“I don’t recognize him. Certainly not Signor Charanis, who is over seventy.”
“I see.”
The Greek stood up. “That’s my contribution done, then. I must be going. I do very much hope that you find this man, whoever he may be. And that you will find that I have been of assistance to you. I’m sorry to bring this meeting to an end so swiftly, but I think there is nothing else to say on the subject. It was a pleasure to meet you, signorina.”
He nodded to Alberto, who had not been successful in saying anything at all, and did the same to the diplomat, who showed him out with all due ceremony, then shut the door and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Goodness,” he said. “That was close.”
“What was?”
“We very nearly had a major incident on our hands there. Do you have any idea how powerful this man is? Fortunately, swift action avoided it.”
“What major incident? Come to think of it, what swift action? I didn’t notice anything.”
“He was very upset.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“I hope you appreciate his consideration in coming here.”
“No one has thanked us for our consideration in coming here yet,” she snapped. “We’re not responsible to you, you know. Besides, he didn’t say anything at all.”
The diplomat eyed her coldly. Flavia eyed him back. She didn’t understand why she was behaving like this, but she undoubtedly enjoyed it. Did Bottando enjoy being obstreperous so much? Was it one of the hidden perks of the job?
“What could he say? You go around levelling baseless accusations which turn out to be a tissue of nonsense to conceal the gross mistakes you’ve committed, and you expect him to help? A lesser man than Fostiropoulos would have lodged a complaint at ministerial level and left it at that.”
“In that case you people are complete idiots.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“And you are a bigger idiot than most. We make a routine enquiry—which normally takes weeks to process—and within twenty-four hours we have a top-level meeting with some Greek spook, who comes round here like a bat out of hell to point us in another direction. Doesn’t that strike even you as a bit odd?”
“No.”
“I’m quite prepared to accept that our thirty-ish suspect is not a seventy-two-year-old millionaire. So ready to accept it that this meeting was unnecessary. So what was it in aid of? Eh?”
A shrug, and the meeting ended. A few seconds later, Flavia and Alberto found themselves once more in the empty corridor outside.
“Moron,” she said when the door to the office had shut. “What a waste of time.”
“Do you believe him or not? Fostiropoulos, I mean,” Alberto asked.
“I believe what he said. It’s what he didn’t say that bothers me. Still, we’re just not going to get any help from that quarter, I’m afraid. Back to work.”
They walked down the stairs, and queued at the desk in the lobby to hand in their security passes and sign out. The receptionist checked the passes, ticked them off and said, “This was left for you, signorina.”
She handed Flavia a small envelope; she opened it and read:
“Dear Signorina di Stefano,
“I trust you will do me the great honour of joining me for a drink at Castello this evening at six p.m.
“Fostiropoulos.”
She groaned. “Of all the luck. Not only do I not get any useful information, I have to spend the evening being oozed over.”
“Don’t go,” suggested Alberto.
“I’d better. You never know. I might squeeze something out of him. If I don’t, I might risk another international incident. I must say, I do hate the personal touch. Especially when touch is likely to be the operative word.”
“It’s a tough life in the police. Now you know why they paid Bottando so much.”
“You heard about that, did you?”
“Oh, yes. Word travels, you know. I hope it doesn’t mean too many changes. What happens to you?”
“I’ve been offered the job of acting chief.”
“I’m impressed. Ma’am.” He bowed politely.
She grinned. “What do you think? Could I do it well?”
He thought carefully.
“Oh, come on,” she said.
“Of course you could. Although if you become as rude to everyone as you were to that diplomat man they’ll go begging for Bottando to come back.”
“Was I that rude?”
“Not diplomatic, no.”
“Oh. I was a bit nervous.”
“Try smiling coquettishly next time you tell people they’re contemptible morons with brains the size of a pea.”
“You think?”
“It might help.”
She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I need to practise.”
“You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Now, tell me. What are you up to today?”
Alberto groaned. “What do you think? Miserable routine, checking hotels and airports and credit cards, mixed in liberally with miserable enquiries, explaining how it is that we ended up deploying thirty-five people in six vans with enough weaponry to fight a civil war in an attempt to arrest someone who wasn’t there. And, what’s more, telling it all to a large group of people who make their career out of telling other people how things should be done. Largely because they were so bad at doing it themselves that they had to be taken off active work to safeguard the public.”
Flavia nodded. “I thought so.”
“What about you?”
“Do you know, I’m not entirely certain. I’ll go to the hospital to see whether Father Xavier has come round and can talk. If he has, I’ll see what he has to say. If not, I have a horrible feeling I’ll spend the day sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs hoping something will turn up.”
Jonathan Argyll, in contrast to Flavia’s mood of vacillation, set off the same morning with high hopes of accomplishing something useful. He had never been very interested in the nuts and bolts of Flavia’s type of crime, the how and the who of policing. Like all people who did not have the task of actually locking people up, he found the why of it all very much more interesting. In his view, everything else should be subordinated to that, and it would make crime a far more fascinating prospect. Of course, it wouldn’t result in many arrests, but that was not his concern. How the painting of the icon was stolen was simple enough, after all. Someone went in and took it. Easy. Who stole it was more interesting but offered only a couple of possibilities, judging by what Flavia had told him. Why they stole it, on the other hand—now that was a bit of a puzzle, as far as he could see. Just the sort of thing for a subtle, complex mind.
This flying painting, borne by angels, had not excited over much interest in the past few centuries; he had woken up that morning with the task of discovering why that situation had changed as his project for the day. For the week, if necessary, as he had given his charges a long essay to write which should keep their brows furrowed for several days.
He hadn’t told Flavia, being someone who liked to spring his surprises fully formed, but he reckoned he had an idea already. Not a big one, but something. It was a question, he thought, of what triggered Burckhardt into action. Whether that would help in getting the picture back was another matter, of course.
He explained his quest to Father Jean when he arrived at San Giovanni.
“You may look with pleasure, if you think it will help in any way,” the old man said.
“Do you have a record of what this man looked at?”
“Which man?”
“Burckhardt. The dead man. The one in the river. He cited some of your archives in an article, so unless he was a total fraud, he must have used them. I thought it might be useful to know what he looked at.”
Luck was not with him. Father Jean shook his head. “I’m sorry.”