The questioning, on the whole, was routine. Where was he, who did he talk to, and so on. All accounted for up to the moment when he had wandered away from Bottando. ‘And then?’
‘To be perfectly frank, I can’t remember. I haven’t the faintest idea who I talked to. I remember lecturing someone about the restoration of prints. I know that, because I thought to myself that, if I’d been sober, I’d realise I was being extraordinarily dull.’
Bottando considered this and then, with apparent indifference, started off on another tack. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘were you one of the people who did the tests on that picture? I looked through the report the other day. You signed it, didn’t you?’
Manzoni nodded. ‘I did. I was in charge of the operation. The actual tests were carried out by the English experts called in by Byrnes who were more familiar with the machinery.’
‘I see. So Byrnes’s people actually had their hands on the painting?’ The man nodded.
‘And you were entirely satisfied?’
‘Of course,’ he said a little primly. The question had evidently pricked at his pride. ‘If I hadn’t been I would have said so. They were men of the highest reputation. The picture passed every test with room to spare. I didn’t have a shred of doubt.’ He stopped and bit his thumbnail thoughtfully, then looked up. ‘At least I didn’t until about thirty seconds ago.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Bottando uncomfortably, conscious of a certain lack of subtlety in his interviewing technique.
‘Not all technicians are idiots, you know,’ the man continued, the slightly priggish air growing, rather than fading in strength as he spoke.
‘Tommaso’s reputation rested on that Raphael. But if there’s something wrong with it, Tommaso’s credit-rating falls and Spello will get the job. It was burnt either as a way of getting at him or for some other motive. You, for no apparent reason, are spending some time reading the technical reports when presumably you have more urgent things to worry about. Which leads me to suspect…’
‘Which leads you to suspect nothing whatsoever. But you’ve got a good imagination.’ Bottando hurriedly got up to end the interview, feeling slightly alarmed at the way the conversation had run away from him. Hung over or not, that young man had forged connections far too fast. He didn’t like it.
He accompanied the restorer to the door, showing him out into the small anteroom that was normally occupied by the secretary. His next candidate sat there, placidly waiting.
‘I see you’re going to have a busy day,’ Manzoni said by way of farewell, ‘but I’d like to talk to you again, if you don’t mind. If you want I’ll go through the report again and see if there were any holes.’
‘Could there be any?’
‘I’d rather read it again first, to make sure of my facts. And give it a bit of quiet thought. Besides, I don’t want to disrupt your schedule. Maybe I could come round to your office after work to give you my impressions? About seven this evening?’
Bottando agreed, watched him go, then turned to ask Spello to come in. One down, eighty to go, he thought. Maybe Flavia can help out this afternoon. He watched the Etruscan specialist sit himself cautiously into the chair, and considered how best to start the questioning.
He needn’t have bothered. Spello began on his own, with a forthright statement of fact. ‘You’re talking to me because I’m one of your more promising arsonists,’ he stated. ‘Jilted out of my rightful job as the next director by Tommaso’s machinations.’
‘So, burned up inside, you took your revenge by burning up his prize picture?’
Spello smiled. ‘And thus, at a stroke, creating a scandal, wrecking Tommaso’s power to recommend anyone and assuring myself of the job. Easily done, especially as you’d already told me it was a fake, so there was no harm done. No. I did nothing of the sort, but I admit it’s a convincing hypothesis.’
‘Except, of course, that our main evidence of faking has been considerably weakened. The painting may well have been genuine.’
The man blanched visibly at the statement. Why was that? Simple objective distress at the loss? Bottando felt intensely awkward. Spello seemed positively eager to explain why he should be arrested immediately.
‘Were you ever alone yesterday evening? Could you have slipped off without anyone noticing?’
‘Nothing simpler. I hate those gatherings. I have to turn up, but I find the heat, the conversation and the company oppressive. I normally sneak off and go and read a book or something to recover myself, then go back again. I was up here for about an hour yesterday evening. All on my own. No one saw me come, no one saw me go.’
