by Iain Pears
'Wonderful, I've got you. Listen, something awful's been going on.'
'What do you want?' she said crossly when she realised who it was. Typical, she thought. Don't see him for weeks on end, then, when he wants something . . .
'Listen,' he repeated, 'Moresby's been murdered.'
'Who?'
'Moresby. The man who bought my picture.'
'So?'
'I thought you'd be interested.'
'I'm not.'
'And a Bernini's been stolen. It was smuggled out of Italy.'
This was, of course, more in Flavia's line of business, as much of her time in the past few years had been devoted to stopping smuggling, and recovering at least some of the works of art which were smuggled. Generally speaking, no matter what sort of mood she was in, she would have picked up pen and paper and begun listening. However . . .
'In that case it's too late to do anything about it, isn't it?' she said shortly. 'What are you ringing about? Don't you know I'm busy?'
There was a two dollar fifty-eight cent pause from California until the slightly aggrieved voice returned for another try. 'Of course I know you're busy. You always are these days. But I thought you'd want to know.'
'Don't see what it's got to do with me,' she said. 'It's an American affair. I haven't noticed any official requests for our assistance. Unless you've joined the local police or something.'
'Oh, come on, Flavia. You love murders and thefts and smuggling and things like that. I rang you up just to tell you. You could at least sound interested.'
In truth, she was, but was damned if she was going to let on. Argyll and she had been close friends for a couple of years. She had long given up any notion that they would be anything else. Until he came along she had tended to think of herself as the sort of person who, if not irresistible - she was not sufficiently vain to think that -was at least generally attractive. But Argyll didn't notice. He was companionable, friendly, evidently enjoyed trips round the countryside and to movies and dinner and museums with her, but that was it. She had provided the openings, had he been so minded, and he had not taken them. He just stood there, looking awkward.
She'd eventually got used to that and settled for his company. It was the blithe way he announced he was leaving Italy that finally made her lose patience. Just like that. A career to be made, so he was off.
And what about her? she'd felt like asking. He was just going to go and forget her? Just like that? Who was she meant to go to dinner with?
But if that was what he wanted to do, he could go, as far as she was concerned. So she said, in a chilly, angry voice, that if his career needed it, he should go. The sooner the better, in fact. Then she'd got on with her work.
Now here he was again, with problems.
'I'm not interested,' she said shortly. 'I don't care if the whole of the National Museum is scattered along the Pacific Rim, and I don't have any time to waste talking to you, you . . . Englishman.'
And slammed the phone down and made chuntering noises as she tried vainly to remember what it was she'd been doing before he'd rung.
'Jonathan Argyll, I assume,' came a deep, reassuring voice from the doorway behind her as General Bottando walked in clutching a sheaf of papers. 'What's he up to these days? I heard he was in America.'
'He is,' she said, turning round and hoping he hadn't heard too much of her conversation. 'He just rang me up to tell me about a murder.'
'Really? Whose?'
Flavia told him, and Bottando whistled in surprise. 'Good heavens,' he said. 'I'm not surprised he rang. How extraordinary.'
'Fascinating,' she said shortly. 'Is there anything you want? Or is this a social visit?'
Bottando sighed and looked at her sadly. It was perfectly obvious to him what was wrong, but it wasn't at all his job to say. And even if he had tried to give her the benefit of his advice, he was fairly certain it would not have been well received. She was touchy that way, and had no respect for the wisdom of age.
'I've got a little job for you,' he said, confining himself to business. 'Needs tact and delicacy, I'm afraid.' He looked at her doubtfully before proceeding. 'You remember that little drinks party we had a few weeks back?'
It had been a small celebration for Bottando's fifty-ninth birthday. A date and a number shrouded in secrecy, but the office had weasled it out by dexterous spying on the personnel returns. They'd all clubbed together to throw a surprise party in his office, and presented him with a little Piranesi print and a large plant to replace the one that had died because he always forgot to water it.
'Well,' he went on a little nervously. 'That plant. Someone watered it to show me how to do it, and water spilled over the desk and I grabbed a piece of paper to mop it up.'
