The Bosch Deception (27 page)

The news of the Bosch deception hit the art world just after the auction had finished and Philip Preston was collared in his office by a couple of journalists demanding the whole story. Had he known about it? Had he any idea of the upheaval it would cause among the dealers and the galleries who would now start questioning their Bosch acquisitions. Composed, he met their questions with equanimity, steering the conversation over to his exclusive discovery that the famous
Tree Man
was, in fact, a portrait of Hieronymus Bosch.

‘But
was
he abused?' one journalist asked. ‘And what if it's true that Bosch's family and the Church just kept churning out the paintings?'

‘The writings were hidden in the chain you've just sold,' another man said. ‘I saw it online. A Nicholas Laverne posted it and wrote to the press. Who is Nicholas Laverne anyway?'

Philip's expression was strained. He was surprised that Nicholas had managed the exposé and was now determined
to curtail the damage. ‘Mr Laverne is a … man with a vivid imagination.'

‘You saying he's lying?'

‘I'm saying that he could be mistaken. Look into his background and you'll see what I mean. Mr Laverne relishes the role of whistle-blower. He also has a great animosity towards the Catholic Church. He was excommunicated ten years ago.' Philip could see them all listening, scribbling or holding their recorders up to his mouth to catch every word. ‘Mr Laverne was also questioned by the police—'

‘
What?
'

‘– about the death of Father Luke. Late of St Barnabas's church, Fulham. Apparently he was one of the priests Laverne accused of abuse.'

‘And the police think he had something to do with the murder?'

‘How would I know? Ask them,' Philip said loftily. ‘But I think being cut off from the Church unhinged Mr Laverne.'

The seed was sown and took quick root.

*

Philip Preston wasn't the only person to damn Nicholas. Within an hour of the news being posted online, Gerrit der Keyser gave an interview in which he intimated that no one believed anything Laverne said, and that he could easily have constructed the deception himself. Nicholas Laverne's exposure was an irritant, he went on, but would not turn out to be the disaster people feared. His credibility
was dubious and already one high-ranking member of the Church had labelled him ‘a poor, misguided fantasist'.

Only one person came to Nicholas's aid. Hiram Kaminski gave an interview to be published in
The Times
the following day, going public to say that the Bosch deception was real. How did he know? Thomas Littlejohn had told him.

‘If it wasn't true,' Hiram said on BBC radio, ‘why would four people involved with it have been murdered?'

His words caught the attention of everyone listening, including the authorities. Within minutes of Hiram's interview at Langham Place, he was being questioned by the London Metropolitan police. At the same time, Nicholas was leaving a thank-you note on Tyra's table in Soho, together with some money – enough to pay for the black hoodie he had taken from her brother.

Patiently, he had waited until it was dark. Tyra's brother was a heavy sleeper and his snores kept Nicholas company until 6 p.m. With the hood pulled up over his head, Nicholas left and made his way across town towards Chelsea. Sidney Elliott was dead, but that didn't mean someone else wasn't following him. Conrad Voygel had enough money to hire an army of watchers. Repeatedly changing buses, Nicholas headed for the auction house of Philip Preston.

It was almost 7.15 p.m. when he arrived, climbing over a wall and securing a vantage point from the roof of a garage. Almost concealed behind a series of steps, Nicholas watched the auction house. Hiram had been right: the doors and the fire escape were being patrolled by almost a dozen security
men, the back exit monitored by a dog handler. He waited. An hour passed, then finally, around 8.20 p.m., a security van drew up. A moment later the white-haired figure of Philip Preston emerged carrying a small wooden box which he handed to a guard. After signing a document, Philip watched the van pull away, then turned and moved back into the auction house.

Leaving his hiding place, Nicholas jumped down into the alleyway and made his way out into the street, hailing a taxi and clambering in. ‘You see that dark van?'

The driver nodded. ‘Yeah. Want me to follow it?'

‘That's exactly what I want you to do,' Nicholas replied.

When the van finally arrived at Palace Gardens, Nicholas tapped on the glass which separated him from the cabbie. ‘Can you pull over?'

