And that was when Ben saw the two men whose indistinct voices he could hear garbled in the background. It was just a brief glimpse, and he had to pause, rewind and pause again until he was able to freeze the frame just right. The pair were standing about midway between where Romy was hiding and the statues lined against the far wall. The angle of the shot captured them both in profile, side-on to the camera. From their body language it was clear that the conversation was intense and serious. One man was taller and darker than the other, but they were too small to make out their faces.

He asked Thierry, ‘Can I zoom in on this?’

Thierry tutted at Ben’s lack of expertise. ‘How can a guy be so damn good at some things, and so completely hopeless at others?’ He leaned over and showed Ben how to make the image bigger.

The zoomed-in shot of the two men was a little blurry, but clear enough.

The shorter man on the right was older, thicker around the middle and wearing the sort of light-coloured suit that well-to-do Europeans used to wear in tropical countries. He had a full head of silver hair and a craggy face, deeply tanned. Ben recognised him from his photo on the Institute website. It was Julien Segal, the archaeologist, Romy’s employer.

Which still didn’t explain why Romy was hiding from him and filming the conversation in secret. But the identity of the man on the left explained a great deal.

Taller, more powerfully built, dressed all in black and seemingly doing most of the talking, the man on the left was Nazim al-Kassar.

Chapter 15

Ben stared at the small, frozen image in his hands. And so now, at last, the first pieces of the puzzle were lining up together. What connection existed between a reputed antiquities conservation expert and a notorious terrorist, he couldn’t begin to understand. Just the fact that Segal was talking to Nazim at all was a glaring red alarm beacon. And here they were, caught on camera together, only days ago.

Little wonder Romy was hiding. She must have known what kind of trouble she’d have been in if they’d spotted her. What suspicions had alerted her to sneak into the warehouse and film their conversation?