by Tim Parks
‘Tarik is an old boyfriend,’ she said, as if this had been obvious all along. ‘I pretended he was my brother so you wouldn’t mind his sharing the flat. He had nowhere to go.’
‘But . . .’
‘You don’t think I’d get involved in a threesome with my own brother, do you?’
Morris remembered a Bertolucci film where this had indeed happened, but decided not to go there.
‘I won’t deny that we occasionally consoled each other. That stuff happens when your man’s always away, and married, and has children, and runs a major company, and an art show, and thinks he’s God. Shhh!’ She put a finger on his lips. ‘But I always knew the one I really loved was you, and Tarik accepted that. After all, he has his jihad to think about. He’s too serious.’
‘How come you two got to know Volpi?’ Morris asked.
The girl sighed. Outside the window, a sky of scattered cloud was paling.
‘When I told Tarik about our visit to Castelvecchio, it seemed he’d already heard of him. He said he wanted to get to know him.’
‘Why?’
‘He thought he could pick up some easy money. And introduce him to friends.’
Morris stared at her.
Samira spelled it out: ‘Tarik has a rather unpleasant little strategy for paying his way in the world. That’s one of the reasons I left him. I guess he realised that Volpi was a sex pig.’
Morris was shocked. ‘I always thought he was a holier-than-thou Moslem in an evil Western world.’
She frowned. ‘What you have to understand about Tarik is that the more he degrades himself, the more solemn he becomes about Islam. Between imams and perverts he has a lot of odd friends. The idea is that one day he’ll use one lot to make the other pay.’
‘Pay?’
‘He fantasises gunning them all down.’
‘Why were you naked when I arrived that evening?’ Morris asked.
‘It was warm!’ she laughed. ‘Actually, Tarik was expecting someone. He asked me to help him get in the mood. And there was the dope of course.’
‘Was this someone Volpi?’
‘No, not Volpi.’
There was a pause. Daylight was stealing over her brown body. She should have left ages ago.
‘Actually, I thought it was great when we all three made love together. You shouldn’t be upset. It was just one of those strange things that happen.’
‘You made fun of me the following morning.’
‘It’s fun to make fun of you!’
Morris was determined to stay calm. ‘Please,’ he asked, ‘tell me everything you remember about that evening. After the threesome. When did I leave your flat? Did you two go to Castelvecchio that night?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Morris. Why would we do that?’
‘Just tell me what you know about that evening.’
‘What’s the last thing you remember?’
‘We all made love, then I fell asleep. Next thing I know I woke on my sofa at home.’
She sighed. ‘While you were sleeping, Tarik’s “friend” came. The guy he’d been planning to see when you arrived. We were worried he’d see you, so Tarik pulled on some clothes, met him at the door and headed out.’
‘It wasn’t Volpi?’
‘I told you! Then after about half an hour—’
‘You really have no idea who it was? Didn’t you see him?’
Samira frowned. ‘Tall, slim, early forties, maybe. A suit. Oh, a moustache, embarrassed-looking. I thought, Tarik has got lucky.’
‘Ah.’
She cocked her head. ‘You know who it is?’
‘Maybe. But you were saying, after about half an hour . . .’
‘We made love again . . .’
‘Impossible!’
‘It was the coke, Morris. I gave you a little coke. Actually rather a lot. You were wild.’
Oh this strict Moslem youth. Morris shook his head.
‘Anyway, then we went out to dinner. At the trattoria in Piazza San Zeno. You kept saying you were definitely going to leave your wife after this show. And I was saying why not before, and you said because you didn’t want to have a scandal before the show and I was saying that that was just an excuse and that after the show you’d find some other reason for putting it off. It was a lovely evening and people kept looking at us and for once you didn’t seem to mind. It was the coke I suppose. Perhaps coke can cause amnesia. Actually I seem to remember we both sniffed another line in the bathroom, and then . . .’
‘I got a phone call.’
‘You do remember!’
‘I checked on my Vodafone account. Did I say who it was from?’
