by Iain Pears
And, of course, when he got back to the bar he discovered that some light-fingered lad had taken advantage of his absence to lift his suitcase. But it was only dirty underwear, books and things. Nothing serious, in comparison. He almost felt grateful.
2
‘All I can say is that you’re damn lucky,’ Flavia di Stefano said much later on the same day when Argyll, slumped in an armchair and refilling his glass, finished telling the story.
‘I know,’ he said, weary but content to be home at last. ‘But you would have been proud of me, none the less. I was magnificent. Never knew I had it in me.’
‘One day it’ll be more serious.’
‘I know that too. But that day was not today, which is all that matters at the moment.’
His friend sitting opposite, curled up on the sofa, looked at him with mild disapproval. It depended very much on her mood, whether she found his unworldliness comforting or profoundly irritating. This evening, because she’d been without him for five days, and because there were no serious consequences, she was in a forgiving frame of mind. It was very peculiar the way she’d missed him knocking around the place. They’d been living together for about nine months and this had been his first trip away without her. In that nine months she’d evidently got used to him. It was very strange. It was years since she’d minded being on her own, objected to having nothing to do for anybody but herself, and felt disrupted by having complete freedom to do whatever she wanted.
‘Can I see the cause of this athletic zeal?’ she asked, stretching herself and pointing at the parcel.
‘Hmm? I don’t see why not,’ he said, sliding off the chair and picking it up from the corner of the room. ‘Although I suspect it’s not really your taste.’
He busied himself for a few moments with knives and scissors, tore the parcel open then slid the painting out and propped it up on the desk by the window, knocking a bundle of letters, some washing, a dirty cup and a pile of old newspapers on to the ground in the process.
‘Damn this place,’ he said. ‘It’s like a junk-yard. Anyway,’ he continued, standing back thoughtfully to admire Socrates’ last moments, ‘what do you think?’
Flavia examined it in silence awhile, offering a brief prayer of thanks that it would be in their little apartment for only a few days.
‘Well, that knocks on the head the theory that it was a professional art thief,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I mean, who in their right mind would risk a jail term to steal that? It would have served him right if he’d got it.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. I mean, it’s not Raphael, but it’s fairly decent, as these things go.’
The trouble with Argyll was that he did have this penchant for the obscure. Most people, Flavia had tried to explain, had simple, straightforward, tastes. Impressionists. Landscapes. Portraits of women on swings with a bit of ankle showing. Children. Dogs. That, she occasionally tried to persuade him, was how to make money, by selling things people liked.
But Argyll’s judgement was more than a little out of sync with popular tastes. The more obscure the classical, biblical or allegorical reference, the more captivating he found it. He was capable of going into raptures over a rare treatment of a mythological subject, and then was constantly surprised that would-be clients looked at him as though he were crazy.
Admittedly he was getting better, learning to subordinate his obscure preferences and make some attempt to provide customers with what they actually wanted rather than what he thought would improve their attitude to life. But it was an effort that went against his nature, and given the least opportunity, his bias towards the elliptical would resurface.
She sighed. The walls of their apartment were already covered in so many swooning heroines and posturing heroes that there wasn’t room to swing a cat. Argyll liked it like that; but she was beginning to find being surrounded by so many works of moral virtue a little oppressive. It was all very well his moving in to share her tiny apartment; that, somewhat to her surprise, she loved. It was just that she hadn’t banked on his stock-in-trade coming as well.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘But it’s saved me a lot of trouble. And time as well. By the way,’ he went on as he took a step back and put his foot on an old sandwich cunningly hidden under the armchair, ‘have you thought about seeing whether that new flat is still available?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, come on. We’re going to have to move sooner or later, you know. Look at this place, after all. It’s a positive health hazard.’
