Death & Restoration

4

Argyll was in a sulky mood the next morning, and sat sullenly over his toast when Flavia came into the little kitchen after her shower. She peered at him to assess his mood, made herself a coffee and sat down.

A long silence followed.

“What’s up with you?” she asked eventually.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, there is.”

He chewed his toast for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. There is. Why did you invite that woman for a drink?”

“Mary Verney? I thought you liked her.”

“No.”

“Business.”

“What sort of business?”

“A warning shot. Just so that she knows we are aware of her presence. I’ve been meaning to ask you about her.”

Argyll sniffed cautiously.

“Do I conclude that she wasn’t quite as innocent as my report said over the Giotto thefts?”

Argyll gave a hesitant nod. “Since you ask,” he began reluctantly, “I suppose I should tell you …”

But she held up her hand. “No doubt. But it might be better if you didn’t. We got the pictures back and closed the case to everybody’s satisfaction. If she was more involved and knew more than she let on then it might be better to pass over it in silence. If you tell me anything else, I’d be obliged to report it. That is the way it stands, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“But if I suggested that she was as crooked as a corkscrew, you wouldn’t feel obliged to leap to defend her good name?”

He shook his head.

“Thought so. I was never entirely convinced by her story.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. But we did get the pictures back, and that was all I was interested in. Keep the rest to yourself. But she may not be here simply on a holiday.”

Argyll shrugged. “I really don’t know,” he said cautiously. “As far as I can see she has more than enough money. And her complaints about being too old had an air of truth to them. What are you going to do about her?”

“Nothing. Except watch her every step, bug her phone, read her mail and never let her out of our sight.”

“Which she will spot.”

“That’s the idea … She assures me she is here on holiday. Maybe she is. I just want to be certain.”

“Is that why you were late the other night as well?”

She sighed. So that was why he was grumpy. In abstract she sympathized. In practice, she wished he had a bit more sympathy for her. What was she meant to do about it? Stay at home while things got stolen all around her?

“No,” she said patiently. “That was something else. We had a tip-off about a possible raid. On a monastery. I had to go down and warn them. I don’t like it, either, you know. But we’re short of people ever since …”

“I know. Budget cuts.”

“Well, it’s true. I don’t hang around street corners at night for my own pleasure, you know.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Oh, well. I’m used to it, I suppose.”

“Don’t be so long-suffering.”

“I am long-suffering.”

“And don’t be crabby, either. That’s my job. I’m a bit fed up too, you know.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Bottando’s going.”

“Where?”

“Going. Just going. He’s been promoted. Against his will. It’s that or being demoted, it seems.”

Argyll put down his toast suddenly. “Good God. That’s sudden, isn’t it? What happened?”

“A coup d’etat, I think. But he’s going in two months. To head some useless Euro-initiative, which will probably result in art theft doubling over the next few years.”

“You sound very certain. Isn’t he going to do anything about it?”

“Apparently not. He says there’s nothing he can do.”

“Goodness. So who takes over?”

“He remains nominally in charge. But he’s offered the day-to-day running to me. If, that is, I don’t want to go with him.”

“Do you want to run the place?”

“I don’t know. Do I want everything to depend on me and be responsible for operations? I don’t think I do. Do I want to work for Paolo, or someone brought in from outside? No. Not that either.”

“You want things to stay as they are.”

She nodded.

“And they’re not going to. What will you do?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it.”

“What would going with him involve?”

“Sitting in an office from nine to five, organizing. Home every evening at six. No rushing around late at night. Vast amounts of money, tax free.”

He nodded. “Every sensible person’s dream, right?”

“Yes.”

He nodded again as he turned this over in his mind. “Hmm. Do you want to do it?”

“I’d get to spend more time with you.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Oh, Jonathan, I don’t know. I suppose you think I should go for the quiet life.”

“I didn’t say that. Obviously I wouldn’t mind seeing you every now and then.”

“I thought so.”

“But if you go with Bottando you could end up in a dead-end, boring job which drives you crazy, money or no. When do you have to decide?”

“He’s given me a week.”

“In that case you should think about it for a week. And so will I. So let’s change the subject. This monastery. Did you fend off the criminal classes? Which monastery was it, anyway?”

“San Giovanni. On the Aventino.”

He nodded. “I know it.”

“Really?” The things he knew about this city never ceased to amaze her. She had never heard of the place before.

“It’s got a dodgy Caravaggio in it.”

“Under restoration.”

“Ah. Who’s doing it?”

“A man called Dan Menzies. Ever heard of him?”

Argyll nodded fervently. “The Rottweiler of Restoration.”

“So it’s worth a lot of money?”

“If it’s a Caravaggio, and if Menzies hasn’t repainted it as a Monet, yes. And the subject matter is a bit gloomy for your average buyer of stolen works of art, as I recall.”

“What is it?”

“The breaking of St Catherine on the Wheel. A bit morbid. And good evidence for it not being by Caravaggio. He didn’t take to women much. These private collectors usually go for the more cheerful stuff, don’t they? Sunflowers and Impressionists, and all that sort of thing. Baroque religion doesn’t look so well in the dining room. Puts people off their food, in fact. Besides, it’s probably quite big. Getting it out would need a removal truck, I’d imagine.”

“So what’s the story on Menzies?”

“None that I know of. Very loud, bellows away so you can hear him from miles off, but it may be that his bark is worse than his bite. I’ve never met him. More than that I can’t say. You think he’s in cahoots with someone, do you? Tipped them off the picture is out of its frame so they can sweep in and roll it up.”

She shrugged. “No. But if someone is going to pinch that picture, and would want to hit it before it goes back on its stretcher, they’d have to know when the best moment would be to go in.”

“Better put a tail on Menzies, then. Tap his phone, that sort of thing.”

“We don’t have the people.”

The first thing Flavia had to deal with when she arrived was Giulia, who brought her crisis of confidence with her into the office. This did at least make her forget about major career decisions. “Oh, stop making such a fuss,” she said crossly, when Giulia recounted her meeting in the cafe with Mrs Verney and then burst into tears. “It happens, and it’s partly my fault for not telling you that she’s a bit more complicated than she looks. Now stop making that noise.”

Flavia paused for a moment when she realized how very much like Bottando she must sound to the poor girl. Except that Bottando would have managed to be a bit more avuncular, which was quite beyond her range. Naturally Giulia was upset; it was more or less the first time she’d been allowed out of the office since she’d arrived after her initial training; she wasn’t very good yet and to have her nose rubbed in the fact like that must have been distressing.

“You go and recover yourself by writing the reports for a day, and then maybe you can have another go. It’s just a knack. Don’t worry about it. Who’s following her at the moment?”

“No one.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She stood up and reached for her bag.

“Where is she? In her hotel?”

Giulia looked at her watch. “She said she was going shopping, and we could find her in the via Condotti most of the morning.”

Grumbling to herself that this was a ludicrous way of running a police force, Flavia walked out of the office to fill the gap. Tell Bottando, she said, to find someone to take over at lunch. If he’s around. She’d ring in later to say where she was.

She tracked Mary Verney down in a shoe shop, as she was trying on a pair of fairly expensive shoes. The wince on her face suggested they were not perfect.

“You’ve taken over watching me for the morning?” Mary said when she attracted Flavia’s attention with a wave.

“Faute de mieux. I have.”

“Splendid. I hope you are not going to pretend you don’t know me.”

“It was very unkind of you to do that last night,” Flavia observed gravely. “Poor girl was in tears this morning. She’s only young, you know.”

“I am sorry,” Mary Verney said, with every sign of meaning it. “I was in a bad mood and felt like kicking someone. She was the only person available. I shall apologize later. But I could say that it was unkind of you to put a tail on me like that. Personally, I felt I deserved better.”

“No. Arresting you would have been unkind. Keeping an eye on you is merely sensible.”

“At least we don’t have to play hide and seek all morning. If you’re with me, you can help. You dress so much better than I do. I need a nice coat. Nothing fancy, you know. Or too expensive. Something fitting my age and the Norfolk countryside. One doesn’t want to stand out too much. What do you suggest?”

Flavia recommended a place which her mother visited on the rare occasions she came to Rome. She was a touch stouter than Mrs Verney, and a little older, but very much more vain as well. It would be a place to start. She led the way, once Mrs Verney had tried on a few more pairs of shoes and given up the attempt to find something which matched comfort and elegance. Such things are hard to find.

“Such an expensive city,” she said as they walked up the street. “I don’t know how you do it, dear. After all, you aren’t paid very much, I imagine.”

“We manage.”

“I was so glad to see that you and Jonathan are still together. When did you say you were getting married?”

“The autumn. That’s the idea.”

“I am so pleased. I suppose it’s too much to expect an invitation?”

“Probably.”

She sighed sadly. “I thought as much. Are you terribly cross with me?”

“No. But only because I’ve taken care not to find out officially what it is I should be cross about. Otherwise I would be.”

“But you don’t trust me any more.”

Flavia grinned. Mary Verney was quite impossible to dislike for long. “Not an inch, no. I don’t know what you are doing here. It may be that the story you have told me is the gospel truth. Even thieves have to have holidays, after all. But I have my doubts.”

“It’s my own fault. However, this time I am being totally reliable. That I can guarantee.”

So they spent the rest of the morning shopping, Mary Verney buying a coat, with which she pronounced herself delighted, a pair of shoes which she didn’t need but couldn’t resist because they were so comfortable, and a leather handbag which was absurdly expensive but so awfully pretty. Then she led the way to a restaurant where they had a slow but (Flavia had to admit) very enjoyable lunch and she had a small brandy while Flavia went out to phone for a replacement. This wasn’t quite the discreet surveillance she’d had in mind, but it was too late to do anything about that now. So she thought she might as well avoid making her manning problems worse, and removed Giulia from report writing.

“Oh, don’t bother about that,” she said wearily when Giulia asked where she should pick up the trail. “We’re in Also Moro. Just come straight in.”

Then she went back to the table to find Mary Verney looking impish. She’d paid the bill for both of them.

“Look, do you want me to be had up for corruption or something? We’ve had the spooks all over us recently. I told you …”

“It’s just a bill. But rather a big one. Don’t worry. Your name isn’t on anything. My treat.”

“I don’t want treats.”

“But you deserve one. You have just spent three hours taking me shopping, after all …”

“It was a pleasure.”

“Shall we go?”

“No. We have to wait for Giulia. She will be your escort for the afternoon.”

“How lovely! This is the way to travel. I should have thought of this years ago.”

“We don’t make a habit of it. Ah, here’s Giulia,” she went on as the trainee arrived and crept cautiously up to their table, a worried frown of uncertainty on her face.

“I fear I owe you an apology, Giulia. Flavia was very cross with me for the inconsiderate way I behaved last night.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the surprised, but well-brought-up, trainee.

“Splendid. Now, you go back to work, Flavia. And Giulia and I will have a lovely afternoon together. I thought I might visit some old art-dealing friends of mine. Some of them are a bit … perhaps, Giulia, you wouldn’t mind being my niece for the afternoon? We don’t want to frighten anybody, do we?”

Flavia just about managed to suppress a smile at the disconcerted and uncomfortable look on Giulia’s face. “Enjoy yourselves.”

“We will,” Mary Verney said. Giulia looked more doubtful.

Having nothing better to do that morning, Argyll walked across town to the monastery of San Giovanni to visit Dan Menzies and the Caravaggio. It wasn’t in the slightest bit necessary, although it was in the back of his mind that perhaps, just perhaps, he might sniff around and see if he could find out something about this picture. Then he could write it up—and it didn’t matter whether it was by Caravaggio or not—and get a little publication out of it. It also provided an opportunity to mess around with Flavia’s case. Not that he should, of course, but the prospect offered a bit of variety. Teaching and marking things was all very well, but no one could say that it made the adrenaline run through the veins at high speed. Unless, of course, you found yourself in a lecture room with seventy students and then discovered you’d forgotten to bring your notes. Even then, it wasn’t certain anyone would notice.

And it was a lovely day. The sun was shining and the bus routes were sufficiently complicated to make it not worthwhile waiting in the polluted street for one to come along. It was a decent stroll and put him into a sunny frame of mind. He crossed the river at the island, then did a slight detour through the prettier parts of the Aventino before climbing the hill and getting into the evermore out-of-the-way streets and alleys, one of which contained the surprisingly modest entrance to the monastery of San Giovanni. The baroque style is not normally associated with spiritual humility, but somehow the architect had pulled the trick off. The gateway, all peeling terracotta, had the regulation curls and swirls and twists, but it was all done on a small and almost domestic scale, as though it was the entrance to a private, and not very grand, house. The door itself, however, was well defended to keep the corruptions of the material world outside. Solid, sun-bleached oak was covered in a regular pattern of large metal studs for extra strength, and the little porter’s hole was protected by a thick grid of iron bars. The only modern touch was a little doorbell drilled into the stucco, into which someone had stuck a postcard. The Order of St John the Pietist, it said in several languages, so Argyll pressed it.

He had half hoped for a shuffling of feet and a creak as the porthole opened to reveal a bent-over old monk, tonsured and muttering. But no such picturesque details were forthcoming: what he got instead was a buzz and a click from the gate as the electric lock opened up. The modern world, he thought as he pushed and went inside. No romance.

It is one of the great delights of Rome that not even a long-term, assiduous resident is safe from surprise. Any street in the city, no matter where and no matter how seedy or shabby it looks at first glance, is capable of containing some little gem tucked away in an obscure corner, passed by nearly all the time and waiting to astonish. Sometimes it is a toy-box-sized Renaissance chapel, around which a twentieth-century developer has squeezed a vast, lumbering block of flats, or which has been accidentally turned into a traffic roundabout. Or the remains of a Roman palace nestling between a truck stop and a railway line. Or it is a Renaissance pile, converted into flats and hammered incessantly by fumes and the noise of traffic, but which still has its delicate, colonnaded courtyard, with moss on the cobbles and a sculpted fountain of nymphs and goddesses tinkling away to welcome home the weary commuters in the evening.

The headquarters of the Giovannisti (as such they were known, Argyll had learnt from a guidebook) was one such building. The street which contained it was not noisy, but it was unremarkable. A block or two of flats and empty, weed-covered waste ground awaiting the bulldozers and archaeologists on one side. The sort of street which contains nothing of interest to anyone.

Except for what was perhaps one of the prettiest collection of buildings that Argyll had ever seen. It was almost a perfect little miniature version of a monastery, with the chapel—much earlier in date, it seemed—on one side topped by a short tower that wanted to point to the heavens but was a bit too timid to presume; a range for the living quarters flanking it, but two storeys only, giving the effect of a row of country cottages, complete down to the green and orange of the old, rippling tiles on the roof, and then, slightly set aside, what was presumably the public building, with the library and the meeting rooms and the offices. Being on an uneven piece of ground helped, as the architect had so arranged his work that he fitted it into the terrain rather than the other way around; the result was an informality helped by the bits of classical statuary, evidently found when the garden was dug, stacked in one corner, and a bed of carefully tended summer flowers in another. Argyll breathed deeply and smiled in contentment.

“Good morning. Can I help you?”

Argyll was startled. Far from the shuffling old monk with matchstick legs and leather slippers he’d expected, he was confronted with the looming figure of possibly the most handsome man he had ever set eyes on. Nearly seven feet tall, powerfully built and nothing but muscle and bone, the sort of finely chiselled face a good draughtsman would long to have in his studio for a month or so, and a deep black skin which positively radiated health. He was dressed all in white—linen shirt, linen trousers and even linen shoes which made him all the more striking, and wore a small gold cross around his neck. That was the only indication at all that he was an inmate. Argyll felt pale and scruffy in comparison, which was largely because he was.

“Ah. Yes. Good morning. My name is Argyll.”

The man nodded politely in acknowledgement, but seemed to think that more was necessary. He didn’t bother to ask anything.

“I’ve come to see Mr Menzies.”

It was only for the briefest fraction of a second, but Argyll thought he saw a tiny little twitch in the man’s face, and believed that it indicated less than wholehearted warmth for Mr Menzies. But maybe not; he spoke perfectly graciously in a rich and elegant voice.

“I’m afraid Mr Menzies has not yet arrived. If you would like some coffee while you wait …?”

“That’s kind. But I’m awash with the stuff this morning. Could I go into the chapel and see what he’s up to?”

“With pleasure, but I doubt you’ll see much. Mr Menzies has cordoned off most of the transept as his work space and barred the entry. But you’re welcome to see the rest of the church. It is, I’m told, very lovely.”

“You don’t think so?”

“You may have noticed that I come from a very different tradition, sir. It means less to me.”

“Ah.”

