The Titian Committee

14

Rain and wind had now firmly combined into a storm which, with the incoming tide, made the level of the water in the lagoon rise. With thick black clouds also hanging low in the sky over the city, Venice seemed very far from being a paradise for tourists; even the seagulls had vanished, evidently having gone elsewhere to sit it out and wait for calmer weather. On Saturday, the sea level had been higher than usual; on Sunday morning it was lapping near the top of the bank of the Piazza San Marco with particularly sharp gusts of wind blowing spray across the paving stones. By lunchtime the worst had happened and, despite the best attempts of the local authorities to deploy their limited stock of sandbags, the enemy was within. The optimists were fairly certain that Venice was not about to experience another trauma like 1966, when the entire place went several feet under, but damage was being done, of that there was no doubt.

Not only that, of course, but communications around the increasingly waterlogged city were becoming ever more difficult. The floating vaporetto stops, anchored to the sides of the canal by thick ropes, were rising with the water level. The boats were still running, although how much longer this would continue was uncertain. It was reaching the stops that was the trouble; improvised walkways were being laid on bricks and stones above the water, but the job was far from complete. Venice has a lot of streets and many of them were now below water level.

Getting round and staying moderately dry – comfort was out of the question – required thick shoes. Flavia had some, of course; she delved into her apparently bottomless suitcase and found a pair of stout, waterproof long boots that not only fitted, kept her dry but also looked good. Argyll had to make do with the heavy hand-stitched brogues that he seemed to have worn every day, in the deepest winter and the hottest summer, since Flavia had met him. They did the job better than expected, but the task would probably be their last before they had to be consigned to the rubbish pile.

Worst off was Bottando, who suffered most dreadfully from corns and who, as a result, wore soft leather Italian slip-on shoes which appeared to have soles made of cardboard. He kept the information about the corns to himself, generally believing that it was not an appropriate ailment for a man in his position, and had to put up with the occasional clever remark about his vanity as a result. As the shoes turned into mush on the way to the Isola San Giorgio and the fondazione Cini, he complained with some feeling about the state of the Italian shoe industry. It was not merely his feet making him uncomfortable, however. The whole business made him feel distressed.

The meeting had been called in some haste, but it seemed as though everyone had agreed to turn up. Bottando didn’t like such scenes normally, but Flavia was right that speed was of the essence if he was to get back to Rome with the results before bureaucratic knives were plunged into his back on Monday morning.

‘You should come better prepared,’ she told him as they sloshed along, implicitly congratulating herself on her foresight.

‘You should buy better shoes to start off with,’ added Argyll, equally complacent about his own.

Bottando resisted the not very great temptation to reply to either of them and maintained a disgruntled silence as they got into the taxi-boat and made their way, slowly and with a great deal of turbulence, across the mouth of the Grand Canal.

‘I just hope everybody gets there,’ he said pessimistically, glaring at the sky as though a sign of his displeasure might persuade it to mend its ways.

‘They will,’ Flavia said. ‘After all, they have a certain interest in all this.’

Silence again, as Bottando wiggled his toes around in what remained of his shoes – the fake gold-plated buckles were now the only bit of them still intact – and felt the salt water squishing around inside. He vowed never to come back to this awful place, and repeated the oath as they got out of the boat on the island. Not even planks here, he noticed as they waded their way across the jetty to the monastery entrance.

Inside, they briefly went their separate ways to find towels and dry themselves out as much as possible, then congregated in the room where the committee held its meetings. On the far side – no friendly conversation, Bottando noted – sat the Marchesa and Signora Pianta. The Marchesa watched them enter with amused interest and seemed blithely unconcerned about anything. She sat as though she owned the place.

Argyll looked keenly at the various people as they drifted in; he had not yet met any of them, and had built up images of them from Flavia’s descriptions. She had done a good job, he reckoned, as he picked out the enormous Van Heteren with his air of depression and anxiety; the slightly pudgy, dapper Miller whose hunted expression suggested he was thinking of his job; the grey and dowdy Kollmar; the suavely elegant Lorenzo, who made a point of greeting his aunt with over-elaborate courtesy and was rewarded with a disdainful nod of acknowledgement and a nervous twitch from Pianta.

But no Bovolo. Where was the man? Bottando wondered as he cast his eyes around. He didn’t want to start without him. He felt the steam beginning to rise from him in the stuffy, overheated room as he made his way to one of the seats left empty. Flavia sat down beside him and Argyll, fittingly doing his best to melt into the background, plonked himself down in a far corner.

‘My thanks to you all for turning out on such an abominable night,’ Bottando began when he noticed everyone was sitting down and ready. They would have to do without Bovolo for a bit and hope he would turn up later. Initially he wanted Flavia to do the talking, as it was all her idea, but she had insisted that it would carry more weight coming from him. A little joke on her part. It showed she was feeling better. So she had explained the situation. Not in great detail, but enough to do the job quickly and get off to catch the last plane to Rome.

‘I apologise for organising this set-piece discussion of the events of the last week or so, but I felt it would be for the good of everyone. All of you have come under suspicion, or have felt you have, in the course of this investigation. Clearly, in many cases this was erroneous. I am aware of the nature of academic life, and realise that the damage to your reputations through intemperate gossip could be considerable if the police do not give a clear account of proceedings so that the innocent are demonstrably cleared of all suggestion of, um, misbehaviour.’