He did so, looking at Nicholas through his rear-view mirror. ‘Don't tell me you live here? I mean, no offence, but this address is a bit rich for your blood.'

Nicholas smiled, watching the van continue along the road, then paid the driver. Keeping to the shadows, he moved down the Gardens, walking next to the high hedges and walls, aware that most of the embassies or private properties had intruder lights which would give away any trespasser. He could see the van draw up to the gates of a large house, then pause. The driver spoke to someone over the intercom and a moment later the vast gates opened to allow the van to enter. As it did so, the powerful outside lights came on, illuminating the drive and the front of the
house. Drawing back, Nicholas waited. Ten minutes passed, then finally the van left, the gates closed, and the lights went off again.

Nicholas didn't need to be told that this was Conrad Voygel's house. Voygel, the man who now owned the Bosch chain; the man who had hired Sidney Elliott; the man who had approved murder to keep a secret. And all for what? Nicholas thought. He had published the exposé and now the world knew about the Bosch deception. Four people had died for nothing, and he had nearly been one of them.

‘Mr Laverne,' a voice said suddenly, ‘will you come with me?'

Conrad Voygel's house, Kensington, London

The room that Nicholas was shown into was surprisingly intimate, with soft lighting. A coal-effect fire burned in the grate and a Piranesi architectural drawing, ornately framed, hung over the fireplace. Next to a walnut desk was a statue of a blackamoor and beside it, incongruously, a child's drawing book. Only moments after Nicholas had been shown into the room, the door opened and a man walked in.

Conrad Voygel was tall, dressed casually, his smile hesitant. The surgeon had done well. Despite the severity of his cancer there were no obvious scars, just a faint, hollowed area on the left side of his face and the overall appearance of tightened flesh. But when he spoke his voice was hoarse, the disease having affected his vocal cords.

‘Did you want to see me?' he asked, sitting at the desk, the lamplight blurring his features.

Nicholas wasn't fazed. ‘You bought the Bosch chain. It cost you a lot, not just in money.'

‘It cost me well above the reserve, yes.'

‘I don't mean that,' Nicholas replied. ‘Four people are dead because of you.'

‘No,' Conrad replied. ‘But I should congratulate you – after all, you managed to expose the deception. Although no one's taking you seriously – people think you're a bit of a nutter.'

‘At least I don't kill people.'

‘But you think I do?' Conrad smiled awkwardly, the flesh pulled tight around his mouth. ‘No, not me. But I believe the police want to talk to you, and to Mr Kaminski—'

Nicholas bristled. ‘Why him? He's done nothing wrong. He's just backing me, that's all.'

‘Backing you doesn't seem a wise move, Mr Laverne. Backing a loser never is. You see, one thing I've learnt in life is that people don't change. If you're a whistle-blower, you stay a whistle-blower. If you're reckless, you stay reckless.' Conrad paused. ‘Why did you have to attack the Church?'

‘What they were doing was wrong!'

‘But it's a haven, religion. You could have stayed safe, a beloved priest, living a quiet life. If you had, no one would ever have heard about Nicholas Laverne. But instead you had to create chaos. And where did it get you? Excommunicated.' Conrad shrugged. ‘What amazes me is that you didn't learn your lesson—'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘For a while you seemed to. You were quiet for ten years and then – boom! – back you came with the Bosch deception. I tried to stop you, but you just kept going.'

Nicholas stared at the figure in the chair. Conrad Voygel knew a lot about him, but that would be easy to find out. There was something else, something about him which disturbed Nicholas and stirred an old memory. He was back in his teens and early twenties, the disgrace of the family, the kid that no one could control. Mixing with crooks and petty thieves.

‘Do I know you?'

‘I think you would remember my face if you did.' Conrad replied as a telephone began to ring beside him. Smiling, he picked it up. ‘Hello, darling … No, I won't be much longer. Just a little while …' He was listening intently. ‘… what am I doing? Nothing much – I'm just talking to my brother, that's all.'