“I think that the door will be open now. We have to lock it up these days, you see.”

“Oh? For any reason?” Such as the sudden arrival of a vastly valuable, but small treasure waiting to be stolen? he thought hopefully.

“There was a burglary a year or so ago, and the police recommended that if we didn’t want to lose everything, we might think of locking the doors. There is, in truth, little that is stealable, I gather. But they say that if it can be moved, it will be. So they told us to lock it.”

“They do that.”

“We still don’t like it, I must say. There is a group amongst us who believe there is something strange in an order which takes vows of poverty protecting its possessions from the poor and needy. Especially as they are not valuable.”

Argyll nodded. “A lot of church history is against you, there.”

Father Paul nodded. “I am learning this.”

“Where do you have your services at the moment? If Menzies has commandeered your chapel?”

“Oh, we make do. In the refectory, and sometimes in the library. Which, it must be said, is very much more comfortable. The chapel itself tends to be a little damp, especially in the winter months. And as many of our brothers are not in the prime of youth …”

“I see. Agonies at evensong, eh?”

“I beg your pardon?” He seemed puzzled by the remark.

“Nothing.”

“Please wait in the chapel if you wish. And do tell me what he’s doing in there, will you? He discourages us from viewing his work.”

Then Argyll was left alone in the little courtyard and, to pass the time, went into the church to examine those bits which had not been boarded off by Dan Menzies. It was, in truth, very charming, or would have been. At a rough guess, Argyll reckoned it was probably fifteenth century in origin, and there was just enough clear space to see the elegant simplicity of the old church, which was fairly small but still had the dignity and harmony of its century. But it had been modernized, got at in the seventeenth century. Again, the architect had restrained himself. There was lots of gold leaf, angels and cherubs on the ceiling, and curls and quiffs stuck on all over the place, but somehow the effect was in keeping with the original structure. It was something of a relief. Argyll was a great defender of the baroque, normally, but sometimes they did go over the top and give even the loveliest buildings a distinct air of the Roman nouveaux riches.

So he turned his attention to the paintings, principally the Caravaggio. Not that there was much to see, as only the frame was left hanging on the wall, but it was clear even from that that it didn’t fit. Much too big. Just the ticket for a huge place like San Andrea delle Valle, or San Agnese, but here it would seem so vast it would look as though it was wedged in, turning the airy church merely into supporting walls for the painter’s gloomy notions of religion. The wrong mood, and as out of place as a mourner at a wedding party. And clearly vast. Twelve foot by eight, more or less. Stealing it would be a bit of a task. Although, for his part, he reckoned the church would be greatly improved if someone did remove it. In fact, he decided as he walked round, his feet echoing quietly on the stone flagging, the only painting which should be there was that little Madonna. He stopped and peered at the tiny painting in a minuscule chapel halfway down the aisle. It was very dirty, and he could scarcely make it out, but it was, he thought, a virgin and child. Very old, and an icon. Surrounded by a gold frame that came all the way down to the head, then curved simply round the outline of the shoulders and down to the infant resting airily in her arms. In front of it was a range of candle holders for the devout. There were no candles lit; no prayers or supplications that day. Argyll, who hated anyone to feel neglected and lonely, fished out a coin and dropped it in the box, then took a candle and lit it with his lighter, pressing it into the holder right in the painting’s line of sight. There you are, love, he thought.

“Thank you, sir,” said a soft woman’s voice, so gentle and so unexpected that Argyll, prone as he was to momentary bursts of superstition, almost jumped into the air.

“I’m sorry; I surprised you,” it continued, and Argyll turned round to see a middle-aged woman with a broom in one hand and an old plastic bucket in the other.

“No, no. That’s all right,” he said. “I didn’t hear you. Who are you?”

“I clean the church,” she said. “They allow me to. We always have.”

“We?”

“My family.”

“Oh.”

There was a brief pause, as Argyll examined this woman, and she, with great but benign curiosity, studied him. He saw a short, stocky figure, very Roman in appearance, with that broad, both-feet-on-the-ground air which is characteristic of the city’s inhabitants. A kind face, with hands rough from years of being dipped into buckets of cold water, and scrubbing floors on hands and knees. An old floral house dress, and a cheap coat to keep off the dirt. She also wore a bizarre pair of pink velvet slippers with pom-poms on the end, which no doubt accounted for her being able to walk up behind him so silently.

“It’s My Lady,” she said, nodding a greeting at the icon and making a half curtsey as she spoke. Odd, Argyll thought. Not Our Lady. Was that common among Romans? He’d never noticed before. “She has great powers.”

“Oh, yes?”

“She protects those who are kind to her, and chastises the wicked. In the war, the people who lived round here gathered in the church when the troops were approaching and prayed for her help. Not a single bomb fell on this part of town.”

“That was fortunate.”

“It had nothing to do with fortune.”

“Of course not,” Argyll said hurriedly. “She seems a little, um, neglected, now.”

The woman clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth in disapproval and sadness. “We live in a wicked age. Even priests turn from her, so how can anyone else know better?”

Argyll was beginning to feel uncomfortable. These sorts of conversations always had this effect on him, a slight feeling of claustrophobia and a desperate desire to be somewhere else. He didn’t want to encourage her to talk on, but didn’t want to be rude either, so he hopped up and down and said, “Ah, indeed,” in a noncommittal way.

“They won’t let people in any more; it’s so sad and so foolish. The church used to be open for supplicants, who needed to come and ask her a favour. Or who wanted to thank her.”

“Ah.”

“And now only I am let in. I tend to her …”

“Morning!” A voice boomed and echoed across the church like an old cannon being fired, and simultaneously a bright shaft of sunlight cut across the loom of the church like a knife. Dan Menzies had walked through the door. “Ciao, signora,” he said cheerfully to the cleaner. “How are you this morning?”

“Good morning, sir,” she said politely, then picked up her bucket and walked off to restart her work. Menzies made a face at Argyll and shrugged. No dealing with some people, he seemed to say.

“Who are you?”

Argyll began his explanation as Menzies pulled out a key ring from his pocket and gestured at the temporary wall put across the transept. “I’ve seen you around. At the university, right? Come in, come in. Come and see the mess I’m making, if you must. Trying to prove it’s by Caravaggio, are you?”

“Or not.”

“Not, in my opinion.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shook his head. “The style’s OK. But it’s not good enough. Although there was so much nineteenth-century overpainting there’s not a lot of the original left. Why don’t you write about that? The nineteenth-century destruction of Italy’s art? They did much more damage than modern restorers have ever done, you know. Despite our reputation, we’re very careful in comparison to what went on before.”

“I’ll think about it. I rather want a more modest topic at the moment.”

“Publish or perish, eh?”

“Not exactly.”

“Here it is, anyway. It still looks a bit shocking, but I’m nearly finished, despite the efforts of Father Xavier to stop me.”

He fumbled at the door then pushed it open.

“Who’s he?”

“Head man. Got a bee in his bonnet about someone stealing it. Apparently the police were here and put the fear of God into him. Stupid man even had the idea that I should roll it up and lock it in a cupboard every night for security’s sake. I tried to tell him that’s impossible, but you know what a bunch of idiots these people are. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to steal it even if it was in perfect condition. Not my taste at all. Certainly not at the moment. Have a look. I’ll put the lights on.”

Argyll stood in the cool and dusky light, facing the altar, until the whole transept was suddenly drenched in a harsh and brilliant glare. He gasped in astonishment.

“Oh, my God,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s quite normal,” Menzies called from over by the light switches. “Don’t you know anything about restoration?”

“Not really.”

“Well, you should. it’s absurd for someone who calls himself an expert in art not to know the basics about the most important part of the entire business.”

“All I know,” Argyll said defensively, deciding not to mention that he’d always thought painting the things in the first place was more important, “is that it looks as though it’s been in a bar-room brawl. All that sticking plaster.”

“Dear God, how I hate the ignorant amateur,” Menzies said fervently. “You’ll be going on about respecting the wishes of the artist next.”

“Isn’t that what you’re meant to do?”

“Of course. If you know what his intentions were. But you don’t, most of the time. What you normally have is a couple of square metres of peeling paint. Often heavily gone over by someone else. You don’t really think that Caravaggio wanted that man watching in the corner to have side whiskers and the air of a nineteenth-century property developer, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. He didn’t. But a hundred years ago someone removed whatever he painted and stuck an entirely new face on. It must have been shortly after it came here.”

“Wasn’t it painted for the place?”

“Oh, no. Of course not. Look at it. Doesn’t fit at all.”

“Where did it come from?” No harm getting it started.

“Who cares? Not my business.”

“Does anyone know?”

“Probably. If you want to find out, go and look in the archives. Tons of stuff in there, I gather. Anyway, this face. I’ve taken it off, and there’s nothing underneath. I have to put something back, and go by intuition. Guesswork, if you like. Someone’s got to do it. It’s all very well going on about minimal restoration, but that’s the sort of nonsense normally spouted by people who don’t know what they are talking about.”

“My line is more historical.”

Menzies shrugged. “In that case, the archives are the place for you. You should ask Father Jean. He controls them at the moment, although I don’t think he knows much. Some old buffer before him was the expert.”

So Argyll left to find Father Jean and beg access to the archives. The itch was upon him, the yearning for the feel of old paper and the smell of dust in his hair.

Although Flavia was having a quiet and companionable mid-afternoon drink after leaving Giulia to the tender mercies of Mary Verney, she could, legitimately, claim to be working. Oiling up the contacts is a necessary part of the business and, on the whole, not too unpleasant: however loathsome and dishonest many art dealers are, they tend to regard the generous provision of food, wine and conversation as part of a public image necessary for the successful acquisition of clients. Sociability had been one of Argyll’s least favourite activities and, in no small measure, contributed to the slow progress of his career before he did an abrupt turnabout and took refuge in teaching. All to the good, in Flavia’s view; his mood had improved with his salary and, much to his surprise, he had sold more of his stock of paintings since he gave up being a dealer than he ever had when he was working on it full time.

Flavia, on the other hand, quite liked this aspect of the job—another mark against following Bottando into internationalism—as long as she was careful about who she associated with. It is, after all, always awkward to end up prosecuting someone who a few months previously had bought you a good lunch, but there was little to be done about it; if you want the best out of your contacts, you have to associate with the doubtful ones. Flavia was expected to be discreet, overlook any minor peccadilloes like taxes she might come across and give the occasional careful warning should that be necessary. Like, I’d be careful about having dealings with so-and-so for a few months. Or, if you were planning to buy that Domenichino in the auction next week, it might be advisable to think again. Things like that.

And in return, she expected a steady flow of information on the grounds that if it wasn’t forthcoming, she might accidentally let slip about the taxes to the financial police, or time a raid for the very moment when a particularly important client was in the gallery and about to buy a major work.

Not that such tasteless matters were ever mentioned as the wine was poured or the coffee drunk; it was understood, and there was no need to be crude about it.

And Giuseppe Bartolo, whose gallery she reached at about four after fruitless visits to half a dozen others before him, was a wise, not to say wily, old-timer who knew the rules better than she did, being twice her age and many times as cunning. Indeed, he had virtually taught them to her, having taken her under his wing when she was little older, and even less experienced, than Giulia. In a similar manner to Bottando but from a slightly different perspective, he had given her useful advice about the seamier sides of the art business, and continued to do so. He regarded it as an insurance policy; he knew as well as Flavia did that the file on him in the bureau was bursting out of its second folder. Smuggling, handling stolen goods, failure to report income, operating rings at auctions, excess zeal in authentication, fakery, the works. A lovely man he was, and a wholly delightful companion, full of entertaining anecdotes and worldly wisdom.

Apart from the occasional fine, he had been left in peace; most of his victims were foreigners in any case and removing the money of strangers too stupid to know better was a centuries-old tradition which no mere police crackdown could ever prevent. Even getting the average Roman dealer to grasp that it was wrong was an uphill task. More importantly, he was a treasure trove of useful information and had never lied to Flavia once, as far as she knew.

Which is why she had chosen today to go and check up on old clients, asking the same question of half a dozen dealers. Had they heard of any raids being planned?

“Such as where?”

“A monastery called San Giovanni,” she said for the sixth time as they sat in the back room of Bartolo’s little gallery in the via dei Coronari, “We had a call, but it doesn’t add up. What we don’t know is whether it was a hoax or not. The one painting worth stealing is unstealable. A man called Menzies is restoring it.”

Bartolo stiffened slightly, then nodded. “I understand. But I am afraid I can be of no help. I’ve heard of nothing being planned at all. Tell me what you know.”

“That’s about all there is. Have you ever heard of a woman called Mary Verney?”

Bartolo frowned as he tried to figure out in advance the purpose of the question. Then he gave up and shook his head. “Who is she?”

“She’s a professional thief. A very good one.”

“I see,” he said cautiously. Odd how dealers lost their joie de vivre when you asked them about thieves. “What’s she done?”

Flavia reeled off a list of thefts; Bartolo raised his eyebrow in unaffected astonishment. “Bless me,” he said. “Are you sure? I often wondered what happened to that Vermeer.”

“Now you know. You’ve not heard of her?”

“Not by name. Obviously, I hear every now and then about professionals for hire, but as I have no inclinations in that direction myself, I never pursue the matter. Besides, these people are rarely as good as the legends claim.”

“This one is. And she’s in Rome.”

“I see. You think she might have Caravaggist inclinations?”

“Who knows?”

“Hmm. I will keep my ear to the ground, if you like. But I can’t help you much. I don’t remember ever hearing of this monastery before last week.”

Flavia finished her meal and leant back for the waiter to take her plate away. “Last week? What happened last week?”

“This man Menzies.”

“Ah, yes. I noticed that you turned a little pale when I mentioned him.”

“Indeed. It’s fortunate you are here. You can help. He has to be stopped, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Farnesina.”

“What about it?”

Bartolo sighed. “You really don’t pay much attention to things, do you? The Farnesina project. Cleaning and restoring the Raphael frescoes. Galatea.”

“Oh, yes. Now I’m with you.”

“Good. A great masterpiece and one of the most important restoration projects for years. The ministry will be assigning the project in due course. There are two candidates—Dan Menzies and my friend Gianni d’Onofrio. Menzies has been lobbying hard to get it, saying that it should go to someone with an international profile, as he terms it. And he’s already lined up subsidies from rich Americans, which is the sort of thing poor Gianni can’t do. And Menzies is prepared to use methods which Gianni would never descend to.”

“Who is this man of yours?”

“He works for the Borghese, and has a freelance business. He comes from a different tradition to Menzies. No university courses in restoration theory or any nonsense like that.”

“I see. Artisan versus Professional, is that it?”

Bartolo nodded. “He followed in the family business, you see. D’Onofrios have been restoring paintings in Rome for generations. Certainly since the early nineteenth century. A good, artisanal trade, you know. Very respectable.”

“Not always,” Flavia murmured.

“It can be misused,” Bartolo conceded, “I’m glad to say. But the skill involved, the training, that’s the thing. A ménage a trois, if you see what I mean, between painter, canvas and restorer. Very delicate; each must get its due, and the restorer must be delicate, and discreet, and never thrust himself forward. It’s like an old marriage that has broken down. The restorer is there merely to restore harmony between the partners, what the painter intended and his achievement. To bring back that balance. Not to impose his own. Never to get in the way. Always to be the loyal servant, not the master.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now, old Giovanni, the father, he was perfect. The ideal restorer. Never a dab of paint too much. Never doing anything too much, lest he make a mistake. Always augmenting the painter’s work, never replacing it. You see? It was his character as well; a very mild-mannered, charming man, so modest about his abilities. I always thought of him as a sort of artistic family doctor. When I gave him a painting, he’d just have it in his studio for months on end, simply to look at and get the feel of it. And when he worked, it was with such reverence and honesty.”

“That must have been tiresome,” Flavia said.

“Umm? Oh, I don’t mean that, although he was that sort of honest as well. He could have been the finest forger of his generation, had he been so minded. Many a time I dropped a little hint—you know, take him an old copy and say, “Wouldn’t it be nice if this Maratta could be brought back to its full glory?” Just a hint, you see, and he’d shake his head and apologize and say that he really didn’t think it was a Maratta. He knew what I wanted, of course, but he was quite incorruptible.”

“And the son? Is he different?”

“Young Gianni? Oh, no. Not at all. Not any more, anyway. In his youth, twenty years ago, he did a little, ah, improving, but no more than most people. Once he got on his feet, and the excess zeal of youth faded, then he became so like his father it is frightening. Sometimes when I see him, I have to blink and remind myself of the passage of the years. They even paint in the same way. He worked his way up through skill and quiet competence. Unlike some people.”

