The Geneva Deception

Ten minutes later and they were opposite each other in a small cubicle at the rear of a bar on the Piazza Campo Marzio, tucking into pastries and espressos.

‘Too strong for you?’ Allegra asked with a smile as Tom took a sip.

‘Just right.’ He grimaced, licking the grit from his front teeth as he glanced round.

The place didn’t look as though it had been touched in thirty years, its floor tiles cracked and lifting, the brick walls stained yellow by smoke and festooned with faded Roma flags, tattered banners and crookedly framed match-day programmes. Pride of place, behind the battlescarred bar, had been given to a signed photograph of a previous Roma club captain who, in what looked like more prosperous times, had clearly once stopped in for a complimentary Prosecco. Apart from Tom and Allegra, it was more or less deserted, a few construction workers loitering at the bar. One had his foot resting on his hardhat, like a hunter posing for a photo with his kill.

‘Did you choose this place on purpose?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Caravaggio killed a man near the Campo Marzio.’

‘I’d forgotten.’ She frowned. ‘Some sort of a duel, wasn’t it?’

‘An argument over the score during a game of tennis,’ Tom explained, emptying another sugar into his coffee to smooth its bitter edge. ‘Or so the story goes. Swords were drawn, and in the struggle…’

‘Which is how he ended up in Sicily?’

‘Via Naples and Malta,’ Tom confirmed. ‘He painted the Nativity while he was still on the run.’ A pause. ‘That’s the wonderful thing about Caravaggio. That he could be so deeply flawed as a person, and yet capable of such beauty. They say his paintings are like a mirror to the soul.’

‘Even yours?’ she asked, Tom detecting the hint of a serious question lurking behind her teasing smile.

‘Perhaps. If I had one.’ He smiled back.

Allegra ordered another round of coffees.

‘So what are we going to do about Johnny?’ she asked as the waiter shuffled away.

‘What can we do?’ Tom shrugged. ‘Even if we hadn’t trashed the car, the cops will be all over it by now. We’re just going to have to wait until Archie calls and then pay him the cash instead.’

‘Archie?’

‘My business partner,’ Tom explained. ‘He’s on his way to Geneva, but he knows people here. The sort of people who can lend us fifty grand without asking too many questions. It might take until tonight, but as soon as we have it we go back to Johnny, hand it over and see what he knows.’

One of the workers made his way past them, returning a few moments later wiping his hands on his trousers and fastening his fly, the toilet flushing lustily behind him.

‘Show me that photo again,’ Allegra said, when he was out of earshot.

Reaching into his pocket, Tom laid the Polaroid down between them. It showed a sculpted man’s face against a black background, a jagged edge marking where part of his chin and left cheek had broken off.

‘It looks like marble. A statue fragment,’ she said slowly, turning it to face her. ‘Beautifully carved…’ She ran her fingers across the photo’s surface, as if trying to stroke its lips. ‘Almost certainly looted.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Tomb-robbers always use Polaroids. It avoids the risk of sending negatives off to be developed. And they can’t be as easily emailed around as digital photos, allowing you to keep track of who has seen what.’

‘Are you sure it’s marble?’ Tom frowned. ‘It looks pretty thin. Almost like some sort of mask.’

‘You’re right,’ she said, peering at the image. ‘Strange. To be honest, I’ve never really seen anything like it before.’

‘Then we need to find someone who has. The photo was pushed too far down that seat to have fallen there accidentally. Cavalli must have hidden it for a reason.’

‘Well the obvious person is…’ Allegra began, breaking off as she realised what she was saying.

‘Your friend, the professor?’ Tom guessed.

‘I wasn’t thinking.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no way I’m-’

‘You won’t have to, I’ll do the talking,’ Tom reassured her. ‘Where can I find him?’

‘Forget it,’ she sighed impatiently. ‘Gallo will have someone watching his apartment.’

‘He must go out?’

‘Not if he can avoid it,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘Bad hip and a completely irrational fear of weeds.’

‘Weeds?’

‘He’s old. It’s a long story.’

Tom noticed that, for the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to smile. Then, just as quickly, her face clouded over again.

‘Then I’ll have to find a way in. There must be-’

‘What time is it?’ she interrupted, gripping Tom’s arm.

‘What?’

‘The time?’

He glanced up at the pizza-inspired clock tethered to the wall over the toilet.

‘Just after ten. Why?’ Tom asked as she excitedly stuffed the photograph into her pocket.

‘He’s giving a lecture this morning,’ she exclaimed, sidling along the bench so that she could stand up. ‘I saw his notes yesterday. Eleven o’clock at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj.’

Tom jumped up, throwing a handful of change down.

‘That doesn’t give us much time.’

FORTY-TWO

Hotel Ritz, Madrid, Spain 19th March-9.48 a.m.

‘Oh. It’s you.’

Director Bury’s face fell, either too jet-lagged or annoyed to conceal his disappointment. It was hard to tell.

‘Yes, sir.’ Verity Bruce nodded, trying to sound like she hadn’t noticed. ‘It’s me.’

There was a long pause, and he looked at her hopefully, as if she might suddenly remember that she needed to be somewhere else, or that she had accidentally knocked on the wrong door. But she said nothing, playing instead with the silver locket around her neck in the knowledge that it would draw his eyes towards the bronzed curve of her breasts.

‘Yes, well,’ Bury coughed nervously, his eyes flicking to his feet and then to a point about three inches above her head. ‘You’d better come in.’

To say that he had been deliberately avoiding her since the unveiling of the kouros would have been going too far. They’d both had lunch with someone from the mayor’s office the previous day, for example, both sat in the first-class cabin together on the flight over and both been guests at that morning’s cultural exchange breakfast at the embassy. But to say that he had been avoiding being alone with her would have been entirely accurate. He had sought safety in numbers, inventing a reason to leave the lunch early so they wouldn’t have to share a taxi back to the museum, arriving at the breakfast late to avoid getting trapped over muffins and orange juice. That’s why she’d followed him back to his hotel suite now. She’d known he would be alone and out of excuses.

He walked over to the desk and perched on its edge, indicating that she should sit in one of the low armchairs opposite. She recognised this as one of his usual tricks; a clumsy attempt, no doubt picked up from some assertiveness training course, to gain the psychological advantage by physically dominating the conversation.

‘I’ll stand, if that’s all right,’ she said, enjoying his small flicker of anxiety.

‘Good idea.’ He jumped up, clearly not wanting to get caught out at his own game. ‘Too much sitting around in this job.’

‘Dominic, I thought it was time we talked. Alone.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Bury seemed strangely pleased that she’d said this, like someone who was desperate to break up