1

GUSTAVIA, SAINT BARTHÉLEMY

* * * * * *

None of it would have happened if Spider Barnes hadn’t tied one on at Eddy’s two nights before the Aurora was due to set sail. Spider was regarded as the finest waterborne chef in the entire Caribbean, irascible but altogether irreplaceable, a mad genius in a starched white jacket and apron. Spider, you see, was classically trained. Spider had done a stint in Paris. Spider had done London. Spider had done New York, San Francisco, and an unhappy layover in Miami before leaving the restaurant biz for good and taking to the freedom of the sea. He worked the big charters now, the kind of boats the film stars, rappers, moguls, and poseurs rented whenever they wanted to impress. And when Spider wasn’t behind his stove, he was invariably propped atop one of the better bar stools on dry land. Eddy’s was in his top five in the Caribbean Basin, perhaps his top five worldwide. He started at seven o’clock that evening with a few beers, blew a reefer in the shadowed garden at nine, and at ten was contemplating his first glass of vanilla rum. All seemed right with the world. Spider Barnes was buzzed and in paradise.

But then he spotted Veronica, and the evening took a dangerous turn. She was new to the island, a lost girl, a European of uncertain provenance who served drinks to day-trippers at the dive bar next door. She was pretty, though—pretty as a floral garnish, Spider remarked to his nameless drinking companion—and he lost his heart to her in ten seconds flat. He proposed marriage, which was Spider’s favorite approach, and when she turned him down he suggested a roll in the sheets instead. Somehow it worked, and the two were seen teetering into a torrential downpour at midnight. And that was the last time anyone laid eyes on him, at 12:03 a.m. on a wet night in Gustavia, soaked to the skin, drunk and in love yet again.

The captain of the Aurora, a 154-foot luxury motor yacht based out of Nassau, was a man called Ogilvy—Reginald Ogilvy, ex–Royal Navy, a benevolent dictator who slept with a copy of the rulebook on his bedside table, along with his grandfather’s King James Bible. He had never cared for Spider Barnes, never less so than at nine the next morning when Spider failed to appear at the regular meeting of the crew and cabin staff. It was no ordinary meeting, for the Aurora was being made ready for a very important guest. Only Ogilvy knew her identity. He also knew that her party would include a team of security men and that she was demanding, to say the least, which explained why he was alarmed by the absence of his renowned chef.

Ogilvy informed the Gustavia harbormaster of the situation, and the harbormaster duly informed the local gendarmerie. A pair of officers knocked on the door of Veronica’s little hillside cottage, but there was no sign of her either. Next they undertook a search of the various spots on the island where the drunken and brokenhearted typically washed ashore after a night of debauchery. A red-faced Swede at Le Select claimed to have bought Spider a Heineken that very morning. Someone else said he saw him stalking the beach at Colombier, and there was a report, never confirmed, of an inconsolable creature baying at the moon in the wilds of Toiny.

The gendarmes faithfully followed each lead. Then they scoured the island from north to south, stem to stern, all to no avail. A few minutes after sundown, Reginald Ogilvy informed the crew of the Aurora that Spider Barnes had vanished and that a suitable replacement would have to be found in short order. The crew fanned out across the island, from the waterside eateries of Gustavia to the beach shacks of the Grand Cul-de-Sac. And by nine that evening, in the unlikeliest of places, they had found their man.

* * * * * *

He had arrived on the island at the height of hurricane season and settled into the clapboard cottage at the far end of the beach at Lorient. He had no possessions other than a canvas duffel bag, a stack of well-read books, a shortwave radio, and a rattletrap motor scooter that he’d acquired in Gustavia for a few grimy banknotes and a smile. The books were thick, weighty, and learned; the radio was of a quality rarely seen any longer. Late at night, when he sat on his sagging veranda reading by the light of his battery-powered lamp, the sound of music floated above the rustle of the palm fronds and the gentle slap and recession of the surf. Jazz and classical, mainly, sometimes a bit of reggae from the stations across the water. At the top of every hour he would lower his book and listen intently to the news on the BBC. Then, when the bulletin was over, he would search the airwaves for something to his liking, and the palm trees and the sea would once again dance to the rhythm of his music.

At first, it was unclear as to whether he was vacationing, passing through, hiding out, or planning to make the island his permanent address. Money seemed not to be an issue. In the morning, when he dropped by the boulangerie for his bread and coffee, he always tipped the girls generously. And in the afternoon, when he stopped at the little market near the cemetery for his German beer and American cigarettes, he never bothered to collect the loose change that came rattling out of the automatic dispenser. His French was reasonable but tinged with an accent no one could quite place. His Spanish, which he spoke to the Dominican who worked the counter at JoJo Burger, was much better, but still there was that accent. The girls at the boulangerie decided he was an Australian, but the boys at JoJo Burger reckoned he was an Afrikaner. They were all over the Caribbean, the Afrikaners. Decent folk for the most part, but a few of them had business interests that were less than legal.

His days, while shapeless, seemed not entirely without purpose. He took his breakfast at the boulangerie, he stopped by the newsstand in Saint-Jean to collect a stack of day-old English and American papers, he did his rigorous exercises on the beach, he read his dense volumes of literature and history with a bucket hat pulled low over his eyes. And once he rented a whaler and spent the afternoon snorkeling on the islet of Tortu. But his idleness appeared forced rather than voluntary. He seemed like a wounded soldier longing to return to the battlefield, an exile dreaming of his lost homeland, wherever that homeland might be.

According to Jean-Marc, a customs officer at the airport, he had arrived on a flight from Guadeloupe in possession of a valid Venezuelan passport bearing the peculiar name Colin Hernandez. It seemed he was the product of a brief marriage between an AngloIrish mother and a Spanish father. The mother had fancied herself a poet; the father had done something shady with money. Colin had loathed the old man, but he spoke of the mother as though canonization were a mere formality. He carried her photograph in his billfold. The towheaded boy on her lap didn’t look much like Colin, but time was like that.

