“Goodness.”
“Now, tell me about yourself. Who are you? Where do you come from? Do you live alone? Are you married? What, most importantly, is going on in the village? And are you responsible for it?”
So Argyll sang for his tea, giving the details of his life as the vivaciously waspish woman opposite nodded and asked supplementary questions. Her eager cross-questioning over the death of Geoffrey Forster would have done a skilled lawyer proud. For the first time since he got off the plane, he felt relaxed, and as a result he stayed chattering much longer than he should.
“But are you a good art dealer, dear?” she asked after she’d exhausted the topic of Geoffrey Forster and moved on to excavate Argyll’s personal life.
He shrugged. “I’m not bad at the art bit. It’s the dealing side that lets me down. I’m told I lack the killer instinct.”
“Not ruthless enough, eh?”
“That’s the general opinion. In fact, the main trouble is not having enough money to buy pictures in the first place. The really major dealers start off either with oodles of their own, or a backer who will put up capital. But I haven’t noticed the queues forming.”
“I wish you luck.”
“Thank you.”
And so the conversation harmlessly meandered along and it was nearly eight before he glanced at the clock on the wall, gave a start and stood up.
“Are you in a hurry?” she asked.
“Not exactly. But I should go; I have to find somewhere to stay the night.”
“Stay here.”
“I couldn’t possibly do that.”
“Please yourself. How long are the police going to be interested in you?”
“I’ve no idea. I can’t imagine what else they might need. But they seem to expect me to hang around. And they’ve got my passport as well.”
She nodded. “A bit of a captive, then. Tell you what, if you’re still here tomorrow, come for dinner. I can guarantee that the food will be better than the pub, if nothing else.”
Argyll said he’d be delighted.
6
Flavia got back from Florence in a fairly jolly mood, and before knocking off for the evening, went into the office to tell Bottando of her findings. “Is he about?” she asked Paolo, who was standing by the coffee machine.
“Think so,” replied the colleague. “Go carefully, though. He’s a real misery this afternoon. I was going to ask him for a day off, as a reward for catching the Leonardo man. I thought better of it when I saw his face. It was his compulsory overtime on a Sunday face.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. Just getting old, I guess. However good you were once, too long doing the same thing…”
Aha. Forewarned is forearmed. Paolo had gone over to the enemy. She mounted the stairs with a proper mixture of sympathy and caution, to present her findings.
When she told him about her trip, however, he didn’t seem impressed. Just nodded in an absent-minded fashion.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Paolo said you were an old sourpuss today.”
“Did he, indeed? Very indiscreet of him. Nor is it accurate. I am, in fact, more furious than I have ever been in my entire life.”
“Argan?”
Bottando nodded.
“Those disks I gave you?”
He nodded again. “Argan absconded with much of the Giotto file, read it, and has now written and circulated an enormous memorandum. Talking about how we waste our time, use up resources concocting fictions, have not the slightest idea about what modern crime is all about. He pours fun on the whole exercise, manages to get across the idea that the Giotto material is taken seriously, which it isn’t. That we are working on it at the moment, which we are not. And that I personally am so obsessed with my own theories that the smooth running of the department is being sacrificed to my daft ideas. Using your going to this Fancelli woman as evidence. And your trip to Florence, although how he found out you were doing anything on it there I don’t know.”
“Whoops.” Not a brilliant comment, but justifiable. Flavia wondered whether Paolo might have been making his bid for promotion with the new broom.
“The general thrust is that I personally am ineffective, if not actually senile, that action is required immediately so that the department can be placed in a pair of safe hands who understands how to run things properly.”
“Hands which are attached to the body of Corrado Argan?”
“Even he doesn’t say so directly, but that’s the idea.”
“Wipe the disk.”
“What would that accomplish?”
“It would win you some time.”
“Not much. Besides, it’s too late. He’s already printed fifteen copies and sent them out.”
“Fifteen?”
“Top copy to the minister. And everybody else down.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Is that all you can say? I’ll kill the little bastard.”
“Now, now. Calm down.”
“Why? What is there to be calm about? I don’t want to be calm.”
“Evidently. But I don’t think it’ll do much good at the moment. You’re turning Argan into a demon. And that’s not the best way of reacting.”
“So what do you suggest? I wouldn’t be so mad, except for the fact that today of all days, fragments of evidence suggest that the lead this woman gave us might go somewhere after all. I don’t know where, of course. Except that I can’t risk doing anything about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your Jonathan. The English police rang to ask about him. He found out that Forster was an art dealer who has just been found dead. Possibly murdered.”
“Ah,” said Flavia with interest. “Tell me all.”
Bottando gave her what little information he had.
“That is a little awkward,” she said when he finished.
“But it does make him interesting enough to investigate, doesn’t it?”
“Not if it turns out that it was an accident.”
“Anything else?”
“‘Just that they want us to let them know if we have anything on Forster, if he had any contacts or business here. Awkward.”
“Why? That won’t take us long. And it’s fairly routine.”
“I know. But it will be a formal, on-the-record request which will no doubt note the fact that we are already interested in the damn man. Which will make my insistence to Argan that we are not seem even more duplicitous. I mean, I could have passed off your efforts as the inexperienced enthusiasm of a junior…”
“Thank you.”
“But official bits of paper, noting my conversation with them re Forster. That’s more difficult. Your Jonathan was trying to be helpful, I suppose, and accomplishing the exact opposite. As usual. You did tell him not to bother with Forster?”
“Ah…”
“Oh.”
“But it’s just as well he did,” she said robustly. “Because I talked to Signora della Quercia. She’s completely loopy, but her ramblings seemed consistent with what Fancelli told us. Even remembered Forster and Fancelli.”
“Hmm.”
“More importantly, I also had a chat with Sandano. Who now maintains that he didn’t steal that Fra Angelico. He was railroaded into confessing by the Carabinieri, so he says, which is quite possible. He reckons he was just delivering it for someone.”
“Oh yes?”
“An Englishman called Forster.”
Bottando looked at her stolidly. “Oh, God.”
“He’s not the most truthful of people but I was thinking about it. That Padua job was very neat. Well executed, no hitches at all. It only went wrong because of a keen customs man. Now, does that really sound like Sandano to you?”
Bottando considered. “Not really. So, we have a couple of very interesting leads…”