Flavia grumbled. Perhaps it was a bit messy, and very overcrowded, and maybe it was a health hazard. But it was her health hazard, and she’d grown fond of it over the years. What to Argyll’s objective gaze was a small, overpriced, under-lit, badly ventilated tip was home to her. Besides, the lease was in her name. Any new one would be held jointly. In Rome, considering the pressures of housing, that was more of a commitment than any formal marriage vows. Not that she didn’t look on such an idea sympathetically, when she was in a good mood, it was just that she was awfully slow about taking decisions. And, of course, she hadn’t been asked. No small point.
‘You go and see it. And I’ll think about it. Meantime, how long is it going to be before that thing is out of here?’
‘If by “that thing” you mean a most unusual treatment of the theme of the Death of Socrates in the French neoclassical style, then the answer is tomorrow. I’ll deliver it to this Muller fellow and you won’t have to look at it anymore. Let’s talk about something else. What’s been going on here in my absence?’
‘Absolutely nothing. The criminal classes are getting really lax. It’s been like living in a well-ordered, civilized and law-abiding country for the last week.’
‘How awful for you.’
‘I know. Bottando can always go around and fill in the time with silly meetings and lunches with colleagues. But the rest of us have been sitting and staring into space for days. I don’t know what’s going on at all. I mean, it can’t be that the criminals are too afraid we’ll catch them.’
‘You caught a couple a few months back. I remember it well. Everyone was awfully impressed.’
‘True. But that was only because they weren’t very good at it.’
‘Considering how much you complain about being over-worked, I think you should enjoy it while it lasts. Why don’t you tidy up? The last time I was in it your office was even more chaotic than this place.’
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, treating the suggestion with the contempt it deserved, as Argyll burrowed through a mound of papers and finally extracted the telephone.
‘I thought I’d give this Muller fellow a ring. Set up an appointment. Nothing like seeming efficient.’
‘It’s a bit late, isn’t it? It’s past ten.’
‘Do you want me to get rid of it or not?’ he said, as he dialled.
He presented himself at the door of Muller’s apartment just after ten the following morning, as arranged. Muller had been delighted when he’d rung, enthused about his efficiency and consideration and could scarcely contain his anticipation. Had Argyll not protested that he was completely exhausted and could barely move a muscle, he would have been summoned round immediately.
He wasn’t entirely certain what to expect. The apartment indicated a reasonable amount of money; Delorme had said that he was American, or Canadian, or something transatlantic. The marketing man for some international company. Muller ran the Italian operation. So he thought.
He did not appear to Argyll to be the epitome of the international salesman; the sort who eyes up whole portions of the world and coolly maps out master strategies for penetrating regions, grabbing market share or cutting out the opposition. For a start, he was at home at ten o’clock in the morning, and Argyll thought such people normally took off only seventeen minutes a day to do things like wash, change, eat and sleep.
Also, he was a little fellow, showing no obvious signs of hard-boiled co
mmercialism. Across a vast middle there were all the indications of decades of eating the wrong sort of food. Arthur Muller was a model of how to die young, with the sort of weight-to-height ratio that makes dieticians wake up in the middle of the night screaming with terror. The type who should have keeled over thirty years before of clogged arteries, if his liver hadn’t got him first.
But there he was, short, fat and with every sign of living to confound the medical statisticians a while longer. On the other hand, his face let the image down a little: although he looked quite pleased to see Argyll standing at his door, parcel in hand, it didn’t exactly light up with glee. The habitual expression seemed almost mournful; the sort of face that didn’t expect much and was never surprised when disaster struck. Most odd; it was almost as if there’d been a mismatch in the assembly process, and Muller’s body had emerged with the wrong head on it.
But he was welcoming enough, at least.
‘Mr Argyll, I imagine. Do come in, do come in. I’m delighted you’re here.’
Not a bad apartment at all. Argyll noted as he walked in, although with definite signs of having been furnished by the company relocation officer. For all that the furniture was corporate good taste, Muller had, none the less, managed to impose a little of his own personality on the room. Not a great collector, alas, but somewhere along the way he had picked up a couple of nice bronzes and a few decent if unexceptional pictures. None of these indicated any great interest in neoclassical, mind you, still less in the baroque pictures cluttering up Flavia’s apartment; but perhaps, Argyll thought to himself hopefully, his tastes were expanding.
