The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears

  'Why?'

  'It's quite usual for thieves to case a place before they burgle. Posing as an art dealer is a good way of going about it.'

  'You mean he was looking the place over? The cheek of it!' Alberghi said, puffing up with righteous indignation. 'I shall call that maid immediately. Who knows? She may well have been part of the gang.'

  Flavia did her best to turn him away from the idea of international conspiracies of burglars that was clearly forming in his mind, and pointed out that the robbery – a simple brick through the window when the house was empty - hardly required an inside hand to succeed.

  Nor was the maid, a woman of at least eighty years and almost bent double with arthritis, the archetypal gangster's moll. The moment she saw the old biddy, Flavia had the feeling she was going to be as blind as a bat. It was one of those days.

  A youngish man, the maid said, which was a start, but then she pointed at the colonel, a man in his late fifties, and said that maybe he was the same age as the master. Tactically acute though; Alberghi was quite pleased.

  After much patient questioning, Flavia established that the purported art dealer was between thirty and sixty, medium height, and had no distinguishing features she could remember.

  'Hair?' she asked.

  That's right, she said. He had some.

  'I mean, what colour?'

  She shook her head. No idea.

  Marvellous. Flavia snapped her notebook shut, stuffed it back in her bag and said she was going to go.

  'Frankly, Colonel, I think you can wave goodbye to your pieces. We pick stuff up every now and then, and when we do, we'll give you a call. Apart from that, the only thing I can recommend is that you keep your eye on auction sale catalogues, in case you see something you recognise. If you do, let us know.'

  Alberghi, with a sudden spurt of regimental courtesy, swept ahead to open the door for her as she left. The gesture was spoilt by a noisy yapping sound and a heartfelt, military style stream of cursing as a tiny dog ran in and almost swept him off his feet. This was evidently the ferocious animal advertised on the gate.

  'Get that beast out of here,' he instructed the maid. 'Which one is it, anyway?'

  The old woman, with remarkable agility, pounced on the animal, swept it into her bosom and cradled it gently. 'There, there,' she said, and patted it on its head. 'This one is Brunelleschi, sir. The one with a white spot and the clouding eyes.'

  'Horrid little things,' he said, eyeing it like someone wondering how it would do as a pot roast.

  'It seems quite sweet,' Flavia said, noting that the old lady's hearing and eyesight weren't so bad after all. 'Odd name, though.'

  'My uncle's,' he said mournfully. 'Otherwise I'd get rid of them. Arty type, as you know, so gave his dogs stupid names. Other one's called Bernini.'

  'Oh, good,' said Bottando as Flavia arrived back in the office at slightly after nine. She was planning to dump her notes on the desk for typing up the next morning, then go home for a long bath and an evening's self-indulgent misery in front of the television. There was never anything worth watching, which made it an even more appropriate way of wasting time. 'I was hoping you'd come back. Got something for you.'

  She looked at him with cautious disapproval. He had on his air of amiable benevolence, which generally meant having to do something she'd rather avoid.

  'What is it now?'

  'Well, I thought of you, you see,' he said. 'Because of your friend Argyll. Just the person, I thought.'

  There was, at the moment, no surer way of irritating Flavia than to think of her because of Jonathan Argyll, so she sniffed loudly, got on with rearranging papers on her desk and tried to ignore him.

  'This murder, and theft. The one in Los Angeles. It's causing quite a stir, you know. Even made the evening news. Did you see it?'

  Flavia pointed out that she'd spent the last few hours wasting time talking to military idiots in the countryside, not idling away in her office with her feet up. Bottando brushed the comment aside.

  'Quite. The point is that the police there have been on the phone. A man called Morelli. Speaks Italian, surprisingly. Just as well, otherwise I'd have had enormous difficulties understanding him . . .'

  'Well?'

  'They want us to pick up their prime suspect. A man called di Souza, do you know him?'

  As patiently as possible, Flavia said she didn't.

  'I'm surprised. He's been around for years. Awful old fraud. Anyway, it seems he and Moresby were having a row about a Bernini that di Souza smuggled out of the country. Moresby dead, Bernini gone and di Souza, so they reckon, on the next plane back to Italy. It gets into Rome in about an hour, and they want us to grab him and bung him back.'

  'Not our department,' she said shortly. 'Why not try the carabinieri?'

  'Paperwork. By the time all the international liaison departments had finished organising it, the plane would have been sold for scrap. So your friend Argyll recommended us. Good idea. Quick thinking. Could you, er . . .'

  'Miss dinner and spend the night hanging around Fiumicino? No.'

  Bottando frowned sternly. 'I really don't know what's got into you these days,' he said. 'What on earth is the matter? It's not like you, all this bad temper and uncooperative attitude. You used to spend most of your time begging me for jobs like this. But if you insist, you can get back to being a simple researcher. Full time. I'll get a proper member of the polizia to do it.'

