Giotto's hand

by Iain Pears

  The old woman didn’t believe it, and stood there, shaking her walking stick, as if to indicate that if Flavia put one foot wrong, she’d beat her to within an inch of her life. Flavia admired her spirit, but not her realism; she could have picked her up with one hand.

  “Can I come in?” she yelled.

  “Come in, then,” said Signora della Quercia in a thin, high-pitched voice, as if it had been her idea.

  The room in which the old lady lived was about four metres by three, and one of the most crowded places Flavia had ever seen. There was a bed, a wash basin, a sofa, an armchair, two dining chairs, three tables, a wooden bookcase, half a dozen carpets, pot-plants, a small cooker, three lights, one of which glowed dimly, and such wall space as wasn’t covered with furniture was crammed with photographs, crucifixes, framed letters and other mementoes of an exceptionally long life. It wasn’t possible to take more than one step without tripping, and Flavia, without bothering to be asked, weaved her way carefully through the obstacles and sat down to avoid breaking something.

  Signora della Quercia hobbled behind, and fluttered down to perch on a chair opposite.

  “I need to ask you about one of your old employees,” Flavia screamed in her direction.

  “I am a Medici, you know,” she said.

  “I believe you used to run a school. For foreigners. Is that right?”

  “I ran a school. For foreigners. One of the finest. Only the very best young ladies came here. The cream of Europe, they were. Such charming girls.”

  I want to know about a woman called Maria Fancelli,” Flavia shouted hopefully.

  “They were always so grateful to me. They used to regard me as their second mother. Of course, I didn’t encourage such intimacy. Girls like that needed to maintain a proper sense of position, don’t you think?”

  “I understand you fired her. Is that correct?” Flavia bellowed, despite the strong feeling that the room was witnessing two conversations simultaneously.

  “The English,” della Quercia twittered, blithely ignoring the question. “The English, now. They always had a strong sense of themselves. Very formal and dignified, most of them. Admirable. Of course, I do believe they have degenerated in recent years.”

  “Fancelli?” Flavia called hopefully.

  “And very respectful of Italian civilization, of course. Quite unlike the French. Just the sort of girls my school was designed for. The best. The cream of Europe. And married the cream as well.”

  “Maid-servants?”

  “None of that vulgarity that so disfigures modern womanhood, even though they could be so kind. A gentler age, it was, in those days. But then my young ladies began to get ideas. No chaperones any more, and some were even drinking at parties and dancing with people to whom they’d not been formally introduced. Can you imagine that?”

  Flavia shook her head sadly.

  “I’m so glad you agree. Shortly after that I began to think of retirement. Just as well, the things you read in the papers these days. Can you imagine it? Well brought up ladies, of good families, having ideas below their station?” She snorted derisively. “I used to tell them, if God had wanted you to work he would have made you working class. If he had wanted you to bring up your own children, he would have made you a bourgeois. They always listened to me. They respected me, you know. As a Medici, you understand.”

  “Forster?” Flavia screamed, hoping that the word might trigger some old and dusty memory. The interview, after all, seemed to be proceeding by association. There wasn’t much point in asking proper questions.

  “Fortunately, I never had any major scandals,” she fluted. “Although I believe I was lucky. Some of the boys hung around my girls like flies round a honey pot. Flies. Round a honey pot. Beasts. I always insisted on receiving only pure young girls, and always sent them back that way as well. Can you imagine the disaster if one had been returned damaged?”

  Flavia sighed, resigned herself to the passive role of just sitting there, and looked surreptitiously at her watch. Time was running on.

  “Such things only happened to servants,” she rambled on. “And what would one expect from them? Although some of the boys who were presented here as escorts scarcely deserved the name of gentlemen. Yes, I remember. Now, why did I think of that? Something must have put it into my mind. It was the year that Miss Beaumont attended my school, a servant disgraced herself and had to be dismissed. Maria, her name was. I knew she would come to no good, of course.”

  By this time, Flavia’s mind was proceeding by association as well, and was beginning to leap ahead. She had mentioned Forster, and the word had triggered the old woman into talking about a servant called Maria. But that wasn’t good enough for her line of business.

  “Forster,” she yelled again, on the off-chance.

  “The boy involved was quite shameless. He’d been hanging around Miss Beaumont like a dog after its owner, trying to ingratiate himself. She treated him with the contempt he deserved, knowing what he was, and he consoled himself elsewhere. Which, if I may say so, was perfectly typical. Like always ends up with like. She married very well later, of course, as did so many of my girls. Now what was his name? Foster? Forster. That’s it. Now, why did I think of that?”

  “Can’t imagine,” Flavia said. “What was her name?” she demanded, even more loudly than before.

  “Of course, that was one of the high years, where I entertained the daughters of two dukes simultaneously. And one American millionaire. I was naturally a bit dubious about her, even though she came highly recommended. And I was quite right, as I discovered. She spent too much time talking to the servants. Such a lowly characteristic. No really well-bred person would do that. Not even an American. Breeding will out, you know.”

  “Her name?”

  “Emily, I believe. Emily Morgan. She came from Virginia. I believe that is in America. I can’t say I have ever wanted to go there myself, of course.”