Murmurings of gratitude for this official consideration, still tempered by a marked apprehension about what was to come. ‘All of you, for various reasons, deserve to know what has been going on, and it saves a great deal of our time to tell you all at once. We have already spent far too long on this case and have ended up investigating deaths which are not, and have never been, the responsibility of our department.’ A nod here in the direction of the magistrate, who looked mollified but still suspicious.

‘You are not of course interested in our work schedule. As you are aware, this whole business began as an investigation into the murder of Louise Masterson, stabbed to death in the public garden by the Piazza San Marco last Friday night, and found in a greenhouse the following morning. Four days later her colleague on this committee, Professor Roberts, also died in mysterious circumstances, and the same evening a collection of paintings, belonging to the Marchesa di Mulino, disappeared. As we later discovered, the committee’s founder, Georges Bralle, had been suffocated in his house in France some days before.

‘Now, any idiot could see that this string of mortality and malfeasance was connected in some way with the committee’s work.’ Perhaps it was just as well Bovolo was not there, although the magistrate was displeased once more. ‘The problem that had to be solved was which aspect of it.’

Bottando was beginning to enjoy himself. He paused and looked around at the expressions of the people about him; ranging from acute pain on Van Heteren’s and Miller’s faces to the amused interest shown by the Marchesa.

‘Far from being an agreeable collaboration of like-minded scholars, we discovered that the Titian committee was something of a hotbed of dislike and distrust. Georges Bralle had created the model of divide and rule, and eventually fell victim to it when Professor Roberts eased him out by arranging for a state grant he knew Bralle would find unacceptable. What Bralle began continued after his departure. For example, Masterson was widely expected to deliver a paper highly critical of Dr Kollmar, and Dr Lorenzo was tipped to use this as an excuse to replace him.

‘When Louise Masterson arrived last year, she was seemingly anxious to create a good impression. That did not last long. On the second day she objected to Dr Kollmar’s paper on a picture in Milan and said she wanted to re-examine it herself. She started to do just that. She wrote to Georges Bralle, making enquiries, and he said he didn’t think Kollmar had made a mistake. Why did he say that, when he knew, from evidence he had himself provided, that Kollmar was wrong?

‘This year, Masterson flies to Zurich, and takes a train to St Gall where Bralle is seeing someone who sold a Titian Madonna four years ago. She goes to Milan to see this picture she is working on, then skips a committee meeting to go to Padua. Here she delivers a letter to a man who also sold a Titian two years ago. Finally, preoccupied and excited, she begins to rewrite her paper about her discoveries, and is murdered before she can deliver it.

‘She uncovered an unofficial element of the committee’s work that had developed in recent years. In all three cases, Roberts, the stylistic expert, made the visual assessment and Kollmar, the archive man, dealt with the documentary evidence and wrote the reports. Two of the pictures were sold and Roberts tried to make money out of all of the operations.

‘The first two were simple. The speed of operation of the Titian committee was not great under the old regime. Kollmar’s beavering away in the archives and checking of facts could take up to eighteen months. Very frustrating for an owner who wants to sell and needs a reputable authentication to get the maximum price.

‘In the first case it appears that it wasn’t even Roberts’ idea. It was the owner in St Gall who suggested that Roberts receive a five per cent cut of the sale price in exchange for his personal authentication. The deal works very nicely, and Roberts gets a fat cheque for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars – none of which, incidentally, gets passed on to Dr Kollmar. The second time round he takes the initiative and suggests the arrangement himself.

‘Why not? The pictures are probably genuine and Roberts knows he will be able to pressure Kollmar into the appropriate recommendation if there is any trouble. On the other hand, it is not entirely ethical, and if it became public that the great Anthony Roberts was enriching himself by selling his services in such a way it would probably compromise the Titian committee’s integrity beyond easy repair.

‘Also, of course, it would damage Roberts’ reputation and it was the need to defend his honour that led to this unfortunate chain of events. Exposure as a man whose willingness to recognise Titians depended on how much money he got in return would be devastating. Even someone like Dr Kollmar might turn against him and he would then be easy meat for Lorenzo.

‘Everything goes very nicely indeed until the Milan picture comes up for investigation. Benedetti wants to sell and Roberts is tempted to repeat the operation even though he doesn’t need the money and the profit will be fairly small. But, under Dr Lorenzo’s new regime, the work pace has speeded up and Kollmar is having to produce his reports more rapidly. The time span between seeing the picture and a final decision is now too short, especially as a lot of the necessary evidence in this case has already been unearthed by Georges Bralle.

‘So Roberts, quite simply, suppresses Bralle’s evidence and hints to Kollmar that the picture is not worth much. Kollmar recommends rejection. Roberts then offers a personal authentication on the usual terms, intending to produce the suppressed evidence after the sale has gone ahead and get the committee to reverse its decision.

‘Very simple, but a mistake. Roberts goes beyond the bounds of even the most liberal notion of ethics and gets found out. The crucial fact was that Benedetti consulted Bralle, who works out what is going on and is outraged. That is why he says Kollmar hasn’t made a mistake. He thinks that Kollmar is part of the scheme. He starts searching to see whether this has happened before.’

