James Twining - The Geneva Deception

‘Sometimes I think it’s more a curse than a blessing,’ she sniffed. ‘Do you know we have to spend four and a quarter per cent of that a year or lose our tax status? Have you any idea how hard it is to get through one hundred and twentyseven million dollars a year? Of the pressure it puts us under?’

‘I can only imagine,’ he commiserated, shaking his head. ‘That’s why the kouros was a smart buy. After all, don’t you think the Met would have made a move if they’d been given even half a chance? But you beat them to it.’

‘Vivienne Foyle is close to the Met.’ She nodded grudgingly, remembering how she had twisted the knife right at the end. ‘She’s never liked me.’

‘The problem here isn’t the kouros,’ Faulks insisted, his full baritone voice taking on the fervent conviction of a TV evangelist. ‘The problem is people’s unwillingness to accept that their carefully constructed picture of how Greek sculpture developed over the centuries might need to be rewritten. They should be thanking you for opening their eyes, for deepening their understanding, for extending the boundaries of their knowledge. Instead, they’re seeking to discredit you, just as the church did with Galileo.’

She nodded, rather liking this image of herself as an academic revolutionary that the establishment was desperate to silence at all costs. The problem was, she didn’t have the time or the temperament to become a martyr.

‘I agree with you. If I didn’t, the kouros would already be on its way back to Geneva. But the damage is done. Even if they’re wrong, it’ll take years for them to admit it. Meanwhile the director can’t look me in the eye, the trustees have asked for a second round of tests, and the New York Times is threatening to run a piece at the weekend. I mean, what if something else comes out?’

‘Nothing else will come out,’ Faulks said slowly, his voice suddenly hard. ‘Not unless someone’s planning to talk. And nobody’s planning to talk, are they, Verity?’

It was phrased as a question, but there was no doubting that he was giving her a very clear instruction. Maybe even a warning.

‘Why would I risk everything we’ve achieved together?’ she said quickly.

‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, his eyes locked unblinkingly with hers. ‘But others…well. I don’t like to be disappointed.’

There was an icy edge to his voice and she gulped down a few more pills, wishing that she’d packed some Valium as well. Almost immediately, however, Faulks’s face thawed into a warm smile.

‘Anyway, let’s not worry about that now. I understand that you’re upset. And I want to make it up to you. What are you doing tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow?’ She frowned. ‘Tomorrow I’ll be in Madrid. The US ambassador is hosting a two-day cultural exchange. We fly out this afternoon. Why?’

‘There’s something I want to show you.’ He reached inside his jacket and handed her a Polaroid. ‘I was hoping you might come to Geneva.’

‘Do you really think that, after what happened yesterday, the director is going to let me buy anything from you again?’ she asked, taking the photo from him with an indifferent shrug.

‘You won’t have to. It’ll come to you as a donation.’

She glanced down at the photo, then heard herself gasp.

‘Is it…?’ she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry, her hands trembling, her chest tight.

‘Genuine? Absolutely,’ he reassured her. ‘I’ve seen it myself. There’s no question.’

‘But no one has ever found…’

‘I know.’ He gave her a schoolboy’s wide grin. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘Who’s it by?’

‘Come now, Verity – 450 BC? Can’t you guess?’

There was a pause, her eyes still not having lifted from the photograph.

‘Where is it now?’

‘On its way to me.’

‘Provenance?’

‘Private Lebanese collection since the 1890s. I have all the documentation.’

Another pause as she carefully placed the photograph on the table, sipped some water and then looked up hungrily.

‘I have to see it.’

Headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza, Viale XXI Aprile, Rome

18th March – 4.25 p.m.

The headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza was located to the north-east of the city centre, just beyond the Porta Pia. It occupied a Spanish-looking building, with shutters at every window and its walls painted a dusty yellow and rich ochre colour. The main entrance was surmounted by the Italian and European Union flags, but these were sagging limply, the light breeze that was chasing the rain clouds away registering only in the rustling fronds of the palm tree that stood to the left of the door.

In a way, Allegra reflected as she stepped out of her taxi, it was perhaps better for her to catch up with Gallo here, rather than at the mortuary. This, after all, was where the physical evidence from the two murders was being kept, giving her the opportunity to have another look at the lead discs in the light of what Aurelio had told her and to get her story straight before seeing him.

Not that the decision to house the evidence here would have been a simple one, given all the different law enforcement agencies with a potential stake in this case. The Guarda di Finanza, for one, was a sprawling empire, covering not only Gallo’s organised crime unit but a variety of money-related crimes such as tax evasion, Customs and border checks, money laundering, smuggling, international drugs trafficking and counterfeiting. A military corps, it even had its own naval fleet and air force.

Allegra’s art and antiques unit, meanwhile, was part of the Arma dei Carabinieri, a paramilitary force with police duties that also oversaw counterterrorism operations, the forensic bureau, the military police, undercover investigations and, bizarrely, sanitary enforcement.

Then, of course, there was the state police, a civilian force that, as well as having responsibility for routine patrolling, investigative and law enforcement duties, also oversaw the armed, postal, highway and transport police forces. And this was not to forget the various layers of provincial, municipal and local police, prison officers, park rangers and the coast guard who further crowded the picture.

In fact, Allegra seemed to remember from one of the induction lectures she had had to endure upon first joining up, any one area in Italy could theoretically be under the jurisdiction of up to thirty-one different police or police-type forces. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a sea-fog of overlapping responsibilities, unclear accountabilities and red tape that more often than not led to the different agencies competing against each other when they should have been collaborating.

Allegra’s temporary secondment from the Carabinieri to their fierce rivals at the Guarda di Finanza was, therefore, a relatively unusual request on Gallo’s part, as proved by the raised eyebrows of the duty officer who buzzed her in and directed her towards the basement.

Following the signs, she found the evidence store next to the armoury. It was secured by a steel door with a lock but no handle, suggesting that it could only be opened from the inside. Next to it, a low counter had been chopped out of the reinforced concrete wall. An elderly officer in a neatly pressed grey uniform with gold buttons and a green beret was sitting on the other side behind a screen of bullet-proof glass. Allegra knocked on the window and then placed her ID flat against it.

‘You’re a long way from home, Lieutenant.’ The man gave her a quizzical look over the top of his glasses, his feet up and the newspaper resting across his knee. His badge identified him as Enrico Gambetta.