Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (48)

And yet . . .

Gabriel propped the painting in a rhombus of brilliant morning sunlight streaming through the French doors, then snapped a magnified detail image with his phone. With thumb and forefinger, he enlarged the photograph further and examined the brushwork. His reverie was so complete he failed to notice that Christopher, a gifted surveillance artist, had stolen into the room.

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“Looking for something to read,” said Gabriel absently.

Christopher took down Ben McIntyre’s biography of Kim Philby. “You might find this more interesting.”

“Though somewhat incomplete.” Gabriel looked down at the painting again.

“Is there a problem?”

“Where did you purchase it?”

“A gallery in Nice.”

“Does the gallery have a name?”

“Galerie Edmond Toussaint.”

“Did you seek the opinion of a professional?”

“Monsieur Toussaint gave me a certificate of authentication.”

“May I see it? The provenance as well.”

Christopher went upstairs to his study. Returning, he handed Gabriel a large business envelope, then slung a nylon rucksack over his powerful right shoulder.

“Last chance.”

“Enjoy,” said Gabriel as a gust of wind rattled the French doors. “And do give my best to your little caprine friend.”

Steeling himself, Christopher went out and climbed into the Renault. A moment later Gabriel heard the blare of a car horn, followed by shouted threats of unspeakable violence. Laughing, he removed the contents of the envelope.

“Idiot,” he said after a moment, to no one but himself.



The maestral eased around eleven, but by late afternoon it was blowing hard enough to loosen several tiles from Christopher’s roof. He returned home at dusk and proudly displayed for Gabriel the 136-kilometer-per-hour wind reading he had taken on Monte Rotondo’s northern face. Gabriel reciprocated by disclosing his concerns over the authenticity of the Cézanne, a painting that Christopher had purchased under a false French identity while working as a professional assassin.

“Thus leaving you with no legal recourse. Or moral recourse, for that matter.”

“Perhaps one or two of the don’s most terrifying men should have a word with Monsieur Toussaint on my behalf.”

“Perhaps,” countered Gabriel, “you should forget I ever said anything, and let it go.”

The wind blew without relent the following day and the day after that as well. Gabriel sheltered in place at the villa while Christopher flung himself against two more mountains—first Renoso, then d’Oro, where his pocket anemometer recorded the winds at 141 kilometers per hour. That evening they dined at Villa Orsati. Over coffee, the don acknowledged that his operatives had no leads on the identity or whereabouts of the man who had carried the bomb into Galerie Georges Fleury. He then chastised Christopher over the tenor and tone of his recent confrontations with Don Casabianca’s goat.

“He called me this morning. He’s very upset.”

“The don or the goat?”

“It’s no laughing matter, Christopher.”

“How does Don Casabianca even know that things have taken a turn for the worse?”

“The news has spread like wildfire.”

“I certainly didn’t mention it to anyone.”

“It must have been the macchia,” said Gabriel, and repeated the ancient proverb regarding the ability of the aromatic vegetation to see everything. At this, the don nodded his head solemnly in agreement. It was, he concluded, the only possible explanation.

The wind raged for the remainder of that night, but by dawn it was a memory. Gabriel spent the morning helping Christopher repair the damage to the roof and clear the debris from the terrace and the pool. Then, in late afternoon, he drove into the village. It was a cluster of sandstone-colored cottages huddled around the bell tower of a church, before which lay a dusty square. Several men in newly pressed white shirts were playing a closely fought game of pétanque. Once they might have regarded Gabriel with suspicion—or pointed at him in the Corsican way, with their first and fourth fingers, to ward off the effects of the occhju, the evil eye. Now they greeted him warmly, as he was known throughout the village as a friend of Don Orsati and the Englishman named Christopher, who, thank goodness, had returned to the island after a prolonged absence.

“Is it true he’s married?” asked one of the men.

“That’s the rumor.”

“Has he killed that goat?” asked another.

“Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time.”

“Perhaps you can talk some sense into him.”

“I’ve tried. But I’m afraid they’ve reached the point of no return.”

The men insisted that Gabriel join the game, as they were in need of another player. Declining, he repaired to the café in the far corner of the square for a glass of Corsican rosé. As the church bells tolled five o’clock, a young child, a girl of seven or eight, knocked on the door of the crooked little house next to the rectory. It opened a few inches, and a small pale hand appeared, clutching a slip of blue paper. The young girl carried it to the café and placed it on Gabriel’s table. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Irene.