by Paul Adam
‘And the sound? Does it sound like a Guarneri?’
‘Ah, now that’s the question. No, it doesn’t sound like a Guarneri. I can copy the appearance of a “del Gesù” but, alas, I cannot give it the touch of genius that produces that special, wonderful tone. If I could, I would be another Giuseppe Guarneri instead of a Giovanni Battista Castiglione. But Forlani was a collector. He didn’t play the violin. He didn’t buy the “del Gesù” to listen to, he bought it to look at, to gloat over.’
Guastafeste looked away across the square, watching the tourists passing through with their cameras and guidebooks. An elderly lady dressed all in black shuffled past clutching a string bag of vegetables. We could hear the low wheeze of her breathing from where we were sitting.
‘It’s ironical, isn’t it?’ Guastafeste said. ‘Forlani had all those violins, yet the one he prized most was a fake.’
‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘he would much rather have had a fake he believed to be genuine than the other way round.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know it. I’ve seen it many times. People come to my workshop with a violin. They tell me it’s a Gagliano or a Pressenda or something. The label inside seems to confirm that. I examine the instrument and tell them it’s a fake. It’s not a Gagliano, it’s a nineteenth-century German copy. They go away despondent. Why? The violin hasn’t changed. It looks the same as before, it sounds the same. But to them it’s different. It now looks and sounds like an inferior instrument.’
‘But it’s worth much less.’
‘That’s true. On the open market its value has suddenly plummeted. But as a violin to play, why should its worth have changed? Because when people buy a good violin they aren’t just buying an instrument, they’re buying a name. They’re buying a dream, an association with greatness. I think of it as the Holy Grail Syndrome. Wanting to possess, to touch something that some great figure of the past has touched. Like all those gullible souls in the Middle Ages who bought the bones of saints or strips from the shroud that covered Christ in the belief that they were genuine. Or like those people today who pay ridiculous sums for celebrity memorabilia. You know, the cup that Elvis Presley once drank a Coke from, Marilyn Monroe’s childhood teddy bear, John Lennon’s toenail clippings, that sort of thing. What on earth do they do it for? Is it because they hope some of the magic that made those people famous will rub off on them?’
‘Is that why you chose Louis Spohr?’ Guastafeste said.
‘Yes. Collectors want something special. They have plenty of money so any old Guarneri won’t do. They want one with a name, with a history attached to it. And in the violin world the most celebrated Guarneri – after Paganini’s Cannone, which is in the town hall in Genoa – is Spohr’s stolen “del Gesù”.’
‘Wasn’t it a bit risky?’
I shrugged. ‘It was a private sale, not through auction, so there was no public scrutiny. The documentation – also fake, of course – was so thorough and convincing that even I half believed it. Serafin forged letters, bills of sale, certificates, a whole pile of papers to explain what happened to the violin after Spohr lost it, to account for its sudden reappearance in a junk shop in Warsaw.’
‘In Warsaw?’
‘Eastern Europe, former Communist bloc, in turmoil for centuries. It’s an ideal place for lost violins to surface. With a con you have to think big. Look at Konrad Kujau who forged the Hitler diaries. If he’d forged a couple, or even a dozen, people would have been instantly suspicious. But he forged fifty-eight volumes. No one could believe anyone would go to that kind of trouble for a scam so they thought they were genuine. Or back in the 1920s a Czech nobleman successfully sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap. Twice. We are an astonishingly easy species to dupe.’
‘But Forlani? A rich, shrewd businessman like him.’
‘Can be the easiest to fool, if you pitch the con right. If you go to a financier with some small plan to open a shop that will bring only a modest return, he’ll go over your business plan with a magnifying glass, ask you hundreds of searching questions. But go in asking for fifty million for some unproven crackpot scheme that looks as if it may pay out big in a year and he’ll fall over himself to give you the money. Look at the dot.com bubbles. People are greedy, they want their money to come easily. So make your con special, that’s what hooks them. Appeal to that greed.’
