Something like this had been going on, Flavia was sure. The only question remaining to be resolved was what it had to do with her. She had a sneaking idea. The Italian state habitually overspends, running vast budget deficits that have everybody outside the government running around and wringing their hands in despair. Periodically, a new administration decides to tackle the problem. Such efforts never last very long, but for six months or so programmes are axed, departments cut back and savings made. Then everybody gets tired of it, matters return to normal and the deficit resumes its usual upward spiral.
The trouble was that they were in one of their periodic bursts of austerity and the rival police force was floating a money-saving idea to break up Bottando’s department by setting up members of the carabinieri in local forces to deal with artistic thefts. It would be less effective and, in the end, save no money at all, but Bottando knew well that that was not really the point. The carabinieri had never really accepted that his department had been set up under polizia control. Normally he would have no trouble in seeing them off, but at the moment he was a worried man. His enemies were winning a hearing. The annual budget submissions were due in eight days, and the show-down was perilously close.
‘Has this, perchance, got something to do with the budgets?’ Flavia asked, and groaned as he nodded.
‘Oh, no. Please. Not me. I’ve so much work to do already,’ she said desperately, looking at him with all the mournful appeal her large, blue, north Italian eyes could summon at such short notice.
But he was a hard man. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I’m sure we can redistribute your load.’
‘You couldn’t when I asked you for a day off on Friday.’
Bottando was not, however, a man to be put off by little details. ‘That was Friday,’ he pointed out with accuracy, waving the matter aside with a chubby hand. ‘Have you ever heard of the Titian committee?’
Flavia had worked with him long enough to know defeat when it stared her in the face. ‘Of course. Some vast, government funded enterprise to produce a complete catalogue of everything Titian ever did, down to authenticating his laundry bills? Quite a status project, isn’t it?’
‘Something like that,’ her boss replied. ‘The Dutch set up something similar, and the Arts Minister decided that if anyone was to have the prestige of a hugely overfunded international mega-project it should be an Italian painter, not some Dutch hack like Rembrandt. So they set up an even more pricey affair for Titian. Half a dozen experts, soaking up enough money in a year to keep us in luxury for a decade. A team effort. Don’t know why but evidently in this bureaucratic age they think that six personal opinions are better than one. Makes it seem more accurate. Not so sure I’m convinced. They work away like fury, producing catalogues of paintings, drawings and so on. You know the sort of thing.’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ she said. ‘So?’
Bottando regarded her a bit doubtfully. ‘So,’ he said, labouring the word to show he’d noticed her lack of enthusiasm, ‘so, now there’s only five of them. To put it another way, a sixth of this high-powered, international committee has gone and got murdered, that’s so. And it’s causing a bit of a stir in certain circles. That is to say, for various reasons the Arts Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Tourism Ministry and the Interior Ministry are all up in arms about it. And that’s not counting the local authorities in the Veneto and in Venice itself. Fuss, fuss, fuss.’
‘I understand that. But it’s a job for the local carabinieri, isn’t it? After all, they must be used to it by now. Foreigners die in Venice all the time. People write books on it.’
‘Indeed. But it’s not all that often that they’re murdered. Anyway, the point is, it has been decided that the forces of Italian law and order have to do their best to sort this out. Experts flying in, national effort, and so on. And you, my dear, are the instrument chosen to demonstrate how seriously the government is taking this challenge to Venice’s ability to draw in tourist income.’
‘Me?’ said Flavia with mixed astonishment and annoyance. ‘Why on earth send me? I’m not even in the police.’ Which was true, although she only remembered this fact when it was convenient. Technically she was only a researcher and had strenuously resisted the temptation to sign up on a more regular basis. Uniforms didn’t suit her. Nor, for that matter, did the odd spurt of military discipline the polizia occasionally indulged in to remind its forces they were technically members of the army.
‘Exactly,’ Bottando replied happily, pleased that she was so quick on the uptake at such an early hour. ‘It’s all appearances, you see. Politics, in a word. The powers that be down here want to show they’re trying. But they don’t want to put the noses of the locals out of joint. So we are going to send, firstly, someone from the art squad to help out with our expertise and, secondly, someone junior who will not make the Venice carabinieri think they’re being criticised. And that all adds up to you.’
‘Thanks for the show of confidence,’ said Flavia with some pique. Which was a little irrational of her. She’d come into Bottando’s office hoping she wasn’t going to be given an investigation, and now found herself offended that she hadn’t. It was, nonetheless, galling to think her main qualification for the job was being entirely innocuous. ‘I still think it’s a complete waste of my time.’
Bottando shrugged. ‘That depends on whether you want a job next month,’ he said reasonably.
A good argument. ‘Oh, all right. If I must.’
‘You mustn’t think of it like that,’ Bottando told her reassuringly. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity. You have to do nothing at all, and will gain the thanks of three of the most powerful ministers in the government for not doing it. As will the department, of course, which is more important at the moment. Could be crucial in fact, if we get the timing right. Consider it as more of a paid holiday. You can trot up tomorrow, spend a day and be back home by Tuesday evening. Besides, Venice, I remember, is particularly beautiful at this time of year.’
‘That’s not the point,’ she protested. Really, the man’s willingness to ignore facts to suit himself was extraordinary. He knew very well she’d been planning to go to Sicily. Venice, however adorable, was not at all what she had in mind. But he paid no attention.
‘You will have to put in an appearance with the police up there, but you can make it clear that you have no intention of interfering at all with their investigation,’ he went on, becoming all business-like now he knew he’d won. He normally did, but Flavia was sometimes wayward over the matter of obeying orders.
‘All you have to do is hang around, work on your expense account, then knock out a perfectly harmless report in which you sound brilliant and penetrating but exonerate everyone for not arresting the murderer while also making it clear that you have established that it is not a matter for our department. Standard sort of thing. That should do the trick nicely.’
She sighed more openly so he would realise the sacrifice she was making for the public good. A nice man, an amiable soul, but a bit of a bulldozer in many ways. She knew him well enough to know a fight was pointless. She was going to Venice, and that was settled.