Instead of chaotic devastation this particular scene of crime was almost domestic. The occupant’s clothes were still laid out in neat piles on the table; a newspaper lay neatly folded on top of the television. His shoes were lined up and poking out from underneath the bed, which had been turned down evenly and with care.
Even the body itself conformed to this pattern. Surprisingly, there was no horror; even Argyll found it impossible to feel sick. The victim was fairly old, but evidently well preserved; even dead — a state which rarely brings out the best in people — he looked only in his sixties. His passport, however, suggested he was seventy-one, with the name of Ellman. The bullet that had killed him had done so through a neat, round hole, perfectly and symmetrically placed at the top of his bald and shiny head. There was not even much blood to get the stomach-heaves about.
Fabriano grunted when Flavia noted this, and pointed to yet another of the inevitable plastic bags lying in the corner of the room. It was green. With quite a lot of red.
‘Odd thing,’ he said. ‘As far as we can make out, the victim was sitting in the chair. His killer must have come up behind him’ — here he approached the chair from the rear to illustrate the point — ‘put the towel around his head and shot. Right through the top of the head. The bullet went straight down; no exit wound at all, that we can find. It must have gone straight down his neck and ended up near his stomach. I suppose we’ll find it eventually. So, not much mess. And as the gun had a silencer, not much noise either. Do you know this man as well, Argyll? Been selling pictures to him, too, by any chance?’
‘No, I’ve never seen him before,’ Argyll said, peering at the sight with an odd interest. He decided to ignore the less than courteous way Fabriano chose to address him. ‘He rings no bells at all. Are you sure he wasn’t the one who telephoned me?’
‘How should I know?’
‘So what was he doing with my address? Or Muller’s?’
‘I don’t know that, either,’ he replied a little testily.
‘What about his movements? Where does he come from?’
‘Basle. Swiss. Anything else I can tell you? To help you with your enquiries?’
‘Shut up Giulio,’ Flavia said. ‘You brought him here. The least you can do is be polite.’
‘Anyway,’ Fabriano continued, manifestly irritated at having to waste time explaining things to hangers-on, ‘he arrived yesterday afternoon, went out in the evening, came back late and after breakfast spent the rest of his life in his room. He was found just after four.’
‘And Jonathan was rung up at about two,’ Flavia said. ‘Is there a record of any calls?’
‘No,’ said Fabriano. ‘He made no outside calls. Of course, he may have used the public phone in the lobby. But no one saw him leave his room.’
‘Visitors?’
‘No one asked for him at the desk, no one noticed any visitors. We’re interviewing the staff and the people in neighbouring rooms.’
‘So there’s no reason to think either that he had anything to do with the death of Muller, or with this painting.’
‘The addresses, and the gun which is the same type as the one used to dispatch Muller. Apart from that, no. But it’s not bad as a beginning. Although perhaps an élite specialist like yourself has some better idea?’
‘Well...’ began Flavia.
‘And besides, I’m not really interested in what you think. You are here to assist me, when I ask for your assistance. And your friend here is a witness, nothing more. Understood?’
Argyll watched Fabriano’s performance with interest. What on earth had Flavia ever seen in this man? he thought huffily. He had a feeling Fabriano was thinking pretty much the same sort of thing.
‘You don’t know who killed him, though, do you?’ Flavia went on. ‘Or why? Or what this picture’s got to do with it? In fact, you don’t know much at all.’
‘We will. This isn’t going to be so difficult. Not when we work on it a bit,’ Fabriano said confidently.
‘Hmmph,’ Argyll commented from the corner of the room. Not, perhaps, the cutting repartee he would ideally have liked, but all he could think of. Somehow being browbeaten made him dry up. A weakness, and one he had never admired in himself.
And there they all were, standing around, getting on each other’s nerves. And not even accomplishing anything. Flavia decided she had better take the initiative. She would deal with Argyll’s statement about the picture. If Fabriano wanted anything more, he could ask tomorrow. It was evident from the look in Fabriano’s eye that he would do a good deal more than ask. But that, at least, had been postponed. So she ushered Argyll out, and suggested that Fabriano get on with whatever it was he was meant to do. She would send him round a copy of the interview when it was done.
They left to the sound of Fabriano calling down the corridor that he would call and collect it himself. And not to think he wouldn’t be asking supplementary questions. Lots of them.
Too much crime was making Flavia a bit callous; for some reason the evening’s events had put her in an exceptionally good mood. No more mucking about with minor thefts of gilt cups from churches, or trotting about interviewing petty thieves about disappearing jewellery. No. For the first time in several months, she had something half-way decent to have a go at.
She had, in fact, been hard-pressed to stop herself humming cheerfully as she and Argyll had sat in her office, taking down a detailed statement about his role in the affair. But she was professional enough to make Argyll a little unnerved; he had not had the busy police side of her directed at him for many years and had forgotten how intimidating she could be behind a typewriter. It was the little details that bothered him; having to give her, of all people, his passport number, and recite his date of birth and address.
‘But you know my address,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s the same as yours.’
‘Yes, but you have to tell me. This is an official statement. Would you rather dictate it to Fabriano?’
‘Oh, very well,’ he sighed and gave the information. Then there was the long process of going through the statement, his words being knocked into bureaucratically approved shape with her help. So he paid a business call on J. Delorme, picture dealer, rather than saw him; proceeded to the railway station to make his way back to Rome instead of heading for the station to catch a train. Had aforementioned person unknown attempt to abscond with said painting rather than was nearly suckered by a crook.
‘So you then caught the train and travelled straight back to Rome. And that’s it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I do wish you’d reported it to the French police. Life would have been much easier.’
‘It would have been much easier if I’d never seen it in the first place.’
‘True.’
‘At the very least I would never have come across this Fabriano creature. What did you ever see in him?’
‘Giulio? He’s not so bad, really,’ she said absently. Why she was defending him temporarily escaped her. ‘In a good mood he’s fun, lively and quite good company. He tends to be a bit possessive, mind you.’
Argyll produced one of his non-committal grunts; the sort that indicated that he could scarcely disagree more profoundly.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘we’re not here to talk about my youth. I must retype this thing. Keep quiet for a few minutes while I do it.’
So Argyll fidgeted and looked bored while she put the finishing touches to her work, tongue between her teeth, frowning slightly, intent on making as few errors as possible.