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.”