Art of Murder by José Carlos Somoza

nervous at having his boss breathing down his neck.
     
    With an expression of pure pleasure, Benoit put the cup back on its saucer. He licked his lips and looked across at Bosch. The wall lights made his pupils look red; his bald patch glowed like a cardinal's cap, and his feet and the lower half of his trousers gave off violet gleams.
    'All of which explains why what happened to Deflowering is so dangerous, Lothar. Adolescent works of art like that are extremely valuable. Fortunately, we have managed to keep the news quiet in Amsterdam. Only those at the highest levels know about it. Stein made no comment, and Hoffmann could scarcely believe it. And, of course, they haven't informed the Maestro. 'Rembrandt is due to open on 15 July, and some of the canvases are still being stretched or primed. So the Maestro is unreachable. But it's said heads will roll. Not yours or April's of course ...'
    'It was nobody's fault, Paul,' Bosch said. 'We were just caught out, that's all. Whether it was Oscar Diaz or not, it was a good plan, and they caught us out.'
    'The thing is,' Benoit insisted, holding out his cup for the Trolley to refill it, 'that we have to make sure it's we who find him. We need to interrogate him ourselves - the police wouldn't know how to get all the information we need out of him. You understand, don't you?'
    'I understand perfectly, and we're working on it. We've searched his apartment in New York and his hotel room here in Vienna, but we haven't found anything unusual. We know he's a keen photographer and likes the countryside. We're trying to find his sister and mother in Mexico, but I don't think they'll have much of interest to tell us.'
    'Didn't I hear he had a girlfriend in New York . . . ?'
    'Yes, by the name of Briseida Canchares. She's Colombian, an art graduate. The police don't know about her: we preferred not to tell them, and to look for her ourselves. Briseida met Oscar in
     
    Amsterdam a month ago. Several of Oscar's colleagues saw them together. She got a grant from Leiden University to study classical painters and lived there from the beginning of the year, but she's vanished too ...'
     
    'That's a remarkable coincidence.'
    'Of course. Thea talked to her Leiden friends yesterday. Apparently, Briseida went off to Paris with another boyfriend. We've sent Thea there to see if it's true. We're expecting news from her at any moment.' Bosch wondered whether Benoit would be offended if he realised he was not going to drink any more of his horrible concoction. He carefully concealed the cup under his left hand.
    'We have to find her and make her talk, Lothar. By whatever means necessary. You do realise the situation we're in, don't you?'
    'Yes, I do Paul.'
    'Deflowering was going to be sold at Sotheby's in the autumn. The sale would have made even the sports pages. Headlines like: Naked teenager sold at auction; The most valuable adolescent in history . . . well, the sort of nonsense you always find on the front pages . . . except, that in this case, the nonsense would have been accurate. Deflowering was the most valuable piece in the 'Flowers' exhibition, and we haven't found a replacement. The offers we were receiving were far higher than those we got in the past for Purple, Marigold or Tulip. In fact, the bidding had already started. You know how we like to play people off against each other.'
    Bosch nodded as he pretended to take another sip of tea. All he did was wet his lips.
    'You'd be astonished if you knew how much people were willing to pay for the monthly rental of that work,' Benoit went on. 'Besides, I knew how to put pressure on the most interested collectors. Deflowering had been very sad recently. Willy thought she might be entering a depression, but I had an idea of how we could use that to our advantage.' Benoit's eyes glinted triumphantly. 'We spread the news that the cost of psychotherapy would make the rental of the painting even more expensive. And then any buyer had to bear in