He set it on an easel beneath the north light and for two days he simply stared at it. The thick Victorian oil paint would have to come off with extreme delicacy so as not to damage the masterpiece beneath. On the third day he began to work.
Peregrine Slade took his call two weeks later. He was agog.
‘Well, my dear Edward?’
‘The work is finished. What lay beneath the still life is now fully exposed to view.’
‘And the colours? Are they as fresh as the day they were painted?’
‘Oh, beyond a doubt,’ said the voice down the phone.
‘I’ll send my car,’ said Slade.
‘I think perhaps I should come with the painting,’ said Hargreaves carefully.
‘Excellent,’ beamed Slade. ‘My Bentley will be with you in half an hour.’
He phoned the Duke of Gateshead.
‘Splendid work,’ said the chairman. ‘Let’s have an unveiling. My office, twelve hundred hours.’
He had once been in the Coldstream Guards and liked to pepper his talk to subordinates with military phrases.
At five to twelve a porter set up an easel in the chairman’s office and left. At twelve sharp Edward Hargreaves, carrying the tempera-on-panel wrapped in a soft blanket and escorted by Peregrine Slade, entered the room. He placed the painting on the easel.
The duke had cracked open a bottle of Dom Perignon. He offered a glass to each guest. Slade accepted, Hargreaves demurred.
‘So,’ beamed the duke, ‘what have we? A Duccio?’
‘Er, not this time,’ said Hargreaves.
‘Surprise me,’ said Slade. ‘A Cimabue?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Can’t wait,’ said the duke. ‘Come on, lift the blanket.’
Hargreaves did so. The painting was indeed as the letter apparently from the Colbert had described it. Beautifully executed and precisely in the style of the early Renaissance of Florence and Siena.
The background was a medieval landscape of gentle hills with, in the distance, an ancient bell tower. In the foreground was the single living figure. It was a donkey, or Biblical ass, staring forlornly at the viewer.
Its organ hung limply towards the ground as if recently and thoroughly pulled.
In the middle ground was indeed a shallow valley with a track down the centre. On the track, emerging from the valley, was a small but perfectly identifiable Mercedes-Benz.
Hargreaves contemplated a point in space. Slade thought he might succumb at once to a fatal heart attack, then hoped he would, then feared that he might not.
Inside the Duke of Gateshead five centuries of breeding grappled for control. Finally the breeding won and he stalked from the room without a word.
An hour later the Hon. Peregrine Slade left the building on a more permanent basis.
EPILOGUE
The remainder of September was an eventful period.
In response to daily phone calls, the Sudbury newsagent had confirmed a second embossed letter awaited Mr McFee. Disguised as the ginger-whiskered Scot, Trumpy had gone up by train to collect it. The envelope contained a cheque from the House of Darcy for £265,000.
Using some beautifully crafted e-documents from Suzie, he opened an account with Barclays Bank in St Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands, one of Britain’s last no-tax havens. When the cheque was cleared and credited he went over for the day by air and opened another account in the name of Trumpington Gore with the Royal Bank of Canada, just down the street. Then he went to Barclays and transferred the lot from Mr Hamish McFee to Mr Gore down the road. The deputy manager at Barclays was surprised at the speed of the opening and closing of the Scotsman’s account, but made no demur.
From the Canadians, who did not give a damn about British mainland tax laws, Trumpy extracted two banker cheques.
One, for £13,250, went to Colley Burnside, who could contemplate a twilight to his life floating contentedly on a sea of vintage claret.
Trumpy withdrew £1,750 in cash for himself as ‘getting-by money’. The second cheque was for Benny Evans and Suzie Day jointly, in the sum of £150,000. With the balance of £100,000 the helpful Canadians were happy to create a long-term high-yield annuity fund capable of paying Trumpington Gore about £1,000 a month for the rest of his days.
Benny and Suzie married and returned to Benny’s native Lancashire, where he opened a small art gallery and she became a freelance computer programmer. Within a year she had grown out the peroxide, removed the facial metal and had twin boys.
