Pawn, page 18
“Oh no.” And just like that Barns’ theory of a theft to hide a fake painting and claim some sort of undisclosed insurance, fell apart. And it was all he’d had to work with, or at least all he’d had to link Venner to this unfolding train wreck of a crime spree. Maybe some of his disappointment must have shown.
“The painting’s genuine. Unknown to the world until now. Unexpected in so many ways. But it’s a Rembrandt. I’ve examined it. A dozen others have as well. The proper scientific tests have been done. And even archaic church records have been checked. It is a Rembrandt, I have no doubt of that.” He didn’t look happy though as he took a sip of his coffee.
“There’s more though.” And Agent Dika looked surprisingly pleased as she said it, like the proverbial cat who’d got the cream. She didn’t say anything more about it though, just nodded to the archdeacon to let him continue. Good interrogation technique that. Let the witnesses speak with as little prompting as possible. If by some insane chance this finally ended up in court, no one could say they’d been coerced or had words put their mouths.
“The painting’s genuine, but Mr. Venner doesn’t own it.” That got Barns’ attention very quickly. The man had a stolen painting? Now that he could believe, and more importantly, it opened up a whole new line of enquiry.
“Archdeacon?”
“He doesn’t own it. The church does. You see he found an abandoned church. A ruin really. One we’d actually forgotten about as well, though it was still the property of the Holy Roman Church. It had been fallen into wrack and ruin centuries before when the town around it died. Mr. Venner arranged to buy it, after buying the land around it and so he claimed, planning to set up an orchard for genetic engineered fruit.”
“With the church in ruins, the town gone and the land around it already his, there seemed little point in keeping it. Especially when he offered such a good price, agreed to keep the building maintained in the condition it was at the time of the sale and said he would allow visitors.”
“It was a good deal.” And it was, save that it was far better for Mr. Venner, who doubtless had no intention of building an orchard there in the first place. He just wanted a cheap Rembrandt.
“But his story of the painting hanging from the wall, that was a lie. There were no paintings hanging from the walls. They were taken away when the church was abandoned centuries before. The records were very clear on that. And even if someone had put it back up later, it would have been spotted when one of our clerics did a presale inspection. There was nothing on the walls, those few walls that still stood. What there was however, was an underground vault. A place where important treasures could be kept under lock and key in times of strife. And a vault that for reasons unknown to us, that was never emptied.”
“So he found the vault and emptied it after making up a far fetched tale about the painting hanging on the wall.” Finally something made sense. A lot of sense. Mr. Venner was a thief, busy covering up his crime as he tried to profit from it.
“Yes inspector, but he didn’t get away with it. Not completely. When we heard of his remarkable find we started checking church records. It seemed somehow unlikely that we could have missed a masterwork hanging on a wall. And we didn’t. The painting was stored in the vault along with many other artworks of the day. Put there because the bishop when he first saw it and its title, couldn’t allow it to be publicly hung. Aphrodite is after all an ancient Greek Goddess, and for a painter recognised by the church to have painted it, would have been an embarrassment. But it was also a masterpiece, and he couldn’t take it upon himself to destroy it. So he locked it away.” Of course he had. Barns could understand that, even if he found himself wishing that the priest had destroyed it and saved the world from the trouble it had caused. It was the only thing that made sense. And Venner had found it and stolen it.
“So the painting’s worth tens of millions, and the church found out it had been robbed blind?” It wasn’t even a question. The next actions were completely predictable. The church had gone through its records, then checked the authenticity of the painting, and then taken action to get their painting back.
“Yes.” The archdeacon nodded a little glumly, and took another sip of his coffee. “And it’s worth a lot more than that.”
“Naturally you launched some sort of claim on the painting?” He nodded again.
“And so Venner couldn’t sell it?” He nodded for the third time and Barns finally knew he had his man. It was so obvious.
“And now we know where the painting is.” You’d think he’d just told them that the Earth was flat from the way that everyone stared at him.
“Venner has a painting worth tens of millions of pounds or more, and he can’t sell it. Not legally. He’d get none of the money and likely go to jail for theft. He can’t even insure it. But he can sell it privately to his black market buddies through a fence as long as no one knows. And if there’s one thing that greedy little bastard can’t do, it’s walk away from a sale.” It was all so logical, as was everything that had followed. Or most of it.
“So he fakes a robbery after carefully authenticating it, finding a local gang, the Hennassy’s and promising them a whole lot of money. They carry out the robbery while he’s away in Thailand and his servants are conveniently off duty. And it goes perfectly.”
“Gas the guards, chain them up. Start the digging. Set the charges. A days work and they’re rich beyond all their dreams. It goes like clockwork.”
“Until the Hennassy’s driving their stolen truck probably with the stolen painting in the back, run into their long lost son and brother, victim of a road crash in what has to be the most unlucky chance encounter ever imagined.”
