but otherwise it seemed Bradshaw’s life was deserving of no eulogy. The photograph that popped up on the BBC looked at least twenty years old. It showed a man who did not like to have his picture taken.
There was another crucial fact missing from the coverage of Jack Bradshaw’s murder: Gabriel Allon, the legendary but wayward son of Israeli intelligence, had been quietly retained by the Art Squad to look into it. His investigation commenced at half past seven when he inserted a high-capacity flash drive into his notebook computer. Given to him by General Ferrari, the drive contained the contents of Jack Bradshaw’s personal computer. Most of the documents dealt with his business, the Meridian Global Consulting Group—a curious name, thought Gabriel, for Meridian appeared to have no other employees. The drive contained more than twenty thousand documents. In addition, there were several thousand telephone numbers and e-mail addresses that had to be checked out and cross-referenced. It was far too much material for Gabriel to review alone. He needed an assistant, a skilled researcher who knew something about criminal matters and, preferably, about Italian art.
“Me?” asked Chiara incredulously.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Are you sure you want me to answer that?”
Gabriel made no reply. He could see there was something about the idea that appealed to Chiara. She was a natural solver of puzzles and problems.
“It would be easier if I could run the phone numbers and e-mail addresses through the computers of King Saul Boulevard,” she said after a moment of thought.
“Obviously,” replied Gabriel. “But the last thing I intend to do is tell the Office that I’m investigating a case for the Italians.”
“They’ll find out eventually. They always do.”
Gabriel copied Bradshaw’s files onto the hard drive of the notebook computer and kept the flash drive for himself. Then he packed a small overnight bag with two changes of clothing and two sets of identity while Chiara showered and dressed for work. He walked her to the ghetto and on the doorstep of the community center placed his hand on her abdomen one last time. Leaving, he couldn’t help but notice the young, good-looking Italian man drinking coffee at the kosher café. He rang General Ferrari at the palazzo in Rome. The general confirmed that the young Italian was an officer of the Carabinieri who specialized in personal protection.
“Couldn’t you have found someone to watch my wife who didn’t look like a film star?”
“Don’t tell me the great Gabriel Allon is jealous.”
“Just make sure nothing happens to her. Do you hear me?”
“I only have one eye,” replied the general, “but I still have both my ears, and they function quite well.”
Like many Venetians, temporary or otherwise, Gabriel kept a car, a Volkswagen sedan, in a garage near the Piazzale Roma. He headed across the causeway to the mainland and then made his way to the autostrada. When the traffic thinned, he pressed his foot to the floor and watched the needle of the speedometer creep toward one hundred. For weeks he had strolled and floated through life at a crawl. Now, the rumble of an internal combustion engine was suddenly a guilty pleasure. He pushed the car to the limit and saw the flatlands of the Veneto sweep past his window in a satisfying green-and-tan blur.
He sped westward, past Padua, Verona, and Bergamo, and arrived at the outskirts of Milan thirty minutes earlier than he had anticipated. From there, he headed north to Como; then he followed the winding shore of the lake until he arrived at the gate of Jack Bradshaw’s villa. Through its bars he could see an unmarked Carabinieri car parked in the forecourt. He rang the general in Rome, told him where he was, and then quickly severed the connection. Thirty seconds later, the gate swung open.
Gabriel slipped the car into gear and eased slowly down the steep drive, toward the home of a man whose life had been summarized in a single hollow line. A fine officer … He was certain of only one thing, that Jack Bradshaw, retired diplomat, consultant to firms doing business in the Middle East, collector of Italian art, had been a liar by trade. He knew this because he was a liar as well. Therefore, as he stepped from his car, he felt a certain kinship with the man whose life he was about to ransack. He came not as an enemy but as a friend, the perfect implement for an unpleasant job. In death there are no secrets, he thought, crossing the forecourt. And if there was a secret hidden in the beautiful villa by the lake, he was going to find it.
A Carabinieri officer in plain clothes waited in the entrance. He introduced himself as Lucca—no last name or rank, just Lucca—and offered Gabriel nothing but a pair of rubber gloves and plastic shoe covers. Gabriel was more than happy to put them on. The last thing he needed at this stage of his life was to leave his DNA at yet another Italian crime scene.
“You have one hour,” the Carabinieri man said. “And I’ll be coming with you.”
“I’ll take as long as I need,” replied Gabriel. “And you’re staying right here.”
When the officer offered no response, Gabriel pulled on the gloves and shoe covers and entered the villa. The first thing he noticed was the blood. It was hard not to; the entire stone floor of the entrance foyer was black with it. He wondered why the murder had occurred here rather than in a more secluded section of the house. It was possible Bradshaw had confronted his killers after they broke into the residence, but there was no evidence of forcible entry on the door or at the gate. The more logical explanation was that Bradshaw had admitted his assailants. He had known them, thought Gabriel. And, foolishly, he had trusted them enough to let them into his home.
From the entrance hall, Gabriel moved into the great room. It was elegantly furnished in silk-covered couches and chairs, and adorned with expensive tables, lamps, and trinkets of every kind. One wall was given over entirely to large windows that overlooked the lake; the others were hung with Italian Old Master paintings. Most were minor devotional pieces or portraits churned out by journeymen or followers of well-known painters from Venice and Florence. One, however, was a Roman architectural capriccio that clearly was the work of Giovanni Paolo Panini. Gabriel licked his gloved fingertip and dragged it across the surface. The Panini, like the other paintings displayed in the room, was sorely in need of a good cleaning.
Gabriel wiped the surface grime onto the leg of his jeans and walked over to an antique writing desk. On it were two silver-framed photographs of Jack Bradshaw in happier times. In the first he was posed before the Great Pyramid of Giza, a boyish forelock falling across a face that was full of hope and promise. In the second the backdrop was the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. It had been snapped, Gabriel supposed, when Bradshaw was serving at the British embassy in Amman. He looked older, harder, perhaps wiser. The Middle East was like that. It turned hope to despair, idealists into Machiavellians.
Gabriel opened the drawer of the writing table, found nothing of interest, then scrolled through the directory of missed calls on the telephone. One number, 6215845, appeared seven times—five times before Bradshaw’s death, and twice after. Gabriel lifted the receiver, pressed the autodial, and a few seconds later heard the distant tone of a telephone. After several rings came a series of clicks and rattles indicating that the person at the other end of the line had picked up the call and quickly hung up. Gabriel dialed the number again with the same result. But when he tried the number a third time, a male voice came on the line and in Italian said, “This is Father Marco. How can I help you?”
Gabriel gently replaced the receiver without speaking. Next to the phone was a message pad. He tore away the
