The Kill Artist (8 page)

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Authors: Daniel Silva

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Adventure, #Politics

BOOK: The Kill Artist
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Kemel closed his sales reports and looked up.
Damn! Where is he?
Perhaps something had gone wrong.
Just then the compartment door opened and a man stepped inside: long blond hair, sunglasses, Yankees baseball hat, rock music blaring from his headphones. Kemel thought:
Christ! Who is this idiot? Now Tariq will never dare to show.
He said, “I’m sorry, but you’re in the wrong compartment. These seats are all taken.”
The man lifted one earpiece of his headphones and said, “I can’t hear you.” He spoke English like an American.
“These seats are taken,” Kemel repeated impatiently. “Leave, or I’ll call a steward.”
But the man just sat down and removed his sunglasses. “Peace be with you, my brother,” Tariq said softly in Arabic.
Kemel smiled in spite of himself. “Tariq, you bastard.”
“I was worried when Achmed failed to check in after I sent him to Greece,” Kemel said. “Then I heard a body had been found in the villa on Samos, and I knew you two must have spoken.”
Tariq closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly to one side. “He was sloppy. You should choose your messengers more carefully.”
“But did you really have to kill him?”
“You’ll find another—better, I hope.”
Kemel looked at him carefully for a moment. “How are you feeling, Tariq? You don’t—”
“Fine,” Tariq said, cutting him off. “How are things proceeding in Amsterdam?”
“Quite nicely, actually. Leila has arrived. She’s found you a woman and a place to stay.”
Tariq said, “Tell me about her.”
“She works in a bar in the red-light district. Lives alone on a houseboat on the Amstel. It’s perfect.”
“When do I go?”
“About a week.”
“I need money.”
Kemel reached into his briefcase and handed Tariq the envelope of cash. Tariq slipped it into his coat pocket. Then his pale gray eyes settled on Kemel. As always Kemel had the uncomfortable feeling that Tariq was deciding how best to kill him if he needed to.
“Surely you didn’t drag me all the way here to criticize me for killing Achmed and to ask about my health. What else do you have?”
“Some interesting news.”
“I’m listening.”
“The men from King Saul Boulevard are convinced you were behind the attack in Paris.”
“How brilliant of them.”
“Ari Shamron wants you dead, and the prime minister has given him the green light.”
“Ari Shamron has wanted me dead for years. Why is this so important now?”
“Because he’s going to give the job to an old friend of yours.”
“Who?”
Kemel smiled and leaned forward.
7
 
