20th March - 11.14 a.m.
Ziff led them through a set of double doors into a sombre corridor, its grey linoleum unfurling towards a fire escape at its far end. Several gurneys were parked along one wall, while on the other wall patients’ clipboards were still neatly arranged in a rack with the staff attendance record chalked up on a blackboard - further confirmation that the building’s former occupants had left in a hurry and that Ziff had made little effort to clean up after them.
He stopped at the first door on the left, sprayed its handle with the atomiser, then opened it to reveal one of the asylum’s former wards. Here, too, it seemed that nothing had been touched, until Ziff flicked a power switch and Allegra suddenly realised that all the beds were missing and that in their place, lined up between the floral curtains dangling listlessly from aluminium tracks,
were pinball machines. Sixteen of them in all, eight running down each side of the room, backboards flashing, lanes pulsing, drop targets blinking and bumpers sparking as they happily flickered into life. Allegra read the names of a few as she walked past - ‘Flash Gordon’, ‘Playboy’, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, ‘The Twilight Zone’ - their titles evocative of a distant, almost forgottenchildhood. Every so often one of them would call out a catchphrase or play a theme song, and this seemed to set the other machines off, their sympathetic chorus building to a discordant crescendo before dying away again.
‘They’re all vintage,’ Ziff explained proudly, stepping slowly past them like a doctor doing his rounds. ‘Each one is for a private commission I’ve completed. A tombstone, if you like. So I don’t forget.’
‘How many have you got?’ Allegra asked, pausing by ‘The Addams Family’
,
and then jumping as it blasted out a loud clickety-click noise.
‘About eighty,’ he said after a few seconds’ thought. ‘I’ve almost run out of bed space.’
‘Which one’s your favourite?’
‘Favourite?’ He looked horrified. ‘Each one is unique, each different. If you were to try and choose one over the others…’ He tailed off, as if afraid the machines might overhear him.
He stopped by a battered wooden desk marooned in the middle of the ward. Its top was
covered in red felt, worn and stained in places with oil. A large magnifying lamp was clamped to one edge and it was on casters, prompting Allegra to wonder if Ziff wheeled it from room to room, moving around the different wards as the mood took him.
He sat down, a steel tray in front of him containing the disembodied guts of a Breguet, a 20x loupe and several jeweller’s screwdrivers. Other tools had been carefully laid out in the different drawers of a small wheeled cabinet to his right, as if in preparation for surgery - case openers, tweezers, screwdrivers, watch hammers, pliers, brushes, knives - each sorted by type and then arranged by size.
‘Show me,’ Ziff said, pushing the tray out of the way and putting on an almost comically large pair of black square-framed glasses that he secured to his head with an elastic strap.
Allegra handed him the watch and he angled the magnifying lamp down over it, peering through the glass.
‘Oh yes.’ His face broke into a smile. ‘Hello, old friend.’
‘You recognise it?’
‘Wouldn’t you recognise one of your own children?’ Ziff asked impatiently. ‘Especially one as special as this.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tom shot back eagerly.
‘Each of my watches is normally unique,’ Ziff
explained. ‘A one-off. But in this case, the client ordered six identical pieces. And paid handsomely for the privilege, from what I remember.’
‘Six?’ Allegra repeated excitedly. They knew of four already. That left two others still unaccounted for.
‘They’re numbered,’ Ziff continued, pointing at the delta symbol delicately engraved on the back of the case. ‘Platinum bezel, stainless-steel case, ivory face, self-winding, water resistant to thirty metres, screw-down crown…’ He balanced it in his hand as if weighing it. ‘A good watch.’
‘Who was the client?’ Tom asked.
Ziff looked at him with an indulgent smile, slipping his glasses up on to his forehead where they perched like headlights.
‘Felix, you know better than that.’
‘It’s important,’ Tom insisted.
‘My clients pay for their confidentiality, the same as yours,’ Ziff insisted with a shrug.
‘Please, Max,’ Tom pleaded. ‘I have to know. Give me something.’