Trumpy got home from the Channel Islands to find a letter from Eon Productions. It told him that Pierce Brosnan, with whom he had had a tiny role in Goldeneye, wished that he have a much larger part in the next Bond movie.
Someone tipped off Charlie Dawson, who, with the amused help of Professor Carpenter, secured the art-scandal scoop of the decade.
The police continue to search for Hamish McFee and Mr Yamamoto, but at Scotland Yard hopes are not high.
Marina sold her memoirs to the News of the World. Lady Eleanor Slade promptly had a lengthy conference with Fiona Shackleton, doyenne of London’s divorce lawyers. A settlement was agreed in which the Hon. Peregrine was allowed to keep his cuff-links.
He left London and was last heard of running a louche bar in Antigua. The Duke of Gateshead still has to buy his own drinks at White’s.
THE MIRACLE
SIENA, 1975
The sun was a hammer in the sky. It beat down on the clustered roofs of the walled Tuscan city and the medieval tiles, some pink but mostly long baked to umber or ashen grey, shimmered in the heat.
Shadows dark as night were cast along upper windows by the overhanging gutters; but where the sun could touch, the rendered walls and ancient bricks gleamed pale, and wooden sills cracked and peeled. In the deep and narrow cobbled alleys of the oldest quarter there were restful pools of further shade and here the occasional sleepy cat sought refuge. But of local humans there was no sign, for this was the day of the Palio.
Down one such alley, lost in a maze of tiny cobbled ways, hardly wider than his own shoulders, the American tourist hurried, red as beef. Sweat trickled down to soak his short-sleeved cotton shirt, the tropical-weight jacket felt like a blanket dangling from his shoulder. Behind him his wife tottered painfully on unsuitable platform sandals.
They had tried to book far too late for a hotel inside the city, in this of all seasons, and had finally settled for a room in Casole d’Elsa. The rented car had overheated on the road, they had eventually found a parking slot beyond the city walls and now scurried from the Porta Ovile towards their goal.
They were soon lost in the labyrinth of alleys dating back 500 years, stumbling on the hot cobbles, feet on fire. From time to time the Kansas cattleman cocked an ear towards the roar of the crowd and tried to head in that direction. His well-upholstered wife sought only to catch up and fan herself with a guidebook at the same time.
‘Wait for me,’ she called as they hurried down yet another defile of brick between town houses that had seen Cosimo of Medici ride by, and been old even then.
‘Try to hurry, honey,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We’re going to miss the parade.’
He was right. A quarter-mile away the massed crowds in and around the Piazza del Campo were straining to catch the first glimpse of the Comparse, the parade in medieval costume of the seventeen great guilds of Siena who once ruled and administered the town. According to tradition, ten of the seventeen Contrade would race their horses that day for the honour of carrying away to their guildhall the painted banner, the Palio itself. But first, the parade.
The American had read aloud from the guidebook to his wife in their hotel bedroom the previous evening.
‘The Contrade or Districts of Siena were created between the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century,’ he read.
‘That was before Columbus,’ she objected, as if nothing had happened before the great Cristobal sailed from Palos, on the River
Tinto to head west into oblivion or glory.
‘Right. That was in 1492. This was three centuries before Columbus. It says here they started with forty-two Contrade, reduced three hundred years later to twenty-three, then in 1675 to the seventeen we will see marching tomorrow.’
Out of sight, the first ranks of the hundreds of brightly caparisoned drummers, musicians and standard-bearers of the Comparse pageant were emerging into the Campo itself. Its sixteen palaces were hung with banners and ensigns, crammed with the privileged at every window and balcony, as 40,000 of the populace roared inside the race-ring.
‘Hurry, honey,’ he called behind him as the tumult ahead rose in volume. ‘We’ve come a long way for this. I can see that darn tower at last.’
And indeed the tip of the Mangia Tower was just visible above the roofs ahead. That was when she tripped and fell, her ankle twisted by the cobbles and the shoe. She cried out and collapsed in a heap upon the stones. Her husband turned and ran back to her.
‘Aw, honey, what have you done?’ He was creased with concern as he bent over her. She clutched one ankle.
‘I think I twisted it,’ she said and started to cry. It had started out so good and turned into such a bad day.
