“How does someone named Naomi look?”

“Like a beautiful historian who’s trying to purge the Louvre of looted paintings.” Chiara set the phone aside. “But why did you go to Paris to see her? And, better yet, why did you withdraw one thousand euros from an ATM machine in the Eighteenth?”

“Because you were right about Professor Blake’s murder.”

“Of course I was, darling.” Chiara smiled. “When have I ever been wrong about anything?”

14

San Polo

“How much will you earn for Nicky’s Gentileschi?”

“Barely enough to cover the cost of my solvents and cotton wool.”

“Your work will be effectively pro bono, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Gabriel. “Rather like my work for you.”

Having dealt with the dishes and supervised the bathing of the children, they had repaired to the loggia overlooking the Grand Canal. The bottle of Barbaresco stood on the table before them. A butane outdoor heater, purchased over Irene’s tear-streaked objections, burned the cold from the air. Gabriel wore no coat, only a zippered woolen pullover. Chiara was wrapped in a quilted down duvet.

“And to think that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t attended that ceremony at the Courtauld.”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“Me? Impossible.”

“Charlotte Blake would still be dead, regardless of whether I had showed my face at the Courtauld. And so would Emanuel Cohen.”

“I was referring to your personal involvement in this matter,” said Chiara. “Therefore, I was in no way wrong. And I resent the implication that I was.”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“That depends on whether Irene tells her teacher and her friends about my torrid affair with Gennaro the barman.”

“So you admit it, after all?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I’ve been tending to your boundless sexual needs as well as his. And in my spare time, I’ve been running the most prominent restoration firm in the Veneto and raising two children, not to mention a tiger.” She emptied the last of the wine into Gabriel’s glass. “But back to the matter at hand.”

“My boundless sexual needs?”

“Your latest investigation.”

“I should probably tell the British and French police everything I know.”

“With all due respect, darling, you know very little. In fact, you can’t even prove that Emanuel Cohen was murdered.”

“I have a witness.”

“The Senegalese seller of counterfeit handbags?”

“He has a name, Chiara.”

“Obviously I meant no disrespect. I was just pointing out that your friend Amadou Kamara is less than reliable.”

“What possible motive did he have to mislead me?”

“Fifteen hundred euros.”

“You think he made up the story?”

“It did seem to get better every time you gave him money.”

Gabriel admired the view of the Grand Canal from his loggia. “He needs it more than we do.”

“You’re beginning to sound like your daughter.”

“Is she an immigrant-rights activist as well?”

“She’s troubled by the way many Venetians refer to African street vendors, as is her mother. I see them every day in San Marco with their blankets and their handbags, the wretched of the earth. The way the police chase them away is disgraceful.”

“And what about the retailers or the makers of real luxury goods? Do they not have rights?”

“I agree that the piles of counterfeit bags on our streets are unsightly and that the vendors are engaging in criminal activity and undercutting the profits of fabulously wealthy corporations. But it is not a life to which anyone would aspire. People like Amadou Kamara sell fake handbags because they are desperately poor.”

“Which makes his story no less credible. He saw what he saw.”

“A murder made to look like an accident?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Who do you suppose hired the killers?”

“Someone with a great deal to lose if that Picasso were ever to be discovered inside the Geneva Freeport.”

“How much is it worth?”

“A hundred million, give or take.”

Chiara considered this. “A hundred million isn’t enough to justify two professional hits. There has to be more to this than just a single painting.”

“All the more reason to go to the police.”

“A dreadful idea.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Finish the restoration of the Pordenone.”