The Case of the Missing Madonna Read online

  FOURTEEN

  To Patrick’s relief only he, Fratelli and Bach stood in the room with Grazia and the two paintings, the boneheads having been sent on some further mission, the purpose of which he hadn’t been able to glean from the low, rapid German interchange they’d had with Bach.

  Glancing round the display room, Patrick decided it had been aptly chosen, boasting as it did a stunning mosaic of the Madonna and child, a replica he guessed of the Byzantine work in the basilica on Torcello, which also housed a more famous Last Judgement.

  However, the mosaic and the newly acquired paintings were not the only representations of the Madonna in the room. There was a myriad of other paintings and objets d’art, all of which featured the Madonna, sometimes alone, sometimes with the holy child, indicating Fratelli’s passion as a collector.

  The paintings in question had been hung on the wall opposite the mosaic.

  Patrick immediately decided that the photograph given him by Brother Robert didn’t do either painting justice. At first glance the paintings looked identical, unlike the various unique renditions done by Munch of his own lover, Dagny Juel.

  Patrick checked out the impact on the two men beside him. Fratelli’s colour had heightened and his eyes glistened with what could only be described as desire. In Bach’s case, his look suggested avarice.

  Grazia’s reaction Patrick found surprisingly moving. She gazed at the paintings as he imagined the true Madonna might have looked on her infant son. Her intense gaze was loving, personal and profound. He watched the pulse as it beat in her slender neck, heard her intake of breath as she absorbed the beauty before her.

  Fratelli finally broke the awed silence.

  ‘Well?’

  Grazia nodded as though to herself. ‘I will need time,’ she said, ‘and privacy to examine them more closely.’

  Fratelli glanced at Bach, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

  So Bach is the one in charge.

  ‘Of course,’ said Fratelli. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’

  Fratelli motioned the two men away, as though it was he who had made the decision.

  Patrick followed them back to the sitting room overlooking the patio and the distant pool, where Fratelli, who appeared nervous, offered them a drink.

  ‘To celebrate,’ he suggested.

  He and Bach exchanged another furtive glance.

  Now that the time drew near, Fratelli was deciding which side he would prefer to be on.

  Patrick accepted a whisky and water, Bach declined, and Fratelli poured himself a brandy. The atmosphere in the room was as highly charged as a storm brewing over the lagoon.

  How long would it be before Bach made his move?

  If neither painting proved to be what the German sought, then there was no point in antagonizing the British contingent. If the opposite were the case, then he would have no qualms but to dispose of the opposition. Fratelli, Patrick surmised, was hoping he might at the very least be given the reject.

  At that point, one of the boneheads entered the room and whispered something in Bach’s ear. It wasn’t so much the message that interested Patrick as the fact that the man had fresh blood on his knuckles.

  Patrick rose, finished his drink, and told Fratelli he was going for a walk.

  The Italian looked a little put out by this, but after a quick glance at Bach he conceded. Bach’s easy acceptance of Patrick’s departure did little to reassure him. Once out of sight of Fratelli, Patrick thought his chances of remaining unscathed would rapidly diminish.

  He went out via the French windows. From the patio he had a clear line of sight to the private helicopter that had delivered the paintings. Patrick wondered if they had been the only items delivered that morning. The bonehead, from the evidence of his knuckles, had been punching someone recently and Patrick had a suspicion who that someone was.

  He took a swift turn to the back of the main house. Even if Fratelli knew what was going on, Patrick doubted whether he would want anyone beaten up inside his pristine home. Which meant they must have taken whoever it was elsewhere.

  The block behind the main house was locked and shuttered. Patrick suspected it was used for overspill guests when necessary. He’d seen only one servant, the woman who’d served them breakfast, and gathered from her conversation with Fratelli that she lived on the western part of the island.

  The last building stood by the private jetty. The shrubs that lined the shore of the island clustered round the red-roofed building. Approaching the open doors, Patrick noted that one of the speedboats he’d seen earlier was missing from its mooring, so someone had left the island while he’d been in the house.

