James Twining - The Geneva Deception

He paused on the entrance steps and snatched a glance over his shoulder, tightening his scarf around his neck. Gallo’s men weren’t even trying to pretend they weren’t following him now, two of them having parked up near where he’d been dropped off by his taxi and following on foot about thirty feet behind. He felt more like a prisoner than protected, despite what they’d told him. With a helpless shrug, he placed his hand on the door and heaved it open.

‘ Buongiorno, Professore ,’ the guard on reception welcomed him cheerily.

He was early, but then he liked to leave himself enough time to check the room and have a final read through his notes. It was funny, but even at his age, after doing this for all these years, he still got nervous. That was the problem with an academic reputation. It was brittle, like porcelain. All those years of care could be shattered in one clumsy moment. And even if you managed to find all the pieces and reassemble them, the cracks invariably showed.

‘Expecting a big turnout today?’

‘An interpretation of the archaeological remains of the Etruscan bridge complex at San Giovenale,’ Aurelio recited the title of his lecture in a deliberate monotone. ‘I almost didn’t come myself.’

‘In other words, I’ll be turning people away as usual.’ The guard’s laughter followed him along the entrance hall.

The one thing Aurelio didn’t like about this place was the lift. It was ancient and horribly cramped and seemed to rouse a latent claustrophobia that years of archaeological excavations had never previously disturbed. Still, it was only one floor, he thought to himself as the car lurched unsteadily upwards, and with his hip the way it was, it wasn’t as if he had much choice.

Stepping out, he limped though the Poussin and Velvets rooms to the ballroom, where two banks of giltwood and red velvet chairs had already been laid out. Enough seating for fifty, he noted with a smile. Perhaps the turnout wouldn’t be so bad after all.

‘Are you alone?’

He turned to see a man closing the door behind him, the key turning in the lock.

‘The lecture doesn’t start until eleven,’ he replied warily.

‘Are you alone, Aurelio?’ A woman stood framed in the doorway to the small ballroom, her face stone, her voice like ice.

Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome 19th March-10.57 a.m.

‘Allegra?’ Aurelio gasped. ‘Is that you? What have you done to yourself?’

‘How many?’ Tom growled in Italian.

‘What?’ Aurelio’s eyes flicked back to him.

‘How many men followed you here?’

‘Two,’ he stuttered. ‘Two, I think. Gallo’s. They’ve been watching me ever since…’

‘Ever since you betrayed me?’ Allegra hissed. It was strange. She’d felt many things for Aurelio since yesterday afternoon. Sadness, disbelief, confusion. But now that he was actually standing in front of her, it was her anger, instinctive and uncontained, that had come most naturally.

‘We haven’t got time for that now,’ Tom warned her, bolting shut the door that gave on to the adjacent ballroom. ‘Just show it to him.’

‘I’m sorry, Allegra. I’m so sorry,’ Aurelio whispered, reaching pleadingly towards her. ‘I should have told you. I should have told you everything a long time ago.’

‘Save it,’ she snapped, stony faced, then pressed the photo into his hands. ‘What is it?’

He gazed down at the picture, then looked up, open mouthed.

‘Is this real?’ he croaked.

‘What is it?’ Tom repeated.

‘It looks Greek,’ Allegra prompted. ‘I thought the marble could be from Pentelikon.’

‘Greek, yes, but that’s not marble.’ He shook his head excitedly, his eyes locking with hers. ‘It’s ivory.’

‘Ivory?’ she repeated breathlessly. It was obvious, now he’d mentioned it. Obvious and yet impossible.

‘It’s a mask from a chryselephantine statue,’ Aurelio confirmed. ‘Circa 400 to 500 BC. Probably of the sun god Apollo.’ A pause. ‘Are you sure this is real?’ he asked again.

‘Chryselephantine means gold and ivory in Greek,’ Allegra quickly explained in English, seeing the confused look on Tom’s face. ‘They used to fix carved slabs of ivory on to a wooden frame for the head, hands and feet and then beat sheets of gold leaf on to the rest to form the clothes, armour and hair.’

‘It’s rare?’

‘It’s a miracle,’ Aurelio replied in a hushed tone, almost as if they weren’t there. ‘There used to be seventy-four of them in Rome, but they all vanished when it was sacked by the Barbarians in 410 AD. Apart from two fire-damaged examples found in Greece and a fragment in the Vatican Museum, not a single piece has survived. Certainly nothing of this size and quality.’

Their eyes all shot to the door as someone tried the handle, rattling it noisily.

‘Time to go,’ Tom said firmly, snatching the photo from his grasp. ‘The private apartments should still be clear. We can go out the same way we came in.’

‘Wait,’ Aurelio called after them. ‘Don’t you want to know who it’s by?’

‘You can tell that from a photo?’ Allegra frowned, something in his voice making her pause.

There was a muffled shout and then a heavy drum roll of pounding fists.

‘Not definitively. Not without seeing it,’ he admitted. ‘But if I had to guess…there’s only one sculptor from that period that we know of who was capable of something of that quality. The same person who carved the statue of Athena in the Parthenon. The same person who carved the statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.’

‘Phidias?’ Allegra guessed, her mouth suddenly dry. No wonder Aurelio had turned pale.

‘Who else?’ He nodded excitedly. ‘Don’t you see, Allegra? It’s a miracle.’

‘Let’s go,’ Tom repeated, grabbing Allegra’s arm, the door now shaking violently. But she wrestled herself free, determined to ask the one question that she most wanted answered.

‘Why did you do it, Aurelio?’ she snapped. ‘Has Gallo got something on you?’

‘Gallo? I’d never even heard of him until yesterday,’ he protested.

‘Then who were you on the phone to?’

There was a long pause, Aurelio’s lips quivering as though the words were trapped in his mouth.

‘The League.’

‘The Delian League?’ she breathed, not sure which was worse-Aurelio working with Gallo, as she’d first assumed, or this?

‘They said they wouldn’t hurt you. That they just wanted to see what you knew,’ he pleaded. ‘I wanted to tell you everything. Have done for a long time. When you told me about the lead discs and the killings…I tried to point you in the right direction. But I was afraid.’

Abruptly, the noise outside stopped.

‘They’ll be back with a key,’ urged Tom. ‘Come on!’

‘You could have trusted me,’ she insisted, ignoring Tom. ‘I could have helped you.’

‘It was too late for that. It’s been twenty, thirty years. They’d kept records of everything I’d ever done for them. The false attributions, the inflated valuations, the invented provenances. I needed the money. You see that, don’t you? I needed the money to finance my work. Who else was going to pay? The university? The government? Pah!’

‘Who are they?’ she pressed. ‘Give me a name.’

‘Th-there was a dealer who I met a few times,’ he muttered. ‘An American called Faulks who used to fly in from Geneva. He was with them, I’m sure of it. But everyone else was just a voice on the phone. Believe me, Allegra, I tried to get out so many times. Tried to give it up. But the older I got, the harder it became to throw everything away.’