The Flanders Panel

“Neither the one nor the other. When my wife was alive, people often came to the house. She was more sociable than me. But since I was widowed I’ve kept in touch with only a few old friends. Esteban Cano, for example. You’re too young to have known him when he was a successful violinist. But he died, two years ago now. The truth is that my small circle of friends has gradually been disappearing.” He gave a resigned smile. “There’s Pepe, a good friend. Pepin Perez Gimenez, retired like me, who still goes to the club and drops by from time to time to have a game of chess with me. But he’s nearly seventy and gets terrible migraines if he plays for more than half an hour. He was a great chess player once. And there’s my niece.”

Julia, who was taking out a cigarette, stopped. When she moved again, she did so very slowly, as if any excited or impatient gesture might cause what she’d just heard to vanish.

“Your niece plays chess?”

“Lola? Yes, very well.” The old man gave an odd smile, as if he regretted that his niece’s virtues did not extend to other areas of her life. “I taught her to play myself, years ago; but she outgrew her teacher.”

Julia was trying to remain calm. She forced herself to light her cigarette calmly and exhaled two slow clouds of smoke before she spoke again. She could feel her heart beating fast.

“What does your niece think about the painting? Did she approve of you selling it?” A shot in the dark.

“She was very much in favour of it. And her husband was even keener.” There was a bitter note in the old man’s voice. “No doubt Alfonso has already worked out on which number of the roulette wheel he’s going to place every last cent he gets from the Van Huys.”

“But he hasn’t got it yet,” Julia pointed out.

The old man held her gaze and a hard light appeared in his pale, liquid eyes, but it was rapidly extinguished.

“In my day,” he said with unexpected good humour and only placid irony in his eyes now, “we used to say you shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

“Has your niece ever mentioned anything mysterious about the painting, about the people in it or the game of chess?”

“Not that I remember. You were the first one to talk about that. For us, it had always been a special painting, but not extraordinary or mysterious.” He looked thoughtfully at the rectangle on the wall-“Everything seemed very obvious.”

“Do you know if, before or at the time when Alfonso introduced you to Menchu Roch, your niece was negotiating with someone else?”

Belmonte frowned. That possibility seemed to displease him greatly.

“I certainly hope not. After all, the painting was mine.” The expression on his face was astute and full of a knowing mischief. “And it still is.”

“Can I ask you one more question, Don Manuel?”

“Of course.”

“Did you ever hear your niece and her husband talk about consulting an art historian?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t recall them doing it, and I think I’d remember something like that.” Suspicion had resurfaced in his eyes. “That was Professor Ortega’s job, wasn’t it? Art history. I hope you’re not trying to insinuate…”

Julia realised she’d gone too far, so she produced one of her best smiles.

“I didn’t necessarily mean Alvaro Ortega, but any art historian. It’s not such an odd idea that your niece might have been curious to know the value of the painting, or to find out its history.”

Belmonte looked at the backs of his freckled hands with a reflective air.

“She never mentioned it. And I think she would have, because we often talked about the Van Huys. Especially when we used to replay the game the people in the painting are playing. We played it forwards, of course. And do you know something? Although White appears to have the advantage, Lola always won with Black.”

She walked aimlessly about in the fog for almost an hour, trying to put her ideas in order. The damp air left droplets of moisture on her face and hair. She passed the Palace Hotel, where the doorman, in top hat and gold-braided uniform, was sheltering beneath the glass canopy, wrapped in a cloak that made him look like someone out of nineteenth-century London, in keeping with the fog. All that was missing, she thought, was a horse-drawn carriage, its lantern dimmed by the grey mist, out of which would step the gaunt figure of Sherlock Holmes, followed by his faithful companion, Watson. Somewhere in the murk the sinister Professor Moriarty would be watching. The Napoleon of crime. The evil genius.

Lately she seemed to have come across far too many people who played chess. And everyone had excellent reasons for their links with the Van Huys. There were too many portraits inside that wretched painting.