Painting Death

by Tim Parks

  Still holding his sleeve, the woman led him through the small apartment to the front door which was ajar and out on to the landing. There was a key in the lock and very carefully she pulled the door to, turning the key slowly to prevent any clunking. Morris was in just a pyjama top and underwear, but the night was warm.

  ‘We can’t use the lift,’ she warned.

  ‘It’s only one floor,’ Morris said.

  ‘No, we’re going up.’

  A rooftop escape? Morris was so far outside normality anything seemed possible.

  They climbed the stairs, flight after flight. On each landing a small window was open, letting in the moist air of Verona’s summer night. The stone steps felt cool under his bare feet. Ahead of him the woman was wearing a loose grey tracksuit. Her bottom seemed pleasantly mobile.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘3.00 a.m.’

  On the sixth floor, at the end of the corridor a door was ajar. Mariella slipped in and pulled him after her. At once he was aware of air conditioning, comfortable freshness and a soft hum. A moment later the light came on and as he blinked she was already draping him in a dressing gown.

  ‘Are we escaping?’ he asked. The gown was black and silky.

  She smiled the same mocking smile he had seen in Zolla’s office. ‘Someone wants to speak to you. Come in here.’

  It was a much larger apartment than his own, occupying one of the top corners of the building. Morris was led down a passageway past sombre doors with rather attractive brass handles, then into a spacious sitting room with fluffy rugs, blue sofas and regiments of silver-framed photographs on low cabinets. Double French windows led to a rooftop terrace; one could sense the glow of the city beyond.

  ‘Would you like a drink while you wait?’

  ‘Wait for what?’

  ‘The person who wants to see you.’

  ‘Do I want to see him?’ Morris asked, collapsing on the sofa. ‘If it is a him.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Mariella said. She smiled all the time, as if he were a poor innocent who would never understand.

  Could it be Zolla? Stan?

  ‘I’ll have a malt, if you’ve got one. No ice, no water.’ What she brought back was Jack Daniels. Morris let it ride. Innocent he might forever be, but he did know the difference between sour mash and malt. As she leaned over him with the drink, Morris felt an enormous desire to touch her. How many times was he likely to have sex again if they condemned him for Volpi’s murder?

  Mariella was moving away.

  ‘It was you who sent me the note in gaol, wasn’t it?’

  She looked back, smiled, then left the room. Morris waited. The Jack Daniels was disappointing, but better than nothing. How strange that he had been brought to an apartment in the same building. And that she had a key to his apartment. So who had chosen to lodge him here? His son? Antonella? On whose advice?

  He looked around to see if he could learn anything from the room. It seemed very lived in. Newspapers, fruit, empty coffee cups, a scatter of books, a woman’s cardigan over the arm of a chair, a very poor painting in the cubist style. Call it style. Morris stood and went to the French window. There were a couple of lounge beds on the terrace, the usual plants and, beyond the railings, the streets and apartment blocks of the eastern part of the city, thousands upon thousands of people breathing quietly in their beds and others sitting in the softly glowing cockpits of their cars, winding their devious ways through the sleeping metropolis. Was there still any place for Morris in this world?

  ‘Dottor Duckworth, benvenuto!’

  The voice was gravelly, familiar, and evidently speaking around some object in the mouth. Morris turned and saw a balding head bent over a flame. Cardinal Rusconi, in a bright red dressing gown, was lighting himself a thin cigar.

  ‘Surprised to see me here, I imagine.’

  Morris was indeed struggling to suppress his astonishment.

  ‘Your Eminence,’ he said quietly and walked round the sofa to take the cardinal’s hand. ‘What a pleasure.’

  Plump as Christmas pudding, Rusconi insisted on drawing Morris into a brief embrace, cheek touching cheek. Cigar smoke poisoned the air. Morris sat on the sofa, crossed his legs, pulled his own dressing gown over his knees, and waited. Rusconi stayed on his slippered feet. He was drinking something from a brandy glass. At each sip his heavy eyebrows puckered and his bulbous nose seemed to redden. Between the lapels of his dressing gown, chest hair frothed. He waddled across the room revealing varicose ankles, tapped contemplatively into an ashtray, and came back.

  ‘Your very good health,’ he said, raising his glass.

