Authors: JOHN YORVIK
The brothers finished their tasks at more or less the same time and came over to join me. I reached for the vodka in my bag and pulled it out.
“Polish vodka?” I said.
With this another exchange of views in Polish began, which ended after two minutes in one of the brothers going into the back room to fetch three small shot glasses. He put the glasses down on the table and I filled them up. Then they held them up to mine and said “Zdrówko!”
“Cheers,” I said.
“We say that too, cheers,” said the brother standing near the till, who introduced himself as Piotr. The mopper was called Jakub.
“Now, the guy who mugged me. I think he was Polish. He said ‘Zabeej’ or something like that.”
“Zabić?” corrected Piotr. There was some shocked laughter among the brothers. And they each said ‘Zabić’ theatrically to each other, putting on murderous tones.
“It means...” said Jakub, “I will kill you. It is a terrible thing to say. They say it in the movies.”
I imagined Bomberjacket, with his nose ripped apart, saying ‘Zabić’ in a movie. He’d remember me for the rest of his life. The word ‘Zabić’ never far from his thoughts.
“Thank you,” I said to the brothers, and filled up the glasses again.
“Zdrówko!”
I took out my notebook in which I’d transcribed the titles of the books on Natasha’s bookshelf.
Szukaj Sztuki Zagrabionych
, read the first one.
Jakub and Piotr went into a scrummage to discuss that one and finally came out and said, “Search for Stolen Art”.
They looked through the rest of the list.
“They are the titles of art books. This one,” said Piotr, pointing to the first on the list, “is very famous in Poland. It is the catalogue of stolen art. Art stolen during World War Two and never recovered.”
“Are you writing a story about this?” asked Jakub.
“Yes, you could say that. Do you know anyone I could talk to about looted art in Poland?”
Jakub and Piotr started arguing again. Piotr was gesturing to the cafe and shrugging his shoulders with disappointment. Finally he answered my question.
“Too many people we know,” said Piotr. “But we’re trying to forget. It’s not a good image. Try a university.”
I remembered the idea of a brunch restaurant replacing their greasy spoon. And realised there might have been a misunderstanding.
“I’m not going to write a story about this cafe and the Holocaust. I realise that is not the image you want.”
I took out the photos of notes I’d found written inside Natasha’s art books.
The first photo showed a painting of an androgynous youth, swathed in elegant clothes with a cape of furs over his shoulder. It was somehow reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci. From what I could make out from the notes under the painting, it was painted by Raphael Sanzio da Urbino in 1514.
“What does it say about this painting?” I asked.
“It’s
Portrait of a Young Man
. It’s very famous. Belonged to Hitler’s Linz Collection. Missing since 1945. It could be worth hundred million dollar,” said Jakub, translating from the text.
“And what about these handwritten notes written on the side?”
“What do you expect us to do with this?” said Jakub.
“Translate them?”
“Impossible.”
“Bad handwriting?”
“No,” said Piotr. “Wrong language. It’s not Polish.”
“You know what it is?”
The two brothers shook their heads.
We looked through the other five photos, translating the text as we went. The brothers recognised Aleksander Gierymski’s
Jewish Woman With Oranges
and
Jewish Woman Selling Lemons
which started up a Polish debate between Jakub and Piotr. When they’d finished, they told me they were both considered priceless masterpieces and both had been part of Hitler’s collection.
The final photo was not of a painting but a statue. It was a profile shot of a man with an animal’s head holding a triangular symbol in one hand and doing something that resembled a Nazi salute with the other. He looked to be wearing an Egyptian headpiece.
Piotr read the text and discussed it with Jakub. He then explained that this had been in the collection of a Polish aristocrat. The Nazis had set out to destroy the Polish ruling class by confiscating their property. The photo showed an ancient statue of the Egyptian god Set, known as Set the Destroyer, god of storms, desert and chaos. It went missing in Krakow in 1944 and it hadn’t been seen since. I hesitated and then thought better about asking the brothers if they thought Set was giving a Nazi salute. I put the photos back in my bag and poured out some more vodka and we said a final “Zdrówko!”
Saying our goodbyes, I placed one of my cards on the table with my new mobile number scrawled across the back. Then I put on my baseball cap and tinted glasses and walked out the door.
* * *
“
That’s what Rilke said?” Dani asked, exasperated. “Synergy?”
“Yes, synergy,” I repeated.
The keyboard on Dani’s laptop rattled as she banged a search term into Google. A few seconds later she read out some of the results.
“Synergy: the creation of a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Here’s another: The beauty of synergy is that it serves only to add, never subtract.”
“The creation of a whole, meaning some kind of merger took place. What could he have meant?”
“Maybe he meant to confuse you,” said Dani.
