by Iain Pears
‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? It means either that it has already been recovered, or that it’s too unimportant to bother about, or that the police investigating know what happened and don’t require our special skills.’
‘I see,’ Bottando said, not at all sure that he did. ‘So what, exactly, is the status of this picture that is leaning against my desk? Does it have a right to be here or not?’
Can you give a perfectly honed and practised Gallic shrug down a telephone? Perhaps you can. Bottando could almost see his colleague delivering a masterly demonstration of the art.
‘Officially, this painting has not been notified to us as stolen, so as far as we’re concerned it hasn’t been stolen. We have no interest in it. That’s all I can say at the moment.’
‘You couldn’t do something simple and ask the owner?’
‘If I knew who the owner was, I could. But that is one of the little details that we were not given. To be on the safe side, it would be best if Mr Argyll brought it back, but I’m not in a position to say whether we have a right to it or not.’
And that was that. How very intriguing. No further on at all, Bottando put the phone down and thought. Damn picture, was all he came up with. And odd Janet. Normally the most effusive of people, but this time he had not gone out of his way to help. Normally, with any sort of request, the man swamped them with details. Usually he would put somebody on to it to dig up everything he could. But not this time. Why not? Perhaps he was just busy. Bottando knew the problem. Priorities. If you are really strapped, you can’t waste too much time on minor stuff. But still …
Then he went and sat on his armchair, cupped his chin in his hands and looked carefully at the painting. As Flavia had said, it was decent enough, quite well done, in fact. If you like that sort of thing. But nothing special. Nothing to kill for, not that they had any real reason to think that it had been anything other than an innocent bystander, so to speak. Besides, since it had arrived in the department a couple of hours previously, a specialist from the National Museum had been summoned to examine it carefully, and concluded that it was exactly as it seemed. Nothing underneath the paint, and nothing behind the canvas and nothing hidden in the frame. Bottando sometimes had a vivid imagination in this regard. Many years ago he had caught some drug-smugglers shipping heroin hidden in holes drilled in a picture-frame, and he dearly wanted to catch someone at it again. Not in this case; despite all efforts it was resolutely still just a middling picture in an ordinary frame.
He was still looking and shaking his head when Flavia and Argyll came in.
‘So? What is there to report?’
‘Quite a lot, really,’ she said as she sat down. ‘This man Ellman was probably shot with the same gun that killed Muller. And you already know that he had both Muller’s and Jonathan’s numbers and addresses in his book.’
‘What about this mysterious character with the scar? No chance he was seen wandering around the lobby?’
‘’Fraid not.’
‘Who was he? Ellman, I mean.’
‘According to the documentation he had on him, he was German, naturalized Swiss. Lived in Basle, born 1921, and a retired import – export consultant. What that is I don’t know. Fabriano is contacting the Swiss to find out more.’
‘So, we are in the position of having information without explanation.’
‘That’s about right. Still, we can play around with some ideas.’
‘If we must,’ Bottando said dubiously. He disliked playing around with ideas. He preferred ordering facts. More professional.
‘OK, then. Three events: an attempted theft and two murders, combined with the possibility that the picture was stolen. First thing we have to do is find out who the last owner was.’
‘Which Janet says he doesn’t know.’
‘Hmm. Anyway. All these events are linked. The picture and the man with the scar link the first two; the gun links the second and third. Muller is tortured, and unless his killer was mad, that can only have been to find something out. His pictures were cut up into pieces, and afterwards someone phones Jonathan asking about Socrates.’
‘Yes,’ said Bottando patiently. ‘So?’
‘So nothing, really,’ she said, a little crestfallen.
‘There is also another little question,’ Argyll said. If the whole business was going to be complicated he didn’t see why he shouldn’t put in his contribution as well.
‘And that is?’
‘How did this man know about Muller? And how did he know I was going to be at the railway station in Paris? I didn’t tell anyone. So the information must have come through Delorme.’
‘We will have to ask this colleague of yours,’ Bottando said. ‘And do quite a lot of other work as well. Muller’s sister arrives tomorrow, I gather. And someone will have to go to Basle.’
‘I can go after I’ve seen the sister,’ Flavia said.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Ethics,’ he said ponderously. ‘That’s why.’
‘Just a second –’
‘No. You listen. You know as well as I do that you really ought to take a low profile in this matter. However unwittingly Mr Argyll here may have been handling stolen goods, none the less that is what he may well have been doing. He is also a major witness and you concealed that from the Carabinieri.’
‘That’s overdoing it a bit.’
‘I am merely stating what it would look like in the hands of someone like Fabriano. You cannot be seen to be involved in the investigation.’
‘But –’
‘Be seen to be involved, I said. There is also another problem, which is that, for the first time in our acquaintance, brother Janet is not being entirely frank with me – and until I know why, we will have to proceed with some caution.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He said that it would be best if Mr Argyll brought the picture back.’
‘So?’
‘I never told him Mr Argyll had the picture. Which leads me to suspect that maybe there was a Frenchman working here without official notice. Which I don’t like. Now, Janet never does anything without a good reason; so we have to try and work out what that reason is. I could ask, but he’s already had the opportunity to tell me, if he was so minded.’
