Daniel felt a tug of disappointment when they arrived at the house of Italo Peeters. He had expected some grandiose old palace in the center of town like Pier Paolo Manetti’s home, or some luxurious mansion like that of Montgomery Dyson, or some fine art studio like Pierre Lafontaine’s place.
Instead, he found himself entering a humdrum apartment on the edge of town, spacious but modern and utterly unremarkable.
At least until he got inside.
Once past the local police officer guarding the door, he came to a living room that was anything but unremarkable. The walls were covered in paintings and framed sketches on old parchment and vellum. The art all looked like it dated to the 17th century, and included three small religious paintings, several complex alchemical engravings full of symbolism Daniel didn’t understand, and a series of sketches showing soldiers killing children.
In one, a soldier held a naked infant up high while slashing down on another small child with his sword.
Daniel’s stomach clenched.
He shot a warning look to Remi and Torsson that told them he wanted to question the suspect himself, then turned angrily to the nondescript man who sat in an armchair in one corner. Compared with the art, the man was so unremarkable that it was easy to forget he was there.
“Are you Italo Peeters? Do you speak English?”
“Yes, and I do speak English,” he said with not too much of an accent. “I was told agents from the FBI and Interpol were coming to speak to me. What’s this all about?”
The confusion in his voice sounded genuine, at odds with the gruesome art on his walls. Daniel studied him. He wore a tan sweater over a pink dress shirt, brown slacks, and dress shoes. His receding gray hair and neatly trimmed beard framed wire-rimmed spectacles. He sure looked like an accountant.
And the room, minus the art, looked like an accountant’s apartment—subdued carpeting, conservative furniture, a small bookshelf with nothing but popular novels, and a big TV and high-end stereo system.
“I heard you have in your possession the painting of Famine by Frerik Peeters.”
“That’s right. He was my ancestor. That painting and these other works,” he gestured at the walls, “are all by him.”
Daniel made a significant look around the room. “Interesting subject matter.”
Italo Peeters’s face transformed. The confusion and concern regarding his situation vanished, replaced with a bright-eyed enthusiasm. The change was as sudden as it was shocking.
“Wonderful, aren’t they?” he said, leaning forward. “My ancestor was a genius. He showed the world as it really was.”
Daniel resisted the urge to say something nasty and looked around the room again. Peeters was in custody, and before Daniel made an arrest, assuming he found grounds for an arrest, he wanted to get into the man’s mind.
The alchemical engravings all showed the interiors of laboratories with various beakers, kettles, and instruments Daniel couldn’t identify being used by hunched old men in search of … something. Various symbols such as crescent moons, three-faced naked women, and crossed swords hung over the scenes. In the corners, little demons pointed and laughed at the alchemist, or hid behind the alembics and retorts, secretly assisting his labor. Punishment for the sin of alchemy or assisting a willing man down the path of evil?
The religious paintings were fewer and showed various saints suffering the pains of martyrdom. Saint Sebastian writhed against a tree as archers pincushioned him with arrows, the blood streaming from a dozen wounds painting in loving detail. A naked Saint Lawrence lay on a grill, the flames beneath heating the iron red hot, his flesh searing off his bones. An equally naked St. Catherine was shown being broken on the wheel. The woman, eyes raised to heaven, was tied spread-eagled onto a wagon wheel on the ground as a trio of Roman legionaries bludgeoned her with clubs in order to break her bones. Her limbs were all twisted at unnatural angles, the jagged ends of the broken bones sticking through bloody wounds.
Daniel recalled that St. Catherine hadn’t actually been broken on the wheel. The Romans had intended to kill her that way, but the wheel miraculously shattered, proving she was protected by the grace of God. Frerik Peeters hadn’t been able to resist showing her getting tortured in this gruesome manner. If he had displayed this image publicly back then, he would have probably gotten in trouble with Church authorities for calling into doubt the saint’s holiness.
Given Italo Peeters’s history of spouse abuse, Daniel bet this was his favorite image.
The most numerous works of “art” were the sketches of soldiers slaughtering children, often in front of their pleading or dying parents. The detail and variety of the atrocities was too much for Daniel to look at, even in a sketch.
He turned back to Peeters. “So which are your favorites?”
The suspect, seeming to forget the fact that he was in the presence of several police officers, said eagerly, “Oh, definitely the studies for the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. What works of art! Are you familiar with the event? It was during the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants. A Catholic mob tried to exterminate every Huguenot in Paris. Some say the mob exterminated up to 30,000 Protestants. Men, women, children. Even babies. While I am not religious myself, at least not in the traditional sense, you have to admire their zeal. They would do anything, absolutely anything, in order to support their cause.”
Daniel heard a sharp intake of breath from Remi. Briefly he wondered what the art historian thought of these “works of art.”
He sure knew what he thought of them.
Before he could share with Peeters, the suspect raised a finger. “But the best, the absolute best, is in my dining room. May I show you?”
“Be my guest,” Daniel said, his sarcasm seemingly lost on this nutcase.
Thank God I’m carrying a gun. I have to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere near the kitchen. If he so much as looks at a knife, I’m plugging him.
Peeters said something to the Italian police officer standing by him and rose from his armchair. The officer walked ahead, while Daniel walked just behind the suspect, ready to subdue him if he tried to make a move. Torsson and Remi took up the rear.
They entered a small dining room with an old oak table, a sideboard with some china, and a single painting on the wall.
Remi took in another breath. Daniel did too.
