The Rembrandt Affair

foremost a murder investigation.'

'How long until your insurance company pays out?'

Isherwood frowned and drummed one finger nervously on the wheel. 'I'm afraid you've just hit upon my dilemma.'

'What dilemma?'

'As of this moment, the rightful owner of the Rembrandt is still the unnamed client of David Cavendish. But when I took possession of the painting, it was supposed to come under my insurance policy.'

Isherwood's voice trailed off. It contained a melancholy note Gabriel had heard many times before. Sometimes it appeared when Isherwood's heart had been broken or when he had been forced to sell a cherished painting. But usually it meant he was in financial trouble. Again.

'What have you done now, Julian?'

'Well, it's been a rough year, hasn't it, petal? Stock market declines. Real estate crashes. Falling sales for luxury items. What's a small independent dealer like me supposed to do?'

'You didn't tell your insurance company about the painting, did you?'

'The premiums are so bloody expensive. And those brokers are such leeches. Do you know how much it would have cost me? I thought I could—'

'Cut a corner?'

'Something like that.' Isherwood fell silent. When he spoke again, there was a note of desperation in his voice that had not been present before. 'I need your help, Gabriel. I am personally on the hook for forty-five million dollars.'

'This isn't what I do, Julian. I'm a—'

'Restorer?' Isherwood gave Gabriel a skeptical glance. 'As we both know, you're not exactly an ordinary art restorer. You also happen to be very good at finding things. And in all the time I've known you, I've never asked you for a favor.' Isherwood paused. 'There's no one else I can turn to. Unless you help me, I'm ruined.'

Gabriel rapped his knuckle lightly on his window to warn Isherwood that they were approaching the poorly marked turnoff for Gunwalloe. He had to admit he was moved by Isherwood's appeal. The little he knew about the case suggested it was no ordinary art theft. He also was suffering from a nagging guilt over Liddell's death. Like Shamron, Gabriel had been cursed with an exaggerated sense of right and wrong. His greatest professional triumphs as an intelligence officer had not come by way of the gun but through his unyielding will to expose past wrongs and make them right. He was a restorer in the truest sense of the word. For Gabriel, the case was like a damaged painting. To leave it in its current state, darkened by yellowed varnish and scarred by time, was not possible. Isherwood knew this, of course. He also knew he had a powerful ally. The Rembrandt was pleading his case for him.

A medieval darkness had fallen over the Cornish coast by the time they arrived in Gunwalloe. Isherwood said nothing more as he piloted his Jaguar along the single street of the village and headed down to the little cottage at the far end of the cove. As they turned into the drive, a dozen security lamps came instantly to life, flooding the landscape with searing white light. Standing on the terrace of the cottage, her dark hair twisting in the wind, was Chiara. Isherwood watched her for a moment, then made a show of surveying the landscape.

'Has anyone ever told you this place looks exactly like the Customs Officer's Cabin at Pourville?'

'The girl from the Royal Mail might have mentioned it.' Gabriel stared at Chiara. 'I'd like to help you, Julian...'

'But?'

'I'm not ready.' Gabriel paused. 'And neither is she.'

'I wouldn't be so sure about the last part.'

Chiara disappeared into the cottage. Isherwood handed Gabriel a large manila envelope.

'At least have a look at these. If you still don't want to do it, I'll find a nice picture for you to clean. Something challenging, like a fourteenth-century Italian panel with severe convex warping and enough losses to keep those magical hands of yours occupied for several months.'

'Restoring a painting like that would be easier than finding your Rembrandt.'

'Yes,' said Isherwood. 'But nowhere near as interesting.'

7 GUNWALLOE COVE, CORNWALL

The envelope contained ten photographs in all—one depiction of the entire canvas along with nine close-up detail images. Gabriel laid them out in a row on the kitchen counter and examined each with a magnifying glass.

'What are you looking at?' Chiara asked.

'The way he loaded his brush.'

'And?'

'Julian was right. He painted it very quickly and with great passion. But I doubt he was working alla prima. I can see places where he laid the shadows in first and allowed them to dry.'

'So it's definitely a Rembrandt?'

'Without question.'

'How can you be so certain just by looking at a photograph?'

'I've been around paintings for a hundred thousand years. I know it when I see it. This is not only a Rembrandt but a great Rembrandt. And it's two and a half centuries ahead of its time.'

'How so?'

'Look at the brushwork. Rembrandt was an Impressionist before anyone had ever heard the term. It's proof of his genius.'

Chiara picked up one of the photos, a detail image of the woman's face.

'Pretty girl. Rembrandt's mistress?'

Gabriel raised one eyebrow in surprise.

'I grew up in Venice and have a master's degree in the history of the Roman Empire. I do know something about art.' Chiara looked at the photograph again and shook her head slowly. 'He treated her shabbily. He should have married her.'

'You sound like Julian.'

'Julian is right.'

'Rembrandt's life was complicated.'

'Where have I heard that one before?'

Chiara gave a puckish smile and returned the photograph to its place on the counter. The Cornish winter had softened the tone of her olive skin while the moist sea air had added curls and ringlets to her hair. It was held in place by a clasp at the nape of her neck and hung between her shoulder blades in a great cloud of auburn and copper highlights. She was taller than Gabriel by an inch and blessed with the square shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs of a natural athlete. Had she been raised somewhere other than Venice, she might very well have become a star swimmer or tennis player. But like most Venetians, Chiara regarded sporting contests as something to be viewed over coffee or a good meal. When one required exercise, one made love or strolled down to the Zattere for a gelato. Only the Americans exercised with compulsion, she argued, and look what it had wrought—an epidemic of heart disease and children prone to obesity. The descendant of Spanish Jews who fled to Venice in the fifteenth century, Chiara believed there was no malady that could not be cured by a bit of mineral water or a glass of good red wine.

She opened the stainless steel door of the oven and from inside removed a large orange pot. As she lifted the lid there arose a warm rush of steam that filled the entire room with the savor of roasting veal, shallots, fennel, and sweet Tuscan dessert wine. She inhaled deeply, poked at the surface of the meat with her fingertip, and gave a contented smile. Chiara's disdain for physical exertion was matched only by her passion for cooking.