  ‘To Your Eminence,’ Morris replied.

  ‘And those who can’t be with us,’ Rusconi went on. ‘Lorenzo, and of course poor Giuseppe.’

  It took Morris a moment to appreciate that the cardinal must be referring to Don Lorenzo and Giuseppe Volpi.

  ‘Indeed,’ he agreed, ‘to Lorenzo and Giuseppe,’ but was struggling to grasp the implications of such a toast. Could Rusconi believe he had killed Volpi, if he was inviting him to raise a glass to his memory? Perhaps yes.

  His brandy drained, the cardinal again waddled across the room, this time to pick up a decanter on a distant sideboard. He seemed entirely familiar with the room and happily accustomed to being on his feet at 3.00 a.m.

  ‘You are wondering of course, why we have brought you here, Dottor Duckworth.’ Rusconi spoke between sips, puffs and satisfied exhalations. ‘But before we go into detail the first thing I must do is extend to you my thanks, or rather, the gratitude of all those involved, for your admirable reticence. It must have been extremely tempting for you, during those long days in solitary confinement, to tell the truth about what happened, name some names and win yourself concessions in return. You chose not to do so. This honourable, er, reserve on your part, will not go unrewarded.’

  Morris sat very still and wished again that they had given him something better than Jack Daniels to imbibe. He drew a deep breath, as if about to reply, then chose not to.

  The prelate paced back and forth, head slightly bowed, apparently deep in thought. Mariella popped her head round the door that led to the passageway and asked if ‘you men’ needed anything; if not, she was going back to bed until it was time to take Dottor Duckworth down. ‘By all means, cara,’ the cardinal said.

  Were they lovers, Morris wondered? Or was she his niece or something? Did the cardinal assume that Morris knew what the relationship was? If it was compromising, why wasn’t the Churchman afraid of revealing it?

  ‘Dottor Duckworth,’ the cardinal’s voice was velvety with catarrh, ‘I’m sure you won’t want me to return to the events of that unhappy evening which took our two, er, friends from us. No doubt you are expecting me to reprove you for your, er, how shall I put it “intemperate” actions on that fatal night.’ The cardinal frowned and shook his head. ‘And perhaps I should. No, I certainly should.’ He smiled. ‘On the other hand and although of course it goes without saying that I would never, er, wish anyone dead, and least of all a man of the vast, er, culture and wit, of Professor Volpi, nevertheless . . . well, yes, nevertheless there are reasons for supposing that this is God’s handiwork.’ He stopped and looked Morris straight in the face. ‘Volpi had overstepped himself.’

  ‘Quite,’ Morris agreed.

  ‘The, er, outcome might even be described as an answer to prayer.’

  ‘God moves in a mysterious way,’ Morris acknowledged.

  ‘I also found it rather touching that you insisted Don Lorenzo shrive the old beast.’ The cardinal frowned, chuckled, shook his head. ‘How many men would have been concerned about the last rites amid such mayhem?’ Again the cardinal paused and paced. ‘However, beyond the loss of two such different men and in such different ways, that evening has left us with quite innumerable and, er, most distasteful repercussions, and it is this which I am hoping you can now help us with, to your own considerable advantage of course.’

 
; As long as I don’t say anything, I can’t put a foot wrong, Morris thought. He needed another drink. Rather than ask, he gathered the dressing gown around him, got to his feet and walked to the same sideboard where the cardinal had found the decanter. Among a row of noxious digestivi and amari there was a rather dusty Oban; the bottle had that untouched look of the misguided Christmas present. Morris had no qualms about breaking the seal and pouring generously.

  The cardinal waited. Lifting the glass to his lips, Morris noted a photo showing a younger and even more joyously prosperous Mariella together, in bathing costumes, with a paunchy man who was not the cardinal, but certainly a good thirty years older than herself. Was the lady a gold digger?

  Full glass in hand, Morris returned to his seat, sat, sipped, concentrated. But now the cardinal seemed to be having trouble proceeding. The man turned around on himself two or three times, bluing the air with his cigar. At which, reflecting on their two dressing gowns, one satiny black, the other taffeta red, Morris was suddenly reminded of dubious illustrations in a childhood edition of Wind in the Willows that showed Badger and Mole in their bedroom wear. ‘Upper-class faggots,’ had been his father’s inevitable comment, on seeing the books Mother read to him.

