The Killer's Art (2 page)

As he approached the gallery his stomach twisted into a knot. On Monday he was going to leave the art business to which he had devoted his entire professional life. He had put his heart and soul into this gallery; he couldn’t begin to count the number of hours he’d spent here.

He stopped and stood outside on the street for a moment, staring at the facade. The big modern glass windows faced the open square and the thirteenth-century ruins of St Karin’s church. Inside the medieval church were arches and underground passages from the same period. Against this historic backdrop he had created a modern and discriminating gallery using light, airy colours, and had added a few unique details that gave the place a personal touch. Visitors to the gallery often praised him for his exquisite combination of the old and the new.

He unlocked the front door, went up to his office and hung up his coat. Not only was this weekend going to be a turning point for him personally, it marked the opening night of the first art show of the year. It would also be his last. At least here in Visby. The sale of the gallery had gone through all the legal red tape, and the new owner had signed the contract. Everything was now in place. And he was the only person on Gotland who knew about the sale.

He went back downstairs to survey the gallery space. The paintings had all been hung as they should. He straightened one that was slightly crooked. The invitations had been sent out several weeks earlier, and the advance interest indicated that they could expect a large turnout.

The catering company would arrive soon. He made one last check of the paintings and the lighting. He was always very particular about such things. The paintings had been carefully arranged to showcase them at their best. They were very striking, exploding with strong colours. Expressionistic and abstract, filled with youthful energy and power. Some were brutal, violent and horrifyingly dark. The artist, Mattis Kalvalis, was a young Lithuanian, until now unknown in Sweden. So far his work had been shown only in the Baltic countries. Egon Wallin
enjoyed taking a risk on unknown quantities, new artists who had their whole future ahead of them. He went to the front of the gallery and put the black-and-white photo of Mattis Kalvalis on display in the window.

As he raised his eyes and looked out at the street, he noticed a man standing a short distance away, staring right at him. He had on a baggy, black down jacket, with a knitted cap pulled low over his forehead, and surprisingly he was wearing big dark sunglasses in the middle of winter. There wasn’t even a hint of sunshine.

It was odd how he just stood there. Maybe he was waiting for someone.

Unconcerned, the art dealer continued pottering about the gallery. The local radio station was playing listener requests, and at the moment Lill-Babs was singing, or Barbro Svensson as he preferred to call her. He smiled a bit as he straightened one of the more violent paintings, which had an almost pornographic theme. What a contrast to the tune coming from the radio: ‘Do you still love me, Klas-Göran?’

When Egon turned around to face the street again, he gave a start. The man he had seen in the distance had moved. He was now standing very close to the big display window, so close that the tip of his nose was practically touching the glass. For some reason the stranger was looking Egon right in the eye, although he made no sign of offering any sort of greeting.

Instinctively Egon took a step back and nervously began looking for something to do. He pretended to be arranging the wine glasses that had been set out the night before. Then he moved on to the platters for the hors d’oeuvres that the catering company would be bringing.

‘Klas-Göran’ had faded away, to be replaced by Magnus Uggla singing a lively pop tune from the eighties.

Out of the corner of his eye Egon saw the mysterious man still standing in the exact same place. An uneasy feeling crept over him. Was he a nutcase released from St Olof? He wasn’t about to let this idiot provoke him.
He’ll leave soon,
Egon thought.
He’ll get tired of standing there if he doesn’t see me.
The front door was locked, he was sure of that. The gallery
wouldn’t open until one o’clock since they were having an opening reception for the new exhibition.

He climbed the stairs to his office, went in and shut the door. He sat down and started fiddling with some papers, but the feeling of uneasiness refused to let up. He needed to do something. Confront that man on the street. Find out what he wanted.

Annoyed at being interrupted in this way, he got up and quickly went back downstairs, only to find that the man was gone.

With a sigh of relief, Egon went back to work.

