The Rembrandt Secret (20 page)

He had my eyes …

All my family had told me was that my son had been given to a couple, the father an amateur painter. Strange that … No one suspected anything when Carel was made a pupil of Rembrandt’s. He had talent from his father, they said. Yes, he did – but not his adoptive father … For days after that first sighting of Carel I waited for another, but it was only when Rembrandt called me to the studio to sit that I saw my son again. I was placed on the dais, in the old Roman chair Rembrandt always used for his sitters. He took my chin in his hands and jerked my head left and right, until he was pleased with the light. Then he told his pupils to draw me … Charcoal sticks scraped on the thick vellum paper, breaths blown to clear the
sooty dust, fingers smearing the outlines to make shadows. Sometimes a huffing of disgust as the paper was turned over and the pupil began again.

I stole a look at my son and caught his eye. I waited. But he didn’t know me and I had no right to be disappointed. I was the master’s housekeeper, sometimes model. No more to him … I doubt he even saw me. I was just something to be copied … It wasn’t a hot day, but Carel was soon flustered, red about the ears. Rembrandt came over and stared at his work and then, irritated, made changes. But I had seen his surprise, that flutter of envy … You didn’t know it then, van Rijn, but you felt it. Here was a rival. Very young, crude, untutored, a lad with dusty hair. But a rival none the less …

When the day faded you told me to get down off the dais and light the candles, and I walked past the drawing my son had done of me and saw nothing of myself … That night I didn’t sleep. I lay next to Rembrandt and heard the students moving about in the upper part of the house. Fancied I already knew Carel’s footsteps above the others. I lay, dry- eyed with excitement that my son was near me. And near his father. Even if he knew neither of us. I lay, dry-eyed, and listened to Rembrandt’s breathing.

Then I whispered Carel’s name in his ear, so his soul would hear it and know who he was.

Nicolai Kapinski arrived at the gallery and rang the entrance bell three times before Marshall came down from the flat above. Nodding a welcome as he opened the door, Marshall watched the diminutive Pole enter. He was obviously disturbed, his tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone, and moving his briefcase from under one arm to the other. Then back again. Taking off his glasses, Nicolai breathed in slowly, as though trying to compose himself. But the action didn’t have any effect, and when he spoke his voice was rapid, intense.

‘Did you stay here last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alone?’

‘Why not?’ Marshall asked. ‘It was safe with the alarm on.’

‘It wasn’t safe for your father,’ Nicolai said hurriedly, walking past him and making for the stairs. Surprised, Marshall followed the accountant to the top office. He
watched as Nicolai took off his coat and sat down, then asked, ‘Did you come in to work?’

‘Of course.’

‘But the gallery’s closed.’

‘You’re here.’

‘It’s my home,’ Marshall replied, noticing the nervous jittering of Nicolai’s right leg. ‘There’s nothing for you to do.’

‘I have a job!’

‘Not at the moment,’ Marshall said calmly. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, what I’m going to do with the gallery, but for now, Mr Kapinski, the place is closed.’

Kapinski blinked slowly behind the thick glasses smeared with his fingerprints and his hands gripped the briefcase, leaving sweat marks on the leather.

Troubled, Marshall studied him. He knew of the Polish man’s manic episodes, but had never been witness to one. He chose his next words carefully.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing for you to do—’

‘I can do the books.’1

‘Mr Kapinski—’

‘
I can do the books!
’ he snapped, his voice rising. Just as quickly, it fell again. ‘I’m not ill, not this time. Don’t worry, I’m fine … I just need to be here. I can help you, Mr Zeigler—’

‘Marshall. Call me Marshall. Mr Zeigler was my father.’

He nodded. ‘Nicolai.’

‘Nicolai.’

‘I can help you, Marshall,’ he said again, his glasses catching the light as he looked over the rooftops. ‘I know what happens here. I know about your father, and his business. I know things no one else knows.’ His accent intensified, his hands still clutched his briefcase tightly to him as he glanced back to Marshall. ‘I know more than you think.’

‘About what?’

‘Your father was a very worried man.’

‘I know that. What was he worried about?’

