The Titian Committee

by Iain Pears

  ‘No,’ he said without much interest. ‘Are you going to tell me this concerns ghosts?’ Bottando reckoned the remark might have been a joke, so smiled.

  ‘Hardly. But it is a coincidence. No matter. The point is that I’m fairly sure that the robbery was a botched job.’ Nothing of the sort, of course, but it would do.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the thieves only stole very unimportant paintings and left behind a Tintoretto, a couple of Watteaus, and so on.’

  ‘Ignorant louts, no doubt. Southerners, probably.’

  ‘The point is,’ Bottando repeated heavily, to get the meeting back on course, ‘that there is every likelihood they will come back once they realise they took the wrong pictures. It often happens, as I’m sure you know. And if that happens, and the Marchesa was attacked, or something like that, it would be most unfortunate.’

  That got him. Bovolo was envisaging a whole series of unfortunate consequences: Marchesa attacked, Bottando whispering into powerful ears, ‘Well, I did tell that man in Venice…’ Not good for the chances of promotion.

  ‘So, what do you want?’

  ‘Well, I thought that you could station a man there for a few days. That would do fine. I’m sure the Marchesa would be most grateful.’

  She wouldn’t, mind you; she’d be furious. That would be fine too. Bovolo, however, could only see her thanking him, inviting him to dinner, telling the powerful of Venice what a fine man he was. Just proved how little he knew her.

  He was not, however, someone who even knew how to spell gracious, let alone act it. ‘Well,’ he said grudgingly, ‘we might be able to spare someone.’

  ‘Splendid. By the way, my assistant wanted me to ask you…’

  Bovolo glared at him with fury. ‘Now listen here. This is quite enough. I must tell you, General, that I am getting very tired with your subordinate’s interference. That woman is running around as though this was her own case…’

  ‘You did ask her to talk to the members of the committee…’

  ‘True. But I also told her to do nothing else. This case is closed and she is still bothering them. If this continues I shall have to protest more officially. You keep her on the subject of thefts of pictures. Leave murders to people who know how to deal with them professionally.’

  Bottando held up his hands. ‘Don’t worry, my dear sir,’ he said in a placatory fashion. ‘Point taken. Signorina di Stefano is here to help me find some pictures. I can assure you she will concentrate her mind solely on that.’

  Bovolo seemed mollified, and Bottando had got everything he wanted. So he thanked the miserable Commissario enthusiastically and lumbered off. He felt very pleased with himself. Not lost the old knack at all, he thought.

  While Bottando was feeling pleased with his ability to manipulate men, Jonathan Argyll was wedged into a corner seat in a second-class carriage on the Venice to Padua train. It was very far from being an express service; the machine crawled and creaked its way through the flat and entirely uninspiring scenery to the west of Venice, stopping frequently at stations to unload passengers, pausing at others to pick up more and occasionally coming to rest in the middle of open countryside merely, it seemed, to get its breath back.

  It was a dull and depressing trip that rather matched his mood. He had, so he thought, been quite good at keeping at bay his profound disappointment at recent events. But now, as he had nothing better to do, his mind went back over the whole business. And a miserable affair it was as well. He had lost his pictures; Bottando and Flavia were worried about their jobs; two people had been murdered, and they hadn’t a clue what was going on or why.

  For example, why was Masterson interested in that picture of his? Why had she rushed off to Padua only a few days before giving her paper? He liked to think that there was a connection, but he had no idea at all what it might be. Pleasant as it was to fantasise about lost Titian portraits, he knew very well that there was no chance that the Marchesa’s work was one. Lorenzo was a close relation after all and, for all his frivolity, an expert on Titian; he would not miss something like that.

  How Masterson knew about it was, at least, clear enough; she had been at the reception thrown by Lorenzo in his aunt’s palazzo the year before at the start of her first committee meeting. She must have seen it then and remembered it. But what associations did it strike in her mind?