  Patrick caught the scent of blood as soon as he entered. Sharp, metallic, it merged with other bodily odours – sweat and vomit. Patrick followed his nose to the back, past various items of boating equipment, and found a set of stairs leading downwards.

  He stood at the top listening, the worrying scent in his nostrils. Whoever was bleeding was down there. The wooden steps wound round once then dropped into a stone cellar. Patrick halted at the bottom. It was colder here, the light dim. He strove to make sense of what lay before him.

  One wall consisted of racks of wine bottles. The other was hung with herbs and onions, neither of which could erase the smell coming from the man before him, hanging there semi-naked, his head slumped on his chest.

  As he registered Patrick’s presence, Huntington strove to raise his head. The wound that Patrick had taken such care to bind lay open and pulpy, as though it had been hit repeatedly. The livid bruises on the chest had multiplied, their mass dotted by what looked like the prickings of a knife.

  Patrick went forward and, lifting Giles’ body, took the weight from his stretched arms and shoulders. He gave a grunt of relief as Patrick untied his hands and set him free.

  ‘Have they found it?’ Giles struggled to speak.

  ‘Grazia’s comparing the paintings now.’

  Giles shook his head. ‘They don’t care about that.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Patrick said.

  ‘The paintings are not the prize.’

  He heard the chopper blades as he helped Giles mount the stairs. Then he realized that whatever message had been brought to Bach had initiated the departure. Bach hadn’t cared where Patrick went or what he found, because he already had what he was looking for.

  As he helped Giles back to the house, the dark shadow of the helicopter made its way across the blue sky. Wherever it was heading, it wasn’t towards Venice.

  Once inside, he led Giles to the sofa, then went to check for Grazia.

  The mosaic room they’d stood in earlier was empty, of both Grazia and the paintings. Patrick’s relief that he hadn’t discovered her body, either injured or dead, was immediately replaced by the realization that they must have taken her with them. For what purpose he had no idea.

  Giles looked up at him as Patrick re-entered the sitting room.

  ‘They took her and the paintings,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Bastards!’ Giles hissed.

  Patrick poured a brandy and handed it to him.

  ‘Drink that,’ he ordered. ‘Then tell me what the fuck’s going on.’

  Giles’s hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips. He gulped the brandy down in one.

  ‘It’s more important we follow them without delay.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet.

  ‘Where?’ Patrick said.

  ‘Cap d’Antibes. I think what they’re looking for is there.’

  Alberto, only minutes away in Burano, swiftly turned up at the private jetty as requested and accepted the loading of an injured man on to his water taxi without comment. By the time Alberto arrived, Patrick had patched Giles up for a second time, dressed both himself and Giles in fresh clothes supplied from Fratelli’s extensive wardrobe, and retrieved his bag from where he’d hidden it by the beach.

  Their return journey to Marco Polo airport was as rocky as their outward one. This
time Giles made no effort to conceal his discomfort as the bow of the small speedboat thumped through the waves. Being beaten and tortured twice in succession had taken its toll. But it wasn’t only pain that distressed him.

  As he confided to Patrick, despite his best efforts he hadn’t succeeded in preventing the two paintings from coming together. Also, he feared that under duress he’d revealed enough for Bach and Fratelli to guess where to look next. A call to Charles en route, overheard by Patrick, had confirmed Huntington’s anger and despair at how things had played out. At that, Charles had asked to be passed to Patrick.

  ‘It appears Bach and Fratelli have the co-ordinates they were looking for,’ Charles said.

  ‘The co-ordinates of what?’ Patrick demanded.

  ‘Something that should in the national interest remain hidden.’

  Patrick listened to the story as the speedboat bumped through the wash of passing water taxis, the resulting spray hitting the windows. As he did so, the pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place.

  A plane was awaiting them at Marco Polo airport. Huntington climbed aboard wearily, sank into a seat, and accepted the offer of a drink. Patrick handed him a couple of his strong painkillers to go with it.

  ‘You should have told me the truth,’ Patrick said. ‘Then we might have worked together.’