How distressingly honest. If he’d wanted to make life easy for the police, he should either have come up with a cast-iron alibi, or with one that could be undermined. Candidly admitting he had none at all made everything very much more difficult.
‘When I told you about the possible forgery, you kept it to yourself,’ Bottando began, swinging on to a new line. He was not happy. So far his performance at these interviews, where he was meant to be so masterfully in charge, was not at all good. He had lost the upper hand with the restorer, and seemed to be repeating the process with Spello. Perhaps the pressure was beginning to tell on him. ‘If you’d really been after the directorship you would have started spreading rumours, surely?’
Spello shook his head. ‘Not necessarily,’ he said in a reasonable and distant tone. ‘Firstly, it could have been traced back to me. Secondly, without proof, Tommaso could brazen it out and put the rumours down to a smear campaign by the discontented – which it would have been. I’m still very doubtful. No matter what Manzoni thinks, I doubt he’ll be able to punch a hole in those tests.’
Bottando grunted, and tried again. ‘The fire alarm,’ he pointed out. ‘How did you do that?’ He noticed that he’d stopped using the hypothetical language of conditional clauses. Spello noticed it as well, and for the first time the policeman saw a flicker of unease on the old man’s face.
‘If I did,’ he replied with emphasis, ‘I did what was actually done. Removed the perfectly good fuse, and replaced it with one that was burnt out. Thus, it would seem as though the fuse blew at random.’
Bottando sat up in his seat. ‘How do you know that’s what happened?’ he asked.
‘I talked to the electrician. He’s an old fogey like me. Been here for years, like me. We’ve always got on well. He was a bit upset when he saw the fuse. Said he was sure he’d changed it over and put a new one in. Not at all like the well-used one found in the slot. I thought it was obvious; they’d been swapped. Chances were that no one would notice, or draw any conclusions if they did.’
Bottando sat silently, thinking it over. Spello’s account made perfectly good sense, and at least solved one problem of how it was done. It also tended to swing suspicion more firmly on Spello. Who realised it.
‘So you see. Motive, opportunity and no alibi. Enough to arrest me on, if that’s what you feel like doing.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, then went on more formally. ‘For the time being, however, we’re not arresting anyone. But I must warn you not to leave Rome for the next few days. Any attempt to do so will be treated as attempted flight. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly, General,’ came the equally stiff reply, which then turned into a conspiratorial smile. ‘But I can tell you that if you do arrest me, you’ll be making a big mistake. It’ll be all Tommaso needs to restore his reputation. Because of that committee, you’ll go down with me.’
10
It was seven-thirty in the evening. Bottando sat in his office, waiting for Manzoni to show up. He wanted to see the man, especially since Manzoni had rung up in the early afternoon to say that he had found something which might be of interest. But the restorer was late. Often the case with these sort of people, but Bottando, who still retained some vague elements of his earlier military training, was irritated nonetheless. Punctuality, he thought, was a very great virtue; not that so many of his country
men agreed with him. He filled the time catching up on some work and trying to control his mounting ill-humour.
While he was muttering about lack of consideration and the indignity of full generals being made to wait by junior restorers, Flavia had arrived at Argyll’s flat to see what progress he’d made during his day’s work. There was no answer. Despite her express request that he be there, he’d gone out. Damn him. She thought for a moment that maybe the bell didn’t work. It was an old, run-down block and that was a distinct possibility. So she went into a bar and telephoned. Still no answer.
She was furious, and started thinking along the lines that were currently occupying her boss back in the office. She’d had a tiring day and was frustrated at having worked so hard for almost no result. And to be stood up by someone who was lucky not to be in jail already was outrageous.
The high point, or low point, of her day’s business had been a visit to Sir Edward Byrnes. Unlike Bottando, she had not been faced with a virtual confession, and she’d found it difficult to ask all the questions she needed without bringing up their suspicions about the origins of the picture.
