London, the present day

Struggling to hold the package under her arm, Seraphina Morgan scrambled up the muddy bank of the Thames and on to the Embankment beyond. There she sat down, propping up the parcel she had just rescued beside her. She could see at once that the painting was old and that the frame was gilded and valuable, which made her wonder why the picture had found itself dumped, so ignominiously, in the Thames. Pulling back the brown wrapping, Seraphina realised that the picture had only been in the water for a little time. There was no damage – none that she could see anyway.

The afternoon was backing off, the sky glowering as Seraphina remembered the dealer, Gaspare Reni. In the past, Reni had been a showy, theatrical character, an Italian travelling extensively and buying copious amounts of Renaissance art for his private collectors. Once based in Venice, he had settled in London and prospered. But age had slowed him down, and as he entered his seventies the younger, more ruthless dealers had usurped him. Gaspare Reni might still have his famous gallery in Kensington – previously a convent – but the money he had once found so easy to accumulate had all but disappeared and his rich lifestyle had become cramped and narrow.

Still staring at the painting, Seraphina made her decision. Tomorrow she would return to Venice and her American husband, Tom Morgan, but before she left London she would repay a favour. Many years earlier Gaspare Reni had bought some paintings from her parents, his intervention preventing the forced sale of their Venetian home. He had paid over the odds for the works, but later, when the dealer’s own luck had stalled, he had refused any help in recompense. And the generosity he had extended so willingly to his friends had remained unpaid.

Until now. Now Seraphina Morgan – previously di Fattori – was hailing a taxi and setting off for Kensington. It was to be an act of kindness.

But instead it would unleash a bloodbath.

2

Huddled in front of the fire, Gaspare Reni held out his hands towards the heat, the room behind him deeply shadowed. A newspaper lay by his feet, and a plate with a half-eaten piece of toast on it. His head, once large and impressive, had shrunk with age, his bull neck as creased as a lace glove. Around the outer corners of his eyes wrinkles spread in semicircles, running towards the hairline like the tributaries of some slow, dun-coloured river.

Beside him sat a man in his thirties.

Nino Bergstrom, Gaspare’s surrogate son. A man who had at one time been dangerously ill and, having no family or friends in London, had recovered in the dealer’s home and been pressed to stay. A bond had grown between them, the usual roles reversed as the old man cared for his younger companion.

Long widowed, Gaspare had been more than willing to offer a temporary haven to a stricken acquaintance. Trading at the gallery had been slow, due to the recession and Gaspare’s age, so his time was often empty, unfilled. Quiet days and perpetual nights had become irksome to the dealer, and it was with no small relief that he welcomed a companion.

‘I was thinking about the time I first came here,’ he said, turning to Nino. ‘I bought the convent off the church – the paperwork! – and then opened it as a gallery. Took me over a year to get it all sorted out, and another six months to get a good enough collection to piss off every other dealer in London. I made a killing in those days – one of the real big hitters. But now … I’ve got old, haven’t I?’

Nino glanced at the dealer. Sepia-toned, a Daguerreotype of a man.

‘All gristle now,’ Gaspare went on, pinching his arm. ‘Gristle and bone.’

Nino shrugged. ‘Maybe. But I’m the one with the white hair.’

It was true. Due to his illness, Nino’s once black hair had lost its colour, and at the age of thirty-eight it was white as a snow goose. The effect was all the more striking against the peppercorn blackness of his eyes and provided a lasting reminder of that terrible time. Now fully restored, he had only to look in the mirror to recall the summer which had changed him. After collapsing on a film set in London, he had found himself under the care of Dr Steven Morrison, the world’s foremost authority on neurological diseases. Morrison had lived up to his reputation, but Nino had faced a lengthy and expensive clamber back to health, which had all but obliterated his savings.

The long dry season of illness had turned a careless adventurer into a thoughtful onlooker. No more California for Nino Bergstrom; no more endless travelling. He was changed, shunted out of his old life and unsure of where to go next. It didn’t help that he had no family and his closest friends were in California, USA. In London, where he had had the malign fortune to fall ill, Nino Bergstrom had no one.

Except for the old dealer, Gaspare Reni. Hearing of Nino’s illness, the Italian had visited him in hospital and offered his home for as long as he needed to convalesce. The gesture had Nino dumbfounded. He had known Gaspare professionally for years, and had grown to like him, but his unconditional support had come as a blessing and a surprise. Too weak to protest, and certainly too frail to take care of himself, Nino had slid behind the protective and shielding walls of the imposing convent gallery. Fed by Gaspare and left to sleep, his recovery limped through the first week, but by the end of the second, Nino Bergstrom had climbed back to life. By the time the month was up, he was restored. Nothing about his build or face gave his illness away; only his hair did that, remaining defiantly white.

‘Why don’t you put the lights on?’

The old man shrugged. ‘Expensive.’

‘And the heating?’

‘You know why,’ he said, exasperated. ‘I’ve told you over and over again. It’s expensive.’

‘And I’ve told you – over and over again – to let me pay rent while I’m here.’

‘Pah!’ Gaspare retorted, waving his hand impatiently. ‘I don’t want money! I like your company. And I like it dark. It’s dramatic.’

‘So’s falling down a flight of stairs,’ Nino replied, getting to his feet and flicking on the light switch.

The room was propelled into sudden view. Looming walls supported their skins of Turkish carpets, and a gaggle of oil paintings towered over the dour Spanish furniture and French commodes. Silverware, stacked piece upon blackened piece, leaned tipsily against blackamoor torchères and vulgar gilded screens. Tooled leather-backed books wheezed under the weight of ormolu clocks and obese cherubs, a suit of Japanese armour attempting a samurai pose by the door.

Looking up, Nino gazed at the painted ceiling, grown more yellow by the day, its caramel-coloured angels hovering above the mouldering room below.

‘Christ, Gaspare, why you don’t sort this mess out? Let me help you.’

‘You’re convalescing.’

‘I’m fit again,’ Nino replied. ‘And anyway, I’ve got to start thinking about going back to work.’

‘Too soon!’

Stiffly, the old man turned in his chair. He had liked having Nino around and was more than a little reluctant to let him leave. The refashioned convent, which had been admired and considered impressive in his younger days, was now too big for a single ageing man. The maintenance was a constant bleed to his wallet and gradually room after room had been cordoned off, space reduced as his years increased.

‘You don’t have to hurry to leave,’ Gaspare went on. ‘You used to like it here. You hired it more than once—’

‘But it wasn’t like this then, was it?’

He had hired the location for a Los Angeles film company and everyone had enthused about the place and used it several times. But that had been ten years earlier, before the damp had bloomed on some of the paintings, the dust turned sticky on the silver. Now the glamour was tarnished, ravaged by age and lack of funds.