She frowned and tried to remember. ‘You did, yes. You started telling funny stories about an old priest you thought had been your wife’s lover. We were laughing our heads off.’
‘My wife’s mother’s lover, surely.’
‘You definitely said your wife’s.’
Morris was perplexed. ‘And?’
‘After the call you said you’d have to go,’ she went on. ‘Apparently he wanted to see you pretty urgently. Something about a painting he wanted someone to paint.’
‘A painting!’ When had Don Lorenzo ever called Morris about a painting? This couldn’t be right. ‘Not about joining a club?’
‘Not that I recall. I asked if I could come along and you said no and we had an argument about it.’
‘What time was it?’
‘You went around eleven, I guess,’ Samira said. ‘I was pretty pissed off to be honest.’
Chapter Nineteen
THE POLICE ARRIVED AT eight o’clock. By the time Morris let them in Samira had gathered her clothes and was sitting in the bottom half of the bedroom closet, the only possible hiding place in the tiny apartment.
‘How are we this morning, Meester Dackwert?’ asked the older of the two.
‘I was sleeping,’ Morris said, to explain his slowness. Turning round he swept the phone off the table into the pocket of his dressing gown. ‘Can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying being out of gaol!’
‘Complimenti,’ the officer said, hitching up his pants a little. He was well built, lumbering and overfamiliar, Morris thought.
More diligently, the younger of the two was looking round the room.
‘You’re aware that you’re not supposed to use email or chatlines, Signor Dackwert,’ he remarked, indicating the laptop.
‘Naturalmente,’ Morris said. ‘I’ve been playing chess with myself.’
‘We will need the IP,’ the policeman told him.
Morris asked if he could offer them a coffee. ‘Do sit down, gentlemen.’
The younger man, who had a strangely earnest, intellectual look, was now opening the door into the rest of the flat.
‘Look anywhere you like!’ Morris called gaily.
‘I’d like a coffee, yes,’ the older man said. He sat on the sofa and twisted his neck to study Sardanapalus, still propped on the floor. ‘Quite a scene,’ he remarked.
‘An Assyrian version of house arrest,’ Morris laughed.
Preparing the espresso pot he began to tell the officer the story. The other man was opening another door. Through to the bedroom?
‘Encircled by the enemy, he decided to have one last orgy.’
‘Sounds like Berlusconi,’ the officer laughed.
‘With milk or without?’ Morris called. Exactly as he spoke he noticed Samira’s handbag on the low table by the door.
‘Do you want me to put some milk on as well?’ Morris repeated innocently.
Came the sound of furniture being shifted, or perhaps a window opened.
This time the older man responded. ‘Not for me.’
‘Biscuits?’ Morris called.
‘We expected,’ the officer said, ‘with your reputation, Signore, that you would be in a, er, grander place.’
What on earth could the other policeman be doing?
‘Unlike the Assyrian king,’ Morris said cheerfully,
‘I do not own the family home, which is actually my wife’s property; she has taken advantage of my absence to ask for a separation.’
‘Very wise,’ the officer said disconcertingly. Had he understood? ‘Niki!’ he called out, ‘Niki, come and look at this crazy painting.’
There was no reply.
Do not go and check, Morris ordered himself. He was washing coffee cups in the sink. Do not try to do anything about the handbag. Or the cigarettes. Samira had left a pack of Diana on the table beside the computer. Would they know he didn’t smoke? And since when did any man ever smoke Diana?
Just as the coffee began to bubble up there was the sound of the toilet flushing. Morris took a deep breath and savoured the relief, though it was irritating the man hadn’t asked.
‘Cigarette?’ He suddenly decided it might actually be useful if they supposed him effeminate.
‘Thanks, but I’ll smoke one of my own, if you don’t mind.’
The younger man returned and seemed a little more relaxed. Morris offered to check the computer IP while the two smoked and chuckled over the painting.
‘Shag that,’ one remarked of the Paola look-alike with the knife at her throat. The younger policeman made a gesture of gathering a handful of arse in his hand. Neither seemed to think it odd that Morris had offered them a saucer as an ashtray.
