Navot gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m down in the street.”

“I know.”

“How long do you need?”

“Five minutes.”

“I’ll wait.”

The volume of the aria rose to a crescendo. Navot closed his window and luxuriated in the deep silence of his car. God, but he hated opera.

CHAPTER 41

41

ST. JAMES’S, LONDON

The one name not spoken that morning in Jerusalem was the name of the man who had started it all: Julian Isherwood, owner and sole proprietor of Isherwood Fine Arts, 7-8 Mason’s Yard, St. James’s, London. Of Gabriel’s many discoveries and travails, Isherwood knew nothing. Indeed, since securing a set of yellowed sales records in Amsterdam, his role in the affair had been reduced to that of a worried and helpless bystander. He filled the empty hours of his days by following the British end of the investigation. The police had managed to keep the theft out of the papers but had no leads on the painting’s whereabouts or the identity of Christopher Liddell’s killer. This was not an amateur looking for a quick score, the detectives muttered in their own defense. This was the real thing.

As with all condemned men, Isherwood’s world shrank. He attended the odd auction, showed the odd painting, and tried in vain to distract himself by flirting with his latest young receptionist. But most of his time was devoted to planning his own professional funeral. He rehearsed the speech he would give to the hated David Cavendish, art adviser to the vastly rich, and even produced a rough draft of a mea culpa he would eventually have to send to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Images of flight and exile also filled his thoughts. Perhaps a little villa in the hills of Provence or a shack on the beach in Costa Rica. And the gallery? In his worst moments, Isherwood imagined having to drop it in Oliver Dimbleby’s lap. Oliver had always coveted the gallery. Now, thanks to Portrait of a Young Woman, oil on canvas, 104 by 86 centimeters, Oliver could have it at no cost other than cleaning up Julian’s mess.

It was complete twaddle, of course. Isherwood was not about to spend the rest of his life in exile. Nor would he ever allow his beloved gallery to fall into the grubby hands of Oliver Dimbleby. If Isherwood had to face a public firing squad, he would do it without a blindfold and with his chin held high. For once in his life, he would be courageous. Just like his old father. And just like Gabriel Allon.