The passport listed his age at thirty-eight, which seemed about right, and his occupation as “businessman,” which could mean just about anything. The girls from the boulangerie reckoned he was a writer in search of inspiration. How else to explain the fact that he was almost never without a book? But the girls from the market conjured up a wild theory, wholly unsupported, that he had murdered a man on Guadeloupe and was hiding out on Saint Barthélemy until the storm had passed. The Dominican from JoJo Burger, who was in hiding himself, found the hypothesis laughable. Colin Hernandez, he declared, was just another shiftless layabout living off the trust fund of a father he hated. He would stay until he grew bored, or until his finances grew thin. Then he would fly off to somewhere else, and within a day or two they would struggle to recall his name.

Finally, a month to the day after his arrival, there was a slight change in his routine. After taking his lunch at JoJo Burger, he went to the hair salon in Saint-Jean, and when he emerged his shaggy black mane was shorn, sculpted, and lustrously oiled. Next morning, when he appeared at the boulangerie, he was freshly shaved and dressed in khaki trousers and a crisp white shirt. He had his usual breakfast—a large bowl of café crème and a loaf of coarse country bread—and lingered over the previous day’s London Times. Then, instead of returning to his cottage, he mounted his motor scooter and sped into Gustavia. And by noon that day, it was finally clear why the man called Colin Hernandez had come to Saint Barthélemy.

* * * * * *

He went first to the stately old Hotel Carl Gustaf, but the head chef, after learning he had no formal training, refused to grant him an interview. The owners of Maya’s turned him politely away, as did the management of the Wall House, Ocean, and La Cantina. He tried La Plage, but La Plage wasn’t interested. Neither were the Eden Rock, the Guanahani, La Crêperie, Le Jardin, or Le Grain de Sel, the lonely outpost overlooking the salt marshes of Saline. Even La Gloriette, founded by a political exile, wanted nothing to do with him.

Undeterred, he tried his luck at the undiscovered gems of the island: the airport snack bar, the Creole joint across the street, the little pizza-and-panini hut in the parking lot of L’Oasis supermarket. And it was there fortune finally smiled upon him, for he learned that the chef at Le Piment had stormed off the job after a long-simmering dispute over hours and salary. By four o’clock that afternoon, after demonstrating his skills in Le Piment’s birdhouse of a kitchen, he was gainfully employed. He worked his first shift that same evening. The reviews were universally glowing.

In fact, it did not take long for word of his culinary prowess to make its way round the little island. Le Piment, once the province of locals and habitués, was soon overflowing with a newfound clientele, all of whom sang the praises of the mysterious new chef with the peculiar Anglo-Spanish name. The Carl Gustaf tried to poach him, as did the Eden Rock, the Guanahani, and La Plage, all without success. Therefore, Reginald Ogilvy, captain of the Aurora, was in a pessimistic mood when he appeared at Le Piment without a reservation the night after the disappearance of Spider Barnes. He was forced to cool his heels for thirty minutes at the bar before finally being granted a table. He ordered three appetizers and three entrées. Then, after sampling each, he requested a brief word with the chef. Ten minutes elapsed before his wish was granted.

“Hungry?” asked the man called Colin Hernandez, looking down at the plates of food.

“Not really.”

“So why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if you were as good as everyone seems to think you are.”

Ogilvy extended his hand and introduced himself—rank and name, followed by the name of his boat. The man called Colin Hernandez raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“The Aurora is Spider Barnes’s boat, isn’t it?”

“You know Spider?”

“I think I had a drink with him once.”

“You weren’t alone.”

Ogilvy took stock of the figure standing before him. He was compact, hard, formidable. To the Englishman’s sharp eye, he seemed like a man who had sailed in rough seas. His brow was dark and thick; his jaw was sturdy and resolute. It was a face, thought Ogilvy, that had been built to take a punch.

“You’re Venezuelan,” he said.

“Says who?”

“Says everyone who refused to hire you when you were looking for a job.”

Ogilvy’s eyes moved from the face to the hand resting on the back of the chair opposite. There was no evidence of tattooing, which he saw as a positive sign. Ogilvy regarded the modern culture of ink as a form of self-mutilation.

“Do you drink?” he asked.

“Not like Spider.”

“Married?”

“Only once.”

“Children?”

“God, no.”

“Vices?”

“Coltrane and Monk.”

“Ever killed anyone?”

“Not that I can recall.”

He said this with a smile. Reginald Ogilvy smiled in return.

“I’m wondering whether I might tempt you away from all this,” he said, glancing around the modest open-air dining room. “I’m prepared to pay you a generous salary. And when we’re not at sea, you’ll have plenty of free time to do whatever it is you like to do when you’re not cooking.”

“How generous?”

“Two thousand a week.”

“How much was Spider making?”

“Three,” replied Ogilvy after a moment’s hesitation. “But Spider was with me for two seasons.”

“He’s not with you now, is he?”

Ogilvy made a show of deliberation. “Three it is,” he said. “But I need you to start right away.”

“When do you sail?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“In that case,” said the man called Colin Hernandez, “I suppose you’ll have to pay me four.”

Reginald Ogilvy, captain of the Aurora, surveyed the plates of food before rising gravely to his feet. “Eight o’clock,” he said. “Don’t be late.”

* * * * * *

François, the quick-tempered Marseilles-born owner of Le Piment, did not take the news well. There was a string of affronts delivered in the rapid-fire patois of the south. There were promises of reprisals. And then there was the bottle of rather good Bordeaux, empty, that shattered into a thousand shards of emerald when hurled against the wall of the tiny kitchen. Later, François would deny he had been aiming at his departing chef. But Isabelle, a waitress who witnessed the incident, would call into question his version of events. François, she swore, had flung the bottle dagger-like directly at the head of Monsieur Hernandez. And Monsieur Hernandez, she recalled, had evaded the object with a movement that was so small and swift it occurred in the blink of an eye. Afterward, he had glared coldly at François for a long moment as though deciding how best to break his neck. Then, calmly, he had removed his spotless white kitchen apron and climbed aboard his motor scooter.

