Daniel Silva - Portrait of a Spy

On the afternoon of Gabriel’s return to London, Isherwood closed his gallery early and, having nothing better to do, headed over to Duke Street through a pelting rain to have a drink at Green’s. Aided by Roddy Hutchinson, universally regarded as the most unscrupulous dealer in all of St. James’s, Isherwood quickly consumed a bottle of white Burgundy, followed by a dose of brandy for his health. Shortly after six, he teetered into the street again to find a taxi, but when one finally approached, he was overcome by a retching coughing fit that left him incapable of lifting his arm. “Bloody hell!” snapped Isherwood as the car swept past, soaking his trousers. “Bloody, bloody, bloody hell !”

His outburst brought on another round of staccato barking. When finally it subsided, he noticed a figure leaning against the brickwork of the passageway leading to Mason’s Yard. He wore a Barbour raincoat and a flat cap pulled low over his brow. The right foot was crossed over the left, and the eyes were sweeping back and forth along the street. He gazed at Isherwood for a moment with a mixture of bemusement and pity. Then, without word or sound, he turned and started across the cobbles of the old yard. Against all better judgment, Isherwood followed after him, hacking his lungs out like a consumption patient on the way to the sanatorium.

“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” said Isherwood. “First you cover my Titian in rabbit-skin glue and tissue paper. Then you deposit it in my storage room and disappear to parts unknown. Now you reappear unannounced, looking, as usual, like something the cat dragged in, and tell me that you need the aforementioned Titian for one of your little extracurricular projects. Have I left anything out?”

“In order for this scheme to work, Julian, I’ll need you to deceive the art world and to conduct yourself in a way that some of your colleagues might consider unethical.”

“Just another day at the office, petal,” said Isherwood with a shrug. “But what’s in it for moi ?”

“If it works, there will be no more attacks like the one in Covent Garden.”

“Until the next jihadi loon comes along. Then we’ll be back at square one again, won’t we? Heaven knows I’m no expert, but it seems to me the terrorism game is a bit like the art trade. It has its peaks and valleys, its good seasons and bad, but it never goes away.”

In the upper exhibition room of Isherwood’s gallery, the overhead lamps glowed with the softness of votive candles. Rain pattered on the skylight and dripped from the hem of Isherwood’s sodden overcoat, which he had yet to remove. Isherwood frowned at the puddle on his parquet floor and then looked at the wounded painting propped upon the baize-covered pedestal.

“Do you know how much that thing is worth?”

“In a fair auction, ten million in the shade. But in the auction I have in mind . . .”

“Naughty boy,” said Isherwood. “Naughty, naughty boy.”

“Have you mentioned it to anyone, Julian?”

“The painting?” Isherwood shook his head. “Not a peep.”

“You’re sure about that? No moment of indiscretion at the bar at Green’s? No pillow talk with that preposterously young woman from the Tate?”

“Her name’s Penelope,” Isherwood said.

“Does she know about the picture, Julian?”

“ ’Course not. That’s not the way it works when one has a coup, petal. One doesn’t brag about such things. One keeps it very quiet until the moment is just right. Then one announces it to the world with all the usual fanfare. One also expects to be compensated for one’s cleverness. But under your scenario, I’ll be expected to actually take a loss—for the good of God’s children, of course.”

“Your loss will be temporary.”

“How temporary?”

“The CIA is handling all operational expenses.”

“That’s not a line one hears every day in an art gallery.”

“One way or another, Julian, you’ll be compensated.”

“Of course I will,” Isherwood said with mock confidence. “This reminds me of the time my Penelope told me her husband wouldn’t be home for another hour. I’m rather too old to be leaping over garden walls.”

“Still seeing her?”

“Penelope? Left me,” Isherwood said, shaking his head. “They all leave me eventually. But not you, petal. And not this damn cough. I’m starting to think of it as an old friend.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Couldn’t get an appointment. The National Health Service is so bad these days, I’m thinking about becoming a Christian Scientist.”

“I thought you were a hypochondriac.”

“Orthodox, actually.” Isherwood picked at the tissue paper in the upper-right portion of the canvas.

“Every flake of paint you dislodge I have to put back.”

“Sorry,” said Isherwood, slipping his hand into his coat pocket. “There’s precedent for it, you know. A couple of years ago, Christie’s sold a painting attributed to the School of Titian for the paltry sum of eight thousand quid. But the painting wasn’t a School of Titian. It was a Titian Titian. As you might imagine, the owners weren’t terribly pleased. They accused Christie’s of malpractice. The lawyers got involved. There were ugly stories in the press. Bad feelings all round.”

“Perhaps we should give Christie’s a chance to redeem itself.”

“They might actually like that. There’s just one problem.”

“Just one?”

“We’ve already missed the big Old Master sales.”

“That’s true,” Gabriel acknowledged, “but you’re forgetting about the special Venetian School auction planned for the first week of February. A newly discovered Titian might be just the thing to gin up a bit of extra excitement.”

“Naughty boy. Naughty, naughty boy.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Considering my past connection to certain unsavory elements of this operation, it might be wise to put some distance between the gallery and the final sale. That means we’ll need to enlist the services of another dealer. Given the circumstances, he’ll have to be greedy, sneaky, cunning, and a first-class shit.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Gabriel, “but are you sure he can handle it?”

“He’s perfect,” Isherwood said. “All you need now is a Titian that actually looks like one.”

“I think I can manage that.”

“Where do you intend to work?”

Gabriel looked around the room and said, “This will do quite nicely.”

“Is there anything else you require?”

Gabriel handed him a list. Isherwood slipped on his reading glasses and frowned. “One bolt of Italian linen, one professional-grade iron, one pair of magnifying visors, one liter of acetone, one liter of methyl proxitol, one liter of mineral spirits, one dozen Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes, one pair of standing halogen work lamps, one copy of La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini . . .” He glared at Gabriel over his glasses. “Do you know how much this is going to cost me?”

But Gabriel seemed not to hear. He was standing before the canvas, one hand resting against his chin, his head tilted meditatively to one side.

Gabriel believed the craft of restoration was a bit like making love. It was best done slowly and with painstaking attention to detail, with occasional breaks for rest and refreshment. But in a pinch, if the craftsman and his subject matter were adequately acquainted, a restoration could be done at extraordinary speed, with more or less the same result.

Of the subsequent ten days Gabriel would later be able to recall very little, for they were a near-sleepless blur of linen, solvent, medium, and pigment, set to the music of Puccini and lit by the harsh white glare of his halogen work lamps. His initial fears about the condition of the canvas thankfully proved overblown. Indeed, once he had completed the relining and removed the yellowed varnish, he found Titian’s original work to be largely intact except for a chain of bare spots across the body of the Virgin and four lines of abrasion where the canvas had sloughed against the old stretcher. Having restored several Titians in the past, he was able to repair the painting almost as swiftly as the master himself had been able to paint it. His palette was Titian’s palette, as were his brushstrokes. Only the conditions of his studio were different. Titian had no doubt worked with a team of gifted apprentices and journeymen while Gabriel had no assistant other than Julian Isherwood, which meant he had no help at all.