Flavia paused. Oh, not that one, surely? Not the one where the government intervened officially to guarantee it?
He nodded. You could see why he was upset, she thought. Not that it was such a great picture, although she always found Claude quite toothsome. Not a Raphael, or anything like that. But it had such a dodgy past. Its reputation as one of the most stolen pictures in the world ensured it a status beyond its simple quality. Argyll, no doubt, would remember the details better than she could, but she could recall the highlights. Painted in the 1630s for an Italian cardinal. Pinched by the Duke of Modena when he found it in a wagon after a battle. Pinched again by a French general a few years later. Looted and sold during the French Revolution, pinched again by Napoleon when he came across it in Holland. Stolen by thieves in the 1930s, by the Germans in the 1940s and by two more thieves in the 1950s and 1960s. Whereupon the exasperated owner sold it to the Louvre, in the hope that they would manage to hang on to it. Which they had. Until, it seemed, it had arrived in Italy.
Oh, dear, she said.
You see our problem, the prime minister continued. It is exceptionally unpleasant for me, as I gave a personal guarantee of its safety. Quite apart from that, this exhibition is to be one of the cultural highpoints of our presidency. It would be very bad indeed if it was wrecked, and it would be wrecked if this news gets out. It is quite possible that other lenders would pull out, and even if they didnt our reputation would be damaged badly. You can imagine what would be said. We would look quite ridiculous.
Flavia nodded. So? When you get the ransom demand you pay up.
The only problem is that it is illegal. If we arrest people for paying ransoms to rescue their wives and children, we can hardly pay up for a mere painting.
A silence fell on the room, and it seemed as though Flavia was expected to say something useful.
You mean you want me to find the painting.
I would ordinarily be deeply grateful, but in this case, no. How many people would you use for such an inquiry?
Flavia thought for a moment. Everyone we had, if you wanted a quick result. Not that I can guarantee one.
And could you at least guarantee to keep it out of the press?
For about six hours, yes.
Precisely. Secrecy in this matter is absolutely vital. Even if you were successful and recovered the painting swiftly, the damage would still be done.
In which case, I confess to being defeated. You wont pay a ransom and wont look for the painting. What, exactly, do you want done?
We cannot pay a ransom. The government cannot authorize such a thing. Taxpayers money cannot be used. Nor can any government employee be involved in its payment. Do I make myself clear?
He did. But Flavia had not spent years watching Bottando take avoiding action without learning a thing or two.
Im afraid Im not with you at all. Sorry, she said blandly.
You will use your best abilities to recover this painting without any publicity. But I must make it absolutely clear that I cannot and will not condone the payment of a ransom from public funds.
Ah.
Should these criminals be paid off independently from a private source, a man willing to break the law for what he considers erroneously the public good, then that, of course, I cannot prevent, much though I might regret it.
I see.
You will keep me informed every day about your investigation, and will receive instructions as you proceed. Might I also say that the need for secrecy is absolute.
You are rather tying my hands, here.
Im sure you will manage.
And if I come across any other way of recovering this picture?
You will restrain yourself. I want no risk at all of this coming into the open. He stood up. I think that is all for the time being. Let me know of your progress every day, if you please.
Two minutes later, both Flavia and Macchioli were in the ante-room once more, she a little perplexed about the whole business, the museum director seemingly lost in despondency.
Right, then, she said after a while. I think you need to tell me a little more about what on earth has been going on here.
Hmm?
Robbery? Armed man? Remember?
Yes, yes. What do you want to know?
How about how to contact this person? If I am to hand over money to them in some way, I ought to know how to set about it.
Macchioli looked blank. What do you mean, hand over money? I thought you had just been told that you were to do no such thing?
She sighed. The trouble with Macchioli was that there was no disingenuousness about him at all. He really did think that they had just sat through a meeting and been given instructions that no money was to be paid. That, of course, might well turn into a major problem.