‘Money. Or the lack of it,’ Nicolai said, standing up and putting the briefcase on his seat. Then, oddly, he sat down on it. A comical gesture veering on the tragic.

‘Was that all? Just money?’

‘He was going to lose the gallery.’

‘I know, he told me,’ Marshall admitted, watching Nicolai. ‘Look, I wasn’t going to do this for a while, but seeing as you’re here we could take an inventory today, work out the value of our stock, and then sell it as best we can to pay back my father’s creditors.’

‘Who were they?’

Taken aback, Marshall stared at him. ‘I don’t know. Don’t you?’

‘No. Your father only confided in me at the end. I have some information, but not all of it by any stretch.’ Nicolai jiggled his leg again, restless, agitated. ‘I left a message for Teddy Jack to come here for a talk.’

‘You did
what
?’

‘I want to see him, talk to him. But I don’t think he’s coming.’ Nicolai glanced at his watch. ‘It’s past nine now, he should have arrived.’

‘And what if I
hadn’t
been here?’ Marshall asked, his tone sharp. ‘How would you have got into the gallery then?’

‘With my key.’

‘You have a key?’

‘Yes, so does Teddy Jack. And the porters.’

‘So any of you could have got into the gallery at any time?’

‘No. Only I know the code for the alarm.’

Suspicious, Marshall looked at the little man.

‘If you knew how to turn off the alarm, and you have a key, why didn’t you use it this morning? You didn’t know I’d be here to answer the door, so why didn’t you let yourself in?’

Nicolai blinked. ‘Because my key was stolen a few days before your father was killed.’

‘Did you tell him?’

‘Of course! He wasn’t worried, he said he would get another key cut.’

‘He didn’t think to change the locks?’

‘He had no reason to.’

‘He was murdered,’ Marshall countered. ‘He had reason.’

‘He couldn’t have known that. Your father didn’t expect to die.’

‘How d’you know that?’

‘Because I knew him,’ Nicolai replied. ‘The last time I
spoke to your father he said he had an idea, a way to get out of trouble. He said he was going on a trip—’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘It wasn’t my place to ask,’ Nicolai replied, ill at ease. ‘Why are you talking to me like this! I’m not your enemy. I cared for your father, I was with him from Monday to Friday, every week of God knows how many years. We became friends …’ He paused, pushing his glasses on top of his balding head. ‘Your father was closer to me than anyone – outside my own family. Did he ever tell you about my brother who went missing?’

Marshall nodded. ‘Yes, he told me.’

‘Did he tell you that he tried to find him, all these years later, when everyone else thought I was just crazy. But not your father. He set Teddy Jack on it.’

Stunned, Marshall stared at the agitated man
.
‘
Teddy Jack?
’

‘He did a lot for your father, and your father was a complicated man. He got involved in different circumstances, with different kinds of people. Sometimes he relied on Teddy Jack,’ Nicolai said, jiggling his leg frenetically. ‘He watched people, or tried to find out where they were. Like Luther. Teddy went over to Poland and investigated the disappearance of my brother. Found out some things no one had ever known before – that Luther had been abducted.’

‘By whom?’

Nicolai shrugged. ‘There was a paedophile in our village, but it wasn’t him. Everyone thought it was, but Teddy Jack found evidence that Luther had been taken to a children’s home in Warsaw. It happened back then, sometimes. Children from remote villages were kidnapped and passed on for adoption. I wondered if my father had organised it … they paid good money, you see. They paid well for a male child.’

‘What else did Teddy Jack find out?’

‘That Luther had gone to live with adopted parents called Levinska, but they left Poland and the trail ended.’ Nicolai stopped jiggling his leg, his eyes now huge with distress. ‘There was nothing more after that, nothing more to find.’ Nicolai could see Marshall’s amazement. ‘You’re surprised by all this, aren’t you? But you didn’t know your father like I did. All his kindnesses. He wanted to help. If he cared about you he wanted to help. So when I got my depressions he sent me round to his doctor on Harley Street, paid the bill. Paid all the bills for my treatment, even when I said he should take it out of my wages. He had money, he always said, more than enough …’ Nicolai shifted his position on his seat. ‘I would have done anything for your father … You should have got to know him more.’