A loud protest here from Kollmar, puce in the face because of what he had heard. ‘That is outrageous. The idea that someone of Roberts’ position would act so shamelessly –’

Bottando was about to interrupt, but the job was taken out of his hands. ‘Oh shut up, you pompous old fool,’ Kollmar’s wife said. She spoke in German, but the general import was tolerably clear. ‘There’s no need to prove you’re a simpleton, is there?’

Bottando smiled at her. ‘Thank you, madam,’ he said. ‘You see, the point to note is that Roberts told Signorina di Stefano that he had no opinion about the painting’s merits, but told Kollmar he thought it was worthless. Why contradict himself? There can be no reason at all unless he wanted to distance himself from that opinion, and place all the responsibility for the decision on Dr Kollmar.’

Having patiently explained to the German that his defence of his erstwhile colleague was perhaps unwise, Bottando decided that it was time to get back to his argument before he forgot what it was.

‘Now, Roberts is worried when Masterson decides to examine the picture herself and wonders what she is up to. Efforts to deflect her come to nothing and he gets worried. As he never really took her abilities seriously, he naturally suspects she has also seen Bralle’s evidence and may use it against him. He has to know what is going on, and so visits Bralle to find out.

‘We know this because Bralle’s diary says so. As Van Heteren told us, Bralle was much given to slightly malicious nicknames. Dr Van Heteren, what did he call Roberts?’

Van Heteren stirred himself out of the moody reverie that suggested strongly he was only half listening to what was going on, and blinked at Bottando.

‘Well,’ he said hesitantly, ‘because of his pious demeanour and stately appearance, he always used to refer to him as St Anthony.’

Bottando smiled happily at him. ‘And in Bralle’s diary, it says that St Anthony was going to visit on the day of the murder.

‘On top of that, he said Masterson was to write a reference for Miller. Of the people in Venice, only Masterson and Van Heteren knew this. Masterson did not want it spread around. So how did Roberts know? Simply that a copy of Bralle’s letter recommending her was on his desk in Balazuc. Where Roberts had seen it.

‘What transpired at the meeting in Balazuc is impossible to know, of course. But it seems likely that Bralle accused Roberts of unprofessional behaviour and threatened to expose him in order to save his committee. He was murdered in a way which made it look as though old age had caught up with him. It was the only possible way of keeping him quiet. Roberts no doubt reckoned the old man would die soon anyway.’

A great communal sigh followed this announcement. So it was Roberts. As the blame for everything was swung carefully on to a dead man, the atmosphere in the room lightened noticeably. Only Van Heteren still seemed aware of the tragic dimensions of the past few days’ events.

‘When Roberts got back to Venice, he was probably fairly confident that all would be well,’ Bottando continued. ‘Bralle was out of the picture and there was no evidence Masterson had been in contact with him. But then he borrowed her book and found a ticket to St Gall. He knew she was working on the Milan picture, and then he hears she has gone to Padua. Finally, Van Heteren says she is rewriting her paper and reckons it will be a sensation. He knows what sort of sensation, and that it will have nothing to do with an analysis of brushstrokes in the early work of Titian.

‘Of course, Roberts had an impeccable alibi for Masterson’s murder. He made sure of that, by buying opera tickets at the last minute. And he could not have stolen the Marchesa’s pictures.’

There was a scuffle at the back of the room, as Bovolo and another policeman sidled in, the former with quiet triumph on his face. Bottando noticed and grew alarmed. A man like that didn’t look happy without a good reason.

‘It is often said that one murder leads to another,’ he resumed, hoping that things were not about to go badly wrong. ‘This is not the case here, as Roberts was much too careful to chance his luck a second time around.’

It was a statement which caused some upset. Having narrowed the field down in a satisfactory way for those present, he was now opening it up again.

‘There have been a lot of pictures in this case, Titians in Milan and Padua, other works stolen from the Marchesa. Odd parallels kept on surfacing. One Titian is of a woman being stabbed in a garden; Masterson was stabbed in a garden. The murderer in the picture was a jealous husband and Masterson’s lover, Van Heteren, by his own admission, was jealous. It was almost as if history was repeating itself and pointing at the culprit.

‘But all this was mere diversion, as we eventually realised. Van Heteren’s jealousy was aroused by mischievous comments by Dr Miller, the only other person who urgently wanted Masterson out of the way. Is that not true, doctor?’

He didn’t want to comment, it seemed. He took over from Van Heteren in the study of the floor, white-faced and silent. All he managed was a shake of the head.

‘Let me say what happened, then. At lunch on Friday, Miller and Roberts ate together. It is clear how Roberts laid out his case. He dropped his bombshell that Masterson was writing Miller’s reference, and added for good measure that she would probably go all out to get him thrown out of his job. Miller could well believe it, considering the remarks she had made the day before. On top of that, Roberts told him that the paper she would deliver on the following Monday would seal his fate. Although it was a tissue of lies, it would temporarily at least damage the status of the committee and wreck Roberts’ reputation and ability to act on Miller’s behalf.’

Bottando noticed that Flavia was looking slightly unhappy here, and became worried he was running off the tracks. So he paused to take a sip of water and leant over to her. ‘Am I going wrong?’ he whispered urgently.

She waggled her hand from side to side. ‘Go ahead. I’ll tell you later.’

