Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (58)

“Did you hear the rumor about those two?” whispered Sarah.

“The one about their torrid affair? Jeremy Crabbe may have mentioned it. Or perhaps it was Nicky Lovegrove. It’s on everyone’s lips.”

“A shame, that.”

“I only wish they were saying the same about us.” Smiling wolfishly, Oliver drank from his wineglass. “Sell anything lately?”

“A couple of Leonardos and a Giorgione. You?”

“Truth be told, I’m in a bit of a slump.”

“Not you, Ollie?”

“Hard to believe, I know.”

“How’s your cash flow?”

“A bit like a leaky faucet.”

“What about the five million I slipped you under the table on the Artemisia deal?”

“Are you referring to the newly discovered painting that I sold for a record price to a Swiss venture capitalist, only to find myself embroiled in a scandal involving the finances of the Russian president?”

“But it was great fun, wasn’t it?”

“I enjoyed the five million. The rest of it I could have lived without.”

“Fiddlesticks, Oliver. There’s nothing you love more than being the center of attention. Especially when beautiful women are involved.” Sarah paused. “Spanish women, in particular.”

“Wherever did you hear a thing like that?”

“I happen to know that you’ve been carrying a secret torch for Penélope Cruz for years.”

“Nicky,” murmured Oliver.

“It was Jeremy who told me.”

Oliver regarded Sarah for a moment. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being recruited for something?”

“Perhaps because you are.”

“Is it naughty?”

“Extremely.”

“In that case,” said Oliver, “I’m all ears.”

“Not here.”

“My place or yours?”

Sarah smiled. “Mine, Ollie.”



They slipped out of Wiltons unnoticed and walked along Duke Street to the passageway that led to Mason’s Yard. Isherwood Fine Arts was located in the northeast corner of the quadrangle, in three floors of a sagging warehouse once owned by Fortnum & Mason. Parked outside was a silver Bentley Continental. Its gleaming hood was warm to Oliver’s touch.

“Isn’t this your husband’s car?” he asked, but Sarah only smiled and unlocked the gallery’s door.

Inside, they climbed a flight of carpeted stairs, then rode the cramped lift to Julian’s upper exhibition room. In the half-light Oliver could make out two silhouetted figures. One was contemplating Baptism of Christ by Paris Bordone. The other was contemplating Oliver. He wore a dark single-breasted suit, Savile Row, perhaps Richard Anderson. His hair was sun-bleached. His eyes were bright blue.

“Hullo, Oliver,” he drawled. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “I’m Peter Marlowe.”

“The hit man?”

“Former hit man,” he said with an ironic smile. “I’m a wildly successful business consultant now. That’s why I drive a Bentley and have a wife who looks like Sarah.”

“I never laid so much as a finger on her.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

He placed a hand on Oliver’s shoulder and guided him toward the Bordone. The man standing before the canvas turned slowly. His green eyes seemed to glow in the faint light.

“Mario Delvecchio!” exclaimed Oliver. “As I live and breathe! Or is it Gabriel Allon? I often can’t tell them apart.” Receiving no answer, he looked at the man he knew as Peter Marlowe, then at Sarah. At least, he thought that was her name. At that moment he wasn’t certain of the ground beneath his feet. “The retired chief of Israeli intelligence, a former hit man, and a beautiful American woman who may or may not have worked for the CIA. What could you possibly want with tubby Oliver Dimbleby?”

It was the retired Israeli spymaster who answered. “Your bottomless reservoir of charm, your ability to talk your way out of almost anything, and your reputation for cutting the occasional corner.”

“Me?” Oliver feigned righteous indignation. “I resent the implication. And if it’s a dirty dealer you want, Roddy Hutchinson is most definitely your man.”

“Roddy lacks your star power. I need someone who can move the needle.”

“For what?”

“I’d like you to sell a few paintings for me.”

“Anything good?”

“A Titian, a Tintoretto, and a Veronese.”

“What’s the source?”

“An old European collection.”

“And the subject matter?”

“I’ll let you know the minute I finish painting them.”



The first challenge for any art forger is the acquisition of canvases and stretchers of appropriate age, dimensions, and condition. When executing his copy of Vincent’s Sunflowers, Gabriel had purchased a third-tier Impressionist streetscape from a small gallery near the Jardin du Luxembourg. He had no need to resort to such methods now. He merely had to ride the lift down to Julian’s storerooms, which were crammed with an apocalyptic inventory of what was affectionately known in the trade as dead stock. He selected six minor Venetian School works from the sixteenth century—follower of so-and-so, manner of such-and-such, workshop of what’s-his-name—and asked Sarah to express-ship them to his apartment in San Polo.