He sat down on the sofa, brown paper parcel in front of him, and smiled encouragingly.
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am you’re here,’ Muller said. ‘I’ve been looking for this picture for some considerable time.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Argyll said, intrigued.
Muller gave him a penetrating, half-amused look, then laughed.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘What you mean to say,’ his client said, ‘was “why on earth would anybody spend time looking for this very ordinary painting? Does he know something I don’t?”’
Argyll confessed that such thoughts had scuttled across his mind. Not that he didn’t like the picture.
‘I’m quite fond of this sort of thing,’ he confessed. ‘But not many other people are. So a friend of mine says. A minority taste, she keeps on telling me.’
‘She may be right. In my case, I haven’t been looking for aesthetic reasons.’
‘No?’
‘No. This was owned by my father. I want to find out something about myself. A filial task, you see.’
‘Oh, right,’ Argyll said, kneeling reverently on the floor and trying to unpick the knot keeping the whole package together. He’d been too conscientious about packing it up again last night. Another where-are-my-roots? man, he thought to himself as he fiddled. A topic to be avoided. Otherwise Muller might offer to show him his family tree.
‘There were four, so I gather,’ Muller went on, watching Argyll’s lack of dexterity with a distant interest. ‘All legal scenes, painted in the 1780s. This is supposed to be the last one painted. I read about them.’
‘You were very lucky to get hold of it,’ Argyll said. ‘Are you after the other three as well?’
Muller shook his head. ‘I think one will suffice. As I say, I’m not really interested in it for aesthetic reasons. Do you want some coffee, by the way?’ he added as the knot finally came undone and Argyll slid the picture out of the packing.
‘Oh, yes, thank you,’ Argyll said as he stood up and heard his knees crack. ‘No, no. You stay there and admire the picture. I can get it.’
So, leaving Muller to contemplate his new acquisition, Argyll headed for the coffee-pot in the kitchen and helped himself. A bit forward, perhaps, but also rather tactful. He knew what these clients were like. It wasn’t simply the eagerness to see what they’d spent their money on; it was also necessary to spend some time alone with the work. To get to know it, person-to-person, so to speak.
He came back to find that Muller and Socrates were not hitting it off as well as he’d hoped. As he was a mere courier he could afford to be a little detached, but he was an amiable soul, and liked people to be happy even when there was no financial gain in it for himself. In his heart, he hadn’t really expected tears of joy to burst forth at the very sight. Even for the aficionado, the painting was not instantly appealing. It was, after all, very dirty and unkempt; the varnish had long since dulled, and it had none of that glossy air of well-cared-for contentment that shines forth from decent pictures in museums.
‘Let me see,’ said Muller non-committally, and he completed his examination, pressing the canvas to see how loose it was, checking the frame for woodworm, examining the back to see how well the stretcher was holding up. Quite professional, really; Argyll hadn’t expected such diligence. Nor had he expected the growing look of disappointment that had spread slowly over the man’s face.
‘You don’t like it,’ he said.
Muller looked up at him. ‘Like it? No. Frankly, I don’t. Not my sort of thing at all. I’d been expecting something a bit more …’
‘Colourful?’ Argyll suggested. ‘Well-painted? Lively? Assured? Dignified? Masterful? Adept?’
‘Interesting,’ Muller said. ‘That’s all. Nothing more. At one stage this was in an important collection. I expected something more interesting.’
‘I am sorry,’ Argyll said sympathetically. He was, as well. There is no disappointment quite so poignant as being let down by a work of art, when your hopes have built up, and are suddenly dashed by being confronted with grim, less-than-you-expected reality. He had felt like that himself on many occasions. The first time he’d seen the Mona Lisa, when he was only sixteen or so, he’d fought through the vast throng in the Louvre with mounting excitement to get to the holy of holies. And, when he arrived, there was this tiny little squit of a picture, hanging on the wall. Somehow it should have been … more interesting than it was. Muller was right. There was no other word for it.