  ‘Do you have any questions before I go on?’ the cardinal asked abruptly. Disconcertingly, he took his nose between thumb and forefinger and gave it a good squeeze, as though it might be bursting with pus.

  Morris hesitated. With a flash of intuition, he risked: ‘Actually, now that I have the chance to speak to you face to face, Your Eminence, I’d like to thank you for what you did for my son. I was going to mention it in my letter from gaol, but I thought it might be, er, inappropriate, in black and white, so to speak.’

  Letting go of his nose, Rusconi smiled. ‘Not at all. Not at all. With D’Alessio heading the judges it was hardly going to be a challenge, was it?’

  ‘D’Alessio was the judge with the red hair?’ Morris enquired.

  ‘That’s right,’ the cardinal chuckled. ‘I believe dear Mousie,’ he added, ‘is doing very well for Fratelli Trevisan now.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Morris agreed, then tried: ‘Though I’m afraid he won’t be able to do much to resolve the situation at Sant’Anna.’

  ‘To the contrary!’ the cardinal laughed. ‘Didn’t he tell you? The pesty little Styx has been, how do they say, “canalised”, put in a pipe; the foundations are now laid and the school should be up before winter.’

  Morris was shocked. There was no way a lively underground stream seeping through heavily weathered limestone could so easily have been contained. Who was Mauro taking advice from?

  ‘How kind of you, though, Dottor Duckworth,’ the cardinal conceded, ‘to be sparing a thought for my little projects at such a difficult time.’

  Morris nodded. Suddenly, conveniently, he felt tears pricking.

  ‘As you can imagine, I’m extremely upset about Antonella.’

  The cardinal allowed a pained look to cloud his eyes. ‘That is, at least in part, Morris, what I would like to talk to you about.’

  Again Morris was surprised. ‘Do you think you can help me reverse my wife’s decision?’ He hesitated. ‘I’d be so grateful.’

  The cardinal, Morris now supposed, would surely be impressed by a man more worried about his marriage breakdown than an imminent life sentence. But this time the churchman assumed a rather severe expression.

  ‘Dottor Duckworth,’ he sighed. He was pinching his nose again. ‘Or may I call you Morris?’

  ‘Please do,’ Morris said.

  ‘Dottore, er, yes, sorry, Morris.’ Suddenly, the cardinal sank down on the armchair opposite and leaned towards the Englishman. ‘I have to tell you, Morris, that we have known for some time about certain, er, remains, yes, under the roof of Santi Apostoli del Soccorso in the outlying village of, er, what’s the name of the place, Montecchio di Sopra. The church with the rather remarkably, how shall I put it, well-preserved painting of Jezebel Defenestrated.’

  The cardinal sat back. Morris watched him. What a miserable tic this nose-squeezing thing was, he reflected.

  ‘Nor did it take very long,’ the cardinal continued, ‘to connect those remains with the painting, and indeed, the other extant, how shall I put it—copy?—of the same in the house of Don Lorenzo’s dear friends in Via Oberdan.’

  How pathetically roundabout all this was! Phlegmatically, Morris remarked, ‘Sounds like someone’s been talking to Stan Albertini.’

  ‘Not at all! Not at all!’ the cardinal cried. ‘We have been aware, as I said, of those remains for, er, some years now. If anything young Albertini has been an irritation. The last thing we need is for the police to start snooping around under our church roofs.’ The cardinal laughed. ‘There would be no end of secrets coming out.’

  ‘So why was nothing done?’ Morris asked politely.

  How on earth could the cardinal refer to Stan as young?

  The Churchman shook his head. ‘Such matters require prayer and reflection. One has to ask what is really in the interests of the Church, and indeed, more generally the Faith, or, dare I pronounce the word, humankind. Some of the, er, dead man’s behaviour had been unseemly, had it not, even criminal, and some of that, er, behaviour was undertaken with the connivance, perhaps more than connivance, I’m afraid to say, of men of the cloth.’ The cardinal sighed. ‘How can I deny it? The flesh, as we know, is weak. Proverbially so. Even when clad in the finest vestments. The good Lord made us thus. But was it really in anyone’s interests to have those sordid details emerge? There has been quite enough talk, don’t you think, my dear Morris, about ecclesiastical paedophilia, I mean, enough to put people on their guard. One more case would hardly be instructive. There was also the not inconsiderable, er, yes, not inconsiderable concern that the person, er, shall we say responsible for the presence of these remains was the husband of a dear friend of ours and, what’s more, a most reliable and generous, yes, extremely generous benefactor of Christian causes.’