Flavia nodded impatiently. He did ramble sometimes.
Bottando produced a stained, crumpled and almost illegible document and handed it to her shamefacedly. 'Been under the pot ever since,' he said. 'Carabinieri report about a burglary in Bracciano. Should have followed it up weeks ago. You know the remarks they'll make if they ever find out. Could you go and do something about it?'
'Now?' she said, glancing at her watch.
'If you could. Damned man's a curator at some museum. Influential. The sort who complains. I know it's getting late. . .'
With a long-suffering look she got up and stuffed the report in her bag.
'Oh, all right,' she said. 'Got nothing else to do. What's the address?'
And, radiating disapproval of her boss's inefficiency, she marched out of the office.
*
The Alberghi family inhabited a castle - a small one, but a castle nonetheless - rather handsomely sited overlooking the lake. The area has gone downhill in recent years; the nearest bit of fresh water to Rome, it is swamped by people desperate to get away from the heat and dust and pollution of the capital. So they come to the heat and dust and pollution of Bracciano instead. It makes a change, and also means the water is no longer quite as fresh as it once was. Those local residents who bought their houses some time ago are not pleased at the disturbance that thousands of noisy Romans bring with them; others make a small fortune out of them and are perfectly happy about it.
The Alberghi were firmly in the former category. Their castle looked basically medieval with lots of modern conveniences added in the sixteenth century, like windows. The owners were not the sort of people who rushed out to sell Coca-Cola and popcorn to the tourists. The place was more than a little secluded; from the road the only indication that it was there at all came from the signs at the gate warning of ferocious dogs and announcing that you were entering private property so go away.
If the gateway was unwelcoming, the owner was even less hospitable. It took some time for the door to be opened, and even longer for the appropriate person to put in an appearance. They were the sort who still had servants; indeed, they were clearly thesort who, without a cook, would starve to death. Flavia handed her card to an ancient woman who opened the door, and waited for results.
'And about damn time too.' The voice of the owner preceded his actual appearance. He came limping down the stairs shortly afterwards, bristling with indignation. 'Pretty disgraceful, I call it.'
Flavia looked at him in a cold manner. It seemed the best way to deal with the situation; to adopt a general air that implied that Alberghi was at fault himself and should count himself lucky he was getting any attention at all.
'Pardon?' she said.
'Four weeks,' he said, glaring at her. 'What do you call that? I call it appalling, myself.'
'Pardon?' she repeated frostily.
'The robbery, woman, the robbery. Good God, we have thieves swarming all over the house and what do the police do about it?
Nothing, that's what. Absolutely nothing. Can you imagine how my dear wife . . .'
She held up her hand. 'Yes, yes,' she said. 'But I'm here now, so why don't we get on with it? I gather you were meant to be drawing up a list of everything that was stolen. H
ave you got it?'
Still grumbling and stroking his moustache with fury, he grudgingly led the way in. 'Waste of time, I suppose,' he complained as they passed through a dusty entrance hall into a dark, wood-panelled study. 'Can't imagine you'll get anything back now.'
He flung open the top of a desk in the corner and extracted a sheet of paper. 'There you are,' he said. 'Best I can do.'
Flavia looked at it and shook her head despairingly. The chances of getting anything back were always fairly small, even when the descriptions were complete and photographs appended. Any burglar with even half a brain knew that it was imperative to get stolen goods over the border fast.
But this thief needn't have bothered. The list was about as useful as an old sweet packet. On the other hand, it did provide a useful cover for the department's tardiness. No one could blame them if Alberghi's goods were never seen again.
'"One old landscape. One silver pot, an old bust, two or three portraits,"' she read. 'Is that all you could manage?'
For the first time she got him on the defensive, and his moustache twirling switched from aggressive to defensive mode. 'Best I could do,' he repeated.
'But this is useless. What do you expect us to do now? Go round and examine every portrait in Europe in the hope one might turn out to be yours? You're meant to be an art expert, for heaven's sake.'
