Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (40)
“Could it fool anyone?”
“Not with a modern canvas and stretcher. But if I found a canvas similar to the type he was using in Montmartre in 1917 and was able to concoct a convincing provenance . . .”
“You could bring it to market as a lost Modigliani?”
“Exactly.”
“How much could you get for it?”
“A couple hundred, I’d say.”
“Thousand?”
“Million.” Gabriel placed a hand reflectively to his chin. “The question is, what should we do with it?”
“Burn it,” said Chiara. “And don’t ever paint another.”
Chiara’s directive to the contrary, Gabriel hung the two Modiglianis in their bedroom and then retreated once more to his quiet, unhurried life of semiretirement. He dropped the children at school at eight o’clock each morning and collected them again at half past three. He visited the Rialto Market to fetch the ingredients for the family’s evening meal. He read dense books and listened to music on his new British sound system. And if he were so inclined, he painted. A Monet one day, a Cézanne the next, a stunning reinterpretation of Vincent’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear that, were it not for Gabriel’s modern canvas and palette, would have set the art world ablaze.
He followed the news from Paris with mixed emotions. He was relieved that Quai des Orfèvres had seen fit to conceal his role in the affair and that his old friends Sarah Bancroft and Julian Isherwood had suffered no reputational damage. But when three additional weeks passed with no arrests—and no suggestion in the press that Galerie Georges Fleury had been flooding the market with paintings produced by one of the greatest art forgers in history—Gabriel reached the unsettling conclusion that a ministerial thumb had been laid upon the scales of French justice.
The arrival of the Bavaria C42 came as a welcome distraction. Gabriel took it on a pair of test runs in the sheltered waters of the laguna. Then, on the first Saturday of May, the Allon family sailed to Trieste for dinner. During their starlit return to Venice, Gabriel revealed that Sarah Bancroft had offered him a minor but lucrative commission. Chiara suggested he execute something original instead. He commenced work on a Picassoesque still life, then buried it beneath a version of Titian’s Portrait of Vincenzo Mosti. Francesco Tiepolo declared it a masterpiece and advised Gabriel never to produce another.
He disagreed with Francesco’s favorable assessment of the work—it was by no means a masterpiece, not by the mighty Titian’s standards—so he cut the canvas from its stretcher and burned it. Next morning, after dropping the children at school, he repaired to Bar Dogale to consider how best to squander the remaining hours of his day. While he was consuming un ’ombra, a small glass of vino bianco taken by Venetians with their breakfast, a shadow fell across his table. It was cast by none other than Luca Rossetti of the Art Squad. His face bore only the faintest trace of the injuries he had suffered some six weeks earlier. He bore a message from Jacques Ménard of the Police Nationale.
“He was wondering whether you were free to come to Paris.”
“When?”
“You’re booked on the twelve forty Air France flight.”
“Today?”
“Do you have something more pressing on your schedule, Allon?”
“That depends on whether Ménard intends to arrest me the minute I step off the plane.”
“No such luck.”
“In that case, why does he want to see me?”
“He wants to show you something.”
“Did he say what it was?”
“No,” said Rossetti. “But he said you might want to bring a gun.”
27
Musée du Louvre
Jacques Ménard was waiting at the arrival gate at Charles de Gaulle when Gabriel emerged from the jetway, a bag over one shoulder, a 9mm Beretta pressing reassuringly against the base of his spine. After an expedited journey through passport control, they climbed into the back of an unmarked sedan and started toward the center of Paris. Ménard declined to disclose their destination.
“The last time someone surprised me in Paris, it didn’t turn out so well.”
“Don’t worry, Allon. I think you’ll actually enjoy this.”
They followed the A1 past the Stade de France, then headed west on the boulevard Périphérique, Paris’s high-speed ring road. Five minutes later, the élysée Palace appeared before them.
“You should have warned me,” said Gabriel. “I would have worn something appropriate.”
Ménard smiled as his driver sped past the presidential palace, then turned left onto the Avenue des Champs-élysées. Before reaching the Place de la Concorde, they dropped into a tunnel and followed the Quai des Tuileries to the Pont du Carrousel. A right turn would have taken them across the Seine to the Latin Quarter. They turned to the left instead and, after passing beneath an ornate archway, braked to a halt in the immense central courtyard of the world’s most famous museum.
“The Louvre?”
“Yes, of course. Where did you think I was taking you?”
“Somewhere a bit more dangerous.”
“If it’s danger you want,” said Ménard, “we’ve definitely come to the right place.”