Rembrandt's Ghost Page 8

  Eli Santoro came down the gangway and onto the pier. He inspected the crates for a moment, then turned to Hanson. ‘‘What was that all about? New cargo?’’ It wasn’t really a question; Eli had seen Aragas and he’d seen the envelope. He was young but he was no fool.

  ‘‘Something like that,’’ said Hanson.

  ‘‘We in trouble, boss?’’

  ‘‘Maybe.’’ Hanson looked at his first mate. Elisha Santoro, like everyone else on the Batavia Queen, was an outcast. At twenty-eight he was the youngest man on the ship with three years in the U.S. Navy, a First Officer rating from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and two more years in the Coast Guard, stationed in Guam. Then an accident with a backyard barbecue at a base picnic left him blind in one eye—enough for his career to come to a crashing halt with the revoking of his mate’s ticket and no chance of ever becoming a master on his own. At twenty-five Santoro was adrift, broke, and unemployed, wedded to the sea with all his hopes and dreams in tatters.

  Hanson had found him bumming around the islands doing yacht charters out of Hong Kong, and after two bottles of Dragon’s Back and a look at the young man’s record he’d snapped him up, eye patch or not. That had been almost three years ago and Hanson hadn’t regretted the decision once.

  ‘‘What are we going to do?’’ Eli asked.

  ‘‘We’re screwed either way.’’ Hanson sighed. ‘‘Load up the tennis balls. Figure it so we can dump the cases quickly if we have to.’’

  ‘‘What do you think is in them?’’

  ‘‘I don’t want to know and neither do you,’’ the captain warned. ‘‘And the man in the ice cream suit is shipping out with us, so be careful.’’

  ‘‘We’ve got another problem.’’

  ‘‘What now?’’ Hanson groaned; as if the day wasn’t bad enough already. Eli handed over a piece of yellow paper he pulled out of his T-shirt pocket. A cable flimsy. Like everyone aboard the Queen the young man did double duty; as well as being the Batavia Queen’s first officer, first mate, and quartermaster, Eli was also the radio officer. ‘‘Message from the company. The Queen’s been sold. We’ll find out who the new owners are when we get to Singapore.’’

  10

  The Busted Flush made the North Sea crossing to Holland in three and a half days, running up the Channel north of Goodwin Sands in fine weather, then beating north beyond the Broad Fourteens to Den Helder. On the third night, they made their way through the tricky currents of the rushing tidal rip of the Marsdeip, finally making landfall at the locks leading into the inland sea once known as the Zuider Zee and now called the Ijsselmeer. They spent the night resting up in the calm waters on the inland side of the immense dike and on the following morning made a swift, sail-cracking run in the bright sunshine down to the little seaside village of Durgerdam. The town had everything they needed including a full-service marina and a bus stop for the ride into Amsterdam itself, only a few miles to the south, its low, dusty skyline faint on the horizon.

  For Finn, tense and exhausted after the events in London, sailing on the Flush had been a joy. The Flush was a William Garden sixty-foot gaff-rigged schooner, powered by a six-cylinder Sealord North Sea diesel and capable of making twelve knots under full sail. Inside she was as cozy as a log cabin in the woods, complete with two comfortable cabins, a small salon, and a well-equipped and well-stored galley. According to Billy, she’d been built as Sitkin in Oregon almost fifty years before, meant for cruising the Alaska coast, and had spent time in Chile and South Africa after that as the San Lourenco. She’d wound up in England taking tourist charters up the coast of Scotland. At that time she was known as Sandpiper. Billy had owned her now for almost eight years.

  ‘‘A present to myself after all those years at school,’’ he’d told her. ‘‘Perhaps I should have named her the Graduate.’’ According to him they were the best of friends, and from the way Billy handled her as he guided her Nantucket green hull into the sheltered little bay Finn could easily see that his affection for the slightly tubby-looking boat was more like love.

  They’d already gone through immigration at Den Helder, and the formalities of berthing at the marina involved no more than registering at the office with the harbormaster and paying the minimum three-day berthing fee. With that done they walked along the dike road that appeared to be the only street in town. Once upon a time it had been a fishing village with small trawlers lined up along the clay and earth dike, but the fishing fleet had disappeared long ago with the creation of the huge dams that had changed the Zuider Zee’s water from salt to fresh. Now the boats along the Durgerdammerdjik were mostly pleasure craft and the charming fishermen’s modest homes were either summer homes or bed-and-breakfasts.