He put the glass down and tried to remember where he was. ‘As was obvious to Signorina di Stefano, Miller had a deep resentment of Masterson. She had better contacts, produced books, had a better job. Now she was going to destroy him. Is it surprising that, when Roberts said she had to be stopped, he agreed fervently?

‘But Miller had a perfect alibi. He was on the island at ten, when he was seen in the kitchen, and no boats landed at the island throughout the evening. Consequently, he must have been there earlier and could not have killed Masterson in the Giardinetti Reali.

‘Except for the fact that he had no need of a boat. He overheard Kollmar offer Masterson a drink. That offer took place on the boat leaving the island. So he did leave; that is clear. How did he get back if no boats were running? He must have managed it somehow.

‘This is what happened. Earlier in the day, Roberts had taken a message for Masterson and so he knew where to find her. This information he mentioned to Miller over lunch. Miller then takes the boat over and wanders around, working himself up into an even greater rage. He goes to the garden to find her and argue with her. He accuses her of wanting to destroy him, of viciousness and malice. Roberts says this, Roberts tells me that. She probably tells him, as she had the day before, that he is being ridiculous and making a mountain out of a molehill. He snaps. He stabs her with a penknife and leaves her for dead.

‘Was this premeditated or not? I don’t know. Perhaps he only meant to give her a piece of his mind. But the insinuations of Roberts, combined with years of deep-seated jealousy sent him over the edge. She had it coming. Her own fault.

‘But he has a problem. The idea of giving himself up doesn’t appeal, and he is stuck far from his room with no way of getting back. But it’s only about five hundred metres across the canal, a few lengths of a swimming pool. Nothing that could not be handled by someone who is such a powerful and practised swimmer. He kicks off his shoes, then drops them, the knife and her bag in the canal.

‘When he reaches the Isola San Giorgio he lets himself in a side door with his key. He is soaking, and so leaves puddles of water in the corridor which are mistaken for a leaky roof. It was not raining. How else did they get there? He dries himself, goes down to the laundry room to wash out his clothes, then asks for a glass of water to establish an alibi. Any comments yet, doctor?’

No reply, yet again.

‘But Masterson wasn’t dead,’ he went on. ‘She knows she is dying and won’t get help in time. She also knows from Miller that he was put up to it by Roberts, playing Iago to Miller’s Othello. Appropriate Venetian metaphor, I think. She tries to leave some hint of what has happened.

‘She isn’t dragged to the greenhouse, as Commissario Bovolo thought. She crawls there herself, because she knows what’s inside. It contains flowers she had specifically chosen herself to decorate the table at Saturday’s banquet. She tears the crucifix off her neck and grasps a flower. A cross and a lily. The symbol of St Anthony. The flowers were meant to be a triumphant reference to her discovery in Milan, but turned into her wreath.’

A lengthy pause as everybody swivelled to look hard at the silent, white-faced Miller. ‘Well, Dr Miller. How close are we?’ Bottando asked eventually.

‘Close,’ he said with the weariness of a man who has had enough. ‘Very close.’

‘Do you want to make a formal statement? They work wonders for the sentence and help get a reduced charge. Alternatively, you can wait until we find some trace of blood on your clothes or under your fingernails. We will find something. These forensic people always do. They’re awfully good, you know.’

In fact, he was doubtful about the scientific investigation. This forensic business was never as good as the experts claimed. He’d seen too many authenticated fake paintings to have all that much faith in their prowess, but it seemed to convince Miller, who nodded in miserable agreement. Bottando sighed with relief.

‘Good,’ he said with satisfaction as he noticed the increasingly jaundiced appearance of Bovolo’s face. He was a man seeing his promotion vanish before his very eyes.

‘Hold on a second, are you telling me that Dr Miller here also killed Roberts?’ This was Kollmar, calmer now and beginning to take an active interest in the proceedings. Bottando wished he wasn’t. He felt uncomfortable about the next stage. But Flavia insisted it was tactically necessary. Before he could start talking, she took over. He had a feeling she didn’t trust him somehow.

‘No, of course he didn’t,’ she said briskly. ‘Why should he? The sequence of events is quite clear. Roberts is questioned. He tells his story; how he is upset about Masterson’s death, how he tried to do so much for her, and so on. And does a very good job. No suspicion attaches to him at all.

‘But later on I also see Van Heteren,’ who began to turn pale once more at the statement, ‘and mention the lily and crucifix motif. Because of my somewhat impressionistic method of questioning, he is the only person I told.

‘Dr Van Heteren is no fool. He realises that Masterson was indicating Roberts, but can’t believe it. Nor does he want to incriminate a colleague falsely, which was why he refused to tell us he had overheard Roberts talking to Pianta on the phone.

‘So on Tuesday evening, after I have seen him, he goes over to discuss the matter. Roberts reassures him, but knows that although the carabinieri are unlikely to realise what the symbols mean, there is a chance that we will. And if this leads to Bralle’s death being investigated more closely…’

No harm in a bit of publicity, she thought. Especially in a good cause. ‘Roberts is trapped and cannot face the idea of jail and humiliation. He has already murdered and manipulated to avoid it, but it is clear that the effort has not been worthwhile. There is no way out, so after Van Heteren has left he kills himself to avoid the inevitable. He tries hanging first, hence the red marks around his neck, but hasn’t enough courage to go through with it. So he jumps in the canal and drowns.’

