Arturo Perez-Reverte - The Flanders Panel

In respectful silence and perfect stillness, Octavio, Lucinda and Scaramouche were watching them with painted porcelain eyes from behind the glass of their case. Cesar’s velvet jacket was dappled with harlequin diamonds of coloured light from the stained-glass window. Julia had never seen her friend so silent and so still, so like one of the statues, in bronze, terracotta and marble, scattered here and there amongst the paintings, glass figures and tapestries in his shop. In a way, both Cesar and Julia seemed to blend with the decor, which was more suited to the motley scenery of a baroque farce than to the real world in which they spent most of their lives. Cesar looked especially distinguished – a dark red silk cravat at his neck, a long ivory cigarette holder between his fingers – and he had assumed, in the multicoloured light, a particularly classical, almost Goethian pose, his legs crossed, one hand resting with studied negligence over the hand holding his cigarette, his hair white and silky in the halo of red, blue and golden light pouring through the window. Julia was wearing a black blouse with a lace collar, and her Venetian profile was reflected in a large mirror along with jumbled ranks of mahogany furniture and mother-of-pearl chests, Gobelin tapestries and canvases, twisted columns supporting chipped Gothic carvings and the blank, resigned face of a naked bronze gladiator, his weapons beside him, raising himself up on one elbow while he awaited the verdict, the thumbs up or thumbs down, of some invisible, omnipotent emperor.

“I’m frightened,” Julia said, and Cesar responded with a gesture that was half-solicitous, half-impotent, a small sign of magnanimous and futile solidarity, of a love conscious of its limitations, the kind of elegant expressive gesture an eighteenth-century courtier might make to a lady whom he worships at the precise moment that he sees, at the end of the street along which both are being carried in a funeral cart, the shadow of the guillotine.

“Are you sure you’re not exaggerating, my dear? Or being a bit premature? No one has yet proved that Alvaro didn’t just slip in the bath.”

“What about the documents?”

“That, I must admit, I can’t explain.”

Julia put her head to one side, and her hair brushed her shoulder. Her mind was full of disquieting images.

“This morning when I woke up I prayed that it was all just a dreadful mistake.”

“Perhaps it is,” said Cesar. “As far as I know, it’s only in films that policemen and pathologists are honourable and infallible. In fact, I believe they’re not that even in films any more.”

He gave a sour, reluctant smile. Julia was looking at him without really listening to what he was saying.

“Alvaro, murdered… Can you believe it?”

“Don’t torment yourself, Princess. That’s just some far-fetched hypothesis the police have come up with. Besides, you shouldn’t think about him so much. It’s over; he’s gone. He left a long time ago.”

“Not like this he didn’t.”

“It doesn’t make any difference how it happened. He’s gone and that’s that.”

“It’s just so horrible.”

“I know. But you gain nothing by going over it in your mind.”

“No? Alvaro dies, the police interrogate me, I think someone interested in my work on The Game of Chess may be following me… and you wonder why I keep going over it again and again. What else can I do?”

“It’s very simple, my dear. If it’s really getting to you, you can give the painting back to Menchu. If you believe Alvaro’s death wasn’t an accident, then go away somewhere. We could spend two or three weeks in Paris; I’ve got loads to do there. The important thing is to go away until it’s all over.”

“But what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the worst of it… not having the slightest idea what’s happening, I mean. Like you, I wouldn’t be so worried about what happened to Alvaro if it wasn’t for this business with the documents.” He looked at her, smiling awkwardly. “And I have to admit that I’m worried, because I’m not the hero type… It may be that one of us unwittingly opened some sort of Pandora’s box.”

“The painting,” said Julia, shuddering. “The hidden inscription.”

“I’m afraid so. That, it would seem, is where it all began.”

She turned towards her reflection in the mirror and looked at herself long and hard, as if she didn’t recognise the dark-haired young woman looking silently back at her from large, dark eyes, the pale skin over her cheekbones bearing the faint, shadowy traces of sleepless nights.

“Perhaps they want to kill me too, Cesar.”

His fingers gripped the ivory cigarette holder.

“Not while I’m alive,” he said, revealing an aggressive determination behind the exquisite, ambivalent exterior. His voice had a sharp, almost feminine edge to it. “I might be frightened out of my wits, or even worse than that, but nobody’s going to hurt you if I have anything to do with it.”

Julia couldn’t help but smile, touched by his concern.

“But what can we do?” she asked, after a silence.

Cesar bowed his head, seriously considering the problem.

“It seems a bit premature to do anything. We still don’t know if Alvaro’s death was an accident or not.”

“And the documents?”

“I’m sure that someone, somewhere, has the answer to that. The question, I suppose, is whether the person who sent them to you is the same one who was responsible for Alvaro’s death, or if the two things are entirely unrelated.”

“What if our worst suspicions are confirmed?”

It was a while before Cesar replied.

“In that case, I see only two options, the classic ones, Princess: you either run away or you stay and face the music. If I was in that situation,»suppose I’d vote in favour of running away; not that that means much.

If I put my mind to it, I can be a terrible coward, as you know.“

Julia clasped her hands behind her head.

“Would you really run away, without waiting to find out what it’s all about?”

“Of course I would. Remember, it was curiosity that killed the cat.”

“What about what you taught me when I was a child? Never leave a room without looking in all the drawers.”

“Ah, yes. But then people weren’t falling over in bathtubs.”

“Hypocrite. Deep down you’re dying to know what this is all about.”

Cesar looked reproachful.

“To say that I’m dying to do so, my dear, is in the worst possible taste, given the circumstances. Dying is exactly what I don’t want to do, now that I’m nearly an old man and have all these adorable young men to comfort me in my old age. And I don’t want you to die either.”

“What if I decide to go ahead and find out what’s really behind this business with the picture?”

Cesar pursed his lips and let his gaze drift as if he’d never even considered the possibility.

“Why would you do that? Give me one good reason.”

“For Alvaro’s sake.”

“That’s not enough reason for me. I know you well enough to know that Alvaro wasn’t important any more. Besides, according to what you’ve told me, he wasn’t entirely honest with you about the matter.”

“All right then, I’d do it for my own sake.” Julia crossed her arms defiantly. “After all, it is my painting.”

“Listen, I thought you were afraid. That’s what you said before.”

“I still am. I’m truly terrified.”

“I understand,” said Cesar, resting his chin on his clasped hands, on one of which gleamed the topaz ring. “In practice,” he added, after a brief pause for reflection, “it’s like a treasure hunt. Isn’t that what you’re trying to say? Just like the old days, when you were a stubborn little girl.”