The Bernini Bust

9

Argyll, still confined to his bed, was occupying himself by doing battle with the nurses, having nice shiny new plaster poured over his leg, and plotting how soon he could discharge himself. Not that he was one of these get-up-and-go types who twitch with frustration if they are immobilised; on the contrary, the idea of a few days in bed normally delighted him. But a few days in a non-smoking hospital was a bit much to bear. Morelli had kindly left some cigarettes behind him, but these were rapidly removed by the nurses, all of whom seemed to be equipped with smoke-detectors, and the symptoms of withdrawal were building up.

On top of that, Argyll reflected, there was a lot going on out there: di Souza was dead, Moresby was dead, someone had tried to murder him, Flavia was on the way. He had heard that she had been ringing Morelli every few hours with anxious enquiries after his health and reports of her alarm did more to make him feel better than all the somewhat brusque ministrations of the nurses, whose bedpan technique was another very good reason for getting out of hospital as soon as possible.

While Argyll spent the day hopping around evading the enema merchants, Flavia was wedged in great discomfort in seat 44H of an overstuffed 747 heading west.

She liked her job; she liked the relative smallness of the department, the collegiality which this bred. But the department’s status as a sort of investigatory annexe had its problems. And the main one, as far as she was concerned at the moment, was the size of the budget. In particular the inability of expense allowances to allow personnel to travel anything other than steerage class on aircraft.

But the flight had some interesting moments. The secret service file on Moresby had come through and, contrary to all regulations, she’d photocopied it before sending it back. As she read, her contempt for the intelligence of Intelligence grew. The file, protected by so many rules and surrounded by the aura of omniscience, was little more than a collection of press cuttings and the occasional jotting, set down at the time that Moresby Industries was competing for a defence electronics contract. The most interesting was a cutting from Who’s Who, and the fullest account of Moresby’s life a clipping from a New York Times profile. Three hours in a public library and she could have dug up more herself.

For all its amateur flimsiness, however, the file yielded some intriguing points for her to ponder.

First of these came from the newspaper account of Moresby’s career. Not a self-made man, by any stretch of the imagination, unless you are prepared to be generous and say that inheriting five million dollars from your family counts as being self-made. Something of a playboy in his youth (although from the attached photograph that seemed to be stretching it as well) but interrupted in mid-party by World War Two. Administrative duties in the safety of Kansas, then dispatched to Europe just as the fighting died down.

There, as the profile said obliquely, he laid the foundations of his career and collection. Reading between the lines, it seemed to Flavia that he was little more than an upmarket speculator, importing scarce goods from the United States and selling them at outrageous prices to Europeans who had to pay anything to get them. So time-consuming was this business that in 1948 he left the army, and spent four years organising his trading networks from Zurich before returning to California. Having spent some years selling radios, toasters, and other electrical goods, he turned to making them as well, before branching out into television, hi-fi, and then on to computers. Moresby Industries effectively stirred into life in a little office in Zurich.

And Zurich was in Switzerland, and that was where the original buyer of the Bernini was said to be. That confirmed old Borunna’s vague recollection very nicely…

Detective Joseph Morelli also spent a day hunched over files of papers, carefully, painstakingly and with much furrowing of the brow going through vast reams of documents that had been accumulating on his desk almost since the moment that he had been called on to investigate Moresby’s death.

Had he ever met Taddeo Bottando, the two men would probably have got along quite nicely. However different their outlook on life – Bottando’s idea of a quiet Saturday was to spend it in a museum while Morelli preferred beer and ball games – they shared a similar approach to policing.

Thoroughness, in a word. No stone unturned. Combined with a joint belief nurtured by years of experience that crime was a pretty shabby business with money generally to be found at the bottom of it all somewhere. The bigger the crime, the more money, so Morelli was looking for a hefty stash of it.

Like Flavia, he had pulled favours to get his hands on papers, particularly Moresby’s tax returns for the past five years. He had also borrowed a large number of files from Thanet’s cabinets and persuaded Moresby’s factotum, David Barclay, to hand over more.

Then he set to work, and a dull and painful business it was. He thought his taxes were complicated. The only potentially useful piece of information a couple of hours furrowed brow produced was a note, in Barclay’s hand, authorising the release of two million dollars to pay for the bust. That he found curious, in a passing fashion.

Then innumerable lists of where people were and what they were doing at the critical moment. Thanet, at the party, confirmed by the evidence of the camera. Langton outside having a smoke, also confirmed. Streeter nowhere to be seen but claimed to be in the toilet, seeing to his piles. That had a ring of truth, somehow, but he put a little asterisk by his name anyway. Barclay got a big asterisk, di Souza an asterisk and a question mark. Anne Moresby was in her car going home, confirmed by the chauffeur. Jack Moresby was telephoned at home by Langton about ten minutes after the murder was discovered, and that let him out.

The confirmation that the pistol found near di Souza matched the bullet in his brain distracted him only briefly; he’d expected that. He’d also expected that it would prove to be the gun that killed Moresby. He did not expect the information that the gun was registered in the name of Anne Moresby. That made him think about her with renewed interest. And he added another asterisk to the name of David Barclay.

It was a major tribute to American notions of hospitality, the importance of the case and Morelli’s inherent helpfulness, despite his worsening dental crisis and resultant hostility to just about everyone, that he was at the airport at one o’clock in the morning to meet Flavia staggering off the plane.

The past few days had not been pleasant for him, after all. Quite apart from the built-in problems of dealing with a case that was remarkably hard to get at, his attention was constantly distracted by other unfinished cases, the anxious enquiries of supervisors and the silly speculations of newspaper reporters. And his gums were killing him.