Doesnt matter. Forget it, she said. This message, it gave no means of contact?
No.
Can I see it, please?
Its in my office.
It was like talking to a particularly stupid child. Why dont we go to your office, then?
There, he said, forty minutes later, after a silent voyage through the streets of Rome. Its not very informative.
Flavia took the piece of paper no point in worrying about fingerprints or anything like that now and looked. True enough. She could hardly fault the analysis. Six words only. She even admired the economy of expression.
She leant back in her seat and thought. Did it tell her anything? Youll be hearing from me. Done on a computer printer, but who didnt have access to one these days? The paper was standard-issue computer paper, of which there were several billion sheets consumed every day. No; it told her nothing; or, at least, nothing that the author didnt want her to know.
The robbery itself, she said, turning her attention back to Macchioli.
He shook his head. Very little to say I havent already told you. A small truck; the sort that traders use to deliver fruit and vegetables. A man dressed up as Leonardo da Vinci
What? she asked incredulously. He had said it as though people dressed as Renaissance painters or baroque popes were to be seen pottering about the museum every day.
One of those masks you buy in party shops. You know. And a sort of cape. And the gun, of course. Do you want to see that?
She looked at him wearily. Mere expressions of incredulity seemed inadequate, somehow. The gun?
He dropped it when he drove off. Threw it, actually. At the head of the man who helped him load it. This was after he handed out chocolates.
Chocolates? she said weakly.
Little boxes of chocolates. Belgian ones, I believe. You know, the ones that you buy in speciality shops. With a ribbon on the top.
Of course. Where are they?
What?
The chocolates.
The guards ate them.
I see. Blood sugar levels low because of the shock, no doubt. Apart from that, no violence of any sort?
No.
Id like to talk to these people in the store room.
Youll have to.
What do you mean?
Someone has to tell them to keep quiet about this.
What do you mean?
Someone has to tell them to keep quiet about this.
You havent done that?
Of course. But nobody ever listens to me.
Flavia sighed. Very well, then. Take me to them. Then you can show me the gun.
She decided on the brutal approach. Not simply because it was one of those days, and she wasnt feeling in the mood for subtleties, but because she knew that being young and a woman meant that it was sometimes difficult to persuade people especially the sort of people who unload paintings to take her seriously.
Right, she said, when the two men had come in and sat down. I will say this once and once only. I am the head of the art theft squad, investigating the theft of this picture. You two are prime suspects. Got that?
They didnt answer but, judging by the way they turned a little pale, she assumed they had.
I want it back fast, and more important people than myself want there to be no publicity. If there is any, if anyone hears about what has happened here, and I trace it back to you two, I will personally ensure (a) that you go to gaol for aiding and abetting a crime, (b) that you stay in gaol for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, (c) I will have you fired from this job, and (d) I will ensure that neither of you ever gets a job again. Is that understood?
More pallor.
In order to avoid this regrettable fate, all you have to do is keep your mouths shut. There was no theft, you know of no theft, nothing untoward happened yesterday. You may find that difficult, but you will find the self-discipline rewarding. Do I make myself absolutely clear?
She was rather proud of the speech, delivered with all the cold conviction of a true apparatchik, able to call on untold occult powers to visit terrible consequences on the innocent. Anyone with a moments thought would have seen it was all nonsense, and that there was nothing she could do to them at all, but the two men seemed too dull to notice. She only hoped they were not so dull that they failed to grasp what she wanted of them.
That would become clear in the next few days; what was immediately apparent, alas, was that they were certainly too dim-witted to be much use as witnesses. Their description of the robbery was scarcely more detailed than the brief summary that Macchioli had already given her. The only facts they added were that the van was large enough to get a Claude in, was white, and wasnt a Fiat. The man involved was of average height and might (or might not) have had a Roman accent. She dismissed them after twenty minutes with another dire warning, then was taken to see the gun.
Macchioli was keeping it in his safe. In a plastic bag. He was inordinately proud of himself about the plastic bag.
