“Oh, my God,” he said despairingly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
A small, elegant woman in her mid-to-late fifties sat serenely on the sofa by the window. She had a lovely face, which seemed kind, and looked as though she was fond of laughing. The sort who knew how to grow old graciously, a rare talent. A bit reserved, perhaps, but good company. An honest face. The sort you instantly felt you could trust.
Which just went to show what a lot of nonsense it was to place any sort of reliance on the interpretation of physiognomy. He must remember to point that out to the students. A very important aspect of seventeenth-century artistic theory and one which, in his experience, was completely wrong. Mary Verney, sweet-faced criminal that he knew her to be, proved this pretty conclusively.
“Jonathan!” this woman said, rising from her chair and coming to meet him with a warm smile and outstretched hand. “How lovely to see you again.”
Argyll growled with annoyance. “I’m afraid I cannot say the same for you, Mrs Verney,” he replied stiffly. “How you have the nerve …”
“Oh, dear,” she said, brushing his protests aside. “I suppose I couldn’t really expect a great welcome. But that’s all water under the bridge.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Oh, Jonathan. What a fuss you make.”
“Mrs Verney, you are a liar, a thief and a murderer. You organized it so that there was nothing I could do about it. Fine. But you really don’t expect me to be pleased to see you, do you?”
“Well,” she said doubtfully. “If you put it like that …”
“I do. Of course I do. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I take it you never mentioned that little matter to Flavia?”
“Not exactly.”
“I wondered why she was so keen to see me,” Mrs Verney said with a slight frown. “A harmless little old lady like myself.”
Argyll snorted.
“No, really. I am. I confine myself to good works and repairs to the house.”
“Paid for by your ill-gotten gains.”
“Ill-gotten gains? Really, Jonathan, you do sound like a Victorian melodrama at times. But if you want to put it like that, indeed. By my ill-gotten gains. And it uses up all my time.”
Argyll snorted again. “So why are you here?”
“Gin, please. And tonic, if you have it.”
“What?”
“I thought you were asking me if I wanted a drink.”
“No.”
She smiled sweetly at him. I know this isn’t easy, dear, she seemed to be saying. Argyll, who in fact rather liked the woman, however much a monster of turpitude she really was, crumbled into abject politeness.
“With ice?”
“Please.”
He assembled it and handed it over.
“Now,” she went on. “Let me make it clear that I am not here of my own volition. The last thing in my mind when I came to Rome was seeing either of you. I hardly expected a warm welcome from you, at least.” She held up her hand as he was about to interrupt. “I’m not blaming you in the slightest. But Flavia rang and invited me for a drink. In the circumstances, I could hardly refuse.”
“In what circumstances?”
“She had taken the trouble to find out that I was here. Which means that I am a marked woman. And I don’t want to waste police time, so I thought it best to reassure her that I am here merely for a holiday. Then she can devote herself to catching real thieves.”
“You are a real thief.”
“Was, dear. Was. There is a big difference. I told you. I’m retired.”
“Somehow I find that difficult to believe …”
“Look,” she said patiently. “I am on holiday. Nothing sinister at all. I just hope that I can convince you eventually. If I can, I am sure your sanctimoniousness will evaporate and you’ll become a normal human being again.”
“Sanctimonious? Me? You turn up here out of the blue …”
“I know. You’re in shock …”
“Really?” asked Flavia brightly as she came in through the door with pasta and a couple of bottles of wine. “What about?”
“With sheer pleasure at seeing me,” Mrs Verney said smoothly.
“Yes,” Flavia said. “Isn’t it nice? When I noticed she was here, I thought, how nice it would be …”
Mrs Verney smiled. “And here I am. I’m delighted to see you both again. I’m most anxious to hear all your news. How are you both? Married yet?”
“In the autumn,” Flavia said. “That is the plan.”
“Oh, congratulations, my dears. Congratulations. I must send you a wedding present. I hope you will both be very happy.”
“Thank you. I was wondering whether you would like to have dinner with us. Unless you’re busy, that is …”
“I’d be delighted. But I was going to invite the both of you. If there’s a decent restaurant nearby …?”
“That is kind. Why not?”
They smiled at each other with total lack of sincerity. Argyll scowled at both of them.
“Not me, I’m afraid,” he said with entirely fake regret as he saw his opportunity and patted the pile of essays by his side. “Confined to barracks.”
Five minutes of a routine attempt at persuasion followed, but he stood firm, and although it cost him disapproving comments about being an old misery, he eventually saw the pair of them off to the restaurant round the corner which was their usual eating place when cooking seemed too much to bear. He had a miserable meal of pasta instead, followed by two hours of essays. Not an ideal evening; not what he’d planned at all. But in comparison to the alternative it seemed positively heavenly.
It was an agreeable meal; no doubt about it. Pleasant little trattoria, simple but delicious food and that combination of amiable informality that only Italian restaurants ever seem to manage properly. The two women chatted happily throughout, working their way through a fund of gossip like long-lost friends. Flavia even enjoyed herself. The same could not be said for Mary Verney.
She was seriously, deeply alarmed. It was too much to expect that the Italian police wouldn’t notice her arrival, but she had assumed that demarcation disputes, bureaucracy and lack of manpower would delay things. She had done her best to be invisible, arriving by train rather than aircraft because checks at airports were better, not using her credit card, that sort of thing. It must have been the hotel registration that did it. Odd that; she’d believed no one bothered with those sort of checks any more. Evidently wrong. Maybe it was the computers. It just showed how old she was getting.
And instead of coming to police attention in a week or so, or not at all, they had noted her on her first day, and gone out of their way to make that clear. It was obvious that Flavia didn’t know why she was here, but it was likely she would be watched; and that would cramp her insufferably.
She poured herself a whisky when she got back to her hotel room to think it over. She had stayed in the Borgognoni once before, in 1973. It was an ideal hotel, even nicer now it was under new management and had been redecorated. Then it had been comfortably luxurious and had the inestimable advantage of being within a few minutes’ walk from the Barberini Gallery. As she had been in Rome to steal a picture from the Barberini—a small but delightful Martini, which she had been seriously tempted to keep for herself—it could not have been better. But the feature which tipped her finally in the hotel’s favour, now as then, was the number of exits it possessed. Front ones, back ones, side ones. For guests and employees and delivery men. She had always insisted on this when working; you never knew when a discreet disappearance might come in handy. Like now.
So she made her phone call, set up an appointment, and slipped out the back when she’d changed and finished her drink. As she walked across Rome to the Hassler hotel, she cursed her ill-luck once again. She had been quite genuine about retiring. She had spent more than twenty-five years stealing paintings and had never been caught; only came close once. And that was enough. It had been the rule she had made in her youth, and she intended to stick to it firmly. Never, ever, take risks. She had totted up her winnings, disposed of her last embarrassing possessions, and settled back to grow old in comfort.