“They recognise him of course, and that was the genesis of this whole sorry crime wave. They recognise him and have to assume he recognises them. Naturally they have to kill him, so they open fire on him and he dives off the side of the road into a ditch while they careen into his smashed car. Then they have to leave in a big hurry. Quite possibly they thought he was dead, and they knew that between the gunfire and the sound of the car crashes, people would be arriving quickly. And a white van with obvious crash damage on country roads would be noticed. They knew they had to be long gone, quickly. So they drove off after that, leaving Rufus Hennassy alive.”
“That was their second mistake. That they didn’t stay to make sure he was dead. They really needed to. But the first was what started all this. If they hadn’t opened fire, if they’d just driven by, it would all have gone smoothly. But the moment Daryl pulled that trigger, everything went wrong. There were police reports filed, investigations made, and worst of all, reporters. And then someone put Rufus Hennassy together with his family, and a major art theft, and the rest became inevitable.” It was like a series of dominos falling, creating a perfect chain of events.
“Naturally Venner told the press about the painting. He had to. It was probably his plan from even before he had it stolen. He was drumming up interest in it, increasing its value, after publicly confirming its authenticity, and starting a feeding frenzy among his potential black market buyers.”
“Likely the buyers he had lined up before the theft, still wanted the painting as well. Even more than before when he not only authenticated it, but arranged for it to be conveniently lost. A lost Rembrandt. Now that would be priceless. So they sent their people to get it, and thanks to one disastrous road accident they had a name, Hennassy. A crime family and a wayward son, names splashed all over the evening news.”
“Rufus was their way in so they thought. But at the same time the Hennessy’s badly needed their errant son dead. They didn’t know how much he knew. He might be able to furnish whoever caught him with some clues as to where they were. Where they stored their stolen goods.”
“One of the agents, probably the Russians, soon found his house, broke in, found nothing, and then quite probably staked it out and followed him to the hotel after he left. The other agents and maybe the Hennassy’s as well probably followed them. Most of these people probably know each other, and they all realise they are competitors. So they follow each other around, each making sure the other doesn’t find anything before them. And so the fire fight at The Fiddlers was almost predictable.”
“Meanwhile Venner’s still trying to sell his painting, and the chances are that most if not all of the original buyers, and the villainous scum who are his new buyers know that he faked the robbery. But they also know they have competition. Much the same competition they had before the fake robbery. And they know it’s worth even more than they’d imagined. So if they can steal the painting for themselves, they don’t have to bid against anyone, and at the same time Venner can’t say anything. It’s the perfect crime.”
“So after the shoot out at the hotel they’re at war. Everyone’s hunting the thieves. They believe the Hennassy’s are their best shot at getting the painting, and they’re still trying to find Rufus Hennassy. The Hennassy’s for their part are also hunting their son, not knowing what he could give away, like their hideouts, and trying to avoid the others. Venner’s leaking news reports left and right to drum up interest in the painting. And Rufus Hennassy is on the lamb.”
“Somehow, they found him, his family that is, and they do what they desperately needed to do, murdering him on the beach, and they think they’ve got away clean, finally. But they haven’t. Somehow, possibly through Daryl, or maybe by spotting his family checking up on him in the institution, the others managed to track the family down. Chances are a few of the people at the institution have been bribed by both the Hennassy’s and the buyers, and records will like be missing.”
“After that, it becomes a giant game of hide and seek, as the buyers’ agents follow the Hennassy’s around for a week or more hoping to find their warehouse, and at the same time trying keep hidden from the others, even as they watch them. But there are no true secrets between them. Everyone knows everyone’s moves. Then someone decides it’s time to stop being so timid. So the Russians make their move when they have the entire family all in one place, hoping to do a grab and run. And of course when the Russians start the rest have to wade in. They can’t let their competitors have the Hennassys all to themselves.”
“That’s what happened at the market. The Russians tried their snatch and grab and the rest had to stop them, kill most of the Hennassys and capture one for themselves. So the bullets and bombs flew, and everybody else just got caught in the crossfire.”
There was silence for a while at the table, as they digested his story. But there weren’t any objections. And why would there be? When his story fitted the facts so perfectly. Except for one.
“What about the beach?” Hopkins was right to ask the question even if Barns didn’t like it. But half of it he could answer.
“The Hennassys still had to kill Rufus. He was their Achilles heel. And Daryl hated him. Always has. So somehow they tracked him down and shot him.” But he already knew what Hopkins’ next question would be. The half he couldn’t answer.
“And the light? The lack of bodies? The woman?”
“Don’t know. That still doesn’t make any sense. But I don’t think it has anything to do with the painting or the rest. If anything it’s the woman. Maybe she’s a stage magician or something. Maybe he was wearing a vest after all.” And maybe there was no logical explanation for what had happened. But the one thing he knew, it wasn’t a crime any longer. Rufus Hennassy was gone, almost certainly dead and his brother was beyond any hope of ever being tried. That case at least had been closed. Except in this motel room.