  Whatever they were, it struck none in his, and he was in a thoroughly bad mood by the time the train eased into Padua station. He got out into the freezing cold and heard the rain pattering down on the glass roof of the shed. It had been threatening for days and had deliberately chosen the worst possible moment to unload. The weather had turned colder overnight. Indeed, as he’d noticed when he fell into the canal, it was pretty chilly before.

  But now the combination of rain and icy air made the shortest moment outside miserable and he had not really come dressed for the occasion. He stood in the station lobby squinting up at the sky, hoping that he could will the clouds into parting, the rain into stopping and the sun into shining. All three ignored his wishes. He turned up the collar of his jacket as much as possible, stuffed his hands into his pockets, adopted an air of disgruntled suffering, and started walking. He hoped he was not about to go down with a stinking cold.

  It was, damn the planners, a long way. Generally he was all for preserving medieval city centres and keeping modernity on the fringes. He was prepared to make an exception over railway stations on wet days, especially when the buses all seemed to have vanished and he was forced to march about a mile and a half to get to his destination. In such circumstances, knocking down a medieval church or two seemed a small price to pay for convenience.

  After about thirty minutes of sacrifice to the causes of truth and justice he neared his journey’s end, very much wishing that truth and justice would get on without him for a bit. The Scuola sat close to the cathedral, a drab building made even more unattractive by the voluminous pigeon droppings that turned much of its surface an unappealing off-white colour and made the statues on the main façade a little like religious snowmen.

  But it was at least open. Too open, in fact. The wide doors faced directly into the wind and the air inside was, if anything, even colder and damper than the horrible stuff outside. He walked into the dark and windy building, stood uncertainly in the middle of the floor and looked around, unsure about what he was meant to do next. A helpful arrow pointed up the wide stone staircase, so he trudged upwards.

  The paintings that he had vainly hoped might provide some sort of inspiration were at the end of the upper room, surrounded in heavy dark wood and greatly in need of restoration. Time, damp and lack of care had taken their toll. The paint had peeled off in several places, and the surface of the frescoes was very dark.

  They were about as woebegone as Argyll felt and in truth, they hardly stood out as masterpieces of Renaissance artistic endeavour. Awkward, a bit stilted in their composition. Lifeless, in fact. By Titian, certainly, that was beyond doubt. But that merely proved that even the best painters had their off days. Maybe the great man had a headache. Or flu. Or perhaps he was as fed up as Argyll was now. He imagined the young painter, working away at his first real opportunity to show what he could do. On his own, with no masters or teachers breathing down his neck. He couldn’t have been pleased. Surely, the artist knew in his heart he could do better than this.

  Even the subject matter was very strange and elusive for someone like Titian, who generally preferred a very direct approach. After all, they were meant to celebrate the life of St Anthony of Padua, representing the great miracles he wrought. But in one of the pictures, the saint barely put in an appearance. And he wasn’t exactly the centre of attention in the others, either.

  Argyll consulted the little guide book he had brought with him. On the right, the Miracle of the Talking Baby, where an infant assures a doubtful husband, snappily dressed in a red and white costume, that his wife really is faithful to him. In the centre, the Jealo
us Husband, in which an aristocrat, evidently the same one judging by the clothes, stabs his wife to death in a garden, again because he thought she was unfaithful. She wasn’t and, full of penitence, he comes to confess his sins to the saint, who raises the woman from the dead. Nothing like knowing when you’ve goofed. There’s a point, though, he thought. Stabbed to death in a garden. Jealous man thinking she was unfaithful. Hmm.

  ‘I said, can I help you?’ said a man who had evidently been standing there for some time trying to attract his attention. Argyll leapt to one side.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You surprised me,’ he added, stating the obvious.

  The little man, who was probably a friar but more resembled a well muffled mole, looked at him curiously. ‘You seem very interested in our building here,’ he said with a faint air of apology. ‘I was wondering if you needed any help. I would be quite happy to tell you about our treasures. These, as I’m sure you know, are by the great Titian.’