He spent the remainder of that night on the veranda of his cottage, reading by the light of his hurricane lamp. And at the top of every hour, he lowered his book and listened to the news on the BBC as the waves slapped and receded on the beach and the palm fronds hissed in the night wind. In the morning, after an invigorating swim in the sea, he showered, dressed, and packed his belongings into his canvas duffel: his clothing, his books, his radio. In addition, he packed two items that had been left for him on the islet of Tortu: a Stechkin 9mm pistol with a silencer screwed into the barrel, and a rectangular parcel, twelve inches by twenty. The parcel weighed sixteen pounds exactly. He placed it in the center of the duffel so it would remain balanced when carried.

He left the beach at Lorient for the last time at half past seven and, with the duffel resting upon his knees, rode into Gustavia. The Aurora sparkled at the edge of the harbor. He boarded at ten minutes to eight and was shown to his cabin by his sous-chef, a thin English girl with the unlikely name Amelia List. He stowed his possessions in the cupboard—including the Stechkin pistol and the sixteen-pound parcel—and dressed in the chef’s trousers and tunic that had been laid upon his berth. Amelia List was waiting in the corridor when he emerged. She escorted him to the galley and led him on a tour of the dry goods pantry, the walk-in refrigerator, and the storeroom filled with wine. It was there, in the cool darkness, that he had his first sexual thought about the English girl in the crisp white uniform. He did nothing to dispel it. He had been celibate for so many months that he could scarcely recall what it felt like to touch a woman’s hair or caress the flesh of a defenseless breast.

A few minutes before ten o’clock there came an announcement over the ship’s intercom instructing all members of the crew to report to the afterdeck. The man called Colin Hernandez followed Amelia List outside and was standing next to her when two black Range Rovers braked to a halt at Aurora’s stern. From the first emerged two giggling sunburned girls and a pale florid-faced man in his forties who was holding the straps of a pink beach bag in one hand and the neck of an open bottle of champagne in the other. Two athletic-looking men spilled from the second Rover, followed a moment later by a woman who looked to be suffering from a case of terminal melancholia. She wore a peach-colored dress that left the impression of partial nudity, a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed her slender shoulders, and large opaque sunglasses that concealed much of her porcelain face. Even so, she was instantly recognizable. Her profile betrayed her, the profile so admired by the fashion photographers and the paparazzi who stalked her every move. There were no paparazzi present that morning. For once she had eluded them.

She stepped aboard the Aurora as though she were stepping over an open grave and slipped past the assembled crew without a word or glance, passing so close to the man called Colin Hernandez he had to suppress an urge to touch her to make certain she was real and not a hologram. Five minutes later the Aurora eased into the harbor, and by noon the enchanted island of Saint Barthélemy was a lump of brown-green on the horizon. Stretched topless upon the foredeck, drink in hand, her flawless skin baking in the sun, was the most famous woman in the world. And one deck below, preparing an appetizer of tuna tartare, cucumber, and pineapple, was the man who was going to kill her.

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PREFACE

On October 18, 1969, Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence vanished from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily. The Nativity, as it is commonly known, is one of Caravaggio’s last great masterworks, painted in 1609 while he was a fugitive from justice, wanted by papal authorities in Rome for killing a man during a swordfight. For more than four decades, the altarpiece has been the most sought-after stolen painting in the world, and yet its exact whereabouts, even its fate, have remained a mystery. Until now. . .

PART ONE:
CHIAROSCURO

1
ST. JAMES’S, LONDON

It began with an accident, but then matters involving Julian Isherwood invariably did. In fact, his reputation for folly and misadventure was so indisputably established that London’s art world, had it known of the affair, which it did not, would have expected nothing less. Isherwood, declared one wit from the Old Masters department at Sotheby’s, was the patron saint of lost causes, a highwire artist with a penchant for carefully planned schemes that ended in ruins, oftentimes through no fault of his own. Consequently, he was both admired and pitied, a rare trait for a man of his position.

Julian Isherwood made life a bit less tedious. And for that, London’s smart set adored him.

His gallery stood at the far corner of the cobbled quadrangle known as Mason’s Yard, occupying three floors of a sagging Victorian warehouse once owned by Fortnum & Mason. On one side were the London offices of a minor Greek shipping company; on the other was a pub that catered to pretty office girls who rode motor scooters. Many years earlier, before the successive waves of Arab and Russian money had swamped London’s real estate market, the gallery had been located in stylish New Bond Street, or New Bondstrasse, as it was known in the trade. Then came the likes of Hermès, Burberry, Chanel, and Cartier, leaving Isherwood and others like him—independent dealers specializing in museum-quality Old Master paintings—no choice but to seek sanctuary in St. James’s.

It was not the first time Isherwood had been forced into exile. Born in Paris on the eve of World War II, the only child of the renowned art dealer Samuel Isakowitz, he had been carried over the Pyrenees after the German invasion and smuggled into Britain. His Parisian childhood and Jewish lineage were just two pieces of his tangled past that Isherwood kept secret from the rest of London’s notoriously backbiting art world. As far as anyone knew, he was English to the core—English as high tea and bad teeth, as he was fond of saying. He was the incomparable Julian Isherwood, Julie to his friends, Juicy Julian to his partners in the occasional crime of drink, and His Holiness to the art historians and curators who routinely made use of his infallible eye. He was loyal as the day was long, trusting to a fault, impeccably mannered, and had no real enemies, a singular achievement given that he had spent two lifetimes navigating the treacherous waters of the art world. Mainly, Isherwood was decent—decency being in short supply these days, in London or anywhere else.