For that painting was Famine by Frerik Peeters.
It was the first of the paintings they had seen outside a grainy old photograph, and they hadn’t seen any image at all of this one.
Even though Daniel already knew the dimensions of the four panels, he was still surprised at how small it was—only about four feet tall and less than three feet wide. The four panels hung together would only adorn one wall of a mid-sized room.
What Frerik Peeters had sacrificed in size he made up for in subject matter. An emaciated man rode a black horse, holding up a pair of brass scales in his claw-like hand. The horse was trampling a crowd of starving people beneath its hooves, their skeletally thin bodies lying so close together as to make a bony carpet. Above, a brilliant spread of stars shone in the night sky.
“This is his masterpiece,” Peeters enthused. “Kept in my family for four hundred years. It was commissioned by Hendrick van Berckenrode, the mayor of Haarlem in its golden age. It was originally one of a set, each piece showing one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It has long been my dream to reunite the set. They were done by different artists and have been scattered over the years. I suspect this is the best. Just look at the detail! The artistry! Look at the faces of the dying, how, despite their exhaustion, they are contorted by terror at seeing death approach. And look at the starshine on the brass scales. Beautiful. Scales such as these were used by the authorities to measure out rations of grain in times of famine. But as you can see, there is no grain on them. No food for these people. Ha ha!”
Peeters covered his mouth and cleared his throat.
“I am sorry, but I got carried away, as I always do when I speak of my brilliant ancestor. Why are you here? Has some work of Frerik’s been stolen and you need me as a civilian consultant?”
This time Daniel did look at Remi, who had an unreasonable expression masking her emotions. She was probably thinking the same thing he was—is this guy really that clueless or is he playing a game with them?
Well, if he’s playing a game, he’s going to lose.
Daniel turned back to Italo Peeters. “You mentioned you’d like to reunite the set. Have you ever tried to do that?”
“Yes,” he said with surprising candor. “I’ve done a great deal of research on my ancestor, and of course that included his collaborations with other artists of the period. I had a lot of trouble tracking them down. Luckily through a rare book dealer I found an old exhibition catalog from Amsterdam where Pestilence and War were for sale, but there was no record of who they sold to, and I could never trace them.”
Daniel studied him for a moment. That sounded like the same catalog Remi had come upon in an archive in New York. So he was telling a bit of the truth.
But was he telling all of it?
Remembering his criminal history, Daniel decided to probe him. He put on a sarcastic smile and said,
“Kind of strange having a painting of Famine in the dining room, don’t you think? What does your wife think of that?”
Peeters’s face darkened and a dangerous glint came to his eyes. His hands balled into fists and a low growl rose from his throat. The transformation was so sudden and so complete that Daniel almost went for his gun. The Italian police officer stepped up behind the suspect, arms slightly apart.
“That BITCH didn’t appreciate art! I couldn’t have any of my ancestor’s paintings up when she still lived here. I had to keep Famine tucked away in a closet, and the smaller works in a folder that I could only look at when she wasn’t around. Augh! No appreciation for beauty. Marrying her was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“So you slapped her around,” Daniel said, anger rising in him.
“I tried to slap some sense into her, as you Americans say. Bah! I should have known it wouldn’t do any good. She was Italian, and Italians have been weak for centuries. Look at their art! All bright colors and pudgy ladies and little angels. They didn’t paint anything real. Now in my country they had true art. It showed how things really were. Not a bunch of fluffy clouds and some pansy Jesus floating above them, but martyrs suffering the most exquisite tortures. I can’t stand this country.”
“I thought you were Italian.”
“I’ve lived here all my life,” he said like he was saying something dirty. “My father is Dutch, but my mother was Italian. My mother named me Italo to emphasize my Italian side. But make no mistake. I’m one hundred percent Dutch.”
“So where is your wife now?”
“The BITCH is out of my life, thank God and good riddance.”
“So now you can sit in your apartment looking at famine and exquisite tortures,” Daniel said, mimicking his words.
Peeters gave him a smug smile.
Interesting choice of words he used. “Exquisite”. That’s not a negative word, and his English is good enough he knows what he’s saying. He loves these paintings.
Damn, he’s as sick as his ancestor.
But am I facing the murderer?
Daniel still wasn’t sure. Ninety percent, but not a hundred.
“You mentioned you’ve searched for the rest of the Four Horsemen. Have you been looking recently?”
Peeters shook his head. “No. I haven’t been out of the country in almost a year. The last time was to Greece with the BITCH. Our last wasted vacation together. Sadly, I’ve given up trying to find the paintings. Every time I think I’ve found out something, I find myself at a dead end.”
Tell me about it.
But it’s interesting that you emphasized you haven’t been out of the country. I didn’t ask that. And when a suspect answers a question I haven’t asked, it’s because it’s the question he’s afraid of answering truthfully.
And Torsson said he could take a train to Paris using cash without any record. Thanks to the European Union, there isn’t a hard border between Italy and France anymore.
The Interpol agent touched his elbow and nodded toward the door.
Daniel followed him. On his way out the room, he said to Remi, who was standing on the other side of the table from Peeters, “If you have any questions, feel free to ask him.”
Peeters sneered. “I don’t speak with that kind of creature.”
Remi looked like she wanted to pull out her pepper spray and give him a dose. Daniel kind of hoped she would.
“On that note,” Daniel grumbled, “I need to speak with my colleague. Stay here and admire your painting.”
“He won’t admire it long,” Torsson whispered to him. “What I discovered changes everything.”