'Me?' he said scornfully. 'I know nothing about it.'
In the circumstances, Flavia thought that the tinge of pride in his voice was misplaced. A small amount of expertise would have greatly increased his chances of recovering his family possessions. Mind you, now she thought about it, he did not look much like a museum curator to her.
'I thought you worked for a museum,' she said.
'Certainly not,' he said. 'That was my uncle, Enrico. He died last year. I'm Alberto. Army man,' he said, chin jutting up and chest popping out at the very mention.
'Isn't there a list or inventory or something? Anything would be better than this.'
"Fraid not. Uncle had it all in his mind.' He tapped the side of his head as he spoke, in case Flavia was uncertain where his uncle's mind might have been located. 'Never got around to writing it down. Pity, but there it was. Would have done.' He lowered his voice as though revealing a family scandal. 'A bit - you know - in his last years,' he said confidingly.
'What?'
'Ga-ga. The old brain box. Not what it was. You know.' He tapped his head again, a bit mournfully this time. Then he cheered up a little. 'Still,' he went on. 'Eighty-nine. A good run. Can't complain. Hope I last so long, eh? eh?'
Flavia agreed, although privately thinking that the sooner the old fool dropped dead the better, then wondered if there were any insurance documents that might provide a bit of help.
Colonel Alberghi shook his head again. 'None,' he said. 'I know that, because I went through his papers when he died and looked again after that fella came.'
'What fella?'
'Chap turned up, wondering if I wanted to sell anything. Damned impertinence. Sent him away with a flea in his ear, I can tell you.'
'Hold on a second. You didn't mention this to the carabinieri.'
'Didn't ask.'
'What man was this?'
'I told you. He turned up and knocked on the door. I sent him away.'
'Did he look around the house?'
'Damned silly maid let him in here to wait for me.'
'And what did he look like?'
'Didn't see him. Maid phoned me, and I told her to chuck him out. Didn't give up, though.'
'What do you mean?'
'He rang a couple of days later. I told him I hadn't the faintest idea what my uncle had owned, but I did know I didn't want to - didn't need to - sell any of it.'
'I suppose it's too much to hope that you got his name?'
'Sorry.'
Flavia had thought so, somehow. 'And what was stolen from here?'
'Ah, now. Let me see.'
'A painting,' she hinted, pointing at the patch on the woodwork that had evidently been covered by something.
'Yes, yes. Perhaps. A portrait? Great grandfather? Or may be his father. Perhaps it was my great grandmother? Do you know, I never paid much attention to it.'
Evidently. 'And what about that empty pedestal there?'
'Ah, yes. A bust. Big damn ugly thing, it was. I was going to grow a pot plant over it.'
'Too much to hope for a description, I suppose?'
'Just given you one,' he said. 'I'd recognise it if I saw it.'
Not much chance of that, she thought. 'I'll put out a search request for a big, damn ugly bust, sex indeterminate, then,' she said sarcastically. 'Can I see this maid of yours?'
'Why?'
'It's quite usual for thieves to case a place before they burgle. Posing as an art dealer is a good way of going about it.'
'You mean he was looking the place over? The cheek of it!' Alberghi said, puffing up with righteous indignation. 'I shall call that maid immediately. Who knows? She may well have been part of the gang.'
Flavia did her best to turn him away from the idea of international conspiracies of burglars that was clearly forming in his mind, and pointed out that the robbery – a simple brick through the window when the house was empty - hardly required an inside hand to succeed.
Nor was the maid, a woman of at least eighty years and almost bent double with arthritis, the archetypal gangster's moll. The moment she saw the old biddy, Flavia had the feeling she was going to be as blind as a bat. It was one of those days.
A youngish man, the maid said, which was a start, but then she pointed at the colonel, a man in his late fifties, and said that maybe he was the same age as the master. Tactically acute though; Alberghi was quite pleased.
After much patient questioning, Flavia established that the purported art dealer was between thirty and sixty, medium height, and had no distinguishing features she could remember.
