It was almost 9 pm when the train rattled through the outskirts of Florence. Marina had been so nervous she kept a book in front of her the whole ninety-minute journey. She kept expecting a German officer to appear and order her off the train. But no one disturbed her. Now she closed the book and forced herself to relax.
At the train station in Rome, she’d called Bernard to tell him she was coming. A housekeeper answered the phone. Bernard was out, but the woman had promised to give him the message.
Bernard and her father had known each other for years; he was a frequent client of the gallery. Bernard was one of the world’s leading authorities on Renaissance art. His collection included paintings that her father wasn’t ashamed to drool over: early Titians, a da Vinci, a Caravaggio.
A few years ago, her father had saved Bernard’s life. Marina heard the story a dozen times, usually over dinner with a client or a new artist. Bernard and her father had attended an auction at a palazzo in Rome’s Parioli district. Bernard had his purchase – a valuable book of
early Renaissance sketches – under his arm when a thief approached them, brandishing a gun.
‘Bernard was about to hand the book over when I stopped him,’ her father would say, his eyes dancing after a few glasses of wine. ‘Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a knife. I brought the knife so close to the thief ’s face so quickly, he was practically blinded by the blade. The man ran…
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