Art of Murder (63 page)

Clara went on contemplating the distant cameo with its painted features.

17.30.

The darkness was complete.

'What now?' Bosch asked nervously, staring at his screen. 'Why don't they light the stupid lamps?'

'They're waiting for Van Tysch to give the order,' Nikki replied.

'It won't be long now,' said Osterbrock.

They turned back to the monitors. A silhouette stood out from all the others, motionless, back to the camera. Torch beams picked it out fleetingly.

'The great panjandrum,' Ronald moaned, devouring the image with the same eager hunger as he polished off his doughnuts.

Every moment needs its setting, thought Bosch. This was a world in which valuable things had become solemn. And all solemnity requires a setting, a ritual, and lofty personages up on podiums admired by fascinated, open-mouthed people. Nothing can be done naturally: artifice, some degree of
art
is always necessary. Why not light the lights? Why not let the public in? After all, it was only a question of pressing a few buttons. But no. This is a solemn moment. It has to be registered, collected, recorded, made eternal. It has to be long-drawn-out.

'They're taking photos of him,' Nikki commented, chin in hands. Bosch noted a dreamy tone to her words.

Van Tysch had been illuminated by a slanting spotlight: he was an island of light in five hundred metres of twisting darkness. He had his back to the camera. His kingdom was not of this or any other world, thought Bosch. His kingdom was himself, all alone, in the middle of that glittering lake. Shadowy sorcerers blessed him with their magic rays.

The painter raised his right arm. Everyone held their breath.

'Moses parting the waters.' Ronald displayed his sarcasm once again.

'Well, something's not working,' Osterbrock said, 'because the Tunnel is still dark.'

'No,' Martine cut in, leaning over his shoulder. 'The signal is when he lowers his arm.'

Bosch looked across at all the screens: they were dark. He was worried that the Tunnel was in darkness for so long. The 'great panjandrum' had demanded it. Before the start of this sabbath, the witches had to honour him with their will-o'-the-wisps. Then when the photo and filming session was over, Satan would lower his paw and his very own inferno would start, his abominable, fearful inferno, the most terrible of all because no one knew it for what it was. Because the worst thing about hell is not knowing if you are already in it.

The arm descended.

The three hundred and sixty filaments designed by Igor Popotkin lit as one, their light-filled mouths yawning. For a moment, Bosch thought the paintings had disappeared. But they were still there, only transformed. As though a majestic brush had endowed them with just the touch of gold they needed. The paintings were burning in an ill-defined bonfire. Framed by the TV screens, they looked like classical canvases, but with figures that had depth and volume, had been given a life of dimensions. The backgrounds stood out, the mist took on the air of a landscape.

'My God,' said Nikki. 'It's more beautiful than I could have imagined.'

Nobody replied, but the silence seemed to contain tacit approval of her words. Bosch did not agree.

It was not beautiful. It was grotesque, terrifying. The sight of Rembrandt's works transformed into living beings did arouse an emotion, but to Bosch this was not the product of beauty. It was obvious that Van Tysch had reached the limit: no one could go any further in human painting. But the path he had chosen was not that of aesthetics.

There was nothing beautiful in the crucified man, in the young girl leaning on a windowsill, face as pale as death, in the feast in which the dishes were people, in the naked woman with her red-painted hair spied on by two grotesque individuals, in the silhouette of the girl with phosphorescent eyes, the boy wrapped in painted furs, the angel strangling the kneeling man. There was nothing beautiful in them, but nothing
human
either. And the worst of it was that it all seemed to accuse Rembrandt as much as Van Tysch. It was a sin shared by both men. Here before you is the negation of humanity, the two artists seemed to be saying. Condemned for being what they were. In a night of horror, mankind invented art.

This is our condemnation, thought Bosch.

'Hats off to him, no doubt about that,' a voice said after an endless silence. It was Ronald.

On the screen, Stein raised his hands and applauded. Violently, almost furiously. But there was no sound, which made the clapping on the screen look like a silent convulsion. Hoffmann, Benoit and the physicist Popotkin joined in. Soon all the figures around Van Tysch were clapping their hands like frenzied dolls.

The first to follow suit inside the Portakabin was Martine. As they beat together, her slender, flexible palms sounded like gunshots. Osterbrock and Nikki added their excited burst of clapping. Ronald's applause though was muffled, as if bubbles were escaping from his pudgy hands. All this noise in the confined space of the Portakabin deafened Bosch. He could see Nikki's cheeks were on fire.

What were they applauding? Good God, what were they applauding, and why?

Welcome to madness. Welcome to humanity.

He did not want to be the exception, to be the odd one out: he hated drawing attention to himself. He told himself he had to stay within the picture frame.

He beat his hands together and produced sounds.

27.35.

In Portakabin A, Alfred van Hoore was sitting in front of the monitor focused outside the Tunnel, observing the deployment of what Rita had baptised the 'parrot brigade'. His Artistic Emergency Team was waiting in Museumplein. They were green-and-white phantoms with yellow oilskins standing beside the evacuation vehicles. Van Hoore knew it was highly unlikely they would be needed, but at least his idea had won the approval of Benoit, and even of Stein himself. You had to start somewhere. In firms like the Foundation you had to come up with new proposals.

'Paul?' Van Hoore spoke into the microphone.

'Yes, Alfred,' he heard Spaalze's voice boom in his headphones.

