Deceptions by Anna Porter (pride and prejudice read .txt) 📕

The next set of sheets set out the history of a harvest scene by Jacob Savery. The first date was 1567. Flicking through, she didn’t see one for a Gentileschi, but she assumed there could easily be one somewhere in the apartment.

Paintings of various sizes hung on the walls. She recognized one of Rippl-Rónai’s brooding Parisian women, a large canvas by Vladimir Makovsky of a group of depressed-looking peasants, and a lonely figure in vibrant colours signed by Sándor Nagy. Helena assumed the other paintings were also by eastern Europeans, until she saw a small Gauguin self-portrait with a Christ figure in the background, then an unmistakable Luca Giordano, and an unsigned Turner watercolour of a town with a river. She paused for a few moments and stared at the Turner: the lines were almost but not quite perfect, yes, it could be a fake. Maybe even one of Simon’s. That would raise questions about some of the others, including the drawings. Simon’s Thai artists could produce seemingly authentic watercolours.

Near the door to the surprisingly modest kitchen were unframed canvases leaning against one another.

It was, she thought, inconceivable that the person who had collected all the art in these two rooms would be so careless as to lean unframed paintings one behind the other, their surfaces touching and maybe damaging the paint. It was, however, conceivable that the person who had collected all this art would have had an Artemisia Gentileschi to sell, that the painting now in the Vaszarys’ new home in Strasbourg would have come from here. Who is Adam Biro, how did he assemble his art, and, if he could afford all this, why would he share his apartment with another man?

She photographed the two rooms with special attention to art she recognized, then, as quietly as she had entered, she left the apartment, waited a few moments outside the door, then took the stairs down to the courtyard. She found a sunny spot across from the entrance, with a good view of the glass-enclosed elevator, and opened her copy of The Odyssey.

Who, her father had said, would suspect someone of a crime when they were reading classical literature?

She waited about half an hour and saw no one press the number three button in the elevator. The sun had dropped behind the building, creating a late afternoon shadow in the courtyard, when a youngish man in cargo pants, black lace-up boots, and an unzipped dark grey hoodie came in, hurried to the stairs, and took them, two at a time, to the third floor. He must have gone to Biro’s apartment because he didn’t emerge on either side of the elevator shaft. She was thinking about how long she should give him to settle in, pour himself a large drink, and not notice that anyone had been inside, when she heard running footsteps and the now hooded figure appeared in the courtyard again. He looked left, then right, reached for the main door, wrenched it open, and turned down Fő Street toward the Chain Bridge.

She had seen only a part of his face as he scanned the courtyard, but Helena had an art expert’s memory for face shapes and eyes. She had no doubt that she had seen this face before, the thin lips in an almost straight line, small narrow eyes: in Strasbourg, on a bridge over the river, and later in the cathedral.

She had been close to the baby oak tree across from the main entrance, her book held high, her own hood over her head, but she thought he had seen her. She had been sitting next to his victim in the tour boat. She had followed him. He had looked right at her in the cathedral before he ran out, leaving his coat and the crossbow. He would recognize her.

She was out the door a minute after it banged shut, but he was already near the bottom of the street. Black Converse shoes running fast. He zigzagged to avoid some pedestrians, leapt into the road, jumped out of the way of a car, got back on the sidewalk, and went straight downhill, the white rims of his shoes flashing as he rounded the corner, left. Helena was also running fast now, her legs pumping to keep up, leaping sideways to avoid people, then back, as he had done, taking long deep breaths, elbows in, hands curled. She was about forty feet behind him when he skirted the roundabout and started along the sidewalk across the Chain Bridge as Helena bounded out of the way of a bike, then a group of tourists on upright scooters. “Scheisse!” one of them shouted as she careened into Helena, arms flailing, feet slipping backwards as she tried to regain her balance. Helena stopped the scooter with her shoulder, grabbed the woman by the waist, and hoisted her back on the two-wheeler, avoiding another collision just as the tour leader called her group to a halt.

The grey hoodie was partway across the bridge before Helena managed to extricate herself from the Germans.

He picked up speed as he reached the end, turned up the quay, sprinted along the Danube embankment, looked back at Helena, and disappeared behind the Number 2 streetcar near the Parliament buildings. He seemed to be pacing the streetcar as it approached the pedestrian island. She waited on the other side of the tracks, where the József Attila statue had stood when she was last in Budapest. She watched the man run up to the uniformed guard and say something to him. They both laughed.

A few minutes later, he walked casually up to the side entrance of the Parliament block and disappeared inside.

Helena shook her hair loose, unzipped her hoodie, and walked to the guard’s booth. He was young, pimply, and wearing a too-large uniform and a peaked cap.

“Hello,” Helena said with a smile.

“Hullo,” he said, also smiling.

“Could I go in here?” she asked.

He continued to smile and pointed over to the long line of