by Iain Pears
Flavia nodded. So far what he was saying fitted in exactly with the jottings in the Swiss sketchbooks.
‘Once you’ve painted it, then it has to be artificially dried and aged. An oil painting takes years to dry completely, sometimes half a century. There’s no bigger giveaway than a Renaissance picture which is sticky. That, incidentally, is how Wacker, the Van Gogh forger, got caught in the 1930s.
‘Drying can be done in several ways,’ he continued. ‘The traditional method is to bake it – preferred temperatures vary from forger to forger – then roll it up in several directions to crack the surface, then dip it in a solution of ink to darken the cracks and make them look dirty. That, at least, was the Van Meegeren method, and he was one of the greatest. Couldn’t paint for tuppence, but a great forger.
‘Of course, there are ways of checking all that. The Elisabetta was analysed for the way it had dried, the direction and type of the cracking were examined, bits of paint were scraped off and tested in a dozen different ways, the dirt boiled up and analysed chemically. All perfect, as I say.’
‘So you’ve told us how to get caught. How about not getting caught?’ Argyll suggested.
‘There are some ways, I suppose,’ Anderson replied reluctantly. ‘As far as drying goes, you might try a low-voltage microwave oven, perhaps. That would produce a different method of drying out. Not foolproof, by any means, but it wouldn’t produce the tell-tale signs one looks for to indicate normal baking. Cracking is also relatively simple if you are careful to preserve the original pattern on the host painting. Doing it is incredibly hard, but it is possible.
‘In the case of the Raphael, you could dissolve the dirt from the original painting in some solution of alcohol and spread that over the surface. When it was tested it would be seen as being of a mixture of different substances, which is what it should be. The alcohol would also show up, but in this case might be confused with the substances we used to clean the thing.
‘But it’s paint itself which proves it. It’s difficult to see how to get round that, and we tested it endlessly. Spectroscope, electron microscope, dozens of different routines. There can be no doubt. It was sixteenth-century, Italian, painted with Raphael’s techniques. Genuinely old paint. Not just new paint mixed with old recipes. Old paint. Everything worked out perfectly. Which is why I don’t really believe it was a fake.’
‘I know how it was done,’ said Argyll quietly. They both looked at him. ‘It’s just occurred to me. Flavia, you told me the tests on the paint were done from a thin, long strip from the left-hand side of the picture?’ She nodded.
‘So why couldn’t the painter have left that bit from the original sixteenth-century picture? Paint over the central portion and match the background and portrait up. Then you could test to your heart’s content, and the tests would have been positive every time.’
‘Is that possible?’ Flavia asked Anderson.
He considered the matter. ‘Technically, I suppose so. Of course it would be a bit difficult to hide the joins from X-rays, but that might be done if you add a small amount of metallic salt to blur the picture. If I remember, there was some blurring, but we were in a hurry, it was a new machine, so everyone assumed it was just a glitch. The real problem with that interpretation is how could any forger be sure the right bit of paintwork was tested?’
‘That was no trouble at all. You were told to test that bit, weren’t you? And who told you, eh?’
‘The museum did.’
‘You spoke to the museum yourself? They wrote to you?’
‘No. Sir Edward told us. He said the museum didn’t want any damage…’
‘Aha.’ Argyll leaned back in his chair once more, crossed his arms and nodded at Flavia. ‘There you are. Problem solved. Glad you brought me now?’
Argyll was in an excellent mood as he wandered round shops and libraries the next day, collecting the final bits and pieces he needed. In truth, the previous evening had been a triumph. Not only had he put that insufferable restorer in his place and come up with a nifty idea to prove Byrnes’s guilt, he had compounded the achievement by giving Flavia his startling news as they walked back to the hotel she had chosen. He had, he told her, found the picture.
She was impressed. No doubt about it. Of course, she did insist on asking awkward questions like where was it? how had he tracked it down? and things like that. But he managed to sidestep those, saying mysteriously that she’d have to wait and see. That irritated her, but he stuck to his position. After all, he wasn’t quite as sure as he’d implied.
So, whistling contently to himself, Argyll flitted in and out of art supply shops, accumulating equipment; and visited the literary-memoir, travel and history sections of the London Library, gathering an impressively filled plastic bag of possessions.
He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. Ten minutes to go, a brief visit to Byrnes as he’d arranged by telephone earlier that day, then back to Rome on the two o’clock flight. Perfect. He began to feel he was quite good at this sort of thing.
Inside the Byrnes Gallery he gave his name to the assistant, mentioned he had an appointment, and looked at the pictures while he waited. Five minutes later he was ushered into Byrnes’s inner sanctum and shown to a seat. He declined the offer of a cup of coffee.
‘Jonathan. I didn’t know you were back in London quite so soon. How can I help you?’ Byrnes smiled gently over the half-moon glasses he used for reading. Argyll disliked them; they always gave the wearer the opportunity to peer over them at you as if he was looking at some anatomical specimen. Very affected.
‘Hardly at all,’ he said. ‘I was just passing so thought I’d drop in and say hello. Just to let you know I was around.’ He smiled inanely. He’d always been told he overdid the foolish look, but it came in decidedly useful now.
