professional-” He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say such things are just not done. “The Hamidi job was a work of art. No witnesses, no evidence.”
The movie-star-handsome face of Ali Abdel Hamidi flashed in Gabriel’s memory. Within the corridors of King Saul Boulevard, the amorous Palestinian has been known as the Swordsman of Allah. Writer of plays that graced no stage, seducer and manipulator of foolish young women.
“I suppose I should thank you for getting me out.”
“A show of gratitude isn’t necessary. In fact, I’m afraid I owe you an apology.”
“An apology? Whatever for?”
“Because if it wasn’t for me, you would have never been at Augustus Rolfe’s villa in the first place.”
RAMI, Shamron’s ever-present personal bodyguard, was behind the wheel of the car. Shamron told him to drive in circles at Kloten. For twenty minutes Gabriel watched the same parade of airline signs and departure gates marching past his window. In his mind he was seeing something else: flash frames of past operations, old colleagues and old enemies. His palms were damp, his heart was beating faster.
“Rolfe sent a message to us through our embassy,” Shamron began. “He wanted to meet with someone from the Office. He didn’t say why, but when a man like Augustus Rolfe wants to talk, we usually try to accommodate him. He wanted the meeting to be handled with discretion. I looked into Rolfe’s background and discovered he was an art collector. Naturally, I thought you were the perfect man for the job, so I arranged for you to be hired to clean one of his paintings. A Rubens, if I’m not mistaken.”
“It was a Raphael.”
Shamron pulled a face, as if to say such distinctions were of no interest to him. Art, music, literature, the theater-these things bored him. He was a man of the real world.
“Did Isherwood know it was all a game?”
“Julian? No, I’m afraid I deceived him as well.”
“Why do it like this? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“Would you have done it?”
“No.”
A tilt of his bald head, another long pull from his Turkish cigarette-
“Let me out of the car! I don’t want to hear any more!”
“Let me finish.”
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear your voice.”
“Listen to me, Gabriel!” Shamron slammed his fist onto the console. “Augustus Rolfe, a Swiss banker, wanted to speak to us and for that he was murdered. I want to know what Rolfe was going to tell us, and I want to know who killed him for it!”
“Find someone else, Ari. Investigating murder cases was never my specialty. Actually, thanks to you, I excelled at quite the other thing.”
“Please, Gabriel, let’s not have this argument again.”
“You and Peterson seem to be very tight. If you play the subservient Jew again, I’m sure he’d be willing to keep you abreast of all the developments in his investigation.”
“Augustus Rolfe was killed because someone knew you were coming to Zurich -someone who didn’t want you to hear what Augustus Rolfe had to say. Someone who was willing to make it appear as though
“If that was their intention, they did a damned lousy job of it. I was on the train from Paris at the time Rolfe was killed.” Gabriel was calmer now. He was furious with Shamron for deceiving him, but at the same time he was intrigued. “What do you know about Augustus Rolfe?”
“The Rolfe family has been stashing money beneath the Bahnhofstrasse for a couple of hundred years. They’re one of the most prominent banking families in Switzerland.”
“Who would want him dead?”
“A lot of dirty money has flowed through the numbered accounts of Rolfe’s bank. It’s safe to assume he’d made his fair share of enemies.”
“What else?”
“The family suffers from a legendary curse. Twenty-five years ago, Rolfe’s wife committed suicide. She dug her own grave in the garden of Rolfe ’s country chalet, climbed in, and shot herself. A few years after that, Rolfe’s only son, Maximilian, died in a cycling accident in the Alps.”
“Is there any family that’s
“His daughter, at least she was the last time anyone heard from her. Her name is Anna.”
“His daughter is Anna
“So you know her? I’m impressed.”
“She’s only one of the most famous musicians in the world.”
“Do you still want to get out of the car?”
GABRIEL had been given two gifts that made him a great art restorer: a meticulous attention to detail and an unflagging desire to see every task, no matter how mundane, through to its conclusion. He never left his studio until his work space and supplies were spotless, never went to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. And he never left a painting unfinished, even when it was a cover job for Shamron. To Gabriel, a half-restored painting was no longer a work of art, just a bit of oil and pigment smeared on a canvas or a wood panel. The dead body of Augustus Rolfe, lying at the foot of the Raphael, was like a painting that had only been half-restored. It would not be whole again until Gabriel knew who had killed him and why.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Talk to her.”
“Why me?”
“Apparently, she has something of an artistic temperament.”
“From what I’ve read, that’s an understatement.”
“You’re an artist. You speak her language. Perhaps she’ll trust you enough to tell you what she knows about her father’s affairs. If you come up empty, you can go back to your studio, and I’ll never darken your door again.”
“Promises, promises.”
“There’s no need to be hurtful, Gabriel.”
“Last time you came into my life, I nearly got myself killed.”
“True, but at least it wasn’t boring.”
“Peterson says I can’t come back to Switzerland. How am I supposed to talk to Anna Rolfe?”
“Apparently she refuses to live in Switzerland.” Shamron handed him a slip of paper. “This is her management company in London. Give her a few days to bury her father. So you’ll do it?”
“Not for you. I want to know who tried to pin Rolfe’s murder on me.
