Page 23 of The Collector
Her annual winter visit to the ski resorts of Switzerland and France had proven especially profitable. There was the wealthy but guileless couple from Connecticut—he worked for a hedge fund, she in corporate public relations—whose suite at the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz had yielded a double strand of Mikimoto pearls and a diamond bracelet by Harry Winston. And the libidinous Russian tycoon who awoke after a night of heavy drinking in the clubs of Courchevel to find that both Ingrid and his million-euro Richard Mille wristwatch had vanished without a trace. And the minor Saudi prince, a distant cousin of the future king, who somehow managed to misplace an attaché case stuffed with cash while on holiday in Zermatt with his three wives and twelve children.
The jewelry alone had fetched a half million on the black market in Antwerp. Ingrid spent the summer relaxing at her villa onMykonos, one of the few places in the world where, for the most part, she kept her hands to herself. It had been her intention to return to Denmark in September, but her plans changed after the phone call she received from Peter Nielsen, an antiquarian book dealer who disposed of rare manuscripts that Ingrid occasionally found lying around unoccupied European villas and châteaux. Peter had received an unusual request from one of his clients, a request that involved a painting that hung in a villa on the Amalfi Coast. The offer was too lucrative to turn down. Five million euros up front, another five million on delivery.
Ingrid’s office was located on the second floor of the cottage. The painting was locked in a storage cabinet, hidden inside a leather document tube. She removed the canvas and unfurled it onto her desk. Unframed, it appeared somehow ordinary. Still, she felt honored to be in its presence—and guilty as well. Cash and jewels could be replaced, butThe Concertby Johannes Vermeer was part of the Western canon, a sacred object.
The previous evening, while under the influence of Miles Davis, she had given serious consideration to quietly placing the Vermeer in the hands of the proper authorities—perhaps in the Dutch town of Delft. That, she reasoned, would provide a fitting and dramatic finale to the painting’s story. But it would also put Ingrid sideways with Peter Nielsen and his client. After all, she had accepted five million euros of the client’s money, a significant portion of which she had already donated anonymously to charity.
And then, of course, there was the article inIlMattino. Ingrid was quite certain that Lukas van Damme had been alive and well—and sleeping soundly thanks to the liquid ketamine he had ingested with his Barbaresco—when she left his villa at 12:45 a.m. Breaking into the South African’s vault room had required all of thirty seconds. Ingrid had been taken aback by the presence of an iconic painting byVincent van Gogh but had resisted the urge to steal it. Her instructions had been specific. The Vermeer and only the Vermeer. Besides, removing the canvas from its stretcher had taken longer than she anticipated.
Just then her phone pulsed with an incoming encrypted Signal message. It was Peter Nielsen, wondering when he might take delivery of the world’s most valuable missing painting—or words to that effect. Ingrid had no choice but to deliver the Vermeer as promised. If nothing else, it would give her the opportunity to clear up one or two small details about the events in Amalfi. Specifically, she wanted to know what sort of mess her friend had got her into.
Ordinarily, she delivered stolen goods to Peter’s shop, but present circumstances called for discretion. Vissenbjerg, located on the island of Funen, was about halfway between Skagen and Copenhagen. There was an auto plaza just off the E20. A Q8 petrol station, a convenience mart, a little café. What was the name of it? Jørgens? Yes, that was it. Jørgens Smørrebrød Café. They could meet there.
But not right away, thought Ingrid, reaching for her phone. She wanted to spend another day or two with the Vermeer before letting it go. Thursday sounded about right, but come to think of it Friday would probably be more convenient—Friday at 6:00 p.m. at Jørgens Smørrebrød Café. Peter was to come alone and with five million euros in cash. No money, no painting, typed Ingrid.
Or words to that effect.
13
Île Saint-Louis
Gabriel left Martin Landesmann’s apartment on the Île Saint-Louis at one the following afternoon and lunched in the shadow of Notre-Dame. Afterward he walked along the Seine embankments to the Musée d’Orsay and was relieved to findLa Chambre de Van Gogh à Arlesstill hanging in the Galerie des Impressionnistes. His next stop was the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, where he paid a visit to Vermeer’sThe Astronomer. LikeThe Concert, the painting had once been stolen—not by ordinary criminals but by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the official art looters of Nazi Germany. It had survived its wartime ordeal largely intact, though with the addition of a small swastika stamped in black ink on the back of the canvas.
Gabriel’s final destination was Brasserie Dumas on the rue de Miromesnil. There, at five fifteen, he observed Maurice Durand switching the sign in his shop window fromouverttofermé. Angélique Brossard departed thirty minutes later, followed soon after by Durand himself. The Frenchman joined Gabriel for an aperitif.
“She’s a good old-fashioned cat burglar, your girl. Likes to get closeto her targets, then robs them blind. She prefers cash and jewelry, though on occasion other valuableobjetshave been known to attach themselves to her sticky fingers.”
“Is she German?”
“That depends on whom you ask. Apparently, she’s something of a chameleon. Some say she’s German or Swiss, others say Dutch or Scandinavian. Everyone agrees she’s quite skilled when it comes to disabling security systems.”
“How is she with a nine-millimeter pistol?”
“She might carry one, but she would be loath to use it. That’s not her modus operandi.”
“Is this the first time she’s strayed onto your turf?”
“Evidently.”
“The impertinence.”
“My feelings exactly.”
“Jewelry is easier to unload than paintings,” observed Gabriel.
“Much,” agreed Durand. “Luxury wristwatches have to be resold intact, of course. But gold can be melted down, and diamonds can be incorporated into other pieces.”
“All of which would require a fence.”
“As usual,” said Durand, “I am one step ahead of you.”
Next morning Paris awoke to a barrage of thunder and lightning, the opening salvo of a freak autumn storm that dumped a month’s worth of rain on the city in less than an hour. Gabriel monitored the rising waters of the Seine from the comfort of Martin’s sitting room, with one eye onTélématin, France 2’s breakfast television program.
Elsewhere, the news was little better. On the opposite side of the English Channel, a British prime minister was fighting for her political life after signing off on a disastrous tax cut plan that haddisrupted British debt markets and driven the pound to record lows. Not to be outdone, Russia had launched yet another murderous air assault against civilian targets in war-torn Ukraine, this time using drones supplied by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Almost unnoticed was a warning by a leading American security expert that the war had brought Russia and the West closer to a nuclear confrontation than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world, thought Gabriel, was careening dangerously out of control. One more shock to the system—another financial meltdown, a disruption of the food supply, a resurgence of the pandemic—might well spell the end of the project known as the postwar liberal order.
By late afternoon the deluge had eased, and life in Paris had returned largely to normal, at least on the rue de Miromesnil. “What’s next?” asked Maurice Durand as he stared gloomily out the rain-spattered window of Brasserie Dumas. “A plague of locusts?”
“Frogs,” murmured Gabriel.