“And here you are referring to Dan Menzies again, are you?”

“I am. While Gianni tries to bring a picture back to life, Menzies is an executioner, administering the coup de grace to a master’s vision. He paints himself. Whatever the subject. Dan Menzies’s Sistine Chapel, previously attributed to Michelangelo, now in an improved version; although, thank God, they were too sensible to let him near the project. Dan Menzies’s Virgin with St John, previously attributed to Raphael. That’s his line. Give me a forger any day. At least they’re honest.”

“You think he overdoes it?”

“Overdoes it? Listen, if some lunatic walked in off the street and sprayed acid all over some of the most beautiful pictures in the world, then daubed paint all over them, your boss Bottando would steam and rage until the offender was locked up. Menzies does that all the time. The man is a licensed vandal. Do you know, I went to New York a few months ago and saw a Martini St Veronica he’d just finished with. I could have wept, I tell you. It looked like something out of Playboy. All the subtleties of light, all the toning, all the glazes; everything that made it into a sublime masterpiece rather than merely a decent painting, all gone, and replaced by Menzies’s crudities. I was speechless, I tell you.”

“You seem to be making up for it now.”

“We’ve got to stop him,” Bartolo repeated. “If he gets his hands on the Farnesina it will be the biggest atrocity since the Sack of Rome.”

“We?”

“Listen, Flavia, over the years I have never asked you for anything.”

“No?”

“Not very much, anyway, and I’ve given you lots of information in return.”

Flavia, who was now getting an uncomfortable feeling, nodded reluctantly.

“Help us.”

“How?”

“Oh, you know how. Is there anything on this man? Is there anything we can use to stop him?”

She gulped. “Not as far as I know. And I wouldn’t tell you anyway. It would only turn up in the papers tomorrow.”

Bartolo looked distinctly displeased by this. “You expect me to dig up information for you …” he began.

“I do. And you expect me to tip you the wink about certain things as well, and I do that. But this is asking too much. And you know it is, as well.”

“I’m very disappointed.” And he sounded as though he meant it.

“You don’t even know whether Menzies will get the job.”

“No,” he conceded reluctantly.

“I suppose there would be no harm in my asking my contacts how the candidates are running.”

Bartolo smiled. “That is kind of you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” She paused for a moment. “Tell me, it wasn’t you who phoned us up to tell us about a burglary at San Giovanni, was it? To focus our attention on the place?”

Bartolo looked shocked.

“Certainly not,” he said robustly. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Menzies did it himself to generate some publicity. That’s just the sort of thing he does. I wonder, though …”

Flavia held up her hands. “No,” she said.

“No what?”

“No, I don’t want to hear.”

“Very well,” he said, with the faintest flicker of glee in his eyes. “Thank you so much. I’m so glad you came.”

“What for?”

“Wait and see.”

The following morning, Flavia had not even managed to get out of the shower before the meaning of Bartolo’s words began to dawn on her. Bottando rang.

“Could you go down to that monastery and see this Menzies man?” He sounded irritated.

“Why?”

“He’ll meet you there. I’ve just had a load of abuse hurled at me down the telephone; he’s extremely annoyed and blaming us.”

“But what for?”

“In between the shouting, I gather that some paper has published an article about him, saying the police are investigating his activities.”

“What?”

“And that he’s been wasting police time by planting fake stories about thefts to generate publicity. Do you know anything about this?”

“Ah.”

“You do. You haven’t been talking to journalists, have you?” He said it with a slightly incredulous inflection in his voice. In Bottando’s list of human sin, talking to journalists came somewhere between infanticide and arson.

“No. But I probably know who has. Leave it to me. I’ll go and sort it all out.”

“Don’t tell him who’s responsible,” Bottando said. “We don’t want a murder on our hands. And deal with it quickly, will you? I don’t have time for this sort of nonsense at the moment. And I don’t want complaints being made, either.”

There was obviously no point in going to San Giovanni via the office; and no point in going too early and still less in trying to take a bus or taxi. So she and Argyll, in peaceful harmony for the first time in days after a successfully restful and uninterrupted evening together the previous night, had a quiet breakfast on their little terrace, watching the sun beginning to heat up the stones of the city, then walked off together in the direction of the Aventino just before eight. The gentle start successfully soothed Flavia’s irritation about Bartolo, who had obviously had the bright idea of using her to attack Menzies.

Argyll accompanied her because he had nothing to do until a lecture on the early Borromini at noon, but had given up the guilty pleasure of sitting around doing nothing all morning. Very Roman, very agreeable; but not the best way of cutting a dash in the world. Slogging in a dark and sunless archive in the search for that vital publication, alas, was. Especially as Father Jean, when he’d asked, had seemed more than happy to let him have free run of the archives to see what he could find out about St Catherine.

When breakfast was followed by a gentle stroll, walking arm-in-arm through the little back streets of the city, she arrived at their destination feeling totally, if only temporarily, at peace with the world. So what, she thought, if pictures got stolen? What was that in comparison to the morning sun on a crumbling Roman inscription set into a garden wall, half covered in ivy? Who cared about forgers, when she could distract herself with a pigeon that had made its roost in the mouth of an old statue? And who was really interested in irate restorers and their private battles?

“What a lovely place,” she said appreciatively when Father Paul had responded to the doorbell and let them both in. She also found Father Paul quite something as well.

“It is,” said Argyll. “No doubt because it’s under the special protection of the Virgin. So I’m told.”

Rather than smiling at the very idea, Father Paul nodded seriously, and Flavia, who had these turns sometimes, also looked appreciative.

“You’ve heard about that, have you?” said Father Paul. “It’s one of those stories we don’t really know what to do with these days.”

“What is the story?”

“I thought you knew,” he said as he led them towards the block of buildings containing the offices and archives. “How there was a plague in the city, and the monks prayed for help, and an angel flew down bringing the icon. He told them that if they treated it properly, then they would be forever under Our Lady’s protection. So they prayed for its help, and the plague abated and not a single one of them died. As you can see from the building, she got us through the Sack of Rome, World War Two and so far has fended off the property developers as well. But of course, they tend to find that sort of thing awkward nowadays.”

“They?”

“Ah, you caught me,” he said with a faint smile. “Where I come from we have no trouble at all with things like that. Here they are all very Vatican Two and rational, you see, and have a great deal of trouble dealing with the miraculous. Considering that they are all priests, I find that strange, don’t you? After all, everything we believe in is based on a miracle. If you doubt them, what’s left?”

“So you believe it?”

He nodded. “I am prepared to. Otherwise you have to attribute everything to chance, and I find that much too far-fetched. It’s the one thing in this place I wouldn’t part with, I think. And the local population are fond of it. Were, in any case, until Father Xavier closed the doors. We still get scowls over that.”

“Has Mr Menzies arrived yet?” This was the voice of Father Jean, who came through the door with a worried frown on his face. “I think I should talk to him.”

“Not seen him,” said Argyll, then introduced Flavia. “Good morning, signorina. I’m very concerned about this. I think Mr Menzies will be very angry.”

“This” was a copy of a newspaper in his hand, opened at the arts pages.

“Ah, yes,” Flavia said, scanning it quickly. “In fact, I can tell you he is very angry. That’s why I’m here. To tell him it’s nothing to do with us.”

It was short, but effective. Menzies, greatly criticized for some of his past restorations, was a shameless publicist being investigated for wasting police time. They suspected him of making bogus phone calls to drum up publicity as part of his campaign to get the job to clean the Farnesina. It remained to be seen whether a corrupt and barbaric government would sink so low as to allow one of the nation’s greatest masterpieces to fall into the hands of such a latter-day Visigoth. Or, at least, that was the general line communicated without ever stooping so low as to make any direct accusations.

Argyll tutted as he read, Father Paul looked unconcerned, and Father Jean seemed upset, but more for the way the order was being dragged into public controversy than anything else. “I do think it was a mistake to let Mr Menzies in here, you know.”

“This is hardly his fault,” Father Paul said gently. “Perhaps we’d better go and talk to him now?”

Such was the awe in which Menzies’s anger was held that, safety in numbers, a sort of unofficial delegation was formed, with all of them shuffling off nervously in the direction of the church, so the reaction could be absorbed collectively.

They never got there; the bell rang again and Father Paul headed off to see who it was. As he seemed to be the sort of person whose natural calm and authority might best deal with an irate restorer, the rest waited for him to return. He came back with someone Flavia recognized. Father Paul also had a look of vague alarm about him as well.

“Hello, Alberto,” Flavia said with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

She introduced her colleague from the carabinieri, a tall, thin man who managed to have an air of vague perplexity about him all the time. Strange, she thought; he always looked like that. At the moment he also looked like someone who knew full well he was wasting his time when he could be getting on with his paperwork.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The emergency services had an anonymous call …”

Flavia scowled. “Another one? What in God’s name is going on here?”

“I have no idea. But this call was to say someone had been injured. They’re a bit short of ambulances and get really pissed off with cranks wasting their time, so it was passed on to us. And here I am. Nothing going on, is there?”

He was unsurprised when Father Jean assured him that, as far as they knew, all was well. No illness, injury or death all night.

Flavia was puzzled, though. And a little alarmed. “This is the second time in a few days,” she said. “We’d better have a look around. What exactly did this call say?”

“Just that. Nothing else. It came in an hour or so ago. We’ve just heard about it.”

Fathers Jean and Paul exchanged looks, and then the group, augmented by one, resumed their collective move. There was no sign of Menzies; the door of the church was still firmly closed.

So they unlocked it and went in to check. It was unlit, and there was not a sound, certainly none of the grunting and scuffling and whistling that normally accompanied Menzies’s labours. They went over to the transept that Menzies was using for his studio, but that again was empty; the Caravaggio stood there, still a mess but undoubtedly otherwise safe. That was one less thing to be concerned about at least.

Then they stood around, wondering what to do next. “I suppose we just wait. He’ll turn up eventually.”

Both Father Jean and Father Paul were just coming up with very good reasons why they had to go about their business, Alberto was becoming ever more convinced that the perverted sense of humour of some Italians had wasted his time, and the three were preparing to leave Flavia with the task of dealing with Menzies.

From the other side of the church there came a hideous scream, made all the worse by the resounding echo in the building, which made the high-pitched wail and strangled sob, and repeated ululations reverberate all around, seemingly growing louder and louder rather than fading away.

“Jesus …” Argyll began. All of them turned and began to run the short distance to where the scream seemed to have come from, and Father Paul, with more practical sense than all the rest of them put together, walked purposefully in the opposite direction and began switching on all the lights, so that one by one, the gloom receded and they could see what the noise was about.

It was perfectly obvious. The cleaning lady, with her broom tangled in her legs, knelt frantically in front of the bank of candles, scrabbling desperately at the wall in supplication as she continued to cry and scream. The bucket of dirty water was upturned where she had dropped it and flowing all over the floor; the wet broom had fallen against a bank of extinguished candles and knocked them flying and the woman’s old pink slippers, with pom-poms, rested in the thick, sticky blood that had flowed so horrifyingly freely from the broken skull of Father Xavier Munster, thirty-ninth superior general of the order of St John the Pietist.

It took another quarter of an hour before anyone noticed that the little painting of the Virgin to which Argyll had given a candle had been taken out of its frame and had vanished.

“Is there any chance that this might be kept private? Until we know what happened?” Father Jean asked humbly of Flavia. “Must the newspapers know?”

Everybody was slowly calming down after the frenzy of activity that had followed the moment of stunned silence that the sight had caused in all of them. Father Paul, with impeccable resourcefulness, was the first to recover and, as Father Jean said later, had probably saved the superior’s life—if, indeed, it could be saved. He staunched the flow of blood, organized blankets to keep the man warm, summoned the first aid kit and called the ambulance from the hospital which, as it was only a mile or two down the road, arrived with unusual speed. Everybody else more or less stood around as the old man was given emergency treatment, loaded on a stretcher and then rushed to the hospital.

His chances were not great, one of the ambulance men said. But it was a miracle he was alive. He must be a tough old bird even to be still breathing.

Flavia shook her head at Father Jean’s question. “Not a chance, I’m afraid. Somebody will tell a reporter. And it will look very much worse if we try to hide it. I’m afraid you’ll just have to keep your heads down.”

“Will you be investigating, Signorina?”

“That depends. Assault is not normally our line of business. On the other hand, it looks as though Father Xavier might have been attacked trying to prevent someone stealing that painting.”

“And that would help? If that’s what happened?”

“We would be involved, certainly.”

“That’s good.”

“Why does it matter?” Flavia asked, curious that he should be so concerned with such matters which, in comparison to Father Xavier, seemed almost trivial even to her.

“It’s always best to have someone who is delicate, and tactful, I think. Obviously, the attacker must be apprehended. That must be the first priority. But Father Xavier, I feel sure, would not want his misfortune to bring dishonour upon us.”

“Being attacked is hardly a dishonour.”

Father Jean nodded, and seemed about to say something, but decided not to, just at the moment.

“Do you have any idea …?”

“What happened? None. And I know enough not even to think of it yet. We’ll see later on. You certainly know more than I do at the moment. Now, if you could show me to a telephone …”

She walked off with the priest so she could telephone Bottando, and Argyll watched her go, rather abandoned, sitting on a pew. It always gave him something of a shock, watching her at work. She was so very calm and good at it. While he had felt almost weak at the knees at the sight of the blood, Flavia had shown no reaction at all, once the paleness caused by the initial shock had passed. In fact, he had even noticed her stifle a yawn at one point.

For his part, he needed a drink, early though it was. So he walked out of the building and down the road to the nearest bar. A gaggle of locals, men having their coffee and roll before going off to work, eyed him curiously.

“Ambulance at the monastery, I see,” one said conversationally.

“And police,” agreed another. “I know those number plates.”

“You wouldn’t know what it was about?” added a third, looking at Argyll.

“Well …” he began.

“Body being taken out? What’s been going on?”

“I think there has been a theft. The superior was attacked. He’s still alive, though.”

A lot of tutting and shaking of heads at this. The way of the world, what are we coming to? Still, what do you expect?

“What they take, then?” said one of the more jovial ones.

“Oh, not much, as far as they know,” he said reassuringly. “Only a picture. They didn’t even take the valuable one. They lifted a little Madonna instead.”

One of the men put his coffee cup down on the counter and looked Argyll firmly in the eye.

“A Madonna? Not My Lady?”

“A little icon.” Argyll gestured to indicate the size. “Very dirty.”

“In the side chapel?”

“That’s the one, I think.”

There was a lot of muttering at this, and Argyll noticed one of the men surreptitiously pull out a handkerchief from his jacket and dab his eye.

“Oh, no,” one of the others cried. “Surely not?”

As is usual in such cases, Argyll glanced at the barman to get an indication of what exactly was going on. He, he thought, would be reliable. A youngish man, with fashionably cut hair and the sort of casual air of someone who had never been troubled by a sombre thought in his life. He also had turned grim-faced, and was drying a beer glass with an unusual intensity.

“The bastards,” this man said. “The bastards.”

A chord had been struck. The cheerful atmosphere of the bar dissolved under the impact of Argyll’s words like an ice cream in the July sun. In its place was genuine anger and, he thought, real distress. Almost worry.

“I’m sorry to bring bad news,” he said, trying to back pedal from his insouciant approach of a few seconds ago and adopt a more fitting demeanour. “I didn’t realize you would mind so much. No one ever goes in there, do they?”

“It was locked. By that man.”

“But still …”

“She was there. That’s what counted.”

“I see.” Then he saw, with profound relief, the reassuring figure of Father Paul come through the door. Could he come back? Signorina di Stefano wanted to talk to him.

“Was Father Xavier in the chapel all night, do you think?” he asked the priest as they walked back to the monastery.

Father Paul shrugged. “I really don’t know, Mr Argyll. I really don’t know. It was my job to do the rounds and make sure everything was locked up, and I didn’t notice anything wrong then.”

“When was that?”

“Just after eleven. We have evening prayers, we are allowed an hour to ourselves, and the lights go off at ten. Then the person on duty goes round and checks everything is closed. It was something introduced after the last burglary.”

“And you saw nothing?”

A shake of the head.

There were five cars parked outside the monastery, which Argyll assumed contained all those specialists who emerge from under stones on these occasions. Flavia was standing in the courtyard, arguing fiercely with Alberto.

“Look, I don’t want to argue with you,” she was saying, clearly not telling the truth at all. “It’s not my concern whether this is investigated by you or by me.” Another blatant fib. “I was asked to come here about a possible theft, and I proposed to find out what was going on. I don’t want to take on anything else if I can help it …”

Extraordinary how she could string together so many untruths and look so convincing. The other man was grumbling, but seemed prepared to retreat and let other people fight for his department’s honour. They agreed that the entire matter should be passed on to their respective superiors and, that little bit of necessary posturing over, seemed quite content to resume normal relations.

