An Inside Job

The following morning, Gabriel goes to work on his current commission—the restoration of a Titian painting entitled The Descent of the Holy Spirit in the Santa Maria della Salute basilica. By 10:30, he takes a break and wanders outside for some fresh air. While casually observing the canal, he notices a dark mass floating in the water. He hires a water taxi to investigate and discovers a decomposed human corpse.

Gabriel reports the death to his police contact and best friend, Captain Luca Rossetti, who is attached to the Art Squad. Gabriel has helped Rossetti on many previous cases associated with stolen artworks. After collecting the body, Rossetti and a Venetian detective named Colonel Baggio show up at the basilica to get a statement from Gabriel.

That evening at dinner, Chiara informs Gabriel that someone leaked a story to the press about his grisly discovery in the canal. The couple then discusses Irene’s planned protest march on Saturday. More than 100 students are expected, and Chiara suggests hosting a luncheon for them afterward at the Allon residence.

The weekend protest and luncheon both go off without a hitch. By Monday, Gabriel is back at work on the Titian when he receives a call from Rossetti. Since the corpse was so badly decomposed, the police hope that Gabriel might be able to make a sketch of the woman’s face that can be used to identify her.

Gabriel asks for details about the victim, who was deliberately drowned in the canal. After viewing X-rays and spending a few moments examining the remains, he is ready to begin working on the sketch. He visualizes her as “A plain and pale girl in her late twenties with shoulder-length blond hair, deeply set blue eyes, an upturned nose, and a pronounced dimple in her chin” (33). Gabriel is shocked to realize that he saw this same woman two weeks earlier at an outdoor café.

Back at home, Gabriel tries to convince himself that he is imagining the resemblance. He makes three different sketches of the drowned woman, and they all come out the same. Because he has a photographic memory, Gabriel is certain of the woman’s identity; the woman he saw in the café was wearing the same pendant as the woman in the morgue.

The following day, Gabriel discusses the case with his wife. The couple decides to visit the café, where Gabriel insists that he saw the woman before. He brings a copy of his sketch along to show to Paolo, the waiter who served her. Paolo only vaguely remembers the customer, but he agrees to show Gabriel and Chiara some videotape footage of the day in question. After the mystery woman leaves the café, an elegantly dressed Englishwoman arrives, apparently waiting for someone. Gabriel recognizes the Englishwoman as Amelia March of ARTnews magazine. He calls and arranges to meet her in London the following day.

Amelia tells Gabriel that the unknown woman had a graduate degree in art from the Courtauld Institute. She wanted to give Amelia an exclusive story. “She said the matter in question involved a painting. There was a suggestion of criminality” (47). The woman insisted on a face-to-face meeting in Venice, but by the time Amelia arrived, her contact had vanished. Gabriel then calls the director of the Courtauld Gallery, who identifies the woman in his sketch as Penelope Radcliff, a rising star in art conservation. Before she died, she was working as an apprentice restorer at the Vatican.

Gabriel is about to head home, but Chiara convinces him to alert his old friend, the current pope, of a potential scandal brewing inside the Vatican. By the time Gabriel arrives in Rome, he is intercepted by Rossetti, who takes him to the director of the Art Squad, General Cesare Ferrari. The men agree that the Art Squad should have jurisdiction over the case rather than the Venetian police. They discover that Penelope was renting an apartment close to the Vatican. When they investigate the premises, they find her belongings have been ransacked.

Gabriel visits his old friend, Luigi Donati, the current pope. As a staunch reformer, Luigi has already ruffled the feathers of traditionalists in the church. He tells Gabriel, “Something has to change. But if I push too far or move too quickly, the world’s oldest institution could tear itself to pieces” (66). Luigi’s need to maintain a diplomatic stance will soon be tested when he makes a trip to America.

The two men discuss the details related to Penelope’s disappearance. Gabriel offers to help get to the bottom of things before the pontiff becomes embroiled in a scandal involving the deceased art restorer. He believes he only has 72 hours before the press in England and Italy get wind of the problem.

Gabriel goes immediately to question the head of the Vatican’s art conservation lab, Antonio Calvesi. Antonio says that Penelope, or Penny, was a gifted student. She was given a minor piece to restore but was convinced that she had found a much more valuable painting hidden beneath the layers of the one she was restoring. It might have been a lost painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.