I decided I would let that percolate for a while. In the meantime, I had some reading to do. I’d picked up a selection of Rilke’s books in Camden earlier. I opened,
Those Underground
, his tome on the occult, took a seat and started reading:
The light bearers have been carriers of knowledge for 6000 years. From the early civilisation of ancient Sumer to the decadence of post-industrial London, they have safeguarded the ruling principles that have guaranteed their dominance for millennia, passing them down through bloodlines like the Olympic torch. The Freemasons, Opus Dei, The Templars, Scientology, Cabalists and the Nazis have all coveted this knowledge, but only...
I read for two hours before I was interrupted by Dani handing me a plate of Chinese food that she’d got from the takeaway round the corner.
“Look at these,” I said to Dani, showing her photos of obelisks across the world said to represent the sun god Ra. “Like the one outside the AmizFire building. Doesn’t mean anything, though. You have them everywhere. The Washington Monument is an obelisk and you’ve got Cleopatra’s Needle in London.”
“Don’t forget. You also had the Isis statue in the foyer of AmizFire,” said Dani.
“Isis is here,” I said, pointing at another photo. I quoted from the caption: “Her cult was not extinguished with the other Egyptian gods, but was embraced by the Greeks and Romans, her worship has lasted until the present day.”
I found the appropriate section of the text and read out selected lines: “Isis, protector of the dead, conceived Horus with her dead brother, Osiris, who had been dismembered by their jealous brother Set.”
“Makes Jerry Springer seem tame,” said Dani. “Still, never underestimate the power of jealousy.”
“Listen to this,” I said, nudging Dani awake with my foot some hours later: “The ghosts of this ancient cult now manifesting itself in the underworld of our great capital city believe that to break the shackles of mental slavery, man must become not only master over his own nature, his basest instincts and desires, but master nature itself. Man must for all intents and purposes replace God and, in doing so, not shy away from making the decisions that a god would make. When nature kills its most feeble, it does so to ensure the survival of the species, for the greater good... To this end, man must become the master player rather than an unseeing pawn in the game.”
“Sounds like Social Darwinism by any other name,” Dani said, trying hard to mask her tiredness.
“The Master Player
, according to Amy, Marty was reading a chess book called
The Master Player
.”
“More coincidence theory?” said Dani.
“Coincidence wrapped up in enigma. It seems that this whole case is surrounded by semiotic moats, word puzzles, mythology and chess. Let’s try to think our way beyond it and cut the Gordian knot.”
“With reference to more mythology?”
“It’s a vicious circle. Rilke says there’s a cult, that’s been around for thousands of years in various forms and has resurfaced in post-9/11 London. But you’re right, it sounds like it’s straight out of Nietzsche. The same old white man’s burden dressed up in lederhosen. Then he’s chucked in everything that’s ever been written in the last 50 years about cults in general and, hey presto, he’s got himself a bestseller.”
“Give the people what they want,” said Dani, yawning. And she curled up into a ball at the other end of the sofa and drifted off to sleep.
Staring across the room, Dani came into focus. She was on her laptop scrolling quickly through documents and taking notes. Several Rilke books were open.
“What happened, Dani?” I asked.
“I got a second wind,” she said as if on fast-forward.
“Didn’t we agree, we weren’t going down that route?”
“Did you know that the Masons are not the only ones who like to play with words and numerology? Talking about the Cabala.”
I reached for the red Marlboro packet and lit a cigarette to help me with the waking process. I noticed two cans of
Red Bull
beside Dani’s feet, alongside the remnants of a packet of chocolate biscuits. Dani was on a conspiracy sugar high.
“Slow down, Dani. How do you mean?” I said, holding up my hands to give the slow signal. “About the Cabala?”
She took a deep breath, attempted to speak slowly, but soon speeded up again. “I read Rilke’s chapter on Twilight Language. It’s fascinating. 9/11 for example. 911...” she paused as she tried to stifle some wind. “911 is the emergency phone number in the U.S. 9+1+1 is 11. 11 is Cabalistic code for a new beginning. 11 represents the twin towers…”
“So the events of September 11 were a Cabalistic conspiracy? Or Masonic?”
“It’s all the same. See it’s fun, isn’t it?”
“It’s a form of entertainment,” I agreed. “And it’s reading. Better than watching TV at least.”
“Exactly. No-one ever says, he’s clever, he watches a lot of TV. Conspiracy theorists
are
clever.”
“Did you find anything useful?” Again, I gave the signal for her to slow down. Dani took a deep breath before speaking.
“AmizFire is code. Fire is Pyra in Greek and Amiz is vessel more or less if you switch the z for an s. And if you switch it for a d you get ‘amid fire’ or ‘amid pyra’ and if you reverse them you get...”
