by Roy Lewis
Proud smiled, caressed his moustache.
‘Interesting fellow, really, the Boldini guy. He was a stonemason by trade, it seems. Not your usual kind of gentlemanly murderer. But he was certainly a man who was able to grab at his chances when they arose. He managed to get out of Sforza’s chambers unscathed, and escaped the mayhem – where Carlotta herself got knifed, though it was only a superficial wound it seems – by diving through the window and scuttling into the darkness across the tiled roofs of the city. But he didn’t go empty-handed. Assassin he might have been, but he also had an eye to his financial self-preservation. The story is that before he managed to dive through the window onto the tiles below, he also managed to sweep up from Sforza’s night table several items of jewellery where Sforza, presumably to impress or maybe pay the lady Carlotta, had displayed them. Whatever, he got away, bodily and in possession of a haul. By all accounts it included an item of particular significance for the Duke of Milan. Something he treasured because of its connection with his deceased wife.’
‘I’m afraid that rings no bells for me,’ Grout admitted after a short silence.
‘Your historical knowledge must be on a par with your pornographic leanings,’ Proud said in regret, shaking his head. ‘Sadly deficient … your early education must have been misdirected. But you never went to public school, I imagine. So, I suppose you’ve never heard of, or seen, da Vinci’s Madonna of the Seven Wells?’
‘You’re right. On all counts. I haven’t. So what?’
‘An interesting painting. It was a favourite painting in Sforza’s possession. Not least because on the left breast of the Madonna there appears to be a pinned jewel. I don’t know whether it had some religious significance – mediaeval art has never been my bag. Anyway, the jewel was much valued, and was actually in the possession of the duke. Though quite why it was so valued by him – I mean, he was a very wealthy man – escapes me for the moment. Something to do with his wife, that’s right … But the brooch was said to be worth the ransom of seven kings. To us, I suppose we’d say it was of incalculable value.’
Grout frowned. ‘Your tenses are confusing. A brooch, that appears in a painting by da Vinci. And it was owned by Sforza.’
‘Exactly. It was owned by the Eagle of Milan. And it was pinched by Boldini.’
‘You say Boldini then disappeared.’
‘Precisely. Some of the items he pinched from Sforza did turn up later, from time to time … I imagine Boldini was forced to sell them cheaply to pay the necessary bribes to get out of Italy and get lost.’
‘And?’
Proud shrugged. ‘You tell me. We know he fled that night with the treasures. We know from Buckingham’s account that he came to England. Sforza’s assassins followed him no doubt, once Buckingham reported to them. They wanted revenge – and, presumably, what was left of the stuff Boldini had purloined. But the trail went cold from there. A long silence, one might say.’
‘So the duke’s possessions were never recovered?’
Proud shook his head. ‘No, no, I told you, some of them turned up later. As for the rest, well, the only item that was ever identified as important was the missing brooch. It was never recovered. On the other hand, while I was doing my research and being sidetracked by this murderous tale, I did come across a piece of information which seemed, shall we say, irrelevant in its context? It was noted among the Vatican papers, a sort of side note if you will, that a man called Bollands died at Alnwick, some fifteen years after the Paduan assassination attempt.’
‘You see that as odd.’
‘Correct.’
‘Because Alnwick is a hell of a way from Italy? I don’t follow—’
‘Neither do I, really, not entirely.’ Proud finished his drink. ‘But it’s interesting, isn’t it? I took a look at parish records. This Bollands, mentioned by the Vatican, turns out to have suffered a violent end. Murdered in Alnwick. I told you that Boldini had been a stonemason by trade. The son of the murdered Bollands, Simon Bollands, was also a stonemason; he followed his father’s trade and worked on the castle at Alnwick. But when he was buried in his turn there was some sort of fuss with the bishop. It ended with the removal of Simon’s tombstone. It seemed the headstone carried some kind of offensive inscription.’
‘Did you find out what the inscription said?’
‘Can’t remember exactly now but it was something like To the ancient Gods of Rome … that sort of thing.’
Grout grimaced. ‘I can understand the bishop wanting that removed from the churchyard. Even so, I fail to see what you’re getting at.’
Proud shrugged cheerfully. ‘Nothing specific, really. Just relating some interesting facts. You’re the detective – up to you to try to string them together into something meaningful. But they were all in the section I did in the thesis … the section Rigby was so interested in. And, well, I did my own bit of theorizing, too, I guess.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Well, look at it like this. Boldini stole some jewels from the Duke of Milan and somehow got out of Italy. Sforza used his intelligence services and discovered from his English informant Buckingham that Boldini had entered England. Sforza sent men after him. Thereafter … silence.’
Proud screwed up his eyes in thought, squinted at Grout.
‘And the next thing we come across, years later, is a statement in documents once held by the Duke of Milan that a man called Bollands has been murdered at Alnwick, in Northumberland. These papers eventually found their way into the Vatican library, where I finally came across them. This raises a number of questions, as far as I can see.’
‘Such as?’
Proud flicked up a finger. ‘First of all, why should Sforza record the death of an obscure stranger in Northumberland? Answer: in all probability the man was not a stranger.’