  At this point the cardinal arched his tufted eyebrows with friendly complicity. ‘Don Lorenzo was always adamant on this point, I mean, that such generosity is rare, very rare, and not lightly to be, er, sacrificed to, how can I put it, naive and fundamentalist conceptions of justice and propriety. How many people, do you think, have benefitted from your charity over the years, Dottore . . . er, Morris. Countless, countless men and women. Well, they owe that charity in part to our indulgence, our silence.’

  At this point Morris was sorely tempted to ask the slimy hypocrite who exactly he meant when he kept saying ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘ours’—the Church? A bunch of Freemasons? A group of sadomaso perverts?—but he knew he mustn’t. The cardinal obviously imagined that Antonella had told him far more than she actually had about her ecclesiastical contacts and their jolly get-togethers. Morris mustn’t disabuse him.

  ‘So why was nothing done to help when I was arrested?’ he said bluntly. Then added for good measure, ‘And what about the young Arabs?’ He drained his Oban and looked the cardinal straight in the eye. Sooner or later, if only by inference, some kind of truth would emerge.

  ‘Young Arabs?’ The cardinal seemed puzzled but alert. ‘I’m afraid I only know the, er, one or two older ones.’

  ‘You’re not aware, then, of Volpi’s contacts with Libyan art traffickers?’

  ‘Dottor Duckworth, I don’t think we need—’

  ‘Morris.’

  The cardinal stopped, thought, appeared to change his mind. ‘Obviously there were all kinds of . . . aspects, yes, aspects of Beppe’s, er, approach to the world that had become . . . unsustainable. Otherwise it wouldn’t have . . .’

  ‘Why wasn’t I helped?’ Morris repeated. ‘It’s a disgrace.’

  The cardinal was not unsettled: ‘We are helping you, caro Morris, really we are. And more help would have been forthcoming if a certain prominently placed individual had not put very considerable obstacles in our path, testifying repeatedly ag
ainst you and offering the inspectors a very strong narrative of motivation, apparently oblivious to the consequences if you really began to speak about what happened that evening. Alas, some people lose their heads in these situations. They choose to live in denial and the rest of us have to carry the can. Of that, more anon.’

  The cardinal smiled. His teeth, Morris noticed, as the man bit his cigar, had an unhappy, gummy look about them.

  ‘However, you must admit, that if a person blunders into a cellar where he knows there is a freshly butchered corpse, gets his feet dirty with blood, walks it around miles of stairways and corridors, puts his fingerprints on every visible surface, has himself seen by attentive museum guards and hordes of tourists, then to cap it all gets himself arrested with photos of the said corpse in his mobile, this despite the fact that he hasn’t bothered to inform the police, well there’s not much even Dio onnipotente can do to help, is there?’

  The cardinal raised his eyebrows in rhetorical interrogation and sighed deeply.

  ‘Why did you do that, Morris? To be quite honest your behaviour both the evening and the morning after rather bewildered us.’

  Morris ignored the question. ‘Not even if that person hadn’t done the butchering?’ he asked evenly. He felt proud of himself for having finally framed the question, so beautifully non-committally too.

  In response the cardinal shook his head and found it necessary to squeeze his nose again. He seemed exasperated. ‘Caro Morris, from the video footage that I’ve seen your, er, involvement in the matter seems undeniable. Though how actually you came to be there I’m not quite sure. I had only heard advance proposals of your initiation. All the same, as far as the police are concerned, they have their man. Nor is it easy, as I said before, when we have someone, er, working against us, or rather, against you.’

  Morris wished to heaven the man would be a bit clearer. Video footage! The cardinal now stood to fill their glasses. Doing so, his red gown briefly fell open revealing to Morris the furriest inner thighs imaginable, plus a squat wodge of swarthy wedding tackle wedged between. The Englishman was disgusted.