40
Dieter Taub had seen the reports of the paintings in the Rhine. And he had overheard the French inspector’s brief directive to Della Kyreosus. It was his business to overhear such calls. He had spent a solitary Sunday locked in a private room at the Kunstmuseum reviewing security footage of Martin Bettelman, such was his concern. In the interest of optimal security service, he of course had access to master discs that went back much farther than six months. No, as far as he could ascertain, Martin Bettelman had made no mistake till recently — it was there in the footage Della and the FedPol agent had uncovered back in October. A big mistake. A huge lapse in judgment. Taub hoped Martin was somewhere in hell, regretting it. But then, what do cretin French know about the deeper levels of service in the purest interests of the clientele? Monday morning he returned to the private room, his agenda freed up for the entire day.
Dieter Taub was in a state of controlled fury as he searched the discs again, determined to get a clear view of this pale boy who was the cause of all his grief. True grief, of a weight a shallow man the likes of Martin Bettelman could never know. Dieter regretted ever knowing Martin. Trusting him had been absurdly unwise… A knock on the door was almost too much to bear.
‘What?’
Della Kypreosus could never really speak the language, but she had learned the business, the mentality that drove it. She’d felt Herr Taub’s rage when he’d limped into the surveillance suite that morning. She’d heard the anger in the steady thump of his cane, too plainly, as he’d crossed the room and locked himself in the private screening room. It had left her confused and nervous. She had to follow orders — her livelihood depended on it. Herr Taub’s order was the same order as the French inspector’s secret favour. Was he watching her? Della was shaking as she faced her boss.
The ivory-skinned man had returned. She had found him installed in front of the painting of the kneeling boy in the Swiss Early Modern area. A kneeling boy, alone by a river. She had hit a button and immediately knew it was a work by someone called Hodler, titled Adoration V. The information meant nothing to Della — she was no art expert. But as she’d watched, entranced and bothered, Della realized the fragility she discerned in the pale man was echoed perfectly in the image on the wall. An instinct took hold. Della Kypreosus experienced a need to protect the fragile man as much as the painting she was paid to protect.
And the job she felt was sorely threatened.
She had to protect herself, her job.
But if she just sat there…
And if Herr Taub was observing her…
It had taken a good twenty minutes to get up the courage. She watched the day’s first tour enter the room, swirl slowly around the pale figure on the bench, then leave. She watched the subject glance after them — saw his face clearly for an instant — boyish, but something else there — before he turned his gaze back to the image of the kneeling boy.
No… She had to. She had to report it. Della had keyed the image in the Swiss Early Modern area and dutifully crossed the room and knocked on the door. She liked the French inspector. She felt like a traitor. It was difficult to speak.
‘What is it, Della? I’m very busy.’
Looking at him, at his hooded eyes, his fleshy mouth, it occurred to her that he always seemed like an animal with one foot on its prey, checking the air before killing and feeding. ‘I find him.’
‘When?’ He thought she meant more footage from the recent past.
‘Now. He is here now.’
Herr Taub moved past her. He hovered over her monitor. When she moved to take her place at the controls, he held out his cane like a railway crossing gate — Keep away! Muttering in a guttural German she still couldn’t catch after ten years in this country, Taub enlarged the image, went in as close as the camera would take him.
Not close enough. The man was lost in the painting of the boy and his oversized hood kept the better part of his face in shadow. But the fixed jut of his delicate chin, the lips pulsing ever so minutely, these were signs of a person deep inside a moment of adoration.
Della watched her boss from inches away. She smelled the over-sweet tang of skin lotion on his freshly shaved and polished scalp, sensed his frustration, his need…and the perpetual sadness he always carried as he leaned closer and closer to the screen, as if that would enlarge the image. His piggy eyes narrowed in a way she had seen before and instinctively withdrew from.
Something mean there. Predatory.
She tried to sound coolly professional. ‘I send a team?’
He seemed jolted from his thoughts. He smiled. The thing Della saw was grotesque as he rose and backed away, instructing, ‘Carry on, Della. I will look into this.’ He left.
Della Kypreosus sat stunned for a full four minutes before realizing the image in front of her was frozen. Fighting panic, she stabbed a button and resumed her watch in real time:
Herr Taub was standing in the Swiss Early Modern area observing an empty space on the wall. Della punched buttons. She found the thief on the stairs to the terrace, floppy hood hanging over his white face, calmly heading for the door. She did not see the painting, of course — it had been secreted away inside his baggy garment. But she knew he had it.
She did not sound the alarm. Herr Taub was handling it. She would wait for Herr Taub to instruct. On monitor one, Taub was still in front of the empty space on the Early Modern wall, scratching his nose, as if the answer were there, in the very absence he was studying. Della watched him bring his phone from his pocket and lift it, about to enter a code.
But Herr Taub decided against the alarm. He put his phone back in his pocket and left the room. The thief was on monitor two, blending into a tour group of camera-laden seniors filing slowly in past the woman on the door. He quickly became over-exposed and indistinct as he walked out into the daylight, then lost behind the Burghers of Calais. Della switched to monitor three, picked up the thief as he entered the street and headed off in the direction of the bridge.
On monitor two she watched Herr Taub following, nodding good-day to the same woman at the door, then leaving the premises, limping at a carefully measured pace. In no hurry at all.
Della Kypreosus was left watching the museum courtyard, the steady trickle of visitors coming and going on a December morning. She was frozen, sifting dully — too slowly! — through a spectrum of feelings, none of them good. At the heart of it was this: She knew Dieter Taub did not like women. She had no proof, but after the years of being around him, she knew.
There was that, and the ugly thing in his eyes. And the fragile boy-like thief.
It brought her to an awful impasse.
Dieter Taub was going to hurt that boyish man. She had no proof, she just knew.
The impasse lasted. She battled through it, but not quickly. Della was feeling decidedly wretched as she took the business card from where it leaned against her monitor board and picked up her phone. Losing her job was not important. She was ashamed of her selfish fear.
***
Senior Inspector Nouvelle had taken care of her Monday morning duties — two newly constituted teams briefed on two newly opened files: Inspector Patrice Lebeau was to take the lead in the matter of a murder in an HLM where the youth gangs were becoming dangerously territorial; Inspector Ricky Roig would head down to a forestlands park in the Sundagau and try to sort out the gravely serious beating of another gypsy. With a tap on the door, Inspector Milhau arrived. Bernadette’s head was still wrapped in a bandage. Her eye was still swollen and ugly, but she had some painkillers in her pocket and the doctor had cleared her. She was eager.
‘Good.’ Aliette tossed the last file on the pile. ‘Let’s get going.’
But Monique buzzed. ‘A Della…something. Sounds Greek. In Basel?’
‘Merci… Yes, Della?’
It took VigiTec agent Della Kypreosus five irritating minutes in scattered English, almost non-existent French and several lapses into hysterical Greek to make her worries clear.
The two cops went down to the garage much more quickly than Aliette’s still mending leg would have liked. Bernadette drove like hell for the checkpoint, pushing the battered old heap for all its dubious worth. Aliette called Franck Woerli from the car and woke him from his sorry spell.
She did not for a moment consider calling Inspector Morenz of Basel City.