Bottando looked even more uncomfortable, Argyll was wearing an expression of considerable surprise, and the rest of the audience breathed another huge sigh of relief. ‘That’s the way it was, was it not, doctor?’ she asked the Dutchman.

Van Heteren did not reply for some time. Then he glanced up from the carpet, which he had been studying with enormous interest and said quietly, ‘If you say so.’

‘And you did overhear that phone conversation?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But –’

‘Good,’ said Flavia, interrupting him. ‘Pity you didn’t tell us earlier, but I knew it was something along those lines.’

She smiled reassuringly at her boss, who frowned back. At least the worst was over. He shifted in his seat and decided to get this miserable business over as quickly as possible. Complete triumph was only a matter of minutes away. He merely wished he knew what little surprise Bovolo had in store for them.

‘Now, then,’ he said, taking control once more. ‘One last mystery. The Marchesa’s pictures. These had an ambiguous status. The Marchesa’s husband did what many aristocrats do. His estate went to his heir, Dr Lorenzo, with his wife having rights to it for as long as she lived. Nothing could be sold without Lorenzo’s permission. Which, of course, he gave for these works, because they were of no importance.

‘But the Marchesa and Signora Pianta had a suspicion that this was not the case with one picture, an anonymous portrait. Louise Masterson was keen to examine it, but would not say why. If it was valuable, and if Dr Lorenzo found out, he would undoubtedly withdraw his agreement, because of his public role as defender of the National Heritage.

‘The Marchesa loathed the idea of having to do as she was told by someone so much younger – a perfectly understandable trait, I must say. I have recently suffered similar difficulties myself. Signora Pianta was thinking of her old age, and the fact that she might well be homeless and penniless once her employer died. Again perfectly understandable.

‘Once Masterson died and there was a possibility her interest in the work would emerge, it became clear that the picture would have to be got out of the country quickly, before Lorenzo vetoed the idea. They were, of course, determined not to draw attention to themselves, which is why Signora Pianta failed to explain the appointment with Masterson just before she was murdered.

‘So at the last minute they started trying to renegotiate the deal with Argyll, to pressure him to smuggle it to Switzerland. Unfortunately for them he refused and they fell back on an alternative little plot. It is not surprising Signora Pianta was so upset when Argyll introduced her to my assistant that evening, considering what they were about to do.

‘Quite simply, they moved the pictures down to a rarely-used cellar and reported them stolen to gain time in which to find a more corrupt dealer. The picture could then be smuggled out, sold through an intermediary and Lorenzo could do little about it. So, when I realised what must have happened, I had a policeman stationed there to stop it leaving the house.’

Pianta was white-faced with horror, the Marchesa had the air of a cheeky adolescent caught stealing biscuits. She looked, in fact, rather pleased. She, at least, had thoroughly enjoyed herself in the past few days.

‘Very well done indeed, General,’ she said, beaming with delight. ‘And I take it back entirely. Not all policemen are stupid.’

Bottando inclined his head to accept the compliment.

‘My dear auntie, really,’ Lorenzo said severely. ‘How could you? There is no question of Pianta being thrown on to the streets and you know it. I always knew you were wayward, I never thought you were that bad.’ She shrugged naughtily, looking at him with twinkling eyes.

‘But what about my pictures?’ Argyll interjected, trying to get some basic information about the really important question.

‘Of course, there is no question now…’ Lorenzo began, but was interrupted by a quiet cough from the back of the room. A discreet cough. Almost modest, for Commissario Bovolo. Argyll thought it a strangely ominous noise.

‘Before you go on,’ he said, with just a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

There was a brief pause as the Venetian enjoyed the rarity of being the focal point of the evening. ‘Go on, then,’ Bottando suggested gloomily. Here it comes, he thought.

‘In accordance with General Bottando’s suggestions,’ he said somewhat stiffly, ‘when it was ascertained that the Marchesa and Signora Pianta had left the building, we entered with a warrant and searched in the cellars for the missing items. It was not easy, which is why we were late. As you know, the weather has been bad and the tides heavy…’

He was interrupted by a strangled sound coming from Lorenzo. The Marchesa’s eyes lost their twinkle and Argyll, although he had no idea what was coming, decided he didn’t want to hear it. Bovolo, however, proceeded inexorably on his way.

‘The cellar is one of those which communicates directly with the canal outside, to facilitate easy access to the building for tradesmen. It would appear that most of the paintings were placed directly on the floor, propped up to keep them from damage, but not sufficiently elevated…’

‘Oh, Pianta, you fool. Can’t you do anything properly?’ the Marchesa broke in.

‘Not sufficiently elevated, as I say,’ resumed Bovolo sententiously, ‘to stop them being dislodged by the high tides which at some stage today began to flood the room. Several of the pictures were discovered by my officers still in the cellar, floating on the surface of the water. They have suffered badly, but they have been recovered.’

‘And the portrait?’ asked Argyll weakly. Stoicism in such circumstances is all a human being has left.

