Read Chapter 27: Turning the Tables

The Fontaine des Innocents was a hollowed-out joke at this hour, its stone nymphs weeping green with damp, the water in the basin flat and grey as a morgue slab. Julien stood under the colonnade, collar up against a drizzle that had been threatening all morning, and watched a man in a beige raincoat approach with the unhurried confidence of a cat that has already cornered the mouse.

Victor Mariani looked exactly as a dead man should not look. Ruddy. Fed. Amused.

“Julien.” Victor spread his arms, rain beading on his shoulders. “You look like you haven’t slept since the last time I saw you. Which was, technically, never—because I am a ghost, and ghosts don’t drink.”

“You’re not a ghost,” Julien said. “You’re a rat that crawled out of a drain.”

Victor’s smile thinned. “Rats survive. Ghosts don’t. Remember that.”

They stood in the shadow of the fountain, the city’s morning traffic hissing past on Rue de Rivoli. Victor reached into his coat and produced a Gauloise, lit it with a brass lighter that caught the light like a coin.

“You’re going to auction the Caravaggio Friday,” Victor said. Not a question.

“You already know that. You know everything, apparently.”

“I know you’re planning to swap it. I know you’ve made a copy good enough to fool most people, but not all people.” Victor exhaled smoke. “I know you’ve been in contact with a Commander Roche at the Palais de Justice. And I know you’re feeding Keller to the wolves because you think he’s the one who sold you out.”

Julien said nothing. His pulse was a metronome in his throat.

“Keller’s a pawn,” Victor said. “He’s dangerous because he’s stupid enough to think the ledger in his father’s desk makes him important. But he’s not the one who photographed your copy. He’s not the one who’s been following Geneviève. He’s not the one who killed Paul.”

“Then who?”

Victor took a long drag, let the smoke curl from his lips like a secret he was savoring. “You’ve got a bigger problem than the cabal, Julien. You’ve got a partner who doesn’t know they’re a partner yet.”

The words hung in the damp air. Julien’s mind raced through the list—Geneviève, Claire, Nadia—landing on each, rejecting each, landing again.

“If you’re going to threaten my daughter,” Julien said quietly, “I’ll kill you myself. Ghost or not.”

Victor laughed, a genuine sound that echoed off the fountain. “You think I’m the one threatening her? I’m the only one in Paris trying to keep you alive, you ungrateful bastard.” He ground his cigarette under his heel. “The auction is your trap. Fine. But traps catch whoever walks in. And on Friday, you’re going to have half the art world walking in, all of them carrying their own agendas, their own knives, their own lies.”

He stepped closer. Julien could smell the man now—old leather, stale smoke, and something medicinal underneath.

“You think you know Dupont,” Victor said. “You don’t. I worked for the man for seven years. I buried three bodies for him, and I’d bet my soul he buried twice that many without telling me. He doesn’t bid at auctions. He owns the people who bid.”

Julien held his ground. “Then why did he agree to come?”

Victor’s smile returned, slower this time. “Because you offered him something he can’t refuse. That’s your mistake, Julien. You think offering a man what he wants makes him your ally. It doesn’t. It makes you his mark.”

---

Dupont’s gallery on Rue de Seine smelled of cedar and old money. The man himself was smaller than Julien remembered—silver-haired, manicured, dressed in a charcoal suit that cost more than Julien’s entire wardrobe, including the watch his father had left him. He stood before a Pissarro, hands clasped behind his back, studying it with the reverence of a priest.

“The light,” Dupont said without turning. “He caught the light like no one else. You see the way it falls on the water—it’s not paint. It’s memory.”

“I’m not here to discuss Pissarro.”

Dupont turned. His eyes were pale blue, almost transparent, and they fixed on Julien with an unnerving stillness. “No. You’re here to discuss a Caravaggio that doesn’t exist.”

“It exists. It’s sitting in a warehouse three kilometers from here, and it will sit in the Hôtel Drouot’s exhibition hall tomorrow evening with a provenance that will make half of Europe weep.”

