Portrait of a Spy

“I’ll give you an advance of one hundred thousand.”

“In that case, I can start right away.”

“I’ll send it to Cornwall the day after tomorrow,” Isherwood said. “The question is, when will I have it back?”

Gabriel made no response. He stared at his wristwatch for a moment, as though it were no longer keeping proper time, then tilted his face thoughtfully toward the skylight.

Isherwood placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “It’s not your problem, petal,” he said. “Not anymore.”

Chapter 4

Covent Garden, London

A POLICE CHECKPOINT NEAR LEICESTER SQUARE had brought the traffic on Charing Cross Road to a standstill. Gabriel and Chiara hurried through a fogbank of exhaust fumes and set out along Cranbourn Street. It was lined with pubs and coffee bars catering to the herds of tourists who seemed to wander aimlessly through Soho at all hours, regardless of the season. For now, Gabriel seemed oblivious to them. He was staring at the screen of his mobile phone. The death tolls in Paris and Copenhagen were rising.

“How bad?” asked Chiara.

“Twenty-eight on the Champs-Élysées and another thirty-seven at the Tivoli Gardens.”

“Do they have any idea who’s responsible?” asked Chiara.

“It’s still too early,” Gabriel said, “but the French think it might be al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.”

“Could they have pulled off a pair of coordinated attacks like this?”

“They have cells scattered across Europe and North America, but the analysts at King Saul Boulevard have always been skeptical of their ability to carry out a Bin Laden–style spectacular.”

King Saul Boulevard was the address of Israel’s foreign intelligence service. It had a long and deliberately misleading name that had very little to do with the true nature of its work. Those who worked there referred to it as the Office and nothing else. Even retired agents like Gabriel and Chiara never uttered the organization’s real name.

“It doesn’t feel like Bin Laden to me,” Chiara said. “It feels more like—”

“Baghdad,” said Gabriel. “These death tolls are high for open-air attacks. It suggests the bomb maker knew what he was doing. If we’re lucky, he left behind his signature.”

“We?” asked Chiara.

Gabriel wordlessly returned the phone to his coat pocket. They had reached the chaotic traffic circle at the end of Cranbourn Street. There were two Italian restaurants—the Spaghetti House and Bella Italia. He looked at Chiara and asked her to choose.

“I’m not going to start my long weekend in London at Bella Italia,” she said, frowning. “You promised to take me to a proper lunch.”

“In my opinion, one can do far worse in London than Bella Italia.”

“Unless one was born in Venice.”

Gabriel smiled. “We have a reservation at a lovely place called Orso in Wellington Street. It’s very Italian. I thought we could walk through Covent Garden on our way.”

“Do you still feel up to it?”

“We have to eat,” he said, “and the walk will do us both good.”

They hurried across the traffic circle into Garrick Street where two Metropolitan Police officers in lime green coats were questioning the Arab-looking driver of a white panel van. The anxiety of the pedestrians was almost palpable. In some of the faces Gabriel saw genuine fear; in others, a grim resolution to carry on as normal. Chiara held his hand tightly as they strolled past the shop windows. She had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time and was determined not to let the news from Paris and Copenhagen spoil it.

“You were a bit hard on Julian,” she said. “Two hundred thousand is twice your usual fee.”

“It’s a Titian, Chiara. Julian is going to do quite nicely.”

“The least you could’ve done is accept his invitation to a celebratory lunch.”

“I didn’t want to have lunch with Julian. I wanted to have lunch with you.”

“He has an idea he wants to discuss.”

“What sort of idea?”

“A partnership,” Chiara said. “He wants us to become partners in the gallery.”

Gabriel slowed to a stop. “Let me make this as clear as possible,” he said. “I have absolutely no interest in becoming a partner in the sometimes-solvent firm of Isherwood Fine Arts.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing,” he said, walking again, “we have no idea how to run a business.”

“You’ve run several very thriving enterprises in the past.”

“It’s easy when you have the backing of an intelligence service.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit, Gabriel. How hard can it be to run an art gallery?”

“Incredibly hard. And as Julian has proven time and time again, it’s easy to get into trouble. Even the most successful gallery can go under if it places a bad bet.” Gabriel gave her a sidelong look and asked, “When did you and Julian concoct this little arrangement?”

“You make it sound as if we were conspiring behind your back.”

“That’s because you were.”

With a smile, Chiara conceded the point. “It happened when we were in Washington for the unveiling of the Rembrandt. Julian pulled me aside and said he was beginning to think about the possibility he might actually retire. He wants the gallery to end up in the hands of someone he trusts.”

“Julian will never retire.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Where was I when this deal was being hatched?”

“I believe you’d slipped outside for a private conversation with a British investigative reporter.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this until now?”

“Because Julian asked me not to.”

With his edgy silence, Gabriel made it clear that Chiara had violated one of the fundamental tenets of their marriage. Secrets, even undeniably trivial ones, were forbidden.