Deceptions by Anna Porter (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📗

killed someone in Strasbourg, and I wanted to know why. It was, I am pretty sure, about a painting, but I still don’t know why.”

“You killed him?” Zsuzsa’s voice rose with the accusation, but she continued to cradle her tea.

“No,” Helena said. “I didn’t. I am an art appraiser. I was hired to study a painting, a baroque masterpiece that could be by Artemisia Gentileschi, and determine whether it’s genuine. I was sitting next to the man Berkowitz killed. He was a lawyer acting for my client . . .” She then told her the story almost from the beginning, leaving out only some of the names. She told her about the art she had found in Biro’s apartment, and how she had followed the man who had turned out to be Berkowitz. Then she showed her the page of the small notebook she had photographed in the archives. The list in that tiny, slanted handwriting that had included a Verrocchio Virgin and a child, a Renoir Girl with Parasol, a Rippl-Rónai, a Rembrandt drawing, a Van Gogh, and a Gustav Klimt.

Zsuzsa studied it for a while. “Not my father’s handwriting,” she said. “It could be my grandfather’s. I have never seen his handwriting.”

“Can you translate what he wrote here?” Helena asked, pointing to the Caravaggio page.

“He says, ‘I bought the painting in Paris. It has no provenance. It has no date. I think it’s by Caravaggio. It is his style and his use of light and dark. The signature is not his, but it may be covering his own. The man who sold it to me had been reluctant to let it go. He said he had bought it himself from a Pole who was down on his luck, living in France, off his inheritance, selling his art. I am not sure he was telling the truth, but I loved the painting, sold two of my own to pay for it and when that wasn’t enough, I added two hundred francs. It was so much that I had to check out of my hotel and take the train home.’ Do you think he had bought a real Caravaggio?”

“It’s possible,” Helena said carefully. “There are still some missing Caravaggios, and in the late thirties and early forties, he was not as highly valued as he is now.” She was tempted to tell Zsuzsa about Andrea’s notion that the painting she had been hired to authenticate was a missing Caravaggio, but would she be able to prove that it had once belonged to her grandfather?

When Zsuzsa asked how she had tracked Berkowitz to this address, she told her about the tailor and about her following Berkowitz to the parliament buildings, where she had guessed whom he worked for. Strangely, that included the men who had sent her client’s husband to Strasbourg.

“Did he own this building?” Helena asked.

“I don’t think so. We pay rent to a numbered company. We used to have a family living next door, but they said they were moving to Pécs. The husband had some amazing offer to work at the university. I thought it was strange that I saw them on the street some weeks later, and when I asked about the job, he said, ‘What job?’ as if they hadn’t told me they were moving to Pécs. Later, I saw the wife alone, and I asked her. She said someone had paid them to move out.”

“Did she say who?”

“No. But then Berkowitz moved in. As I told you before, other than needing help with his mail, he didn’t talk to us much. Not very friendly.”

“Did he come to your apartment at all?”

“He didn’t.”

Helena jumped out of her seat and started touching the electrical outlets in the kitchen, then the light fixtures in the living room. When Zsuzsa asked what she was doing, she said, “In a minute,” and continued to search until she picked up a tiny microphone attached to the underside of the sofa. There was a second one attached to the lampshade over the table where the children had been playing, and a third planted in the pot with the ferns near the windows. She collected them all and switched them off.

“He’s been listening to you,” Helena said, showing Zsuzsa the little gadgets.

“And now?”

“I don’t know. The police may have taken his device. Or not.” She regretted now that she hadn’t done a more thorough search of Berkowitz’s apartment

“He could have listened to everything we said?”

“He could have.”

“Why?” Zsuzsa was still incredulous. “Why would he be interested in us?”

“It has to do with that painting.”

“I just can’t believe he killed somebody in France. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. But I am trying to find out. It may be important for my client. How often did you go to his apartment? I thought the place didn’t look like anyone lived in it.”

“He said he travelled a lot, didn’t spend much time here.”

“What did you tell the police?”

“I told them everything I knew. Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell them that I went upstairs once. Curiosity, you know.”

Helena grinned. “I do understand curiosity.”

“Not much there,” Zsuzsa said. “But there were some bundles of euros in a drawer. Loose bundles. I thought that was weird. Didn’t tell the police because I didn’t want them to know that I had been snooping.”

“The person you said who wanted to talk to you about your grandfather’s art,” Helena asked, “was that a long time ago?”

“Maybe a month. Or less.”

“Do you remember anything about him?”

“A big guy. I think, maybe Russian.”

Attila’s visit to the Strasbourg police station was, again, unannounced, but the young woman at reception greeted him as if he had become part of the team. “Why not go tout droit to le bureau de Lieutenant Hébert?” she asked and waved him through the security gate. “You know where it is.”

Attila wound his way along the path between the police desks toward Hébert’s office where the lieutenant was standing by someone else’s computer, studying photos on