  Flavia sat down on the desk and looked at him mournfully. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know I've been a pain recently. I just don't seem to have much enthusiasm for anything these days. I'll go to the airport for you. I suppose it might perk me up a bit, arresting someone.'

  'What you need is a holiday,' Bottando said firmly. It was his universal remedy for all ills and he took one himself as often as was decent. 'Change of air and scenery.'

  She shook her head. A holiday was the last thing she wanted at the moment.

  Bottando eyed her sympathetically for a moment, then patted her gently on the shoulder. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'It'll pass.'

  She looked up at him. 'What will?'

  He shrugged slightly and waved his hand about airily. 'Whatever it is that's putting you in such a bad mood. Anyway, nice though it is to talk . . .' He looked at his watch in a significant fashion.

  She got up wearily and brushed her hand through her hair. 'OK. What shall I do with him when I get him?'

  'Hand him over to the airport police. They'll hold him until all the paperwork's in order. I've arranged everything. You'll just be there to identify him and deal with formalities. I've got all the bits of paper you'll need, and a photograph. Shouldn't be any real trouble.'

  In making this statement, Bottando was almost entirely wrong, but for reasons which were not his fault. Getting to the airport was a trouble, due to a large pile-up on the stretch of motorway which leads from the city to the patch of reclaimed marshland which tries its hardest to be an international airport. Silly place to put it, but there was some story about a deal with the Vatican which had all this useless land and a friend in the planning department . . .

  Flavia got to the terminal at ten, parked in a Strictly No Parking area - she was lucky there was a space left, but it was late in the evening - and marched in to find the airport police. Then they took up their stations and waited until someone had the bright idea of checking the board, and discovered that the plane was half an hour late due to a longer than anticipated stopover in Madrid.

  Madrid? she thought. No one ever said anything to her about Madrid. The day had started off badly, got worse, and now looked as though it was going to go out in appropriate style.

  There was no alternative but to wait, knowing with that utter certainty that sometimes descends, that she was wasting her time.

  She was. The plane finally touched down at 10:45, the first passenger appeared through the gate at 11:15 and the last emerged at five minutes to midnight.

  No Hector di Souza. Flavia had sacr
ificed her evening and had nothing to show for it except a protesting stomach and a foul temper.

  What was more, she knew full well she could not just go home and forget about it. International protocol demanded you at least put up a show of being co-operative, especially when, somehow or other, you may have made a mess of things.

  So she went back to the office yet again, and settled down to the phone. Calls to the airline, to Rome Airport, to Madrid Airport. They'd ring back, they said; and she had to wait. Couldn't even go out and search for a sandwich, not that there were many places open at that hour.

  The final call-back came at nearly three in the morning. Madrid Airport, just like Rome and the airline, confirmed what she basically knew already. No di Souza. Didn't get off in Madrid, didn't get off in Rome, didn't get on the plane at all, as far as anyone knew.

  One final call, and that was it. Fortunately - and it was the one good thing that had happened all day, although the fact that it was now tomorrow may have had something to do with it – Detective Morelli was in his office. Bottando said he could speak Italian, and so he could, after a fashion. But Flavia's English was better.

  'Oh, right,' he said. 'Yeah, well, we sort of knew that,' he added laconically as she announced her failure. 'We checked here. He phoned and booked himself on to the flight, left the hotel, but never showed. Sorry if we put you to unnecessary trouble.'

  A couple of hours earlier and Flavia would have been capable of a most impressive speech, outlining the need for consideration in international endeavours and concluding with an impressive paean of praise to the continuing value of simple courtesy in human relations. But she was too tired to manage, so she simply said, not at all, not to worry, think nothing of it.

  'I would have rung,' he went on. 'Should have, in fact. Sorry. But you just can't believe what's going on here. Talk about a circus. I've never seen so many cameras and reporters. Not even at a super bowl. Then there was that English guy nearly killing himself . . .'

  'What?' she said, suddenly alert. 'What English guy?'

  'Man called Jonathan Argyll. The one who put me on to your Bottando. Do you know him? He rented this ancient car, went out and crashed it. Comes of renting rubbish. They save money on the servicing costs, you know. That's how they keep the prices down. I reckon . . .'

  'What happened?'

  'Eh? Oh, simple enough. Straight through a light and into a designer clothes shop. He made a real mess . . .'

  'But how is he?' she cried, noticing that her heart was thumping wildly as she tried to interrupt his flow of inconsequentialities. 'Is he all right?'

  'Oh, sure. He'll be fine. Cut up a bit. Bruised. Broken leg. I talked to the hospital. Doctor says he's sleeping like a baby.'

  'But what happened?'

  'I've no idea. Nearly got run over last night as well. Seems a little accident-prone.'

  Flavia agreed. He was just the sort of person who'd drive into a shop selling designer clothes, or get run over, or fall into a canal, or something similar. He did it all the time. She got the number of the hospital from Morelli and rang off. Then sat and looked at the phone for half an hour, contemplating the degree to which the news of his mishap had alarmed her, and the relief she'd felt when Morelli had said he'd survive.

