by David Hewson
“I read,” he answered immediately, stung by the question. “We all do.”
“You’ve lost me,” Costa confessed.
“They have a certain little club, Nic,” she explained. “Men without girlfriends often do, I believe. They think it’s their duty to behave like stuck-up pigs when they feel like it because that is what a true Roman gentleman does, and has done for five centuries or so—”
“A knight offends fearlessly,” Malaspina interrupted, sounding as if he were quoting something. “For therein, and only therein, lies true distinction.” Then he smiled, as if it were all a joke. “But only in the right circumstances. Most of the time I’m an absolute angel.”
Agata Graziano looked at him the way a teacher would regard a stupid child.
“So was Caravaggio. Yet he spent the last four years of his life fleeing a murder charge and squandering his talent,” she observed mildly. “Violence in the name of honour. What did it get him?”
“We’re still talking about him, aren’t we?” Then, with no warning, he turned to Costa and asked, “Are you part of this investigation into the death of Véronique Gillet and those prostitutes?”
“I’m not part of any investigation,” Costa said simply. “I thought I’d made that clear. Tonight…” He raised his glass again. “.…I’m merely happy to drink your wine. Why?”
“Because I knew her, of course,” Malaspina responded. “We all did.”
“Poor Véronique,” Agata added. “I met her once or twice, only briefly. This is a small world. Not that she said very much. I never did understand why she visited Rome so often, to be frank. The Louvre never bought anything or lent much in return either.”
“The French stole what they wanted two centuries ago,” Malaspina muttered. “What happened?”
“I have no idea,” Costa answered with a shrug. “As I said, that is not my case.”
Agata shook her head. “She was murdered, surely? What other explanation is there?”
Malaspina sighed, then said, “Véronique was a very sick woman. She didn’t have long to live. She told me so. Perhaps she was no innocent party, Officer. Have you thought of that?”
“I’ve thought of nothing.”
That answer displeased his host. “Then offer an opinion. You do have one, don’t you?”
“An opinion?” Costa drained the glass and handed it to the passing waitress, refusing another. “From what little I know, I would guess she was involved somehow. But I doubt one woman could achieve such a succession of deaths on her own. Someone must have helped her. Perhaps even instigated what went on.” He glanced at Agata, wondering whether to say what he wanted, then reminding himself that sometimes duty came before tact. “She had sex shortly before she died.”
“Well, that’s a comforting thought, anyway,” Malaspina said. “Tell me. Is that painting genuine, do you think?”
“You’ve seen it?” Costa asked.
Malaspina laughed. “Of course I’ve seen it!” he responded. “The money I give to the Barberini… If they didn’t call me in to get a private view of something like that, I’d want to know why.” He enjoyed Agata’s discomfort. “Oh dear. You feel some misplaced sense of ownership towards the thing. That’s a pity.”
He leaned down to peer into her pert face. “It’s called ‘privilege’ for a reason, dearest. So… is it genuine?”
“The painting is part of a serious investigation, sir. While this is none of my business, I would suggest that is not a question one should address publicly. For reasons of—”
“I’ll address it,” Agata interrupted. “Professionally I will not be able to say this for many weeks. All the obvious signs are there. We had some results for the pigment tests and the canvas this afternoon. They date to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The X-rays show it is a virgin work, with nothing of any import underneath except some preliminary sketches. All the trademarks… the incisions, the stylistic peculiarities we associate with the artist. More than that” — she smiled at Costa openly, with some affection — “when I stand near a Caravaggio, I feel something. A little faint, a little excited, and more than a little scared. Don’t you agree, Nic?”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“And I don’t?” Malaspina asked angrily. There was heat in his cheeks now. The transformation was immediate and astonishing. “You think I am somehow less perceptive than the two of you?”
“I have no idea, Franco,” she replied sweetly. “Your true feelings about anything are entirely unknown to me. When I see evidence of them, I shall judge.”
“Best be nice to me, Agata.” Malaspina nodded at the room around him. “That way you can hope to come and see it here if I happen to be feeling generous. This will be one Caravaggio the hoi polloi won’t sully. The Palazzo Malaspina is not the Doria Pamphilj. You’ll have to beg to get in.”
Both of them stared at him mutely for a moment. It was if a different man were now talking to them.
“What do you mean?” she asked eventually. “The painting is in the custody of the Barberini. No one’s mentioned it may be moved elsewhere.”
“They will. Soon too. Didn’t I tell you? I’m amazed the police haven’t found out yet. The hovel where they found it belongs to us. The Malaspina estate has been unchanged for three centuries. We never sold off one square metre. I own so much around here I find it tedious to keep track of it all. There’s even a whole precinct near the Piazza Borghese we picked up from a Pope somewhere along the way. Gambling debts or a woman, one or the other. What’s new?”
“Ownership of the studio in the Vicolo del Divino Amore scarcely makes the painting yours,” Costa pointed out.
“No? Talk to my lawyers.” His sharp black eyes held Costa. The man was laughing at them now. “If this painting isn’t mine, then whose is it? In the absence of proven title, ownership falls to the landlord. I checked with the idle little agent we employ to look after these matters. The place hasn’t been rented out for years. As far as that idiot knew, it was empty, which rather begs the question why he wasn’t seeking to rent it. If no one else can claim it, the thing is mine.”