Byrnes had to believe that all they were after was the person with the wandering aerosol. There was no need to show all their cards, especially as, in her book, the successful and wealthy Englishman was far and away the most likely suspect.
She found him in his hotel: it was highly expensive and, typically, not one of the more obviously opulent affairs that are to be found around the via Veneto. Rather, Byrnes’s combination of money and exquisite taste had landed him in a highly anonymous but very private and splendidly elegant palazzo off the Corso, where the few guests allowed in reposed as though they were at home with the servants.
In the delicate pink-and-white drawing room, deserted apart from the two of them, Byrnes sat Flavia down on a sofa, arranged himself opposite her in a tapestry-covered armchair, and summoned a waiter with a brief wave of his hand. He was at their side in a commendably respectful matter of seconds.
‘A drink, Signorina?’ he asked in flawless Italian. ‘Or are you going to say “not while I’m on duty,” eh?’ He blinked in an amiably owlish fashion from behind thick pebble-like glasses as he spoke. There were two ways of interpreting that, Flavia decided. On the one hand, it might be a good-natured look that goes along with someone trying to make himself agreeable. On the other, it might be an expression of contentment from someone who knows he’s got away with it.
‘Not me, Sir Edward. I think that’s only for the English police. Besides, I’m not in the police.’
‘Good. Very sensible.’ She wasn’t sure what part of her reply he referred to. He ordered two glasses of champagne kir without asking her opinion on the matter. ‘Now, how can I help you?’
Not, thought Flavia, ‘What do you want?’ He’s keen to sound more accommodating than that. Doesn’t mean he will be any more forthcoming, mind you.
Flavia smiled at him. He was ordinarily not someone who let anybody do the talking, let alone a woman. ‘Obviously it’s about the Raphael, and the events of yesterday…’
‘And you want to know whether I habitually go around with aerosols of gasoline in my pocket? Or if I saw anyone looking especially furtive?’
‘Something like that. Routine questioning of everyone in the museum yesterday evening, you understand.’
‘Especially if they happened to be responsible for the picture being there in the first place,’ he observed, taking out a short stubby pipe and beginning to fill it from a leather pouch. The trouble with everybody in this business is that they’re too quick on the uptake, she thought.
‘I wish I could provide you with some helpful comment. I am, of course, deeply upset by the whole thing. I’d formed a great attachment to the picture, and was very proud of my role in it. I gather it’s beyond repair?’
If Byrnes hadn’t been responsible for burning the picture, he would, naturally, want to know how successful the attack had been. Flavia nodded, and he nodded back in acknowledgement. He was still filling the pipe, which was evidently a highly complex and technical operation. His head was bent over as he shovelled a remarkable amount of tobacco into the bowl, then tamped it into place with a little metal device apparently designed for just such a purpose. While he was doing this, with immense concentration, she couldn’t see his face at all well. Eventually he looked up at her again, stuck the pipe in his mouth and continued, not having noticed the long break in the conversation.
‘You get fond of them, when you’re with them for a long time,’ he said absently. ‘Especially this one. I watched over it very carefully, once I realised what it was. The high point of my career. And now this. It was an appalling thing to happen. From what I’ve read, it would have been difficult to prevent as well. You seem to be looking for a madman, and it’s impossible to guard against random acts.’ He now began on the equally intricate business of turning the pipe bowl into a minor inferno. Smoke billowed out in profusion, and drifted in a thick smog across the room.
‘I’m sure you understand that we have to establish everybody’s whereabouts for the entire evening?’ Flavia said, tearing her eyes away from the pipe and getting back to business.
‘Of course. That’s simple. I arrived at the hotel at about six, checked in and walked straight to the museum. I talked to various people and was still there when the announcement about the, ah, incident was made at about eight.’ He reeled off a list of names. She jotted them down.
‘And how long did you spend talking to each of these people? With Argyll, for instance,’ she said casually. He didn’t appear to make any connection of significance.