Paul Spaalze was the captain of this improvised team. Van Hoore had put complete trust in him. They had previously worked together on coordinating security for exhibitions in the Middle East, and Van Hoore knew Spaalze was one of those who 'act first and worry about it afterwards'. This meant he was not someone for making long-term plans, but who was indispensable at moments of crisis.

'Less than half an hour before the flock troops in,' Van Hoore said, through a storm of interference. 'How is everything going out there, Paul?'

It was a rather useless question, because Van Hoore could see from the monitor that 'out there' everything was fine, but he wanted Spaalze to know he was watching things closely. He had spent many long hours designing emergency evacuation procedures on his computer, and he did not want his captain to lose heart from having nothing to do.

'Well, you know,' Spaalze roared. 'The worst catastrophe I'm facing at the moment is the possibility of a mutiny. Did you know they made us sing like sopranos for the voice identity checks, and to touch the screens as though we were paintings before they would let us into the blasted central square? My men didn't like that at all.'

'Orders from above,' said Van Hoore. 'If it's any consolation to you, Rita and I had to undergo the same torture.'

In fact, Van Hoore himself had wondered what the exact reason was for all the additional security measures: this was the first time he had been asked to go through these physical tests before getting in. Rita had not liked it any more than he had, and had even got annoyed with the agents who were blocking the way. Why hadn't Miss Wood told them anything about it? What did the change in the shifts for the recovery and supervision personnel mean? Van Hoore had a suspicion that the withdrawal of the Maestro's works in Europe had something to do with all this, but did not dare speculate what exactly it meant. Above all, he was hurt that he was not yet important enough to be let into the secret.

'They don't trust us,' he said.

Rita van Dorn, feet up on the desk while she stirred a cup of steaming coffee in a plastic cup, looked over at him in an offhand manner, then went on staring at the screens.

17.50.

A
technician from the Art division held the umbrella aloft as Van Tysch climbed into the limousine. Stein was sitting waiting for him. Van Tysch's secretary, Murnika de Verne, was in front beside the driver. Journalists and cameramen thronged behind the security barrier, but the Maestro had not answered any of their questions. 'He's tired and does not want to make any statement,' his entourage said. Benoit, Nellie Siegel and Franz Hoffmann would be delighted to become prophets for a few minutes, and reveal the words of God for the microphones, but the Maestro had to leave. The car door closed. The driver - smart, blond-haired, wearing sunglasses - aimed for one of the exits the police had cleared. An agent allowed them out. His oilskin was gleaming in the rain.

Van Tysch looked back one last time at the Tunnel, then turned to the front. Stein put a hand on his shoulder. He knew Van Tysch detested any show of affection, but he was doing it for himself rather than the Maestro: he needed the other man to understand to what extent he had obeyed him, all the sacrifices he had made.

And how many he still had to make,
galismus.

'It's finished, Bruno. Finished.'

'Not yet, Jacob. There's still something to be done.'

'Fu
schus,
I swear that
...
you could say it's already done.'

'You might say it, but it's not'

Stein thought of a possible reply. This was how it had always been: Van Tysch was the eternal question, and he had to find the replies. He leaned back in his seat and tried to relax. Impossible. The great painter was as distant and inscrutable as the works of art he created. Next to him, Stein always felt a bit like Adam in the Garden of Eden after he had disobeyed God, with a certain transparent sense of shame. Any silence before Van Tysch contained an implicit recognition of guilt. It was a really unpleasant feeling. But what did that matter? Stein had spent twenty years of his life watching the Maestro transform human bodies into impossible things, and changing the world. He had enough material to write a book, and one day he would. But he still felt he did not know him any better than the rest of the world. If Van Tysch was a dark ocean, he had simply been a dyke to dam it, an electric power station which could change the extraordinary torrent into gleams of gold. The Maestro needed him, would go on needing him. Up to a point.

Just then, a phantom reared up in the front seat.

Murnika de Verne had turned her head and was regarding Stein through the tousled curtain of her jet-black hair. Stein looked away from the empty, lifeless eyes. He knew very well that it was not Murnika staring at him, but
the
Maestro.
Murnika de Verne
was
Van Tysch to an extent that no one, except Stein, could suspect. The Maestro had painted her like this, with that wild look of hers.

Murnika kept staring at him, her anxious mouth hanging open like a starving dog's. She seemed to reproach him for something, but also to want to alert him.

The car glided on through the darting rain. Her fixed stare disturbed him.

'Fuschus,
Bruno, don't you believe me?' he said to defend himself.
‘I
swear I'll take care of everything. Trust me. Everything will be fine.'

He was talking to Murnika, but his words were intended for Van Tysch. He was making the same mistake a spectator sometimes makes when he believes the eyes of a painting are following him, or when a ventriloquist's dummy addresses him in the middle of an act. But in this case, it was Van Tysch who seemed like the dummy. Murnika de Verne appeared horribly alive and painted. She stared at him for a moment longer, then the life went out of her and she turned back to face the front of the car.

Stein drew a deep breath.

The windscreen wipers tussled with the rain. The only noise Stein could hear was this ticking like a clock (or a pendulum, or a paintbrush) as the limousine sped along the motorway towards Schiphol.

'Everything will be fine, Bruno,' Stein repeated.

18.35.

'We met at school in Edenburg,' Victor Zericky explained. 'My family is from here. Bruno only had his father, who was born in Rotterdam and who probably told him, among many other things, that there was nothing to be done here.'