“That may be the law,” Costa agreed. “But possession—”
“You are not listening to me,” Malaspina barked, becoming animated for the first time since Costa had been introduced to him. “Lawyers. The more you have, the more you gain. Now that I know Agata’s opinion, I will stake my claim tomorrow. Let’s see if anyone dares come to court to dispute it. I doubt it will be a long wait. You should be grateful for that, shouldn’t you? One less thing for you to worry about.”
“I wouldn’t expect any early judgments,” Costa replied, scanning the room, wondering what the others were doing.
“It’s mine!” Malaspina’s voice had risen to a shriek.
Costa stared at him. “That painting is not yours, sir. Not yet, if ever. It is evidence in a murder case in which several women have died through extreme violence. Possibly crucial evidence. That we shall see.”
“Lawyers!” Malaspina yelled. Agata took a step back. Costa stood his ground. “I will drown you in lawyers. I will send them to your home. I will have them throwing stones at your windows when you lie in bed alone at night. The painting is mine.”
“One day, possibly,” Costa acknowledged. “But not now. And not soon. Whatever case you may have for title, we are the police and we have ultimate claim when it comes to matters of physical evidence.” The thought came from nowhere and it pleased him to say it. “That which we have in our possession already, to hand.” He paused, for effect. “Identifiable and tagged.”
“You—”
“As long as this murder investigation stays current,” Costa interrupted, “that painting will remain in police custody, secure and out of sight of everyone. Once we can put someone in jail for these terrible crimes” — he smiled at Malaspina — “perhaps you can see it then.”
The man swore and with a sudden, strong flick of his wrist sent the contents of his g
lass flying into Costa’s face.
“You do not know with whom you are playing, little man,” he spat viciously.
Costa took out a handkerchief and, with no visible sign of anger, wiped the drink from his face. “I think I’m beginning to get an idea,” he observed calmly.
He looked into Malaspina’s eyes and wondered what he saw there. A kind of fury, surely. But an irrational desperation bordering on fear and despair, too. This man did not simply desire the painting they had under lock and key in the Barberini studio. He craved it, like an addict longing for his fix.
Three
“Oh dear,” Agata groaned after Malaspina had stormed off. “We’ve upset a sponsor. I must say, he’s more touchy than usual tonight. He didn’t like you being here, Nic.” She peered at him. “I think something upset him, don’t you?”
“Who knows? Is his behaviour always this erratic?”
She thought about the question. “Sometimes. Franco doesn’t much like anyone, I think. Himself most of all. There’s a sadness about him I don’t understand. You know, one time he actually made some reference to the colour of my skin. As if his is much different. All this wealth. What more could a man ask? And yet…” The smile disappeared. “You see the world of art from the outside and think it is nothing but beauty and intellectual rigour. Those things do exist. But so do ugliness and jealousy, obsession and some bitter rivalries. We’re living, breathing people, too, and while I try to avoid all that as much as I can, it is not entirely possible. In order to work, one must be strong enough to face down these problems. Véronique Gillet…” She hesitated.
“What about her?”
“She seemed a very strange, very sad woman. She frightened me a little. There was something so compulsive about her, about the way she needed to be with them all the time. She was very strong and determined about something, I don’t know what. And lost too.”
Her dark head of unruly hair had nodded in the direction of Malaspina and his acquaintances, then she gazed straight into Costa’s face.
“I’m not a worldly woman, but I must say this. Somehow, I would not be surprised had Véronique been part of Franco’s pathetic little band of hooligans.”
She stiffened inside her shapeless black dress and began to toy with the crucifix around her neck.
“Do you know what they do?” he asked.
Very quickly, with the acuity he was beginning to expect, she was suspicious.
“No. Why should I? I do hope you and Leo aren’t playing me for a fool. I promised to try to help you get to the bottom of that painting. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more,” Costa agreed.
She still didn’t look convinced. “Franco and those idiot friends of his are simply late-developing teenagers, playing a stupid game. Véronique was different. Darker, somehow. I promise you. I’ve known Franco for five years or more. He’s variously infuriating or charming, depending on his mood. He gives generously to the Barberini every year, and other charities, too, I believe. That’s the man. He is an aristocrat. He feels he can behave as he wishes. You live with it or…”
The strains of a string quartet began to drift through from an adjoining corridor. They were playing some kind of odd, atonal jazz. For Malaspina, Costa thought, nothing could be quite how one supposed.
Her glass was empty. He picked up a fresh one from a passing waitress. She took it from him, smiled, then exchanged the orange juice for prosecco from the tray.
“.…or you will never enter his world.”
“What kind of game?”
“A secret one. I don’t know. Women. Drink. A bit of upper-class football hooliganism perhaps, since I believe this is fashionable among the aristocracy once more. When he comes into the studio, Franco always talks a little about what he’s been up to. I think it’s part of his pleasure. Seeing how far he can go with a humble little thing from the Church like me. It doesn’t work. I’m not ignorant.”
