Alex Connor - Isle of the Dead

‘ Had it? ’ Triumph echoed. ‘You don’t have it any more?’

Pausing, Gaspare pretended to be confused. ‘It was … it has a terrible reputation … I was … oh, maybe I acted without thinking.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I destroyed it.’

There was silence on the phone connection from London to New York. A thumping, disabling silence as Triumph took a moment to rally.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said at last. ‘Gaspare, old friend, you don’t need to lie to me. We can keep all this between ourselves. I certainly don’t want anyone else to know about the Titian—’

‘That painting was evil.’

The voice was slow. Soothing. ‘It’s a picture, nothing more. Remember Shakespeare? It is the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil … It’s just a portrait—’

‘Of a killer.’

Calmly, Triumph glanced down from the mezzanine into the foyer below, where Jobo Kido was sipping his tea.

‘Gaspare, I know you. And I know that you couldn’t destroy a masterpiece.’

‘You don’t know me at all, Triumph. We’ve bumped into each other over the years, competed for lots, but you were climbing to the top when I was winding down. You know nothing of me. We had no shared friends, nor interests. If you hadn’t wanted to know about this bloody portrait I’d never have heard from you. So don’t insult me, don’t treat me like an old fool.’ His tone was contemptuous. ‘When I tell you I got rid of that painting, I’m telling you the truth. I destroyed it. ’

‘But why would you?’ the American asked, his usual composure wavering. ‘ How could you? ’

‘Have you heard about Seraphina Morgan?’

‘Who?’

‘She used to be Seraphina di Fattori. She was a daughter of a customer of mine, a friend. It was Seraphina who found the Titian and brought it to me.’

‘Where did she find it?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘How would I know?’ Triumph countered. ‘I was only told that you had the work, nothing else.’

‘She found it washed up by the Thames,’ Gaspare continued. ‘She brought the Titian to me and then returned to Venice. Where she was murdered two days ago.’

There was a long, uncomfortable silence between the men, Triumph so shocked that it took him a while to recover.

‘ Murdered? ’

‘Yes. In exactly the same way Angelico Vespucci killed his victims centuries ago.’ Gaspare paused, exasperated. ‘And you’re asking me why I destroyed that painting? It would have been madness to keep it—’

‘But what’s the connection between a sixteenth-century portrait and Seraphina di Fattori’s death?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Gaspare replied curtly. ‘Look, it’s pointless talking any more. It’s over. I destroyed the painting—’

‘You can’t have!’

‘But I did.’

‘ How did you destroy it?’

‘I burnt it. In the furnace in the basement.’ The old dealer had rehearsed his speech repeatedly, until it was wholly convincing. ‘I watched it until there was nothing left but ash. There is no portrait of Angelico Vespucci . Titian painted one, that’s true, but it no longer exists. And thank God for it.’

10

‘He’s lying! He must be!’ Farina snapped, walking into Triumph’s gallery and marching into his office. Slamming the door behind her, she carried on. ‘I tell you, the old bastard’s lying!’

‘I don’t think so,’ Triumph replied, gazing out of the window into the New York street twenty-seven floors below. ‘I think he was telling the truth—’

‘For a clever man, you can be fucking stupid!’ she hissed. ‘What better way to put all the dealers off the scent than by saying the Titian no longer exists?’

‘It wasn’t just the painting,’ Triumph replied, his tone slow, measured. ‘Apparently there was a murder after it was found—’

‘So what?

He looked back at her. ‘It was the daughter of an old friend of Gaspare Reni’s—’

‘Again, so what?’

‘She was killed in exactly the same way as Angelico Vespucci killed his victims,’ Triumph replied. ‘What if there’s a connection?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Farina demanded, surprised.

Triumph Jones, successful and sleek as a water vole, sounded unusually subdued, pausing between words. ‘It’s such a coincidence.’

‘That a girl was killed in Venice?’

‘She was skinned.’

‘Skinned, fried, diced, roasted on a spit – so what? The portrait’s all I care about, not some girl.’ Farina leaned towards Triumph, dismissing his unease. ‘Gaspare Reni is lying. He still has that portrait – I can feel it, I know it. We have to get it off him.’

The American wasn’t listening to her, just repeating a name to himself. ‘ Di Fattori … di Fattori … ’

‘What?’

Rising to his feet, Triumph walked over to a row of bookshelves. Taking a moment to scan the titles, he finally pulled down a battered, unbound volume. Carefully turning the pages, he began to read:

Angelico Vespucci, known as The Skin Hunter, was believed to have murdered his wife, and then killed and flayed three other female victims.

He paused, turning over several pages before he began to read aloud again.

One of the victims of The Skin Hunter was the Contessa di Fattori.

‘I knew that name was familiar to me,’ he said, closing the book. ‘What if the murdered girl was related to the Contessa?’

Farina was exasperated. ‘What has this to do with anything?’

He slammed the book down on his desk and leaned towards her.

‘Doesn’t it seem – even to you, my dear – something of a coincidence that the painting turns up, and then the descendant of one of the sitter’s victims gets killed?’ Triumph regained his seat behind the desk, pointing to the volume. ‘You see that? It’s over four hundred years old. Vespucci was notorious in his time, but virtually everything written about him disappeared, just as he did. It was pure chance that I came across that book in Berlin.’

‘So?’

‘It’s one of the few references to Vespucci that still exists.’

She shrugged, irritated. ‘I’m not following.’

‘Doesn’t it seem a little strange that everyone apparently forgot about such a notorious killer?’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

‘That everyone was so afraid of the Vespucci legend that they tried to wipe him from history?’

She shrugged again. ‘I’m not interested in coincidences, spooky goings-on, or any of that fucking rubbish. So Vespucci was a murderer – so what? Maybe his wife deserved to get skinned. God knows she wouldn’t be the only one to get fleeced in this business.’ Her expression was callous as she rose to her feet. ‘I want the portrait for my husband and I know Gaspare Reni still has it. You give up on it if you want to, Triumph, but I’m not convinced. That painting’s out there – and I’m going to get it.’

11

Venice

As good as his word, Nino left London, making for Venice, the place of Seraphina’s murder and the home of Angelico Vespucci. Gaspare had prepared the way for him, but when Nino visited the di Fattori home, he found Seraphina’s parents remote. It wasn’t just the shock of their daughter’s murder, but the details of her death that had felled them.

Subdued, Nino Bergstrom left their home and moved out into the murky November afternoon. It seemed as though he carried their grief with him, the echoing stillness of their house a reminder of a loved one having gone. All around them there were pictures of Seraphina. From babyhood to the full power of her adult beauty, each photographic image underlining the waste and cruelty of a stolen life.