“Jonathan!” She called him over. “You’ll have to give a statement, you know. This is the man who’ll be taking it.”

Argyll nodded. “Fine. Although it’ll be short and less than helpful. Do you want it now?”

Alberto shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. We’ll let the experts do their stuff and clear out. Then everything might get a little bit calmer.”

“Waiting around all day?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Would it matter if I waited somewhere else? I was only going to be here for an hour or so, and then I’m meant to be delivering a lecture.”

Alberto puffed and blew but, what are friends for? Flavia vouched for his good behaviour and he was let out with a promise that he come back immediately afterwards. He wasn’t entirely certain whether he felt glad or not.

By the time he returned, a certain amount of progress had been made. The first information from the hospital said that Father Xavier was still alive, if only barely, and in intensive care. He had obviously been hit on the head, and was lucky to be alive at all. But he was unconscious, and liable to stay that way for some time. What was more, no blunt instrument of any shape or variety was in the area of the attack. Not with blood on, anyway.

So the police, both branches of it acting in harmony for once, began the task of asking questions and taking statements.

Menzies was useless, even when he had been weaned off his own problems and persuaded to concentrate on what, to the police at least, were more important matters.

He had left about six, gone home, changed and gone to a reception at which he had hoped to collar several influential members of the Beni Artistici. Said members had not been there, so he’d left early, eaten in a restaurant and gone home. He produced the bill from the restaurant, agreed readily that his movements were unaccounted for from the hours of half past ten to eight in the morning, when he’d gone for a coffee in the bar round the corner from his apartment, but seemed very unconcerned about the fact.

“If you can find me a good reason for assaulting Father Xavier, I’d be very interested to hear it. This affair is obviously an attack on me.”

Flavia looked puzzled. How on earth could he conclude that?

“Be reasonable,” he snapped. “I am being attacked left and right, and by people who are completely unscrupulous. Did you see that scurrilous article this morning? It’s a disgrace. For which I hold you responsible. You obviously fed a story to the newspaper out of sheer xenophobic malice.”

“I assure you I did nothing of the sort. Are you suggesting I also attacked Xavier?” Flavia asked stiffly.

“The people behind this did,” he proceeded illogically. “Clearly they came into the church at night to damage the painting I’m restoring. Father Xavier surprised them and they attacked him. It’s obvious.”

“And the icon?”

Menzies waved his hand dismissively. “Second-rate rubbish. Taken to put you off the scent. So you’d think it was a burglary and not pursue the real culprits. I tell you, this is to stop me getting the Farnesina job. And I intend to make sure that doesn’t happen. I will hold you personally responsible …”

“Are you suggesting …?”

“I am suggesting that the very fact that I am sitting here accounting for my movements will be all over the newspapers tomorrow. I’ve no doubt you will ring up your newspaper friends the moment you have the opportunity. No doubt they pay you well for this sort of malicious gossip.”

“I think I resent that.”

“I don’t care one way or the other. I want a full statement from you that you have no suspicions of me whatsoever, and that this was part of a campaign by my enemies against me.”

“Do you?”

“And in the meantime,” he went on, levering his bulk out of the chair, “I will go to the embassy. I’m a personal friend of the ambassador, and he’ll want to hear about this. Do you have any idea how much money generous people in my country pour into conservation in Italy? Have you any idea?”

Without waiting for an answer, he stumped out, looking very much in combative mood.

Flavia sighed a little.

“Going to be one of those cases,” she said. “Feel it in my bones.”

Father Paul was next in line, and had an even more commanding appearance as he moved into the room and sat down in front of them. He was sober and serious and upset but not at all frightened or cautious, unlike almost everyone else that Flavia ever interviewed.

Once the preliminaries were over, they had established that he was thirty-seven, from the Cameroon, a priest and had been brought to Rome to study at the Gregorian University.

“It’s part of a programme to unify the church at the grass roots,” he explained. “I come here, priests from Italy go to Africa. So we can study conditions and appreciate the meaning of cultural differences at first hand.”

“Has it worked? In your case?”

He looked uncertain. “I would have preferred to have been sent to an inner-city parish where I could have done some real work, rather than sitting in a library,” he said. “But of course I am happy to obey the directions I am given.”

“And you want to go back?”

“Of course. I hope to return fairly soon. Or had hoped to.”

“Why the change?”

“It depends on getting the permission of the superior general. He had refused my request, unfortunately …”

“And now?”

Father Paul smiled. “And now, when he recovers, he will refuse it again.”

“And if he doesn’t recover?”

“Then I will withdraw my request, lest it be thought I have taken advantage of this tragedy. But I am convinced he will get better.”

“Faith?”

“Nothing so elevated. I trained for a while in medicine before I found my vocation. He is badly hurt, but not fatally, I think.”

Pretty impenetrable there, Flavia thought. Not even so much as a hint of indignation at her implication. “How long does it take to elect a new superior? Or do you appoint a deputy?”

Father Paul shrugged. “I’m not certain. This is uncharted territory. I think that Father Jean, as the oldest member, takes over for the time being; he used to be the official deputy when Father Charles ruled us.”

“Oh. Now, last night, you went for your walk …”

“About ten o’clock. I walked down the street, around one or two blocks, and came back at half past. I let myself in with the key, then locked and bolted the main door. Then checked the other side doors, which were all locked as they should be, then the library block, making sure the building was empty, the windows closed and the door locked when I left. The accommodation wing is always open, because of the risk of fire.”

“And you went into the church?”

“Yes. I switched on all the lights, checked quickly and locked the door when I left.”

“And how many keys are there?”

“Lots. Everyone living here has one, of course. And Mr Menzies, Signora Graziani, the man who does the gardening, the nuns who come in and cook for us, and so on.”

“And the church?”

“The entrance key fits the door from the courtyard.”

“So Father Xavier could have gone into the church without having to ask anyone for a key.”

“Of course.”

“There’s no other way into it?”

“There’s a door on to the street. But that has been closed for the last three years. It was used by ordinary people who wanted to come in to pray. There were not many any more, I’m afraid, and it was a practice that was disapproved of.”

“Why?”

“The local parish church didn’t like it, and the icon was rather against the spirit of the times. The local priest of the parish is a very modern man. When the burglars struck a few years back, it was felt that this was a good time for change. We mended our fences with the parish and obeyed police strictures about security. And Father Xavier felt that as so few people used the church any more, it would not be noticed.”

“I see,” said Flavia. “And was it?”

“There was a surprising amount of disquiet. It’s still very much a neighbourhood around here, with people who’ve been in the quarter for generations, and they rather regarded that Madonna as their patroness and protector. They never paid any attention to it while the church was open, of course, but they were upset when it was closed. Young girls used to come before they got married, and even the most hardened of boys found themselves in front of her before examinations.”

“I see. Now, you get up when?”

“At half past five. Normally there is a service, then an hour of meditation before breakfast. Usually, that’s when the church is opened. But because of Mr Menzies making such a mess in there, we’ve been using the library recently.”

“So the church wasn’t opened until nine.”

“That’s right. Either Signora Graziani, or Mr Menzies, opens it up.”

“Tell us about the signora.”

Father Paul shrugged. “I know little about her. You’d have to ask Father Jean, I think. She works on a food stall on market days. When she does she comes early to clean. Every day, rain or shine; it’s some sort of vow, I believe. She is pious in a way which is rare nowadays. Probably always rare, in fact.”

Like Father Paul, Father Jean provided a brief biographical sketch, and told them that he was in effect the librarian of the community, and had stopped acting as deputy superior when Father Charles had stepped down three years previously.

“I would have retired, as that is theoretically now possible,” he said with a faint smile. “But alas, permission was denied me.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventy-four.”

“Too young, eh?”

“No, it’s because there are so few of us left. The average age of the order is about sixty now. There are no vocations any more. When I was young, there was competition to get in; the order offered useful work and an unparalleled education. Now the state provides the education, and no one believes in the work. So they need me.”

“Father Paul …”

“Is, as you may have noticed, from Africa. And a very fine young man. The Third World is the only place we get vocations now. Unless we do something, I wouldn’t be at all surprised … still, this is not what you want to ask me about.”

“I suppose not. Tell me about Father Xavier. Is he popular? Well-liked?”

Father Jean hesitated. “I’m not so sure what you’re asking.”

“Does he have enemies?”

“You mean …?” The old man looked pale with horror as it dawned on him what Flavia was asking. “Surely, he was trying to prevent a burglary. This was nothing to do with him personally.”

“We do have to cover all options. Of course, it was almost certainly a burglary. But please answer the question anyway.”

“This is terribly distressing, in the circumstances.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Father Jean nodded and sighed heavily. “I suppose I must. As far as I know he has no family; none close, anyway. And virtually no friends, inside or outside the order.”

“Enemies?”

“He is not a popular leader, and has been controversial ever since he took over, although it would have been difficult for anyone to fill the shoes of Father Charles.”

“In what way, controversial?”

“We are at a difficult stage,” he began eventually, after a long search for the best way to phrase it. “And Father Xavier was the man forced to confront that. I am convinced he was on entirely the wrong track, but I suppose I must give him credit for trying. Many others would merely have swept all our problems under the carpet, and left them until they became too difficult to solve.”

“What precisely?”

“We have to decide what we are for, if you see what I mean. It is no longer enough to pray, and other people, it seems, can do good works better than us. So what are we doing? We have some money and we have good people. Are we doing God’s work with either?”

“Some of you wanted to give it away?”

“Oh, no. Hardly that.” Father Jean permitted himself a faint, ironic smile. “It was more a question of how best to use what we had. And for some of us, how to get more. For the best possible reasons, of course.”

“Of course.”

“The church as a whole is in a certain amount of turmoil; you may have noticed. And being the church, it goes on for a long time. We think in centuries, so a convulsion lasting fifty years is a mere nothing. But that essentially is the problem. Do we guard the old ways or alter completely our approach? Do we try to change the world, or allow the world to change us? That is the basic problem facing all traditional religions, it seems.”

Flavia nodded. “I still don’t see …”

“We have no new vocations,” Father Jean continued. “Except from the Third World, as I said. Thirty priests under the age of thirty-five, and all but five come from Africa or South America. Yet all our officers are Italian or French—mainly French—most are over sixty, our headquarters are in Rome and most of our expenditure is in Europe. A significant number want to recognize the changes; an equally significant number want to keep things as they are. That, if you like, is the problem in a nutshell. The debate has caused much bitterness in our ranks.”

“What were Father Xavier’s proposals?”

“They don’t have much relevance …”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Father Xavier, and those who supported him, wanted to rebuild us into an aid and teaching order. Raise money, and pour it all into development and missionary projects in Africa. And to raise money, he wanted to sell off assets. I was totally opposed to the scheme but was not certain that my views would prevail.”

“I see. And which assets are we talking about here? Wouldn’t be the Caravaggio, would it?”

“Unfortunately, it would. Although that was only a start. We had a meeting to discuss the principle a few days ago. Fortunately the proposal was defeated.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we decided as a body to refuse permission for anything to be sold at all.”

“Are you short of money?”

“I don’t know. We are not a rich order, but two years ago, when I was in a position to know such things, we were not desperately poor.”

“Was this proposal caused by any offers? Had someone said they wanted to buy the Caravaggio?”

“Not that I am aware of, no.”

There was a pause, as Father Jean realized that perhaps he had allowed the outside world too much of an insight into private business.

“So who runs things now?”

“Until such time as the situation becomes clear—whether Xavier will be returning to his post or not—then we are in limbo. And, as far as I understand it, the most senior available member takes charge.”

“You?”

He nodded. “It is a burden I do not wish to fall on my aged shoulders. But I have given my life to this order and now, in the time of its crisis, is not the moment to shirk my responsibilities.”

Flavia nodded. He wouldn’t have much trouble becoming a politician, she thought. He already speaks like one. And she thought she saw the bright glint of opportunity in his eye. “OK. Let’s leave that. What were your movements last night and this morning?”

Father Jean said he had had an unexceptional evening. He had worked in the library until six, attended the evening service, had dinner, read for an hour, gone to chapel again then gone to bed at ten.

“In the morning I got up, attended chapel, spent an hour in prayer, ate and began work at seven. I stayed in the library until Father Paul came to say that there had been a terrible tragedy.”

“You sleep well?”

He shrugged. “Well enough, I think. I need little sleep; we old men don’t, you know. I normally wake at about three and read.”

“And you did that last night?”

“Yes.”

“What were you reading?”

Father Jean looked a little sheepish. “Adventure stories,” he said. Flavia kept a straight face. “They are very entertaining, in the small hours. My nephew sends me them. Then I pass them on to all the other people here. We read them avidly.”

“Is that … ah …?” Flavia knew she shouldn’t ask, but the vision of this community of old priests, up late at night reading varieties of bodice-rippers was too irresistible to let go.

“Allowed?” Father Jean asked with a smile. “You think we should spend all our time reading St John of the Cross or a light Vatican encyclical? Oh, yes. It used not to be permitted, of course, but we are now allowed to keep in touch with the outside world. Even encouraged, as long as it doesn’t go too far.”

“Yes. Right.” Flavia paused a while to remember what line she had been pursuing before this unlikely diversion had cropped up. “Now,” she continued, when it came back to her. “Where is your, ah, cell? Is that what you call them?”

“It faces the main courtyard. Opposite the church. Where I would have been in a good position to hear any shouting or screaming had any occurred.”

“And it didn’t?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. And as I’m such a light sleeper, I feel certain I would have heard anything at all during the night. A bird singing is often enough to wake me up.”

Flavia paused. Why was it that she did not believe him? He was sitting quietly, hands folded in his lap as though he was attending a long church service. There was nothing suspicious or hesitant about him at all, and yet she knew, as sure as anything, that at the very least he was concealing something.

“Tell me, Father, how did Mr Menzies get the commission to clean the paintings?”

“He didn’t,” the old man replied. “He offered. We weren’t paying him. That was the only reason we accepted.”

“He was working for nothing?”

“Yes. I believe there was a grant from some American charity. We had to pay only the expenses, although that amounted to a substantial sum.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. He said he wanted to clean the pictures and was prepared to do it for nothing. Who were we to question his generosity?”

Flavia thanked him, and let him go, then turned to Alberto. “Well?”

“What?”

“You have a look on your face. Crazed monks beating each other’s heads in.”

“No, I don’t,” he protested lazily, wondering whether you were allowed to smoke in monasteries. “I’m just sitting here quietly taking it all in, that’s all. I never prejudge things, not even when priests are concerned. My look of scepticism was merely to indicate my feeling that we aren’t getting anywhere. That’s all.”

“Oh. That’s all right, then. Shall we see Signora Graziani next? And stop for lunch?”

Alberto agreed that an early lunch was by far the most professional way of proceeding. Signora Graziani was ushered in and sat down nervously. Flavia looked at her with satisfaction. No likelihood that this one would keep anything back, she thought. And as she discovered the attack, had a key and also seemed to have something of an obsession with the icon, she had a certain amount of convincing to do.

She said that she had arrived and was just beginning to clean the church as usual when she saw Father Xavier. And screamed. There wasn’t much else to add, really. She lapsed readily back into a shocked silence.

So Flavia established that she had been at home until leaving for the church, saw and heard nothing suspicious. Her daughter and granddaughter, who lived with her ever since that beast of a husband had left the poor dears destitute by running off with some floozy—may God forgive him, although she, Signora Graziani, wasn’t going to—would vouch for that.

“You must remember, signora, that anything which can help might be of enormous importance here.”

But she shook her head. She’d come into the church, collected her bucket of water and cleaning equipment, and walked down the aisle to close the main door when she saw …

“To close the what?”

The main door, she said, which was slightly ajar. Surely they must have noticed that it was unlocked? She’d closed it and locked it just before she noticed …

“Jesus,” Flavia swore under her breath.

“Fine, great,” she said hurriedly. “I think that will do. Thank you so much, signora.”

“Is there anything else?” asked Alberto, speaking for almost the first time. “I believe there is. What is it, signora? Do you know who attacked him or something?”

She nodded again. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

There was a slight clunk as the front two legs of his chair came back to earth, and he leant forward on the table.

“Well?”

“She did,” Signora Graziani said. Alberto, who thought for a moment the woman was referring to Flavia, looked surprised.

“What?”

“My Lady. She did.”

