The Night Gate

Chapter Sixteen

Paris, two days before the murder

Bauer gazed sightlessly from his taxi at the streets of the French capital drifting past his window, the waters of the Seine a sluggish leaden grey as it passed beneath the Pont Neuf. It was his first time in Paris, and he was surprised at how quiet it was. The pandemic, he supposed. Though the streets of Berlin were much more animated.

His driver, separated from the back seat by a perspex screen, pulled in at the Place du Carrousel, and told him over the intercom that the short drive from his boutique hotel just across the river had cost him twenty-three euros. Bauer paid by credit card on a machine in the back and felt contaminated after tapping in his code.

He stepped out into the Cour Napoléon and fished a small bottle of gel from his pocket to stand disinfecting his hands as he gazed at the glass pyramid. It was much bigger than he had expected, and clashed much less with the classical facade of the palace than his lecturer in architecture at university had led him to believe.

He was trembling with excitement. Just a few minutes away from seeing her in the flesh. He had booked a time for his visit online before leaving Berlin, and hurried now across the courtyard to the main entrance, descending to the reception area to join his time-slot-specific queue. He could not stay here as long as he might have liked. His rendezvous with Narcisse was in just over an hour, the only time the art dealer could fit him in. A brief appointment. Barely time for Bauer to convince him.

He gelled his hands again from the dispenser at the door, received his map, and stood in the foyer examining it and adjusting his mask. A one-way system to minimise social contact among visitors had been instituted by the museum, and he traced a route with his finger that would lead him to Room 711, the Salle des Etats in the Denon wing. It took him well over ten minutes to navigate his way through long galleries, past vast canvasses; the vibrant colours of The Wedding Feast at Cana, David’s iconic image of Marat murdered in his bath, the Coronation of Napoleon. In normal circumstances he would have soaked it all up, drinking in the works of artists he had only read about, witness for the first time extraordinary pieces he had seen only in reproduction. But his focus was singular and blinkered.

And then, finally, there she was. All alone, behind glass on a vast wall of midnight blue. In spite of the socially distanced crowds in the room, she saw him enter and watched as he approached. She had eyes only for him, and yet he felt himself unaccountably disappointed. She seemed small to the point of insignificance. Age had robbed her of her lustre and cracked her veneer in tiny crazed patterns. And still she stared at him, as if she knew why he was here, and slowly he felt himself falling under her spell. Even after all these centuries, she still had the power to seduce. Even if, as he suspected, she might not be what she seemed. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The room was filled with chatter, raised voices heightened by the presence of greatness. His mouth was dry. And he wanted her. So much. As so many had lusted after her before him.

But there was no time. He glanced at his watch. Narcisse awaited. An appointment with destiny.

Pewtery skies above Paris bore down on sad autumn trees prematurely stripped of life and leaves. Bauer stared blindly at them from the window of his hotel room. The pain in his clenched hand was still intense. The hole where it had torn through wallpaper and broken the plasterboard, a painful reminder of the temper which always robbed him of control. How dare Narcisse treat him like that! How dare he! It had been all he could do to restrain the urge to launch himself across the desk and punch that supercilious face until it was broken and bleeding. He had assaulted him with invective instead, a stream of abuse that carried on until he left the gallery, before cooling down just a little in the street outside.

But still his rage had burned inside him, all the way across town to his hotel, where finally he had unleashed it upon the wall, succeeding only in replacing anger with pain. Ten minutes is all that Narcisse had given him. Just time enough to explain in outline. And for Narcisse to dismiss him as a crank. Nothing could persuade him to review the evidence, or read the diary. The old bastard had simply risen to his feet and asked him to leave. His time, he had said, was far too precious to be wasted by charlatans.

Bauer stared out with simmering intensity at the light dying all across the city. Shadows gathering in the room around him. Light from the street laying oblongs across the thick-piled carpet. What now? What steps should he next take? He couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t! His grandfather’s account of events, and his astonishing revelation, were impossible to ignore.

Finally he turned away from the window and switched on a bedside lamp. He sat on the bed and unzipped his overnight bag to take out the diaries. He needed to read again the events of that fateful day so many years before. To dispel his disappointment. To rekindle his belief.