British, born 1941, educated London University, worked as a dealer until employed by Arthur Moresby in 1972. OK so far?'
He nodded.
'Curator of Moresby collection in Los Angeles until three years ago, then chief buyer in Europe based in Rome.'
He nodded again.
'A few weeks ago you bought a bust said to be by Bernini . . .'
'It was.'
'Said to be of Pius V.'
'It is.'
'Where did you get it from? What was it like?'
'It was perfect,' he said. 'Undoubtedly genuine. Excellent condition. I can let you have my written assessment, if you want.'
'Thank you. I'd like to see it. Where did it come from?'
'Well, now,' he said. 'That's a bit tricky.'
'Why's that?'
Langton adopted the look of someone whose sense of professional propriety was coming under strain. 'Confidential,' he said at last. She waited for him to go on. 'The owners were most insistent. Family matter, I gather.'
Flavia assured him that, while she was ordinarily very aware of the difficulties of families, she wanted to know where that bust came from. Discretion assured. He still didn't seem convinced, so she also told him that, in order to continue his career in Italy, he'd need to get his residence permit renewed in a few months. And smiled sweetly in the way you do when you have the power to make the Interior Ministry get awkward. Not that she had, and anyway it didn't seem to have much effect. He said he anticipated leaving the country to go and live in America again soon. Having him deported wasn't much of a threat. So she tried the all-buddies-in-this-together approach.
'Listen, Mr. Langton,' she said in her kindest of voices, 'You know as well as I do that an unknown seller is the oldest trick in the book for covering up smuggled goods. Unless you want us to go all the way back until we get to the marble dust underneath Bernini's fingernails, you'd better tell us where that thing came from. Because we'll be after you until we get it back.'
Oddly enough, it didn't work. What more could she possibly do?
All he did was smile at her and shake his head slowly. It seemed that the more she pushed, the more relaxed he got. Strange.
'I can't stop you investigating,' he said smugly. 'But I'm absolutely certain you won't find anything at all to incriminate me. I bought it fairly, and the museum paid for it when it arrived in America. As far as smuggling goes - well, you're right, it was. No harm in admitting that. Di Souza took it out of the country, and the previous possessors owned it until it arrived at the museum. Di Souza and they bear the responsibility, not me. That's why I'm not going to tell you who they are. And, frankly, there's not much you can do about it now.'
The statement made Flavia twitch with anger. Because Langton was essentially correct. The most they could do was fine the owner for smuggling - if they ever worked out who it was – and perhaps di Souza for complicity, if he also turned up. As the bust was not paid for until it arrived in America, it remained the old owner's property until then. The museum had done nothing at all that was actionable. It was enough to make her hope they didn't recover it.
'You will at least confirm that Hector transported it?'
This Langton was happy to do.
'But he didn't know what it was. You can't blame him.'
'A contract's a contract,' he said. 'Besides, you don't really believe that Hector was such an innocent, do you?'
Flavia drummed her fingers on the table with frustration and tried one last time. 'Look,' she said. 'You know very well we're not interested in you, or in this family, or in prosecuting anyone. We want that bust back, but more importantly we're trying to help the Los Angeles police sort out Moresby's murder. Your employer, after all. His death had something to do with that bust. So why don't you just tell us where you got it from?'
Langton shook his head slowly. 'Sorry,' he said, again with the slight glimmering of a smile on his face. 'Can't. And you're wasting your time pressing me.'
'You're not being very helpful, you know.'
'Why should I be helpful? If I thought incriminating this family might be of use I would be bending over backwards to help. But there's nothing I can do or say. That's why I'm back here. The police there didn't want me for anything. I told them I'd bought the bust, that di Souza had transported it, I'd been at the party and hadn't seen anything unusual. They confirmed from the video cameras that I was sitting on a lump of marble smoking a cigarette at the critical moment so couldn't have killed anyone. That's all I have to tell you as well. Telling you where the bust came from is entirely irrelevant and would achieve nothing but compromise my reputation for integrity.'
'You have one?'
He smirked at her. 'I do. And I intend to keep it. So mind your own business.'
He dusted a fleck of ash from his jacket and stood up. 'Nice to meet you.' With this sardonic comment he walked off, leaving Flavia to pay the bill.
That settles it, she thought, leaving the money on the table and stumping out. I'll have him. And that bust.
Back to basics. Flavia went straight to the office and started ringing old friends, people who owed her a favour and some other people to whom she was prepared to owe a favour.
What she was after was any official mention of either Moresby or Langton. There was very little to be had, except for a file on Moresby held by the security forces who, as usual, were not all that keen on letting outsiders see what they had. She only began to make progress when she solicited Bottando's help. He remembered a senior civil servant connected with Intelligence had once illegally sold a Guardi through a London auction house and the department had buried the affair under a pile of paper.
'Ring him up and remind him,' he said complacently, noting that there was a bit of colour back in her cheeks and her sense of purpose was returning. 'You see, you're always so critical when I do that sort of thing. Now you see how helpful it can be.'
Hmmph. Flavia still thought the civil servant should have been prosecuted, but who was she to complain at the moment?
On the second attempt, security promised the file for that afternoon.
That accomplished, she leant back in her chair and thought. Bernini. How to find out about Bernini? Answer, ask an expert on Bernini. And where do you find an expert? Answer, in the museum that owns lots of Berninis.
Flavia picked up her coat, walked out into the sunlit piazza, and grabbed another taxi.
'Borghese Museum, please,' she said.
The Borghese, one of the nicest museums in the world, not so grand it causes indigestion but every piece in it a marvel, is based on the collection of the Borghese family, one of whom, Scipione, was the first and most enthusiastic patron of Bernini. So keen was he, indeed, that the museum has Berninis coming out of its ears. It's a bit of a shock to discover that the cutlery in the tea room wasn't hand-sculpted by the man as well.
Like all museums, the Borghese houses its employees in a less stately fashion than it does its pieces. Lumps of marble get the full stucco and gilt and painted-ceiling treatment, staff occupy grubby little shoeboxes formerly inhabited by lesser domestic servants. In this respect, at least, museum priorities are pretty much the same the world over. Flavia ended up in a tiny, grim and dark little office, asking her questions.
As might have been expected, the resident Bernini man was on sabbatical in Hamburg for the year, although no one was entirely certain what he was doing there. His deputy was at a seminar in Milan, and the third under- deputy had disappeared at eleven and not come back. In fact, the nearest they had to a resident expert at the moment was a young foreign intern called Collins, working his passage for a year before using the experience (and patronage) as leverage to get a job which actually had a salary attached.
And he confessed after the introductions were performed that he was more of a seventeenth-century Dutch
