2
The address in the Parioli section of Rome from whence the troublesome letter had begun its voyage to Bottando’s desk turned out to be that of a secluded, luxurious and probably fairly expensive nursing home for the well-heeled old and sick of the capital. It was one of a growing number of such establishments thrown up as pressure of work, space and modernity squeezed out grandparents from the homes of their children and sounded the death knell of the Italian mama.
Flavia arrived fairly early, in the hope of getting through and back to the office before the heat became too insufferable, and glanced around at the building carefully before making her way inside. The highly-polished doors, the marble flooring and the air of efficient, kindly and expensive care were, somehow, not quite what she’d expected from the spidery, ill-educated handwriting of the letter.
The first hitch came at the desk, where a bright and competent-looking receptionist said that it was not yet visiting time. Flavia produced her badge to show she was in the police and it still wasn’t visiting time. Flavia was explaining that, rules or not, it was important that she see Signora Fancelli, when her words were overheard by a priest who was passing by, who stopped and intervened.
“You are the person she wrote to?” he said, after introducing himself as Father Michele and assuring the receptionist that he would look after the visitor.
“She wrote to my boss,” Flavia replied. “I was sent along to talk to her.”
“I’m so glad. So glad. She was very much in a state of anguish about what she should do. If you wish, I will show you where she is.”
Flavia nodded, and Father Michele led the way out of the door, explaining that at this time of the year most of the inmates—guests, as he called them—were wheeled out into the garden for a little sun.
“It’s extraordinary how much they can take,” he said as they crossed the path and headed towards a small clump of trees. “In temperatures that make most people faint, they’re constantly calling for extra sweaters.”
“Is she well off?” Flavia asked, thinking about the proceeds of crime. “It must cost a bomb to stay here.”
“Dear me, no. As poor as possible. Quite wretchedly so, in fact.”
“But now…”
“A son in America, I understand. She came here several months ago, when she began to fail, and he pays the bills. And, I must tell you, she will die here as well. She is preparing herself.”
He pointed out a frail figure in a wheelchair, staring blankly into nothingness.
“That’s her there. Now, I’ll leave you. Please don’t think that the signora has lost control of her mind as well as of her body. She’s very sick, and her attention wanders, but there’s nothing wrong with her intelligence at all, although the painkillers make her drowsy. But please do not excite her too much.”
There was absolutely no doubt that the priest was speaking the truth there, Flavia thought as she approached the wheelchair, hoping the woman wasn’t asleep. The grey skin, sickly pallor, matchstick-thin arms and thin, wispy hair all indicated someone with very little time left. Nor was she quite as alert as Flavia had hoped, although, when she announced herself, she could see the woman making a distinct and costly effort to concentrate.
“Signora Fancelli?” Flavia began. “I’ve come about a letter you wrote. About a painting. I’d like to ask you about it.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, looking up and trying to focus on Flavia. “I wrote to you, did I? That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”
“You appeared to be confessing to a theft. I must say that I don’t find that at all likely.”
“It has been a heavy burden for me, knowing what I did,” she said. “All these years. I’m glad to have an opportunity to talk to you. Whatever the price.”
Considering her health, and the habitual speed of the Italian judiciary, there didn’t seem much chance of the price being high; not in this world, anyway. She was not that old: early sixties, maybe. But she was manifestly running out of time.
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
A long silence, before her mind focused once more on the problem. “I didn’t know what I was doing, you see. Had I known, I would never have done anything. I was poor, that was certainly true; but I was never, ever dishonest. I hope you will believe that.”
Flavia nodded patiently; until she actually said something, there wasn’t much point in doing anything else.
“My parents were poor, and I was unmarried and had no one to look after me. I had to leave school and began working as a maid—a cleaner, really. Partly for a school for foreigners run by a woman called della Quercia, and partly for the Straga family. This was in Florence. Did I say that already?”
Even though it was not yet eleven o’clock, and they were in the shade of the trees it was already getting hot, and the time of year when the warmth is invigorating had long since passed. It was a blisteringly hot summer, and the worst was yet to come. Flavia reacted to the warmth quickly; and bit by bit, her chin was sinking lower, and her attention was wandering. She was beginning to sweat in the heat, and this vague discomfort was about the only thing stopping her from falling asleep entirely.
“I admit, I was looking for someone to marry,” the woman was saying, somewhere to the far left of Flavia’s diminishing consciousness. “People do not worry about that any more, but then, if you weren’t married by the time you were eighteen, it was assumed there was something wrong with you. People laughed at me all the time. The old maid. But I was romantic. I didn’t just want a husband; I wanted to be swept off my feet by someone exciting, and dashing.
“There was one man who used to hang around with the girls. Geoffrey, his name was. Geoffrey Forster. An Englishman. Very good-looking, very charming. Rich, or so he said. Constantly referring to famous people as though he was their best friend, spending money, driving fast cars.
“Naturally, when he turned his attention to me I was flattered, and got delusions. I thought he was in love with me; no one had ever treated me like that before. It was only a dream, of course; I soon found out the truth. But, before I did, he took me on holiday.”
Out of sheer politeness—the story was evidently costing the old lady a great deal to tell—Flavia nodded sagely, and told her to continue.
“He asked me one day if I wanted to go to Switzerland with him, for a romantic weekend. Naturally, I agreed, and it never crossed my mind that there might be anything wrong. I’d never even been out of Tuscany before; the prospect of going to Switzerland, staying in fancy hotels, was a dream beyond anything I had ever imagined. I assumed it was merely a preliminary, and then soon we’d be making those trips together. I already thought that I might be pregnant, you see.”
Flavia was more interested now, and jerked awake by the harshness and bitterness in the woman’s voice. With renewed attention, she watched Signora Fancelli carefully, still not saying a word to interrupt her narrative.
“He took a parcel with him,” she said, gesturing with her hands to indicate something less than half a meter square, then giving up as the effort was too much. “And he didn’t tell me what it was. He said it was a favour for a friend. I knew that was untrue, of course, and, foolish as I was, thought that lovers should have no secrets from each other. So, as the train went north, I opened it up. Just enough to peek inside.
“It was a painting of Our Lady. I recognized it because I’d seen it regularly in the Palazzo Straga and thought it so pretty. Not that I knew anything about it. Anyway, I sealed it back up again, and eventually Geoffrey went out with it under his arm, and came back without it.”