by Roy Lewis
‘Do many get to see this collection?’ he asked at last.
Kovlinski was silent for a little while, then shook his head. ‘Very few. No one has been in here, apart from myself during these last few years. My family … well, my wife was never interested: she was a simple woman. As for my daughter …’ A certain bitterness entered his voice. ‘One might say her interests lie in a more hedonistic direction.’
Abruptly, he turned away. ‘I think it is time I returned to my guests.’
Arnold preceded him from the room. He was left with the feeling that he had been a privileged visitor but he was unclear what had motivated Kovlinski to show him his collection. He suspected it was part frustration: there would be few who would be able to appreciate the excellence and value of the collection. But the trigger for showing it to Arnold was, he suspected, something else entirely. Perhaps it lay in the view Kovlinski held of the company that evening, or of his daughter, her lifestyle, and her preferences.
Kovlinski would have been well aware, as Arnold had been, of the adoring glances the girl had bestowed upon the Minister for Industry, Alan Stacey. Glances of which Stanislaus Kovlinski, it would seem, had not approved.
When Arnold returned to the milling crowd in the library via the terrace he realized Karen Stannard had been looking for him. She came across, her eyes narrowed, and she grabbed him by the arm. ‘Where have you been?’ she hissed. ‘A male escort is supposed to dance attendance on the lady he accompanies.’
He could have replied that it would have been difficult in view of the manner in which she had been working the room. But there was no point in arguing about it. Accordingly, he submitted himself to spending the next hour at her elbow while she circulated, chatting to chief executives of her acquaintance and making small talk with various other self-important individuals and their hangers-on. All under the sharp eyes of their suspicious wives. During that time Arnold noted that Alan Stacey had taken leave of the gathering.
So had the daughter of Stanislaus Kovlinski.
3
AWEEK AFTER THe reception at Leverstone Hall, Arnold cleared his desk, had an hour’s discussion with Karl Spedding regarding matters that would have to be dealt with during Arnold’s absence, and next morning set off early to Newcastle Airport.
The flight left on time. He made the connection at Stansted with only a brief wait and he arrived in Albi in the early afternoon. He was due to meet Carmela the following day but had decided he would not warn her he would be arriving early for their meeting: he had never visited Albi before and it would give him an opportunity to spend a few hours alone, looking around the town that had been the scene of the Albigensian Crusade in 1209.
He checked into the hotel Carmela had recommended, took a shower and then ventured out into the streets of old Albi. The town itself was completely dominated by the cathedral-cum-fortress of St Cecile: in 1198 Pope Innocent III had resolved to stamp out the so-called heresy of the ‘pure ones’, the followers of Catharism, and priests and bishops had been defrocked, to little avail until Simon de Montfort was finally put in charge of the ‘crusade’. He slaughtered wholesale the inhabitants of Beziers and Carcassonne but even twenty years of bloody killings failed to stamp out the heresy: it took the Inquisition and a massacre at Montsegur to finish it off once and for all.
Thereafter, the Catholic Church had to move swiftly to re-establish its authority in the wake of the Albigensian heresy and the cathedral had been constructed to demonstrate and symbolize the new power and grandeur of the church in Languedoc. Arnold, standing on the bridge across the Tarn to better observe the cathedral proportions, was interested to note that this meant a dual purpose church building: it served also as a fortress, emphasizing that faith sometimes needs to be backed up by physical force, whatever the early Christian fathers might have felt about it.
The old city itself was fascinating: fifteenth century mansions with solelhiers under the eaves, drying rooms for woad; corbelled first floors and in Rue Henri de Toulouse Lautrec balustraded staircases and galleries with basket-handle arches; old brick-built mills overlooking the Tarn and always the cathedral towering on the skyline.
As evening fell he found himself in Place de Vigan which proved lively enough with café terraces and restaurants and he sampled what he was assured was the local speciality, tripes a l’albigeoise, in a red-brick restaurant in the heart of the town.