The carpet seemed to be shifting under Nicholas's feet, the walls sloping away from him as he watched Conrad Voygel lean forward into the lamplight. But it still took him several moments to recognise the old face under the reconstructive surgery. There
was
a flicker of some vague recall, then he stared into the eyes and the years fell away. Nicholas was suddenly back in the past. He and his siblings were living with the irascible David Laverne, and Henry was just leaving university, flushed with his success at acquiring a position at a prestigious architectural firm in Paris, secured on the glowing recommendation of Raoul Devereux.

It had been a much vaulted and much envied position. Any flicker of scandal or ineptitude would have meant disgrace or even dismissal. Henry Laverne would have to be, and behave like, a gentleman … Nicholas looked at his brother, an old memory returning.

‘
You killed our parents—
'

‘
I didn't—
'

‘You missed the last train! If they hadn't had to pick you up they would never have had the crash. It was your fault. It was all your fault and I'll never let you forget it.'

‘Their deaths weren't down to me! I was fourteen years old,' Nicholas said, facing his brother and remembering his accusations. ‘I was fourteen and you made me feel like a criminal!' His rage almost choked him. ‘You held that over my head for years. You played me, relied on my guilt. And you could, because you were perfect. But you weren't, were you?' Nicholas leaned towards his brother over the desk. ‘You fooled everyone but me.'

‘I got away with it though, didn't I?'

‘Only because you had a ready-made scapegoat,' Nicholas said bitterly. ‘How many times did I cover for you? Took the blame for that assault on the woman in Milan. I remember that group you fell in with – the ones who were faking and dealing in stolen art.
You
stole that landscape painting from Raoul Devereux – and you made me the culprit. And why did I let you? Because you were the father figure. I admired you, I wanted to be like you, I couldn't say no to anything you asked. I remember you, you bastard!' he snapped. ‘Crying like a kid and begging me:
“Tell them it was you. They'll throw me out of the company if you don't. Please, Nicholas, please …”

‘And so I said it was me. Always me. Every rotten thing you did, I took the blame. And everyone believed it. How could you be responsible for theft? How could you take drugs, be violent? No, not Henry. But Nicholas – well, I was the wild card, wasn't I?'

‘You were a difficult boy—'

‘Because you screwed me up! You made me believe that everything was my fault! In the end I believed it myself. I was nothing, the boy no one liked or cared about. I had nothing, so why not sacrifice myself to the burning light that was Henry Laverne? And you relied on that, didn't you?' He paused and looked around him, incredulous. ‘We thought you died in that fire. We buried you—'

‘You buried a gardener.'

Nicholas sat down and stared at his brother's altered face. ‘I see you now. I see every rotten part of you. Why did you let us think you'd died?'

‘I didn't want to be Henry Laverne any more. It was limiting. I wanted more, and suddenly there was a way I could get it.' He grimaced. ‘You think
you
had it hard. Try being perfect – it gets wearing after a while. I wanted a new life—'

‘As Conrad Voygel?'

‘Oh, he came a little later. For a while I just drifted, got into a bit of trouble, but that didn't matter any more because I wasn't anyone. Not Henry Laverne, no one. Slowly I began to build up a property business abroad, then I went into computers. I heard about you exposing the Catholic Church because of what happened to that boy.'

‘Patrick Gerin.'

‘Did he remind you of yourself, Nicholas?' he asked. ‘You wanted to save another lost boy. Then the scandal was over. Suddenly you were banished and disappeared – and my star was on the rise. I chose a new name, and when I got cancer
I saw it as a plus. My face changed, my voice too. Henry Laverne might not have been buried, but he was well and truly dead. And my reputation grew. No one knew where I came from, or anything about my past. I'm a respectable, revered, philanthropic tycoon. I am on a par with politicians, royalty, celebrities. People admire me.'

‘You're a crook—'

‘No, Henry Laverne was the crook.' He paused, smiling that tight smile. ‘But you had to ruin it, didn't you? You had to come back, because you had another cause to fight for – that bloody chain. Who cared what happened to Hieronymus Bosch? Well, you did, because here was another lost boy. Of course you couldn't give up on it – it would have been like giving up on yourself.' He laced his fingers together. ‘I had to stop you.'