‘So,’ he continued, ‘we must plod along methodically. Mr Argyll, I must ask you to return that picture. I hope you won’t find that too much of a burden?’
‘I suppose I could manage,’ he said.
‘Good. While there, you might arrange a tactful meeting with your friend Delorme and see if he can shed any light on this. But do not, under any circumstances, do anything else. This is a murder case, and a nasty one. Don’t stick your neck out. Do your errand and come straight back. Is that understood?’
Argyll nodded. He had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.
‘Good. In that case, I suggest you go and pack. Now, Flavia,’ he went on, as Argyll, realizing he was no longer wanted, got up to go, ‘you will go to Basle and see what you can find out. I will tell the Swiss you are coming. You will then come straight back here as well. Anything else you do will be unofficial. I don’t want your name on any report, interview or official document of any sort. Understood?’
She nodded.
‘Excellent. I will tell you what Muller’s sister says when you get back. In the meantime, I suggest you go round to the Carabinieri to deliver Argyll’s statement, and see if you can persuade them to let you have a look at what they’ve accumulated so far. You don’t want to miss something in Basle because you don’t know what to look out for.’
‘It’s nearly eleven,’ she pointed out.
‘Put in an overtime claim,’ he replied unsympathetically. ‘I’ll have all the bits of paper you need in the morning. Come and get them before you go.’
7
Six o’clock in the morning. That is, seven hours and forty-five minutes since he got in, seven hours and fifteen minutes si
nce he went to bed. Not a wink of sleep and, more to the point, no Flavia either. What the hell was she doing? She’d gone off with the Carabinieri. And that was the last he’d heard. Normally Argyll was a tranquil soul, but Fabriano had irritated him beyond measure. All this muscular masculinity in a confined space, the sneering and posturing. What, he wondered for the tenth time, had she ever seen in him? Something, evidently. He rolled over again, eyes wide open. Had she been there, Flavia would have informed him dourly that all he was suffering from was a bad case of over-excitement, dangerous in someone who liked a quiet life. Murders, robberies, interviews, too much in a short space of time. What he needed was a glass of whisky and a good night’s sleep.
With which diagnosis he would have agreed, and indeed he had been agreeing with it all night, as he tossed and turned. Go to sleep, he told himself. Stop being ridiculous. But he couldn’t manage either and, when he could no longer endure listening to central Rome’s limited bird population saluting the morn, he admitted final defeat, got out of bed and wondered what to do next.
Go to Paris, he’d been told, so maybe he should. If Flavia could absent herself in such an inconsiderate way, he could demonstrate this was no monopoly of hers. Besides, it would get an unprofitable task over and done with. He looked at his watch as the coffee boiled. Early enough to get the first plane to Paris. There by ten, get the four o’clock back and be back home by six. If planes, trains and air-traffic controllers were in a co-operative mood, that is. He only hoped the nightman at the Art Theft Department had instructions to allow him to take the painting away. If he was fortunate, he could be back by evening. And then he could go and see about that apartment. If Flavia didn’t like the idea, then tough.
So, his decision made, he scrawled a hurried note and left it on the table as he walked out.
About twenty minutes after he went out, Flavia came in. She too was utterly exhausted, although for different reasons. A long haul. It was amazing how much paper these police could generate in such a short time, and Fabriano had fought hard to avoid giving it to her. It was only when she’d threatened to complain to his boss that he reluctantly gave way. Had she been in a better mood, or less tired, she would just about have seen his point. He was working long hours on this case. It was his big chance, and he wasn’t going to let it get away. He certainly wasn’t going to share the credit with her if he could avoid it. The trouble was, his attitude had the effect of hardening hers. The more he resisted, the more she demanded. The more he – and Bottando, in fact – wanted to keep her out, the more she was determined to take it further. So she’d sat and read. Hundreds of sheets of paper, of interviews and documentation and snapshots and inventories.
But for all the vast quantities of information, there was little of any importance to be discovered. Meticulous lists of the contents of Ellman’s hotel room produced nothing of any interest at all. Preliminary enquiries indicated no criminal record in either Switzerland or Germany; not even a driving offence to besmirch his good name. Then there was a mound of interviews, taken after they had gone back to Bottando’s office. Waiters, doormen, passers-by, visitors to the hotel restaurant and bar, cleaners and guests. Starting with a Madame Armand in the room opposite who believed she may have caught a glimpse of Ellman that morning, but who spent more time complaining loudly about missing her plane than offering useful clues, right through the alphabet to Signor Zenobi who confessed, with much guilt, that he had been entertaining a, ah, friend and didn’t listen to anything and there wasn’t any need for his wife to know anything about this, was there?
After hours of concentrated reading, Flavia gave up and walked home to talk it over with Argyll in the short space of time before she disappeared to Switzerland.
‘Jonathan?’ she called in her sweetest of voices as she let herself in. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Jonathan?’ she said a little more loudly.
‘Jonathan!’ she shouted when there was still no reply.
‘Oh, bugger,’ she added when she glanced down and saw his little note on the table. Then the phone went. It was Bottando, wanting her in his office as soon as possible.