Isherwood Fine Arts was a vertical affair: bulging storage rooms on the ground floor, business offices on the second, and a formal exhibition room on the third. The exhibition room, considered by many to be the most glorious in all of London, was an exact replica of Paul Rosenberg’s famous gallery in Paris, where Isherwood had spent many happy hours as a child, oftentimes in the company of Picasso himself. The business office was a Dickensian warren piled high with yellowed catalogues and monographs. To reach it, visitors had to pass through a pair of secure glass doorways, the first off Mason’s Yard, the second at the top of a narrow flight of stairs covered in stained brown carpeting. There they would encounter Maggie, a sleepy-eyed blonde who couldn’t tell a Titian from toilet paper. Isherwood had once made a complete ass of himself trying to seduce her and, having no other recourse, hired her to be his receptionist instead. Presently, she was buffing her nails while the telephone on her desk bleated unanswered.

“Mind getting that, Mags?” Isherwood inquired benevolently.

“Why?” she asked without a trace of irony in her voice.

“Might be important.”

She rolled her eyes before resentfully lifting the receiver to her ear and purring,

“Isherwood Fine Arts.” A few seconds later, she rang off without another word and resumed work on her nails.

“Well?” asked Isherwood.

“No one on the line.”

“Be a love, petal, and check the caller ID.”

“He’ll call back.”

Isherwood, frowning, resumed his silent appraisal of the painting propped upon the baize-covered easel in the center of the room—a depiction of Christ appearing before Mary Magdalene, probably by a follower of Francesco Albani, which Isherwood had recently plucked for a pittance from a manor house in Berkshire. The painting, like Isherwood himself, was badly in need of restoration. He had reached the age that estate planners refer to as “the autumn of his years.” It was not a golden autumn, he thought gloomily. It was late autumn, with the wind knife-edged and Christmas lights burning along Oxford Street. Still, with his handmade Savile Row suit and plentiful gray locks, he cut an elegant if precarious figure, a look he described as dignified depravity. At this stage of his life, he could strive for nothing more.

“I thought some dreadful Russian was dropping by at four to look at a painting,” said Isherwood suddenly, his gaze still roaming the worn canvas.

“The dreadful Russian canceled.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Did.”

“Nonsense.”

“You must have forgotten, Julian. Been happening a lot lately.”

Isherwood fixed Maggie with a withering stare, all the while wondering how he could have been attracted to so repulsive a creature. Then, having no other appointments on his calendar, and positively nothing better to do, he crawled into his overcoat and hiked over to Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar, thus setting in motion the chain of events that would lead him into yet another calamity not of his own making. The time was twenty minutes past four. It was a bit too early for the usual crowd, and the bar was empty except for Simon Mendenhall, Christie’s permanently suntanned chief auctioneer. Mendenhall had once played an unwitting role in a joint Israeli-American intelligence operation to penetrate a jihadist terror network that was bombing the daylights out of Western Europe. Isherwood knew this because he had played a minor role in the operation himself. Isherwood was not a spy. He was a helper of spies, one spy in particular.

“Julie!” Mendenhall called out. Then, in the bedroom voice he reserved for reluctant bidders, he added, “You look positively marvelous. Lost weight? Been to a pricey spa? A new girl? What’s your secret?”

“Sancerre,” replied Isherwood before settling in at his usual table next to the window overlooking Duke Street. And there he ordered a bottle of the stuff, brutally cold, for a glass wouldn’t do. Mendenhall soon departed with his usual flourish, and Isherwood was alone with his thoughts and his drink, a dangerous combination for a man of advancing years with a career in full retreat.

But eventually the door swung open, and the wet darkening street yielded a pair of curators from the National Gallery. Someone important from the Tate came next, followed by a delegation from Bonhams led by Jeremy Crabbe, the tweedy director of the auction house’s Old Master paintings department. Hard on their heels was Roddy Hutchinson, widely regarded as the most unscrupulous dealer in all of London. His arrival was a bad omen, for everywhere Roddy went, tubby Oliver Dimbleby was sure to follow. As expected, he came waddling into the bar a few minutes later with all the discretion of a train whistle at midnight. Isherwood seized his mobile phone and feigned an urgent conversation, but Oliver was having none of it. He made a straight line toward the table—like a hound bearing down on a fox, Isherwood would recall later—and settled his ample backside into the empty chair. “Domaine Daniel Chotard,” he said approvingly, lifting the bottle of wine from the ice bucket. “Don’t mind if I do.”

*  *  *  *  *

He wore a blue power suit that fit his portly frame like a sausage casing and large gold cuff links the size of shillings. His cheeks were rounded and pink; his pale blue eyes shone with a brightness that suggested he slept well at night. Oliver Dimbleby was a sinner of the highest order, but his conscience bothered him not.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Julie,” he said as he poured himself a generous measure of Isherwood’s wine, “but you look like a pile of dirty laundry.”

“That’s not what Simon Mendenhall said.”

“Simon earns his living by talking people out of their money. I, however, am a source of unvarnished truth, even when it hurts.” Dimbleby settled his gaze on Isherwood with a look of genuine concern.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Oliver.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to think of something kind to say before the doctor pulls the plug.”

“Have you had a peek in the mirror lately?”

“I try to avoid mirrors these days.”

“I can see why.” Dimbleby added another half inch of the wine to his glass.

“Is there anything else I can get for you, Oliver? Some caviar?”

“Don’t I always reciprocate?”

“No, Oliver, you don’t. In fact, if I were keeping track, which I am not, you would be several thousand pounds in arrears.”

Dimbleby ignored the remark. “What is it, Julian? What’s troubling you this time?”

“At the moment, Oliver, it’s you.”

“It’s that girl, isn’t it, Julie? That’s what’s got you down. What was her name again?”

“Cassandra,” Isherwood answered to the window.

“Broke your heart, did she?”

“They always do.”

Dimbleby smiled. “Your capacity for love astounds me. What I wouldn’t give to fall in love just once.”