'Hair?' she asked.
That's right, she said. He had some.
'I mean, what colour?'
She shook her head. No idea.
Marvellous. Flavia snapped her notebook shut, stuffed it back in her bag and said she was going to go.
'Frankly, Colonel, I think you can wave goodbye to your pieces. We pick stuff up every now and then, and when we do, we'll give you a call. Apart from that, the only thing I can recommend is that you keep your eye on auction sale catalogues, in case you see something you recognise. If you do, let us know.'
Alberghi, with a sudden spurt of regimental courtesy, swept ahead to open the door for her as she left. The gesture was spoilt by a noisy yapping sound and a heartfelt, military style stream of cursing as a tiny dog ran in and almost swept him off his feet. This was evidently the ferocious animal advertised on the gate.
'Get that beast out of here,' he instructed the maid. 'Which one is it, anyway?'
The old woman, with remarkable agility, pounced on the animal, swept it into her bosom and cradled it gently. 'There, there,' she said, and patted it on its head. 'This one is Brunelleschi, sir. The one with a white spot and the clouding eyes.'
'Horrid little things,' he said, eyeing it like someone wondering how it would do as a pot roast.
'It seems quite sweet,' Flavia said, noting that the old lady's hearing and eyesight weren't so bad after all. 'Odd name, though.'
'My uncle's,' he said mournfully. 'Otherwise I'd get rid of them. Arty type, as you know, so gave his dogs stupid names. Other one's called Bernini.'
'Oh, good,' said Bottando as Flavia arrived back in the office at slightly after nine. She was planning to dump her notes on the desk for typing up the next morning, then go home for a long bath and an evening's self-indulgent misery in front of the television. There was never anything worth watching, which made it an even more appropriate way of wasting time. 'I was hoping you'd come back. Got something for you.'
She looked at him with cautious disapproval. He had on his air of amiable benevolence, which generally
meant having to do something she'd rather avoid.
'What is it now?'
'Well, I thought of you, you see,' he said. 'Because of your friend Argyll. Just the person, I thought.'
There was, at the moment, no surer way of irritating Flavia than to think of her because of Jonathan Argyll, so she sniffed loudly, got on with rearranging papers on her desk and tried to ignore him.
'This murder, and theft. The one in Los Angeles. It's causing quite a stir, you know. Even made the evening news. Did you see it?'
Flavia pointed out that she'd spent the last few hours wasting time talking to military idiots in the countryside, not idling away in her office with her feet up. Bottando brushed the comment aside.
'Quite. The point is that the police there have been on the phone. A man called Morelli. Speaks Italian, surprisingly. Just as well, otherwise I'd have had enormous difficulties understanding him . . .'
'Well?'
'They want us to pick up their prime suspect. A man called di Souza, do you know him?'
As patiently as possible, Flavia said she didn't.
'I'm surprised. He's been around for years. Awful old fraud. Anyway, it seems he and Moresby were having a row about a Bernini that di Souza smuggled out of the country. Moresby dead, Bernini gone and di Souza, so they reckon, on the next plane back to Italy. It gets into Rome in about an hour, and they want us to grab him and bung him back.'
'Not our department,' she said shortly. 'Why not try the carabinieri?'
'Paperwork. By the time all the international liaison departments had finished organising it, the plane would have been sold for scrap. So your friend Argyll recommended us. Good idea. Quick thinking. Could you, er . . .'
'Miss dinner and spend the night hanging around Fiumicino? No.'
Bottando frowned sternly. 'I really don't know what's got into you these days,' he said. 'What on earth is the matter? It's not like you, all this bad temper and uncooperative attitude. You used to spend most of your time begging me for jobs like this. But if you insist, you can get back to being a simple researcher. Full time. I'll get a proper member of the polizia to do it.'
Flavia sat down on the desk and looked at him mournfully. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know I've been a pain recently. I just don't seem to have much enthusiasm for anything these days. I'll go to the airport for you. I suppose it might perk me up a bit, arresting someone.'