Carel Honthorst ignored him. ‘Why did Nicholas Laverne come here, Father?’

‘I don’t have to talk to you. You have no right to question me.’

‘And yet I am,’ Honthorst had replied, turning his head slowly. In the dim light his eyes had fixed on an area just above the priest’s head. ‘These are simple questions, Father. Nothing to worry you.’ He had paused, then changed the subject. ‘You know Holland?’

‘A little.’

‘Hieronymus Bosch was a great painter.’ His head had turned away again and he was staring up at the stained-glass window. ‘People copied him all the time. They say he was good at Hell.’ Honthorst had paused, then tapped the old priest’s knee, a gesture that was at once both familiar and threatening. ‘Tell me what Nicholas Laverne told you.’

‘We talked about the old days—’

‘I don’t think so,’ the Dutchman had retorted, glancing at his watch. ‘I don’t have much time, so we must hurry our conversation. What did Nicholas Laverne tell you?’ His large hands were resting on the back of the pew in front and a sigh escaped him. ‘Tell me, or I will hurt you.’

Shaken, Father Michael had glanced around him. There had been no obvious escape route, and he was an old man who would have been easily out run. But despite his feelings of antagonism towards Nicholas Laverne, he hadn’t wanted to betray him.

‘Nicholas and I talked about old times. Nothing more.’

Honthorst’s fist slammed into the priest’s stomach with all the force of a lump hammer. Buckling over, Father Michael had then felt the Dutchman tenderly straighten him up against the back of the pew, smoothing down his vestments. Then he had picked up the priest’s rosary and held it in front of Father Michael’s face.

‘Tell me, or I’ll make you eat every one of these beads …’ His fingers had closed over the attached crucifix. ‘And then I’ll ram this down your throat.’

Terrified, Father Michael blurted out: ‘He was asking about The Brotherhood of Mary.’

‘And?’

‘He had a chain.’

‘He had a chain,’ Honthorst had repeated. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. What did he tell you about the chain?’

‘He said he found it.’

In one quick movement Honthorst had grabbed the priest’s face, forcing open his mouth. ‘You have one last chance, Father. Tell me what Nicholas Laverne told you. Tell me everything.’

And now the old priest was sitting huddled in his armchair wondering what he had set in motion.

Eighteen

George V Hotel, Paris

As ever, it was horses for courses. And Nicholas Laverne was a carthorse up against a steeplechaser. Philip Preston had hoped that Nicholas would return – with the chain and the story that went with it. But another day had passed, people were beginning to talk, and Philip had decided to act. His conversation with Gerrit der Keyser had been illuminating. If der Keyser had called in a heavy, it meant that he was desperate.

It would have been much easier if Nicholas Laverne had left a phone number or an address where he could be contacted, but there was no way Philip could get in touch. So there was only one alternative – skip Laverne and go straight for Sabine Monette.

Which was why Philip Preston was on his way up to the suite in the George V Hotel where Sabine Monette was staying. He had rehearsed his speech to an oily perfection. He would convince Sabine – whom he had known for many years – that he was the person to handle an artefact that had once belonged to Hieronymus Bosch. Philip didn’t know the exact nature of the Frenchwoman’s connection to Nicholas Laverne, only that she had stolen the chain and had perhaps hired Laverne as her agent. Why Laverne, he wasn’t sure. Why a rich Frenchwoman would hire an ex-priest for the task was beyond the limits of his imagination. But whatever the reason Philip was more than ready to usurp the onetime cleric.

He paused outside the door of the suite. Having arranged an appointment to see Sabine Monette, Philip had arrived early, only to be told by Reception that Madame had dismissed her maid in order to rest. She was not to be disturbed until 1 p.m. … Philip looked at his watch, then smiled at a passing chambermaid, walked to the end of the corridor and looked out into the dank streets. More rain, he thought, just like London. The minutes crawled past and he counted them down impatiently. Finally he glanced at his watch – 1 p.m. Walking back to the door of the suite, he knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again. Perhaps Madame Monette had grown deaf, or was still taking her rest. Philip waited for another couple of minutes, then knocked a third time.

Again, no reply.

He rapped a little louder on the door.

No reply.

He tried the handle.

To his amazement, the door was unlocked. Unwilling to catch his client unawares, Philip called out, ‘Madame Monette? It’s Philip – Philip Preston.’

He moved into the suite. The French windows were open, the white drapes spotted by rain, an overturned side table almost tripping him up. Bending down to pick it up, Philip’s glance moved through the open door into the bedroom beyond. And then he saw her.

She was oddly positioned, obviously arranged, propped up on pillows like a courtesan awaiting her lover. But her head was caved in, the right side pulped, the features gone. Her false teeth lay beside her left hand, knocked out of her mouth in the struggle – Sabine Monette finally showing her age. In a cruel touch, her dress had been pulled up and two initials carved crudely into the flesh of her stomach – H and B. And on the coverlet beside Sabine Monette, pressed into the pooling of blood, was the blurred outline of a Christian cross.

Backing away, Philip tried not to vomit. He had never seen a dead body before and was shaking, the smell of blood making him retch. His impulse was to run, but instead he looked around him. Afterwards he would wonder what he had been looking for. The chain? There was no chain in the suite. So why had he hesitated? Philip Preston hadn’t known, but before he left, something had caught his eye. Something half hidden under a cabinet. Something he took without thinking.

Sabine Monette’s mobile phone.

Nineteen

Even though he had reported Sabine Monette’s murder, Philip Preston was treated with suspicion, questioned repeatedly about why he had come to Paris. He had regained his composure, his fluent French an asset as he reiterated his account.

‘I came to see Madame Monette about auctioning some of her belongings … She had been a client of mine for some years … No, I don’t know what she wished to sell – that was why I came to Paris to talk to her … Check with Reception, they will tell you when I arrived … My own hotel will confirm that I was there all morning … I had no reason to harm Madame. Indeed, I had not seen her for several months …’

Finally the French police released Philip after he had given a statement, his composure hardly that of a man who had just butchered a woman. And besides, the killing had been a particularly brutal one and Philip Preston didn’t have a mark on him. Whoever had killed Sabine Monette would have had her blood on them and would have been unlikely to report her murder. Reluctantly, after taking his details, the French police released the English auctioneer.

Philip headed back to his hotel room. He had only been in for a few moments before the phone rang.

‘Where were you?’

He frowned at the sound of his wife’s voice. ‘I was just about to call you, Gayle.’

‘I rang and rang. They said you were out.’

‘I was … seeing a client.’

‘A woman?’

‘Gayle,’ he said wearily, ‘it was business.’ He knew at once that he couldn’t tell her about the murder of Sabine Monette. It would only throw her further off balance. ‘I’ll call you back later, darling—’