  And it was all his own fault, as well. That, at least, was predictable.

  Chapter Five

  Argyll's car accident may not have come as a surprise to Flavia but it did to Argyll. Like most people, his vision of himself differed markedly from that of others. While Flavia, in a good mood, saw an amiable soul prone to tripping over his shoelaces, he preferred a slightly suaver, more sophisticated image in which the occasional mishap was the exception rather than the rule. He was always rather hurt and surprised when she had an attack of the giggles every time - on the rare occasions, that is - he walked into a traffic bollard.

  Until the accident took place, he'd had a rather good day, even though his lack of sleep made him a little less alert than usual. But his insomnia did at least lead to his meeting Detective Morelli once more. When the American turned up early the next morning and banged on the door of the room next to his, Argyll was already awake and functioning.

  'Oh, it's you,' he said, sticking his head round the door. 'I thought it might have been Hector. I was meant to be having breakfast with him. I'm dying to find out what he's been up to.'

  'You don't say. I reckon quite a lot of people feel the same way.' Morelli looked at the door of di Souza's room rather like someone hoping it would suddenly open and reveal that the occupant had been there all along. Eventually he gave up, rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  'You look awfully tired,' Argyll said sympathetically. 'Why don't you come and have a coffee? It might keep you going for an extra couple of hours.'

  Morelli, who'd also missed most of his night's sleep, although for different reasons, accepted gratefully, thankful for the prospect of sitting down for a while. He could also get some museum gossip, and as he was going to have to talk to Argyll sometime, he might as well combine the two tasks. You never knew when stuff like that would come in handy.

  Argyll recounted his evening, up to and including the quality of his cheeseburger and his brush with the hereafter, and Morelli in return gave him a warning about the dangers of jaywalking. Then the Englishman passed on titbits of gossip he had picked up in the very short time he'd been around. Not much use; as far as Argyll had been able to find out, everybody in the museum disliked everybody else. 'Are you all right? You look in pain,' he broke off and looked at Morelli with concern.

  Morelli stopped rubbing his gum for a moment and looked up. 'Gingivitis,' he explained.

  'What?'

  'Gum. Inflamed.'

  'Ooh, nasty,' Argyll said sympathetically. He considered himself something of an expert in this field, having spent much of his life sitting in a chair having dentists peering into his mouth and shaking their heads in distress.

  'Cloves,' he added.

  'Eh?'

  'Cloves. And brandy. You make a solution and rub it on the gum. Very effective. My mother's recipe.'

  'Does it work?'

  'I've no idea. But the brandy tastes nice.'

  'I don't have any cloves on me,' Morelli said regretfully, patting his pockets just to make sure.

  'Don't worry, leave it to me,' Argyll said brightly. 'You just drink your coffee. I'll be back in a minute.'

  About ten minutes, in fact. He went down to the lobby and then realised that, no matter how devoted to the ideals of old-world service American hotels might be, the chances of them keeping a stock of cloves handy were small.

  But then Argyll recalled that Hector di Souza was notorious throughout central Italy for being almost a professional-level hypochondriac. Argyll had never heard him complaining about gums before, but that proved nothing. On top of that, there was no one behind the desk, the key to Hector's room was dangling invitingly on its little hook . . .

  He returned to his room to find Morelli making free with his telephone. Did he have any idea how much extra hotels charged for calls?

  'Did you search Hector di Souza's room?' he asked in a tone which had a decidedly critical edge.

  'I didn't, no. But I sent some people over to pick him up, and I'm sure they had a look around. They wouldn't have searched it, though. We'll do that later. Why?'

  'That room's an awful mess. It looks as though a bomb has hit it.'

  Morelli was not impressed. 'How do you know?' he asked.

  Argyll explained the reasoning which had led him to di Souza's portable medicine cabinet.

  Morelli went slightly pale. 'You broke into a suspect's room?' he said aghast, thinking of all manner of unpleasant consequences.

  'Certainly not,' he said robustly. 'I used a key. I took it from the desk. There was no one there, and I couldn't think anybody would object. Anyway, the point is . . .'

  Morelli held up his hands and shut his eyes. 'Please,' he protested with real anguish in his tone. 'Don't say
any more. That's probably a felony. More importantly, if there is any useful evidence there, you've just compromised it. Can you imagine what a defence lawyer would make . . .'

  Argyll looked gravely offended. 'I was only trying to help,' he interrupted. 'But judging by the mess your people made, I don't imagine anyone will find anything. They disturbed it far more than I did.'

  'What are you talking about? They barely touched it,' said Morelli firmly. 'Whatever the state of di Souza's room, it's the way he left it. Now, give me that gum ointment.'

  Argyll handed it over and watched as the detective gingerly applied it.

  'I don't think so, somehow,' Argyll ventured after Morelli had stopped grimacing at the foul taste. 'The thing about Hector is that he is, shall we say, an aesthete.'