  ‘The orders were to tell no one. Even you. Besides you were only interested in getting the Madonna back. Nothing more. You made that very plain.’

  ‘So you went back alone for more?’ Patrick said in disbelief.

  ‘You would have done the same.’

  It was the closest to a compliment Huntington had ever offered. After which he closed his eyes, ending the conversation.

  Despite Giles’s protestations, Patrick wondered if when Charles called him that morning he’d already known Giles had left the hotel. Maybe they’d cooked it up between them, to draw Patrick in. All the time, he’d suspected Forsyth of playing him. But it might have been Charles all along.

  And now this?

  His plan to extract the Madonna and take her home was bound up with the outcome London desired. And what London wanted, London usually got. But even now had he been told the whole truth?

  Patrick extracted the photograph of the missing Madonna from his wallet and studied it. Previously, concentrating on her form and face, he hadn’t particularly noticed the lower background of the painting. Discoloured by age, the details along the base were difficult to make out. Yet he could see now that it might well be, as Charles had indicated, a depiction of St Honorat, featuring the southern coast of the medieval monastery.

  Closing his eyes, Patrick attempted to recall exactly what the two paintings looked like. The filtered light in the mosaic room had illuminated both Madonnas in all their glory. The right hand one, he believed, did have a medieval monastery at its base.

  According to Charles, the duplicate painting had a minor difference. The image at the base of the picture was not an island but a peninsular. And that peninsular was Cap d’Antibes, the outline of the monastery replaced by Château de la Croë.

  Patrick had listened to Charles’s story about the original painting with interest, mainly because it mirrored Madame Lacroix’s version so closely. How Hitler had initially acquired the Madonna was unclear. That he had gifted it to the Windsors when they visited him at his mountain retreat in 1937 was clearly established.

  ‘Mrs Simpson took it, together with several other artefacts, to decorate Château de la Croë,’ Charles had told Patrick as the speedboat bounced on the waves, bound for Marco Polo airport. ‘The painting hung there during the war, until its true significance was realized.’

  ‘The link between the Windsors and Hitler?’ Patrick queried.

  Charles ignored the question and simply continued. ‘The painting was copied for safety’s sake and the imitation hung in its place, the original being hidden on St Honorat.’

  ‘I can’t see how that story, however true, would embarrass anyone now,’ Patrick said.

  ‘It’s not the painting which will do that, but what we suspect the two paintings will lead us to,’ Charles explained quietly. ‘It seems that the Fragonard wasn’t the only gift Hitler gave to the Windsors. Apparently, during the occupation an item said to be of greater value and significance was sent to the château as a personal present for Wallis Simpson.’

  Patrick registered the distaste in Charles’s voice. ‘She would have made a great queen,’ Patrick quoted.

  ‘And had Hitler won the war, she might well have become one,’ Charles said candidly.

  ‘Did Churchill know about this greater prize?’

  ‘I suspect not. I believe the Windsors kept quiet about it. Maybe they feared to reveal their continuing links with the Führer.’

  ‘All in the past,’ Patrick insisted.

  ‘Would that were true,’ Charles replied. ‘Fascism in Europe is on the rise again. We cannot allow them to use this item to promote it.’

  ‘And the Madonna?’ Patrick asked him. ‘Will the monks get her back?’

  ‘That will have to be decided …’ Charles paused. ‘Should the Fragonard survive.’

  The sun was setting as they approached Aéroport de Cannes Mandelieu, bathing the sea in pink and red. Patrick felt his heart lift at the sight of it. However beautiful the Venetian lagoon might be, it was nothing compared to the deep restless waters he was looking down on.

  Huntington had slept for the duration of the flight. Either that or he’d feigned sleep to avoid meeting Patrick’s eye or talking to him. Patrick suspected Huntington had dozed, although fitfully. Blood from the shoulder wound had made a dark stain on the crisp cotton of the shirt they’d acquired from Fratelli’s wardrobe. Patrick suspected only stitches would improve the situation, but a doctor’s visit might be out of the question for hours yet.

