The Stolen Painting – Part 1: Under the Varnish

The altarpiece had been in a Florentine church for four hundred years, and it had not been properly cleaned in one hundred of them.

Clara stood on a scaffold in the cool, echoing nave with a swab in one hand and a lamp in the other, working a tiny patch of yellowed varnish away from the Madonna's robe. The gold leaf underneath flickered like a secret.

"Careful," said a man's voice from below. "That's the last piece of blue."

She didn't look down. "I know where the blue is, Dario."

"You've been up there for six hours."

"And you've been watching me for three days," said Clara, dipping the swab in solvent. "Is there a reason, or is this just what curators do in their spare time?"

Dario laughed, a warm, easy sound, and came to the foot of the scaffold. He was tall and lean, in a navy jumper with the sleeves pushed up, and he had the calm, amused manner of someone who knew every painting in the building by heart.

"I like watching you work," he said. "It's rare to see someone so patient with something so old."

"It's not patience. It's terror that I'll ruin it."

"You won't ruin it." He looked up at her, shading his eyes against the lamp. "Clara. Come down for a moment. I want to show you something."

She climbed down, dusting off her hands. He led her to a side chapel and pointed at the lower edge of the altarpiece, where a small, faded inscription ran along the frame.

"It says Vasari, 1538," Clara said. "That's a famous name."

"It is," said Dario. "And the signature is wrong."

She bent closer. The letters were slightly too neat, the ink too clean for the centuries it was supposed to have survived.

"Someone's painted over it," she said slowly. "Very recently."

"Yes. And I think the real signature is underneath the varnish. Which is why I hired you."

Clara's pulse quickened. "You hired me to find a forgery?"

"I hired you to find the truth," said Dario, and his gaze was steady and serious. "Because the last restorer who worked on this altarpiece died in a car accident three weeks after she sent me a report."

The nave seemed suddenly colder. Clara heard a faint creak from the upper gallery, and she glanced up without meaning to.

Dario's hand came to rest lightly on her arm. "Clara. Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said. Then, honestly, "No. But I want to keep going."

"Then we keep going," he said. "Together. Carefully."

He didn't let go of her arm until she nodded.

Above them, the lamp flickered once, and went out.