A
fierce wind woke him. The windowpanes were rattling and a branch was slamming against the wall of the house. The sea was roaring, and a whistling sound came from the treetops. The covers had slipped off on to the floor, and he was cold. The few electric-heating units weren’t enough to warm the cottage properly. It wasn’t usually rented out in the wintertime, but he had managed to persuade the woman who owned the place to make an exception. He had claimed that he was doing research for the Agricultural Ministry about the threat to the Gotland sugar industry, but it was on a freelance basis, which meant that he couldn’t afford a hotel room. The owner hadn’t really understood his explanation, but she didn’t bother to ask any further questions. Renting the place out didn’t involve any more work for her; it was just a matter of handing over the key.

He climbed out of bed and pulled on a shirt and trousers. He had to go out, despite the bad weather. The cottage had both a kitchen and a toilet, but the water had been turned off.

He was met by a blast of wind when he opened the door, which slammed shut behind him as he stepped outside. He went around the corner and took up a position as close to the wall as possible at the back of the cottage, which faced the woods. There it was somewhat calmer. He unzipped his fly and aimed the stream at the wall.

Back inside the kitchen, he ate a couple of bananas and mixed himself a protein drink, which he downed as he stood at the counter. Ever since he’d come up with the plan two months earlier, he’d felt a certainty, a conviction that there was no other option. Hatred had invaded his body,
making his tongue sour and his thoughts sharp. Methodically he had worked out all the preparations, ticking them off point by point with meticulous precision. Everything had been done in secret. The fact that nobody knew what was going on incited him even more. He was in control, and that was an advantage that would make all his plans succeed. Time after time he had gone over the details until not a single flaw or pitfall remained. The time had now arrived. It was a cunning and ingenious idea that would not be easy to execute.

He leaned forward and peered out of the window. The only drawback was the bloody wind. That would make it more difficult for him, and in the worst case might even upset the whole plan. At the same time, it presented certain advantages. The worse the weather, the fewer people would be out, and that lessened the risk of discovery.

His throat felt scratchy. Was he coming down with a cold? He pressed his hand to his forehead. Damned if he didn’t have a fever. Shit. He found a bottle of acetaminophen and swallowed two tablets with water from a container on the counter. This was no time to be getting a cold, because he was going to need every ounce of muscular strength.

The backpack with all the equipment was ready. One last time he checked to see that he had everything he needed. Then he quickly zipped it shut and sat down in front of the mirror. With practised movements he applied the make-up, inserted the contact lenses, and glued the wig in place. He had tried out this disguise so many times, just to make sure it would be perfect. When he was done he paused to study the transformation for a moment.

The next time he looked in the mirror, he would be seeing the face of a murderer. He wondered if it would be obvious.

M
attis Kalvalis was nervous and had to go out to have a smoke practically every ten minutes.

‘What if nobody comes?’ he kept saying in his strident Eastern European accent. His face was even paler than usual, and his lanky body was in constant motion among his paintings. Several times Egon Wallin had shown him the advertisement in the paper and patted him on the shoulder.

‘Everything will be just fine – trust me.’

Kalvalis’s manager, who had come with him from Lithuania, wasn’t much help. He mostly sat outside the gallery smoking and talking on his mobile phone, apparently not bothered by the icy wind.

It looked as though there was going to be a good turnout for the opening of the show. When Egon unlocked the door of the gallery, there was a long queue of people waiting outside, stamping their feet in the cold.

Many familiar faces smiled at him, their eyes bright with anticipation. He looked in vain for a certain person in the crowd now streaming into the gallery. There was still plenty of time. It was going to be hard to feign indifference.

He noted with satisfaction that the cultural reporter from the local radio station had just come in. After a while he caught sight of yet another journalist from one of the local papers, interviewing the artist. His PR campaign, with press releases and follow-up phone calls, had apparently worked.