  Argyll mulled the offer over. The last thing he wanted was an extended guided tour in these temperatures. But he felt like talking to someone. He could hardly take this Franciscan to the local bar, though.

  ‘Thank you. That’s most kind of you to offer,’ he said. ‘What I’d really like to know is why St Anthony scarcely figures in pictures which are meant to be all about him?’

  ‘Ah, well. A difficult man, Titian,’ the friar replied, talking about the painter as though he was a well-known local figure who could be seen dining out in restaurants most weekends. ‘But you know what artists are like. There are much more obvious scenes he could have chosen. I’m sure that caused annoyance, quite apart from the somewhat irreverent details about his mistress.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just a story, but it is said that Titian painted in the lovely Violante di Modena as the lady who gets knifed. Apparently, she was unfaithful and he wanted his revenge. The friars evidently thought this inappropriate, and I can’t but agree with their judgement.’

  ‘Are you sure your storytellers aren’t confusing him with Giorgione?’ Argyll asked sceptically. ‘The unrequited love theme sounds suspiciously familiar. Besides, I thought she ran off with Pietro Luzzi, not Titian.’

  The little old man chuckled. ‘Ah, well. Maybe so. Like saints, the lives of painters get confused. Perhaps you are right, as I believe the lady was dead by the time he came here anyway. Historical accuracy, alas, does sometimes spoil a good story.’

  ‘Do you know anything about the third painting?’ he asked, gesturing at the third panel. ‘It seems in a slightly different style to the other two.’

  The friar inclined his head. ‘Very observant. The painter, I gather, wanted to do something entirely different which the chapter must have thought inappropriate.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It never got beyond the planning stage before the friars put their foot down and insisted on this one.’

  ‘Most fascinating,’ Argyll said, as the man seemed to want encouragement. ‘I was most keen to see these pictures. I imagine you get a lot of tourists.’

  ‘A fair number in the summer, yes. Of course, we are not as popular here as the Scrovegni Chapel down the road. Giotto seems to be a much bigger crowd puller. But we have our fair share.’

  The little man smiled at his command of slang. ‘Not the best of times at the moment, of course,’ he went on. ‘Too cold and dark to see them properly. We had someone in here last week almost standing on the altar to get a good view. She was even using a flashbulb to take photographs. Of course, we are happy to allow visitors in, but we do rather disapprove of that sort of thing. Not respectful at all. And, of course, not good for the paintings. They’re in bad enough condition as it is.’

  ‘Some people are very badly behaved,’ Argyll said piously.

  ‘Especially Americans. Not that they are bad people,’ he added hurriedly because of a sudden doubt about Argyll’s likely nationality, ‘but they do tend to get over-enthusiastic.’

  ‘And this woman last week was an American?’

  ‘Yes. Charming lady, when she got off the altar. Very knowledgeable and spoke good Italian.’

  ‘Did you tell her about the pictures as well?’

  ‘Oh, there was no need to do that. I think she knew more than I did. But we had a very pleasant chat, until she had to run off on some important errands, and she was properly apologetic for getting on the altar. Left a very handsome donation in the box, as well.’

  Argyll thanked the friar profoundly for his help, ostentatiously emulated Masterson – it was obviously her, after all – by leaving a large gift in the money box and went to the nearest restaurant he could find. The question was, of course, what errands was she running?

  He was back in Venice by the early afternoon and despite his misgivings, decided to be virtuous and not head straight for the bar of his hotel. It would have been a perfectly understandable decision. The wind was getting colder, the rain wetter and the temperature even lower. But the tides were behaving themselves and as the vaporetto ferried him slowly and choppily over to the Isola San Giorgio, he could see through the steamed-up windows of the ancient boats the white flecks of the waves on the usually calm surface of the water.

  Even when he arrived at his destination, warmth and comfort were not his for long. His errand to Masterson’s old room took only a few moments, after he had managed to negotiate his way round the porter who, fortunately, had evidently eaten much too good a lunch to be really on his toes about fending off interlopers. To get into Masterson’s room he’d anticipated a lengthy process of easing off little wax seals put there by the police, but as they’d already dropped off, all he had to do was open the door and walk in, pick up what he wanted and scuttle out again. Silence in the corridor.

