The Heist. Daniel Silva
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you?”
“Only my lungs,” replied Gabriel.
Upstairs he removed the canvas from its frame, propped it on an armless chair, and illuminated its surface with as much light as he could find. Then he mixed equal amounts of acetone, alcohol, and distilled water in the beaker and fashioned a swab using a dowel and cotton wool. Working quickly, he removed the fresh varnish and inpainting from a small rectangle—about two inches by one inch—at the bottom left corner of the canvas. Restorers referred to the technique as “opening a window.” Usually, it was done to test the strength and effectiveness of a solvent solution. In this case, however, Gabriel was opening a window in order to strip away the surface layers of the painting to see what lay beneath. What he discovered were the lush folds of a crimson garment. Clearly, there was an intact painting beneath the three Dutch washerwomen working in a courtyard—a painting that, in Gabriel’s opinion, had been produced by a true Old Master of considerable talent.
He quickly opened three more windows, one at the bottom right of the canvas and two more across the top. At the bottom right, he found additional fabric, darker and less distinct; but at the top right, the canvas was nearly black. At the top left, he found a tawny-colored Roman arch that looked as though it was part of an architectural background. The four open windows gave him a rough sense of how the figures were arrayed upon the canvas. More important, they told him that, in all likelihood, the painting was the work of an Italian rather than an artist from the Dutch or Flemish schools.
Gabriel opened a fifth window a few inches below the Roman arch and discovered a balding male pate. Expanding it, he found the bridge of a nose and an eye that was staring directly toward the viewer. Next he opened a window a few inches to the right and found the pale, luminous forehead of a young female. He expanded that window, too, and found a pair of downward-cast eyes. A long nose emerged next, followed by a pair of small red lips and a delicate chin. Then, after another minute of work, Gabriel saw the outstretched hand of a child. A man, a woman, a child … Gabriel studied the hand of the child—specifically, the way the thumb and forefinger were touching the chin of the woman. The pose was familiar to him. So was the brushwork.
He crossed the hall to Jack Bradshaw’s office, switched on the computer, and went to the Web site of the Art Loss Register, the world’s largest private database of stolen, missing, and looted artwork. After a few keystrokes, a photograph of a painting appeared on the screen—the same painting that was now propped on a chair in the room across the hall. Beneath the photo was a brief description:
The Holy Family, oil on canvas, Parmigianino (1503–1540), stolen from a restoration lab at the historic Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome, July 31, 2004.
The Art Squad had been searching for the missing painting for more than a decade. And now Gabriel had found it, in the villa of a dead Englishman, hidden beneath a copy of a Dutch painting by Willem Kalf. He started to dial General Ferrari’s number but stopped. Where there was one, he thought, there would surely be others. He rose from the dead man’s desk and started looking.
Gabriel discovered two additional paintings in the storeroom that, when subjected to ultraviolet light, were totally black. One was a Dutch School coastal scene reminiscent of the work of Simon de Vlieger; the other was a vase of flowers that appeared to be a copy of a painting by the Viennese artist Johann Baptist Drechsler. Gabriel began opening windows.
Dip, twirl, discard …
A swollen tree against a cloud-streaked sky, the folds of a skirt spread across a meadow, the naked flank of a corpulent woman …
Dip, twirl, discard …
A patch of blue-green background, a floral blouse, a wide, sleepy eye above a rose-colored cheek …
Gabriel recognized both paintings. He sat down at the computer and returned to the Web site of the Art Loss Register. After a few keystrokes, a photograph of a painting appeared on the screen:
Young Women in the Country, oil on canvas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), 16.4 x 20 inches, missing since March 13, 1981, from the Musée de Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Gard, France. Estimated current value: unknown.
More keystrokes, another painting, another story of loss:
Portrait of a Woman, oil on canvas, Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), 32.6 x 21.6 inches, missing since February 18, 1997, from the Galleria Ricci Oddi, Piacenza, Italy. Estimated current value: $4 million.
Gabriel placed the Renoir and the Klimt next to the Parmigianino, snapped a photograph with his mobile phone, and quickly forwarded it to the palazzo. General Ferrari rang him back thirty seconds later. Help was on the way.
Gabriel carried the three paintings downstairs and propped them on one of the couches in the great room. Parmigianino, Renoir, Klimt … Three missing paintings by three prominent artists, all concealed beneath copies of lesser works. Even so, the copies had been of extremely high quality. They were the work of a master forger, thought Gabriel. Perhaps even a restorer. But why go to the trouble of commissioning a copy in order to conceal a stolen work? Clearly, Jack Bradshaw was connected to a sophisticated network that dealt in stolen and smuggled art. Where there were three, thought Gabriel, looking at the paintings, there would be more. Many more.
He picked up one of the photographs of a youthful Jack Bradshaw. His curriculum vitae read like something from a lost age. Educated at Eton and Oxford, fluent in Arabic and Persian, he had been sent into the world to do the bidding of a once-mighty empire that had fallen into terminal decline. Perhaps he had been an ordinary diplomat, an issuer of visas, a stamper of passports, a writer of thoughtful cables that no one bothered to read. Or perhaps he had been something else entirely. Gabriel knew a man in London who could put flesh on the bones of Jack Bradshaw’s dubiously thin résumé. The truth would not come without a price. In the espionage business, truth rarely did.
Gabriel set aside the photograph and used his mobile phone to book a seat on the morning flight to Heathrow. Then he picked up the slip of paper on which he’d written the number from the dialing directory of Bradshaw’s phone.
6215845 …
This is Father Marco. How can I help you?
He dialed the number again now, but this time it rang unanswered. Then, reluctantly, he forwarded it securely to the Operations Desk at King Saul Boulevard and asked for a routine check. Ten minutes later came the reply: 6215845 was an unpublished number located in the rectory of the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Brienno, which was located a few kilometers up the lakeshore.
Gabriel picked up the slip of paper that had been at the top of Jack Bradshaw’s telephone message pad on the night of his murder. Tilting it toward the lamp, he studied the indentations that had been left by Bradshaw’s fountain pen. Then he removed a pencil from the top drawer of the desk and rubbed the tip gently across the surface until a pattern of lines emerged. Most of it was an impenetrable mess: the numeral 4, the numeral 8, the letters C and V and O. At the bottom of the page, however, a single word was clearly visible.
Samir …
THE ROAD WAS CALLED PARADISE, but it was a paradise lost: tattered blocks of redbrick council flats, a patch of trampled grass, a childless playground where a merry-go-round rotated slowly in the wind. Gabriel lingered there only long enough to make sure he was not being followed. He pulled his coat collar around his ears and shivered. Spring had not yet arrived in London.
Beyond the playground a dirty passageway led to Clapham Road. Gabriel turned to the left and walked through