ST. JAMES’S, LONDON
 
The sometimes-solvent firm of Isherwood Fine Arts resided in a crumbling Victorian warehouse in a quiet backwater of St. James’s called Mason’s Yard. It was wedged between the offices of a minor shipping company and a pub that always seemed to be filled with pretty office girls who rode motor scooters. The formal sign in the first-floor window stated that the gallery specialized in the works of the old masters, that the owner, Julian Isherwood, was a member in good standing of the Society of London Art Dealers, and that his collection could be seen by appointment only. Galleries in Venice and New York were also promised, though they had closed a long time ago—Isherwood simply hadn’t the heart, or the spare cash, to update the sign to reflect the shrinking fortunes of his empire.
Shamron arrived at twelve-thirty. His bomber jacket and khaki trousers had given way to a double-breasted suit, a silk shirt and tie of matching dark blue, and a gray cashmere overcoat. The steel-rimmed goggles had been replaced by fashionable tortoiseshell spectacles. On his wrist was a gold Rolex watch, on the last finger of his right hand a signet ring. The absence of a wedding band bespoke sexual availability. He moved with an easy, cosmopolitan saunter instead of his usual death charge.
Shamron pressed the cracked buzzer next to the ground-floor entrance. A moment later the sultry voice of Heather, Isherwood’s latest in a series of young and unhelpful personal assistants, came over the intercom.
“My name is Rudolf Heller,” Shamron said in German-accented English. “I’m here to see Mr. Isherwood.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, but Julian and I are very old friends.”
“One moment, please.”
A moment turned to two, then three. Finally the automatic door lock snapped back. Shamron went inside and mounted a short flight of groaning stairs. There was a large brown stain in the carpet on the landing. Heather was seated in the anteroom behind an empty desk and a silent telephone. Isherwood’s girls all followed a familiar pattern: pretty art school graduates seduced into his service with promises of apprenticeship and adventure. Most quit after a month or two when they became hopelessly bored or when Isherwood couldn’t seem to scrape together the cash to pay them.
Heather was flipping through a copy of
Loot.
She smiled and pointed into Isherwood’s office with the end of a chewed pink pencil. Isherwood flashed past the open door, all pinstripe and silk, speaking rapid Italian into a cordless telephone.
“Go inside if you dare,” said Heather in a lazy Mayfair drawl that secretly set Shamron’s teeth on edge. “He’ll be off in a minute. Can I get you anything to drink?”
Shamron shook his head and went inside. He sat down and surveyed the room. Bookshelves filled with monographs on artists, cloth-bound ledgers, old catalogs, a pedestal covered in black velvet for showing paintings to prospective buyers. Isherwood was pacing before a window overlooking Mason’s Yard. He paused once to glare at Shamron, then again to coax a groaning fax machine into action. Isherwood was in trouble—Shamron could sense it. But then he was always in trouble.
Julian Isherwood was very selective about the paintings he bought and even more selective about whom he sold them to. He slipped into a state of melancholia each time he watched one of his paintings walk out the door. As a result he was an art dealer who did not sell a great deal of art—fifteen pictures in a normal year, twenty in a good one. He had made a fortune in the eighties, when anyone with a few feet of gallery space and half a brain had made money, but now that fortune was gone.
He tossed the telephone onto his chaotic desk. “Whatever it is you want, the answer is no.”
“How are you, Julian?”
“Go to hell! Why are you here?”
“Get rid of the girl for a few minutes.”
“The answer will still be no, whether the girl’s here or not.”
“I need Gabriel,” Shamron said quietly.
“Well, I need him more, and therefore you can’t have him.”
“Just tell me where he is. I need to talk to him.”
“Sod off!” Isherwood snapped. “Who the hell do you think you are, barging in here like this and giving me orders? Now, if you’re interested in purchasing a painting, perhaps I can be of some assistance. If it’s not art that brings you here, then Helen will show you the door.”
“Her name is Heather.”
“Oh, Christ.” Isherwood sat down heavily into the chair behind his desk. “Helen was last month’s girl. I can’t keep them straight anymore.”
“Things aren’t going well, Julian?”
“Things
haven’t
been going well, but all that’s about to change, which is why I need you to crawl back under your rock and leave me, and Gabriel, in peace.”
“How about lunch?” Shamron suggested. “You can tell me your problems, and perhaps we can come to some mutually beneficial solution.”
“You never struck me as someone who was terribly interested in compromise.”
“Get your coat.”
 
