Portrait of an Unknown Woman, page 33
“Is it true he used an actual corpse?” asked Chiara as she pondered The Raising of Lazarus.
“Unlikely,” answered Gabriel. “But certainly not beyond the realm of possibility.”
“It’s not one of his better efforts, is it?”
“Much of what you see was painted by studio assistants. The last restoration was about ten years ago. As you can no doubt tell from the quality of the work, I wasn’t available at the time.”
Chiara gave him a look of reproach. “I think I liked you better before you became a forger.”
“Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t attempt to forge a Caravaggio. You would have thrown me into the street.”
“I have to say, I rather enjoyed my afternoons with Orazio Gentileschi.”
“Not as much as he enjoyed his time with Danaë.”
“She would love to have lunch alone with you before this trip is over.”
“Our cabin is too close to the children’s.”
“In that case, how about a midnight snack instead?” Smiling, Chiara directed her gaze toward the Caravaggio. “Do you think you could paint one?”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“And what about your rival? Is he capable of forging a Caravaggio?”
“He produced undetectable Old Master paintings from every school and period. A Caravaggio would be rather easy for him.”
“Who do you suppose he is?”
“The last person in the world anyone would ever suspect.”
Their midnight snack turned out to be a sumptuous feast several hours in length, and it was nearly ten in the morning by the time they set out for Limpari. Their next stop was a little cove along the Calabrian coast. Then, after an overnight sail that included a snack on the Bavaria’s foredeck, they arrived at the Amalfi Coast. From there, they island-hopped their way across the Gulf of Naples—first Capri, then Ischia—before venturing across the Tyrrhenian Sea to Sardinia.
To the north lay Corsica. Gabriel charted a course up the island’s western side, into the teeth of a freshening maestral. And two days later, on a cool and cloudless Wednesday evening, he guided the Bavaria into Porto’s tiny marina. Waiting on the quay, their arms raised in greeting, were Sarah Bancroft and Christopher Keller.
The sun had set by the time they reached the well-guarded home of Don Anton Orsati. Clad in the simple clothing of a Corsican paesanu, he greeted Irene and Raphael as though they were blood relatives. Gabriel explained to his children that the large, expansive figure with the dark eyes of a canine was a producer of the island’s finest olive oil. Irene, with her peculiar powers of second sight, was clearly dubious.
The don’s walled garden was strung with decorative lights and filled with members of his extended clan, including several who worked in the clandestine side of his business. It seemed the arrival of the Allon family after a long and perilous sea voyage was cause for celebration, as was the first visit to the island by Christopher’s American wife. Many Corsican proverbs were recited, and a great deal of pale Corsican rosé was drunk. Sarah stared unabashedly at Raphael throughout dinner, entranced by the child’s uncanny resemblance to his father. Gabriel, for his part, stared at his wife. She had never looked happier—or more beautiful, he thought.
At the conclusion of the meal, the don invited Gabriel and Christopher upstairs to his office. Lying on the desk was the photograph of the man who had tried to kill Gabriel and Sarah at Galerie Georges Fleury in Paris.
“His name was Rémy Dubois. And you were right,” said Orsati. “He had a military background. He spent a couple of years fighting the crazies in Afghanistan, where he became quite familiar with improvised explosives. When he came home, he had trouble getting his life together.” The don glanced at Christopher. “Sound familiar?”
“Perhaps you should tell him about Rémy Dubois and leave me out of it.”
“The organization for which Dubois worked is known only as the Groupe. The other employees of this organization are all former soldiers and intelligence operatives. Most of their clients are wealthy businessmen. They’re very good at what they do. And quite expensive. We found Rémy in Antibes. A nice place near the Plage de Juan les Pins.”
“Do I have to ask where he is now?”
“You probably passed over him as you approached Porto.”
“How much were you able to get out of him?”
“Chapter and verse. Apparently, the attempt on your life was a rush job.”
“Did he happen to mention when he got the order?”
“It was the Sunday before the bombing.”
“Sunday evening?”
“Morning, actually. He had to assemble the bomb so quickly that he didn’t have time to buy a burner phone to use as the detonator trigger. He used a phone he picked up on another job instead.”
“It belonged to a woman named Valerie Bérrangar. Dubois and his associates ran her car off the road south of Bordeaux.”
“So he said. He was also involved in the murder of Lucien Marchand.” Orsati inclined his head toward an unfinished Cézanne-inspired landscape leaning against the wall. “We found that in his apartment in Antibes.”
“Who paid for the bullet?” asked Gabriel.
“An American. Evidently, he was a former CIA officer. Dubois didn’t know his name.”
“It’s Leonard Silk. He lives on Sutton Place in Manhattan.” Gabriel paused, then added, “Number fourteen.”
“We have friends in New York.” Orsati fed the photograph into his shredder. “Good friends, in fact.”
“How much?”
“You insult me.”
“Money doesn’t come from singing,” said Gabriel, repeating one of the don’s favorite proverbs.
“And dew won’t fill the tank,” he replied. “But save your money for your children.”
“Little children, little worries. Big children, big worries.”
