The Fallen Angel

things for my country that left me incapable of painting. So I learned how to speak Italian and went to Venice under an assumed identity to study restoration.”
    “With Umberto Conti?”
    “Who else?”
    “I miss Umberto.”
    “So do I. He had a ring of keys that could open any door in Venice. He used to drag me out of my bed late at night to look at paintings. ‘A man who is pleased with himself can be an adequate restorer,’ he used to say to me, ‘but only a man with a damaged canvas of his own can be a truly great restorer.’ ”
    “Have you managed to repair it?”
    “Portions,” Gabriel answered after a reflective silence. “But I’m afraid parts are beyond repair.”
    She said nothing.
    “Where’s Carlo?”
    “Milan. At least, I think he’s in Milan. Not long ago, I discovered that Carlo doesn’t always tell me the truth about where he is or who he’s meeting with. Now I understand why.”
    “How much did Donati tell you?”
    “Enough to know that my life as I knew it is now over.”
    A leaden silence fell between them. Gabriel recalled how Veronica had appeared that afternoon at the Villa Giulia museum, how she could have passed for a much younger woman. Now, suddenly, she looked every one of her fifty years. Even so, she was remarkably beautiful.
    “You must have realized your husband wasn’t what he appeared to be,” he said at last.
    “I knew Carlo made a great deal of money in ways I didn’t always understand. But if you’re asking whether I knew he was the head of an international criminal organization that controlled the trade in illicit antiquities . . .” Her voice trailed off. “No, Mr. Allon, I did not know that.”
    “He used you, Veronica. You were his door into the Vatican Bank.”
    “And my reputation in the antiquities world gave him a patina of respectability.” Her hair had fallen across her face. Deliberately, she moved it aside, as though she wanted Gabriel the restorer to assess the damage done by Carlo’s treachery.
    “Why did you marry him?” he asked.
    “Are you judging me, Mr. Allon?”
    “I wouldn’t dream of it. I was just wondering how you could choose a man like him after being in love with Luigi.”
    “You don’t know much about women, do you?”
    “So I’ve been told.”
    Her smile was genuine. It faded quickly as she listed the reasons why she had married a man like Carlo Marchese. Carlo was handsome. Carlo was exciting. Carlo was rich.
    “But Carlo wasn’t Donati,” Gabriel said.
    “No,” she replied, “there’s only one Luigi. And I would have had him all to myself if it wasn’t for Pietro Lucchesi.”
    Her tone was suddenly bitter, resentful, as though His Holiness were somehow to blame for the fact she had married a murderer.
    “It was probably for the better,” said Gabriel carefully.
    “That Luigi returned to the priesthood instead of marrying me?”
    He nodded.
    “That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Allon.” Then she added softly, “You weren’t the one who was in love with him.”
    “He’s happy here, Veronica.”
    “And what happens when they remove the Fisherman’s Ring from Lucchesi’s finger and place his body in the crypt beneath the Basilica? What will Luigi do then?” She quickly answered her own question. “I suppose he’ll teach canon law for a few years at a pontifical university. And then he’ll spend the last years of his life in a retirement home filled with aging priests. So lonely,” she added after a moment. “So terribly sad and lonely.”
    “It’s the life he chose.”
    “It was chosen for him, just like yours. You two are quite alike, Mr. Allon. I suppose that’s why you get along so well.”
    Gabriel looked at her for a moment. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
    “That’s not a question I care to answer—at least not in here.” She tilted her face toward the ceiling. “Did you know that Claudia called my office at the Villa Giulia the night of her death?”
    “At 8:47,” he said.
    “Then I assume you also know she placed a call to a different number one minute before that.”
    “I do know that. But we were never able to identify it.”
    “I could have helped you.”
    She handed him one of her business cards. The number Claudia had dialed was for Veronica’s mobile.
    “I’d left the office by the time she called me there, and I didn’t realize until the next day that she’d called my BlackBerry.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it was missing all