“You’re the biggest womanizer I know, Oliver.”

“Being a womanizer has precious little to do with being in love. I love women, all women. And therein lies the problem.”

Isherwood stared into the street. It was starting to rain again, just in time for the evening rush.

“Sold any paintings lately?” asked Dimbleby.

“Several, actually.”

“None that I’ve heard about.”

“That’s because the sales were private.”

“Bollocks,” replied Oliver with a snort. “You haven’t sold anything in months. But that hasn’t stopped you from acquiring new stock, has it? How many paintings have you got stashed away in that storeroom of yours? Enough to fill a museum, with a few thousand paintings to spare. And they’re all burned to a crisp, deader than the proverbial doornail.”

Isherwood made no response other than to rub at his lower back. It had replaced a barking cough as his most persistent physical ailment. He supposed it was an improvement. A sore back didn’t disturb the neighbors.

“My offer still stands,” Dimbleby was saying.

“What offer is that?”

“Come on, Julie. Don’t make me say it aloud.”

Isherwood swiveled his head a few degrees and stared directly into Dimbleby’s fleshy, childlike face. “You’re not talking about buying my gallery again, are you?”

“I’m prepared to be more than generous. I’ll give you a fair price for the small portion of your collection that’s sellable and use the rest to heat the building.”

“That’s very charitable of you,” Isherwood responded sardonically, “but I have other plans for the gallery.”

“Realistic?”

Isherwood was silent.

“Very well,” said Dimbleby. “If you won’t allow me to take possession of that flaming wreck you refer to as a gallery, at least let me do something else to help lift you out of your current Blue Period.”

“I don’t want one of your girls, Oliver.”

“I’m not talking about a girl. I’m talking about a nice trip to help take your mind off your troubles.”

“Where?”

“Lake Como. All expenses paid. First-class airfare. Two nights in a luxury suite at the Villa d’Este.”

“And what do I have to do in return?”

“A small favor.”

“How small?”

Dimbleby helped himself to another glass of the wine and told Isherwood the rest of it.

 *  *  *  *  *

It seemed Oliver Dimbleby had recently made the acquaintance of an expatriate Englishman who collected ravenously but without the aid of a trained art adviser to guide him. Furthermore, it seemed the Englishman’s finances were not what they once were, thus requiring the rapid sale of a portion of his holdings. Dimbleby had agreed to have a quiet look at the collection, but now that the trip was upon him, he couldn’t face the prospect of getting on yet another airplane. Or so he claimed. Isherwood suspected Dimbleby’s true motives for backing out of the trip resided elsewhere, for Oliver Dimbleby was ulterior motives made flesh.

Nevertheless, there was something about the idea of an unexpected journey that appealed to Isherwood, and against all better judgment he accepted the offer on the spot. That evening he packed lightly, and at nine the next morning was settling into his first-class seat on British Airways Flight 576, with nonstop service to Milan’s Malpensa Airport. He drank only a single glass of wine during the flight—for the sake of his heart, he told himself—and at half past twelve, as he was climbing into a rented Mercedes, he was fully in command of his faculties. He made the drive northward to Lake Como without the aid of a map or navigation device. A highly regarded art historian who specialized in the painters of Venice, Isherwood had made countless journeys to Italy to prowl its churches and museums. Even so, he always leapt at the chance to return, especially when someone else was footing the bill. Julian Isherwood was French by birth and English by upbringing, but within his sunken chest beat the romantic, undisciplined heart of an Italian.

The expatriate Englishman of shrinking resources was expecting Isherwood at two. He lived grandly, according to Dimbleby’s hastily drafted e-mail, on the southwestern prong of the lake, near the town of Laglio. Isherwood arrived a few minutes early and found the imposing gate open to receive him. Beyond the gate stretched a newly paved drive, which bore him gracefully to a gravel forecourt. He parked next to the villa’s private quay and made his way past molded statuary to the front door. The bell, when pressed, went unanswered. Isherwood checked his watch and then rang the bell a second time. The result was the same.

At which point Isherwood would have been wise to climb into his rented car and leave Como as quickly as possible. Instead, he tried the latch and, regrettably, found it was unlocked. He opened the door a few inches, called a greeting into the darkened interior, and then stepped uncertainly into the grand entrance hall. Instantly, he saw the lake of blood on the marble floor, and the two bare feet suspended in space, and the swollen blue-black face staring down from above. Isherwood felt his knees buckle and saw the floor rising to receive him. He knelt there for a moment until the wave of nausea had passed. Then he rose unsteadily to his feet and, with his hand over his mouth, stumbled out of the villa toward his car. And though he did not realize it at the time, he was cursing tubby Oliver Dimbleby’s name every step of the way.

Questions for Discussion

1. Gabriel Allon has settled with Chiara in Jerusalem. Considering this location and the specific description of their home at the beginning of Chapter 3, how would you describe the state he’s in at this point in his life?

2. Consider the fictional version of the painting of Susanna and the Elders believed to be by Jacopo Bassano. What do the details offered about her story add to how you think about Madeline Hart?

3. Gabriel, once a talented painter of original works, admits he began to study art restoration because his profound and brutal three-year experience at the center of operation Wrath of God changed him. What might he have lost that a creative artist needs?

4. Graham Seymour, Deputy Director of Britain’s MI5, is close to Gabriel as fellow members of “a secret brotherhood who did the unpleasant chores no one else was willing to do” to keep their countries safe. What else accounts for Gabriel’s willingness to trust and work with him?

5. Seymour responds to Gabriel’s compliment about an esteemed career by saying that “it’s difficult to measure success in the security business, isn’t it? We’re judged on things that don’t happen—the secrets that aren’t stolen, the buildings that don’t explode. It can be…profoundly unsatisfying.” What are other important careers or actions that prove difficult to measure regarding success?

6. After Madeline is kidnapped, she appears in a video “as if she were responding to questions posed by a television interview.” What connotations does this simile, another journalistic reference, add to the scene?

