'Paperwork. By the time all the international liaison departments had finished organising it, the plane would have been sold for scrap. So your friend Argyll recommended us. Good idea. Quick thinking. Could you, er . . .'
'Miss dinner and spend the night hanging around Fiumicino? No.'
Bottando frowned sternly. 'I really don't know what's got into you these days,' he said. 'What on earth is the matter? It's not like you, all this bad temper and uncooperative attitude. You used to spend most of your time begging me for jobs like this. But if you insist, you can get back to being a simple researcher. Full time. I'll get a proper member of the polizia to do it.'
Flavia sat down on the desk and looked at him mournfully. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I know I've been a pain recently. I just don't seem to have much enthusiasm for anything these days. I'll go to the airport for you. I suppose it might perk me up a bit, arresting someone.'
'What you need is a holiday,' Bottando said firmly. It was his universal remedy for all ills and he took one himself as often as was decent. 'Change of air and scenery.'
She shook her head. A holiday was the last thing she wanted at the moment.
Bottando eyed her sympathetically for a moment, then patted her gently on the shoulder. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'It'll pass.'
She looked up at him. 'What will?'
He shrugged slightly and waved his hand about airily. 'Whatever it is that's putting you in such a bad mood. Anyway, nice though it is to talk . . .' He looked at his watch in a significant fashion.
She got up wearily and brushed her hand through her hair. 'OK. What shall I do with him when I get him?'
'Hand him over to the airport police. They'll hold him until all the paperwork's in order. I've arranged everything. You'll just be there to identify him and deal with formalities. I've got all the bits of paper you'll need, and a photograph. Shouldn't be any real trouble.'
In making this statement, Bottando was almost entirely wrong, but for reasons which were not his fault. Getting to the airport was a trouble, due to a large pile-up on the stretch of motorway which leads from the city to the patch of reclaimed marshland which tries its hardest to be an international airport. Silly place to put it, but there was some story about a deal with the Vatican which had all this useless land and a friend in the planning department . . .
Flavia got to the terminal at ten, parked in a Strictly No Parking area - she was lucky there was a space left, but it was late in the evening - and marched in to find the airport police. Then they took up their stations and waited until someone had the bright idea of checking the board, and discovered that the plane was half an hour late due to a longer than anticipated stopover in Madrid.
Madrid? she thought. No one ever said anything to her about Madrid. The day had started off badly, got worse, and now looked as though it was going to go out in appropriate style.
There was no alternative but to wait, knowing with that utter certainty that sometimes descends, that she was wasting her time.
She was. The plane finally touched down at 10:45, the firstpassenger appeared through the gate at 11:15 and the last emerged at five minutes to midnight.
No Hector di Souza. Flavia had sacrificed her evening and had nothing to show for it except a protesting stomach and a foul temper.
What was more, she knew full well she could not just go home and forget about it. International protocol demanded you at least put up a show of being co-operative, especially when, somehow or other, you may have made a mess of things.
So she went back to the office yet again, and settled down to the phone. Calls to the airline, to Rome Airport, to Madrid Airport. They'd ring back, they said; and she had to wait. Couldn't even go out and search for a sandwich, not that there were many places open at that hour.
The final call-back came at nearly three in the morning. Madrid Airport, just like Rome and the airline, confirmed what she basically knew already. No di Souza. Didn't get off in Madrid, didn't get off in Rome, didn't get on the plane at all, as far as anyone knew.
One final call, and that was it. Fortunately - and it was the one good thing that had happened all day, although the fact that it was now tomorrow may have had something to do with it – Detective Morelli was in his office. Bottando said he could speak Italian, and so he could, after a fashion. But Flavia's English was better.
'Oh, right,' he said. 'Yeah, well, we sort of knew that,' he added laconically as she announced her failure. 'We checked here. He phoned and booked himself on to the flight, left the hotel, but never showed. Sorry if we put you to unnecessary trouble.'
A couple of hours earlier and Flavia would have been capable of a most impressive speech, outlining the need for consideration in international endeavours and concluding with an impressive paean of praise to the continuing value of simple courtesy in human relations. But she was too tired to manage, so she simply said, not at all, not to worry, think nothing of it.
'I would have rung,' he went on. 'Should have, in fact. Sorry. But you just can't believe what's going on here. Talk about a circus. I've never seen so many cameras and reporters. Not even at a super bowl. Then there was that English guy nearly killing himself . . .'
'What?' she said, suddenly alert. 'What English guy?'
'Man called Jonathan Argyll. The one who put me on to your Bottando. Do you know him? He rented this ancient car, went out and crashed it. Comes of renting rubbish. They save money on the servicing costs, you know. That's how they keep the prices down. I reckon . . .'
'What happened?'
'Eh? Oh, simple enough. Straight through a light and into a designer clothes shop. He made a real mess . . .'
'But how is he?' she cried, noticing that her heart was thumping wildly as she tried to interrupt his flow of inconsequentialities. 'Is he all right?'
'Oh, sure. He'll be fine. Cut up a bit. Bruised. Broken leg. I talked to the hospital. Doctor says he's sleeping like a baby.'
'But what happened?'
'I've no idea. Nearly got run over last night as well. Seems a little accident-prone.'
Flavia agreed. He was just the sort of person who'd drive into a shop selling designer clothes, or get run over, or fall into a canal, or something similar. He did it all the time. She got the number of the hospital from Morelli and rang off. Then sat and looked at the phone for half an hour, contemplating the degree to which the news of his mishap had alarmed her, and the relief she'd felt when Morelli had said he'd survive.
And it was all his own fault, as well. That, at least, was predictable.
Chapter Five
Argyll's car accident may not have come as a surprise to Flavia but it did to Argyll. Like most people, his vision of himself differed markedly from that of others. While Flavia, in a good mood, saw an amiable soul prone to tripping over his shoelaces, he preferred a slightly suaver, more sophisticated image in which the occasional mishap was the exception rather than the rule. He was always rather hurt and surprised when she had an attack of the giggles every time - on the rare occasions, that is - he walked into a traffic bollard.
Until the accident took place, he'd had a rather good day, even though his lack of sleep made him a little less alert than usual. But his insomnia did at least lead to his meeting Detective Morelli once more. When the American turned up early the next morning and banged on the door of the room next to his, Argyll was already awake and functioning.
'Oh, it's you,' he said, sticking his head round the door. 'I thought it might have been Hector. I was meant to be having breakfast with him. I'm dying to find out what he's been up to.'
'You don't say. I reckon quite a lot of people feel the same way.' Morelli looked at the door of di Souza's room rather like someone hoping it would suddenly open and reveal that the occupant had been there all along. Eventually he gave up, rubbed his eyes and yawned.
'You look awfully tired,' Argyll said sympathetically. 'Why don't you come and have a coffee? It might keep you going for an extra couple of hours.'
Morelli, who'd also missed most of his night's sleep, although for different reasons, accepted gratefully, thankful for the prospect of sitting down for a while. He could also get some museum gossip, and as he was going
