Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

Her notion of relaxing for a few minutes with the newspaper dissolved when the train arrived at the station. The carriages were hopelessly crowded, the passengers crushed against the glass. Jacqueline, who was always protective of her personal space, considered waiting to see if the next train was any better. She looked at her watch, saw she had no time to waste. When the doors opened, only a handful of people got off. There seemed to be no place for her to stand. What would a Londoner do? Push her way in. She held her handbag across her breasts and stepped aboard.

The train lurched forward. The man next to her was breathing last night’s beer into her face. She stretched her long frame, tilted her head back, closed her eyes, found a draft of fresh air leaking through the crack in the doors.

A few moments later the train arrived at Piccadilly Circus. Outside, the mist had turned to light rain. Jacqueline pulled an umbrella from her handbag. She walked quickly, keeping pace with the office workers around her, making subtle alterations in course to avoid oncoming traffic.

Turning into Duke Street, she glanced over her shoulder. Walking a few feet behind her, wearing black jeans and a leather jacket, was Gabriel. She moved south along Duke Street until she arrived at the entrance of Mason’s Yard.

Gabriel bumped her elbow as he passed. “You’re clean. Give my love to Julian.”

The gallery was exactly as Gabriel had described it: wedged between the shipping company office and the pub. Next to the door was a panel, and on the panel were two buttons and two corresponding names: LOCUS TRAVEL and ISHER OO FINE AR S. She pressed the button, waited, pressed it again, waited, glanced at her watch, pressed it again. Nothing.

She crossed Mason’s Yard, entered Duke Street, and found a little café where she could wait. She ordered coffee and settled in the window with her Times. Fifteen minutes later, at precisely nine-twenty, she spotted a stylishly clothed gray-haired man rushing along Duke Street as though he were running late for his own funeral. He ducked through the passageway and disappeared into Mason’s Yard. Isherwood, she thought. Had to be.

She pushed her newspaper into her handbag and slipped out of the café after him. She followed him across Mason’s Yard toward the gallery. As he was unlocking the door she called out, “Mr. Isherwood, is that you? I’ve been waiting for you.”

Isherwood turned around. His mouth fell open slightly as she approached.

“I’m Dominique Bonard. I believe you were expecting me this morning.”

Isherwood cleared his throat several times rapidly and seemed to have trouble remembering which key opened the office. “Yes, well, delighted, really,” he stammered. “Awfully sorry, bloody tube, you know.”

“Let me take your briefcase. Maybe that will help.”

“Yes, well, you’re French,” he said, as if he thought this might be a revelation to her. “I have fluent Italian, but I’m afraid my French is rather atrocious.”

“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine in English.”

“Yes, quite.”

Finally, he managed to unlock the door. He held it open rather too gallantly and gestured for her to lead the way up the stairs. On the landing, Isherwood paused in front of the travel agency and studied the girl in one of the posters. He turned and glanced at Jacqueline, then stared at the girl in the photograph once more. “You know, Dominique, she could be your twin sister.”

Jacqueline smiled and said, “Don’t be silly.”

Isherwood opened the gallery and showed Jacqueline to her desk.

“There’s a man called Oliver Dimbleby coming later this morning. He looks rather like an English sausage in a Savile Row suit. Buzz him up when he arrives. Until then, let me show you round the rest of the gallery.”

He handed her a pair of keys on a blue elastic band. “These are for you. Whenever one of us leaves the gallery, the doors are to be armed. The disarm code is five-seven-six-four-nine-seven-three-two-six. Get that?”

Jacqueline nodded. Isherwood looked at her incredulously, and she repeated the sequence of numbers briskly and without error. Isherwood was clearly impressed.

They entered a small lift, barely large enough to accommodate two passengers. Isherwood inserted his key into the security lock, turned it, and pressed the button marked B. The lift groaned and shuddered, then traveled slowly down the shaft, coming to rest with a gentle bump. The doors opened, and they entered a cool, dark room.

“This is the tomb,” he said, switching on the lights. It was a cramped cellar filled with canvases, some framed, some unframed and resting in slots built into the walls. “This is my stockroom. Hundreds of works, many of them valuable, many more that have little or no worth on the open market and are therefore accumulating dust in this room.”

He led her back into the lift, and this time they rode up. The doors opened onto a large, high-ceilinged room. Gray morning light trickled through a circular glass dome in the roof. Jacqueline cautiously walked forward a few paces. Isherwood threw a switch, illuminating the room.

It was as if she had stepped into a museum. The walls were cream-colored and pristine, the hardwood floor burnished to a high gloss. In the center of the floor was a low bench covered in soft velvet the color of claret. On the walls were towering canvases lit by focused halogen lamps mounted in the ceiling. Rain pattered softly on the domed skylight. Jacqueline sat down on the bench. There was a Venus by Luini and a Nativity by del Vaga; a Baptism of Christ by Bordone and a stunning landscape by Claude.

“It’s breathtaking,” she said. “I feel like I’m in the Louvre. You must come up here often.”

“When I need to think. Feel free to come up anytime you like. Bring your lunch.”

“I will. Thank you for showing it to me.”

“If you’re going to work here, I suppose you should know your way round the place.”

They took the lift to the main level. Jacqueline sat at her new desk, pulled open the drawers, rummaged through the paper clips and pens, experimented with the copy machine.

Isherwood said, “You do know how to use those things, don’t you?”

“I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Oh, good Lord,” he murmured.

Oliver Dimbleby arrived promptly at eleven o’clock. Jacqueline inspected him through the security camera-he did look rather like a sausage in a Savile Row suit-and buzzed him up. When he caught sight of her, he pulled in his stomach and smiled affectionately. “So, you’re Julian’s new girl,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m Oliver Dimbleby. Very pleased to meet you. Very pleased, indeed.”

“Come, Oliver,” Isherwood called from the inner office. “Here, boy. Let go of her hand and get in here. We haven’t got all day.”

Oliver reluctantly relinquished her hand and stepped into Isherwood’s office. “Tell me, Julie, my love. If I actually buy this place, does that angel in there convey?”

“Oh, do shut up, Oliver.” Isherwood closed the door.

Jacqueline went back to her office and tried to figure out how to use the fax machine.

The telephone call arrived at the Kebab Factory at 4:00 P.M. Gabriel waited three minutes and twenty seconds for Yusef to come to the phone-he knew the precise amount of time it took because later he felt compelled to measure it with a stopwatch. During Yusef’s absence he was treated to the sounds of the kitchen help chattering in Lebanese Arabic and Mohammed, the afternoon manager, screaming at a busboy to clear table seventeen. When Yusef finally came to the phone, he seemed slightly out of breath. Their entire conversation lasted thirty-seven seconds. When it was done Gabriel rewound the tape and listened to it so many times Karp begged him to stop.