  ‘We’re coming into land,’ Patrick said. ‘I suggest you brace yourself. There’s a crosswind.’

  Huntington’s bloodshot eyes flickered open. He pulled himself up, fastened his seatbelt, and clasped the armrests.

  The small plane turned, angling itself into the wind, and began its descent.

  There was a moment when they appeared to hover, wings tipping on either side, and then they were down, bumping along the tarmac. Huntington smothered a groan.

  ‘We could do some work on your shoulder at the gunboat, before we head for Antibes. I have all that’s necessary on board,’ Patrick offered.

  Huntington thought about it, but only for a second.

  ‘No. We head for Cap d’Antibes in your car straightaway.’

  ‘There may be other things we need. Backup, for example, and weapons,’ Patrick said.

  ‘I thought you’d retired?’ Huntington replied, sarcastically.

  ‘There are four of them, including the two boneheads who worked on you. Going into that unprepared is asking for defeat.’

  Huntington’s expression showed he felt useless and was angry about it.

  Patrick didn’t wait for a reply but pulled out his mobile and made a call as they taxied to a standstill.

  Jean-Paul answered immediately. ‘Mon ami, we were getting worried.’

  ‘There’s a problem,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Tell me what you need.’

  ‘Charles won’t like you involving civilians,’ Huntington said, when Patrick had rung off.

  ‘I’m a civilian,’ Patrick reminded him. ‘And we can’t do it without him.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Huntington demanded.

  ‘Jean-Paul was in the French Special Forces. He’s as well trained as you or I, and he’s not injured.’

  Huntington sat upright, annoyed at the reference to his weakness. ‘Do you have anything stronger in your bag?’ he said.

  ‘I can give you liquid morphine,’ Patrick offered.

  Huntington gave a small laugh. ‘You came prepared.’

  ‘Without all necessary equipment I am of no use to myself,’ Patrick quoted.

&
nbsp; ‘Bastard,’ Huntington said, but with a small smile.

  FIFTEEN

  Patrick glanced sideways as they weaved their way along the busy coast road. It seemed the morphine had done the trick, at least for the moment. Huntington was upright and bright-eyed. In the interim, he’d asked what weapons Patrick had in his possession and what Jean-Paul might supply.

  ‘We don’t want to leave anything to clean up,’ Patrick said. ‘Lieutenant Moreaux of the Police Nationale would take umbrage at a mess.’

  ‘So he favours Fascists?’

  ‘He dislikes anyone who pisses on his patch, including Brits,’ Patrick said.

  ‘It was the Brits that rid them of the Nazis,’ Huntington said.

  ‘And Brits dabbling with the Nazis that caused this problem,’ Patrick retorted, grabbing his phone as it rang.

  ‘We’re lying off Eden Roc,’ Jean-Paul told him.

  ‘How did you get there so fast?’

  ‘We weren’t caught up in traffic, not like there is on the route you’re taking.’

  ‘Can you pick us up from the jetty?’ Patrick said. ‘We’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  The Diving Belle sat in all her glory a suitable distance from the Eden Roc. Used to viewing sleek superyachts in the bay below, the clientele of the Champagne Lounge must have been puzzled by the arrival of the heavy-hulled and less than pretty diving boat.

  Huntington’s reaction was even more nonplussed.

  ‘You have to be joking!’ was his retort when Patrick indicated the Belle was their backup.

  ‘She has what we need on board.’

  ‘What, a canon?’ Huntington said scathingly.

  ‘Diving equipment,’ Patrick told him.

  When Stephen brought the dinghy alongside the jetty, Patrick gave him a stern look, indicating he didn’t want to hold a conversation in front of Huntington. Not to talk was a difficult request to make of the Irishman at the best of times. Now, excited by his inclusion in the adventure, Stephen was bursting with the desire to tell Patrick what he thought about it all.

  ‘François is with us,’ he finally said as they drew alongside the Belle.

  ‘François?’ Patrick repeated.