Her eyes were bright and intelligent. “How can I hope to do the work I do and be blind to human frailty? Or evil? I meant it about the Mora book. All these ridiculous notions of virtue through violence. This is nothing new. Men like Malaspina and the rest have been behaving this way in Rome for centuries. Millennia even. For some it’s almost a duty.”
The expression on his face must have betrayed him.
“You’ve never heard of Domenico Mora, have you?” she asked.
“Should I?”
She grinned. “If you want to know a certain kind of male, you should. Domenico Mora was a Bolognese soldier. He wrote a book called Il Cavaliere. It was a response to a treatise on courtesy, Il Gentilhuomo, by Girolamo Muzio. Mora, being a soldier, took a different view. His thesis was that the true gentleman was beholden to no one, and best served his position by letting that be known at every possible occasion. By confrontation, violence, rudeness, and arrogance.”
“Towards women too?”
“Women weren’t important in Mora’s world, except for the obvious purpose. What mattered was one’s status. Mora said that the source of the pleasure one acquires in insolence towards others is the feeling that, in the injury you inflict, you claim an exceptional superiority over them. For the likes of Caravaggio and all those other young blades, this was a way of life. Arguments, duels, death even.” She hesitated, thinking of something. “The remarkable thing about Michelangelo Merisi is that, when it was over, he went home and painted such exquisite scenes of beauty that I must forgive him his excesses, as did the Pope in the end, though too late. Some other, greater idea still nagged away at the man. Disegno. It was in him, he knew it, and I think that caused him pain. He would have been far happier without it. He would never have painted a worthwhile canvas either, of course.”
There was sudden, raucous laughter from the far side of the room: Malaspina swaggering through the crowd, glass held high, dark face contorted with some brief manic pleasure. Costa could just catch sight of Nino Tomassoni at the edge of the crowd. He was staring at the other man with an expression of fear mingled with hate.
“It doesn’t make them happy,” Costa said.
“Is unhappiness a rarity? Caravaggio must have been the most miserable man in Rome, yet he had glimpses of heaven too. Franco and his thuggish friends will see the light, Nic. Today they toy with those ridiculous ideas. In five years’ time they’ll have wives, be fathering children, and getting apoplectic about the wayward state of society. It’s a passing phase. That’s all.”
More laughter, this time from some of the women, in their bright, expensive evening dresses, listening to Malaspina tell a crude joke at the top of his voice, so that everyone might hear.
“I can’t imagine being married,” Agata continued quietly. “It seems such a… loss of identity. We spend so much time trying to find out who we are. Then we throw it away on a whim.”
Agata Graziano looked at Costa, something unfamiliar — indecision, perhaps even fear — in her face. “I need to be presumptuous, Nic. Before you turn red in the face and refuse to answer, you should know this: I am not asking out of idle curiosity. The question pertains directly to this strange painting you and Leo brought me. Well?”
He wondered if there was anything, any part of the human experience, this woman didn’t want to understand, even if she refused — through fear, reluctance, or some inner conviction — to be a part of it herself.
“Ask away,” Costa replied.
“Which came first when you met your wife? The spiritual side? Or the physical?”
The words were so unexpected he burst out laughing, freely, with a sudden, involuntary rush of emotion he hadn’t known since Emily died.
“I have no idea.”
“Then think about it. Please.”
“I can’t. It’s not a conscious decision, one before the other. Love is…” He was blushing, and he knew it. “.…unplanned. Perhaps a little of both, I imagine.”
It was a good and interesting question and he wished, with all his heart, she hadn’t asked
it, because the thought would, he now knew, nag him forever.
“The two seemed… inseparable. I don’t know how you’d divide one from the other.”
Her sharp eyes sparkled, watching him. “If it’s not conscious, where does it come from?”
“Atheists fall in love too,” he replied, understanding where she was going.
“Which proves nothing. A blind man cannot see you or me. Does that mean we don’t exist? So tell me. What comes first?”
He shook his head, exasperated. “You can’t ask that question. I can’t answer it. Nothing’s quite that straightforward.”
He tried to think of an explanation, one that might make sense to him and to this inquisitive, quick-witted woman from a different life.
“Something happens,” he told her. “You only see it afterwards, I think.”
“Something happens? Specifics.”
“A moment. A word. A look. A thought… a recollection. The memory of a gesture. The way someone picks up a cup of coffee or laughs at a terrible joke. A smile. A frown. It…” Nic Costa sighed and opened his hands, lost for something else to say. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked. “You gave me my answer.” Agata Graziano glanced nervously at her feet, then asked, “Does it also happen at that moment, Nic? The one depicted in the painting? Is that when you truly know?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“You’re blushing very profusely,” she pointed out.
“What do you expect? This is not a conversation… not the kind of thing you talk about. With anyone. Least of all…”
But the Ekstasists wanted to capture that intense, private instant for themselves. That was why they raped and murdered on the streets of Rome. They needed to understand something. So, though she was reluctant to admit it, did Agata Graziano.
“You mean least of all someone like me?” she replied. “I would have thought I’m the obvious person. Someone who’s utterly disinterested in the matter.”
“All I can tell you is the truth as I see it.”