“Ah …”

“She is as harsh in her punishments of sin as she is gracious and forgiving with those who make amends. The Father was wicked, and turned from her. So he was punished.”

“Well …”

“He stopped her receiving supplicants, and took her away from the people who loved her. And he was going to hurt her.”

“Just a minute,” Flavia said, suddenly realizing what the woman was talking about. “Do you mean that painting?”

Signora Graziani looked puzzled for a moment. “Of course,” she said simply.

“And you think Father Xavier was attacked by a painting?”

“My Lady,” she corrected gravely, “punished him. A priest without belief is no man of God.”

“Yes. Right. Thank you very much,” Alberto said. “That’s very illuminating. So kind of you to spare the time to talk to us.”

“Will you want a statement?” she asked placidly.

“Not just yet, I think. Maybe in a day or so,” he replied, holding open the door.

Signora Graziani bowed slightly as she left. “You don’t believe me,” she said. “But you’ll see I’m right.”

“Damnation,” he said when he’d shut the door on her. “I thought for a moment …”

Flavia laughed. “You should have seen the look on your face when you realized what she was talking about.”

He snorted. “I suppose we’d better check that door. Quite a big thing to have missed, don’t you think?”

She nodded. “I imagine she will have wiped any fingerprints off, mind you.”

“Probably. But we do have the problem of finding out who unlocked it in the first place.”

Argyll’s lecture, a moronically simple canter through the more ostentatious church commissions of the seventeenth century, had gone tolerably well, so he thought. That is to say, there had been forty people in the room when he started, and still more than twenty when he’d ended. Such wastage would have alarmed him, but his head of department assured him that it was pretty good, considering. Considering what? he’d asked. Considering that it was a morning lecture, was the reply. Not early risers, these people. As they, or their parents, were paying a fortune, they generally imagined that lectures should be scheduled for their convenience. Just as they seemed to think that the level of grade should vary in direct proportion to the size of the fees.

“And,” this wiseacre continued. “You didn’t show many pictures. Risky. They like looking at pictures. You don’t show pictures, they’ve not got anything to do. Except listen, and think. And lectures. Dear me. A bit authoritarian, you know? Don’t you think a group interaction module might be better?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where you break down hierarchy. They teach themselves.”

“But they don’t know anything,” Argyll protested. “How can you teach yourself if you don’t know anything to start off with?”

“Ah. You’ve spotted the snag. However, that one is easily solved. You are confusing knowledge with creativity. You are meant to be encouraging their self-expression. Not stifling it by the imposition of factualities over which you deny them control.”

“Factualities?”

The other man sighed. “I’m afraid so. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault.”

“I don’t have to do that, do I?” asked a newly anxious Argyll.

“I exaggerate greatly. Just for the pleasure of watching the blood drain from your head. But you do have to watch it. Do you want to have lunch?” he asked. Amazing how a bit of idle chat can make some people friendly. The man had scarcely talked to him before, although as almost no one in the entire department had acknowledged his existence as yet this hardly marked him out.

“No. That’s kind. But I have to get back to San Giovanni.”

“Oh-ho. That’s courageous of you. Did you know Menzies is working there?”

“I did.”

“The Also Capone of restoration? I’d be careful. There was a terribly funny article about him in the paper this morning …”

“I saw it.”

“Did you? Goodness, how I laughed. I wonder who wrote it. You saw it was anonymous, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“I’d steer clear if I were you. I wouldn’t like to be the person who supplied all that information to the press, either. He has a violent streak, has Menzies. Did you hear of the time he was addressing the art restorers’ annual bash in Toronto? About four years ago?”

“Can’t say I did,” Argyll replied cautiously.

“Burckhardt had the temerity to question a fluid he was using. Very polite, merely in the spirit of enquiry. They came to blows, in fact, Menzies threw a glass at him.”

“During the conference?”

“Not in the actual hall, no. That would have been entertaining. But in the bar afterwards. Very dramatic. I’m sorry I missed it, really; probably the high point of the evening. Vicious bunch, art restorers. Cut-throat, you know. They had a return match the other day. Didn’t actually hit each other, alas.”

“Oh?”

“He was gawping at his restoring, and Menzies all but threw him out. Amazing. He told me about it at dinner. That’s why I thought of it.”

“Who did?”

“Burckhardt.”

“Who is this Burckhardt?”

“Burckhardt? The Burckhardt.”

Argyll shook his head.

“And I thought you were once an art dealer. Peter Burckhardt. Of Galeries Burckhardt.”

“Oh,” said Argyll humbly. “That Burckhardt.”

He told Flavia about it over the minestrone.

“Who?”

Argyll looked at her scornfully. “And I thought you were meant to keep your finger on the pulse. The Peter Burckhardt. Only the oldest and canniest icon man in the business. He virtually sets prices. Icons are worth what he says they’re worth.”

“You know this man?”

He shook his head. “Only by reputation. Which is very good. He’s an Alsatian, I think. French, really.”

“Where does he hang out?”

“Paris. He operates in the Faubourg St-Honore. Has done for decades, I think.”

“And he’s in Rome.”

“Apparently. So this man I was talking to said. And had a run-in with Menzies. They had a spat a year or so ago and it still rankles. Something about fluids.”

Flavia ate a spoonful of soup and thought it over. “So we have a dealer who specializes in icons in the church a day or so ago. The order decides not to sell any of its possessions and the icon gets stolen. What does that indicate to you?”

“That you should forget Caravaggio and think Orthodox. And ask Menzies why he didn’t mention this. And examine Peter Burckhardt’s luggage. On the other hand, he is terribly respectable. I mean seriously. It’s possible he might turn a blind eye to an icon with a dubious past; he’d have to. It’s almost impossible to get hold of any which aren’t a bit shady. But actually stealing things himself …”

Flavia nodded thoughtfully. “I wonder if he knows Mary Verney.”

“He tries to buy it, is turned down, so goes on to his reserve line of attack?”

“That sort of thing.”

“I thought you said they hadn’t received any offers?”

“So I did. What a pity. Nonetheless, I suppose I’d better find this man. Give me something to do. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t want you to get bored, after all. Any other progress?”

She grinned. “Thanks to Alberto’s persistent questioning, yes. We have our culprit. A pity she’s on the run.”

Alberto smiled back, a little half-heartedly.

“Well done,” Argyll said enthusiastically. “Who was it?”

“The Virgin Mary. We have a witness.”

“What?”

Flavia explained. Argyll shook his head seriously.

“No. It doesn’t sound right to me. I mean, the face. You can always tell by the face. Does that painting have a violent face? It does not. I think,” Argyll said definitively, “that someone is trying to stitch her up.”

“You reckon?”

“I do. Have you figured out what Father Xavier was doing in the chapel?”

“Do priests need a reason? Probably keeping a late-night vigil to pray for guidance, or something. There seem to be squalls. Not a happy little order, in fact. Either that or I frightened him so much about the possible raid that he was keeping a vigil.”

“Have you considered Mary Verney here?”

She nodded. “How could I not? But he was hit with some force, and that doesn’t really seem like her, somehow. But I may be wrong, so we’ll have her in anyway, see what she’s been up to. Where are you going now?”

“Back to work.”

“You couldn’t get some shopping, could you? I’m not going to have a minute.”

Argyll sighed. “Do you promise to eat it this time?”

She nodded. “Promise.”

“In that case, I suppose I could manage. As long as you don’t expect anything complicated.”

Mary Verney spent the hours before lunch looking at paintings; it was a way of calming herself down after an alarming morning. Now she had largely given up stealing them, she discovered she quite liked the things, although old habits, she found, died hard. When she came across a particularly delightful specimen, such as the small Fra Angelico she was looking at now, she was hard put to avoid checking for wiring, and wondering how securely the windows were fastened. But, as it was now three—no, nearly four—years since she had worked, such thoughts were becoming more abstract; she liked retirement and had no desire whatsoever to emerge from it. She disliked intensely those foolish people—thieves or football players, politicians or boxers—who could not believe the world could survive without them and who refused to acknowledge that they, like everyone else, were at the mercy of time. No fool like an old fool, and Mary Verney had never, ever, been a fool.

But perhaps she was turning into one. She hadn’t slept either, although she explained this by the fact that she really needed to be careful over the next few days. She needed to examine San Giovanni, but simply couldn’t run the risk of being seen there.

It was for this reason that she not only left the hotel by the back entrance, but also did so at six in the morning. Nothing to do with not being able to sleep. The principle was sound: firstly she doubted that the police would keep up an all-night vigil for her sake; secondly she had a very much greater chance of spotting someone following her when the streets were all but deserted.

On the other hand, the buses were few and far between and she didn’t want to take a taxi. So she had to walk. A lovely walk; one she would have greatly enjoyed in other circumstances, but this morning her mind wasn’t on the dawn coming up over the Forum, or the Palatine dark against the lightening sky. Another beautiful day, it seemed, but so what? She was busy. All she wanted to do was examine the street, the locks on the building, side alleys and so on. Nothing fancy or detailed. A preliminary survey only, for the moment next week when she’d have to go to work.

So, like Argyll and Flavia before her, she walked slowly up the road leading to the monastery, checking distances, mentally noting which side streets were one way, which led nowhere and which gave out on to main roads. Noted the refuse collectors up the road, and made a note to see if they always turned up at the same time. Then the monastery itself; the high wall, the carefully locked door. Round the back there was a grim little alley with only a few, small windows, and these with thick bars over them. Burglary was nothing new in Rome, it seemed. They may not have had alarms and searchlights in the sixteenth century, but they did their best. And quite effective it was too. However she was going to get this picture for that damnable man, it wasn’t going to be by athletic means. Just as well. She hated that sort of thing. Her original scheme would have to stand.

But as she walked back to the main street and walked past the monastery one last time, she began to revise her plans. Luckily she was on the opposite side of the road, otherwise she might have been seen. It wouldn’t have mattered as he didn’t know who she was, but best to keep things simple. She tucked herself away in the entrance of a block of flats and watched carefully.

He was hurrying along, dressed unremarkably but carrying over his right shoulder a brown canvas bag, which he clutched tightly to his body. Mary Verney observed this with interest, and saw with some alarm that he walked straight up the steps to the main entrance of the church itself, pushed on the door and went in. A compact man, with dark curly hair, sports jacket, glasses.

It didn’t take a great genius to realize that he was not there by chance, and that he knew the door would be open. Which it surely shouldn’t be; who leaves doors open all night these days? Mary Verney was seized with a wave of panic. Something else was beginning to go badly wrong. She felt it in her bones. If it did, then all her plans would collapse. And Mikis would carry out his threat about her granddaughter. She knew him well enough for that. She had managed to keep it at the back of her mind most of the time, but this sudden development brought it all painfully close. She walked forward quickly, crossed the road and began mounting the steps to the church. She had no idea what she was going to do in there, but she had to do something.

She was almost at the door and a few seconds later would have bumped into the man coming out again. He was pale and nervous, and looked as though he had had a bad fright. He almost ran down the steps, half tripped and dropped the bag. It fell on the hard stone with a soft thud, and he scooped it up quickly before hurrying off up the street.

She thought quickly, then decided. Something wasn’t right. She quickly walked into the church and looked around. It took a few seconds for her eyes to get used to the darkness, and then she saw a figure lying on the ground. It was an old man, a priest, with a bad wound to his head; the blood was dripping out of the cut.

He was conscious, but only barely. She kneeled down beside him. “What happened?”

He moaned softly, and tried to shake his head. With surprising gentleness, she stopped him, cradling him gently in her hands. “What happened?”

“The picture … He …”

“Who? Who is he?”

“Burckhardt. He’ll …”

Then he was unconscious. She knelt down to look at him more closely, then stood up to avoid getting blood on her. “Don’t struggle or move,” she said softly as she loosened his clothing and tried to staunch the bleeding. “It’ll be all right. I’ll make sure.”

And nothing else to be done for him at the moment. She glanced up and saw the empty frame of the icon, and ran out of the church again. She was afraid she’d lost him, but after a few minutes saw his distinctive figure standing still, consulting a map.

Thank God for irrational Roman street-planning, she thought as she slowed down and took up her station a hundred yards or so behind him.

“We are nervous, aren’t we?” she thought. “But make up your mind. Where are you going, little man?”

Then he was off, down the via Albina, then crossed the little park leading to the pyramid and the Porta San Paolo. Here he consulted his map again, then crossed the square into the little railway station. Mary followed at a discreet distance. It had finally clicked; should have done the minute she heard the name. Eggs and Bacon. Icons and Burckhardt. Of course.

But again, he changed his mind, came out and started walking round the back and into the Ostiense station which was already disgorging the first commuters of the day on to the streets. This time he was more decisive. He walked into the grim entrance, and straight across to the left-luggage compartments. Fumbled in his pockets for some coins, and threw his bag into one of the lockers. Shut it, removed the key, and put it in his pocket.

He found a taxi outside and she let him go; there was no point in following him any more, and walked across the road to a bar. Half an hour should do it, she thought, just to be safe. But first, a little humanitarianism. She rang for an ambulance.

Not the police and not the Art Squad; that would have been too obvious. Doing as good an impression as she could manage of a Roman accent, she reported an accident in the church of San Giovanni and rang off before they could ask any more questions. Seven-forty. Conscience salved. Time for a large, frothy cappuccino and a pastry, sitting down at the back. She was certain that in that bag, in that left-luggage compartment, lay the solution to her problem. She might even be on the plane home this afternoon.

At ten past eight she walked back to the station, straight over to the manager’s office.

“Bon jorno,” she said in an execrable accent. “Ho un problem. Difficulty. Understand?” She smiled inanely as she twittered. The man on duty, used to the occasional idiocies of tourists, sighed heavily and smiled pleasantly. He was in a good mood. One more shift and he was off on holiday. It was something he’d been planning all year, and he was eager to get going. The challenge of a lifetime.

“Yes?”

“Baggage? Left luggage. Um, Consigno? Lost the key.” She made suitable movements with her hand to indicate someone turning a key in a lock. “Big problem.” And smiled sweetly again.

The man frowned, and bit by bit they worked out between them what was the matter, he straining to understand the verbal nonsense she spouted, she trying to avoid using the Italian words she knew all too well.

“Ah. You have lost the key to your left-luggage locker. Is that it?”

She nodded enthusiastically, took out a piece of paper and scribbled the number to hold up to him. “C37,” she said.

“What’s in it? You have to say. Otherwise how do we know it’s yours?”

She delayed a reasonable time about understanding this, waving what she hoped would be mistaken for a plane ticket to indicate how desperately late she was for a flight. Eventually she condescended to understand and, successfully giving the impression that she was outraged at anyone doubting her honesty in the matter, waved her hands some more.

“Bag,” she said. “Case. Sack?”

“Sacco, si.”

“Lovely. Light brown. Shoulder strap. Zipper.”

Then she prattled away, describing spurious contents so quickly that she knew he wouldn’t have a chance of understanding a single word, until he held up his hands. “OK,” he said. “OK.”

He opened a drawer and took out a key and led her across the forecourt. Mary pointed at the box, and he opened it.

“There we are,” she said delightedly, taking possession. “Oh, thank you, signor. You’re so very kind.” She pumped his hand up and down with fervent gratitude.

“Niente,” he said. “Be more careful next time.” He was in too relaxed a mood to make the report that regulations required, but reminded himself to tell the appropriate people to dig out a new key. But not at the moment. There was too much to do. He’d get around to it later.

And Mary Verney went off to the toilet, locking herself into a cubicle and putting the bag on her knee. Journey’s end. Thank God for that. Well wrapped up, she thought as she unzipped it. Her heart was beating fast with excitement.

Then she stared inside with complete dismay and incomprehension. There was no icon. Just money, a whole lot of it. But who was interested in that?

Damnation, she thought. It’s not there. Where the hell is it?

She flipped through the piles, to see how much there was. Stack after stack of deutsche marks. Big ones, little ones, all wrapped up in elastic bands. Nothing else at all.

She counted quickly. Must be about two hundred thousand dollars’ worth, she guessed. She zipped the bag shut again, and sat and thought.

This did not make sense. Didn’t make sense at all.

Still, first things first. Better get rid of this bag. She left the toilet and walked on to the platform, then hopped on to a crammed commuter train that lumbered in a few moments later. She knew that no one in their right minds would try to collect a ticket from her, especially as it was only another five-minute run to the end of the line. So she stood there, clutching the bag with only slightly less nervousness than Burckhardt had shown, and waited patiently until the train creaked into the main terminus and disgorged her along with several hundred others.

She repeated his tactic of leaving the bag in the left luggage at the terminus then rang Mikis at his hotel. It took some time to wake him.

