Tom Harper: The Book of Secrets

Nick nodded wearily. ‘I guess.’

‘It’s bullshit. But the more we get now, the quicker we can make it later.’ There was a high-caffeine energy about Royce, restless and impatient. ‘I’ll get the rest of your story tomorrow at the precinct. For now, I just need to know: to your knowledge, was Mr Deangelo involved in anything of an illegitimate or criminal nature?’

Nick hesitated. What could he say about Bret that wouldn’t condemn him? Sleazy, disreputable, maybe even offensive – but not criminal.

Royce saw his uncertainty and drew his own conclusions. ‘We need to know, Nick.’ He was standing too close, staring down at Nick, his voice too loud for the cramped corridor. ‘This wasn’t an angry girlfriend or some crackhead thief who screwed up. The guy who did this had a motive. Was Bret into drugs?’

Nick squirmed, but at the rate they were dismantling the apartment they’d find out soon enough. ‘He smoked some pot. A lot of people do.’ He meant it to sound casual, no big deal, but it came out defensive.

‘Do you?’

‘No.’ Nick pulled the blanket tighter across his shoulders. ‘Not really.’ How convincing did that sound? ‘I don’t think this was about Bret. I think it was me they wanted.’

‘They?’ Royce pulled out a slim notebook and flipped through it. ‘The sergeant said you told him there was only one perpetrator in the room.’

‘There was.’ Nick felt overwhelmed with tiredness. His head ached and his eyes felt vacant. ‘I meant they…’ He flapped his hands vaguely. ‘You know… Whoever.’

‘Right.’

‘Listen.’ Nick grabbed Royce’s sleeve. The blanket slid off his shoulder and fell to the floor in a heap. ‘Last night I had a message – online – from my ex-girlfriend. She sounded desperate, like someone was after her. When I turned on the webcam all I heard was a scream and then a guy shut it off.’ He saw Royce’s look and realised how crazy he sounded.

Royce pulled his arm away and smoothed out the crease Nick had made. ‘We’ll look into it. Does she have a name, your girlfriend?’

‘Ex. Gillian Lockhart. She works in Paris now for Stevens Mathison. The auction house.’

Royce put his notebook away without writing anything. ‘We’ll get a full statement from you tomorrow. Right now, I think you should get some rest.’

Nick stepped back as two more men in boiler suits came out of his apartment carrying a large silver box wrapped in plastic sheeting. It took him a second to realise what was inside.

‘That’s my computer.’

‘Evidence,’ said one of the technicians. The facemask deadened his voice. He thrust a clipboard into Nick’s hands. ‘Sign here.’

‘Bret never touched that machine.’ I’d have killed him if he did, Nick almost added – but didn’t. ‘He was using his own computer when he… when it happened.’

‘We’ve got that too,’ said Royce. ‘But if the killer was after you – like you said – then maybe it’s got something to do with something. And it was in the same room as Bret when he died. If the camera was turned on or something…’ Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the other officers beckoning him from inside the apartment. ‘We’ll see what we find.’

He nodded to the man by the door, then turned back to Nick and fixed him with a pitiless stare.

‘We’re going to get the guy who did it. I promise you that.’

Nick had never realised how much bureaucracy attended the taking of human life. It was midnight before they let him go. He spoke to a police artist, who took a description of the gunman. He saw the lab technician, who brushed his hands for gunpowder residue and stuck a cotton swab in his mouth to get a DNA sample. ‘Just so we don’t waste our time,’ he reassured Nick. He got signed off by an earnest woman from Victim Support who gave him her card and told him to call any time. By the time it was over he was beyond exhaustion. It was all he could do to drag himself the few blocks to find a bed. There were friends he might have stayed with, but even the thought of the explanations he’d need to give made him feel ill. He checked into a hotel by Washington Square and collapsed into bed.

The moment his head touched the pillow the tears started flowing.

Cologne, 1421-2

Konrad Schmidt was a generous teacher, but there was one aspect of his trade he never spoke of. He never told me how much profit he made. I never asked; I did not have to. My father’s wealth had always been vague – dispersed in warehouses and barges the length of the Rhine – but the goldsmith’s was tangible, displayed for all to see in the iron-bound cabinet in the shop window. Month by month, my midnight expeditions turned up fewer and fewer treasures. Pieces disappeared and were not replaced; those that remained were pushed to the front so that customers would not notice the empty shelves behind. One day, I caught Konrad on his hands and knees in front of the melting hearth, his arms black with soot as he sifted through the cold ashes. When he noticed me, I was shocked by the wild look in his eyes.

‘The gold that overflows the mould when we make castings – what happens to it?’ he demanded. ‘There ought to be a treasure trove down here but I cannot find one grain. Do you know anything about this, Johann?’

I kept silent. Sweeping out the grate was Pieter’s task, but I did it in his place. I told him it was so he would have more time to finish his work in the shop, that if his father found out he would only assign him some other chore. I picked up the crumbs of spilled gold, and kept them in a bag under a floorboard in the attic – not a treasure trove, but enough that when the time came to make my master-piece I would not want for material.

Konrad’s mood matched the decline in his fortunes. He beat me and Pieter for trivial offences, and abused Gerhard viciously for imagined shortcomings. Gerhard took out his frustration by beating me and Pieter even more. We did not sit down much that winter. At night, we would lie naked on the bed and compare our bruises while I tried to hide my longing.

Strange things started to happen in the house. New vials and jars appeared on the shelves in the workshop, daubed with cryptic symbols that meant nothing to me. Konrad forbade us even to open them. Once a month, often around the time of the full moon, he would send us to bed early while sounds of earnest conversation drifted up from the workshop late into the night. We never saw who visited. One night, when I went out on the stairs to relieve myself, I looked down and saw the forge glowing hot in the yard. Konrad crouched in front of it, bare-chested. He seemed to be holding a large, egg-shaped crucible in his tongs which he thrust into the fire, muttering words I could not make out. He did not see me watching.

One night in May I discovered Konrad’s secret. He had gone to meet a friend at a tavern. I waited until I heard Pieter’s familiar little snores on the pillow next to me, then crept out of the room and down the outside stairs to the workshop. I took my purse, and also my key. Konrad now insisted on watching while Pieter cleaned out the melting hearth, but he had to wait until morning for the embers to cool. I had discovered that if I went down in the night, I could pick out the biggest nuggets of gold for myself and still leave enough to convince Konrad he was not being cheated. Sometimes it singed my hands, especially if we had been casting late in the afternoon, but the blisters and calluses were a price I happily paid.

I lay on my belly in front of the hearth, holding my hand over the ashes to let it warm to the heat. I was just steeling myself to delve in when suddenly I heard sounds at the front of the shop. Footsteps, several pairs approaching our door, and a dry cough I had heard a hundred times in the workshop.