Ziff paused before answering, his eyes blinking, then slipped his glasses back on to his nose and stood up.
‘Do you like pinball?’
‘We’re not here to play pinball,’ Tom said sharply, although Ziff didn’t seem to pick up on his tone. ‘We’re here to…’
‘“Straight Flush” is a classic
,
’ he interrupted, crossing over to the door. ‘Why don’t you have a game while you’re waiting?’
‘Waiting for what?’ Tom called after him, but Ziff was already out of the room, the sprung door easing itself shut behind him.
Allegra turned towards the machine he had pointed out. It appeared to be one of the oldest and most basic in the room, the salmon-coloured back-board illustrated with face-card caricatures, the sloping yellow surface decorated with playing cards that Allegra guessed you had to try and illuminate to create a high-scoring poker hand. She frowned. It wasn’t an obvious recommendation, compared to some of the more modern, more exciting games in the room, but then again she had detected an insistent tone in his voice. A tone that had made her wonder if there was something there he wanted them to see. Something other than the machine itself.
‘Can you open it?’ she asked, pointing at the metal panel on the front of the machine that contained the coin slot.
‘Of course,’ Tom squatted down next to her with a puzzled frown, reaching into his coat for a small pouch of lock-picking tools.
‘He said that each machine was for a job he’d completed. A tombstone so he wouldn’t forget,’ she reminded him as he deftly released the lock and opened the door, allowing her to reach into
the void under the playing surface. ‘I just wondered…’
Her voice broke off as her fingers closed on an envelope of some sort. Pulling it out, she opened it, the flap coming away easily where the glue had dried over the years. It contained several sheets of paper.
‘It’s the original invoice,’ she exclaimed with an excited smile. ‘Six watches. Three hundred thousand dollars,’ she read from the fading type. ‘A lot of money, thirty years ago.’
‘A lot of money today.’ Tom smiled. ‘Who was the client?’
‘See for yourself.’
Allegra handed him the sheet, her eyes blazing with excitement.
‘E. Faulks & Co,’ Tom read, his face set with a grim smile. ‘And there’s a billing address down at the Freeport. Good. I’ll ask Archie to meet us there. Even if Faulks has moved we should be able to find -’
‘That’s strange,’ Allegra interrupted him, having quickly leafed through the rest of the contents of the envelope. ‘There’s another invoice here. Same address, only twelve years later.’
‘But that would make seven watches.’ Tom frowned. ‘Ziff only mentioned six.’
Before she could even attempt an explanation, she heard the whistled strains of the overture from
Carmen
echoing along the corridor outside.
Snatching the invoice from Tom’s hand, she slipped it back in the envelope, shoved it inside the machine and shut the door.
“Magnets,’ Ziff announced as he sauntered in, excitedly waving several sheets of paper over his head. ‘I knew they were down there somewhere.’
‘What?’
‘Magnets,’ Ziff repeated with a high-pitched giggle, his glasses hanging around his neck like a swimmer’s goggles. ‘See.’
Picking D’Arcy’s watch up, he held it over the tray containing the watch he was working on. Two small screws leapt through the air and glued themselves to the bezel.
‘Each watch has a small electro magnet built into it powered by the self-winding mechanism,’ he explained, opening the file and pointing at a set of technical drawings as if they might mean something to either of them. ‘They were all set at slightly different resistances.’
‘What for?’
‘Some sort of a locking mechanism, I think. They never said exactly what.’
Allegra swapped a meaningful glance with Tom. So this was why Santos needed the watches. Together, they formed a key that opened wherever the Caravaggio was being stored.
‘Normally I destroy the drawings once a job is completed, but this was the first time I had used
silicon-based parts and I thought they might be useful. Turns out it was just as well.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The client lost one of the watches and asked for a replacement. The epsilon watch, I think. Without these I might have struggled to replicate it.’
Allegra took a deep breath. That explained the second invoice. More importantly, it meant that there were seven numbered watches out there somewhere. Each the same and yet subtly different. Each presumably entrusted to a different key member of the Delian League.
