forgotten the logic by which she’d arrived at this particular sequence. Satisfied, she began to take them in silence, washing each one down with a mouthful of water and a sharp jerk of her head.
‘Fine, you win,’ Faulks said eventually, throwing his hands up in defeat. ‘What do you want me to do? Apologise? Wear a hair shirt? Walk up the Via Dolorosa on my knees?’
‘Any of those would be a start.’ She glared at him.
‘Even when I come bearing gifts?’ He unfolded his napkin to reveal three vase fragments positioned to show that they fitted cleanly together. ‘The final pieces of the Phintias
‘The same fragments I seem to remember you wanted a hundred thousand for last year,’ Verity said archly. ‘Are you feeling generous or guilty?’
‘If I had a conscience I wouldn’t be in this business,’ he replied with a smile, although there was something in his voice that suggested that he was only half joking. ‘Let’s call it a peace offering.’
‘Have you any idea of the embarrassment you’ve caused me?’
‘You have nothing to be embarrassed about,’ he assured her.
‘Tell that to Thierry Normand and Sir John Sykes. According to them, I paid you ten million dollars for something that was at best “anomalous”, at worst a “pastiche”.’
‘Pastiche?’ Faulks snorted. ‘Did you tell them about the test results? Don’t they know it’s impossible to fake that sort of calcification?’
‘By then they weren’t listening.’
‘You mean they didn’t want to hear,’ he corrected her. ‘Don’t you see, Verity, darling, that they’re all jealous. Jealous of your success. Jealous that while their donors have pulled back as the recession has begun to bite, the Getty remains blessed with a three-billion-dollar endowment.’
‘Sometimes I think it’s more a curse than a blessing,’ she sniffed. ‘Do you know we have to spend four and a quarter per cent of that a year or lose our tax status? Have you any idea how hard it is to get through one hundred and twentyseven million dollars a year? Of the pressure it puts us under?’
‘I can only imagine,’ he commiserated, shaking his head. ‘That’s why the kouros was a smart buy. After all, don’t you think the Met would have made a move if they’d been given even half a chance? But you beat them to it.’
‘Vivienne Foyle
‘The problem here isn’t the kouros,’ Faulks insisted, his full baritone voice taking on the fervent conviction of a TV evangelist. ‘The problem is people’s unwillingness to accept that their carefully constructed picture of how Greek sculpture developed over the centuries might need to be rewritten. They should be thanking you for opening their eyes, for deepening their understanding, for extending the boundaries of their knowledge. Instead, they’re seeking to discredit you, just as the church did with Galileo.’
She nodded, rather liking this image of herself as an academic revolutionary that the establishment was desperate to silence at all costs. The problem was, she didn’t have the time or the temperament to become a martyr.
‘I agree with you. If I didn’t, the kouros would already be on its way back to Geneva. But the damage is done. Even if they’re wrong, it’ll take years for them to admit it. Meanwhile the director can’t look me in the eye, the trustees have asked for a second round of tests, and the
‘Nothing else will come out,’ Faulks said slowly, his voice suddenly hard. ‘Not unless someone’s planning to talk. And nobody’s planning to talk, are they, Verity?’
It was phrased as a question, but there was no doubting that he was giving her a very clear instruction. Maybe even a warning.
‘Why would I risk everything we’ve achieved together?’ she said quickly.
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, his eyes locked unblinkingly with hers. ‘But others…well. I don’t like to be disappointed.’
There was an icy edge to his voice and she gulped down a few more pills, wishing that she’d packed some Valium as well. Almost immediately, however, Faulks’s face thawed into a warm smile.
‘Anyway, let’s not worry about that now. I understand that you’re upset. And I want to make it up to you. What are you doing tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’ She frowned. ‘Tomorrow I’ll be in Madrid. The US ambassador is hosting a two-day cultural exchange. We fly out this afternoon. Why?’
‘There’s something I want to show you.’ He reached inside his jacket and handed her a Polaroid. ‘I was hoping you might come to Geneva.’
‘Do you really think that, after what happened yesterday, the director is going to let me buy anything from you again?’ she asked, taking the photo from him with an indifferent shrug.
‘You won’t have to. It’ll come to you as a donation.’
She glanced down at the photo, then heard herself gasp.
‘Is it…?’ she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry, her hands trembling, her chest tight.
‘Genuine? Absolutely,’ he reassured her. ‘I’ve seen it myself. There’s no question.’
‘But no one has ever found…’
‘I know.’ He gave her a schoolboy’s wide grin. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘Who’s it by?’
‘Come now, Verity – 450 BC? Can’t you guess?’
There was a pause, her eyes still not having lifted from the photograph.
‘Where is it now?’
‘On its way to me.’
‘Provenance?’
‘Private Lebanese collection since the 1890s. I have all the documentation.’
Another pause as she carefully placed the photograph on the table, sipped some water and then looked up hungrily.
‘I have to see it.’
TWENTY-TWO
Headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza, Viale XXI Aprile, Rome
18th March – 4.25 p.m.
The headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza was located to the north-east of the city centre, just beyond the Porta Pia. It occupied a Spanish-looking building, with shutters at every window and its walls painted a dusty yellow and rich ochre colour. The main entrance was surmounted by the Italian and European Union flags, but these were sagging limply, the light breeze that was chasing the rain clouds away registering only in the rustling fronds of the palm tree that stood to the left of the door.
In a way, Allegra reflected as she stepped out of her taxi, it was perhaps better for her to catch up with Gallo here, rather than at the mortuary. This, after all, was where the physical evidence from the two murders was being kept, giving her the opportunity to have another look at the lead discs in the light of what Aurelio had told her and to get her story straight before seeing him.
Not that the decision to house the evidence here would have been a simple one, given all the different law enforcement agencies with a potential stake in this case. The Guarda di Finanza, for one, was a sprawling empire, covering not only Gallo’s organised crime unit but a variety of money-related crimes such as tax evasion, Customs and border checks, money laundering, smuggling, international drugs trafficking and counterfeiting. A military corps, it even had its own naval fleet and air force.
Allegra’s art and antiques unit, meanwhile, was part of the Arma dei Carabinieri, a paramilitary force with police duties that also oversaw counterterrorism operations, the forensic bureau, the military police, undercover