“Pyramid.”
“Exactly. Pyramid, the burial chambers of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. Or at least that’s what people think. And Isis is the guardian of the dead. Although, Isis also means throne. Pyramids are also featured in the architecture of many Masonic Lodges.”
“Christ Dani, how many coffees have you had?”
“Four or five. Plus two cans of Red Bull.”
“So, let me get this straight, everything about AmizFire points to Masonic or Egyptian symbolism? What about Tommy Burns?”
“To my Burns? Some kind of burnt offering.”
“Whoa. This is not the way out of
Wonderland
. It’s the way further down the rabbit hole, ultimately leading us nowhere. Playing Rilke’s games will only make us pawns.”
“I’m shot to pieces with all this stuff,” admitted Dani, now perching on the edge of the sofa.
I went to make myself a cup of black coffee and get Dani a glass of water from the kitchen tap. I handed it over and she drank it down thirstily then lay back on the sofa, trying to slow down, but her hands and fingers were flexing and drumming as if anxious to get back to the keyboard of her laptop.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go through it again. If we go back to the first night with Natasha Rok and factor in everything we’ve got so far. Marty set me up with his girlfriend. Amy suggested he was playing games. But why would Natasha go along with it?”
“He gave her no choice.”
“Or it was an open relationship.”
“But she got drunk, right? Not exactly consistent with a sophisticated urban swinger.”
“She was doing it for Marty.”
“Okay. So let’s work it out. The most striking thing when looking at the photofit and the photos of Marty in the paper is how much you and he look alike. You know that. Marty knows that. But no-one at AmizFire or the Chessington Club knew that. You were basically the perfect decoy duck. You could be seen walking home with Natasha allowing Marty to be elsewhere.”
I could see where Dani was going with this and began to get caught up in her caffeine-enhanced enthusiasm.
“Or they were meant to discover that Natasha wasn’t seeing Marty after all, but someone who looks very similar,
me
.”
“Why?” asked Dani.
“So they would trust Natasha. So Natasha wasn’t associated with Marty,” I said. “But something went wrong.”
“We turned up at AmizFire and Tommy Burns got a good look at you. He worked it out.”
“No,” I said, wracking my brains, and then it came to me. “The Polish guys who attacked us on Old Street. They were following us for Burns. They saw Marty and me together. That’s how they worked it out.”
“Wouldn’t they have seen you and Marty together in the AmBar?” asked Dani.
“We were only together twenty minutes in the AmBar before Marty palmed me off on Natasha,” I said.
“Then Natasha took you somewhere where you were sure to be spotted,” said Dani.
“She took me to an old pub near Islington. There were people there that seemed to know her. They were laughing at her. A bunch of guys. I was drunk and more interested in her. I can’t remember who they were. Maybe one of them was from AmizFire. Maybe even Tommy Burns. I don’t know.”
“But why was Marty targeting AmizFire and not the Chessington itself?” asked Dani. “If it all started at the Chessington Club?”
“Let’s say he had something on Burns. He’d discovered Burns had pulled the trigger for Scott, killing Jack Lewis. Sim Fratelli didn’t know who’d actually killed Lewis. He blamed Jim Scott.”
“Or was Marty’s interest in AmizFire purely financial? Don’t forget the Polish art thread,” said Dani. She opened her spiral notebook and started reading from her notes: “40 per cent of Polish art was plundered during the Second World War and most of it is still missing. The books in Natasha’s flat were mostly catalogues of missing art with photos and/or descriptions.”
“Anything on the language her margin notes were written in?” I asked.
“Nothing. Some of the letters resemble Cyrillic, but not many. We need a linguist.”
“Or a code breaker,” I said.
“Ok. So, back to the speculation,” Dani joked.
“Marty was planning his revenge and found a link between some stolen Polish art and AmizFire. But Burns discovered him and had Natasha killed and then set the police on Marty, who was trying to use me as a decoy. Had Marty planned to inform the police about the stolen art? Had his overtures to the police alerted Tommy Burns to his plan?”
“Probably not. Natasha would have known there is an international commission for plundered Nazi art,” said Dani, holding up a notebook triumphantly. “They work on a level closer to the UN or Interpol, far above the reaches of the Metropolitan Police Force.”
“Do they have a London office?” I asked.
“In Marylebone,” said Dani.
“So, contrary to all my ideas about conspiracy theory, wild speculation has won the day.”
“That, coupled with seven hours of research into looted Polish art.”
“Yes, that and being shadowed by public enemy number one, attacked by a knife-wielding Pole and sneered at by a public school twit.”
“Alright, alright,” said Dani in mock-admonishment, “don’t go on about it.”