‘The portrait in question,’ resumed Bovolo, now on the last lap, ‘which I was particularly requested by General Bottando to recover, appears to be one of those washed out by the tidal movements into the lagoon. We will, of course, search for it tomorrow morning…’

‘Oh, Jesus, don’t bother,’ said Lorenzo, with a light and nervous laugh. ‘After twelve hours in salt water there won’t be anything left to find. The only consolation we have is the hope that it was not really valuable after all.’

Argyll looked at them all, noticing that most were far more upset about the loss of the picture than they were about the murder of Masterson or Bralle. Pathetic, really. He also saw Flavia glaring at him in what appeared to be blind panic. It was too much to say that her eyes were popping out of her head with alarm, but clearly she wanted to tell him something.

He closed his mouth, then opened it again. Then hesitated. This was not at all how he had imagined his evening ending. What about his triumph? His great coup? Ah, the things you do for friends.

‘Well, what about it?’ Lorenzo prodded, when he decided he could stand watching Argyll’s mouth flap about no more. ‘Was it valuable?’

Argyll rubbed his face wearily in his hands, sniffed loudly and gazed around the room at the ranks of expectant faces hoping he wasn’t going to say anything too distressing.

‘I stand by my original assessment, for what it’s worth. I’ve been through all the evidence carefully. A minor work by a minor artist. Nothing that would set the sale rooms alight, of that I can assure you,’ he concluded.

Everybody but himself and Commissario Bovolo seemed more than content with this explanation. Grateful, even. He stood up morosely and, as there seemed nothing else to say, everybody else began to stand as well. Bit by bit, the meeting broke up. Little fragments of desultory conversation broke out as people got their coats and prepared to depart.

Miller was being watched by Bovolo’s assistant before being taken to make his statement. His colleagues studiously ignored him. Bottando and the magistrate were deep in a conversation from which Bovolo was ostentatiously excluded. Lorenzo eyed his aunt as though assessing the wisdom of approaching her, then evidently decided to let her stew. Kollmar and his wife walked quietly out, followed by a still beaming Marchesa with Pianta bringing up the rear.

Eventually only Van Heteren was left. He came quietly up to Flavia and opened his mouth to speak.

‘No. I don’t want to hear any more, doctor,’ she said briskly before he could even begin. ‘Go away. Go back to Holland.’

‘But I must –’

‘You must nothing of the sort. I have had more than enough. Go home and go to bed. Now.’

‘Ever thought of taking up motherhood?’ Argyll asked as he watched the abashed and chastened Dutchman scuttle out of the room to obey her command. ‘You did that like a natural.’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘But thank you for the offer. Come on. Let’s get out of here.’

The rain, at least, had cleared the atmosphere. The damp, humid oppressiveness had gone, and in its place was a light, fresh breeze and crystal clear night. Even the flood tide had gone down a little. Another hour or so and the streets would be clear.

In total, and not very happy, silence, the two Italians and the Englishman were ferried back across the wide opening of the Grand Canal.

‘That was a fine piece of work,’ Bottando said eventually, patting her lightly on the shoulder. ‘My congratulations. I’m proud of you. You may well keep your job.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘I’m not sure about some of the details, though.’

‘Nor am I,’ cut in Argyll. ‘I mean, when you said…’

Flavia placed her hand on his arm and gave it a slight warning squeeze to make him shut up. He lapsed into a resentful silence.

‘I noticed you were unhappy. Did I go wrong somewhere?’ asked Bottando.

‘You got the right man,’ she said, ‘but I think you missed the point about her death. That’s because you didn’t understand her.’

‘Oh, yes? What’s wrong with my understanding?’

‘All you lot characterised her in a way which was, if I may say so, perfectly predictable. Pushy, aggressive, ambitious, vindictive. You assumed, like them, that she was going to dig her fangs in.’

‘And you’re going to tell me she wasn’t?’

‘Of course she wasn’t. It doesn’t fit. It is what Roberts thought, and that’s why he put Miller up to it. But he was wrong. I don’t think she gave a hoot about what he was up to, beyond disapproving and wanting to quit the committee before Bralle let rip. She went to St Gall because she wanted to hear about Benedetti’s Titian from Bralle. She went to Milan and Padua for the same reason. She didn’t even meet either of the men who had sold those pictures.

‘Masterson didn’t want to get involved. Why should she, when Bralle was already plotting to expose Roberts? We know she had no time for that sort of thing. She was irritated about Kollmar, no doubt, but it was only Roberts who said she’d been offensive about him. No one else heard her be anything but polite. In the committee meeting last year she merely said she wanted to work on the picture; it was Roberts who told Kollmar she was being nasty about him behind his back. OK, she was brusque, but who wouldn’t be with that pedantic little ninny?

‘With Van Heteren, Benedetti or that friar in Padua, she was charming and kind. They all said so. And on her last day she wasn’t in the library writing denunciations about academic corruption or bad references for Miller, she was reading art history. Like the good, dedicated scholar she was. She was never any sort of danger to Roberts or Miller. The poor woman was murdered simply because they all thought she was just as self-obsessed, mean and ambitious as they were themselves.’

‘So what was this paper going to be about?’

‘She was going to announce one of the most sensational finds for years,’ she said simply. ‘That was what she was working on so hard. Not politics and denunciations.’