  “Not her. The servant.” She stood over her, glowering, willing her to act sane just for a few seconds. “What was the name of your servant, Maria?”

  She shrank back in the chair, shocked out of her reverie.

  “Fancelli,” she said. “Maria Fancelli.”

  “Ah,” said Flavia with relief, and tripped over the sofa as she stepped back in exhaustion after her effort.

  “Of course, I got rid of her as quickly as possible, you know. It wouldn’t have done at all. And fortunately, the event did not become common knowledge among the select circle with whom I associated at that time. Not like now, of course.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Flavia, no longer paying much attention.

  “Signorina Beaumont was very upset, but I consoled her by telling her that people like that would sink to their own level, no matter how refined an example they were set. I believe that she tried to help the girl, thinking that she was merely young and foolish. I knew better, though.”

  Flavia grimaced in a way she hoped could pass muster as a sympathetic smile. Horrible old woman, she thought.

  “Ah, those days are long gone,” the old snob rabbited on. “Once the cream of Europe came here, and felt it a privilege. Now what do they do? Back-packs, camping, noisy music and all sorts of inappropriate social mixing. I always say, if the aristocracy of Europe wishes to continue, it will have to avoid mixing with the lower orders. Do you know, signorina, I fear for the future. I really do.”

  “Do you really,” she said, and gave up the unequal struggle.

  It was partly because she had been so roundly defeated by the chaotic senility of Signora della Quercia that Flavia spent the entire evening getting her revenge by interrogating Giacomo Sandano with quite unnecessary vigour.

  The poor man, after all, had done little to merit such treatment and as he had paid his debt to society over the little matter of the Fra Angelico, he scarcely deserved to be bothered: but as she’d gone to a considerable amount of trouble to find out where he was, it seemed a pity to waste the effort. She was mind
ful of Bottando’s strictures, and wanted to demonstrate her thoroughness, if nothing else.

  She tracked him down in a bar in one of the seedier outskirts of the city after having discovered that he was not, as she’d anticipated, back in jail again. Sandano was. in fact, one of those ever-hopeful types who are permanently convinced that this time his plan is fool-proof. That was partly why the department loved him so dearly: every time he was tempted off the straight and narrow, they could count on another successful arrest and prosecution shortly afterwards.

  He was, in brief, a rotten criminal, and a judge had once told him so. He was more of a danger to himself than anyone else and his compulsive thieving and swindling brought him so little personal gain that nobody could really understand why on earth the man bothered.

  Take his most recent exploit of trying to steal some candlesticks from a church, which had apparently landed him with only a short sentence. As the prosecutor remarked when preparing the case, it was quite a good idea to think of hiding inside the altar until the place was leaked up for the night. It wasn’t quite so brilliant to choose Christmas Eve, the one day when it wasn’t locked up and remained full of people until near dawn.

  Sandano had wedged himself in the box at six in the evening, and had finally given himself away at two in the morning when his body became so racked with cramps that he’d cried out in agony. It took some time before the priest and congregation got over the shock at what appeared to be a divine voice emerging from the altar, but when they’d recovered, they dragged him out, revived him with brandy, called the police and Sandano was, once again, returned to jail.

  He was sitting over his drink, a hunched-up, weedy sort of man in his thirties, with an unhealthy demeanour and surrounded by a faint but permanent aroma of stale cigarettes. Slob, she thought as she walked up behind him. Could at least make an effort.

  “Gotcha!” she said cheerfully, clapping her hand on his shoulder. Sandano nearly leapt out of his skin.

  “Confess, Giacomo, confess,” she went on, to soften him up a little.

  “What?” the verminous little man said in terror. “What?”

  “Just trying,” she said. “A joke. Thought I’d buy you a drink. I was passing through, and I thought, “I haven’t seen my old friend Giacomo recently. Must look him up. How are you?”

  He shook his head and recovered himself as much as possible. “Fine,” he said cautiously. “What do you want?”

  Flavia looked sad. “Conviction rates are really down,” she said. “So we—Bottando and I—thought. What better than arresting old Giacomo? we thought. He’s bound to have been up to something.”

  Sandano twitched. “I’m going straight,” he said. “Those days are over for me. You know that.”

  “Nonsense,” Flavia said. “And I’m sure you’ll realize it’s nonsense after a night in the cells.”

  “Look, what do you want?” Sandano said plaintively. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  “Because I don’t want to. I want to lock someone up. And you’re as good a candidate as any. Better than most, in fact. Those candlesticks. How long had you been out of jail before you tried that one? Go on. Be honest.”

  “A week,” he said sullenly. “But I was short of money.”

  “What had you been in for? Now, what was it? A picture, wasn’t it? Fra Angelico, if I remember. We were quite surprised. A bit out of your league, that sort of thing. Got off very lightly, as well. How long was it? Six months?”

  “Nine,” he said.

  “Tell me about it. You were caught on the border, weren’t you? So near and yet so far. How did you steal the thing in the first place without getting caught?”

  Sandano fiddled with his drink and lit a cigarette. Then, very reluctantly, he said: “I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Didn’t steal it.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Come now. You admitted it. And you were caught with it in the back of your car.”