‘You’re suggesting Bollands and Boldini are one and the same,’ Grout suggested.
‘The theory is not all that wild,’ Proud insisted. ‘Look at the facts and remember that Simon Bollands, buried in Alnwick, was a stonemason. Isn’t it reasonable to suppose he followed in his father’s trade? And Boldini had been a stonemason before he started hiring himself out as an assassin.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No buts about it, Sergeant. Facts is facts, if you’ll excuse my ungrammatical construction. But then there’s the second question in my mind.’ He flicked up a second finger. ‘What happened to the stolen item that the Duke of Milan was so incensed about? It seems to have disappeared, not heard of again.’
‘Not accounted for at all?’
Proud shook his head vigorously. ‘Never. It’s quite certain Lodovico Sforza never recovered it. But it looks as though he was hunting for it, as well as revenge, when Boldini was struck down. So one has to wonder, what happened to the item the duke so treasured?’
He grinned at Grout.
‘Which brings me to the last question. It hadn’t occurred to me that I should link the two questions until today—’
‘The assassination attempt in Padua and on Rigby?’
‘That’s right. But after talking to you a sort of link popped up in my mind. You have to wonder why a man like Rigby would be interested in my thesis, and in particular the section on the attack on the Duke of Milan.’
‘So theorize to me.’
‘Hell, no,’ Proud shook his head, waved his arm in the general direction of the bookshop downstairs. ‘I’ve got enough on my dirty little mind not to want to get involved in real crimes. It’s up to you, the copper, to root around in these old histories to see if they’re relevant. But why did Rigby come to see me? What did he hope to gain from reading my thesis?’
Grout was silent for a little while, staring at the young bookseller. Then he rose to his feet.
‘I can guess,’ he said.
Grout returned to headquarters in a thoughtful mood. He was rather disappointed that Cardinal was not there and was even more disappointed to learn that he could not be contacted. Grout waite
d for an hour or more then wandered out into the city for a meal.
He ate alone in a small restaurant in the city centre. The menu was Italian, and his thoughts wandered over what Proud had told him. Later, he walked towards the Minster precincts and wandered through the close, stared down at the foundations of the great building where they had been strengthened to prevent an otherwise inevitable collapse. The building had lasted for hundreds of years and so had the Sforza papers, buried in the archives of the Vatican.
Grout did not feel he was an imaginative man, though Cardinal gave him credit for being so. There were occasions when he was fired with excitement by mundane things, sometimes a law case he was reading would enthuse him by virtue of the abstruse point of law raised. And he felt a vague excitement now, not so much at the thought of discovering who had killed Rigby, and why he had been murdered, as by the realization that the dead man would seem to have unlocked a secret that had lain hidden for 500 years. For Grout was quite certain of it; he could not yet prove it, but he was convinced that Rigby had been after the treasured item stolen from the Duke of Milan.
He would have liked to discuss it with Cardinal. He didn’t have the chance. Cardinal woke him early next morning, the phone ringing insistently at Grout’s bedside. Cardinal’s tone was sharp, his instructions precise.
‘Shift your arse down to London this afternoon. And bring your passport. That bloody man Clifford, we know now for certain he’s skipped. He left the country last night.’
CHAPTER NINE
For the proletarian and the hungry there was boiled beef and horseradish sauce, venison or boar. For those with cultivated palates there was shish-kebab served on flaming swords, or schnitzel. There were mock chickens available – boneless pastry carcases filled with ersatz chicken meat side by side with splendidly layered chocolate cakes. There were vegan options. Lobsters were being served for the vegetarians, lifelike but constructed from soya beans. The air was fragrant with the scent of flowers and food; the restaurant bustled with custom and conversations fluttered half-heard through the echoing room.
‘Interpol expense accounts must be lavish,’ Cardinal remarked with a hint of displeasure in his tone, as they ended their meal.
The man called Enders laughed. ‘If you think this is lavish, go to one of the restaurants used by our members of the European Parliament. I don’t eat here every day, I should advise you, but this is an occasion when I must honour the visit of English colleagues. I think it is of importance that I show you the best. Even the sandwiches provided here, you should try them. They are concoctions of fire and spice and dynamite, caviar and pfefferoni.’
‘I’ll try them by way of celebration when we get our hands on Clifford,’ Cardinal growled.
‘Ah, but before we talk further – and take coffee – I must make an introduction,’ Enders said, rising to his feet. ‘Allow me to present to you Signorina Carmela Cacciatore.’
She was advancing towards their table. Cardinal stood, and for a moment was speechless. She was blonde, round-cheeked, full-bosomed with the smooth unlined skin that well-made women seemed to possess and her smile could be described only as radiant. She moved with an easy confidence that turned heads in the restaurant. She held out her hand, and Cardinal took it, stammered, feeling almost that he should lean forward and kiss her fingers. She was Italian, after all.
And she spoke perfect English.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Cardinal. Herr Enders has told me about you.’