Finally, he sat in a small auberge in a winding, narrow street overlooking the Tarn and thought again about his future. His conversation with Karl Spedding had sharpened his thoughts; he had still failed to express himself adequately to Karen, but he knew that he was coming to a point of no return. He had never wanted the post of Head of the Department and having accepted it, reluctantly, he was now convinced that it had been the wrong decision to make. And were he to leave, it could be with a clear conscience: he had no doubt that Karl Spedding could handle the job more than adequately. The problem was, he had no clear idea what he would do if he were to resign his position.
The invitation from Carmela was allowing him a brief opportunity to get away from the pressures surrounding him in Northumberland: the familiar scenes, the local loyalties, the debts he felt he owed to those who had helped him in the past. And of course, those tasks that still remained to be completed. It gave him time to think things through, decide what he wanted to do with his life.
As for the tasks that lay behind him in Northumberland, he was convinced they could be done more than adequately by Karl Spedding.
In spite of his musings, which remained inconclusive, when he returned to his hotel he slept soundly.
The exhibition to which Carmela had invited him was being held in the Palais de la Berbie, which also housed the Musée Toulouse Lautrec so Arnold took the opportunity to enter the building an hour or so before his scheduled meeting with Carmela. He made his way along the shadowed walk lined with marble statues of Bacchus and the Four Seasons, climbed up the grand seventeenth-century staircase leading to the gallery of archaeological exhibits and lingered over the 20-year-old Venus de Courbet. In fact he did not have the opportunity to enter to view the exhibition of paintings in the Toulouse Lautrec collection itself because he spent too long over the archaeological exhibits.
He checked his watch and realized he would be due to meet Carmela in ten minutes. As he turned away from the exhibits he became aware of a tall, middle-aged man who seemed to be observing him. The man was white-haired, sparse of figure but stiff-backed, smartly suited. A thin moustache adorned his upper lip: his lean features were tanned and his eyes were of a remarkable blue, sharply intelligent. As Arnold caught his glance the man smiled slightly, hesitated for a few moments, then came forward. ‘Excuse me, signor … I think you may be Mr Landon, from England?’
Arnold smiled in surprise. ‘You’re right, but I don’t believe we have met.’
The stranger extended his right hand. ‘It is true, but I am happy to make your acquaintance.’ His English was precise, his tone somewhat clipped. ‘Please permit me to introduce myself. I am Colonel Messi, from Pisa, of the Guardia di Finanza. At your service.’
His handshake was firm. Arnold shook hands, then said, ‘I don’t understand how you would be able to recognize me. This is my first time in Albi.’
Colonel Messi smiled: his teeth were very white and regular against the deep tan of his features. ‘Well, let me admit that it is not due to any particular perspicacity or detective work on my part: rather, I should say that I have been told about you, and in fact I recognized you from a photograph that was provided to me. By my cousin.’
‘Your cousin?’
‘Carmela Cacciatore.’
‘Ah! I see.’ Arnold hesitated. ‘But I don’t understand why she would have shown you my photograph.’
Colonel Messi placed his left hand on Arnold’s shoulder in a confidential, friendly manner. ‘Do not be alarmed. It was merely to bring me up to date with her activities, and her intentions. You see, Mr Landon, I
have a personal interest in the meeting to which she has invited you.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Indeed, we are now due at that meeting.’ He glanced over Arnold’s shoulder. ‘As my cousin is clearly coming to tell us.’
Arnold turned as the colonel’s hand fell away. Walking towards them was Carmela Cacciatore.
She was as he remembered her: large-bosomed, round-cheeked, smiling and exuberant. She was already opening wide her arms. ‘Arnold. I thought I’d find you here, precisely on time.’ She took him firmly by his upper arms, kissed him on both cheeks then stood back to take a long, careful look at him. ‘You are well, I see, though perhaps a little tired about the eyes from too much office work, is that it? And I see you have met Colonel Messi.’
‘Indeed. Your cousin, I understand.’