The General had a problem which had surfaced almost the moment he had put the finishing touches to his carefully considered scheme to keep Flavia and this investigation at arm’s length from each other. It was a linguistic problem, in essence, and surfaced when Helen Mackenzie arrived on the plane direct from Toronto. Mrs Mackenzie spoke English and a little French. Giulio Fabriano, who was meant to be conducting the interview, spoke neither – a handicap he had been told more than once might hinder his career in this age of European integration. Try as he might with cassettes and books and lists of words, however, nothing could make any of it stick. According to researchers, about 6 per cent of any population is incapable of learning a new language, however proficient they may be in their own. Fabriano was, unfortunately for himself, a member of that small and increasingly persecuted minority.
Bottando himself had more aptitude, but scarcely any more proficiency, although at his age and rank it scarcely mattered. He could scrape along in French, had a word or so of German, and for anything more demanding could call on the services of Flavia, who was disgustingly good at this sort of thing.
Hence his phone call, breaking his self-imposed rule within five minutes of its dawning that the interview could take weeks and be completely inaccurate unless help arrived soon. Flavia staggered in about half an hour after he called, bleary-eyed, crumpled and far from ready to conduct searching interrogations.
So matters were delayed awhile as Bottando, using his very own hands (something of a rarity but his secretary was late), made the thickest coffee he could manage, stumped off to the nearest bar for food and cigarettes, and encouraged her at least to try and stay awake. It did her stomach no good at all, but the shock treatment did at least stop the compulsive yawning.
After the twelve-hour flight from Canada Mrs Mackenzie was scarcely in better shape, and the proceedings, when they finally began, were punctuated by yawning fits as one set off the other. She was quite a nice lady, Flavia decided. Very trim and attractive, obviously deeply upset at the death of her brother but one of the practical sort who had decided that her grieving should take place in private. For the moment, she wanted to provide as much information as possible; catching the person responsible was her first obligation now.
She was somewhat surprised when Flavia staggered in, notebook and tape recorder in one hand, coffee-pot in the other. It was not her idea of a proper police inquiry. Far too young, far too attractive, far too tired. But the young Italian, she decided, had the most charming smile and won at least the chance to prove herself by a practical account of the inquiry so far. There had been, she said, another murder, almost certainly linked to the death of Muller. She was sorry to start asking questions so quickly after the plane arrived, she went on, but they were obviously in something of a hurry.
‘I quite understand,’ Helen Mackenzie said. ‘In fact I find your speed reassuring. Could you tell me, though, how Arthur died?’
Ah, Flavia thought. The last thing she wanted was to give details. Maybe the woman had a right to know. For her part, if the roles were reversed, she would rather be kept in the dark.
‘He was shot,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid he was badly beaten beforehand.’ Leave it at that, she reckoned.
‘Oh, poor Arthur. And do you know why?’
‘We don’t know,’ she said frankly. ‘One possibility concerns a painting. He had just bought – or almost bought one. The day before, someone tried to steal it as it was leaving Paris, and the thief was seen outside his apartment the day he died. As you may have noticed, there is rather a lot we don’t know at the moment. I’m afraid that all we have are hazy ideas that need looking into. His accounts show nothing unusual, his work, his friends and his colleagues are all models of ordinariness.’
Mrs Mackenzie nodded in agreement. ‘That sounds like him. He lived an odd life. Very little amusement o
r pleasure in it. A sort of flat existence, really. He had few friends, few interests. That’s why he didn’t mind travelling and being posted from one country to the next year after year. He never had much to leave behind him.’
‘So,’ Flavia resumed, ‘this picture. He said, apparently, that it belonged to his father. We can find no trace of this. Who was his – your – father?’
She smiled. ‘That’s two separate questions. My father was Doctor John Muller, who died eight years ago. Arthur was adopted. His father was a Frenchman called Jules Hartung.’
Flavia noted this down. ‘When did he die?’
‘In 1945. He hanged himself. Shortly before he was due to go on trial as a war criminal.’
She looked up and paused for thought. ‘Really? I see. Perhaps you’d better tell me in greater detail. A potted history, so to speak. I don’t know that it’ll be relevant –’
‘It may well be,’ the Canadian woman interrupted, ‘if this picture was a factor in Arthur’s death. He’d been trying to find out about his father for the last couple of years. Ever since my mother died.’
‘Why since then?’
‘Because that was when he got his parents’ letters. She’d never passed them on. She and Dad didn’t want to rake up the past. They felt that Arthur had enough to deal with –’
Flavia held up her hand. ‘From the beginning …?’ she suggested.
‘Very well. Arthur came to Canada in 1944, after a long voyage via Argentina. He’d been evacuated from France when his parents felt it was too dangerous for him to stay. How they got him out I’m not sure. He was only four when he arrived, and didn’t remember much. All he could recall was being told by his mother to be good, and everything would be all right. And being cold, hidden in the backs of lorries and carts as he crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, then a long boat ride to Buenos Aires, then moving from person to person until he was shipped off to Canada and my parents. He was frightened all the time. My parents agreed to take him in. Family and business connections. I think the idea was to look after him until peace came, then he’d go home. But peace did come, and both his parents were dead.’
