Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) (40 page)

She sits in the bar of the opulent Hotel Danieli, sipping a glass of red wine. It is just eight o’clock. She has the black briefcase leaning against her armchair, the Metsu painting within it, and she is watching the entrance like a hawk.
Where is her man
? She is beside herself with anticipation. She is not a demonstrative person, and yet she believes she might very well throw herself into his arms when she sees him. Despite the fact that she prides herself on her independence, she has to admit that she has missed him so much her heart is sore. The few fleeting times she has been with him have just fuelled her passion, making her want him all the more.

It is now five minutes past eight, and there is still no sign of her lover. She watches an old lady walk into the bar and survey the room. She is tall and elegant, although obviously very frail. To her surprise, the old lady’s eyes come to rest upon her, and now she is walking over to her table.

‘Signorina Rosselli?’

Valentina frowns.

‘Yes.’

The old lady offers her a gloved hand.

‘My name is Gertrude Kinder. I believe you have something for me.’ And much to Valentina’s bemusement, the old lady lowers herself into the armchair next to her.

‘I am terribly sorry,’ Valentina tells her, ‘but I don’t know who you are, or what you are talking about.’

Gertrude Kinder gives her a piercing look behind her glasses.

‘The painting,’ she says, as if Valentina is an imbecile. ‘Signor Steen said you would have it with you.’

‘The painting . . .’ Valentina repeats, a little stunned.

‘Yes,’ the old lady says with the irritation of the wealthy and powerful. ‘My painting.
The Love Letter
by Gabriel Metsu. Don’t you have it with you? Signor Steen told me I could collect it from you tonight.’

Valentina stares at the old lady. She can almost feel the painting burning through the black briefcase next to her legs. What the hell is Theo playing at? Why didn’t he tell her about this woman? Should she give her the painting? Who
is
she?

‘Theo . . . I mean Signor Steen gave me no instructions to give you a painting. He just told me to meet him here. He didn’t mention you.’

‘I asked him not to mention me. I don’t want any trails . . .’

Valentina looks at Gertrude Kinder in puzzlement. Is this frail octogenarian a crooked art dealer? It seems highly unlikely.

‘And he is supposed to be here as well,’ says the old lady, looking around and wringing her hands. ‘I don’t want to stay long. I just want to collect the painting and go.’

A waiter comes over to their table, but Gertrude Kinder waves him away.

‘Is it in there?’ she says, pointing to Valentina’s briefcase. ‘Can you please give it to me so I can go?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Valentina says. ‘I can’t do that, not until I check with Theo.’

She takes out her phone, which she managed to charge in the hotel, and dials his number, all the while looking at Gertrude, who is staring hungrily at the briefcase. Of course Theo doesn’t answer.

‘Why don’t you have a drink while we wait for him?’ suggests Valentina.

Gertrude looks at her as if she is crazy.

‘No time,’ she croaks, adding, ‘you don’t know, do you?’

‘Don’t know what?’

‘Who I am? What the painting is?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’ Valentina holds Gertrude’s gaze.

‘It’s
my
painting,’ the old lady says passionately. ‘Well, it was my husband’s. It was taken from us. I thought we would never get it back, but your Signor Steen has helped me.’

‘But if it was taken from you, why didn’t you go to the police?’

Gertrude Kinder’s face twists into an expression of utter disdain.

‘I am talking about the Second World War, my dear. I am talking about the Nazi plundering of art belonging to Jewish families.’

At last Valentina is beginning to understand. A wave of relief floods her. She knew it, Theo is a good man. He is helping this old Jewish lady retrieve something stolen from her family during the Second World War. Yet it still doesn’t make sense.

‘I thought that all the Nazi plunder had been returned. Didn’t they find out who all the dealers were? Couldn’t you have gone through official procedures?’

Why go to the bother of stealing something when it can be reclaimed legally, Theo
?

Gertrude Kinder is getting agitated.

‘I don’t have time to explain all of that now, dear. Please, I have to go before he comes.’

‘Before who comes? Theo?’

‘No, no, I wish he
was
here. I would feel a little safer. No, the other one. The one who wants the money . . .’

