“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.