Dupont’s mouth twitched. “Your provenance is a lovely piece of fiction. The collectors’ circle has already flagged it, you know. There’s a man in Geneva who’s spent two weeks trying to trace the 1937 transfer. He’s found nothing.”

“Because there is nothing to find. That’s the point.”

“No.” Dupont stepped closer. “That’s the problem. A lie that looks too clean is still a lie. And lies have a way of coming back to the man who tells them.”

Julien felt the familiar pressure behind his ribs—the weight of a game that was spiraling beyond his control. He forced himself to breathe.

“I’m not asking you to believe the provenance,” he said. “I’m asking you to bid.”

Dupont’s eyebrows rose a fraction.

“You’ll come to the auction Friday. You’ll bid against Keller, who’s already convinced he’s buying a Nazi-looted treasure at a discount. You’ll let him drive the price to a point where he thinks he’s won, and then you’ll raise him.”

“To what end?”

“To double the estimate. And when the hammer falls, the painting is yours. I’ll deliver it personally, along with the original documentation—the real documentation, the kind that doesn’t exist in any Geneva ledger.”

Dupont studied him for a long moment. The gallery was silent except for the ticking of a carriage clock on the mantelpiece.

“You’re asking me to pay double for a painting that will be exposed as a forgery within the week.”

“You’re buying a story,” Julien said. “The story is worth more than the canvas. You know that better than anyone.”

Dupont’s eyes narrowed, then something shifted in his face—a calculation, a settling. He walked to a sideboard, poured two glasses of amber liquid, and handed one to Julien.

“I’ll come to your auction,” Dupont said. “I’ll bid. But I don’t trust you, Moreau, and I don’t trust your provenance. So I’ll bring my own people.”

“Of course.”

“And if Keller or anyone else tries to outbid me, my people will make sure they don’t remain in the room long enough to cause a problem.”

Julien’s glass froze halfway to his lips. “I’m running a legitimate auction. If your men—”

“My men won’t be in the auction hall.” Dupont took a sip, watching him over the rim. “They’ll be in the street. They’ll be in the lobby. They’ll be wherever they need to be to ensure that the only person who walks out with that painting is me.”

The words settled like stones in Julien’s stomach. He had wanted chaos—chaos between Keller and the cabal, chaos that would expose their crimes and free him from the web. But Dupont wasn’t bringing chaos. He was bringing a cudgel.

“You’ll have your auction,” Dupont said, setting down his glass. “And I’ll have my painting. And if anything goes wrong—if your trap snaps shut on the wrong fingers—I’ll make sure the only thing left of your gallery is a tax write-off.”

He smiled, thin and cold. “We understand each other.”

Julien didn’t have to answer. The door was already open, and Dupont’s man was waiting in the hall like a shadow with a heartbeat.

---

Outside, the rain had started in earnest. Julien walked with his hands in his pockets, the wet seeping through his shoes, and tried to count the ways the plan could still work.

He had planted the evidence against the cabal in the provenance display. He had Roche ready to announce the forgery and the original in the same breath—a paradox that would bring the auction to a standstill and force the cabal into the open. He had Keller, angry and armed with his father’s ledger, ready to expose everything in his desperation.

But he hadn’t counted on Dupont’s men being in the street. He hadn’t counted on Victor’s warning echoing in his skull. And he hadn’t counted on the one thought that kept circling back, black-winged and hungry:

*Someone in his inner circle was already compromised.*

He stopped at the corner of Rue de Rivoli and reached into his coat for a cigarette he didn’t have. His fingers brushed the envelope from Geneviève—Roche’s contact details, written in Geneviève’s neat hand. She had been so certain. So eager to help. And Claire had been so reluctant to involve Nadia. And Victor—Victor, who knew everything, had spoken of a partner who didn’t know they were a partner.

Julien looked up at the grey sky and felt the trap closing, not around the cabal, but around himself.

The telephone box on the corner was free. He stepped inside, dropped a coin, and dialed the number for the Palais de Justice.

“Commander Roche,” he said when a voice answered. “My name is Julien Moreau. I need to move the auction up to tomorrow.”