“But not tonight, my friend. Tonight we have no worries at all.”
Gabriel looked at Christopher and smiled. “We’ll see about that.”
Downstairs, Gabriel found Raphael and Irene propped against Chiara, their eyes glassy and unfocused. Don Orsati begged them to stay a little longer, but after a final exchange of Corsican proverbs he reluctantly acquiesced to their departure. He could not hide his disappointment, though, over Gabriel’s travel plans. The Allon family intended to spend a single night at Christopher’s villa, then set out for Venice first thing in the morning.
“Surely you can stay for a week or two.”
“The children begin school in mid-September. We’ll barely make it home in time as it is.”
“To where will you sail next year?” inquired the don.
“The Galápagos, I think.”
With that, they said their goodbyes and squeezed into Christopher’s battered old Renault hatchback for the drive to the next valley. Gabriel and Chiara sat in back with the children wedged between them. Sarah sat in the passenger seat next to her husband. Despite the gaiety of the evening, her mood was suddenly tense.
“Have you heard from Magdalena?” she asked in the overbright voice of one who feared imminent disaster.
“Magdalena who?” replied Gabriel as the headlamps illuminated the enormous horned goat standing in the center of the track near the three ancient olive trees owned by Don Casabianca.
Christopher applied the brakes, and the car slowed gently to a stop.
“Would you mind awfully if I had a cigarette?” asked Sarah. “I feel one coming on.”
“That makes two of us,” murmured Gabriel.
Irene and Raphael, somnambulant a moment earlier, were suddenly alert and excited about the prospect of yet another adventure. Christopher sat with his hands upon the wheel, his powerful shoulders slumped, a picture of misery.
His eyes met Gabriel’s in the rearview mirror. “I would prefer if your children didn’t watch.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why do you think I sailed all the way to Corsica?”
“We’ve had a rough couple of weeks,” explained Sarah. “Last night . . .”
“Last night what?” probed Irene.
“I’d rather not say.”
Christopher said it for her. “He got a clean shot at me. It was like being hit with a pile driver.”
“You must have provoked the poor thing,” said Chiara.
“As far as that creature is concerned, my very existence is a provocation.”
Christopher tapped the horn and with a cordial movement of his hand invited the goat to step aside. Receiving no response, he lifted his foot from the brake and inched the car forward. The goat lowered his head and drove it into the grille.
“I told you,” said Sarah. “He’s incorrigible.”
“That’s no way to talk about Christopher,” interjected Gabriel.
“What does incorrigible mean?” asked Raphael.
“Incapable of being corrected. Depraved and inveterate. A hopeless reprobate.”
“Reprobate,” repeated Irene, and giggled.
Christopher opened his door, igniting the interior dome light. Sarah appeared stricken. “Perhaps we should all check into a hotel. Or better yet, let’s spend the night on that beautiful boat of yours.”
“Yes, let’s,” agreed Chiara as the car shuddered with the impact of another blow. Then she looked at Gabriel and said quietly, “Do something, darling.”
“My hand is killing me.”
“Let me,” said Irene.
“Not a chance.”
“Don’t listen to your father,” said Chiara. “Go right ahead, sweetheart.”
Gabriel opened his door and looked at his beautiful wife. “If anything happens to her, let it be on your head.”
Irene clambered across Gabriel’s lap and leapt out of the car. Fearlessly she approached the goat and, stroking his red beard, explained that she and her family were sailing back to Venice tomorrow morning and needed a good night’s sleep. The goat clearly found the story implausible. Nevertheless, he withdrew from the track without further contest, and the situation was resolved peaceably.
Irene squeezed into the backseat and rested her head against her father’s shoulder as they resumed their progress toward Christopher’s villa.
“Reprobate,” whispered the child, and laughed hysterically.
73
Bar Dogale
Against all better judgment, Gabriel agreed to remain in Corsica through the weekend. He insisted, however, on spending Sunday night aboard the Bavaria, and by the time Chiara and the children awakened on Monday morning, he had put Ajaccio behind them. With the maestral at his back and his spinnaker flying, he reached the southern tip of Sardinia at sunset on Tuesday, and by late Thursday afternoon they were back in Messina.
That evening, while dining at I Ruggeri, one of the city’s finer restaurants, Gabriel read with relief that prosecutors in New York’s Suffolk County had dropped all charges against Lindsay Somerset in the death of her husband. Locked out of her homes, her bank accounts seized or frozen, she faced an uncertain future. There was speculation in a Long Island weekly that she intended to open a fitness studio in Montauk and settle permanently in the East End. The largely favorable local reaction suggested that Lindsay, with her act of madness at the airport, had emerged from the scandal untarnished by Phillip’s fraud.
Three nights later, in Bari, Gabriel read that Kenny Vaughan, Phillip’s fugitive chief investment officer, had been found dead of an apparent drug overdose in a New Orleans hotel room. Still unaccounted for was the money that Phillip had drained from the firm’s cash reserves during the final hours of his life. According to the New York Times, any attempt to sell off the hedge fund’s inventory of paintings would likely prove disappointing, as collectors and museums were skittish about acquiring anything Phillip had touched. A team of experts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art had conducted a survey of the warehouse on East Ninety-First Street in an attempt to definitively determine which of the 789 paintings were forgeries and which were authentic. Consensus had proven impossible.
