“There’s a little coffeehouse on the Portobello Road near George Orwell’s old cottage.”
“Half past two?”
“See you then.”
The small terrace house at 22 Portobello Road had not in fact been Orwell’s; he had lodged there during the winter of 1927 after resigning his position with the Indian Imperial Police. Gabriel arrived at the coffeehouse on the opposite side of the road fifteen minutes early and sat down at a table in the garden. Amelia appeared at the stroke of two thirty. She was clutching the same designer handbag and, despite the gray English skies overhead, wearing the same pair of sunglasses. She placed them on the tabletop and regarded Gabriel with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked at last.
“Why on earth would I be angry with you?”
“The article.”
“Oh, that,” replied Gabriel.
The article in question had been occasioned by Gabriel’s role in the recovery and restoration ofSelf-Portrait with Bandaged EarbyVincent van Gogh, which had been stolen from the Courtauld Gallery in a daring smash-and-grab robbery more than a decade earlier. Laudatory in tone, the story had referred to him as one of the most accomplished and sought-after art conservators in the world. It had also confirmed what many in the gossipy art trade already suspected—that he had spent nearly the entirety of his remarkable career living under an assumed identity forged by a clandestine division of Israel’s secret intelligence service. He had retired from the service after spending five tumultuous years as its director-general. With the exception of a single operation against the Russians, he had managed to make a clean break with his past. Amelia March, though she did not know it, had played a supporting role in one of his better operations.
“Should I have asked you for a comment?” she asked.
“Isn’t that the way it usually works in your business?”
“Would you have spoken to me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She smiled. “Once a spy, always a spy. Isn’t that what they say?”
“I’m not a spy, Amelia. I am the director of the paintings department at the Tiepolo Restoration Company in Venice.”
“Is that all?”
“In my spare time, I sometimes help the police solve art-related crimes.”
“Are you working on anything interesting now?”
“A murder investigation, actually.” Gabriel handed over his phone. On the screen was a photograph of his forensic sketch. “I found her in the waters near San Giorgio Maggiore. Thus far, the Italian police haven’t been able to identify her. I was hoping you might know who she was.”
Amelia looked up from the phone. “Why me?”
“Because you were supposed to meet her two weeks ago at a little place called Bar Dogale in the Campo dei Frari. And by the time you finally arrived, she was gone.”
“How do you know that?”
“Swipe to the next image.”
Amelia did as he asked, then frowned. “Once a spy, always a spy. Isn’t that what they say, Mr. Allon?”
“I’m not a spy, Amelia. I’m an art restorer, and I just happen to live in the neighborhood.”
7
Portobello Road
“How did she make contact with you?”
“Email.”
“YourARTnewsaddress?”