Valentina is becoming more confused by the minute. The
old lady puts her hand on top of hers. It is as cold as stone, yet her eyes are bright and gleaming.

‘Please, dear, let me have it.’

There is something in the old lady’s expression that makes Valentina trust her. She can see the history in her face. The suffering and the loss. She unzips the case and hands over the picture, still wrapped in its scarf.

‘Oh, what’s this?’ says Gertrude Kinder, starting to unwind the lace. ‘Do you want it back?’

Valentina thinks about her great-grandmother and what she would want her to do with the scarf.

‘No, you keep it. To protect the painting,’ she offers.

Gertrude Kinder hugs the picture to her chest as if she is being reunited with a long-lost child.

‘Thank you, my dear. You have no idea how much this means to me. And please thank Signor Steen with all my heart. Tell him all is forgiven.’

The old lady gets shakily to her feet. Valentina wonders whether she should offer to accompany her. She really does seem frightened and frail. Yet she doesn’t want to miss Theo if he turns up.

‘Would you like me to take you home?’ she asks.

‘Oh no, it’s fine. My assistant is waiting for me outside in a water taxi. He will help me.’

It is only after Gertrude Kinder has disappeared that it dawns on Valentina what she has just done.
I have given a priceless
painting away to a total stranger on the strength of instinct
. And what did the old lady mean when she told her to tell Theo that all was forgiven?

It is now nearly nine o’clock and her disappointment is beginning to turn to anger. She has had enough. If Theo doesn’t turn up in the next ten minutes, that’s it, she promises herself. She is sick of his games. In the Dark Room she thought she loved him, on the train she wanted to hold on to him for ever, and yet now she is beginning to hate him. He is controlling, manipulative and disrespectful of her feelings . . . She could go on. She orders another glass of red wine and kicks off her shoes. She doesn’t care that she is in the grandest hotel in Venice.

Just as she has almost given up hope, the last person she wants to see comes sauntering into the bar. Garelli. He has found her. His eyes roam the room and his face lights up in triumph when they settle on her.

‘Well good evening, Signorina Rosselli, fancy meeting you here,’ he says, approaching her.

‘Fancy,’ she replies sarcastically.

‘And would you be waiting for a certain Signor Theo Steen, by any chance?’

‘That is absolutely none of your business.’

‘Is it now?’

Garelli sits down in the wing-backed leather chair not long vacated by Gertrude Kinder. He waves a waiter over.

‘I wouldn’t bother to order a drink on my account,’
Valentina says, pushing her feet back into her shoes. ‘I was just leaving.’

‘Oh that is such a shame,’ Garelli says evenly. ‘Seeing as I came to thank you for helping me uncover the mystery behind all those stolen pictures.’ He looks at her with dancing eyes, knowing full well that she can’t resist.

‘Well I guess I can spare you a few minutes,’ she says gruffly, letting him order her another glass of wine. Really she needs to eat soon, otherwise all this drink will go to her head.

‘You see, Signorina Rosselli, I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said when we met before.’ Garelli leans back in his seat and knots his fingers.

‘What did I say?’ Valentina frowns in confusion.

Garelli rests his chin on the bridge of his fingers and sits forward, staring at her intently.

‘You suggested I investigate the victims of these false crimes rather than your Signor Steen. And you were quite right. The answer to why each of these people would change their mind and claim their painting wasn’t stolen when it most clearly
was
came down to the provenance of the art.’

Nazi plunder, Valentina thinks. Just like Gertrude Kinder’s lost painting.

‘I know what you are thinking, Signorina Rosselli,’ Garelli says. ‘However, when I did investigate the provenance of each of these paintings, I could not see any connection to known Nazi art dealers at any stage. This I have to admit had me puzzled.’

‘And if it was Nazi loot, the art would have been legitimately returned to the rightful owner in any case,’ Valentina tells him haughtily.

‘Yes, quite right,’ Garelli says, sitting back again. ‘However, in times of war, amid all the loss of life and suffering, there is much confusion. People can get mixed up over right and wrong. The fate of paintings, no matter how valuable, somehow fades in comparison to the fate of a whole country and its people.’