  “I still didn’t steal it.”

  “So why plead guilty?”

  “ ’Cos I was offered a deal. I’d help the local Carabinieri to clean that one up without the need to call you lot in from Rome, and they agreed to forget one or two other little matters as well.”

  “Was this the Meissen?” she asked, referring to a highly valuable eighteenth-century porcelain dinner service he’d stolen from a house by dropping it from a third-floor window into the arms of a waiting accomplice. As usual, his planning had slipped up.

  “Yes,” he said sorrowfully. “My own silly fault, that one. No doubt about it. Still haven’t figured out why my brother was waiting round the other side of the building. But otherwise it was a good idea. It was only the noise of the stuff smashing that alerted the police, you know.”

  “Yes. Tough luck, that. So you just confessed to stealing a picture when you hadn’t? That’s a bit stupid, isn’t it?”

  “No need to get personal. They told me that they knew I’d done it, and wouldn’t budge no matter how much I said I was only the courier. They said that if I’d confess, they’d get a light sentence for me and forget the Meissen.”

  “They kept their word, didn’t they?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m not complaining about that. But the fact remains that I didn’t do it.”

  “Ah, poor you,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t tell me. You really found the picture in a dustbin, and thought it would make a nice present for your mum. So you put it in the car and before you could gift-wrap it and hand it over, these horrible suspicious police jumped you.”

  “Close.”

  Flavia gave him the sort of look appropriate for a person who is becoming extremely tiresome.

  “Look, I’m telling you the truth,” he said indignantly. “I was rung up and asked if I wanted a job. As a runner, to take a package over the border. Five million lire for a day’s work. Two and a half million in advance. So I asked what it was, and this man said a package…”

  “Which man?”

  Sandano looked scornful. “A friend of a friend of a friend. Someone who occasionally puts a bit of work my way. None of my business who’s behind it all. I was to pick it up from the left luggage at the railway station, and deposit it in the left luggage at Zurich. Then I was to send the key to a post office box number in Berne. When it arrived safely, then I’d be sent the rest of my money.

  “Before you ask, I had no idea then who it was. At the time. That was why my story didn’t convince the Carabinieri.”

  “At the time,” Flavia repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I can make your life hell if I want to. And because I will look favourably on your case the next time you get pinched for something. Which is only a matter of time. Think of it as an insurance policy. Who did steal it?”

  Sandano twiddled his fingers and looked furtive, cunning and then sly as well. An ugly combination.

  “You won’t mention my name?”

  “Heaven forfend.”

  “And you remember people who do you favours?”

  “Giacomo. Do I look like someone who forgets her friends? Or her enemies? Tell me what you know.”

  Sandano paused and took a deep breath. “OK. But I’m trusting you, mind.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “I didn’t know who it was at the time. Like I say, it was done on the phone. I never saw anyone. Just a simple commission, and the less I knew the better, as far as I was concerned. It went wrong, as you know, and I got pinched, and did my time. Fair enough.

  “But three months ago, I had a visit. This man turned up and asked me about the Fra Angelico. What had gone wrong. He was very smooth, and knew all about it. He wanted to be sure I hadn’t told anyone anything. I told him I’d hardly have gone to jail if I had, and he seemed satisfied. He gave me some money, and said that he was impressed by my discretion.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. That was it.”
/>   “How much did he give you?”

  “Three million lire.”

  “And now the big question. Do you know who he was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “An Englishman.”

  “Name?”

  “Forster.”

  5

  Constable Frank Hanson was a methodical, cautious man well suited to the routine of being a policeman in the English countryside. He had rounds that he made pretty much every day in his car, driving regularly through village after village, stopping periodically to talk to people to show that he was interested in community policing, occasionally turning a blind eye to the little infringements of law that went on all around him, and generally being a good, conscientious sort of person who was appreciated by those who actually noticed his existence.

  Personally, he thought he was rather overworked; his beat had been devised in the far-off halcyon days when country life was safe, with virtually nothing but the occasional pub brawl or bit of domestic to occupy his time. Now he reckoned there was not much difference between the small patch of Norfolk that was in his care and the worst parts of London, or even Norwich, in which towns he was convinced sudden death was a way of life and sin the dominant occupation of the inhabitants.

  Urban evil had now come to afflict him here. In the past few years, burglaries, rapes, arson, car theft and all manner of city blights had swept across the local villages, rendering his life miserable as he drove perpetually from one hamlet to another, jotting down details and reassuring people, quite untruthfully, that there was some chance that those responsible would be punished.

  He was on his way to such a monstrosity now. Jack Thompson, a large and successful farmer, had just rung up, spluttering with indignation, to report that his dairy herd was three cows smaller than it had been the previous evening. It seemed that the Norfolk constabulary was now going to have to add cattle rustling to the various unnatural crimes it had to cope with.

  Cattle rustling, he thought gloomily as he drove at several miles an hour above the speed limit through the village of Weller. What next? Piracy? He snorted with disgust. Gangs of yobs from Norwich boarding canal boats in the smoke and sinking them with cannon fire? Wouldn’t surprise him at all, he muttered to himself as he sped along.