In Portakabin A everyone was extremely busy. Nikki was in permanent contact with the police and Thea van Droon's people. Even though it was absurd to think they would be in time, the KPLD had set up road blocks on all the exits to Amsterdam. A police inspector wanted Bosch to tell him all the details, but he could not spare a moment. 'I'm not here for anyone,' he said. He sat down with Nikki in front of one of the terminals connected to the Old Atelier.
'No sign of the van as yet, Lothar,' Nikki said. 'Who on earth are we looking for? Is this anything to do with the search for Postumo Baldi?'
This was no time to keep anything hidden, reasoned Bosch. To hell with the crisis cabinet: everything was in crisis now.
'That's right. But it doesn't matter if it's Baldi or not. He's crazy, and if we don't stop him, he'll destroy Susanna…' 'My God.'
Bosch was looking at the files on Susanna surprised by the Elders on the computer. The female canvas was Spanish, twenty-four years old, and was called Clara. The Elders were a Hungarian -Leo Krupka – and a North American – Frank Rodino – who were a little bit younger than Bosch. The North American Rodino was huge, and so would perhaps be some kind of obstacle for the Artist, in the unlikely event that there was a struggle between them. 'Think positively, Lothar.'
For the moment, he just sat there surveying the images on the screen. In particular, he stared at the young woman's face. She stared calmly back at him from the computer.
It's not a woman, it's a canvas. We are what other people pay us to be.
Bosch did not know her, and had never spoken to her. He read her complete name, and tried to pronounce it under his breath. Her family name was quite difficult for him. Rieyes. Reies. Rayes. Miss Rieyes or Reiyes was from Madrid. Hendrickje and he had occasionally spent their summer holidays in Mallorca, and Bosch had been to Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and other Spanish cities for various exhibitions. None of that was important now, but details like that helped him think of her as a human being facing danger. Clara Raiyes or Clara Reies had an expressive, sweet look to her, yet deep in her eyes there was a light that not even the computer image could conceal. Bosch surmised that she was a young woman full of life and hopes, someone who wanted to succeed, to push herself to the limit. He thought of Emma Thorderberg and her boisterous cheerfulness. Clara reminded him a little of Emma. How would Miss Wood and he, how would the Foundation and the wretched painter whose works they were meant to be protecting, pay for the destruction of the hopes of this young woman? How would 'Grandad Paul' restore the life and happiness that shone from the face in front of him? Would Kurt Sorensen be able to find an insurance company to bring her life back? How much money was it worth to torture her to death? That was something they should ask Saskia Stoffels. It's not a woman, it's a canvas.
All at once he conjured up the face of Postumo Baldi peering over her. An empty blue gaze like a painted sky in a picture. His eyes are mirrors. Then the whirring canvas cutter getting closer and closer to her face…
Think positively. Let's think positively. We're all going to think positively about this. To Hell with it. He leapt up from the computer.
'Nikki, get me a vehicle and three guards. They don't have to be from the SWAT teams, they just need to be armed.' She looked at him in surprise. 'What are you going to do, Lothar?'
Precisely. That was the question. What are you going to do, Lothar? Something. No matter what, but something. I'm not an artist and I don't like modern art, so I have to do something. I'm no good at anything else: I have to do things, I need to do them. That's enough of thinking positively: now it's time to act positively, isn't it, Hendri?
'Just remember that the Amsterdam police are on this guy's tail right now,' said Nikki. Bosch saw a different kind of gleam in her eyes. Was she worried about him? That was funny. 'I'll remember’ he said.
'You'll have the vehicle and the three men straightaway’ Nikki replied. That was the end of their conversation.
21.30.
Gustavo Onfretti surveyed them one by one. They were all still painted and in costume. The students from The Anatomy Lesson were in their dark Puritan clothes and white ruffs, The Syndics still had their broad-brimmed hats on. Kirsten, the woman-corpse, had bent double her fantastic, crude anatomy in a chair at the far end of the Portakabin. He himself was sitting with the models from Ox, and was still wearing the ochre-painted loincloth. His body, painted in streaks of earth colour and gleaming yellow, was aching from the long hours spent on the cross, from which he had been brought down only half an hour earlier. Conservation had gathered all the canvases together in the Art Portakabin. They probably wanted to make sure the paintings were all in good shape and had not suffered any damage.
Onfretti could not complain, but the astonished expression on his face gave him the look of someone returned from the dead.
How come nobody knew anything about the special effects for his painting, when everything was supposed to have been planned by the Art Department well in advance? Why had Conservation not been told that the Christ was an interactive performance piece, and that at a certain moment he was going to 'die', making the earth tremble and everything go dark?
He recalled how devotedly Van Tysch had planned everything during the weeks they had worked together at Edenburg. 'A nerve-wracking experience’ he had noted in his diary. The moment of his supposed 'death' with his shouts and the Tunnel's mechanically induced shuddering, had been painted and repainted to the point of exhaustion. The Maestro had told Mm it was very important that all this should happen at exactly the right moment, and he had set up a small warning light at the far end of the Tunnel so that Onfretti would know when he had to start shouting. But the public and Art and Conservation were meant to know about it, and the quake was supposed to be a small one. That, at least, was what Van Tysch had told him. Onfretti wondered why on earth Van Tysch had lied to him.
When he had finished painting him, Van Tysch had kissed him on the cheek. 'I want you to feel betrayed by me’ he had suggested.
Now Onfretti thought the phrase had been more than a suggestion.
22.32.
As Bosch left the Portakabin, he was thinking things over.
If the Artist had taken the painting out of Amsterdam, there was nothing he could do. He would have to let the police or the SWAT team find the whereabouts of the van and pray they got to it in time. But what if he had decided to destroy it in Amsterdam? Bosch thought of all the possible places, and immediately dismissed the parks and public places. It wouldn't be a hotel either, because the figures were painted and might arouse suspicion. Then he thought of the man who was helping the Artist from inside the Foundation. Could he have provided him with somewhere quiet so that the destruction could take place without any problem? If that were the case, he must have anticipated that Amsterdam's entire police force would immediately set out in pursuit of the work. The place, wherever it was, had to be completely safe. Somewhere with lots of room, somewhere empty…
It was then that Bosch remembered what Nikki had told him a few minutes earlier.
At their last meeting, Van Hoore had suggested that the evacuated paintings should not be taken to the Old Atelier, because it was 'closed and empty', as Stein himself had told him.
Closed and empty.
It was a chance in a thousand, and Bosch was sure he was getting it wrong, but he had to bet on something. Let's trust our intuition, shouldn't we, Hendri my love?
He saw the three guards coming towards him. He guessed they must have been sent by Nikki. He ran towards them, worried he might slip on the sodden ground. It was raining heavily again.
'Where's the van?' he asked the first man. He recognised Jan Wuyters, who he had been talking to in the Tunnel before everything came tumbling down. It seemed like a good omen that they were together again.