‘You can always hang it in a corridor,’ he suggested.
Muller shook his head.
‘You make me a bit sorry I didn’t allow it to get stolen,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘Then you could have claimed on insurance and got your money back.’
‘What do you mean?’
Argyll explained. ‘As I say, if I’d known you didn’t want it, I’d have told him to take the thing away and welcome to it.’
Somehow his attempts to cheer Muller up didn’t work. The idea of such an easy solution having been missed made him even more introspective.
‘I didn’t realize such a thing might happen,’ he said. Then, jerking himself out of the mood, he went on: ‘I’m afraid I’ve put you to a great deal of trouble for nothing. So I feel awkward about asking you for something else. But would you be prepared to take it off my hands? Sell it for me? I’m afraid I couldn’t stand having this in the house.’
Argyll gave a variety of facial contortions to indicate the dire state of the market at the moment. It all depended on how much he’d bought it for. And how much he wanted to sell it for. Privately he was thinking dark thoughts to himself about people with too much money.
Muller said it had been ten thousand dollars, plus various commissions. But he’d be prepared to take less. As a penalty for buying things sight unseen. ‘Think of it as a stupidity tax,’ he said with a faint smile, an acknowledgement which made Argyll warm to him once more.
So a mild spot of negotiation ensued which ended with Argyll agreeing to put the picture in an auction for him, and seeing if he could get a better price elsewhere before the sale took place. He left with the brown paper package under his arm once more, and a decent cheque in his pocket for services rendered.
After that he spent the rest of the morning cashing the cheque, then went on to the auction house to hand over the painting for valuati
on and entry into the next month’s sale.
3
It was no good, Flavia thought to herself as she surveyed the debris all around her. Something will have to be done about this and soon. She had arrived late at her office in Rome’s Art Theft Department and, after an hour, had achieved nothing.
It was September, for heaven’s sake. Not August, when she expected everyone in Rome to be on holiday. Nor was one of the local football teams playing at home. She herself was rarely to be seen when Roma or Lazio were playing. What was the point? All Italian government came to an abrupt halt when an important match was on. Even the thieves stopped work for a really big one.
But today there were no excuses, and it was still impossible to get hold of anyone. She’d phoned the Interior Ministry with an important message only to be told that every secretary, under-secretary, deputy under-secretary, everyone, in fact, from minister to floor-sweeper, was busy. And what was the excuse? Some foreign delegation in town for a beano at the public expense. Top-level meetings. International accords. Mutterings of civil servants and lawyers in dark corners on legal and financial regulations and how to get round stipulations from Brussels. How to obey the letter, and disregard the meaning. All over the continent, similar meetings were taking place. That’s what unity is all about. Fiddlesticks. No wonder the country was going to the dogs.
And she’d arrived feeling enthusiastic for once, despite the lack of anything really interesting to do. Argyll had recovered from his excursion to Paris, more or less, and at last had something to occupy himself. His client had said yesterday he didn’t want the picture and, as he was getting 10 per cent of the sale price on commission, he’d decided to waste today seeing what he could find out about it. Some notion about trying to up its value a little. He’d come back fired with enthusiasm from at last having a task to undertake and had scuttled off first thing to the library.
She sympathized with his efforts to find himself something to do; she was in much the same position herself. Not only was the art market in a bit of a slump; the drop in prices had triggered a knock-on effect in the world of crime as well. Or maybe all reputable art thieves had bought package tours for Czechoslovakia, the one place in Europe now where it was even easier to steal art than Italy. Only the second-rankers were still in the country, it seemed. There were the usual break-ins, and all that; but it was petty-crime stuff for the most part. Nothing to get your teeth into.