‘And why are you around? I thought you would be hard at work in Rome by now. Or have you been roped into this Raphael business as well?’
Argyll shook his head with what he hoped was a look of despair. ‘Yes. Blasted thing. I curse the day I ever thought of it. The police of course suspect me, and you, and just about everyone else. So I’m here trying to work my way into their good books – by finding the real one.’ He said it lightly, then paused significantly, looking at the plaster ceiling as he did so.
Byrnes’s left eyebrow shot up in a creditable look of astonishment. He did it well. Argyll was all admiration. ‘The real one? What are you talking about?’
‘Did the police not tell you?’ Argyll said in surprise. ‘The picture was a fake. A genuine Jean-Luc Morneau, may he rest in peace. It’ll be a very great scandal when it all comes out. If it does, that is.’ They looked at each other with the glimmerings of mutual understanding.
‘If?’
‘No proof, you see. Except for the picture, which isn’t there any more. Manzoni might have known something…’
‘But someone knifed him, it appears,’ Byrnes continued. He was now leaning on his desk, having abandoned the air of easy relaxation that had greeted Argyll on his entry. ‘I see.’
‘So now,’ Argyll continued, getting to the point in a circuitous fashion which, on the whole, seemed justified by results, ‘it’s all up to me. I’ve been asked – told might be a better word – to find the original. Prove the first one was a fake. The police think this will lead to the culprit and to Manzoni’s murderer. Simple.’
‘If you can do it,’ Byrnes pointed out.
‘I already have,’ he said smugly.
‘Where is it?’
Argyll paused once again. That, of course, was the crucial question. He was not meant to tell anyone at all about this. If Flavia ever discovered, ever even suspected, that he’d mentioned so much as a word of it to Byrnes, she’d clap him in jail without a second thought. Even alluding to the painting as a fake was bad enough. On the other hand, Argyll had to think about saving his own neck. Reaching a careful understanding with Byrnes about what was going to happen next seemed the best way of doing
it. He took a deep breath and stepped off the edge.
‘Siena,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been told not to go into details.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Byrnes replied reassuringly. ‘Quite proper.’ There was no need to go into details, of course. He could see that by the thoughtful look in Byrnes’s eyes. He’d said enough. The rest was up to Byrnes.
The conversation dragged on for a few more minutes, then, pleading urgent business, Argyll got up, made his farewells and left.
12
Bottando groaned with impatience as the telephone rang once again. He’d had a dreadful morning. His secretary, hand-picked for her ability to persuade callers to go away, was sick. The very defensiveness he complained about in Tommaso’s secretary, he treasured in his own.
In her absence, all the calls came straight through to his phone. Bottando had never realised there were so many; he’d managed to achieve virtually nothing all day. At first, he’d attempted just to let the thing ring and pretend to be out, but he couldn’t stand the thought of missing something important. Some of the calls, at least, had justified his weak will. He had been busy, although his colleagues would have been a little surprised at his occupation. He was reading through his old cases, a carefully stuck-down folder of newspaper clippings reporting on his past triumphs. The past failures, of course, he left out. Lots of policemen have such things; it works wonders for promotion to be able, casually of course, to hand over accounts of how wonderful, how zealous and how effective you’ve been. Even if the opinions are only those of journalists, it looks good.
So he had the folder, which he occasionally took down and flicked through for nostalgic reasons. It also boosted his confidence when things were not going so well. Look, the folder told him, don’t worry, see what you’ve achieved before. He was reading through an account of his great triumph in the Milan financial scandal. It reassured him he hadn’t lost his touch.
The phone rang once more, and once more he lifted the receiver. ‘ProntoBottando,’ he said, all in one, weary, word.
‘General, Ferraro here. I was wondering how the investigation was coming along.’
Bottando repressed a sigh as best he could. The man had become as much a menace as Tommaso. If one was nervous and irritable, the other was showing signs of having a breakdown. It was about the tenth call in two days. No form of vagueness, obstruction or even downright rudeness seemed to put either of them off. They had become obsessed with the Raphael, its authenticity, and demands that the culprit be found. Both of them had a lot at stake. At least this time he had something to report.
‘Quite well,’ he said. ‘My assistant has just rung to say that she is coming back to Rome this afternoon, bringing that man Argyll in tow. He seems to think he is making progress in the hunt for our missing artefact.’
‘Excellent. And where is it?’
‘That I can’t tell you, I’m afraid. Argyll is a man with an overdeveloped sense of drama. Flavia says he is keeping it as a surprise.’
‘Oh. Well, as long as he’s right this time. His track record in these matters is not so good, after all,’ the voice on the other end of the line sounded disappointed.
‘I appreciate your concern. We are also making some progress in other areas as well. But again, I can’t tell you much, if you don’t mind. Or rather, I’d prefer not to.’
‘That’s quite all right. I understand. My concern is the Raphael. The criminal side of things is your business, I suppose. But please remember I want to be kept informed.’
‘How could I possibly forget? Don’t worry. I’ll come round to the museum later and brief you and the director fully.’