Her husband looked up and down the alley but the ancient timber doors were locked and barred. A few yards away was an arch in a high wall that enclosed the alley on one side. Sun shone through as if there was an open space there.
‘Let’s get you in there, see if we can find a place to sit,’ he said.
He hauled her off the cobbles and she limped down to the arch. It gave onto a flagged yard, with tubs of roses and, Lord be praised, a stone bench in the shade of the wall. The American helped his spouse to the cool stone, where she sank with great relief.
Far away the tail end of the Comparse parade was leaving the Piazza del Duomo as the head of the column entered the Campo itself and the civic judges keenly studied the turnout, comportment and flag-waving skills of the standard-bearers. Whoever won the coming horse-race, the best-accoutred Contrada team would be awarded the masgalano, the finely chased silver salver. It was important, and all present knew it. The tourist bent to examine his wife’s ankle.
‘Can I be of help?’ said a quiet voice. The American started and turned round. The stranger stood above him, framed by the sun. The tourist stood up. The man was tall and rangy, with a calm lined face. They were both of an age, mid-fifties, and the stranger had greying hair. In faded canvas slacks and denim shirt he looked like a wanderer, a hippie but no longer young. His English was cultured but with a hint of an accent, probably Italian.
‘I don’t know,’ said the American with some suspicion.
‘Your wife has fallen, hurt an ankle?’
‘Yup.’
The stranger knelt on the flagstones of the yard, eased off the sandal and slowly massaged the damaged ankle. His fingers were gentle and skilled. The man from Kansas watched, prepared to defend his wife if need be.
‘It is not broken, but I am afraid it is twisted,’ said the man.
‘How do you know?’ asked the husband.
‘I know,’ said the man.
‘Yeah? Who are you?’
‘I am the gardener.’
‘The gardener? Here?’
‘I tend the roses, sweep the yard, keep it right.’
‘But it is the day of the Palio. Can’t you hear?’
‘I hear. It will need strapping. I have a clean T-shirt I could tear into strips. And cold water to stop the swelling.’
‘What are you doing here on the day of the Palio?’
‘I never see the Palio.’
‘Why? Everyone goes to the Palio.’
‘Because it is today. The second of July.’
‘What’s so special?’
‘It is Liberation Day also.’
‘What?’
‘On this day, thirty-one years ago, the second of July 1944, Siena was liberated from German occupation. And something happened here, in this courtyard, something important. I believe it was a miracle. I’ll go for the water.’
The American was startled. The man from Topeka was a Catholic: he went to mass and confession; he believed in miracles – if they were endorsed by Rome itself. Much of his entire summer tour of Italy was to see Rome at last. Siena was an afterthought. He gazed around the empty courtyard.
It was about twenty yards by thirty. On two sides it was bounded by high walls, twelve feet at least, with one arch, gates drawn open, through which he had entered. On the other two sides the walls were even higher, fifty feet or more, blank but for a few slits, topped with roofs, the outer walls of a massive building centuries old. At the far end of the yard, set into the wall of the huge edifice, was another door. It was made not of planks but entire beams bolted together to withstand attack and it was closed tight shut. The timber was ancient as the city itself, long bleached by sun save for a few dark blotches.
Along one side of the court, from end to end, ran a colonnade or cloister, the leaning roof supported by a row of stone columns and casting deep, cool shade inside. The gardener came back with strips of cloth and a pannikin of water.
He knelt again and firmly strapped with bandages the injured ankle, pouring water into the fabric to soak it and cool the flesh. The American’s wife sighed with relief.
‘Can you make it to the Palio?’ asked the husband.
The wife rose, tested the ankle, winced. It pained her.
‘What do you think?’ asked the tourist of the gardener. He shrugged.
‘The alleys are rough, the crowds dense and very rowdy. Without a ladder or a raised position you will see nothing. But there will be celebrations all evening. You will see the pageantry then, in every street. Or there will be another Palio in August. Can you wait on?’
‘Nope. I’ve got cattle to run. Gotta go home next week.’
‘Ah. Then . . . your wife could walk, but gently.’