“Yes, because everything pales in significance compared to two years of false imprisonment, right Dani?”
Dani looked into the bottom of her glass, angled the glass towards me and then threw what was left of the water in my face, which extinguished my cigarette with a hiss.
* * *
We checked the panel of buzzers. The Commission for Looted Art was on the sixth floor. I pressed the buzzer and the door clicked open. We walked into the grand foyer and stood on mosaic tiling, which depicted an evil looking snake-dragon wrapped around a pole.
“Maybe it was once a home for doctors,” said Dani.
“Even so, what’s that about? Why is medicine represented by a poisonous reptile climbing a greasy pole?”
“We don’t know that it’s greasy. My God, you’re beginning to sound like Rilke,” said Dani, with some satisfaction. She was now the more reasonable one after her conspiracy episode earlier that day.
I called the lift and rehearsed in my head what I was going to tell the Commission. When the golden cage of the lift had glided down in front of us, we got in and Dani pressed the sixth floor button. There was a very sterile smell in the building. Maybe it had been a hospital after all.
We got out of the lift and turned right following the arrows to the Commission’s reception. I knocked on the door and we were buzzed in. Behind the reception desk sat a blonde woman with a strong German accent. When she asked what our business was I told her it was connected to the Natasha Rokitzky case. On hearing the name, several of the staff working in the office space behind reception looked up from their computers. She made a quick phone call and then told us to sit down and wait for one of their agents.
After five minutes, the phone rang on the secretary’s desk. She answered, but she didn’t say anything, only listened while looking over at me and Dani. Then without saying goodbye she put the phone down and announced in her thick German accent: “Agent Greenfield will see you now. It’s down the corridor and the third room on the left.”
We picked up our things and walked down the corridor.
Interview Room
was written on the door. I knocked and was immediately told to come in.
Sitting behind a small desk was a large man with short hair and a grey goatee beard. He held out his hand to give each of us a firm handshake and then beckoned us to sit down. He didn’t say anything but was nodding slowly while he looked us up and down. Finally he spoke.
“I’m Agent Greenfield. What brings you here?”
“My name’s Lishman. I’m an investigative journalist working for London Free Press. This is Dani, our researcher and photographer. We’ve come in connection with the Natasha Rokitzky case.”
“Natasha Rokitzky?”
“Natasha Rokitzky is or rather
was
a Polish national, a specialist in Polish art, who was recently murdered in London. We have reason to believe she was investigating a looted art cache shortly before her death. There is also the possibility that her boyfriend, Marty Stewart, now missing, was involved with the investigation.”
Agent Greenfield was holding up the palm of his hand while looking towards the corner of the room.
“Excuse me for breaking up the show, but what evidence do you have that... you know... she was investigating looted art?”
I didn’t want to tell him that there was no evidence but a few art books and indecipherable notes found in a dead girl’s flat. Nor about the disappearing swastikas in the bathroom I’d seen in the dead Natasha photos. So I papered over the cracks in our story.
“I’m afraid I can’t reveal my sources at this stage. But I was hoping that you could either confirm or deny that Natasha Rokitzky or her boyfriend, Martin Stewart, had been in touch with you.”
“Never heard of them. Either of them,” said Agent Greenfield with emphasis.
I asked Dani for the photo and she produced the double exposure photo of Marty and Natasha from her bag. I took it and laid it down on the table in front of Agent Greenfield.
“Maybe they used an assumed name,” I said. I expected Agent Greenfield to at least show a flicker of recognition. Marty’s face had been on every newspaper’s front page for the last five days. But Agent Greenfield shook his head again.
“Could you tell me something about the cache your Natasha Rokitzky was investigating? That might tell us something?”
“A cache of looted Polish art in London.”
“U-huh,” said Greenfield, with encouragement.
“We believe it may contain Raphael’s
Portrait of a Young Man.
That’s about all we can disclose.”
Greenfield’s eyes lit up.
“Can you give us a location? The names of the people involved?” he asked, excitedly.
“No, not at the moment.”
“Nothing?” he demanded, showing frustration.
“Nothing.”
“Well in that case...” he took a breath and tried to contain his anger. “You mentioned two names I’ve never heard of. You name dropped a priceless piece of art, part of Hitler’s collection. Unless you reveal something concrete we can’t afford to open a case. You see we get a lot of cranks coming in, wasting our time. That’s how some people get their kicks.”
I was about to say something but decided against it, already feeling foolish enough for coming so unprepared to the meeting. Instead I handed Agent Greenfield my card with my mobile number on the back. Greenfield took my card, inspected it and then with obvious reluctance, passed me his card. With that, we walked out of his office and through to the stairwell.