‘By the way, what was your score?’ Ziff jerked his head towards the ‘Straight Flush’ pinball machine he had pointed out earlier.
‘Ask us tomorrow,’ Tom answered with a smile.
Free Port Compound, Geneva 20th March - 12.02 p.m.
The Free Port was a sprawling agglomeration of low-slung warehouses lurking in the shadow of the airport’s perimeter fence. Built up over the years, it offered a vivid snapshot of changing architectural fashions, the older buildings cinder grey and forbidding in their monolithic functionality, the newer ones iPod white and airy.
For the most part, its business was entirely legitimate, the facilities providing importers and exporters with a tax-free holding area through which goods could be shipped in transit or stored, with duty only being paid when items officially ‘entered’ the country.
The problem, as Tom was explaining to Allegra on the drive down there, lay in the Free Port’s insistence on operating under a similar code of secrecy to the Swiss banking sector. This allowed
cargo to be shipped into Switzerland, sold on, and then exported again with only the most cursory official records kept of what was actually being sold or who it was being sold to. Compounding this was Switzerland’s repeated refusal to sign up to the 1970 Unesco Convention on the illicit trade in cultural property. Not to mention the fact that, under Swiss law, stolen goods acquired in good faith became the legal property of the new owner after five years on Swiss soil.
Taken together these three factors had, over the years, established Switzerland’s free ports as a smuggler’s paradise, with disreputable dealers exploiting the system by secretly importing stolen art or looted antiquities, holding them in storage for five years, and then claiming legal ownership.
To their credit, the Swiss government had recently bowed to international pressure and both ratified the Unesco Convention and changed its antiquated ownership laws. But so far the Free Port’s entrenched position at the crossroads of the trade in illicit art and antiques seemed to be holding surprisingly firm. As Faulks’s continuing presence served to prove.
They turned on to La Voie des Traz, the road choked with lorries and vans making deliveries and collections at the different warehouses, fork lifts shuttling between them as they loaded and unloaded with a high-pitched whine. For a moment, Tom was reminded of his drive into Vegas
a few nights before, the vast buildings lining both sides of the street like the casinos studding the Strip.
‘There’s Archie and Dom -’ Tom pointed at the two figures waiting in the car park of the warehouse mentioned on the invoice.
‘Everything all right?’ Archie bellowed as they got out.
‘Tom!’ A tearful Dominique tore past him and wrapped her arms around Tom’s neck. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened to…I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah,’ Archie coughed awkwardly, lowering his eyes.
Even now, no one could bring themselves to say Jennifer’s name, he noticed. Afraid of upsetting him. Afraid of what he might do or say.
‘This is Allegra Damico,’ Tom said, turning to introduce her.
She nodded hello, Tom realising from their forced handshakes and awkward greetings that they were all probably feeling a bit uncomfortable. Dom and Archie at Allegra stepping inside their tight little circle, Allegra at being so quickly outnumbered, with only Tom providing the delicate thread that bound them all together.
‘How was Max?’ Archie asked. ‘Still bonkers?’
‘Getting worse,’ Tom sighed. ‘Although we did manage to find out why Santos needs the watches.’
‘They contain small electro-magnets that open
some sort of lock,’ Allegra jumped in. ‘Presumably to wherever the painting’s being kept.’
‘Faulks commissioned seven of them,’ Tom continued. ‘So as well as the four we know about, there are three more out there somewhere, which might give us a chance to get to the painting before Santos.’ He glanced sceptically at the squat, square building behind them, its exterior clad in rusting metal sheeting. ‘So, this is it?’
‘It’s scheduled for demolition later in the year,’ Archie nodded. ‘Faulks and a few other tenants who are due to move out at the end of the month are the only people left inside.’
‘He’s got a suite of rooms on the third floor,’ Dominique added. ‘He’s due back at around four for a meeting with Verity Bruce.’
‘The curator of antiquities at the Getty?’ Allegra frowned in surprise. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Having lunch at the Perle du Lac any time now and then doing the usual rounds of the major dealers.’
