, almost all of them are either in hospital or serving prison sentences. A few are still on the loose, like that crazy Englishman who covered the facade of the New Atelier with stickers accusing the Foundation of dealing in child pornography
...'

'What's he got to do with this?'

'He used a photo from
Deflowering
on the stickers.'

'OK.'

'His whereabouts are unknown. But we'll continue investigating. So that's all for the "Annek" leg.' 'Nothing there. What about Diaz?' 'Well, there's Briseida Canchares
...'

'Count her out too. That art nymphomaniac has nothing to do with it. The most interesting thing she said was about that person with no papers. Go on.' Wood was playing with her cigarette lighter - a lovely black steel miniature Dunhill. Her long, slender fingers made it flick over and over like a magician's playing card.

'Diaz's friends in New York say he's a simple, goodhearted sort. The guards on tour with him are more "scientific" as you would call it: according to them, he's a loner. He didn't like making friends, and preferred his own company. Our second search of his New York apartment turned up nothing. Everything to do with photography, but nothing related to any supposed obsession with destroying paintings or even with art. In his room at the Kirchberggasse we found Briseida's address and phone number in Leiden and . . . listen to this
...
a notebook with landscape photos which, in fact, is
...
a diary.'

Miss Wood's head, with its cap of cropped hair shiny as patent leather, snapped back so quickly Bosch was afraid her skull would come loose. He immediately reassured her:

'But it doesn't offer us any leads: Diaz took snapshots of places so he could go back there later on when the light was better. Sometimes he mentions Briseida or a friend, but they are completely ordinary references. He also writes about his love of the countryside. There's even a poem. Plus a few references to his work, along the lines of "I see them as people, not as works of art". The last entry is on
7
June.' Bosch raised his eyebrows. 'I'm sorry: there's nothing about anyone without papers, man or woman.' 'Shit.'

'Exactly. But I do have some good news. We've found a cafe near the Marriott hotel here in Vienna where the barman remembers Diaz. Apparently, it was one of the places he used to go to when he left the paintings in their hotel. The barman says he used to ask for bourbon, which was unusual for his customers, and that was why he noticed him, as well as because of his American accent and his dark skin.'

'New York completely corrupted our poor landscape photographer,' commented Wood. Her fingers were smoothing down her hair. To Bosch, they looked like the hands of a medium: it was not Wood's mind directing those soft, irreproachably aesthetic gestures that were so typical of her. No, her mind was focused on Bosch's words (not on me, on my
words,
don't get confused, kid) with the look of a shipwrecked mariner who thinks they can glimpse the lights of a ship in the dark night.

'But there is one odd detail,' Bosch said. 'The barman swears that the last time he saw him was exactly a fortnight ago, on 15 June. He remembers the exact date thanks to another coincidence: it was a friend's birthday, and he had made arrangements to leave the bar early. He says Diaz was at the bar chatting to a girl he had never seen before - she was dark, thin, attractive, wore a lot of make-up. He reckons they were speaking in English. The waiters cannot really remember her, because there were a lot of customers that night. Diaz and her left together, and the barman has not seen either of them since.'

'When did Diaz ring his Colombian friend to ask for information about residence permits?'

'On Sunday 18 June, according to Briseida.'

Wood's outline seemed sculpted in stone.

'Three days: more than enough time to get close. Our friend Oscar took pity on our Colombian friend in a lot less.'

That's true,' Bosch admitted,
'but
if we put Unknown Girl into the mix, it could be that Diaz is completely innocent. Just imagine for a moment she is working with accomplices. They manage to get information out of Diaz about when and how he is picking the painting up, then on Wednesday they forced their way into the van and make Diaz drive to the Wienerwald.' 'So where is Diaz now?'

'They've taken him with them, as a hostage . ..'

'And run the risk he might escape and give the game away? No, if Diaz isn't guilty, that can mean only one thing: he's
dead.
That seems to me the obvious conclusion. The fundamental question is: why hasn't his body appeared yet? That's what I don't get. Even if we admit they may have needed him to drive the van, why wasn't he found in it? Where have they taken him? Why would they want to hide Diaz's body?'

'That means you think Diaz is part of this.'

'If we forget about the girl with no papers, what are we left with?'

'In that case, the police's theory is the most likely one: Diaz makes the recording, and cuts Annek up inside the van. Then he drives to a remote spot, wraps Annek in the plastic sheet, dumps her on the grass and strips her. Then he puts the cassette at her feet and drives another forty kilometres north, where another car is waiting for him.'

‘I
don't buy that theory either.'

‘
Why not?'

'Diaz is a ninny,' Miss Wood declared. 'He writes little poems, takes photos of landscapes and gets taken in by girls like Briseida. If he's involved in this, he wasn't alone.'

'But he was a very efficient security guard,' Bosch objected. 'Remember, we only choose the best for transporting paintings to their hotels.'

Tm not saying he was bad at his job. I'm saying he's a ninny. A country bumpkin. He can't have organised all this on his own.'

Soft knocks at the door, and a waft of perfume. The server was not a Trolley or any other proper piece of furniture, but a Decoration, a wretched thing that worked on Mondays (the day off for the works of art in the MuseumsQuartier) one of the objects dreamt up by the Decorative Arts Department to fill an empty room - and the lack of experience showed when it came to him serving their coffee. It took Bosch several seconds to realise it was a young male, about eighteen or nineteen years old. His hair was a symmetrical mass of blue-black scrolled curls pierced by silvery feathers. His long, tubular tunic in black velvet was cut almost too drastically at the back, and revealed the top half of a pair of black buttocks painted chestnut brown as was all the rest of the body. He placed two cups of coffee on the table. His make-up gave no clues as to what he might be thinking or feeling: it was the mask of a Polynesian warrior, a voodoo priest. The white label hanging round his neck read 'Michel'. The signature low down on his back was by someone called Garth. He was wearing ear-protectors.

When he turned towards Bosch, he got a good view of his hands: they glowed a deep bronze colour, with onyx fingernails.