Free The Garden of Evil by David Hewson Page A

brush of another. Every fake was, by dint of the original’s extraordinary technical skill, modest in reach, an attempt to convince the potential buyer that it came from Caravaggio’s early period in Rome, when he was open to quick, cheap private commissions, though even then only on his own terms and for subjects of which he approved.
    As Nic remembered it, the canvas from the Vicolo del Divino Amore seemed to fit neither of these templates. That painting was bold, extraordinarily ambitious, and far more substantial than an ordinary collection piece thrown up on some brief commission in order to pay a pressing bill. It stood more than two metres wide and half as high, housed in a plain gilt frame that had faded to the dark sheen of old gold. Even with the briefest of glances, Costa had been able to detect telltale signs of the painter’s individual style. Seen from an angle to the side, close to where the body of Véronique Gillet lay on the grey flagstones, still and deathly pale, he had been able to make out the faintest of incisions, preparatory guidelines cut with a stylus or sharp pen, similar to those etched into plaster by fresco painters, a technique no other artist of the time was known to use on canvas.
    The
sfumato
—a gradation from dark to light so subtle that it was impossible to discern the blend of an outline or border—appeared exquisite. Taken as a whole, the abiding style of the piece went beyond mere
chiaroscuro,
the histrionic balance of light and shade first developed by da Vinci. During his brief life, Caravaggio had taken da Vinci’s model and emboldened the drama with a fierce, almost brutal approach in which the core figures were set apart from the background and the characters around them by a bright, unforgiving light, like a ray of pure shining spirit. The effect was to heighten the emotional tension of the scene to a degree hitherto unseen in the work of any artist. There was a technical term for the style Caravaggio had pioneered,
tenebrismo,
from the Latin
tenebrae,
for shadows, and it was this that made paintings like the conversion of Saint Paul and the final moments of Peter on the cross so electrifying, so timeless.

    HE FOUND HIS VIVID RECOLLECTIONS OF THOSE CANVASES RACING
through his head as he followed the directions Falcone had given him for the laboratory of the Galleria Barberini. When he got there, he realised it could have been no more than half a kilometre from the studio in the Vicolo del Divino Amore itself, though the distance was deceptive, since a straight line would run principally through hard Renaissance brick and stone, unseen halls and buildings hidden behind high, smog-stained windows.
    Both the laboratory and the studio appeared to be part of the black lumbering mass that was the Palazzo Malaspina, an ugly façade for what was reputedly one of the finest remaining private palaces still in original hands. No one set foot inside the palazzo itself without an invitation. But it was no great surprise, Costa decided, that areas of the vast edifice were rented to outsiders. Shops, apartments, offices, and even a few restaurants seemed to find shelter in the area covered by its sprawling wings.
    The small, almost invisible sign for the Barberini’s outpost was in a side alley off the relatively busy Via della Scrofa. He rang the bell and waited for only thirty seconds. A guard in the blue civilian uniform of one of the large private security companies opened the door. He had a belt full of equipment and a holster with a handgun poking prominently out of the top. There were valuable paintings here, Costa reminded himself. One perhaps more valuable than anyone else appreciated.
    Before he could say a word, a short slender figure in a plain billowing black dress emerged from behind the guard’s bulky frame.
    “I’ll deal with this, Paolo,” she declared, in a tone that sent the man scuttling back to his post next to the door without another word.
    The woman was