darkness. For a few moments nothing happened, people craning their necks to see over or between the rows in front of them, hardly daring to breathe. Then a single spotlight came on, illuminating the jagged outline of a carved face. An ivory face. Behind them the screen was filled with its ghostly, sightless eyes.
Still Verity said nothing, the silence of anticipation giving way to an excited murmur, a few people standing up to get a closer look, one man at the front clapping spontaneously, others turning to each other and muttering words of confusion or shocked understanding. Little by little the noise grew, until the room was once again gripped by a violent, incoherent storm that was only partially muted by the sound of Verity’s voice and a second spotlight revealing her face.
‘Thanks to the incredible generosity of Myron Kezman, a man of singular vision and exquisite taste whose philanthropy shines through these dark economic times,’ she called over the clamour, waving at a beaming Kezman to step forward, ‘the Getty is proud to announce the acquisition of the Phidias Apollo, the only surviving work of possibly the greatest sculptor of the classical age.’ She paused as the applause came again, unrestrained and exultant. ‘As you can see, it is a uniquely well-preserved fragment of a chryselephantine sculpture of the Greek god Apollo. Dated to around 450 BC, it shows-’
‘Verity Bruce?’ A man in the front row had interrupted her. Standing up, he moved to the stage.
‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll take questions at the end,’ she said through a forced smile, eyeing him contemptuously.
‘My name is Special Agent Carlos Ortiz, FBI,’ the man announced, holding out his badge. ‘And if you and Mr Kezman don’t mind, you’ll be taking my questions downtown.’
The audience turned in their seats as the doors at the back of the auditorium flew open. Four darksuited men entered the room and fanned out.
‘What is this?’ she called out over the crowd’s low, confused muttering, her expression caught somewhere between incredulity and indignation.
‘I have a warrant for your arrest, along with Mr Myron Kezman and Earl Faulks,’ Ortiz announced, the sight of the piece of paper in his hand raising the audience’s muttering to a curious rumble. Kezman said nothing, his indulgent smile having faded behind the blank mask of his sunglasses as two further agents had taken up positions either side of the stage.
‘On what charges?’ Director Bury challenged him, advancing to Verity’s side.
‘Federal tax fraud, conspiracy to traffic in illegal antiquities and illegal possession of antiquities,’ Ortiz fired back. ‘But we’re just getting started.’
‘This is outrageous,’ Verity erupted, shielding her face from the machine-gun flash of press cameras. ‘I have done nothing-’
She was interrupted by a commotion at the back of the room as a man tried to make a run for the exit, only to be brought down heavily by the outstretched leg of another member of the audience.
‘It seems Mr Faulks is not as confident in his innocence as you appear to be in yours,’ Ortiz observed wryly as two of his men pounced on Faulks’s prone figure and hauled him to his feet. ‘Cuff them.’
Verity and Kezman’s shouted protests were drowned out by the hyena howl of the crowd as they leapt from their seats and surged forward to feast.
Amidst the commotion, a man and a woman slipped out, unobserved.
EIGHTY-FIVE
1st May-12.09 p.m.
‘How’s your foot?’ Allegra laughed as they made their way out into the Outer Peristyle’s shaded cloister. A light salt breeze was blowing in from the Pacific and tugging at her hair, which was now its original colour once again.
‘He was meant to trip over it, not step on it,’ Tom grinned, pretending to limp over the marble floor.
‘Do you think they’ll let him cut a deal?’
‘Unlikely, given what you copied in his warehouse and the tape.’
‘What tape?’ Allegra asked with a frown.
‘Dominique recorded the three of them discussing the mechanics of the whole deal on the phone she and Archie cloned.’
They stepped between two of the fluted columns and made their way down a shallow ramp into a large rectangular courtyard. Running almost its entire length was a shallow reflection pool, its rectangular white stone basin curving at both ends like a Venetian mirror.
‘What do you think they’ll do with the mask?’ Allegra asked as they navigated their way along a labyrinthine arrangement of box hedge-lined gravel paths to the pool’s edge.
‘Ortiz told me that the Italian government has drawn up a catalogue of forty artefacts acquired by or donated to the Getty over the past twenty years that they want returned. The mask is at the top of the list.’
‘That’s a start,’ she said, sitting down next to him.
‘The Greek and Turkish governments are talking about doing the same. And that’s just the Getty. There are other museums, galleries, private collections…the fall-out from this will take years to clear.’
‘But nothing will change,’ she sighed. ‘When the Delian League finally falls, others will just see it as an opportunity to step in and fill the vacuum.’
‘You can’t stop the supply,’ Tom nodded. ‘Contarelli was right about that. The tomb robbers are fighting a guerrilla campaign and the police are still lining up in squares and using muskets. But if the publicity makes museums, collectors and auction houses clean up their act, it might choke the demand. And with less buyers, there’ll be less money and less incentive to dig. In time, things might just change.’
There was a silence, Allegra playing with the water and letting it slide through her fingers like mercury.
‘They buried Aurelio yesterday,’ she said, without looking up.
‘I didn’t know that…?’
‘Some kids found his body washed up on the Isola Tiberina.’
‘Murdered?’
‘They don’t think so.’
Tom placed his hand on her shoulder. She glanced up and then quickly looked down again, her eyes glistening.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think he was too.’ She shook the water from her fingers and then wiped them on her skirt.
‘What’s happened to Gallo?’
‘Promoted, I expect.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘To be honest, I don’t care. Him, the people he was protecting…they all disgust me.’
‘But he kept his part of the deal?’ Tom checked.
She nodded. ‘All charges dropped. A formal apology. My pick of assignments. He even had my parking tickets cancelled.’
‘So you’ll stay?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. ‘Not everyone’s like him. Besides, I want to see Contarelli’s face when I raid his place.’ Tom grinned. ‘What about you?’
‘Me?’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘Archie’s meeting me in New York for Jennifer’s funeral. The FBI only released her body last week, After that…Who knows? I never like to plan too far ahead. Which way’s the sea?’
They stood up and walked through to the other side of the colonnade, following some steps down to a path.
‘By the way, did you hear about the Caravaggio?’ Allegra asked as they headed up a slope to their right.
‘Destroyed?’ A hint of surprise in Tom’s voice.
She shook her head.
‘There wasn’t any trace of it in the ambulance.’
‘And Santos?’
‘The DNA from the body at the wheel matched the sample the Vatican provided for him,’ she said with a