Carmela laughed, linked her arm in his and began to lead him across the room. ‘In a distant way,’ she said, as the colonel fell into step beside them. ‘But we do not see much of each other. We work in somewhat different fields. Though in respect of today, we have a common interest, one might say. Come, we have a room,’ she announced, ‘in the Aile de Suffragens. The others will be along soon.’
‘The others?’ Arnold was somewhat mystified. ‘I thought you wanted to have a private discussion with me.’
Carmela laughed. ‘I have misled you!’
The pressure on his arm was firm.
The room was set up high in the building; tall windows looked out over a cool courtyard where a fountain played. The floor was of dark polished wood; a long oak table dominated the centre of the room and six chairs had been set, grouped at the far end of the table. The colonel wandered away from Carmela and Arnold, took one of the chairs and set it against the wall, near a window, a little distance from the table. Arnold guessed he was demonstrating that he was not to be an official member of whatever group was assembling here. Arnold turned to Carmela. ‘A formal meeting? I thought you had invited me to an exhibition, and then to talk personally about something.’
She pouted prettily at him. ‘And if I had invited you to a meeting, would you have come, without wanting to know more? I thought I would have a better chance of snaring you if I remained somewhat vague. The exhibition was merely an excuse, and one which you could perhaps offer to your friend Miss Stannard.’ There was mischief in her smile. ‘I think perhaps she did not approve of you coming to meet me? She likes to keep you to herself?’ When Arnold did not rise to the teasing, she added, ‘Yes, there is to be a meeting, which I would like you to attend for reasons which will become apparent.’
‘And it needed some sort of clearance from the Guardia di Finanza?’ Arnold asked, in a lowered tone, gesturing discreetly towards Colonel Messi.
‘Not at all,’ Carmela replied, with a sideways glance at her cousin. She frowned slightly. ‘But when the colonel asked permission to sit in on the meeting, I thought it best to explain to him who you were.’
‘So he could check up on me?’
‘Colonel Messi checks up on many things, Arnold.’
There was little time for further conversation as the door behind them opened and two men and a woman entered. Carmela left Arnold to greet them and then waved each individual towards the long oak table in the centre of the room.
The group was quickly seated around the table, with the exception of the colonel from the Guardia di Finanza. Carmela settled herself, smiled broadly around at the small group and began by introducing Colonel Messi, describing him as an observer. He rose and bowed, but said nothing. She then introduced Arnold. She made no attempt to explain who he was so Arnold guessed she had already briefed the group about his presence and background. Even though she had given him no clues yet as to why he was here.
Carmela then identified the other woman for Arnold’s benefit. She was French, dark-haired, dark-eyed, middle-aged: Alienor Donati. Beside her was a broad-shouldered, beetle-browed American, introduced as Michael McMurtaghy. The German beside him, Joachim Schmidt, a lean, silver-haired individual, kept his head down, poring over some papers in front of him. He barely acknowledged Arnold’s presence.
Arnold sat quietly, and listened as Carmela spoke to each of the group in turn. It was by nature of an updating process for a committee which had clearly met on several occasions before.
As she spoke, Arnold’s mind drifted back to his previous experiences with Carmela, when they had hunted down the calyx krater, and had exposed the activities of the cordata, the rope-like, world-wide link that brought together dealers and middlemen, archaeologists and museum curators, wealthy businessmen and the tombaroli who dug in the earth for the treasures of Etruscan tombs. It was clear, as he listened to the conversation around the table, that the work was continuing, that the cordata, the secret structure that bound the corrupt world of illicit dealing in ancient artefacts, was far from finished, that large amounts of money were still changing hands in the dark underworld of artefact looting, in Turkey, Nigeria, south east Asia, Syria and throughout Europe.