Shamron had taken the precaution of booking a quiet corner table at Green’s restaurant in Duke Street. Isherwood ordered the cold boiled Canadian lobster and the most expensive bottle of Sancerre on the wine list. Shamron’s jaw clenched briefly. He was notoriously tightfisted when it came to Office funds, but he needed Isherwood’s help. If that required a pricey lunch at Green’s, Shamron would tickle his expense account.
In the lexicon of the Office, men like Julian Isherwood were known as the
sayanim
: the helpers. They were the bankers who tipped Shamron whenever certain Arabs made large transactions or who could be called upon in the dead of night when a
katsa
was in trouble and needed money. They were the concierges who opened hotel rooms when Shamron wanted a look inside. They were the car rental clerks who provided Shamron’s field agents with clean transport. They were the sympathetic officers in unsympathetic security services. They were the journalists who allowed themselves to be used as conduits for Shamron’s lies. No other intelligence service in the world could claim such a legion of committed acolytes. To Ari Shamron they were the secret fruit of the Diaspora.
Julian Isherwood was a special member of the
sayanim.
Shamron had recruited him to service just one very important
katsa,
which was why Shamron always displayed uncharacteristic patience in the face of Isherwood’s volatile mood swings.
“Let me tell you why you can’t have Gabriel right now,” Isherwood began. “Last August a very dirty, very damaged painting appeared in a sale room in Hull—sixteenth-century Italian altarpiece, oil on wood panel,
Adoration of the Shepherds,
artist unknown. That’s the most important part of the story, artist
unknown.
Do I have your full attention,
Herr Heller?
”
Shamron nodded and Isherwood sailed on.
“I had a hunch about the picture, so I piled a load of books into my car and ran up to Yorkshire to have a look at it. Based on a brief visual inspection of the work, I was satisfied my hunch was correct. So when this same very dirty, very damaged painting, artist
unknown,
came up for sale at the venerable Christie’s auction house, I was able to pick it up for a song.”
Isherwood licked his lips and leaned conspiratorially across the table. “I took the painting to Gabriel, and he ran several tests on it for me. X ray, infrared photography, the usual lot. His more careful inspection confirmed my hunch. The very dirty, very damaged work from the sale room in Hull is actually a missing altarpiece from the Church of San Salvatore in Venice, painted by none other than Francesco Vecellio, brother of the great Titian. That’s why I need Gabriel, and that’s why I’m not going to tell you where he is.”
The sommelier appeared. Shamron picked at a loose thread in the tablecloth while Isherwood engaged in the elaborate ritual of inspection, sniffing, sipping, and pondering. After a dramatic moment of uncertainty, he pronounced the wine suitable. He drank a glass very fast, then poured another.
When he resumed, his voice had turned wistful, his eyes damp. “Remember the old days, Ari? I used to have a gallery in New Bond Strasse, right next to Richard Green. I can’t afford New Bond Strasse these days. It’s all Gucci and Ralph Lauren, Tiffany and Miki-Bloody-Moto. And you know who’s taken over my old space? The putrid Giles Pittaway! He’s already got two galleries in Bond Street alone, and he’s planning to open two more within the year. Christ, but he’s spreading like the Ebola virus—mutating, getting stronger, killing everything decent in his wake.”
A chubby art dealer with a pink shirt and a pretty girl on his arm walked past their table. Isherwood paused long enough to say, “Hullo, Oliver,” and blow him a kiss.
“This Vecellio is a real coup. I need a coup once every couple of years. The coups are what keep me in business. The coups support all the dead stock and all the small sales that earn me next to nothing.” Isherwood paused and took a long drink of wine. “We all need coups now and again, right, Herr
Heller
? I suspect that even someone in your line of work needs a big success every now and again to make up for all the failures. Cheers.”
“Cheers,” said Shamron, tipping his glass a fraction of an inch.
“Giles Pittaway could’ve bought the Vecellio, but he passed. He passed because he and his boys didn’t bother to do their homework. They couldn’t authenticate it. I was the only one who knew what it was, because I was the only one who did my homework. Giles Pittaway wouldn’t know a Vecellio from vermicelli. He sells crap. High-gloss crap. Have you seen his stuff? Total crap! Complete and utter greeting card crap!”
Shamron, playing the part of Herr Heller, said it had been some time since he had visited the galleries of the infamous Giles Pittaway.
Isherwood leaned forward across the table, eyes wide, lips damp. “I need this Vecellio cleaned and ready for sale by the spring,” he said, sotto voce. “If it’s not ready, I’ll lose my buyer. Buyers don’t grow on trees these days, especially for a Vecellio altarpiece. I can count the number of potential buyers for a piece like this on the fingers of one hand. If my buyer gets cold feet, I may never find another. And if I can’t find another, my Vecellio becomes just another piece of dead stock. Burned, as we say in the trade. You burn agents, we burn our paintings. A picture gets snatched up, or it turns to dust in some art dealer’s storeroom. And once a painting’s been burned it’s worthless, just like your agents.”

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