“We’ve got another problem,” she said quickly once she had his attention. “The icon’s gone. Someone went in there and beat the hell out of an old priest and took it.”

“I don’t know who it was,” she continued. “But a man called Burckhardt was there. Do you know him?”

Strangely, although no great connoisseur, he did seem to know who Burckhardt was. “Yes,” she went on. “The French icon man. That’s the one. He’s in Rome and I assume he’s after the icon as well. I don’t think he attacked the priest. But he went and put something in a left-luggage compartment. Ostiense. C37.”

Another pause. “Certainly not. I am damned if I’m going to spend a day hanging around a train station. Go and ask Burckhardt. He must be in a hotel somewhere.”

“That’s your problem,” she went on. “Call his gallery in Paris and ask where he is. Even you should be able to manage that. But I can’t steal a picture if someone’s already stolen it. We’ll have to meet later on. I can’t see what else you expect me to do.”

Might work, she thought. Even he couldn’t expect miracles from her.

Then she went back to her hotel, emerging from her room ten minutes after she arrived through the back door again.

She’d slept wonderfully, she told the waiter who brought her breakfast. Must be the Roman air. A day in an art gallery today, she thought. Which one did he recommend?

When Argyll had gone off to investigate the market for dinner, and Alberto returned to his paperwork—love to help, but it’s the end of the month, could you manage without me until tomorrow?—Flavia hit the beat, leaving a message for Giulia, if ever she came back from lunch, to join her. A tiresome business, knocking on doors time after time, asking the same questions and getting the same answers, but it had to be done. When Giulia finally appeared, she sent her to start at one end of the street, she took the other, and they methodically worked their way through the apartment blocks, floor by floor, occupant by occupant, until they met in the middle.

“Did you see or hear anything at about five o’clock this morning?”

“Of course not. I was asleep.”

“No. My bedroom is at the back.”

“Pardon? You’ll have to speak up. I’m a little deaf.”

“The only thing I heard was the refuse collectors. They do it deliberately, you know, making such a noise, trying to stop respectable people from sleeping. Do you know …?”

“What do you think I am, a Peeping Tom?”

“Go away. I’m busy. The baby’s just thrown up on the floor.”

And so on. An entire street and, as far as Flavia could discover, the desired combination of a nosy insomniac with good hearing and a bedroom facing in the direction of the monastery did not exist.

“Complete bloody waste of time. And my feet are killing me,” Flavia said when she got home afterwards, proud at least of coming home in time for dinner and an evening pretending to be normal and civilized. She took off her shoes and waggled her toes in Argyll’s direction to show him what she meant. They looked perfectly fine to him.

“What you need is a nice quiet desk job.”

“What I need is a glass of gin. Do you know anything about icons?”

Argyll paused as he unscrewed the bottle. “Nothing.”

“You must know something.”

“No. Zilch. Zero. Very specialist trade, icons. I couldn’t tell a medieval one from a modern one. It’s shameful to admit it, but they all look a bit the same to me.”

“You never sold any?”

“Not likely. It’s bad enough trying to make money dealing when you do know what you’re doing. Besides, there hasn’t been much money in them in the last few years. There’s a decent market now, of course. Prices are beginning to go up again, now that the old Soviet Union has virtually been cleaned out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Supply and demand. Icons have been a terrible drudge recently. Once Russia opened up, almost every icon in the country was pinched in a matter of months. The dealers in the west were virtually knee deep in them. Some amazing quality, as well. The sort of thing major museums would have fought over ten years back, you could scarcely give away.”

“So what sort of price are we dealing with here?”

“Depends. How good was this?”

“I’ve no idea. But the maximum possible? What’s the highest price you could imagine?”

“Biggest I’ve heard of is a quarter of a million dollars.”

“I see. And was this one in the monastery in that category?”

“Not a clue. I doubt it very much. It seemed a bit sad.”

“Sad?”

“Hmm. Neglected. Unloved. Not the sort of thing collectors fight over. I gave it a candle.”

Flavia yawned mightily. Jonathan’s opinions were frequently a little wayward, but he had good instincts; far better than hers ever were. When people were concerned, of course, it was the other way around, but he had a sensitivity for paintings which he rarely managed for real human beings.

“A candle,” she said sleepily. “Why did you do that?”

“It seemed appropriate. And it thanked me.”

“What?”

“Well, not the painting, of course, but the cleaning lady. A sort of displaced thanks, if you like.”

“I see. Why did it seem lonely?”

“Well, it was set up to have a lot of people around it,” he explained. “There was room for hundreds of candles, and enough space to have lots of people praying. As there was no one there, and no candles, it had this air of having fallen on hard times. It was obviously once considered of greater importance. Probably these legends.”

“Could you do me a favour and find out something a bit more concrete about it?”

“You’ve heard the story?”

“About an angel bringing it?”

“That’s the one.”

“I have. And you may find me unduly hard-headed, but I’m a bit sceptical. Besides, when did these angels bring it?”

“Only one angel,” Argyll said. “Only one.”

“My apologies.”

“I can go and find out if you like. Or try to. And when I can’t find anything, I’ll ask our Orthodox and Islamic man.”

“Does he know about icons?”

“Written enough on them. How did you get on today?”

Flavia waved her hand and yawned again. “Don’t ask. It’s been enormously frustrating. I got the address of Burckhardt’s hotel, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Oh, damnation.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’ve just had an idea. One of the people I talked to this afternoon said the only thing they heard early this morning was the refuse collectors.”

“So?”

“So they might have seen something. Which means I have to go down to the central depot tomorrow morning and find the gang that did the road. I have a feeling they start early, as well.”

“You’d better get an early night, then.”

Flavia didn’t answer. She was already halfway to the bedroom, yawning so much she didn’t hear. The conversation had lasted ten minutes. Not much for an entire evening.

The depot was a bleak parking lot for sleeping trucks on the outskirts of Rome where, every morning at dawn, several hundred men gathered to go forth in the unending and frustrating attempt to keep the city moderately tidy and halfway hygienic. Every day, they drove off in a billowing cloud of exhaust fumes, only to return many hours later covered in dust and the smell of rotting vegetables, groaning with the weight of discarded paper, plastic sacks, potato peelings and old newspapers. Every day they had a few hours after they disgorged their aromatic load to rest and restore their energies, before setting out again; they had done so since before the days of Augustus, and would do so until the Second Coming. Maybe beyond as well.

The depot was dimly lit by floodlights, most of which were out of action, and Flavia dimly saw dozens upon dozens of men, standing round like tank crews before going into battle, chatting away, smoking and taking the occasional sip of alcohol to fortify themselves for the day’s battle against the forces of chaos. She picked out a man who looked as though he might be in charge of something, and asked for information.

Not a talkative man. He squinted at her identification, then pointed her in the direction of a small and grubby bar, outside and on the other side of the road. It presumably lived off the refuse as well, feeding up the crews before they went off, and watering them down again when they came back. Certainly, there was nothing else around to provide it with any business.

Flavia went in, looked at the crowd of men in blue overalls crammed against the bar, and picked one at random.

“Aventino three,” she said.

Another point. Not a talkative lot, she thought, but who is at this time of day?

She ended up with a small, thin little man who looked as though he could barely carry a shopping bag, let alone the hefty weight of one of the huge, apartment-size bins that the city provides for collective cleanliness.

“Aventino three?” she asked again.

He didn’t say no, so she continued. “Did you collect in the via San Giovanni yesterday?”

He looked at her suspiciously, as though she might be a city official about to relay a complaint from a resident about noise or leaving piles of rubbish in the street.

“Maybe we did,” he said.

She again pulled out her identification. “There was a robbery with violence there, probably before seven,” she said.

“Oh, yes?”

“In the monastery. The superior had his head cracked.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And a painting was stolen. Did you see anything?”

He thought for a moment, his lined brow puckering with concentration. Suddenly, enlightenment dawned.

“No,” he said.

Flavia sighed. “Are you sure? You didn’t see anyone coming out of San Giovanni? Going in? Did you hear anything?”

He shook his head, and walked off to the bar. Flavia cursed silently to herself. She might as well have stayed in bed. Then she yawned, and realized that the early rise, the coffee on an empty stomach and the faint air of rotting vegetables that came off the clothes of everyone in the place was making her feel slightly sick. No, she thought. Make that very sick.

“He did it.”

She tried briefly to keep her stomach under control and saw that the little man had come back, this time with another figure, as big as he was short, and as powerful as he seemed weak.

“What?”

“Giacomo did that end of the street. Yesterday.”

She concentrated hard, and managed a faint smile at Giacomo. He grinned, nervously and foolishly, back at her, showing his stained teeth. She caught a whiff of stale alcohol and cigarette on his breath, mingled with rot, and hoped desperately she could keep upright for long enough to question him.

“Did you see anything? At six? Or thereabouts?”

“Nothing in particular,” he said. He had a slow, stupid voice.

“No unusual noises?”

“No.” Every time she asked a question, Giacomo paused, and looked up at the ceiling, and thought hard. Hurry it up, she thought. I’m not asking you to perform calculus. He shook his head slowly, as though that gave added weight to his words.

“Did you see anyone in the monastery?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

She paused and thought. Waste of time.

“I saw a man come out of the church.”

She looked up at him urgently. “When?”

“I don’t know. Six-thirty? Something like that. No. I tell a lie. It must have been before, because we stopped for a break a bit after. We always stop at six-thirty.”

“Wonderful,” Flavia said heartily and insincerely. “Now, what did you see?”

“Like I say, a man came out of the church.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I only noticed because the door is always locked. I’ve never seen it open. So I thought, hello, the door’s open.”

“Yes,” she said patiently. “Now, this man, was he holding anything? A package?”

He shook his head, slowly, from side to side, then thought some more. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. He had a bag, though.”

“A bag?”

“That’s right.” He held out his hands to show the size. “I noticed because he dropped it.”

“Did it make a noise? Did he seem worried that he dropped it?”

He shook his head. “He just picked it up by the shoulder strap, and hurried away.”

“Hurried?”

“Oh, yes. That’s why I noticed. Another reason, you see, apart from the door being open, that is. He ran down the steps very fast, dropped the bag, then walked off very fast.”

“I see. Now,” she said urgently, partly because she wanted to know and partly because she knew her stomach was running out of time, “What did he look like?”

There followed an adequate description of a short, mild-looking man. Flavia took out the photographs that Giulia had taken that first afternoon when she’d been put on to the task of watching the monastery. Menzies leading someone out of the church, bidding him a fond farewell. So it seemed.

Giacomo peered at it carefully, and sucked his dentures in careful thought. “Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s the one.”

“You’re sure? The man on the right is the man you saw coming out of the church yesterday morning?”

He nodded. She thanked him and turned to go, her stomach heaving from the aroma in the bar, the bitterness of her coffee and the lack of anything to eat. She told him he’d have to come to the station to give a statement at some time. He seemed disappointed.

“I’m sorry, but it really is necessary,” she said as patiently as she could manage.

“That doesn’t bother me. I just wondered whether you wanted to hear about the woman.”

“What woman?”

“The one who went into the church after this man. I saw her.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Maybe I do want to hear about her.”

All in all, Flavia thought with some satisfaction and an odd sense of disappointment, pretty conclusive. The refuse collector had given a description of Mary Verney which was passable and would undoubtedly identify her properly when called on to do so.

But they didn’t yet have an explanation. The more she thought, the more she realized this awkward little fact. Someone had left the church with a bag which was just about big enough for a small icon. Mary Verney had left empty-handed. Their witness was sure of that. She had only been in the church for a minute or two; not long enough to hit Father Xavier, steal the icon and hide it somewhere. They’d have to search the church again, just to be sure. This Burckhardt was almost certainly the one who took the picture, and also the man who attacked Father Xavier.

Stood to reason. Icon and icon man. Bit of a coincidence otherwise.

But why steal it? Obviously because he wanted it. But a distinguished man like him? Stealing in person? Very unusual. Unheard of. Even the stupidest dealer would subcontract something like that. To a specialist. Like Mrs Verney. So what was he doing leaving before she got there? And surely someone like Mrs Verney wouldn’t do a job and take her employer along for the ride?

This stumped her, so she punished her stomach some more by smoking another cigarette and having another coffee and staring at the ceiling in the hope that something would occur to her.

It didn’t. And then, before she could take that precious half hour off for something to eat she’d been promising herself since five o’clock, Alberto rang. He had news, he said. They’d found someone floating in the Tiber. Did she want to come and have a look? She might be interested.

Why? she asked. Nothing novel about that.

“Ah, well, you see. His name was Burckhardt. He had identification on him saying he was an art dealer. From Paris. So I thought …”

“I’m on my way.” She picked up her jacket, calmed her stomach and walked out.

Whoever was responsible hadn’t tried very hard to conceal what they’d done; the body would have surfaced and floated ashore sooner or later anyway, even if one of the ancient, slow dredgers that pursue the thankless task of scooping up silt from the bottom of the river hadn’t sucked him up bodily and spat him out into the cavernous hold of the boat.

On the other hand, it was lucky that anyone had noticed. Had one of the crew not been new to the job, and been leaning over the railing watching because he was not yet experienced enough to have lost interest, the body might have been instantly buried under several tons of sand, taken out to sea and dumped four kilometres or so in the Mediterranean. Equally, had the new recruit not been the son of the captain, it is likely that his alarm would have been ignored anyway.

Either way, it was only by mere chance that the corpse of Peter Burckhardt was discovered so quickly, allowing the police to avoid a considerable waste of time in their less than urgent desire to talk to him. Time which they were instantly able to divert to the more urgent task of discovering who had taken him a couple of miles down river, shot him in the head, then tipped his body in.

And why, of course. He had nothing on him which helped in any way, except for an address book containing several hundred numbers which the unfortunate Giulia was told to ring up, one by one, in search of stray information. Certainly, there was nothing which instantly made the enquiry progress by leaps and bounds. The information lay in the existence of the corpse itself. But even that was relatively uncommunicative, offering no help over when it got there or who put it there. And, so the pathologist assured Flavia morosely, it probably wouldn’t. Not even a bullet, which had gone straight through and out the other side.

“So whoever it was shot him was standing close? Is that fair?”

“Maybe. Depends on the gun, doesn’t it? If you want a guess …”

“Why not?”

“I’d say small pistol, fired close. Less than a metre. More I cannot say. Certainly not at the moment.”

Great. She had expected no less, and certainly no more.

“There is one thing, though,” Alberto said as she was about to leave.

“What?”

“In his pocket.” He held out a piece of paper in the palm of his hand. “We found this.”

“So?”

“It’s a key for a left-luggage deposit.”

“Can I borrow that for a while?”

“If you sign for it and give it back.”

“So fussy you are.”

“Can’t trust anyone these days, you know. Do you have any ideas?”

She shook her head. “None that make sense. What about you?”

“We thought we’d have that restorer in for a chat. Menzies.” She looked puzzled.

“They were enemies,” he pointed out. “So your friend says. Came to blows. Had another squabble a couple of days ago. You’re the one who says art restoring is a vicious business.”

“Not that vicious. Had someone pulled his head off, then Menzies would be your man. But shooting him?” She shook her head.

Alberto shrugged. “We’ve got to do something to pass the time. Unless you can suggest something better …?”

She couldn’t, so she signed a receipt, put the key in her pocket, and walked slowly away.

There are well-established ways of finding out where keys come from, but they are enormously tedious and often take a long time, even when you are fairly sure that what you are looking for is a left-luggage locker. Nonetheless, Flavia put the machinery into action, and herself sat at the desk in her office and tried to hurry things up a little.

Let us assume, she thought, that this is important. Let us assume that it will get us somewhere.

She got out her old and much-used map of Rome, spread it on her desk and considered. The twin stations of Ostia Lido and Ostiense were the most likely, although there was also the metro station at the Colosseum. If it had lockers.

Keys, she thought as she walked to the taxi rank and pushed her way to the front of the queue. The Romans accepted it; the tourists looked daggers at her. Keys, she thought as the taxi inched its way into the traffic. Lots of keys. To lockers and to church doors. Tiresome. But, you never know. Journey’s end might be just around the corner. With a bit of luck.

Not today. Not with that key, anyway. The Colosseum was a dud; Ostia Lido was a dud; Ostiense was a bit of a poser.

For a brief moment she had a surge of hope. The station had its bank of lockers, and a few moments’ examination led her to one labelled C37. It was locked. With a tremor of anticipation, she put the key in, and smiled as it turned in the lock.

There was a bag inside. But not a canvas one. A suitcase, covered in American airline stickers.

She pulled it out, still hoping but already half suspicious that something wasn’t right, put it on the floor and opened it up.