There, he said, putting it gingerly on his desk. We were lucky it didnt go off when it hit the ground.
Flavia felt like weeping. Some days were just so abominable she didnt know how she stood it. She took out her handkerchief, picked up the gun, looked at it for a few moments, then pointed it at her head.
Signora! Be careful! shouted Macchioli in alarm.
She looked at him sadly, closed her eyes and, to the older mans horror, slowly pulled the trigger.
The sound of what was later identified by analysts or rather by a secretary in payroll, who was an enthusiast for opera as a jaunty version of Verdis Teco io sto, Gran Dio from Act Two of Un Ballo in Maschera, rendered on a little widget buried deep inside the guns handle, drifted slowly across the room.
Flavia opened her eyes, shrugged, and tossed the gun on to the desk.
If we manage to find a shop that has recently sold a Leonardo da Vinci mask and a plastic singing gun to a man carrying chocolates, we might have a lead, she said, as she put the gun back into the bag and got up. Ill let you know.
Five minutes later she was slumped in the back of the car, muttering darkly to herself. Then she reached a decision. Whatever injunctions other people needed to obey on keeping their mouths shut, she needed to ventilate. She gave her driver directions to head for the EUR.
2
Despite the morning, she thought little on the journey, or, at least, thought little about Claudes and their inconvenient disappearance. Rather, she thought about her old boss, General Taddeo Bottando, poor soul, consigned to opulent exile in this grim suburb, surrounded by office blocks and 1930s architecture and wastelands where nothing much seemed to happen. He had been stuck out here for a year now, heading some grandiosely-named European directive, as cut off from the mainstream of policing as his location suggested. Only bankers should have to work in this awful place, she thought; scarcely even a decent restaurant to go to at lunchtime, and Bottando was a man who liked his lunch.
Whereas the art squad building was run down but beautiful, underfunded but buzzing with activity, Bottandos new empire was grand, dripping in cash but ugly and deathly quiet. Merely getting into the building required going through the sort of security procedures that usually defend classified government installations. Everybody was terribly well-dressed, the carpets were thick, the doors swished to and fro electrically, the computers hummed. A policemans paradise, enough resources to tackle the world. Poor, poor man, she thought.
But Bottando put a brave face on it, and Flavia smiled encouragingly, both going through the ritual of pretending that all was well as they did on every occasion they met. He talked about the splendid things his new operation would shortly accomplish, she made joking remarks about European expense accounts. Neither ever referred to the fact that Bottando was showing his age just a bit more, that his conversation was just that touch duller, that his jokes and good humour were now ever so slightly forced.
Nor was his heart in it any longer; he was away more often than he was behind his desk, constantly, it seemed, taking holidays. Winding down. Preparing his exit. It was only a matter of time before the holiday became permanent. A couple of years and he would have to retire anyway, although while in his old post he had fended off even the thought: there was nothing to retire to. He was one of those people whose very existence was inconceivable without his job and his position.
His promotion had lost him both, and maybe that was the intention. To ease him out by easing him up, and perhaps Bottando was ready to go; he would have fought more had he not been halfway there already. He had won bigger battles against greater odds in the past. Maybe hed had enough.
Fairly often now, Flavia came to see him not because she wanted his advice but because she wanted him to give it. She had been running the department for a year and had settled in. Better still, she found she was good at it and no longer needed to be anybodys protégée. She had leant on Bottando heavily in the earlier days, but needed to do so no longer. He had, she was sure, noticed this and was pleased for her. The last time he came to the department, a few months back to check some old files and gather some materials, she knew he was just checking to make sure all was well. She was also sure that the visit was for no real reason, and that he stayed most of the afternoon pottering about, reading this and that, chatting to people in corridors, going out for a drink afterwards largely because he had so little of substance to do in his own offices. She only hoped that he didnt suspect that sometimes just sometimes she felt a little sorry for him.