“This would be the blinding light that was on the news?” Of course the archdeacon knew about it. Everyone did. There hadn’t been a night when it hadn’t been the leading story. And any number of the witnesses were talking about angels and witchcraft and miracles. Still Barns nodded politely to him.
“A woman of surpassing beauty?” Barns nodded again. That was the other, improbable feature of the case, the witnesses. All of them, without exception, spoke of the woman’s great beauty, and the sense of love that radiated from her. How could love radiate from a woman? But still it was rare enough that two eyewitnesses would agree on anything. The fact that forty of them could agree on the woman’s great beauty was somewhat unusual. The fact that absolutely none of them could describe her at all, was more so.
So maybe it had been dark. And maybe it had only been a brief encounter while bullets were flying all around and people were panicking. But still the fact that none of them could describe even the first thing about her was simply mad. They didn’t know what race she was, whether she was tall or short, thin or fat, whether her hair was long or short, dark or light. They knew absolutely nothing about her, except that she was beautiful.
“You realise that you’ve just described Aphrodite. Goddess of love and beauty.”
“Huh?” Had a priest really just said that? Barns looked at the archdeacon in shock and found himself wondering. Just before he grabbed the plunge pot and poured himself a cup of the black gold. He suddenly had the feeling that he was going to need it.
“And?” The agent asked the question for him, looking fascinated rather than shocked as she should have been. In fact she had the same look on her face that a cat did when a mouse walked directly in front of it. She knew something, and Barns didn’t like that one little bit.
“The notes about the painting. About Aphrodite in the Roses. The bishop at the time who found the painting asked Rembrandt how he could have painted it. How he could have painted something so sacrilegious. And how he had hid it from them. They did after all, pay his work a lot of attention.”
“And?” Grief, her eyes were like diamonds, boring into the priest. What was it that she knew? What was she hunting for?
“He said it wasn’t a sacrilegious painting at all. He said she was a real woman. That she’d come to sit for him. And that her name was Aphrodite. He painted her as a goddess because that’s what she was.” Everyone was silent after that. In Barns’ case because he simply didn’t know what to say. Surely that couldn’t have been what the agent was after? But still, it had to be dealt with, and he took another swig of the hot coffee before summoning up the nerve to ask the question he didn’t want answered.
“And you think she’s here, nearly four hundred years later, walking on a beach at night with Rufus Hennassy?” It was madness of course, just as everything else had been up until then. And now that he finally had a crime solved, he didn’t want to go back to madness.
“In any case, she’s not a criminal, and Hopkins we have a crime to solve and some bad guys to stick behind bars, starting with Venner.” He swigged at his coffee, burning himself a little, but not really caring. He had work to do and he wasn’t going to let a mad priest keep him from it.
“Now, if there’s nothing else father?” He got up and prepared to take his leave of them.
“Just one thing.” And with a sinking feeling in his guts Barns turned back to the archdeacon. He knew it was going to be bad.
“How is Daryl Hennassy?”
It was every bit as bad as he’d feared, and the inspector didn’t want to answer the priest. But he had to. In the interest of truth he had to, no matter how bad it sounded.
“Broken.” Which came nowhere near to describing his true condition. Nothing really did. “He doesn’t eat or sleep. He speaks in riddles when he speaks at all. The slightest noise, the faintest shadow and he starts screaming in terror. And when there’s nothing he sits alone in his room and cries. The doctors say he won’t recover.” But that wasn’t the worst. When he’d seen him, sat down with him the only time he had, he’d seen something in his eyes that had scared him.
Daryl Hennassy was a bad man. A bully and a thug. He cared for no one and nothing save himself. And he had done terrible things for no other reason save that he wanted to. There was nothing of goodness or love within him. But there had been a man.
Now though, what lay behind those eyes, was never a man. He didn’t know what it was. A frightened child maybe. An old man on his deathbed, seeing his doom approaching. An alcoholic going through withdrawal and suffering the psychological torment of insects crawling all over him. Whatever lay behind those eyes, it suffered. It suffered terribly.
Maybe it was a form of justice. But if it was, it was something that Barns would never have wished upon anyone. The doctors said he would stay like that for the rest of his life. It would be a mercy for him if his life did not last long. And as to what could do that to a man, he didn’t know and he didn’t want to know.
Ancient Greek goddesses be damned.
“Hopkins, we have work to do.”
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Chapter Nineteen.
Venner hated hospitals. They stank of antiseptic and fake flowers, and of course death. He didn’t like death. Not too close to him at least. And he had the money and the contacts to avoid it. Plutos would keep him alive, as long as he was loyal and useful.
But still it had to be borne, and he walked straight past the nurses station where a couple of bored looking women in white smocks sat staring at the computer screens in front of them, and on down the corridor. They didn’t even look up as he passed, but then why would they? This was a hospital and they were too busy with patients to worry about a visitor carrying a bunch of flowers.