  ‘‘I’m a little wobbly,’’ said Finn as they walked in the bright morning air. After less than four days she’d developed proper sea legs and heading along the dike was making her feel a little dizzy, the horizon bobbing up and down ahead of her.

  ‘‘Not a bit seasick, though.’’ Billy grinned. ‘‘Make a sailor out of you yet.’’

  Finn smiled. Physically she felt wonderful; her skin was softly bronzed and her long hair smelled like salt air. For the first time in months she was enjoying the simple act of breathing. Living in London was worse than New York; it felt as though you were smoking a dozen cigars every day and sometimes she could even feel the particulate pollution on her teeth. She breathed in deeply. The little town smelled like new-mown hay and the sea. The inland sails of a real Dutch windmill whirled slowly in the fields behind the houses. She suddenly felt ravenously hungry.

  ‘‘I’m starved,’’ she said.

  They found a small hotel called the Oude Taveernehalfway along the dike. The plain white clapboard structure stood out from the rest, much larger than the little houses flanking it. There was a patio on one side and a few tables with Heineken umbrellas out front on the pattern brick sidewalk. On the water side of the dike it appeared to have its own dock with a few picnic tables on the grass at the near end. The Oude Taveerne looked as though it might have been some commercial enterprise in the past, a chandlery, or perhaps a wealthy merchant’s place of business as well as his home. The only building larger was the seventeenth-century town hall down the way with its domed tower.

  ‘‘I smell pancakes,’’ said Billy.

  ‘‘Sausages,’’ said Finn.

  ‘‘Both,’’ said Billy.

  They went inside.

  It was knickknack heaven. Things hung from the dark beams of the low ceilings, objects were hung on the walls, mugs, paintings, photographs, half models of boats, ships in bottles, shelves full of preserves, children’s drawings, examples of needle-point behind glass, a set of ceramic thimbles . . . it was endless.

  The tables were crammed neatly together, each one with its own taffeta tablecloth, each tablecloth set with place mats and bright red folded linen napkins. Sun shone brightly through the windows on a dozen different patterns of wallpaper, all of it busy and ornate. An old mural of fishing boats took up half the far wall.

  A couple of locals were sitting at a long, empty table reading newspapers they’d taken from a large basket between them, but other than that the dining room was empty. A plump, apple-cheeked woman in a printed apron introduced herself as Velden in perfectly good English, offered them menus, and then took their orders. She informed them that the Oude Taveerne had stood there since 1760 and had originally been called the Prins te Paard, which, she explained, meant the Prince on Horseback.

  A few minutes later, she returned with the food arranged on a huge platter, which she balanced easily on one beefy arm. Something called uitsmijter for Finn, which turned out to be fried ham and eggs with mustard cheese, and gevulde pannekoek for Billy, which turned out to be two huge pancakes put together like cake layers with fried sausage as a filling. The calories and cholesterol in each meal would have given any self-respecting cardiologist a heart attack. In other words, both meals were just what the doctor ordered.

/>   ‘‘Good Lord,’’ said Billy, sitting back in his chair with a sigh. ‘‘Bless me, for I have sinned.’’ He grinned. ‘‘Take me two years on a treadmill to work that off.’’

  ‘‘Better than the alternative,’’ said Finn. She took a sip of the excellent coffee Velden had provided. ‘‘We’re lucky to be alive at this point.’’

  ‘‘I’d almost forgotten,’’ said Billy, his expression darkening.

  Finn nodded. ‘‘Me too. That’s when you get careless.’’

  ‘‘I suppose you’re right,’’ said Billy. ‘‘Those people we ran into aren’t just going to go away.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘I know we talked this whole subject to death during the crossing, but I still don’t know what they expected to accomplish.’’

  ‘‘Murder springs to mind,’’ Finn answered. ‘‘Somebody wants us out of the way.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘Unless there’s something in your past you haven’t told me about it must have to do with the painting.’’