Each member of the group made a contribution to the discussion. It seemed that Alienor Donati had been concentrating on information gathered earlier during the investigation in which Arnold himself had participated. ‘The analysis of the telephone records in Casa di Principe demonstrates that there are five men in particular who have made a lot of international calls. An attempt was made to hide these calls by using a series of disposable mobile phones. However, we are now able to identify the central centre for these calls, the receptor one might say, and during a raid at a house in Vienna we were able to discover, in a floor set under the mansard roof, shelving on which were hidden frescoes, jewellery, silver artefacts, including Bulgarian and Greek items which are clearly the result of looted material being passed around the cordata personnel, for eventual sale to various museums who might be prepared to make a purchase in spite of doubtful provenance….’
Arnold listened with interest. It was clear that the work he and Carmela had undertaken was ongoing; he was slightly puzzled nevertheless that Alienor Donati seemed to have taken the work from Carmela herself. He was unclear as to the Frenchwoman’s background, and why she was now reporting to Carmela.
Michael McMurtaghy followed Alienor Donati’s report with a printed document which comprised a list of looted artefacts. A copy was handed to Arnold to inspect. It detailed a list of items which were identified by way of transactions, and Arnold was able to follow the movement of individual items across Europe. ‘Items seven to fifteen,’ explained the heavily built American, ‘actually came to light when a building company were clearing a road. The road collapsed … the reason being that tombaroli had built a tunnel under it to get to a house on one side of the street, to a stipe – a room attached to a temple – located opposite. The objects had been smuggled out by way of the tunnel, but, of course, once the road collapsed the very distinctive antiquities have been on our watch list ever since. This was the evidence which I was able to present to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.’ He raised his head, stared grimly at Carmela. ‘Discussions for return of the artefacts are ongoing.’
Arnold could guess what he meant. In his previous work with Carmela, and discussions he had had from time to time with his deputy director Karl Spedding, he was aware that many museum directors were almost in a state of denial. They were prepared to accept items from private collections as legitimate acquisitions: it could take years of pressure before museums reluctantly agreed that items, bought, they claimed, in good faith, were in fact indisputably looted material.
The man identified as Joachim Schmidt raised his head: he had been concentrating, as Arnold now realized, on the construction of a chart set out in a hierarchical manner, identifying the trails by which identified artefacts had been moved from their original, looted locations, through Italy, Germany, Switzerland and France. His English was precise, his tone measured as though he was speaking slowly in order that Arnold should understand clearly. Arnold realized they had all been reporting in English for his benefit. ‘The gro
up will note,’ Schmidt intoned, ‘that names are now possible to add to the links: in Basel we have the Greek dealer Goutaki; there is a direct link between him and the person known only as ‘Tanya’ in Athens; the cordata then links to members in Paris where we have the international auction house noted, and other names such as Ortiz in Zurich, Sandrini in Rome, Bruno, Bartowski, Luzzi … and the chart shows also the links in Orvieto, Naples, Lugano, Buenos Aires….’
Arnold glanced towards Colonel Messi. He did not seem to be taking a great deal of interest in the proceedings and it was almost as though he had fallen asleep, his head on his chest, eyes closed. Pink scalp gleamed through his thinning, swept-back grey hair.
Arnold was slightly puzzled. When he had first met Carmela, she had been working for the Carabinieri Art Squad – in fact part of the army rather than the Italian police – and they had a widespread system of surveillance, including wiretapping. The squad had been set up in 1969, because of the serious nature of the organized looting of Italian artefacts. There had been an upsurge in looting and black market trading as a result of the post-war rise in prosperity in the West, and after the UNESCO convention of 1970 a computerized database had been established in 1980. But the art squad had not confined its activities to Italy: it had established links and helped train investigative art squads in Palestine, Hungary and Iran. But, as he listened to the discussion in the room, Arnold realized that things had moved on even since he had met, and worked with Carmela, in the matter of the calyx krater. He continued to listen quietly as the members discussed the deep background activities involving auction houses, dealers, museums, private collectors in Europe, American and Asia. The hunt for organizers of the illicit antiquities network had now become an internationally supported system. And it would seem that this group was deeply involved in the investigations.
