Page 41 of The Cellist

“She found a lost Artemisia in Julian’s storeroom. Viktor agreed to buy it.”

“Is it really an Artemisia?”

“Apparently so.”

“Any good?”

“She says it needs work.”

“That makes two of us,” whispered Chiara.

Gabriel removed her silken nightgown. At times like these, he thought, there was comfort in familiar routines.

Afterward, he plunged into a dreamless sleep and woke to find his half of the bed ablaze with the sunlight pouring through the unshaded window. The air in the room was still and heavy and perfumed with the scent of earth and bovine excrement. Itwas the smell of the valley. As a child, Gabriel had always hated it. He much preferred the pine-scented air of Jerusalem. Or the smell of Rome, he thought suddenly, on a chill autumn evening. Bitter coffee and garlic frying in olive oil, woodsmoke and dead leaves.

He reached for his phone and was surprised to see it was nearly one in the afternoon. Chiara had left a caffe latte on the bedside table. He drank it quickly and went into the bathroom to commence his morning labors before the looking glass. Then he dressed in his usual attire, a trim-fitting charcoal gray suit and a white shirt, and headed downstairs.

Chiara, in leggings and a sleeveless pullover, was seated before her laptop at the kitchen table. Her riotous hair was wound into a bun, and a few stray tendrils lay along the damp skin of her neck. Her caramel-colored eyes were narrowed with irritation.

“I thought you were banned from Twitter,” said Gabriel.

“I’m helping my father with an article he’s writing forIl Gazzettino.”

Chiara’s father was the chief rabbi of Venice and a historian of the Holocaust in Italy. On the rare occasions he wrote for the popular press, it was usually to issue a warning.

“What’s the topic?” asked Gabriel cautiously.

“QAnon.”

“The conspiracy theory?”

“QAnon isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a toxic, extremist ideology that borrows heavily from anti-Semitic tropes such as the blood libel and theProtocols of the Elders of Zion. And thanks to the pandemic, it has arrived in Western Europe.”

“You forgot to mention that the FBI considers QAnon a domestic terrorism threat.”

She removed a document from the printer. It was a copy of an internal FBI memo from the bureau’s Phoenix field office warning of QAnon’s rise. “People are going to die because of this lunacy.”

“I agree. But don’t spend too much time down the rabbit hole, Chiara. You might not find your way out again.”

“Who do you suppose he is?”

“Q?”

She nodded.

“I’m Q.”

“Are you really?” She regarded Gabriel for a moment through her reading glasses. “I’m suddenly feeling quite cheap.”

“Why?”

“I allowed you to have your way with me, and now you’re fleeing the scene of the crime.”

“If I recall, you were the one who initiated the activity.” He took down a mug from the cupboard and poured coffee from the thermos flask. “Where are the children?”

“I haven’t a clue, but I’m sure I’ll hear about it later.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, Gabriel. These past few months have been wonderful for them. A part of me is sorry we can’t stay longer.”

“Why are we leaving?”