He says nothing for a moment, watching her reaction. Valentina frowns in puzzlement. What kind of riddle is this man presenting her with?

‘As you say, paintings that have been recorded as plundered by the Nazis are hunted down and returned through legal channels, but there were many paintings and other artworks that were lost, that slipped through the net so to speak,’ Garelli says, sweeping his arms dramatically. ‘Some were taken by Allied soldiers when they uncovered the Nazi plunder hidden in mine shafts and caves in the mountains; some were found by others and passed through dozen of hands. It would take a skilled and persistent art detective to trace these paintings and retrieve them. It would take a special kind of person.’

Like Theo, Valentina thinks. The first word she would use to describe him is
tenacious
. Look how he is with her. Even after months of her swearing that she could never fall in love with him, he still hasn’t given up.

‘Often it is impossible to prove who is the rightful owner
of a work,’ Garelli continues. ‘It would appear that
a person
might take desperate measures and steal them.’

Their eyes lock, and Valentina knows that Garelli is referring to Theo. What will happen now when her boyfriend walks into the Danieli? Will Garelli arrest him? Will Theo run away and the policeman give chase, or worse still pull out a gun? She tries to stay calm, reminding herself of the facts. After all, officially there has been no crime committed.

‘But I don’t understand,’ she challenges Garelli. ‘Why do the victims change their minds and say that a theft hasn’t been committed after all?’

‘Shame, Miss Garelli. I can only think that these people didn’t know the true provenance of the pictures hanging on their walls. Maybe they wouldn’t have given them up easily – I mean, most of the pictures are worth millions – but once they were gone, they might have been persuaded by the thief to keep it quiet.’

‘Persuaded in what way?’

‘Told that he had evidence of the true owners; that they would be subjected to a lengthy and humiliating legal battle. I know for a fact that two of these so-called victims were Allied war heroes from the Second World War. I mean, imagine the shame for those men, to own Nazi plunder.’

It is an intriguing theory, and yet something doesn’t sound right to Valentina.

After a slug of his white wine, Garelli ploughs on with his explanation.

‘I do believe that what happened was that
someone
stole the pictures, and once the victim was informed that their painting was originally owned by a Holocaust survivor, well of course they retracted their statement of theft.’

‘But what would be the motive for the thief?’ Valentina asks. Was Theo that much of a philanthropist? That he would risk life and limb to return pictures to little old ladies like Gertrude Kinder?

‘That’s what I don’t understand either,’ Garelli says, scratching his head. ‘And that’s why I am here, with you, waiting for the same person.’

Neither of them speaks for a moment, as they eye each other up.

‘He’s not coming, you know,’ Valentina says eventually.

‘I know.’ Garelli nods towards her briefcase. ‘However, would you mind if I took a look inside your bag?’

Valentina glances at her briefcase, empty now apart from the erotic photograph album.

‘Sure, why not?’ She smiles to herself, looking forward to witnessing Garelli’s reaction to the pictures.

And now she is walking home alone through the narrow streets of Venice in her great-grandmother’s silk evening gown, her emotions in tumult. She is angry, disappointed and hurt, yet at the same time she is proud of Theo for what he has done, confused as well, and a little in awe. Her Theo. Her intellectual and not very practical boyfriend (he can barely
hang a rack of shelves) is an undercover art detective, roaming the world for plundered art,
stealing it
and returning it to its rightful owners. She still doesn’t understand why he doesn’t work in conjunction with the police, or why Gertrude Kinder told her that all was forgiven. And who was that old lady so frightened of? Hardly Garelli.

Valentina enjoyed Garelli’s initial embarrassment at the erotic photograph album, but in fact it was the policeman who gave her a shock with something he said as he was leaving. It was mentioned so casually, as if it was something someone might say to her any day. Yet no one ever had, her whole life.

‘Goodbye, Valentina. It’s been a pleasure. You know, your father would be proud of you.’

He was on his way out of the bar of the Danieli as he said it. She stood up suddenly, swaying slightly from all the red wine she had drunk.

‘Do you know my father?’ she called after him.

‘Yes,’ said Garelli, smiling smugly in amusement. ‘Of course I do.’ And before she had a chance to question him further, he had walked away.