7. In what various ways does the relationship between Gabriel and Chiara demonstrate real equality? In what ways are they valuably different?

8. What layers of meaning are added to the novel by the fictional discovery and museum exhibition of the “twenty-two pillars of Solomon’s Temple”?

9. How does Chiara’s tragic experience at the hands of Ivan Kharkov and that of Gabriel’s first wife and only son Daniel affect Gabriel’s decisions and actions regarding Madeline Hart?

10. What does the location of Corsica and what goes on there bring to the novel? What about the details of the macchia?

11. Examine the fascinating character of the signadora. What does her supernatural presence and behavior bring to the novel? How does this fit or contradict Gabriel’s belief system, one quite important to how he goes about his job? What are the possible benefits or dangers of belief in such a medium?

12. Consider the character of Christopher Keller and his elaborate evolution from upper-middle-class Brit to rebellious soldier and top member of the SAS’s Regiment to presumed dead rogue assassin-for-hire employed by Don Orsati. In what ways are he and Gabriel similar or different?

13. Explain the details and psychology that allows Gabriel to trust and work with Keller, someone who was at one point hired to kill him. What qualities are necessary to transform a work relationship into a friendship?

14. What does the banter between Gabriel and Christopher Keller add to the novel? What’s the role of humor in a work of such weighty subject matter?

15. Consider the many artists and works of art mentioned throughout the novel (Bassano, Viktor Frankel, Bellini’s San Zaccaria altarpiece, Cezanne, Matisse, Monet, Puccini, Wagner, Dumas, Dickens, Forster, etc.). What specific and overall effects do such references have?

16. A number of times Gabriel mentions the immense amount of waiting, often intense or stressful waiting, “always the waiting.” What’s challenging about such a seemingly simple activity?

17. Will Gabriel make a good director of Israel’s secret intelligence service? Why or why not?

18. What profound effects would becoming a father again have on Gabriel?

Questions for Discussion

1. The book begins with a profound statement from Elie Wiesel about the power of “one person of integrity.” How do you define integrity? Where do you see it in the novel?

2. Consider the landscape of Cornwall where we first find Gabriel and Chiara. What mood does it create? What does it suggest about Gabriel’s mindset and condition?

3. When walking in Covent Garden Market, Gabriel notices the threat because his “gnawing vigilance…forced him to make a mental charcoal sketch of every passing face.” How might his artistic skills and understanding aid him as an agent?

4. Late in the novel, Gabriel is described as a painter who possesses “the meticulous draftsmanship of the Old Masters” and the “freedom of the Impressionists.” Where do you see these opposing qualities in his work with the agency?

5. While Madonna and Child with Mary Magdalene is a fictitious painting by Titian, it is threaded throughout the novel. What does the title and its various mentions add or suggest?

6. How would you describe the relationship between Gabriel and Chiara? What does their intimate interaction add to the thrilling, tense subject matter?

7. Consider the powerful and complex character of Nadia al-Bakari. How does she represent the challenge and tension between the Middle East and the West? What of her extensive experience helps explain her willingness to forgive and even to help those who killed her father? What role does art play in her life?

8. Just before Nadia’s important and dangerous meeting in a hotel in Dubai, she speaks with Gabriel beneath a small metallic cloth tent to protect them from surveillance. He refers to it as a chuppah, beneath which vows are taken in the Jewish wedding ceremony. How is this significant to this moment in the novel? What is the complex nature of the relationship between the two of them?

9. What do the many intelligent and powerful women in the novel add to the exploration of equal rights and their suppression? Which woman is the most compelling to you? Why?

10. Throughout the novel, we are introduced to various male characters and their wives. What is the overall effect of this? How does it connect to the larger theme of gender equality that gets explored?

11. The modern media—both its nature and role in politics—is presented and explored in the novel and even figures into the activities of the various agencies. What are the pros and cons of such technologically evolved, global journalism? To what extent is it or should it be an element of politics? The military?

12. At one point Adrian Carter lashes out at the journalistic use of “narrative,” and suggests that they should report “facts” while novelists create narrative. What should be the limits of storytelling (however factual) in news reporting? What is the role or responsibility of the novelist to inform?

13. In what ways is “finint,” or financial intelligence, more valuable or volatile than traditional human or signals sources?

14. What do the intense auction scenes at Christie’s bring to the novel?

15. Consider the extensively described desert landscapes. What moods do they evoke? What do they add to any understanding of the political and personal history of the regions? In what ways is it possible for such barren land—even when a place of horrendous violence and suffering—to seem beautiful?

16. When Gabriel mentions the surviving families of the tragedies in Paris, Copenhagen, and London, Adrian Carter says, “That’s an emotional response,” and “James McKenna doesn’t tolerate emotion when it comes to talking about terrorism.” And yet Gabriel, Nadia, and Ali al-Masri have powerful emotional interactions. What is an appropriate role of emotional response and understanding of others in such a challenging international climate?

17. When interrogating Gabriel and referring to his involvement despite a supposed retirement, Kahlid says “your son has everything to do with this.” In what ways is this true?

18. Lying is a necessary part of Gabriel’s work, but even he says to only “lie as a last resort.” Outside the dangerous world of the spy, what are proper criteria for deciding when to lie?

19. A number of times in the novel, an important agency maxim is stated: “Hope is not an acceptable strategy when lives are at stake.” What is the value of hope? When is it appropriate?

