Page 17 of An Inside Job

“Proton Mail. Her address was total gibberish.”

They had left the coffeehouse and were walking along the Portobello Road. Amelia’s step was slow and pensive, as though she were wrestling with the implications of what she had just been told. Most of her work dealt with sales and acquisitions and gallery openings and other assorted art world gossip. Gabriel was all but certain she had never once lost a source to murder.

“The exact gibberish, please.”

“LDV followed by eight numbers. I assumed they were her initials.”

“And the content?”

Amelia dug her phone from her handbag and, after retrieving the email in question, handed it over. The sender’s address was [email protected]. The text was three sentences in length, formal in language, and accurately punctuated. The anonymous author wished to make Amelia aware of a startling artistic discovery she had made, the nature of which she could not disclose in an email, not even an encrypted one. It was her wish to discussthe matter in person at the earliest possible juncture. If Amelia was amenable to such a meeting, a time and place could be arranged, provided the location was somewhere in Italy.

Gabriel returned the phone. “And your reply?”

“I asked for additional information, didn’t I?”

“Did she provide it?”

“She said the matter in question involved a painting. There was a suggestion of criminality.”

“What sort of criminality?”

“She declined to go into the details.”

“Could it have been theft?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“Forgery?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Mr. Allon. But as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t enough to justify a plane ride to Italy. I told her so in no uncertain terms.”

“How did she reply?”

“She assured me that I was making the biggest mistake of my career.”

“Second biggest.” Gabriel dropped his half-drunk coffee into a rubbish bin. “Who was the one to reestablish contact?”

“She was.”

“Was she any more forthcoming?”

“Only about herself. Her education, to be specific. She was obviously trying to impress me.”

“What was it like?”

“She did her undergraduate work at Cambridge and then picked up a graduate degree at the Courtauld Institute. Needless to say, I was unmoved.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“She sent me another email. Time and place, one last chance. Otherwise she was going to give the story to a reporter from theNew York Times.”

“Bar Dogale, three o’clock?”

“Half past, actually.”

“What were the ground rules?”

“She said she would recognize me.”