‘And Forlani was taken in, just like that?’
‘You have to understand his mentality, the collector’s mentality,’ I said. ‘He wanted something no one else had, something unique. He wanted desperately to believe it was Spohr’s “del Gesù”. His greed blinded him, overrode his natural suspicion.’
Guastafeste looked at me. ‘I’m still finding this incredible, you know. You, a forger.’
‘Please, it’s not something I’m proud of.’
‘I don’t condemn you, Gianni. I understand why you did it. I’d have done the same in your position.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘I’d better get back to Forlani’s.’
‘You want me to come too?’
Guastafeste shook his head. ‘We’re not going to get away today. Spadina wants us to stick around. Why don’t you go back to the hotel, tell them we want to hang on to our rooms for another night? And try Serafin again from the hotel.’
I walked slowly back to our pensione, not really aware of where I was going. I was preoccupied, agitated, my brain in a state of turmoil. I was approaching the Teatro La Fenice when a strange thing happened. I don’t know whether I was falling prey to my own fevered imagination, but as I negotiated the congested streets I glanced down a side alley and caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman passing by at the other end. I saw her for only a moment, so I may have been mistaken, but she looked very like Vincenzo Serafin’s mistress, Maddalena.
6
I lay on the bed in my room at the pensione for a long time. It was only the middle of the morning, but I felt utterly drained. Venice is a tiring city. Too much walking, pavements hot and hard on the feet, constant crowds to endure, but it wasn’t just physical weariness that afflicted me. I was emotionally exhausted. I closed my eyes and tried to doze off, but my mind would not let me rest. Forlani’s body was there at the forefront of my thoughts, illuminated like a neon sign, searing my retinas with his sprawled form, his lifeless face, the pool of blood all around him. The image still turned my stomach, filled me with revulsion, yet I could not switch it off.
I forced myself to get up, knowing that the longer I allowed those disturbing memories to seep inside my consciousness the more unsettling, the more damaging they would become. If I could not erase them with sleep, then I could attempt to do so with activity. I dialled an outside line on the telephone beside the bed and rang Serafin’s office again. He still hadn’t come in. I tried his mobile phone. No success there either. I put on my jacket and went out, hoping that the noise and activity of the city would distract me.
St Mark’s was already packed with tourists. There was a queue a hundred metres long outside the basilica, the line snaking away into the Piazzetta next to the raised wooden boardwalks that – with the area flooding so frequently – have become a permanent, and unsightly, feature of the piazza. I walked round on to the Molo where a string of artists and caricature-sketchers had set up stall next to the Doge’s Palace, almost blocking the thoroughfare. I pushed my way past them and up the steps on to the Ponte della Paglia from which everyone views the Bridge of Sighs. The crowds here were so dense – people posing, cameras clicking – that it took me half a minute or more to get through them. Then almost immediately I saw a vast tour group swelling towards me like a tsunami, the guide at the front – a diminutive oriental woman – holding aloft an umbrella to avoid being swallowed up by her charges. Fearing for my safety, I stepped smartly sideways, seeking sanctuary in the serene portals of the Hotel Danieli, the grandest, most famous hostelry in Venice. The transformation was absolute: from the raging, boiling maelstrom outside to the cool, calm haven inside, the s
oothing green marble of the hotel foyer like a windless lagoon on which I found myself suddenly becalmed.
I looked around. The architecture had a gloomy, Gothic style that could only be described as early Dr Frankenstein. Stairs and pillars and balconies rose up above me like an Escher trompe l’oeil, the old-fashioned crystal chandeliers and liveried staff adding to the sensation that I had stepped back into an earlier century.
I went through into the lounge and ordered coffee. It came in an elegant white, gold and maroon china cup with the Danieli crest on the side and – beneath a small silver jug of milk – a bill for nine euros. In Venice you pay for your tranquillity. I drank the coffee slowly, eking out every sip to pass the time, and delay the dreaded moment at which I would have to step back into the clamorous theme park outside.