Socks. Underpants. T-shirts. A tag identifying the case as the possession of Walter Matthews, 2238 Willow, Indianapolis 07143. USA.

Totally perplexing. She frowned as she sat cross-legged in front of the scattered contents, oblivious to the passengers skirting round her, trying to figure out the connection. She didn’t understand. She was just about to start putting all the bits and pieces back into the case when she vaguely heard a footstep from behind. She ignored it, but was forced to be a bit more attentive when this was followed up with a loud cry of triumph as she was put into a neck lock by a large, sunburned, muscular and American arm.

“Gotcha!” screamed Walter Matthews of Indianapolis.

“Oh, for God’s sake …”

“Thief! Police!”

An interested circle of passengers gathered round to watch this little drama, and Flavia was pinned to the ground by the outraged tourist for several minutes until the station manager put in an appearance. Followed by two passing carabinieri who attempted to arrest her while the manager tried to calm the situation down.

“Look, guys …” Flavia said.

“Shut up. You’re under arrest.”

“I am not under arrest.”

“Oh yes? That’s what you think.”

She reached for her identification, and was instantly pinned to the ground again.

“Jesus Christ! I am in the police. Let me go, you stupid morons.”

It was said with sufficient force to make them hesitate long enough for her to drag the identification out of her back pocket. Her colleagues in law enforcement looked at it, twitched with embarrassment, then let go of her arms, producing a bellow of outrage from Walter Matthews.

“Oh, be quiet,” Flavia snapped, conscious that she wasn’t exactly enhancing Rome’s international image but not really caring either. “Take your bloody bag and be grateful we don’t confiscate it.”

Not that he understood a word, of course, until she calmed down long enough to translate a slightly calmer version. Crime. Murder. Locker involved. Police investigation. No damage. Thanks for your cooperation which is greatly appreciated. Etcetera.

All this in English, which the station master did not understand. Which was a pity. If he had, he might have been more sympathetic; as it was, he was more indignant about the smooth running of his station and was distinctly cool about answering Flavia’s questions.

He couldn’t go into details, he told her, because he was merely a standin while the real station manager was on holiday.

“Where?”

“Vienna. The State Railway choir. They’re going on tour in Austria. Verdi’s Requiem. And some Palestrina. Signor Landini is a tenor.”

“Good for him. How is it that there are two keys? I have one, this American had one.”

He shrugged. Evidently one had been reported lost and replaced.

“When?”

Another shrug. Such matters are always put in the book.

“Get the book.”

Reluctantly, he did. Flavia examined it with care. Nothing.

“You would have cut the new key sometime. Is there a record of that?”

There was always a duplicate set, he explained. People lose keys all the time, and get very upset.

“So you have no idea when the second key came into operation? When the original went missing?”

“No.”

“Can you tell if this is the original?” She handed over the key found in Burckhardt’s pocket. The station master looked at it and nodded. It was the original. You could tell by the numbering. She retrieved it, and looked so discouraged the man finally took pity on her, and picked up the phone.

“Lockers? Did Signor Landini ask you to get out any replacement keys in the past few days?”

There was a pause. “Yesterday? The number? Good. No, everything’s in order. He forgot to note it in the book, that’s all. Holiday spirit, I suppose. He didn’t say anything about who lost the key? I thought not.”

He put the phone down. “Yesterday,” he said. “Someone came saying they’d lost the key yesterday.”

“I heard. They didn’t say when yesterday?”

“No. Signor Landini reported it just before he left.”

Getting the necessary permissions to go into Burckhardt’s hotel room took the usual length of time. That is to say hours; he was on his own, there was no one to ask and official permission had to be sought from some legal nook and cranny. Left to her own devices, Flavia might well have just let herself in with a picklock, but the carabinieri were involved and they were terribly fussy about that sort of thing these days. They used not to be, but what with enquiries and investigations and assessments and all that, everyone was being awfully careful and punctilious about following the rules. Partly to avoid trouble, and partly to show to the powers-that-be that following rules was time-consuming and expensive.

So while they fussed around magistrates, and pathologists fussed around Burckhardt’s body, and Paolo went chasing after Mary Verney, Flavia was left temporarily with nothing to do. Instead she went back to San Giovanni, to see if Alberto had collared Menzies yet. There was no one around, so she saw Father Jean instead.

“What are all the flowers for? On the steps to the church?”

The old man frowned. “They’re from the local population. Trying to persuade their Lady to return and forgive them.”

“What for?”

“For neglecting her.”

Flavia thought back to her schooldays, and scratched her head. “Does that make good theology?”

He smiled, and shook his head slowly. “It makes appalling theology. But what’s that got to do with it? They think she is displeased, and has withdrawn her protection. Frankly, it teeters on paganism. And, of course, we are being blamed. If we hadn’t cut her off by closing the doors … Do you know, one of us, Father Luc, was shouted at in a tobacconist yesterday? Told he was bringing disaster on the quarter? Can you believe it in this day and age?”

“Hard.”

“Staggering. Father Xavier’s idea, you know. To shut the church. But none of us realized she was held in such affection. Anyway, the flowers and baskets of fruit are to woo her back. If it goes on, we’re going to be visited.”

“Who by?”

“The parish overseer, and our Cardinal supervisor. This could cause trouble for us, you know. We will get criticized for shutting the church, and criticized for encouraging superstition. I know it. Signorina, you know, I’m too old for this.” Flavia looked at his old and lined face, and the slump in his shoulders and couldn’t do anything but agree. Fortunately, it was outside her province, although she thought Bottando would probably give useful, worldly advice. But he was fat and sixty, and could do things like that. She had her work cut out doing her own job, let alone telling other people how to do theirs.

“It’s about keys,” she said, to get the subject back on to more comfortable territory. Then paused for a long while. Father Jean sat patiently, waiting for her to elaborate.

“A man was seen coming out of the door of the church at six-thirty. Somebody on the inside must have opened it. How many keys are there? Who has them?”

“To the big door? The one on to the street?”

She nodded.

“There is only one,” Father Jean said.

“Can I see it?”

“By all means. It hangs on a hook just inside the door.”

“I’d better check it’s there.”

He smiled. “There is no need, although you are more than welcome to do so if you wish. I saw it myself this morning. Have you arrested this man? It may be uncharitable, but if he attacked Father Xavier I will find it very hard to forgive him.”

She grimaced. Evidently no one had yet told them. “I’m afraid that this case is becoming rather complicated,” she said. “Mr Burckhardt was found in the Tiber this morning. He had been shot.”

“Oh, my goodness. The poor soul.”

“Indeed.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what all this is about.”

She looked at him sadly. “You are not the only one, Father, believe me. This is becoming very much more than the theft of a not very important work of art. It’s a nightmare. I hope that Father Xavier will help. Assuming we’re allowed to talk to him tomorrow.”

“You don’t think that he is in any danger?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t think anybody was. I was evidently wrong. I’ve had a guard put over him.”

“For some reason, I am not as reassured as I might be.”

“No,” she agreed flatly. “Nor am I.”

“I would like to send one of our more muscular brothers down to sit by him.”

“I’m sure that would be fine. What is it?”

Father Jean was looking suddenly ill at ease, very much like someone who felt the need to say something but was too delicate to begin.

“Come on, you can’t surprise me. Nothing can surprise me today.”

“I was wondering when we would be seeing the General. I’m sure, of course, that you are more than experienced enough. Please don’t think that. But as General Bottando knows us from the last time … I like to think he and I struck up a rapport, you see, and I was looking forward to seeing him.”

“I’m afraid that’s unlikely,” she said. “I have been put in charge of the case. General Bottando is too—ah—preoccupied at the moment.” She did her best to avoid being irritated, and just about managed. It was, after all, something she was going to have to get used to.

“I am sorry. I mean, I didn’t wish to imply for a moment …”

“I know. But there it is. So if there is anything to say, you’ll have to tell me, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, dear. I don’t wish to seem doubtful. It’s not about you, but simply because I don’t know you, you see.”

Flavia gave him an exasperated look. So much dithering. It was obvious he’d disgorge eventually. Why couldn’t he just get on with it?

“I’m afraid that in the last day or so I have discovered certain things which I find deeply distressing.”

“And which you don’t want anyone else to know about?”

He nodded sadly.

“I’m quite able to forget something if it is not directly relevant,” she said. “My job is to find a thief and a murderer. Not to spread other people’s dirty laundry around the world.”

He grunted, took a deep breath, then began. Or almost began. A few circumlocutions to warm up first.

“You’ve gathered, perhaps, that Father Xavier and I did not always see eye to eye on many matters?”

She nodded. “Something like that.”

“Not very long ago, I was effectively the second in command here to the superior general, Father Charles. He was probably the best leader this order ever had. That’s not just loyalty on my part; he kept us going through the rough times of Vatican Two and its aftermath, and had a way of quelling arguments and gently persuading people. It is a rare skill. I’d known him all my life, virtually. He was a few years older than me, and I loved him like a brother. A real brother, you understand.”

She nodded.

“And he got ill. He was old, had a good life and got ill and could no longer discharge his duties. We elected Father Xavier to replace him. You may think it unfair of me, but I think he is a weak man; he has little certainty in his soul, so borrows the appearance of it, if you see what I mean.”

He glanced at her, and she shook her head. Not a clue.

“When he decides to do something he doesn’t feel he is right, in the way that Charles did. He persuades himself, and because he is so doubtful, he presents his ideas with much more dogmatism and fervour than if he was really convinced. When he has an idea, he is determined to stick to it, for fear of revealing his own weakness to himself. He confronts rather than persuades, and angers rather than conciliates.

“He wishes to rebuild the order from top to bottom. He is probably right; we can’t go on like this. Something has to change. But, you see, I hated him, and even though I knew it was wicked of me, I could do nothing about it. He is an easy person to dislike. He was not Father Charles, and his urgency was an implicit criticism of what Charles did. He had replaced the irreplaceable. He was not as wise, or as kind or as saintly.

“So every time he has proposed something, I have found myself opposing it. He wanted to raise money, to build up our teaching in the Third World, and I voted against simply because it was not his place to propose changes to what Father Charles had done. And when he proposed selling some of our possessions, I was the one who led the opposition again, and had the sale voted down. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Flavia nodded.

“You may think it is simply the silly games of a group of old men, but it is more than this. We have the opportunity of doing good work, and I stopped it. And it ended in disaster.”

“Well, hardly …”

“I see. But I don’t understand …”

“As I’ve been running this place for the past few days, I have had occasion to go through the files. And what I have found shocks me. And concerns me deeply. A moment.”

He got up and walked over to the desk, where he fumbled with a key ring and opened a drawer. “Here,” he said, handing Flavia a thin manila file. “The first letter arrived yesterday morning.”

Flavia opened it and looked at the letter. It was from a firm of stockbrokers in Milan. She frowned as she read. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to her.

“I phoned them, of course, to ask exactly what it meant.”

“So why not tell me?”

“Xavier always had this notion of being modern; using the techniques and opportunities of the real world—he always called it that—to help us in our work. I fear he was terribly naive about it, and convinced himself that making money was easy. So he used these people—without ever mentioning it to anyone—and, as far as I can see, gambled with what money we had. That’s not the phrase these people use. Exploiting investment opportunities, I believe is how they phrased it.”

“And?”

“And like an innocent lamb to the slaughter, he has lost us a fortune. I don’t understand the process at all, but I do understand the result. Instead of having a reasonable sum in assets, we now owe these people a quarter of a million dollars. Xavier has gambled the rest away.”

“Which presumably is why he wanted to get on with selling things.”

“I imagine. And I suspect we will have to do so now, barring a miracle. We will have to pay his debts. Our debts. It came as a great shock.”

“I can believe it. How long has this been going on?”

He shrugged. “More or less from the moment he took over from Charles, I believe. I don’t know. I do very much wish it hadn’t fallen to me to discover this.”

“Why?”

“Because it confirms my worst fears about him. And I find myself deriving too much satisfaction from being correct. I should now institute proceedings against him as our rule provides, but I doubt my motives too much. And because it is partly my fault. Had I not opposed him so much and so unreasonably, he might not have felt obliged to resort to such measures. I led the opposition. Why? Because I think bringing health care and education to the Third World is a bad idea? Not at all; I am a fervent admirer of Father Paul, and that is his whole existence, and why he is pining away here in Rome when he should be back in his own country doing what he does best. No; it was because Father Xavier was in favour. That was all. You see what I mean? My foolishness made a bad situation worse, until it ended in disaster. I thank the Lord that Xavier was not killed, although I grieve for Signor Burckhardt.”

She nodded. “I see. So what do you do now?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Where do you get money from in a hurry? That is not an area where I have a great deal of experience.”

Flavia stood up and smiled faintly. “Nor me.”

He nodded as she got up to go, and rose to open the door for her.

“Good day so far?”

Which just showed how sensitive he could be on occasions.

“Hardly.”

Flavia had arrived at Jonathan’s little cubbyhole, taken a chocolate biscuit from the secret hoard, specially imported from England, he kept behind the reference books and then decided she didn’t feel all that hungry.

“Just asking. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? You’ve been looking as cheerful as a funeral ever since you got here.”

“Rough day.”

“Go on. Tell me.”

“Later,” she said brusquely, impatient at his cheerful unconcern for once.

“Please yourself. What are you here for, if not to unburden the troubles of the world?”

“Why should I be here for anything?”

“You don’t often turn up for no reason.”

True enough. What was she here for? Reluctantly, she made herself concentrate on the practicalities of the case, and forced its complications into the background.

“You said you might be able to find out something about the icon. Have you?”

“Not yet. It’s been a busy day.”

“Listen, Jonathan. I don’t have time for your busy days. This is important.”

He frowned. “And it’s police business, not mine. I’ve been working since I got here. You never said it was so very urgent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Look, what is the matter with you? What did you come here for? Did you just want to snap my head off?”

“I said I’m sorry. I know you’re busy, but I need to find out about that picture. I’ve been up since five, this man Burckhardt has been murdered …”

“What?”

“He was shot. There is evidently much more to that picture than we thought. I need to know what. And for obvious reasons it’s becoming pressing.”

Argyll gaped at her in astonishment for a second, then shook himself, got up and walked out of the room. He came back a few moments later with a bearded man in his mid-forties.

“This is Mario di Angelo. He’s the head of the department. Tell him about Burckhardt.”

So she did. Di Angelo’s face registered firstly astonishment, then genuine shock and distress. “And I had dinner with him only a few days ago. Who would have thought?” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Poor man. Poor, poor man. A really nice, companionable fellow. Very learned as well. He’ll be badly missed, you know.”

Flavia nodded. “At this dinner, he didn’t mention being in Rome to buy an icon, did he?”

A shaken head. “No. I assumed that he was here for some such reason, of course. We knew each other as scholars, and never talked about his business.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No. He said he was going to finish off some research and had this wonderful idea. Such as he told me was quite interesting. All about the theological aspects of icons. Their changing role in the liturgy of the early church. The connection between the uses of icons and the uses of statues to local gods before Christianity.”

“Eh?”

“You know, ancient Greek cities had their protecting deity, with Athens and Athena, and so on. Christian Greek cities and towns had their own saint or particular representation of Christ or the Virgin or whoever, which also had a protecting role. Now, was this a mere transference of old patterns of worship and belief on to new forms, or was it more complicated than that? Fascinating subject, really. He published a small note in the Journal of Byzantine Studies a year or so ago. He sent me a copy. I’d be happy to let you have it, if it would help.”

He was beginning to get into second gear here, and Flavia had this feeling that he might go on for a long time unless diverted. Not that she didn’t find it interesting, but …

“Thank you. Jonathan? Could you look through this stuff? Try and find out what Burckhardt was after?”

“Apart from icons?”

She nodded.

Argyll cocked his head and put his hand to his ear.

“Please?” she said.

“My pleasure.”

It was half past four, it had been a long day and it was far from over. Flavia had to see Mrs Verney at six and somehow she felt it wasn’t going to be an easy meeting. At the moment there wasn’t anything urgent to do, and she felt suddenly exhausted again. Once back in her office, she considered doing some paperwork, then the call of the sofa became loud and insistent. She lay down for a few seconds, curled up, and fell fast asleep.

One of those deep, drugged sleeps as well, where you are aware of being all but dead, know you should wake up but can’t do anything about it. And where you wake up sluggish and disoriented, especially if it is sudden and unexpected. Such as when you are brought round by someone shouting loudly and furiously in your ear.

“Go away,” she murmured, wanting nothing in the entire world except to be left alone to sleep some more.

“I will not,” she heard. “I want some answers and I want them damn fast. And as there’s no real policeman here, you’ll have to do.”