‘Centonovantenove, trecentosessantadue, zeroventisette,’ he sang. ‘But let me write it down for you.’
As soon as they were gone, he undressed again and opened the wardrobe just a crack so that the first thing Samira saw . . .
‘Hmmm, cock,’ she laughed.
After this near-miss, Morris decided to calm down. He must. For hours at a time, day after day, he surfed the net. What else was there to do? He was surprised how little the newspapers had written about the murder. Usually the Italian press went to town over such macabre melodramas. The fact was that Morris’s arrest was universally understood to have resolved the case; there had been a bitter quarrel over control of the museum, journalists wrote, and a deep personal animosity. The corpse had been left in an attitude that recalled an etching the Englishman owned. Morris Duckworth was known to have bizarre psychological quirks and might well be asking for a psychiatrist’s examination and reduced responsibility.
What complete and utter nonsense! Morris shook his head. Bizarre psychological quirks! Like what? Running an efficient business? Could it be, he wondered, that the entire Italian press was censored and controlled? To avoid mention of the confraternità?
More avidly, he read all he could find about Painting Death. The Castelvecchio website gave a full list of the works in the show. Morris downloaded photos of the paintings and set up a PowerPoint presentation. What kind of captions would be most effective, he wondered? ‘First men, first murder,’ he typed beside Titian’s Cain and Abel.
‘Not everyone can please God and it’s hard when your younger brother becomes the Almighty’s favourite. Strike him down! Titian adds a stormy sky and gives us the action from a low angle. Bloody and brutal, but aesthetically exciting. Now God can banish Cain, the world has its first refugee, and history is on the move.’
Morris liked this. 342 characters. Succinct and provocative. A little information panel beside could give the technical details. He called up Judith Slaying Holofernes and wrote. ‘Dressed to decapitate! There are two weapons here, female beauty and the sword. In fancy jewels and make-up, Judith strikes with God’s blessing. Holofernes deserves it because he wants to destroy the Children of Israel and seduce a pure woman. Raped in her teens, Artemisia Gentileschi painted this murder over and over with increasing relish. We all love a lady who kills in a good cause.’
Morris adjusted a word here and there, reorganised a little phrasing. 390 characters. A little long perhaps. Could he whittle it down a word or two? It was such a pleasurable way to spend the time.
Sickert was next. The Camden Town Murders should definitely be hung in juxtaposition to Judith, he thought. It was intriguing how the artist’s pointillism meshed with an atmosphere of defeat and sadness, quite the opposite of Gentileschi’s lethally bold brushstrokes.
‘Whodunnit!’ That was how to start. ‘The Ripper sits beside his naked victim, head bowed, face and identity hidden, a man defeated by his own sick libido. The woman is not beautiful except in her painted death. If Sickert himself briefly became a murder suspect, it is because we all feel the link between the criminal and artistic impulses. Both reduce a woman to inert object.’
351 characters.
Suddenly feeling immensely pleased with himself and absolutely determined that one way or another he would go and see the show, his show, Morris opened Parkes’s website. He clicked on the contact page and mailed him half a dozen captions. ‘Dear Mr. Parkes,’ he wrote. ‘Professor Zolla informed me that you will be writing the captions for the show Painting Death. Since the idea for the show was mine and I was originally to have written the captions myself, I thought you might appreciate seeing those I had already prepared. If you should wish to use them, or just cherry-pick a phrase here or there, be my guest. With admiration and best regards, your fellow Veronese and countryman, Morris Arthur Duckworth.’
Fairer than that, Morris thought, one could not get, and he decided that the thing to do with the Massacre of the Innocents was to compare it with all those American school killings. Obviously killing children en masse was an archetypal fantasy. Not something I’ve ever been guilty of, he reflected, and had just begun to write when a reply pinged back from Parkes.