Almost a full hour had passed before I felt obliged to leave my comfortable seat. Returning to the foyer, I made a detour to the payphone at the back near the stairs and tried Serafin’s mobile phone again. This time he answered.
‘Gianni, my friend. What can I do for you?’ he said.
‘Did you get my message?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I got it. I called the number you left, but it was engaged. What’s the matter? You sounded upset.’
‘I was upset. It was something of a shock finding Enrico Forlani dead in his house.’
There was a silence on the line. Then Serafin said: ‘Forlani? You’re in Venice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Forlani is dead? How?’
‘I don’t know. The police are handling everything.’
‘The police? What’re you saying, Gianni? The police? What’s happened?’
‘Never mind that, I need some information,’ I said. ‘The man who was in your office last Friday, the Englishman, who was he?’
Serafin didn’t reply.
‘Vincenzo, I need to know who he was.’
‘Why? Why’re you interested in him?’ Serafin said, evasion second nature to him.
‘It’s not for me to say.’
‘Is he implicated in the death?’
‘The Englishman, Vincenzo, what’s his name?’
There was another pause on the line while Serafin weighed up his response. I waited impatiently, watching a middle-aged couple come in through the hotel entrance and collect their key from the reception desk.
‘Vincenzo…’ I prompted. ‘Do you want the police turning up on your doorstep and charging you with obstructing the course of justice?’
‘Scott,’ Serafin said. ‘His name is Christopher Scott.’
‘Who is he?’
‘A violin dealer from London.’
‘You have an address for him?’
‘In Italy?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘Not in Italy. I don’t know where he is. I have his address in England, but it’s at the office.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Oh, out and about,’ he said vaguely.
‘The police will want that address.’
‘I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. Has Scott got something to do with Forlani’s death?’
‘I can’t say any more.’
‘When did Forlani die? What were you doing there, Gianni? You can tell me that, can’t you? Come on, an old friend like me.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that,’ I said. ‘You’re breaking up. Ciao.’
I depressed the button on the top of the phone, inserted some more money and punched in Guastafeste’s mobile number.
‘I got through to Serafin,’ I said when Guastafeste answered. I gave him the information I’d acquired.
‘Thanks, Gianni. I’ll pass it on to Spadina.’
‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘Still at Forlani’s. Keeping an eye on things.’
‘You don’t trust the locals?’
‘No, it’s not that. They know what they’re doing. I just want to be in on everything from the start. It’s quite possible that whoever killed Forlani also killed Tomaso. What are you doing? Where are you?’
‘The Hotel Danieli.’
‘Why there?’
‘It’s quiet. I’m just filling in time really, giving myself something to do.’
‘I’m sorry about this, Gianni. Do you mind fending for yourself?’
‘No, you do what you need to do. I’m fine.’
‘I’ll see you later, okay?’
I couldn’t face the heat and the noise of the streets just yet so I remained in the Danieli, going upstairs to the rooftop restaurant and having a glass of wine and something to eat, though I didn’t feel much like food. When I finally left to go back to our pensione it was the early afternoon – the hottest part of the day, but the temperature seemed no deterrent to the swarms of visitors thronging the streets. The paving stones seemed white hot, burning the soles of my shoes, reflecting the glare of the sun so that they were painful to look at. The air was close, as if all the people had sucked the oxygen out of it.
In my room at the pensione I bathed my face in cool water, then lay down on the bed and dozed off. The harsh ring of the telephone woke me at four o’clock. I’d slept for almost two hours.
It was Guastafeste. ‘Gianni, can you come over to Forlani’s house?’
‘Now?’
‘Please. The police want to talk to you. They want a full description of Christopher Scott.’
‘They haven’t found him?’
‘He checked out of his hotel first thing this morning. They don’t know where he went after that.’