  And then he was back outside. Again his selfless devotion to truth and his own income got between him and his hot bath. He crossed back to the main island and walked rapidly off in the direction of Masterson’s last stand. He thought he might as well visit the scene of the crime. Not that he held out much chance of hitting, with eagle eye and triumphant swoop, on something the police had missed.

  No, there was no doubt that his ambling around was due to a combination of voyeurism and indecisiveness, in more or less equal parts. The trouble was that he couldn’t even work out where the murder had taken place. The machinery of investigation – tapes, little pointers stuck into the ground, armed guards and so on – had long since vanished, leaving only the grass, trees and a few greenhouses. And any clue would have been erased by the rain anyway, he thought, excessively conscious of how it was dribbling down the back of his neck.

  The gardens were very striking, it had to be admitted, even though they showed unmistakable signs of end-of-season weariness, after months of hard pounding from the boots of tourists. The place was densely populated with trees and shrubs from both northern Europe and the Mediterranean, a horticultural metaphor for the city itself which had stood for centuries as the commercial link of east and west. Argyll peered around, and complimented the ancient gardener who shuffled past him. Just to pass the time of day.

  This latter brightened noticeably. Thanked him, in fact, and said not many people appreciated his efforts. Argyll said the layout was truly magnificent. The old man nodded sagely and, mutual sympathy established, invited him into the warmth of the greenhouse to admire his work more closely. They walked into the humid and warm building shivering, and the man produced a bottle of grappa from a sack of manure. It kept the alcohol warm, he explained as he unscrewed the cap, and Argyll gratefully took a sip of the fiery liquid.

  He gazed in respectful silence at the multicoloured display, now beginning to fade very noticeably, that lay before them.

  ‘Wasn’t that woman killed somewhere around here?’ he asked. ‘I hope she didn’t cause too much damage to your plants.’ Thinking about it later it seemed a fairly callous thing to say.

  But to the gardener Argyll had his prior
ities entirely right. It was regrettable to be murdered, he seemed to think, but that was no reason to be inconsiderate. Just because you’re dying doesn’t give you the right to make a mess of flowerbeds.

  He didn’t quite say that, but from the disgusted way he pointed at a bed on the left of the little greenhouse, his feelings were entirely clear. Did Argyll have any idea of the difficulty of getting lilies to grow? Or how expensive each individual plant was? The Englishman confessed he had not a clue, but imagined that it was a job only a true expert could pull off.

  ‘That’s right, sir. That’s right. You’re a gardener yourself, I’ve no doubt. Ah, all the English are gardeners, so you will know. Come here.’

  And he grabbed hold of Argyll’s elbow and dragged him along the narrow corridor. ‘Look,’ he said.

  It was a bit of a mess. A rectangular bed, about three times as long as it was wide, full of lilies. Rather a pretty display, in fact, had not a broad swathe been cut straight down the middle, flattening most of the plants and leaving only a few pathetic remnants standing.

  ‘Dear me, dear me,’ Argyll commented sympathetically. ‘What a dreadful thing.’

  The gardener nodded fervently. ‘That’s right. Twenty-eight plants. And lilies as well. The noblest of flowers. Symbol of the kings of France, did you know that?’

  Argyll confessed that he had heard of it. He stood, hands in pockets, and regarded the devastated flowerbed before him. It made him feel uneasy, for reasons he couldn’t quite place.

  So he bade the gardener farewell, and wished him good fortune in the next growing season, receiving in reply the grumpy assertion of belief that his flowers would no doubt be picked by tourists or succumb to disease. And then, at last and with only a small diversion, to his warm and cosy hotel room, where the hot water ran freely, the pot of tea was comforting and Flavia had left a note for him demanding his immediate presence. He cursed her roundly, and headed off into the cold once more.