Accompanying the article was a photograph of the last painting Phillip acquired before his death: Danaë and the Shower of Gold, purportedly by Orazio Gentileschi. The FBI had determined that it was shipped to New York from the Tuscan city of Florence, doubtless in violation of Italy’s strict cultural patrimony laws. Whether it was a forgery or a genuine lost masterpiece the connoisseurs could not say—not without rigorous scientific testing of the sort conducted by Aiden Gallagher of Equus Analytics. Nevertheless, US authorities had acceded to an Italian demand that the painting be returned immediately.
Fittingly enough, it arrived in Italy the same morning that Gabriel, after a moonlit final run up the northern Adriatic, eased the Bavaria into its slip at the Venezia Certosa Marina. Four days later, after watching Chiara board a Number 2 at the San Tomà vaporetto stop, he escorted Irene and Raphael to the Bernardo Canal scuola elementare for the start of the fall term. Alone for the first time in many weeks—and having nothing else on his schedule other than a visit to the Rialto Market—he made his way through empty streets to Bar Dogale. Which was where, at a chrome table covered in blue, he found General Cesare Ferrari.
The waiter delivered two cappuccini and a basket of sugar-dusted, cream-filled cornetti. Gabriel drank the coffee but ignored the pastry. “I’ve been eating nonstop for a month and a half.”
“And yet you look as though you haven’t gained a kilo.”
“I hide it well.”
“Like most things.” The general was attired in his blue-and-gold Carabinieri finery. Standing upright next to his chair was a shallow portfolio case typically used by art professionals to transport drawings or small paintings. “Somehow you even managed to conceal your involvement in the Somerset affair.”
“Not exactly. That FBI agent gave me an earful.”
“It is my understanding that the interview was conducted over Bellinis in Harry’s Bar.”
“You were watching?”
“You don’t think we let FBI agents wander around without an escort?”
“I certainly hope not.”
“Special Agent Campbell gave me a good going-over as well,” said Ferrari. “He was convinced the Art Squad was somehow involved in your shenanigans. I assured him that we were not.”
“The swift return of Danaë and the Shower of Gold suggests he believed you.”
The general sipped his cappuccino. “A rather remarkable development, even by your standards.”
“Where is it now?”
“Still at the palazzo,” said Ferrari, referring to the Art Squad’s Roman headquarters. “But later today it will be taken to the Galleria Borghese for analysis.”
“Oh, dear.”
“How long will it take them to conclude it’s a forgery?”
“According to the Times, it passed muster in New York.”
“With all due respect, we know a bit more about Gentileschi’s work than do the Americans.”
“The brushwork and palette are his,” said Gabriel. “But the minute they subject the canvas to examination by X-radiography and infrared reflectography, I’m cooked.”
“As well you should be. That painting needs to be exposed as a forgery and destroyed.” The general exhaled heavily. “You realize, I hope, that your fictitious sales through Dimbleby Fine Arts of London have added new works to the oeuvres of three of the greatest painters in history.”
“As of yet, none of the pictures that Oliver purportedly sold have found their way into the artists’ catalogues raisonnés.”
“And if they do?”
“I will immediately step forward. Until then, I intend to remain out of the public eye.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m going to spend the next month cleaning crumbs and other assorted debris from my boat.”
“And then?”
“My wife is considering allowing me to restore a painting.”
“For the Tiepolo Restoration Company?”
“Given the perilous state of my bank account, I’m inclined to accept a lucrative private commission first.”
The general frowned. “Perhaps you should just forge something instead.”
“My brief career as an art forger is now officially over.”
“And to think that it was all for naught.”
“I brought down the largest forgery network in the history of the art world.”
“Without finding the forger himself,” the general pointed out.
“I would have if Lindsay Somerset hadn’t ruined a perfectly good Range Rover killing her husband.”
“Be that as it may, it’s a rather unsatisfying conclusion to the story. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“The guilty were punished,” said Gabriel.
“But the forger remains free.”
“Surely the FBI must have some idea who he is by now.”
“Young Campbell says not. Clearly, your forger covered his tracks well.” General Ferrari reached for the portfolio case and handed it to Gabriel. “But perhaps this might help solve the mystery.”
“What is it?”
“A gift from your friend Jacques Ménard in Paris.”
Gabriel balanced the case on his knees and popped the latches. Inside was A River Scene with Distant Windmills, oil on canvas, 36 by 58 centimeters, purportedly by the Dutch Golden Age painter Aelbert Cuyp. There was also a copy of a report prepared by the Louvre’s National Center for Research and Restoration. It stated that the center, after weeks of painstaking scientific analysis, had been unable to render a definitive judgment as to the work’s authenticity. On one point, however, it was certain in its findings.
A River Scene with Distant Windmills contained not a single fiber of navy-blue polar fleece fabric.