“Silva’s thrillers bring readers the best of all spy worlds….deft characterization and old-fashioned, spy-novel action.”
—Booklist

“Literate, top-notch action laced with geopolitical commentary.”
— Kirkus

“Allon is a great political operative, but Silva is an even greater writer….a must read.”
— Huffington Post

“Smart, unpredictable, and packed with history, art, heart, and imagination, this is a page-turner to be savored….The English Girl is a masterwork.”
— Neal Thompson, Amazon.com (an Amazon #1 best Book of the Month pick for July 2013)

“[Silva’s] Gabriel Allon novels have both entertained and informed tens of millions of readers…more than any other writer over the past decade…You will read the book in at most a couple of sittings.”
— Washington Examiner

“A sleek, efficient thriller, delivering a neatly complicated plot with a minimum of fuss.”
— The Columbus Dispatch

“As with all of Silva’s geopolitical and stylish thrillers, the pace is super fast and the storyline is engrossing, complicated, and twisty. Managing to be character centered even as the focus is action based, Silva’s current novel offers multiple rewards: the pure pleasure of top–notch skill—Allon is determined, able, honorable, and relentless; the book is set in a well-detailed and expansive landscape—the action moves between Israel, England, Corsica, France, and Russia and comes to life in each location; and finally, wonderful secondary characters (including the return of a man who once targeted Allon).”
— Library Journal

“The English Girl is a top-notch, old-fashioned East-meets-West, cloak-and-dagger thriller from the old school, with a ripped-from-the-headlines theme…Someone once said that their favorite books are ones that entertain and inform at the same time. The English Girl is one of those novels.”
— Book Reporter

“Daniel Silva delivers another spectacular thriller starring Gabriel Allon: The English Girl…This captivating new page-turner from the undisputed master of spy fiction is sure to thrill new and old fans alike.”
— The DC Spotlight

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Piana, Corsica

They came for her in late August, on the island of Corsica. The precise time would never be determined—some point between sunset and noon the following day was the best any of her housemates could do. Sunset was when they saw her for the last time, streaking down the drive of the villa on a red motor scooter, a gauzy cotton skirt fluttering about her suntanned thighs. Noon was when they realized her bed was empty except for a trashy half-read paperback novel that smelled of coconut oil and faintly of rum. Another twenty-four hours would elapse before they got around to calling the gendarmes. It had been that kind of summer, and Madeline was that kind of girl.

They had arrived on Corsica a fortnight earlier, four pretty girls and two earnest boys, all faithful servants of the British government or the political party that was running it these days. They had a single car, a communal Renault hatchback large enough to accommodate five uncomfortably, and the red motor scooter which was exclusively Madeline’s and which she rode with a recklessness bordering on suicidal. Their ocher-colored villa stood at the western fringe of the village on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was tidy and compact, the sort of place estate agents always described as “charming.” But it had a swimming pool and a walled garden filled with rosemary bushes and pepper trees; and within hours of alighting there they had settled into the blissful state of sunburned semi-nudity to which British tourists aspire, no matter where their travels take them.

Though Madeline was the youngest of the group, she was their unofficial leader, a burden she accepted without protest. It was Madeline who had managed the rental of the villa, and Madeline who arranged the long lunches, the late dinners, and the day trips into the wild Corsican interior, always leading the way along the treacherous roads on her motor scooter. Not once did she bother to consult a map. Her encyclopedic knowledge of the island’s geography, history, culture, and cuisine had been acquired during a period of intense study and preparation conducted in the weeks leading up to the journey. Madeline, it seemed, had left nothing to chance. But then she rarely did.

She had come to the Party’s Millbank headquarters two years earlier, after graduating from the University of Edinburgh with degrees in economics and social policy. Despite her second-tier education— most of her colleagues were products of elite public schools and Oxbridge—she rose quickly through a series of clerical posts before being promoted to director of community outreach. Her job, as she often described it, was to forage for votes among classes of Britons who had no business supporting the Party, its platform, or its candidates. The post, all agreed, was but a way station along a journey to better things. Madeline’s future was bright—“solar flare bright,” in the words of Pauline, who had watched her younger colleague’s ascent with no small amount of envy. According to the rumor mill, Madeline had been taken under the wing of someone high in the Party. Someone close to the prime minister. Perhaps even the prime minister himself. With her television good looks, keen intellect, and boundless energy, Madeline was being groomed for a safe seat in Parliament and a ministry of her own. It was only a matter of time. Or so they said.

Which made it all the more odd that, at twenty-seven years of age, Madeline Hart remained romantically unattached. When asked to explain the barren state of her love life, she would declare she was too busy for a man. Fiona, a slightly wicked dark-haired beauty from the Cabinet Office, found the explanation dubious. More to the point, she believed Madeline was being deceitful—deceitfulness being one of Fiona’s most redeeming qualities, thus her interest in Party politics. To support her theory, she would point out that Madeline, while loquacious on almost every subject imaginable, was unusually guarded when it came to her personal life. Yes, said Fiona, she was willing to toss out the occasional harmless tidbit about her troubled childhood—the dreary council house in Essex, the father whose face she could scarcely recall, the alcoholic brother who’d never worked a day in his life—but everything else she kept hidden behind a moat and walls of stone. “Our Madeline could be an ax murderer or a high-priced tart,” said Fiona, “and none of us would be the wiser.” But Alison, a Home Office underling with a much-broken heart, had another theory. “The poor lamb’s in love,” she declared one afternoon as she watched Madeline rising goddess-like from the sea in the tiny cove beneath the villa. “The trouble is, the man in question isn’t returning the favor.”

“Why ever not?” asked Fiona drowsily from beneath the brim of an enormous sun visor.

“Maybe he’s in no position to.”

“Married?”

“But of course.”

“Bastard.”

“You’ve never?”

“Had an affair with a married man?”

“Yes.”

“Just twice, but I’m considering a third.”

“You’re going to burn in hell, Fi.”

“I certainly hope so.”

It was then, on the afternoon of the seventh day, and upon the thinnest of evidence, that the three girls and two boys staying with Madeline Hart in the rented villa at the edge of Piana took it upon themselves to find her a lover. And not just any lover, said Pauline. He had to be appropriate in age, fine in appearance and breeding, and stable in his finances and mental health, with no skeletons in his closet and no other women in his bed. Fiona, the most experienced when it came to matters of the heart, declared it a mission impossible. “He doesn’t exist,” she explained with the weariness of a woman who had spent much time looking for him. “And if he does, he’s either married or so infatuated with himself he won’t have the time of day for poor Madeline.”