It seemed worth trying as a way of deflecting further phone calls, anyway. Tiresome man. At least Tommaso was off the hook: he had an unbreakable alibi for Manzoni’s murder. Dinner with the prime minister was fairly convincing. God only knew what they must have talked about. He shuddered at the thought. Ferraro had worked late in the museum and was seen leaving at nine o’clock, which seemed to take him out of the running, as well.
Bottando tried to get through some small routine tasks necessary to keep his superiors off his back, but abandoned the work after an hour. The phone was still going, and his head was starting to ring in sympathy. As was his stomach: he had not had any lunch yet, and it was already half three.
He went over to the bookshelf in his office, removed a thick volume, and walked out of the door. If he was going to read, he would do it in a restaurant, the book propped up on a roll of bread, with a plate of pasta in front of him. Where no more phone calls could disturb his peace for an hour.
They noticed him still sitting at his table in the Piazza del Collegio Romano, as they drove through in the taxi from the airport to the office. It was an eccentric route, but the driver insisted on the deviation, explaining that there was a demonstration at the end of the Corso and the more direct way was jammed solid with a screaming mass of protestors.
Flavia yelled to stop the taxi when she saw him, they paid, and joined him at his table. It was a restaurant he used often, one of the few that was willing to serve up food at such a late hour. In most, the diners had long since been hurried away, the tablecloths shaken off and the doors closed. For the tourists, who made up the majority of eaters at this time of year, there was little else to do for the next few hours but return to their hotels, sit on the edge of a fountain, or return to the foot-blistering work of hammering over the hard cobbles in search of more artistic delights.
Bottando fussed round them and insisted on summoning the waiter for some food. ‘You must be starving. Some good food will work wonders for you. I remember well what London restaurants are like.’ He made a good-natured face and beamed at Argyll, who was a little surprised at the amiable reception.
‘Mr Argyll, I’m pleased to meet you at long last. I gather you have made another great discovery. I hope you are right this time.’
Argyll shrugged. ‘I think so. By a process of elimination I’m bound to get there eventually.’
‘It’s the elimination bit that worries me. Must it be taken so literally?’
Argyll laughed a little awkwardly, and Bottando politely suspended the conversation while they ate. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Flavia enquired.
‘This? Oh, this is the bible.’ He read them the spine of his book, ‘Who’s Who in Art. A positive treasure trove of useful information. Full of unsuspected details about our friends, colleagues and enemies.’
He flicked through some pages. ‘Take, for example, my dear friend Spello. To look at him you’d never suspect he was once a senior advisor to the Vatican, back in the 1940s, would you? Such an unkempt man. And they’re such snappy dressers at the Vatican. He must have been very young. I imagine he considered he had a great career ahead of him, rather than merely a secondary position buried in Etruscan statuary. Or that our beloved minister, a very lumpy dolt of military aspect and no apparent delicacy whatever, has a passion for bonsai gardening? Or that Tommaso’s secret desire is to be a painter?’
‘It says that?’
‘Not exactly. But he told me he plans to retire and paint at his villa, and it says here that he once trained at an art school. In Lyons, no less. So, I conclude that he really wanted to be a painter. Evidence plus logical analysis. That’s detection.’
‘And now I suppose you are going to say he was wonderful at it and made a particular study of Raphael?’
‘No, Flavia, no. Would that it were so simple and easy. Alas, poor man, I think he was probably not good at all, and had the sense to look after the paintings of others rather than create his own. Besides, one of the few things we’ve established is that, if it was a fake, then Morneau was the faker. What we need now is proof of something. Which is a task you seem to have taken upon yourselves. So, tell me. Where is it?’
‘Siena,’ Argyll replied simply. Bottando looked surprised. ‘Are you sure? How do you come to that conclusion?’
‘Because it’s the only concl
usion to come to. It wasn’t in the Clomorton collection, it wasn’t in the di Parma collection, and it has disappeared. Therefore…’
‘Therefore…?’ prompted Bottando.
Argyll looked superior. ‘I don’t think I’ll tell you. I might still be wrong. Anyway, you have the facts. You can work the rest out yourself. Evidence plus logical analysis, General. That’s detection.’
‘Very funny. Still, as long as I know where you’re going, and as long as you find the thing, I suppose the details can wait. Are you going up there?’
‘Tomorrow morning. I don’t think there’s any need to rush up immediately. I think it’s quite safe for the time being,’ Flavia answered, then broke off to order a coffee. It would play havoc with her stomach juices, but she reckoned she needed something to sip.
‘It may be, but you may not. Some protection might be a good idea when you go,’ Bottando continued.
Flavia shook her head again. ‘No. If we go roaring up the autostrada in a fleet of armed police cars there’ll be an enormous fuss. Initially it’ll be much better to go up quietly and check the thing out. Then you can put as many armed guards around us as you like. The more the better, in fact. But if we go clomping about the place like that, someone will talk. And it’ll be all over the newspapers tomorrow morning. Just make sure you keep it to yourself.’
‘Yes. You are possibly right. What time will you go?’
‘First thing tomorrow morning. Before that I need to draw some money, make out an expenses slip to catch the deadline for the next paycheque, have a nice shower, and collect some clothes.’