‘Two or three?’ he repeated. ‘How many of them were there?’
‘Six,’ Brett answered. ‘The party takes care of its own.’
Flavia sniffed.
‘How well did they speak Italian? Do you remember?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Well enough,’ was her terse reply. She paused and then admitted, ‘No, not well enough for that. I was the only one who was able to speak to the Italians. If it was done, it would have to have been done in English.’ Matsuko, Brunetti recalled, had taken her degree at Berkeley.
Exasperated, Flavia snapped out, ‘Brett, when are you going to stop being stupid about this and take a look at what happened? I don’t care about you and the Japanese girl, but you’ve got to look at this clearly. This is your life you’re playing with.’ As suddenly as she had started, she stopped, sipped at her coffee but, finding the cup empty set it roughly down on the table in front of her.
No One spoke for a long time until Brunetti finally asked, ‘When would the switch have been done?’
‘After the closing of the exhibition,’ Brett answered in a shaky voice.
Brunetti shifted his glance to Flavia. She remained silent, glancing down at her hands, clasped loosely in her lap.
Brett sighed deeply and whispered, ‘All right. All right.’ She sat back in the sofa and watched the rain drive down against the glass of the skylights. Finally, she said, ‘She was here for the packing. She had to verify each object before the Italian customs police sealed the package and then sealed the crate that the boxes were put into.’
‘Would she have recognized a fake?’ Brunetti asked.
Brett’s answer was a long time coming. ‘Yes, she would have seen the difference.’ For a moment, he thought she was going to add something to that, but she didn’t. She watched the rain.
‘How long would it have taken them to pack everything?’
Brett considered for a moment and then answered, ‘Four days? Five?’
‘And then what? Where did the crates go from here?’
‘They were flown to Rome on Alitalia, but then they were held up there for more than a week by a strike at the airport. From there, they went to New York, and they were held up there by American customs. Finally, they were put on the Chinese airline and taken back to Beijing. The seals on the crates were checked every time they were put on or taken off a plane, and guards stayed with them while they were in the foreign airports.’
‘How long was it from the time they left Venice until they got to Beijing?’
‘More than a month.’
‘How long was it before you saw them?’
She shifted around on the sofa before she answered him, but she still didn’t look at him. ‘I told you, not until this winter.’
‘Where were you when they were being packed?’
‘I told you. In New York.’
Flavia interrupted. ‘With me. I was making my debut at the Met. Opening night was two days before the exhibition closed here. I asked Brett to go with me, and she did.’
Brett finally looked away from the rain and across at Flavia. ‘And I left Matsuko in charge of the shipment.’ She put her head back on the sofa and looked up at the skylights. ‘I went to New York for a week, and I stayed three. Then I went back to Beijing to wait for the shipment. When it didn’t arrive, I went back to New York and got it through US customs. But then,’ she continued, ‘I decided to stay in New York. I called Matsuko and told her I was delayed, and she offered to go to Beijing to check the collection when it finally got back to China.’
‘Was it her job to verify the objects in the shipment?’ Brunetti asked.
Brett nodded.
‘If you had been in China,’ Brunetti asked, ‘then you would have unpacked the collection yourself?’
‘I’ve just told you that,’ Brett snapped.
‘And you would have noticed the substitution then?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you see any of the pieces before this winter?’
‘No. When they first got back to China, they disappeared into some sort of bureaucratic limbo for six months, then they were put on display in a warehouse, and then they were finally sent back to the museums they had originally been borrowed from.’
‘And that’s when you saw that they had been changed?’
‘Yes, and that’s when I wrote to Semenzato. About three months ago.’ With no warning, she raised her hand and slammed it down on the arm of the sofa. ‘The bastards,’ she said, voice guttural with rage. ‘The filthy bastards.’
Flavia put a calming hand on her knee. ‘Brett, there’s nothing you can do about it.’
With no change in her voice, Brett turned to her. ‘It’s not your career that’s over, Flavia. People will come and hear you sing no matter what you do, but they’ve just destroyed the last ten years of my life.’ She stopped for a moment and then added, voice softer, ‘And all of Matsuko’s.’
When Flavia tried to object, she continued, ‘It’s over. Once the Chinese find out about this, they’ll never let me go back. I’m responsible for those pieces. Matsuko brought the papers back from Beijing with her, and I signed them when I got back to Xian. I verified that they were all there, in the same condition as when they left the country. I should have been there, should have checked them all, but I let her go instead because I was in New York with you, listening to you sing. And it’s cost me my career.’
Brunetti looked at Flavia, saw the flush that had come into her face at the sound of Brett’s growing anger. He saw the graceful line her shoulder and arm made as she sat turned towards Brett, studied the curve of her neck and jaw. Perhaps she was worth a career.
‘The Chinese don’t have to find out about it,’ he said.
‘What?’ both of them asked.
‘Did you tell your friends who did the tests what the samples were?’ he asked Brett.
‘No, I didn’t. Why?’
‘Then we seem to be the only people who know about it. Of course, unless you told anyone in China.’
She shook her head from side to side. ‘No, I told no one. Only Semenzato.’
Flavia interrupted here and said, ‘And I doubt we have to worry he told anyone, aside from the person he sold them to.’
‘But I have to tell them,’ Brett insisted.
Instead of looking at her, Flavia and Brunetti glanced across the table at each other, understanding instantly what could be done, and it was only with the exercise of great force of will that each of them resisted the impulse to mutter, ‘Americans.’
Flavia decided to explain things to her. ‘So long as the Chinese don’t know, then nothing has happened to your career.’
To Brett, it was as if Flavia hadn’t spoken. ‘They can’t keep those pieces on display. They’re fakes.’
‘Brett,’ Flavia asked, ‘how long have they been back in China?’
‘Almost three years.’
‘And no one has noticed they aren’t genuine?’
‘No,’ Brett conceded.