Despite her misgivings, Fiona threw herself headlong into the challenge, if for no other reason than it would add a hint of intrigue to the holiday. Fortunately, she had no shortage of potential targets, for it seemed half the population of southeast England had abandoned their sodden isle for the sun of Corsica. There was the colony of City financiers who had rented grandly at the northern end of the Golfe de Porto. And the band of artists who were living like Gypsies in a hill town in the Castagniccia. And the troupe of actors who had taken up residence on the beach at Campomoro. And the delegation of opposition politicians who were plotting a return to power from a villa atop the cliffs of Bonifacio. Using the Cabinet Office as her calling card, Fiona quickly arranged a series of impromptu social encounters. And on each occasion—be it a dinner party, a hike into the mountains, or a boozy afternoon on the beach—she snared the most eligible male present and deposited him at Madeline’s side. None, however, managed to scale her walls, not even the young actor who had just completed a successful run as the lead in the West End’s most popular musical of the season.

“She’s obviously got it bad,” Fiona conceded as they headed back to the villa late one evening, with Madeline leading the way through the darkness on her red motor scooter.

“Who do you reckon he is?” asked Alison.

“Dunno,” Fiona drawled enviously. “But he must be someone quite special.”

It was at this point, with slightly more than a week remaining until their planned return to London, that Madeline began spending significant amounts of time alone. She would leave the villa early each morning, usually before the others had risen, and return in late afternoon. When asked about her whereabouts, she was transparently vague, and at dinner she was often sullen or preoccupied. Alison naturally feared the worst, that Madeline’s lover, whoever he was, had sent notice that her services were no longer required. But the following day, upon returning to the villa from a shopping excursion, Fiona and Pauline happily declared that Alison was mistaken. It seemed that Madeline’s lover had come to Corsica. And Fiona had the pictures to prove it.

* * * * * *

The sighting had occurred at ten minutes past two, at Les Palmiers, on the Quai Adolphe Landry in Calvi. Madeline had been seated at a table along the edge of the harbor, her head turned slightly toward the sea, as though unaware of the man in the chair opposite. Large dark glasses concealed her eyes. A straw sun hat with an elaborate black bow shadowed her flawless face. Pauline had tried to approach the table, but Fiona, sensing the strained intimacy of the scene, had suggested a hasty retreat instead. She had paused long enough to surreptitiously snap the first incriminating photograph on her mobile phone. Madeline had appeared unaware of the intrusion, but not the man. At the instant Fiona pressed the camera button, his head had turned sharply, as if alerted by some animal instinct that his image was being electronically captured.

After fleeing to a nearby brasserie, Fiona and Pauline carefully examined the man in the photograph. His hair was gray-blond, windblown, and boyishly full. It fell onto his forehead and framed an angular face dominated by a small, rather cruel-looking mouth. The clothing was vaguely maritime: white trousers, a blue-striped oxford cloth shirt, a large diver’s wristwatch, canvas loafers with soles that would leave no marks on the deck of a ship. That was the kind of man he was, they decided. A man who never left marks.

They assumed he was British, though he could have been German or Scandinavian or perhaps, thought Pauline, a descendant of Polish nobility. Money was clearly not an issue, as evidenced by the pricey bottle of champagne sweating in the silver ice bucket anchored to the side of the table. His fortune was earned rather than inherited, they decided, and not altogether clean. He was a gambler. He had Swiss bank accounts. He traveled to dangerous places. Mainly, he was discreet. His affairs, like his canvas boat shoes, left no marks.

But it was the image of Madeline that intrigued them most. She was no longer the girl they knew from London, or even the girl with whom they had been sharing a villa for the past two weeks. It seemed she had adopted an entirely different demeanor. She was an actress in another movie. The other woman. Now, hunched over the mobile phone like a pair of schoolgirls, Fiona and Pauline wrote the dialogue and added flesh and bones to the characters. In their version of the story, the affair had begun innocently enough with a chance encounter in an exclusive New Bond Street shop. The flirtation had been long, the consummation meticulously planned. But the ending of the story temporarily eluded them, for in real life it had yet to be written. Both agreed it would be tragic. “That’s the way stories like this always end,” Fiona said from experience. “Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. Girl gets hurt and does her very best to destroy boy.”

Fiona would snap two more photographs of Madeline and her lover that afternoon. One showed them walking along the quay through brilliant sunlight, their knuckles furtively touching. The second showed them parting without so much as a kiss. The man then climbed into a Zodiac dinghy and headed out into the harbor. Madeline mounted her red motor scooter and started back toward the villa. By the time she arrived, she was no longer in possession of the sun hat with the elaborate black bow. That night, while recounting the events of her afternoon, she made no mention of a visit to Calvi, or of a luncheon with a prosperous-looking man at Les Palmiers. Fiona thought it a rather impressive performance. “Our Madeline is an extraordinarily good liar,” she told Pauline. “Perhaps her future is as bright as they say. Who knows? She might even be prime minister someday.”

* * * * * *

That night, the four pretty girls and two earnest boys staying in the rented villa planned to dine in the nearby town of Porto. Madeline made the reservation in her schoolgirl French and even imposed on the proprietor to set aside his finest table, the one on the terrace overlooking the rocky sweep of the bay. It was assumed they would travel to the restaurant in their usual caravan, but shortly before seven Madeline announced she was going to Calvi to have a drink with an old friend from Edinburgh. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant,” she shouted over her shoulder as she sped down the drive. “And for heaven’s sake, try to be on time for a change.” And then she was gone. No one thought it odd when she failed to appear for dinner that night. Nor were they alarmed when they woke to find her bed unoccupied. It had been that kind of summer, and Madeline was that kind of girl.

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