‘Recognise this?’
She handed him a photograph sealed inside a clear plastic evidence bag. Tom smoothed the crinkles flat so that he could see through it. It showed a nativity scene, an exhausted Mary clutching her belly and staring blankly at the Christ child lying on the straw in front of her, an angel plunging dramatically overhead. Unusually, in the foreground a spiky-haired youth, his back to the viewer and one foot touching the baby, has turned to face an aged Joseph, his face tortured by a mischievous disbelief.
Tom looked up, a puzzled smile playing across his lips. Outside, the sky had darkened even further, the rain thrashing the roof, the water running off the windscreen in sheets like rolled steel off a mill.
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Do you recognise it?’ Stokes repeated, although Jennifer could already tell from Tom’s face that he did.
‘Caravaggio. The Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco,’ he pointed at the two other men in the painting gazing adoringly at the infant. ‘Painted in 1609 for the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily. Missing since 1969. Where did you get it?’
It was Tom’s turn to repeat his question.
Jennifer looked to Stokes and took his muted sigh and faint shrug as agreement to continue.
‘Special Agent Stokes is from our Vegas field office,’ she explained. ‘A week ago he took a call from Myron Kezman.’
‘The casino owner?’ Tom asked in surprise.
‘The photo arrived in his personal mail.’
‘It had a New York City post mark,’ Stokes added. ‘We’ve checked the envelope for prints and DNA. It was clean.’
‘There was a cell-phone number on the back of the photo,’ Jennifer continued; Tom turned it over so he could see it. ‘When Kezman called it there was a recorded message at the other end. It only played once before the number was disconnected.’
The windows had started to fog up. Stokes started the engine and turned the heating on to clear them, a sudden blast of warm air washing over them.
‘What did it say?’
‘According to Kezman it made him a simple offer. The painting for twenty million dollars. And then a different cell-phone number to dial if he was interested in making the trade.’
‘That’s when Kezman called us in,’ Stokes took over. ‘Only this time we taped the call. It was another message setting out the instructions for the exchange. The denominations for the cash. The types of bags it should be in. The meet.’
‘And then they called you?’ Tom turned to Jennifer.
‘The Caravaggio is on the FBI Art Crime team’s top ten list of missing art works, so it automatically got referred our way,’ she confirmed. ‘I got pulled off a case to help handle it. I’ve been camping out in an office here in DC, so when I saw that you’d been flagged up at Dulles…’
‘You thought that maybe I could handle the exchange for you.’
‘How the hell did you…?’ Stokes eyed him suspiciously.
‘Because you’ve never dealt with anything like this before.’ Tom shrugged. ‘Because you’re smart and you know that these types of gigs never go down quite like you plan them. Because you know I might spot something you won’t.’
There was a pause as Stokes and Jennifer both swapped a look, and then laughed.
‘That’s pretty much it, I guess.’ Stokes nodded with a grudging smile.
‘When’s this happening?’
‘Tonight in Vegas. On the main floor at the Amalfi.’
‘Kezman’s joint?’
‘Yep,’ Stokes nodded.
‘That’s smart. Busy. Exposed. Plenty of civilian cover. Multiple escape routes.’
‘So you’ll do it?’ Jennifer asked hopefully.
There was a sharp rap on the window. Tom lowered it and Archie peered in, the rain dripping off his umbrella.
‘Very bloody cosy,’ he observed with a wry smile. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘I don’t think you two have ever actually met before, have you?’ Tom asked, sitting back so Jennifer could lean across him and shake his hand.
‘Not properly.’ She smiled.
‘What do you want with my boy this time?’ Archie sniffed, eyeing her carefully.
‘The Nativity has turned up,’ Tom answered for her. ‘They want me to fly to Vegas with them to help handle the exchange.’
‘I’ll bet they do. What’s our take?’
Tom looked searchingly at Jennifer and then at Stokes, who shrugged sheepishly.
‘Looks like the usual fee,’ he said with a smile. ‘Attaboys all round.’
‘Well, bollocks to that, then,’ Archie sniffed. ‘You and I are meant to be meeting Dom in Zurich tomorrow night to see a real client. One that pays and doesn’t try and lock you up every five seconds.’ He gave first Jennifer, then Stokes, a reproachful glare.
Tom nodded slowly. Having given up on the Swiss police, the curator of the Emile Bũhrle Foundation wanted their help recovering four paintings worth a hundred and eighty million dollars taken at gunpoint the previous month. Archie had a point.
‘I know.’
A pause. He turned back to Jennifer.
‘Who’ll handle the exchange if I don’t?’
‘Me, I guess,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘At least, that was the plan until you flashed up on the system.’
There was a long silence, Tom looking first at Jennifer, then Stokes. He turned back to Archie.
‘Why don’t I just meet you in Zurich tomorrow.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tom,’ Archie protested. ‘I don’t know why I bother sometimes.’
‘One night. That’s all,’ Tom reassured him. ‘I’ll be on the first flight out.’
‘Fine,’ Archie sighed. ‘But you can deal with Hewson.’ Archie stepped back and pointed down the slope towards a lonely figure who appeared to be patiently waiting for them to return. ‘He’s doing my bloody head in.’
‘Whatever he’s got for me, it’s waited this long -’ Tom sat back with a shrug – ‘it can wait a day longer.’
FIVE
Largo di Torre Argentina, Rome 17th March – 6.06 p.m.
Allegra could just about make out one of the men’s low voices. A pathologist, she guessed.
‘Cause of death? Well, I’ll only know when I open him up. But at a guess, oedema of the brain. Upside down, the heart continues to pump blood through the arteries, but because the veins rely on gravity, his brain would have become swollen with blood. Fluid would then have leaked out of his capillaries, first causing a headache, then gradual loss of consciousness and finally death, probably from asphyxiation as the brain signals driving respiration failed. Terrible way to go.’
‘How long has he been here?’ the man next to him asked. From his flinty, aggressive tone, Allegra knew immediately that this had to be Gallo.
‘All day. Possibly longer. It was a cold night and that would have slowed decomposition.’
‘And no one saw him until now?’ Gallo snapped, his voice both angry and disbelieving. She could just about detect the vestiges of a Southern accent, presumably carefully discarded over the years. After all, provincial roots were not exactly something you advertised if you wanted to get ahead. Not in Rome.
‘No one works here at the weekend,’ Salvatore explained in an apologetic tone. ‘And you couldn’t see him from the street.’
‘Terrible way to go,’ the pathologist repeated, shaking his head. ‘It would have taken hours for him to die. And right until the end he would have been able to hear people walking around the site and the cars coming and going overhead, and not been able to move or call for help.’
‘You think I give a shit about how this bastard died?’ Gallo snorted dismissively. ‘Don’t forget who he was or who he worked for. All I want to know is who killed him, why they did it here and why like this. The last thing I need is some sort of vigilante stalking the streets of Rome re-enacting Satanic rituals.’