* * *
It was the detective named Spadina who interviewed me, Guastafeste sitting in, not interfering, just watching. We sat at one end of the table in Forlani’s first-floor dining room. The shutters had been swung back, a couple of windows opened, but it was still unpleasantly warm. Spadina was in shirt sleeves, his tie loose, collar undone to reveal a clump of dark curly chest hair. He apologised for taking up my time, then noted down a detailed description of Christopher Scott. He gave his notes to a uniformed officer to take back to the Questura for circulation to every police force in the country, then took down a statement from me about exactly what I’d observed when I’d followed Scott to Forlani’s house the previous evening.
‘You’re absolutely sure it was this house?’ Spadina asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And the time? You’re sure about that?’
‘Not to the exact minute, but it was somewhere around half past eleven.’
‘Did you see Scott leave the house?’
‘No, I didn’t wait around after he’d gone inside. I went back to our pensione.’
I read through the statement and signed it, then Spadina went out of the room.
‘Will I be able to go back to Cremona tomorrow?’ I asked Guastafeste.
He nodded. ‘You’ve done your bit. You don’t need to stay around any longer.’
‘What happens now?’
‘They try to find Scott.’
‘You think he’s the killer?’
‘He’s a suspect.’
‘Who else could have done it?’
‘There’s no one else in the frame at the moment. But the times aren’t conclusive.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘Scott came here at half past eleven yesterday evening. The police doctor puts Forlani’s time of death as somewhere between six and eight o’clock this morning.’
‘Maybe Scott stayed the night.’
‘It’s possible. Or maybe he went away, then came back. Or maybe someone else came here early this morning. We simply don’t know.’ He looked at me sympathetically. ‘It’s not your concern, Gianni. Go back to the pensione, try to forget what you saw this morning. I’ll be back for dinner.’
I stayed where I was for a time after Guastafeste had left the room. There were two or three hours to kill before dinner. I wondered how I was going to pass them. Then I heard footsteps out on the landing and a woman appeared in the doorway. She was breathing heavil
y and looked very hot. In her right hand she was carrying a suitcase which she dropped to the floor with a low gasp of relief. She put a hand out, steadying herself on the door frame, and looked at me.
‘Dio, those are steep steps,’ she said with feeling.
I stood up and pulled out a chair for her. ‘Signora, please…’
She nodded gratefully and sat down, leaving her suitcase by the door.
‘I knew it was a mistake, bringing that case. But I never could travel light.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a longer walk from the station than I thought.’
‘From the station?’ I said. ‘You’ve carried that case all the way from the station? You should have taken the vaporetto, signora, there’s a stop just by the Accademia Bridge.’
‘There’s a half-day strike by the drivers – is that what you call them, the boat crew?’ she replied. ‘I thought about taking a water taxi, but the queue was so long I’d have been standing there until midnight.’
She took a handkerchief out of her shoulder-bag and dabbed at the perspiration on her face. She was a good-looking woman. A few years younger than me, I would have guessed, maybe in her late fifties. She had shortish dark hair – just a hint of grey showing through at the temples – which right now was slightly dishevelled, strands curling untidily around her ears, her fringe straggling over her forehead. I could detect the faint scent of her perfume, a sweet, subtle odour that seemed out of place in Forlani’s rank palazzo.
She glanced around the room and noticed the peeling plaster, the tatty curtains, the piles of dirty crockery on the table, the leftover food that was turning blue with mould.
‘My goodness, is this how Uncle Enrico was living?’ she said, aghast.
‘Dottor Forlani was your uncle?’ I said.
‘I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. Margherita Severini. I’m his niece.’ She held out her hand. Her grip was warm and firm. ‘You must be with the police.’
I took that as a compliment. I must have looked younger than I thought. ‘No, I’m not a policeman,’ I said. I introduced myself and told her briefly why I was there. Her hand went to her mouth, suppressing an exclamation of horror.
