Free The Rembrandt Secret by Alex Connor Page B

at the corpse. ‘They made him look like a ghoul.’ He fiddled angrily with his father’s tie. ‘And he never tied it like that! They’ve done a crap job. I told them. I told them exactly how it had to be, how everything had to be. You’d think they’d have listened. You’d think that, wouldn’t you?’
    Georgia put her arm around him.
    ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I never said goodbye.’
    ‘Say it now.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Say goodbye now.’
    ‘He’s dead. I don’t believe in life after death.’
    ‘I’d still say it, Marshall. You never know.’
    Georgia got to her feet and walked out of the chapel. She leaned against the wall in the corridor, took a few deep breaths, and then looked in through the porthole in the door. Marshall was standing at the head of coffin, looking down. She could see his lips move, but could only decipher the last six words: I’ll make someone pay for this.

8
    Dressed in their heavy overcoats and black armbands, Gordon Hendrix and Lester Fox stood in the gallery doorway and watched the street. Next to them, Vicky Leighton, the gallery receptionist, was crying softly. They could see Marshall talking to a dealer, and Lester nodded respectfully to Samuel Hemmings, who had come up to town for the funeral of Owen Zeigler. Off to one side, on his own, stood a tiny, shaken Nicolai Kapinski, drained of all colour, his balding head a pale orb against the dark collar of his winter coat. Tufts of other people dressed in black clustered like barnacles on the bow of the London street. Faces, pallid from emotion or cold, exchanged murmured remembrances of a dead colleague. And at the corner of the street, the pinched figure of Tobar Manners watched. Surrounded by a bevy of his cohorts, his metallic eyes flicked from the mourners to Marshall, and back again.
    Rosella had kept her word and left him, but no one knew. Everyone thought it was just another of her holidays. And Tobar would leave it like that … His face turned slightly against the wind, he stared at the back of Marshall’s head, only half listening to what someone was saying. Of course there had been talk about the Rembrandt sale – a good deal of whispering behind Tobar’s back. Some people had even intimated that he had cheated Owen Zeigler, and implied that he was indirectly responsible for his friend’s murder.
    And now, suddenly, the stakes had been raised even higher. Now there was a murderer in their midst.
    He wouldn’t admit it, but Tobar Manners had been struggling too. Not as much as some of the less successful dealers, because his coup with the Rembrandt had protected him. Of course he had lied to Owen; of course he had arranged for a second party to sell on the painting, then share the proceeds with him. His wife might know, but no one could prove it.
    Pulling up his coat collar, Tobar turned, watching as Samuel Hemmings approached in his wheelchair.
    ‘Manners,’ Samuel said, his tone unreadable as he sat, leaning his chin on his stick, his driver waiting in the car across the street. In the dropping temperature, Samuel looked frail; whippet thin, muffled in a coat and scarf with a fur hat pulled down low over his forehead.
    ‘You look like a fucking mushroom.’
    ‘Good to see you too, Tobar.’
    ‘I didn’t expect you to make it up from Sussex, I thought you’d died.’
    ‘Oh, no. After all, it wasn’t me you robbed,’ Samuel countered deftly. ‘How are you sleeping?’
    Shuffling his feet, Tobar glanced at his companions, then looked back to the old man, his voice low. ‘Don’t go throwing around accusations, Mr Hemmings. Although you’re old and most people would put it down to senility, I’d still be careful.’
    ‘You look thin,’ Samuel went on, unperturbed. ‘Your food not going down well? Must be all that bile in your gut, Tobar. Or a bad conscience. It shows on your face—’
    ‘Shut up!’ Tobar hissed, leaning down towards him. ‘Owen’s death has nothing to do with me.’
    ‘He was in