‘How do you…’ Allegra’s question faded away as she saw the phone in Dominique’s hand.
‘We cloned his SIM. I’ve got it set up to mirror his calendar entries and record every call he makes.’
‘Does that mean you know where they’re meeting tonight?’ Tom asked hopefully.
‘The time’s blocked out but there’s no details.’
‘Well, if they’re due back here at four that gives
us…just under four hours to get inside, have a look around and get out.’
‘I’ve rented some space on the same floor as Faulks.’ Archie held out a key. ‘Bloke on the desk thought I was loopy, given they’re shutting down, but it’s ours for the next two weeks.’
They signed in, the register suggesting that they were the only people there. The guard was all smiles, the momentary flurry of activity clearly a welcome respite from the silent contemplation of empty CCTV screens. To Archie’s obvious amusement he seemed to take a particular shine to Dominique.
‘You’re well in,’ he grinned as they made their way to the lift.
‘Lucky me.’
‘Archie’s got a point,’ Tom said. ‘Why don’t you stay down here and keep him busy.’
She gave Tom an injured look.
‘Please tell me you’re joking.’
‘Just until we can get inside.’
She glared at Archie, who was trying not to laugh, then turned wearily back towards the reception as they got into the lift.
‘Great,’ she sighed as the doors shut.
A few moments later and they stepped out on to a wide cinder-block corridor that led off left and right. The floor had been painted grey, the evenly spaced neon tubes overhead reflecting in its dull surface every fifteen or so feet. A yellow
line ran down its centre, presumably to help the fork-lifts navigate safely along it, although the gouges and marks along the greenwashed walls suggested that it had not been that effective. Steel doors were set into the walls at irregular intervals, the relative distance between them giving some indication as to the size of the room behind each one. As was usual in the Free Port, they were identified only by numbers, not company names.
They followed the signs to corridor twelve and then stopped outside room seventeen.
‘This is it,’ Archie confirmed.
‘You know seventeen is an unlucky number in Italy,’ Allegra observed thoughtfully.
‘Why?’
‘In Roman numerals it’s XVII, which is an anagram of VIXI - I lived. I’m now dead.’
‘She’s a right barrel of laughs, isn’t she?’ Archie gave a flat sigh. ‘Do you do bar mitzvahs too?’
‘Give her a break, Archie,’ Tom warned him sharply. ‘She’s part of this now.’
The offices were secured by three locks - a central one, common to every door, and two heavyduty padlocks that Faulks must have fitted himself at the top and bottom. Working quickly, Tom placed a tension wrench in the lower half of the key hole and placed some light clockwise pressure on it. Then he slipped his pick into the top of the lock and, feeling for each pin, pushed them up out of the way one by one, careful to maintain the torque
on the tension wrench so that they wouldn’t drop back down. In little over a minute, all three locks had been released.
Grabbing the handle, Tom fractionally eased the door open and looked along its frame, then shut it again.
‘Alarmed?’ Archie guessed.
‘Contact switch,’ Tom said, glancing up at the camera at the end of the corridor and hoping that Dominique was working her magic.
‘Can’t you get round it?’ Allegra asked.
‘The contact at the top of the door is held shut by a magnet,’ Tom explained. ‘If we open the door, the magnet moves out of range and the switch opens and breaks the circuit. We need another magnet to hold the switch in place while we open the door.’
‘I’ll go and get your gear out the car,’ Archie volunteered.
‘Can’t we just use this?’ Allegra held up D’Arcy’s watch, her eyebrows raised into a question. ‘It’s magnetised, isn’t it?’
Tom turned to Archie with a questioning smile.
‘Yeah well, I can’t think of everything, can I?’ Archie sniffed grudgingly.
Taking the watch from her, Tom again eased the door open and then held the back of the watch as close as he could to the small surface-mounted white box he had noticed previously. Then, exchanging a quick, hopeful look with both Archie
and Allegra, he pushed the door fully open. For a few moments they stood there, each halfexpecting to hear warning tones from the alarm’s control panel. But the sound never came.
They were in.