‘With him longer than most, I suppose. As he may have told you already, I’m financing his trip here, and I quite like talking to him.’
She nodded. ‘May I ask why you gave him this money?’
‘Mild guilt. Or rather sympathy. Or is it empathy? I heard afterwards that he, like the person who commissioned me, was on the trail of this picture, but that I got there faster. That often happens, of course, and I’ve been pipped at the post myself. Ordinarily I just see it as the luck of the game. Except that it was such a big prize and Argyll was clearly counting on it for his work, rather than for simple financial profit. So I thought that the least I could do would be to offer some form of recompense. He does, in fact, deserve it. His work is much better than he makes out. A little sloppy over details…’
That’s true, thought Flavia to herself.
‘…but essentially well-researched and interesting. Not nearly as narrow as the subject suggests. So I’m not giving favours to the undeserving poor,’ he concluded.
‘So you noticed nothing at this party and were never on your own?’
‘Only when Argyll disappeared off to the toilet, or to get some drinks, or something like that. He was quite flustered all evening. I think he was excited at being back in Rome.’
Well, maybe so. She switched the subject once more. ‘You talk about being commissioned?’ she prompted.
‘My little secret,’ he replied. ‘Most of my colleagues and rivals still believe I owned the picture. I let them think it because it drives them into such paroxysms of jealousy. All I did was act as an agent. I shipped it back, sent it to the restorers and organised the sale.’
‘Why did you choose these particular people?’
‘No reason. They were available, I’d worked with them before and knew them to be reliable. They were very excited. They were in the office from the moment the crate arrived: we could hardly keep them away from it.’
‘Could you give me their names?’
‘By all means. I’m sure they would be pleased to talk to you. One of them rang me this morning, very upset indeed. They became very proprietorial about it – always saying how lucky I was to own such a picture. I couldn’t bear to disillusion them.’
‘Who did it belong to then?’ Flavia leant forward in her chair in anticipation. He might lie. Almost certainly would. But even so it might provi
de something to go on. Even if it turned out to be a lie, his assertion would prove something.
Byrnes spread his hands over the desk. ‘I wish I knew. I was given instructions by letter from a lawyer in Luxembourg. It was a bit odd, I know, but such procedures are not entirely unknown. There is often a certain amount of disguise when some rich family wants to raise some cash discreetly. To buy and sell a picture anonymously is more unusual, but at the time I thought the picture was not especially valuable. So I could see no reason for not going ahead.’
‘But you weren’t tempted to keep the picture when you knew what it was?’
Byrnes smiled at her. ‘It occurred to me, of course. But by that time I’d signed a contract as the agent. Besides, it’s not the way I operate. As you know, the art-dealing community is not noted for its impeccable integrity,’ – here Flavia grinned – ‘but there is a sort of honour among thieves, and not pinching someone else’s discovery is part of it. That’s why I felt a little guilty about Argyll.
‘But quite apart from the moral issue, I didn’t know who was behind it all. For all I know, it might have been the Vatican itself. It always needs ready money these days, and this method might have been a way of circumventing the objections to the sale which would otherwise have developed. It never does to offend someone if you don’t know who you are offending. Besides, the retainer alone was very generous.’
‘You were never suspicious that something might be wrong?’ Flavia asked doubtfully.
‘Of course. I haven’t worked in the art business for quarter of a century without learning to trust no one. But I chose the people who tested it. They were in no doubt that it was genuine, nor was the Museo Nazionale. I could see nothing wrong. If I’d had the slightest doubt, I’d never have agreed to the museum’s terms in the sale contract.’
‘Which were?’
‘Simply that if the painting’s authenticity was called into question I’d be responsible for refunding the money as agent for the owner. Very tight and carefully drafted. They included it, I suppose, to satisfy the finance ministry that they were being careful with the taxpayers’ money. Besides, Tommaso was involved and we’ve never got on, even though we keep up an appearance of friendliness.’