A good-sized crowd soon filled the gallery. With its 3,000 square feet on two levels, the space was disproportionately large for Gotland. But
the premises had been passed down through several generations, and Egon Wallin had tried to keep it in its original state as much as possible. He liked giving works of art plenty of space so as to make the best impression. And the gallery really did do these paintings justice – the rough walls presented an intense contrast to the brilliant colours and the expressive and ultramodern style. The gallery visitors strolled among the works, sipping sparkling wine. Music could be faintly heard between the rooms – the artist had insisted on the songs of a Lithuanian rock band that sounded like a mixture of Frank Zappa and the German synth band Kraftwerk.

Egon had at least persuaded him to turn down the volume.

Mattis was now looking much more relaxed. He walked through the crowd, talking loudly, laughing and gesticulating with his large hands, making the wine splash out of his glass. His movements were abrupt and uncontrolled, and every once in a while he would burst into hysterical laughter, almost doubling over.

For one terrible moment Egon suspected that the artist must be on drugs, but he quickly brushed that thought aside. It was probably just his way of releasing nervous tension.

‘Hell of an opening, Egon. Really well done,’ he heard someone say behind him.

He would recognize that hoarse, ingratiating voice from miles away.

He turned around and found himself face to face with Sixten Dahl, one of Stockholm’s most successful gallery owners. He was wearing a black leather coat with trousers and boots to match, tinted glasses with orange frames, and he was fashionably unshaven. He looked like a bad imitation of George Michael. Sixten Dahl owned a gorgeous gallery on the corner of Karlavägen and Sturegatan in Östermalm, which was Stockholm’s most exclusive part of town.

‘You think so? How nice. And it’s great you could make it,’ Egon said with feigned enthusiasm.

More or less as a joke, he’d seen to it that his competitor in Stockholm had received an invitation. Dahl had tried to get his mitts on Mattis Kalvalis, but Egon had emerged from the battle victorious.

Both art dealers had been in Vilnius at a conference for gallery owners from the Baltic region. There the singular style of the young painter had caught their eye. During one of the dinners, Egon Wallin happened to be seated next to Mattis Kalvalis. They hit it off, and amazingly enough, Kalvalis had chosen the gallery on Gotland instead of Dahl’s gallery in the capital.

Many people in the art world were surprised. Even though Wallin had a respected reputation, it was considered extraordinary that the artist had chosen him. Dahl was equally well known, and Stockholm was a much bigger city.

The fact that Egon’s biggest competitor would turn up in Visby for the opening was in itself not so strange. Dahl was known for his persistence.
Maybe he still believes that he can convince Kalvalis to change his mind,
thought Egon. But he wasn’t going to have any luck. What Dahl didn’t know was that Kalvalis had already asked Egon to be his agent and represent him in all of Sweden.

The contract had been drawn up and was just waiting for a signature.

The opening was a success. The desire to buy a painting seemed to spread like an epidemic. Egon never ceased to be astounded by the herd mentality of people. If the right person paid the right price quickly enough, there would suddenly be many others who were willing to open their wallets. Sometimes it seemed as if luck was more important than quality when it came to evaluating art.

A Gotland collector had raved about the work and put a hold on three of the paintings almost at once. That was enough to inspire others, and there was even a bidding war for a couple of the pieces. The prices were jacked up considerably. Egon Wallin was practically rubbing his hands. Now the rest of Sweden would be sitting at the artist’s feet.

The only fly in the ointment was that the person he’d been expecting hadn’t yet turned up.

T
he art connoisseur and valuer Erik Mattson had been assigned to make an extensive evaluation of a large estate in Burgsvik in southern Gotland. The head of Bukowski’s Auction House had asked him and a colleague to make the trip. A landowner on Gotland had a large collection of Swedish artwork from the early twentieth century that he now wanted to sell. The collection included about thirty pieces, from Zorn etchings to oil paintings by Georg Pauli and Isaac Grünewald.

Mattson and his colleague had spent all of Friday in Burgsvik, which had certainly been an experience. The estate turned out to be a unique example of a genuine old Gotland limestone manor, and they were impressed by both the surroundings and the collection. They were well received by the owners, who invited them to stay for dinner. They then spent the night at the Strand Hotel in Visby.