He was working long hours, his wife was starting to protest and, although he was rapidly accumulating masses of pieces of information, until this afternoon he had made little progress in fitting them together. The fact that they were now slotting together made him feel no less tired. And however much he welcomed international co-operation, he could not really see how the arrival of Flavia di Stefano was going to help. She would undoubtedly use up more of his precious time, and contribute little in return.

On the other hand, as those further up the greasy pole had pointed out, it was something to throw to the press as a way of distracting their attention for a while. The arrival of this woman had already sent the reptiles into paroxysms of speculation. The prospect of a connection with Europe (a place indelibly associated in all right-thinking West Coast minds with deviousness and decadence) was a useful red herring. Mention the word Italy in connection with a crime and by morning half a dozen pundits will be intoning gravely about the Mafia.

While they chewed on that, and Moresby’s possible links with organised crime, Morelli and his comrades could get on quietly with their business.

He saw her first, wandering around in a daze heading for the enquiries desk. Even at that time in the morning he could feel a touch of envy for Argyll. Being of Italian descent, Morelli still had a patriotic preference for women from the Old Country. Bashed and battered though she was from the flight, she was still pretty beautiful, and the fair dishevelled hair and rumpled clothes somehow made her look more so. Nor, he thought as she wandered in his direction, was she just a pretty face. There was something which gave an impression of sturdy competence.

‘Signorina di Stefano?’ he asked as she gave another enormous yawn and rubbed her eyes.

She looked at him suspiciously, slowly worked out who he was and gave a smile.

‘Detective Morelli,’ she replied, thrusting out her hand. ‘It’s very good of you to meet me here,’ she added as he shook it.

She spoke good English, with a heavy accent that Morelli found so unbearably appealing he could hardly stand listening to it, and gave him an account of the flight as they walked to Morelli’s car. Miserable. What else?

‘I’ve booked you into the same hotel as Argyll. I hope that’s OK. It’s near the museum, and is pretty comfortable.’

‘I suppose it’s too late to go and see Jonathan?’ she asked. ‘I’ve spoken to the hospital a couple of times, but I’ve never got through to him direct.’

‘You’d be wasting your time,’ he said, pulling out on to the freeway and heading north. ‘He discharged himself this afternoon.’

‘Was that wise?’

‘Not according to the doctors, no. But doctors are like that. I don’t suppose it matters really. He apparently said that if he stayed in the hospital he’d die of boredom and he was going home. So he called a taxi and hopped out. I haven’t heard from him since.’

‘Oh, dear, and he’s so careless.’

‘So it seems. He’s only been here five days and he’s nearly been run over, had a major car crash, destroyed a shop, broken his leg and been the cause of a brawl in the hospital. People like that are dangerous to be around. Besides, I wanted to give him protection, until the case is properly wrapped up. But as I don’t know where he is…’

‘What do you mean, “protection”? What for?’

‘In case someone tries to kill him again.’

All news to Flavia. Until then, she’d been assuming that Argyll’s mishap was one of the inevitable and normal parts of his life-cycle. Morelli’s account of loosened brake leads, of the party, of something he must know but couldn’t remember, was the first she’d heard of any of it. She was also a little bit irritated by the American’s confident explanation of how the noose was, metaphorically speaking, tightening around David Barclay and Anne Moresby. What was the point of her coming all this way if the case was going to be all over in a matter of hours?

On the other hand, at the moment she was more concerned with Argyll. Now she really did want to see him. Which was fairly easy, as he was back in his hotel room. Flavia discovered him, leg propped up, sitting on the bed reading, with a glass of whisky and an ashtray by his side. Freedom.

Had he been more mobile, he would have leapt up, raced across the room and taken her in his arms when she came in. As it was, he did the best he could, waving enthusiastically, beaming with welcome and beginning to apologise for not moving.

He was not allowed to finish the explanation. Flavia had intended to make some sardonic remark about his carelessness before sitting down for a civil conversation about this bust. Cool and distant. She still hadn’t forgiven him for planning to leave Italy.

Somehow or other it all went wrong. She had been angry with him, worried about him and thoroughly alarmed by the news that someone had tried to kill him. The fact that she was able to walk straight through his unlocked door, that he was so dimwitted he was taking no precautions at all, simply pushed her over the edge, and she let rip with a veritable torrent of abuse which completely erased his cheerful welcome.

Briefly summarised, she informed him that he was stupid, inconsiderate, reckless, selfish, a danger to himself and others, blind as a mouse (here her command of English idiom let her down) and thoroughly irritating. Except that she took longer to deliver her opinion, which came complete with innumerable examples stretching back over many weeks, accompanied by much wagging of the finger, elaborated with many baroque turns of phrase – Italian when the supply of English ran out – and was finally spoiled by ending with a lower lip that was beginning to tremble with relief that, after all that and despite his best efforts, he was still in one piece.

For Argyll it was a critical moment. He had two choices; either to pick up the gauntlet and shout back, at which point the reunion he’d been looking forward to would degenerate into a slanging match; or try to calm her down, and run the risk of receiving another torrent based on the thesis that he was, in addition, pompous and condescending.

This he knew very well, as well as he knew Flavia. A ticklish choice, and he took so long trying to make up his mind that he said nothing at all, just looked at her wistfully. Oddly, it was the right thing to do. You can stand, hand on hips, looking pugnacious, for only so long. Sooner or later you have to shift stance, and when she did, he reached out, took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

‘I’m so very glad to see you,’ he said simply.

She sat down, sniffed loudly and nodded. ‘Yeah, well. Me too, I suppose,’ she replied.