  Billy snorted. ‘‘I admit it. I’ve led a double life all these years. Secretly I’m an Estonian spy operating undercover as an impecunious English lord with a silly pedigree that dates back to Boadecia, queen of the bloody Iceni.’’

  ‘‘Then it’s the painting.’’

  ‘‘But we didn’t even have it with us.’’ Billy shrugged.

  ‘‘I can’t think of anything else.’’

  ‘‘What about this . . . situation with Pieter Boegart, my dear departed cousin, and your . . . um, dad?’’

  Finn spoke stiffly. ‘‘He’s not my dad and I’m not sure that the ‘situation,’ as you call it, has any relevance.’’

  ‘‘Maybe they were after you, not the painting.’’

  ‘‘If they wanted to kill me, they didn’t have to do it in front of the Courtauld Institute. Knocking me off in Crouch End would have been a little more discreet, don’t you think?’’

  ‘‘And they could have done the same to me on dear old Flush any time they wanted,’’ agreed Billy.

  Finn nodded. ‘‘Which brings me back to the beginning. The painting. The last time a small Rembrandt was auctioned it went for nineteen million pounds. Thirty-six million U.S. That’s enough to kill for.’’

  ‘‘A thought occurs to me,’’ said Billy, leaning forward and pushing his plate out of the way. He lined up the saltshaker, the pepper grinder, and the sugar bowl. ‘‘Pieter Boegart’s instructions to Sir James. The letter had two objectives—to bring us together and to give us three items: the painting, the house, and the Batavia Queen. They’re all tied together.’’

  ‘‘Clues?’’

  ‘‘No, more like a game of hare and hounds. Do you have that in America?’’

  ‘‘A paper chase,’’ said Finn.

  ‘‘Exactly.’’

  ‘‘So Pieter Boegart is the hare and we’re the hounds, is that it?’’

  ‘‘The painting is a lure, and so is the house.’’

  ‘‘To what end?’’

  ‘‘Catching the hare.’’

  ‘‘In other words, finding Pieter Boegart,’’ said Finn.

  Billy nodded. ‘‘Or whatever he was looking for.’’

  11

  They made two telephone calls from the Oude Taveerne: one to the lawyer in Amsterdam who Tulkinghorn had told them was handling the house, and the other to Dr. Shneegarten at the Courtauld. The strange old man from Somerset House was apparently off doing research at the Reading Room of the British Museum, but the lawyer, a man named Guido Derlagen, was in his office and could see them immediately.

  Derlagen’s office turned out be in a modern block on the Rokin, a wide, boulevarded avenue just off the Dam, Amsterdam’s town square, about ten minutes from the main train station and the docks. The addresses on the Rokin that weren’t shops and cafés were banks, stockbrokers, and lawyers. This was Amsterdam’s Wall Street. The sidewalks were crammed with tourists and both sides of the boulevard thick with traffic when they arrived. The whole city gave off a sense of healthy bustle.

  Middle-aged and well-dressed, Derlagen had a somewhat lumpy but perfectly shaved head. He spoke excellent English. He was, it seemed, one of a score of lawyers who worked for the Boegart shipping business in the Netherlands. Derlagen was one of the team of advocaats who handled an assortment of personal trusts held by individual Boegart family members, in this case Pieter Boegart. Derlagen had a moderate-sized office with a window that looked down into the busy street. Finn could see a yellow tram-train squeaking down the tracks embedded in the old brick. Through the fluttering leaves of the trees that ran down the boulevard she could see the garish yellow and red sign of a Chinese restaurant.

  The furniture in Derlagen’s office was sparse and modern. His desk was a heavy slab of tempered glass on chrome legs. The desk had a flat-screen computer angled to one side on it and nothing else. There was a striped rug, a row of filing cabinets, and a pair of chairs across from the desk. The chairs were black leather. The walls were blank and art gallery white with no decoration at all.

  Finn and Billy sat down.

  ‘‘You’re here about the house on the Herengracht ,’’ said the lawyer. His accent in English sounded heavily South African, which wasn’t surprisingsince the first Boer settlers were from Holland. He tapped some keys and glanced at his computer screen. ‘‘We here at the firm were surprised when we heard of this transaction, yes? Because, you see, the house has been owned by members of the Van Boegart family since it was built in 1685.’’