She forced open an eye, focused vaguely and after her brain had clanked ineffectually for a few seconds not only recognized Dan Menzies, but even recalled something about him.

Waking herself and pulling herself upright was one of the bravest things she had ever done.

“Now listen …” Menzies said, pointing aggressively at her. She couldn’t even feel annoyed yet. Instead, she waved her hand vaguely and staggered out into the corridor and to the coffee machine where she downed an espresso in a gulp. Then she went and stole one of the strong cigarettes Paolo habitually smoked, lit it, hacked away at the sudden shock to her throat, and felt human again.

“Now,” she said when she got back to her office. “What can I do for you, Mr Menzies?”

Oddly, she had behaved perfectly. Menzies had worked himself into a fit of indignation before he arrived, but being treated so dismissively by someone who seemed not at all alarmed by his rage threw him off his stride. In truth, Flavia would, in other circumstances, have been a little more sympathetic. She took it for granted that Alberto had found him. It is not pleasant, if you are quietly restoring away, to be hauled off for questioning about a murder. A less volatile person than Menzies might well be annoyed.

He thrust a copy of the latest paper at her, and waggled it under her nose. She dutifully took it and read. It was another attack, containing details of the robbery in San Giovanni and vaguely suggesting that if you let American restorers into your house then naturally you’d expect to find bits of cutlery missing from the cabinet. Bartolo at it again. She’d phoned him to complain about what he was doing, but he had denied all knowledge of it. Lying through his teeth. She half considered dusting off his file to dig out one or two little matters to confront him with. A warning shot to indicate her displeasure. But she didn’t have time. He would have to wait until this was cleared up.

She did wish Bottando was around. He’d been spending his time on the phone and sloping around embassies seeing what, if any, real support there was for this project he’d been put in charge of. Normally he would have dealt with someone like Menzies. One of the aspects of his job she didn’t welcome taking on. Perhaps she should go with him after all. There are advantages to being subordinate.

“Hmm,” she said usefully. What else was she meant to say?

“And what do you imagine will be in there tomorrow, eh? Once you’ve rung them up? They’ll accuse me of murder next. I know it.”

“Well …”

They wouldn’t, of course. All they’d do was link the various bits together. Menzies has a reputation for assaulting people. Menzies sees Burckhardt two days before the murder. Burckhardt dies. No other suspects. Leave it to the reader to decide. Bartolo would make sure all the right people at the Beni Artistici saw it.

Menzies was not impressed. “I’ve spent the last three hours being asked stupid questions. Did I shoot Peter Burckhardt? Good God, it’s disgraceful. What are you going to do about it?”

She blinked a couple of times and yawned. “What am I meant to do?”

“Stop it, of course. I tell you, if you don’t …”

“Free press, Mr Menzies,” she said wearily. “I can’t stop anything. You should see what they say about us on occasion.”

“You can stop feeding them the information.”

“Oh, not again …”

“Look,” he said, jabbing his finger at the article. ““Police sources say …” That’s you, isn’t it? How else could they know all these details? They must have come from you.”

“I’m sorry, but …”

“They didn’t come from me, and Father Jean assures me no one in San Giovanni has talked to the press. That leaves you. And I’m telling you to stop.”

“I can assure you as well, if you like. I have not said a word to any journalist, about this or anything else. And I’d be very surprised if anyone else has either.”

“You think they got all this detail by inspired guesswork?” he shouted, getting redder in the face and beginning to work himself into his old frenzy again. “Don’t give me that. I’m not a complete fool. I’m going to complain—”

“To your old friend the ambassador. I know. If you must, you must. I can’t stop you. But it won’t do any good. We never give details of a case to the press if we can help it. And we haven’t in this case either.”

“Who did, then?”

“I’ve no idea, and frankly, at the moment, I couldn’t care less. I would suggest someone from the carabinieri; they’re talkative, but …”

“There you are then.”

“But,” she continued. “If I remember rightly the first story appeared before the carabinieri had anything to do with the place. So it can’t be them.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” she said. “You’re on your own, I’m afraid.”

“Thank you very much.”

“What do you expect? The only thing I can do is find out what’s been going on. And to help with that I might as well ask you a few questions, as you’re here. Sit down.”

“I’ll do no such thing …”

“Sit down!” she shouted suddenly, her patience snapping. Menzies, completely taken by surprise, did as he was told.

“Thank you,” she said. Then summoned Giulia from next door.

“What’s she here for?”

“To take notes. Now, let’s go through this stage by stage, shall we? Why didn’t you mention Burckhardt when we interviewed you the day before.”

He squirmed a little. “Why should I have done?”

“Icon dealer in a church the day before an icon is stolen? That didn’t strike you as being important?”

“At the time, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t know who he was.”

Flavia looked scornful. “You beat him up in Toronto.”

“I did not. I simply threw a little water at him.”

“It was still in the glass.”

“I didn’t mean to. I got carried away.”

“Exactly my point. And, no doubt, the point the papers will be making.”

“I saw him for five minutes. And I didn’t remember who he was until later.”

“Come now.”

“It’s true. I don’t know anything about icons or icon dealers. I didn’t know who Burckhardt was. In Toronto, all I knew was that some little squirt in the audience dared to criticize me from a standpoint of total ignorance, and renewed his attack afterwards. Maybe I had had a little too much to drink. But it was such a minor incident, I forgot all about it. I vaguely recognized him in the church. But I only remembered when the carabinieri told me he was dead and showed me a photograph.”

Flavia grunted. There was such a combination of injury, anger and embarrassment coming from the man she doubted anyone could fake such a cocktail. She didn’t necessarily believe him, but there was nothing to be done about it at the moment.

“When Burckhardt appeared in the church, did he walk straight up to you?”

“I don’t know. I was concentrating. I only noticed him when I heard him behind me.”

“He didn’t look at anything in particular?”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t paying attention. I think he was down at the far end of the church, by the main door, but I’m not sure.”

“Did he seem in a good mood?”

Menzies thought. “It’s difficult to say with someone you don’t know. But, yes, he seemed OK. Seemed quite happy.”

“Had you examined the picture? The icon. You were going to clean it.”

“I’d looked it over.”

“And?”

“And decided it would take longer to clean than it probably merited. As far as I could see it was very old, hadn’t been looked after well and was in terrible condition. It had had woodworm at some stage and had been treated, by immersion. A long time ago. The treatment had put a thick brown coating over the painting so you could barely see it. It would have been phenomenally difficult to get that off without destroying the painting entirely. Some of it had gone anyway. For all my reputation, I don’t believe in doing things unnecessarily or unless I’m sure I can do it safely. In this case I was simply going to clean the surface, treat it again for rot and reinforce it. It would have been something of a risk just taking it out of the frame.”

“Which someone has now done.”

“Hmm? Oh no. I mean the inner frame. There were two. The outer one of gold and silver laid on wood, and an inner supporting frame. The second one was taken as well.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Not at all. The outer frame came off easily. The inner one was fixed much more securely. It would have been difficult to remove it, and much safer not to.”

“I see. Now, how did Burckhardt get in? Was the main door open?”

“No. It never is. He must have come in through the usual entrance.”

“Which means ringing the bell and someone letting him in?”

“I suppose. Unless he arrived with someone who has a key. Everyone in the place has a key.”

“No one we’ve talked to let him in or heard him ring.”

Menzies shrugged. “Must have pole-vaulted over the wall, then.”

“Thank you, Mr Menzies.” She stood up and showed him to the door before he could begin to move the conversation back to newspapers and journalists. “I may very well need to talk to you again in the next few days. I’ll come and see you at the monastery if need be.”

Surprisingly, he walked out quite meekly, and left her alone. She sighed heavily, shook her head, then glanced at her watch. Her heart sank. Menzies had distracted her from her real business. It was ten to six. Time for Mrs Verney. She was not looking forward to it.

Flavia had persuaded Paolo to pick Mary Verney up from her hotel and bring her in, then had her kept in a small room in the, basement for a couple of hours to meditate on her sins, whatever they were. She did not think Mrs Verney had stolen the picture. She didn’t know what Mrs Verney had done. She merely knew that she had done something, and hoped that a spot of peace and quiet in a dank and airless room would persuade her to explain. Somehow, though, she doubted it.

For all that she was on the verge of panic, Mrs Verney seemed perfectly unconcerned on the surface. She did not relish the idea of jail; she resented the fact that pressure from others had landed her in this position and, above all, she was terrified that unless she delivered the goods, her granddaughter would suffer. And at the moment, she was completely at a loss. The picture had gone, and all she had to show for it was a hefty stash of money found in a left-luggage box. While Flavia wanted the interview to bring some enlightenment, Mrs Verney awaited the conversation with very similar hopes.

Like a good prisoner, though, she sat quietly as Flavia came in and waited for her to begin the questioning.

“Now then, I have to tell you that you are in serious trouble.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Let me summarize. Yesterday morning, a painting was stolen from the monastery of San Giovanni on the Aventino. Do you know the building?”

A smile of the sort that indicated that she thought setting such an easy trap was, well, a bit insulting, really.

“Of course I do. Which painting was stolen? The Caravaggio, or the little icon in the corner? I saw them for the first time some twenty years ago. I lived in Rome briefly and was a very assiduous tourist.”

“The icon.”

“Goodness,” she said, then offered no more.

“Do you know anything about it?”

“Should I?”

“I’m asking you.”

“So you are.”

“Are early-morning walks a speciality?”

Mrs Verney gave a brief twitch of a smile as she spotted the clue she’d been waiting for. She now had a measure of how much the police had found out.

“When I can’t sleep, they are. To be up at six o’clock is a privilege of age. Especially in Rome. And, since that is what you seem to be getting at, yes, I was walking on the Aventino. Do you want the whole story?”

“What do you think?”

“As I say, I went for an early-morning walk. And—just by chance—found myself walking past the monastery.”

“Oh, come now,” Flavia said. “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true,” she said with a fine mixture of surprise and indignation at being doubted. “Anyway, I saw a man come down the steps from the church. The door was open, so I thought that maybe they had early-morning services, or something like that.”

“And you felt a burst of piety come over you?”

“More like nostalgia, I think. As I say, I’d visited the place many years ago, when I was young and fancy-free. And what could be more natural than to revisit it?”

“What indeed?”

“So I did. And found this poor man lying on the ground, with blood streaming out of his head. Now, I’m a good citizen, most of the time. I did what I could for the poor soul, then went straight away to phone the police for assistance. How is he, by the way?”

“He’ll recover, we think.”

“There you are then. And rather than being thanked, here I am being interrogated as some sort of suspect. I must say, I am not happy about it.”

“Dear me. I suppose you can explain why you were so modest about receiving thanks for your considerate act?”

“Do I need to? Heaven only knows what Jonathan has told you about me. But naturally I thought you would be suspicious if I was found there, however innocently, at such an early hour. In the circumstances. So I thought it best not to complicate the issue.”

“I see. Now, what time was this?”

She grew vague. “I couldn’t really say. After six, before seven. Maybe.”

“We have witnesses that it was about six-fortyfive.”

“Must have been, then.”

“And the phone call was logged at seven-forty. That’s a long time to find a phone.”

She shook her head evenly. “Not really. There aren’t any bars open, and there aren’t many public phones in Rome. I went as fast as I could.”

“I see. Now, this man, did you recognize him?”

“No. Why should I have done? Who is he?”

“Was. A man called Peter Burckhardt. A dealer.”

“Was?”

“He’s dead. Someone shot him.”

For the first time the unconcerned mask slipped. She hadn’t known that, and doesn’t like it, Flavia thought. How very interesting. What is she up to?

“Dear me.”

“Dear me, indeed. We are now investigating a murder, an assault and a theft. And you are right in the middle of the investigation.”

“You think I had something to do with this? When was the poor man killed?”

“We think yesterday. About midday, give or take an hour. I suppose you can tell me where you were?”

“Absolutely. I was in the Barberini, then I had lunch at my hotel, and then I went shopping. I can give you all the receipts, which I imagine have time stamps on them. They usually do, nowadays.”

“We’ll check them.” Not that there was much point. She knew they’d stand up.

“Can I go?”

“No.”

“What more do you want from me?”

“Answers.”

“I’ve answered everything you’ve asked so far.”

“I have a problem.”

“I’ll happily listen if it will help.”

“Perhaps it will. You see, I know that you are a thief. What’s more, I know that you are one of the most accomplished thieves I’ve ever come across. What was it? Thirty or so major thefts, and never a hint of suspicion.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now, all of a sudden, you turn up in Rome. We get phone calls saying where the theft will take place. We notice you and question you. It worries me. From your past track record, you’ve been meticulous about planning. Never put a foot wrong. If you were involved in the theft of that icon I would have expected it to vanish without trace and without warning. And without violence. And I would have also expected that, when something went wrong, you would abandon everything and go home. Instead we were alerted in advance, there’s blood everywhere and you are still here. As I say, it makes me think.”

“The obvious conclusion, surely, is that I am telling the truth, and that none of this has anything to do with me at all.”

Flavia snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“But you can’t come up with anything better.”

“We’ll see.”

“You’re going to have to let me go, then.”

“Oh, yes. We never thought of holding on to you. This was just a friendly chat. The first, I suspect, of many.”

Mary Verney stood up, waves of relief passing through her, drenched with sweat and her heart still pounding. Appalling performance, she thought. Gave too much away to that damnable policewoman. She was getting too close for comfort. Besides, she was right; this was a disaster from beginning to end.

Flavia even opened the door for her, marvelling at the woman’s utter calm and insouciance as she walked out. Didn’t budge an inch. Leaving her as much in the dark as she was at the start.

Progress, however, was being made at the duller and more routine end of the enquiry; Peter Burckhardt was seen leaving his hotel on the morning of his death with a man in his late thirties and getting into a car. Flavia’s heart had a little skip when she heard this; because Burckhardt, bless him, had been staying in a hotel in the via Caetani. An ordinary street, a bit noisy from too much traffic, but less busy than the large, polluted thoroughfares all around it. It was a no-parking zone, and there was no obvious reason why anyone should pay any more attention to such trivialities in that quarter than they did anywhere else in the city.

Except for historical circumstance, of which Flavia fervently hoped the murderer of Burckhardt was unaware. Because just around one corner of the street was the via delle Botteghe Oscure, containing the headquarters of what had once been the Christian Democrat Party, and close to that was the place where terrorists dumped the body of Aldo Moro. It was all many years ago now; the Christian Democrats had fallen on hard times and the only memento of the former prime minister was the occasional ragged bunch of flowers left at the site where he was found.

But the police still kept close watch, fearful lest those dark days should suddenly come again. Perhaps they were more concerned now that angry voters would come to take revenge on the politicians who had deceived them for so many years, or perhaps it was simply because standing orders, once given, tend to get forgotten. All over Europe, perhaps, policemen stand and guard things for no reason except that their predecessors, and their predecessors’ predecessors, stood and guarded in exactly the same place. It was no doubt apocryphal, but a colleague in Paris had once told him of a building in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the residence of a minor ambassador, which had received round-the-clock surveillance for years after the embassy moved to other accommodation and the building was turned into a brothel.

So policemen patrolled regularly, and the camera, once installed, was perhaps too expensive to take down again. It was Alberto who pointed this out to her, and suggested she came round immediately for a video show.

She got there in fifteen minutes, and was treated to the most encouraging sight she had seen for days. A terrible picture, taken at long range, and certainly not good enough for use in a court, should it ever come to that. But enough to give them an idea, to identify the type of car used, and three letters of a registration number.

“Let’s see it again,” Flavia said, and they sat and watched as once more Peter Burckhardt and a man several inches taller than him came down the street from the direction of the hotel and got into a Lancia.

“Doesn’t look under great duress. No gun pointed at him. Nothing like that.”

“No.”

“Got the car?”

“Still checking. It should be here any moment. Have you made any progress?”

“Not really. That is, I have someone I’m desperately interested in, but I can’t find any way in to her.”

“Her?”

“An Englishwoman. Who is more interested in art than she should be. The trouble is, I’m fairly certain she didn’t steal the picture.”

“I thought we’d established Burckhardt did.”

“Have we? I’m not so sure. He didn’t break into the place, after all. Someone opened that door from the inside for him. What’s more, I’m not sure he hit Father Xavier, either.”

Flavia didn’t want to go into any more details, and didn’t have to, as she was interrupted by the arrival of a computer print-out. “Bingo,” Alberto said. “A run of luck for once.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a rented car. Picked up at the airport last Friday by one M. K. Charanis. Greek passport, staying at the Hassler.”

“Better go and get him then. Can you rustle up some manpower?”