‘You were going to kill me?'

He seemed genuinely taken aback. ‘Kill you? No.'

‘You hired Sidney Elliott—'

‘Only at the beginning, to find the chain. Elliott approached me after he'd worked for you. He told me about the Bosch conspiracy and the chain. But he was unstable, crazy, – anyone could see that. So I fired him. What he did has nothing to do with me.' Conrad paused. ‘I killed no one and I had no one killed. I'm a respectable businessman with a fortune; my reputation is everything.'

‘Which you'd do anything to protect,' Nicholas said coldly. ‘And I was the only person who could ruin you. The
only one who could expose you for who – and what – you really are.'

‘Exactly,' Conrad agreed. ‘With this latest passion of yours you were all set to be a celebrity again. People would want to know you, know all about you – and, by extension, your family. I couldn't risk it. I know how it works, Nicholas: secrets always get sucked out. Like Bosch. I had to stop you, and the only way I could effectively do that was to discredit you. Make the world think of you as a barmy ex-priest with another conspiracy theory. People knew you were confused. You had bad dreams, you saw things—'

‘
You hired Father Michael?
'

He nodded. ‘And Carel Honthorst. Who does have a mighty faith. Honthorst would have ripped you limb from limb just for betraying his Church. But I wouldn't let him go that far. I didn't want to kill you—'

‘Just drive me mad.'

‘It was the lesser of two evils. People don't listen to lunatics or fantasists. You would have been a laughing stock, almost as good as dead.'

‘You had me poisoned, drugged. I kept wondering about the dreams, why they were changing. I thought I'd done something unforgivable. Something I couldn't, or wouldn't, remember.' Nicholas looked at his brother. ‘But that was just guilt, wasn't it? That guilt you instilled in me when I was a kid took over. I felt responsible, like I always had done.'

‘It was a good plan—'

‘Which should have worked.'

It was Conrad's turn to look surprised. ‘It
did
work.'

‘No, the story of the Bosch deception is out. It's gone global.'

Sighing, Conrad rose to his feet. ‘No one believes you, Nicholas. And when they dig deeper into your past they'll discover your crimes and misdemeanours. You mixed with crooks and fakers; how suspect does that make your theory? And then they'll wonder about the death of Father Luke and how you're involved with three other people who died. It doesn't look good for you, Nicholas. Not good at all.'

‘I'll expose you!' Nicholas snapped.

‘Another exposure? Do you really think anyone will listen to you claiming to be the brother of Conrad Voygel?' He straightened up. ‘By morning you'll be fully discredited. Probably in jail.'

‘I never killed anyone!'

‘Ah, but you have to prove that, don't you?' Conrad responded. ‘You hated Father Luke. You were close to Claude Devereux, you had access to Sabine Monette—'

‘She was killed in Paris while I was in London!'

‘You could have had an accomplice. Someone like Sidney Elliott …'

Nicholas was too shocked to speak.

‘… By the time you've been arrested, people will be baying for your blood. The art world wants to discredit what you're saying about Bosch. And the Church – well, the Church isn't going to come to your aid, is it? As for Hiram Kaminski, he's
already being pressurised. I dare say he'll withdraw his support before tomorrow's out.'

‘But I have the papers!' Nicholas blustered. ‘The evidence of what happened to Bosch.
I have proof!
'

‘Which Gerrit der Keyser will authenticate. After all, you're not a specialist or an art dealer and Mr der Keyser is. He will publicly state that an associate of yours stole the chain from his gallery. That it was all part of your plan.' He shrugged. ‘Bring out your bits of paper, Nicholas. Wave them in the face of the world. Der Keyser will swear you took them from him. Once a thief, always a thief. Admit it, you've lost.'

‘Why are you doing this to me?'

‘I wouldn't have hurt you, Nicholas, if you'd stayed in the Church. Out of the world, out of the public eye. Unknown, without any embarrassing connection to me. I
had
to do it.'

‘So what now? You're going to let me walk out of here?'

‘Why not?' Conrad replied. ‘You're not going far.'