  ‘‘I’m a member of the family,’’ said Billy. ‘‘Pieter Boegart is my cousin or something.’’

  ‘‘Yes, or something, that is correct, Lord Pilgrim.’’

  ‘‘Just Billy if you don’t mind, or Mr. Pilgrim if you like.’’

  ‘‘Certainly, Lord Pilgrim.’’ The man turned to Finn. ‘‘Your relationship to Meneer Boegart, however, is less clear.’’

  ‘‘Yes, it is.’’ She didn’t like the man’s officious and slightly condescending manner of speech. ‘‘But from what we understood from Sir James everything is in order, isn’t it?’’

  ‘‘Yes, it appears to be,’’ the man murmured, checking his screen again.

  ‘‘So if that’s the case,’’ continued Finn, ‘‘why don’t we just get on with it unless you’ve got some objection . . . Guido?’’ She pronounced his name with a heavy Italian accent.

  The man reddened. ‘‘It is not pronounced that way. It is more the way you would pronounce ‘van Gogh,’ the artist.’’

  ‘‘Van Hhok,’’ Finn said with the proper guttural effect. It made it sound as though you were getting ready to spit on the sidewalk.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ the lawyer said primly.

  ‘‘Which would make your name Hogweedo, yes?’’ Billy added, overdoing it with an innocent smile.

  Derlagen reddened even more as he realized they were teasing him. ‘‘The pronouncing of my name is of no importance,’’ he said a little angrily.

  ‘‘That’s right. It’s not important at all, any more than my relationship to Pieter Boegart, so why don’t you just go and fetch whatever papers we have to sign and we’ll get out of your hair, okay?’’ Finn said.

  ‘‘Quite so,’’ said Derlagen. He got up from behind the desk and left the office.

  ‘‘Pinched,’’ said Billy. ‘‘I used to have professors at Oxford like that. Always with that pinched look one gets when one’s bowels aren’t moving as they should.’’

  ‘‘In other words, he’s got a pickle up his ass,’’ said Finn.

  ‘‘Exactly,’’ said Billy.

  Derlagen returned with a file folder full of documents and a small leather-covered box. They signed the documents, which made them the only two stockholders of an already formed Dutch royalty conduit nonresident corporation called Vleigende Draeack LLC—the Flying Dragon Company. The only assets of Flying Dragon were the painting, which they had already received; the Amsterdam house on the Herengracht; a very e
lderly freighter due to be scrapped; and a tract of utterly unapproachable snake-infested jungle somewhere in the middle of an unnamed island in the Sulu Sea at approximately 7 degrees north by 118 degrees south. By signing the documents, Finn and Billy were legally agreeing to physically take possession of these assets within a limited period of time. Failure to do so would result in the forfeiture of all the assets, including those already taken into their possession.

  ‘‘So we have to actually go to this so-called snake-infested unapproachable tract of land on the unnamed island or we lose everything. Is that what you’re saying?’’ Finn asked.

  ‘‘Precisely,’’ said Derlagen, smiling for the first time. It was not a friendly smile.

  ‘‘Well,’’ said Billy airily, ‘‘I’m not doing anything else at the moment, Miss Ryan, how about you?’’

  ‘‘I’m game if you are, Billy.’’

  The lawyer’s lips pursed as though he’d just sucked a lemon. ‘‘As you wish,’’ he said.

  They signed. Derlagen went away again to get copies of the signed agreements and their stock certificates.

  ‘‘Can’t be very high up the food chain,’’ Finn commented. ‘‘He doesn’t even have a secretary.’’

  ‘‘I’m feeling very much the CEO. Perhaps I’ll buy lunch,’’ said Billy.

  ‘‘We just had breakfast, and how come you’re the CEO?’’

  ‘‘All right, you be the CEO, and I’ll be the stuffy old chairman of the board hired on merely for my escutcheon on the creamy linen letterhead and my portrait in the boardroom.’’

  ‘‘You,’’ said Finn, ‘‘are a very silly man.’’

  Derlagen came back with the papers. He placed them in a manila envelope, which he handed to Billy, who in turn handed it on to Finn. ‘‘She’s the CEO,’’ he explained blandly. ‘‘I’m just chairman of the board.’’