‘And I, signorina, have heard all about you,’ Cardinal replied. ‘It is a real pleasure to meet you personally.’ He had hesitated over using the words in the flesh but had thought they might be misconstrued. His wife would have been amused if not surprised by the gallantry he managed to inject into his tone.
He had indeed heard about the woman who worked for the Carabinieri Art Squad.
In spite of its name the squad was not in fact part of the Italian police, but was attached to the military. It was set up in 1969, and given wide powers of surveillance, including wiretapping. It had been organized as a response to the serious nature of the depredations that had been made over the years to Italian culture, a response to the organized looting of Italian artefacts that had been going on for decades.
It was to the credit of the Italian government that they had taken the serious step of giving extensive powers to the group to which Carmela Cacciatore belonged; there had been an upsurge in looting and black market activity as a result of the post-war rise in prosperity in the west and after the UNESCO Conference in 1970, a computerized database had been set up in 1980. Within a few years, the Italian organization had established its credentials, spread its wings, set up sister organizations by way of art squads in Palestine, Hungary and Iran. Carmela herself was reputed to have been instrumental in exposing and delving deep into the murky background activities that involved auction houses, dealers, museums, private collectors in Europe, America and Asia. The hunt for those involved in the illicit antiquarian network was now an internationally organized system.
And Carmela Cacciatore was at the heart of it.
‘I have heard much of your work in suppressing the tombaroli,’ Cardinal said as Carmela took her seat beside him.
‘Ha! The Etruscan tomb robbers. … They sell what they find in the ancient tombs to unscrupulous dealers who sell them on to respectable museums – many of whom do not demand details of provenance, merely in order to enrich their own collections,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘But it is an ongoing operation. And much wider than the poor families from which the tombaroli come. The families have been doing it for centuries. It is a way of life. We know them; we prosecute them. But the way to stop it and protect our heritage is to corner the dealers who fund the activities. It is what we have tried to do. But your own interests … they are not in the tombaroli.’
‘That is true.’ Cardinal hesitated. ‘My main interest is in a man called Augustus Clifford. We believe he has entered the trade in looted antiques of late. After a considerable criminal career in other areas of activity.’
Carmela nodded thoughtfully, glancing at Herr Enders. ‘The name has come to our attention of late by way of Interpol. He is a recent entry into our fields of interest. He operates from England, we understand.’
‘The man has a long history of violence and crime,’ Cardinal said grimly. ‘We don’t know quite when he decided to join in the rich market in looted antiquities but. …’
‘A rich market indeed,’ Carmela murmured.
Enders nodded. ‘DCI Cardinal informs me Clifford is suspected of murder as well as the theft of ancient artefacts.’
Cardinal nodded too. ‘It looks that way. When he skipped the country recently, I feared we’d lose him in Europe – there are so many opportunities for a man of his kind to vanish under cover of a new identity. But with the co-operation and assistance of Interpol—’
‘It’s what we exist for,’ Enders said quietly, ‘and it is most useful that we can also enlist the Italian Art Squad in the matter of the tracing of antiques and those who traffic in them. It is why I invited Signorina Cacciatore to join us in our discussions. The Carabinieri Art Squad have been very successful of recent years, but as for Interpol, as you know, we have no police powers but as an information agency we can help in the tracking down of criminals, not least those involved in this international conspiracy of theft – antiques from Florence and Rome, Baghdad and Istanbul, lootings from Afghanistan and Iran – it is a wide-ranging business, as Carmela can assure you.’
He pushed back his chair, placed his hands on the table in front of him and leaned forward; he was a plump-featured, neatly-suited man with a hairless head. His eyes were like little black buttons, sharp, bright behind rimless glasses. ‘I have put on alert my contacts in the German and Austrian police, and have been promised full co-operation. It would seem your man Clifford has been a little careless in his haste to leave your jurisdiction, he has used a false passport which was already on our fil
es. With a degree of luck we may well be able to place our hands on him by tomorrow evening.’
‘I confess to being a little surprised by your speed of reaction,’ Cardinal admitted. ‘I hardly thought you’d pick up his trail so quickly.’
Enders shrugged and gestured to the hovering waiter for coffee. The light from the ornate chandeliers in the ceiling glistened on his hairless skull. He remained silent while the waiter served them.
‘Chance played its part,’ he said at last, almost apologetically. ‘As you know, the organizations that have linked together to form a ring, dealing with unprovenanced art works, have been successful for some years.’
‘We know them as the cordata,’ Carmela said. ‘They stretch like a twisted rope, and their membership extends into many high places, as well as among the tombaroli.’
‘And our endeavours have been frustrated in many ways. This was partly because Switzerland and Germany lacked specialists dealing with such matters, partly because we had no over-arching organization that could co-ordinate our individual systems; and not least because we were facing large, reputable museums who were reluctant to admit that they had been indulging in such trade nor to confess to holdings that were of suspect provenance.’
‘The difficulties are great. The museums live in a competitive, secret world of their own, and there are many curators who seek only the glory of their collections, without worrying too much about where the artefacts may have been looted – to the despair and fury of the archaeological world.’