‘Can we wait a bit, honey?’ she asked.
The tourist nodded. He glanced round the courtyard.
‘What miracle? I don’t see no shrine.’
‘There is no shrine. There is no saint. Not yet. But one day, I hope.’
‘So what happened here thirty-one years ago this day?’
THE GARDENER’S STORY
‘Were you in the Second World War?’ asked the gardener. ‘Sure. US Navy. Pacific theatre.’ ‘But not here in Italy?’
‘No. My kid brother was. He fought with Mark Clark.’
The gardener nodded, as if staring into the past.
‘All through 1944 the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, from Sicily to the far north and the Austrian border. All that year the German army fought and retreated, fought and retreated. It was a long retreat. At first they were the allies of the Italians, then after the Italian capitulation the occupiers.
‘Here in Tuscany the fighting was very fierce. Field Marshal Kesselring commanded. Facing him were the Americans under General Clark, the British under General Alexander and the Free French under General Juin. By early June the fighting front had reached the northern border of Umbria and the south of Tuscany on this western sector.
‘South of here the terrain is rugged, range after range of steep hills, valleys holding hundreds of rivers and streams. The roads wind along the mountainsides, the only possible passage for vehicles. They are easily mined and can be raked by gunfire from across the valley. Hidden spotters on the peaks of the hills can drop the artillery shells from behind them right onto the enemy with great accuracy. Both sides took heavy casualties.
‘Siena became a big medical centre. The Wehrmacht’s Medical Corps set up several hospitals here and they were always full. Towards the end even they overflowed and several nunneries and monasteries were requisitioned. And still the Allied tide rolled on. Kesselring ordered all wounded well enough to be moved to be sent north. Columns of German ambulances rolled north day and night. But some could not be moved and had to stay. Many died of
their wounds and are buried outside the city. The pressure on space eased for a while; until the last ten days of that month. Then the fighting redoubled, and it was close. In those last ten days a young German surgeon was drafted in here, fresh from college. He had no experience. He had to watch and learn and operate as he went along. Sleep was short, supplies running dry.’
There was a roar across the summer sky as, out of sight, the last of the parading Comparse entered the Piazza del Campo. Each of the rival Contrade was parading once round the giant sand racetrack laid over the cobblestones. An even louder shout greeted the arrival of the carroccio, the ox-drawn cart bearing the lusted-for banner itself, the object of the day’s pageantry, the Palio.
‘The German force in this sector was the Fourteenth Army, commanded by General Lemelsen. On paper it sounded great, but many of the units were exhausted by months of fighting and way under strength. The main contingent in it was General Schlemm’s First Parachute Corps and Schlemm threw everything he had got from the sea to the mountains south of Siena. That was his right wing. On the left, further inland, the tired-out 90th Panzer Grenadier Division tried to hold off General Harmon’s US First Armored.
‘Right in the centre of Mark Clark’s Fifth Army, and facing Siena city, were the Free French of General Juin. He was flanked by his own Third Algerian Infantry and Second Moroccan Infantry. These were the forces held by the Germans in five days of vicious fighting from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth of June. Then the American tanks smacked through the panzers and Siena was outflanked, first on the east, then by the French on the west.
‘Units of the retreating German companies pulled back, bringing their wounded with them. There were grenadiers, panzer men, Luftwaffe Field Division men and paratroopers. On the twenty-ninth of June, south of the city, there was one last and final clash before the Allied breakthrough.
‘It was violent and hand-to-hand. Under cover of darkness the German stretcher-bearers went in and did their best. Hundreds of wounded, both German and Allied, were brought back into Siena. General Lemelsen pleaded with Kesselring for permission to straighten his line, seeing as he was outflanked on both sides and risked being encircled and captured with the entire First Parachute Corps inside Siena. Permission was granted and the paras pulled back into the city. Siena bulged with soldiers. So many were the wounded that this courtyard beneath the walls of the old nunnery was commandeered as a temporary shelter and field hospital for about a hundred of the last-arriving Germans and all the Allied wounded. The newly arrived young surgeon was given sole charge of it. That was on the thirtieth of June 1944.’