The Restorer dressed in darkness, silently, so as not to wake the woman. Posed as she was now, with her tousled chestnut hair and wide mouth, she reminded him of Modigliani’s Red Nude. He placed a loaded Beretta pistol next to her on the bed. Then he tugged at the duvet, exposing her heavy, rounded breasts, and the masterpiece was complete.

Somewhere a church bell tolled. A hand rose from the bedding, warm and lined from sleep, and drew the restorer down. The woman kissed him, as always, with her eyes closed. Her hair smelled of vanilla. On her lips was the faintest trace of the wine she had drunk the previous evening in a restaurant on the Aventine Hill.

The woman released him, murmured something unintelligible, and drifted back to sleep. The restorer covered her. Then he wedged a second Beretta into the waistband of his faded blue jeans and slipped out of the apartment. Downstairs, the pavements of the Via Gregoriana shimmered in the half-light like a newly varnished painting. The restorer stood in the doorway of the building for a moment while pretending to consult his mobile phone. It took him only a few seconds to spot the man watching him from behind the wheel of a parked Lancia sedan. He gave the man a friendly wave, the ultimate professional insult, and set off toward the Church of the Trinita dei Monti.

At the top of the Spanish Steps, an old gattara was dropping scraps of food into the sea of skinny Roman cats swirling at her feet. Dressed in a shabby overcoat and headscarf, she eyed the restorer warily as he headed down to the piazza. He was below average in height-five foot eight, perhaps, but no more-and had the spare physique of a cyclist.