‘Dear Morris (if I may),
‘How nice to hear from you. Needless to say, I have followed your career with interest over the years and was concerned to see that you have recently run into trouble with the law again. It would be a sad day for the English community in Verona if you were ever to be found guilty as charged. As for your captions, I shall certainly bear them in mind, though I think the comparison between killer and artist in the Sickert is a little strained. True the woman is dead and painted, but not killed by pen or paintbrush. Anyway, many thanks for these. Your friend Zolla has given me an impossible deadline, so they may come in handy. If there’s anything I can do in return, let me know. And buona fortuna!’
Come in handy! Morris had always loathed correspondents who presumptuously if-I-mayed your first name, then wouldn’t even sign their own. He replied: ‘Many thanks for this swift response, Mr. Parkes. The paintbrush may not kill, but it certainly embalms. Could you do something for me in return? Find out who really killed Doctor Volpi!’
That same afternoon Morris’s lawyer Carla Cogni came by with two policemen in attendance. Meaty in a tight skirt, the forty-five-year-old was insanely busy with her hands, writing notes, lighting cigarettes, sending text messages, lifting and dropping two pairs of glasses strung round her neck depending on what she needed to be looking at from hard shiny eyes.
‘The good news,’ she quickly told him, ‘is that we have an early date for the trial. 10 July.’
The 10th! That was just twenty-four hours after the opening of Painting Death. Morris couldn’t quite see why this surprising celerity was so positive. He was beginning to enjoy house arrest.
‘The forensic evidence is good too,’ she told him, flicking through papers and playing with a pen. ‘I won’t bore you with the technicalities of blood coagulation and bruising, but it seems the corpse was already undressed when stabbed and already on the chair. It will be clear that your confession was made up.’
‘That part of it,’ Morris rejoined.
‘Obviously, we’ll be expecting your wife to testify that you were sitting together on the sofa the Saturday evening. And hopefully the children and the maid. I presume there won’t be any problem with that? Family testimony doesn’t count for much, but if we don’t get it, it could be damaging.’
Carla looked at her client blindly through her reading glasses which made her shiny eyes rather grotesque, Morris thought. The truth was he had begun to feel that all this was
irrelevant. If he didn’t do as he was asked by the cardinal and co., he would be found guilty. And if he did, there would no longer be any need to defend himself. The charges would evaporate. As they had for his son.
‘Antonella has chucked me out of the house,’ he reminded her.
‘A marital tiff is hardly a reason for her to perjure herself,’ the lawyer smiled. ‘In the end it’s hardly in her interest to have the father of her children found guilty of murder.’
‘She’s refusing to see me,’ Morris insisted. ‘I don’t know what she will testify. And I honestly can’t remember if I saw the children or the maid that evening.’
‘But since the truth is that you were at home with her, she is bound to say that, under oath. Isn’t she?’
‘I presume so,’ Morris agreed, then added: ‘Carla, look, I feel terribly depressed. It all seems so hopeless. The truth is, I’ve been framed. They’ve stitched me up. Nobody who knows me would ever imagine I could do this kind of thing.’
Carla laughed. ‘That’s exactly what we’ll be saying in court. And they’ll believe us. You don’t go to all the effort to kill someone in these strange circumstances unless you’re sending an elaborate message to your enemies. This kind of killing has nothing to do with a personal disagreement about curating an art show. It’s to do with Freemasonry, or organised crime or both. Someone somewhere will have understood it as a coded communication.’
‘We have no evidence of that.’
‘It’s not our job to have evidence,’ Carla told him. ‘It’s theirs. We just show that you’re an individual Englishman who has never had anything to do with all that Italian skulduggery.’ Carla chuckled: ‘On the evidence side, though, we do now know that Volpi left a job in Reggio Calabria because he was accused of molesting a young male member of staff, and another in Bari because two artworks under his care disappeared. He was dismissed from the University in Cagliari for selling exams, and from the civic museum in Crotone for taking a cut when handing out the contract for the museum’s alarm system.’
‘And so?’
‘And so he still found a job running Castelvecchio. What does that tell you?’