‘Yes,’ Marshall admitted, sitting down beside the attic window. ‘Every day I hear things about him, things I never knew. Like his involvement with Teddy Jack – and Charlotte Gorday.’

Instinct made him throw out the name, the little man’s head shooting up. ‘You know her?’

‘Yes, I met her.’

‘When?’

‘A few days ago. Why?’

Restless, Nicolai took the briefcase from underneath him and hugged it to his chest. ‘Your father didn’t want you to know about her. He thought you wouldn’t approve of their relationship. That’s what he told me, anyway. She was very good for him, at first. Very kind, always considerate. She used to travel between New York and London, take your father away when he needed a break.’

‘I’m glad he had her in his life—’

To Marshall’s amazement, Nicolai laughed. It was a high pitched sound, bitter and unexpected.

‘What did she say to you when you met?’

‘She was very upset about my father’s death.’

‘What else?’

‘She said that he had told her he was worried about business, but she was insistent that there was something else worrying him – but she didn’t know what it was. She asked me a few times if I knew.’ Marshall paused, watching the little man. He was leading Nicolai Kapinski on, trying to draw him out. ‘I told her I didn’t know anything other than that my father had money troubles.’

‘What did she say then?’

‘Nothing. She accepted it. That was the first and last time I saw her.’ Marshall paused. ‘D’you know she’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

Wrong-footed, Marshall stared at the accountant. ‘She committed suicide.’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘Lost her mind because of grief over my father’s death,’ Marshall went on. ‘I spoke to her husband – he was shattered, but he accepted it.’

‘And what about you?’

‘
Me?
’ Marshall replied. ‘Why would I doubt her suicide?’

‘Because your father was murdered. Perhaps Charlotte Gorday was also murdered?’

Needled, Marshall stared at the little man. ‘Why would she be killed?’

‘For the same reason your father was.’

A draft of cold air drifted around them. It seemed to come up from the floor below, as though someone had walked into the gallery. Off balance, Marshall felt suddenly threatened. Not by the accountant, but by the palpable malice that was in the room. The abrupt shift into suspicion. Both men knew more than they were admitting, but each was waiting for the other to be the first to confide. Glancing towards the staircase, Marshall thought he heard footsteps, but when he looked back to Nicolai, he was composed.

‘My father was killed because a robbery went wrong,’ Marshall said, finally answering the accountant’s question.

But the explanation didn’t satisfy the little man. Instead he muttered under his breath and began to jiggle his left foot impatiently again. His short fingers rapped on the top of the oversized desk, a sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. Still nursing his briefcase, his eyes became watery, his confusion intense.

‘I kept many secrets for your father,’ he said at last. ‘It was my way of rewarding him for all he’d done for me. But now, now I wonder if you should have been told more, if
I
should tell you more. Would it be breaking my word…? This is very difficult for me, very hard. You see, your father kept all of us apart, without appearing to—’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Charlotte Gorday, Teddy Jack, and me,’ Nicolai said. ‘I know your father confided in Teddy sometimes. I know he must have confided in his lover, but he never made it clear. Left a little bit of suspicion between us – his way of making sure we would always be on our guard with each other.’

Frowning, Marshall stared at the accountant. ‘I never realised he was so manipulative.’

‘He wasn’t – at first. It got worse in the last few years,’ Nicolai explained. ‘Then, in the last year, your father trusted none of us completely. He thought I didn’t know why.’

‘But you did?’

‘Tell me the truth, Marshall –
do
you know why your father was killed?’

The question jangled in the stuffy air between them. When Marshall didn’t answer, Nicolai sat down again, close to tears. Reaching for his handkerchief, he wiped his eyes and then put his glasses back on, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing as though he was about to choke. And then he spoke again: ‘He would have been all right if he hadn’t found those letters.’

‘What letters?’

The little man exploded, all control gone. ‘Don’t
lie
to me, Marshall! There’s no time for this. You know what I’m talking about – the Rembrandt letters, the letters your father believed would make his reputation. The letters he guarded so assiduously. The letters which changed everything. As soon as they came into his life his luck altered.’