Bottando winced and held up his hand. ‘Stop there. I don’t want to know. You may be right, and perhaps I did the poor lady an injustice, but I can’t stand to hear the details. Besides, I do seem to have arrested the right man and all I care about now, frankly, is drying my feet off and getting on the next plane back to Rome,’ he said as the boat nudged against the landing stage and he levered himself heavily out.

‘I have a budget submission and a large amount of last-minute lobbying to do first thing tomorrow morning. Still,’ he said more cheerfully, ‘at least there is some ammunition to do it with now.’

So she dropped it. Bottando had set his heart on a hot bath and hurried off the moment the boat touched the quay. Argyll and she strolled off on their own, and within ten minutes had got themselves totally lost once more.

‘Now you can ask your question,’ she said after Bottando had disappeared and they’d given up trying to decide where they were.

‘Ah. Which one is that?’

‘The one about Van Heteren.’

‘Oh, that. Well, yes. He did, didn’t he?’

‘Of course he did. He went over to see Roberts, accused him of murdering his lover, half-throttled him, dragged him to the canal and threw him in. Those marks under Roberts’ house – and on his neck – prove that. Crime of Passion. Impetuous man, just the sort of thing he would do. Told you he was like that.’

‘But it was the wrong man. Roberts hadn’t killed Masterson. You didn’t feel like mentioning that? And Bottando agreed?’

She shrugged. ‘Not our murder investigation. It wouldn’t have done to have humiliated the locals totally. As it is, this splits Bovolo and the magistrate apart. Bovolo is ground in the dust a bit for being wrong about Masterson, the magistrate is so happy no one mentioned the way he leant on the pathologist that he has agreed to thank us in writing for our excellent work. And Pierre Janet, dear sweet man, will also say what heroes we are for solving Bralle’s murder. The department covered in glory just in time for Bottando’s budget submissions. What more could anybody want?’

‘Oh, come on,’ he said with exasperation. ‘Neither you nor Bottando are that cynical. Are you?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Nor could the General, once I’d worked on him a bit. He took a bit of persuading, but he’s an old softie really and quite open to reason as long as no one knows about it.’

‘Hmph. I still think you’re being a little over-generous. He is a murderer, after all.’

‘True, and I’m sure he feels rotten about it. But Roberts was responsible for it all and did kill Bralle. A nasty man in every way. And dead, too. Nothing we could do could bring him back. Van Heteren, on the other hand, was the only likeable person amongst them. He really loved that woman and was the only person who ever gave her a chance.

‘I find it all quite understandable, myself. Besides, what good would arresting him do? I’ve never really understood the idea that killers have to be delivered up to justice. Seems to me that some people deserve to get away with murder. Depending on who the victim is, of course. Wrong sort of reasoning for a policewoman, isn’t it?’

‘Sort of. But, as you keep on reminding me, you’re not a policewoman, so I suppose you can reason however you like.’

‘Apart from that, of course, Van Heteren did us a favour. I doubt that we could ever have arrested Roberts. We know he killed Bralle, but there is no proof that would stand up in a court. We couldn’t have got him for manipulating Miller, and his picture dealing, however unethical, was not illegal. He would have got off unscathed but for Van Heteren. Doesn’t really excuse Van Heteren, I suppose, if you want to be technical about it. But there you are.’

‘So you cover it all up?’

‘Us? Cover up a murder? Good heavens no. What an idea,’ she said smugly. ‘That’s the beauty of it. We merely stated an opinion. There’s nothing corrupt about being a bit askew over some details. As Bovolo kept on telling us, it was his case, nothing to do with us. He will have to withdraw his original report and write a new one, poor man. Very public and embarrassing for him. Of course, he will write it all down exactly as we described. He will describe the murder of Masterson and will go on to give the official opinion that Roberts committed suicide. Nifty, eh? It’s not as if we’re stopping him finding out the truth, if that’s what he wants to do.’

Argyll went all quiet for a few moments and Flavia assumed he was lost in admiration. He wasn’t, exactly; he was more trying to work out the moral implications of what she had just done. The effort defeated him, so he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. There are some things foreigners in Italy can never really understand.

‘The only difficulty was the Marchesa’s picture,’ she said, wrapping her arm round him as a token of gratitude. ‘And fortunately you saved us from a nasty accident there. It would have been very awkward if you’d announced that Bottando’s causing a policeman to be stationed in her house had indirectly resulted in the only Giorgione self-portrait in existence being washed out to sea.’

He looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘Giorgione?’ he asked curiously. ‘What are you talking about? Who ever said anything about a Giorgione?’

She removed her arm. ‘You did,’ she began doubtfully.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did. You said the picture was a self-portrait of Violante di Modena’s lover…’

He burst out laughing. ‘Oh, no,’ he said in great delight. ‘I don’t believe it. That’s not what I meant at all. You poor thing. You must have been feeling dreadful for the past hour.’

‘What the hell did you mean then,’ she said crossly, annoyed she might have used so much sympathy and concern unnecessarily.

He cackled again. ‘I thought I’d told you. That picture of the man with the beaky nose was a self-portrait of a painter. The Padua series Titian wanted to paint showed this man a) accusing Violante di Modena of being unfaithful; b) murdering her; c) being poisoned himself. A bit odd, hijacking a religious commission for such things, but Titian was a young man and under great stress at the time. Maybe it was a sort of creative therapy. Not important, anyway.

