The Bosch Deception by Alex Connor

was a terrible power in paint.
    For the wicked, Bosch promised a torment of legless creatures swallowing the damned whole, of tortoises with Death’s heads and winged demons with tiger’s claws. Hepainted ships on fire, the naked and the doomed screaming as devils dragged them into the darkness and the lost chasms of Hell. He created men seduced by pigs; bodies impaled, halved and devoured by alligators; men with arrows in their anuses; women ridden by demons. Bodies distorted, abused, bleeding, violated – and the message was there for everyone to see. Even if the congregation could not read or write the paintings told them – this is the result of sin. This is the reward for the wicked.
    For the virtuous, Bosch painted a Heaven of plenty and beauty. But only for the good.
    It was a message the Catholic Church had preached for centuries, and it found its perfect expression in Hieronymus Bosch. Paint and panel managed to do what popes and soldiers could not – they forced obedience by the use of fear.
    Philip paused, thinking of what he had just learnt. In reality, Hieronymus Bosch had only lived for
twenty-three years
. Long enough to become famous, his visions and images immediately recognisable – and easy to reproduce. Hieronymus Bosch had created a template for his family to follow. God only knows how many paintings he had done while he was alive or how many sketches and drawings had been created by him – all ready for his avaricious family to draw upon. With the collusion of the Church, all they had had to do was to secure, and fulfil, the endless commissions.
    Work for a dead man.
    Paid for by a deceitful clergy.
    Hieronymus Bosch was to have no headstone, no mourning. His death was never to be acknowledged; his marriage a sham. And then Philip realised something else: the only documents known to the world concerning Hieronymus Bosch were the entries in the account books of The Brotherhood of Mary. Entries that were obviously false, recording a life made up, created to keep a corpse alive. And with those entries came the counterfeit commissions. The man had died long ago, but the name had been made to work on.
    Getting to his feet, Philip hid Sabine Monette’s mobile at the bottom of his suitcase and grabbed his coat. He understood why the world would want a chain that had belonged to Hieronymus Bosch, but how much more would the Catholic Church want the secret suppressed?
    He would have to be very careful to profit from this, Philip thought. He was in trouble, and he knew it. No wonder Sabine Monette had been killed. There were a few collectors and dealers ruthless enough to employ any means to secure something priceless – and scandalous. The chain wasn’t just an object of beauty, it was a revelation. And it might well prove to be his way to a cushy life … Philip paused, his fear giving way to greed. This could be a way to dump Gayle and marry his mistress. A way to flaunt his success to his peers and relish the fortune that was sure to be his.
    Or it might mean his destruction. Only this time it wouldbe
his
body in a hotel room, the notorious initials H B carved into
his
dying flesh.
    Bloody hell, Philip thought despairingly. Why, in God’s name, had he taken Sabine Monette’s phone?

Twenty
    Church of St Stephen, Fulham, London
    â€˜I thought I’d find you here.’
    Nicholas turned, surprised to find Eloise Devereux standing in the doorway of the vestry. She was bundled up against the cold in a tailored coat, her blonde hair tucked under a black hat. Elegant, groomed as always, although her eyes were swollen from crying. ‘I have to talk to you about Claude.’
    Closing the vestry door so that Father Michael wouldn’t overhear them, Nicholas showed Eloise into the church, and settled into one of the back pews. She hesitated, then sat down next to him, pulling off her gloves, revealing her right hand bandaged to the wrist.