‘Obviously nothing to do with Giorgione, who died before Violante did and therefore can’t have killed her. Besides, Giorgione died of a broken heart. I told you that. No one as famous as him could be murdered without somebody knowing. And on top of that, the portrait was as I described it, second-rate. Giorgione could paint better than that in his sleep.

‘That wasn’t what Masterson was getting at. She didn’t think she’d found some lost masterpiece. It was the fact that she’d deciphered an intricate and personal account of a long-hidden scandal that excited her. Iconography, symbolism, reading pictures – that was her speciality, not painting style or archives. What not-very-nice man, to use her words, stole the lady and sent Giorgione to an early grave with a broken heart? And, it seems, killed her in a jealous fit when he thought she was falling in love with Titian? And then was poisoned himself in revenge for what he had done?

‘The friar I talked to in Padua said the paintings were Titian’s revenge, but he didn’t realise what they were really about. Masterson cracked the account by putting all the bits together, reconstructing the Padua series and linking it with the Marchesa’s portrait. Jolly clever of her, too.’

‘Come along, think,’ he said when she continued to look at him silently. ‘Titian would not have run off to Padua unless he’d done something daft. Violante’s brother wouldn’t have quashed proceedings against him if Titian hadn’t restored family honour. And Pietro Luzzi did vanish, with a ridiculous story invented about his death in battle.

‘“A man dies, and he disappears.” That’s St Anthony’s inscription, but it also told the literal truth about Luzzi. Can you imagine the impact of an article, backed by an intricate, almost personal confession, proving that Titian poisoned Pietro Luzzi because he had stabbed one friend and caused another to die of grief?’

‘Ah, I see,’ she said eventually with a huge sigh. ‘That is a relief. So all we have lost is a self-portrait by Pietro Luzzi?’

‘Bravo. The grand finale, of course, came when Louise Masterson saw the link,’ he went on. ‘When Kollmar gave his verdict over that picture in Milan, she said nothing. But the same evening, she went to Lorenzo’s party. She saw the portrait and that nose rang a bell, if noses can do that. She doesn’t know what it means, but she starts thinking hard. An interesting face, she tells Van Heteren, but not a nice one. One that needs to be examined. There must be some sort of connection between it and the picture of Kollmar’s they’d been talking about that morning, and she decides she is going to find out what it is. It is only after this that she announces she is going to work on Benedetti’s picture herself.

‘She needs to work fast when she hears the Marchesa’s picture is up for sale, and even faster when Bralle tells her Benedetti’s might go to the sale room as well. Someone else could also make the connection. So she starts running around. Milan, Padua, libraries in Venice. She begins frantically to rewrite the paper to add in the last bits of evidence she needs. Much to Van Heteren’s irritation, of course. Roberts, I suppose, can’t imagine anyone getting that excited over a mere picture. So when he tracks her movements he leaps fatally to the wrong conclusion. The rest you know.

‘Violante was stabbed by Pietro Luzzi because of jealousy, Titian killed the murderer and the powers that be covered it up. Miller stabs Masterson because of a different sort of jealousy, Van Heteren takes his slightly inaccurate revenge, and the powers that be cover it up once more. Nice parallel, don’t you think? History does repeat itself, it seems.’

‘And you expect me, and the rest of the world, to believe that?’

He shrugged once more. ‘Please yourself. But it’s the only explanation I can think of for why he chose such a strange way of painting those murals in Padua. Not that it matters. I, certainly, am not going to give it much publicity.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t like being laughed at, basically. If I could prove it, that would be one thing. But proof depends on a proper examination of the Marchesa’s portrait. Which, thanks to you, can’t be done any more. It’s gone for ever. There aren’t even any photographs; that agency didn’t have any. I was waiting until I took delivery. Masterson was going to take some, but Miller got to her first. And, of course, without that, the story falls to bits and becomes nothing more than supposition, guesswork and fantasy.

‘So,’ he concluded, ‘like Van Heteren, Titian will have to be left in peace, his reputation unsullied. Pity. I wouldn’t have minded having the picture, but I suppose settling for Benedetti’s Titian is a fair swap.’

He looked to see how she was taking what he considered to be a masterly exposition.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said, thrusting her hands into her pockets in a gesture of discomfort. ‘Are you sure you’re not just having a little joke at my expense?’

He gave her a whimsical glance which she considered decidedly ambiguous. ‘What’s that?’ he asked eventually.

Flavia was examining an envelope she’d found in her pocket and pulled out.

‘The snaps I took of the landing stage under Roberts’ house. The only real evidence against Van Heteren.’

He took them and studied them by the light of a lamppost. Then grinned at her, tore them in half and tossed them, piece by piece, into the canal, followed by the negatives. They watched them drift slowly off until they sank.

‘If you’re going to pervert the course of justice, do it properly, that’s what I always say. Damn lagoon is awash with evidence tonight, it seems,’ he said. He put his arm round her, thinking such a gesture might be excusable in the circumstances.

‘Ah, well. That tidies up the loose ends. Come on,’ he said, giving her a squeeze which, to his infinite pleasure, she returned. ‘I shall accompany you all the way back to your hotel room.’

He steered her round until she was pointing in entirely the wrong direction. ‘This way, I think.’