“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.”

“You don’t keep records?”’

“Oh, no. On the rare occasions someone comes here, we just give them a key to the archive room.”

“Is there a catalogue of the documents?”’

Father Jean smiled. “After a fashion, but it’s not very satisfactory. In fact, it’s unusable.”

“Still useful.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Why’s that?”’

“Because it was all in the head of Father Charles, who knew the papers backwards and forwards.”

“And he’s dead, I suppose.”

“Oh, no. Full of life, but he is over eighty and his mind is not what it was.”

“You mean he’s senile?”’

“I’m afraid so. He has his lucid moments, but they are becoming more and more rare.”

“And he never made a catalogue?”’

“No. We planned to get it all down, and would have done so except that Father Charles had a stroke and was put out of commission. If we ever get a catalogue, we’ll be starting from scratch. And I’m afraid it is not a very high priority.”

“That makes life more difficult. Is there any chance of seeing him anyway? Just in case?”’

“Probably. But I can’t take you to him myself. We have our latest crisis to deal with.”

“What’s that?”’

Father Jean shook his head. “We seem to have a popular religious revival on our hands.”

“Isn’t that good?”’

“Do you know, I’m not sure. I’m afraid the order spends so time running hospitals and schools that we are no longer sure what to do with religious feeling. Especially when there are signs that it is superstitious and idolatrous.”

“I’m not with you.”

“That icon. You heard, no doubt, that it was a sort of local protector. Guarding the quarter against plague and bombs?”’

Argyll nodded.

“All that had died out, of course. Except for a few old people like Signora Graziani, it was hardly remembered. So I thought, anyway. For some reason the theft has brought it all to the surface again. They’re like that, the Romans. However much you may think they have become brash and materialistic, scratch the surface …”

“So what’s going on?”’

“Everything. Late-night vigils asking the icon to return. Genuine fear, it seems, that the quarter is exposed to danger by its absence. Confessions tagged to the locked door hoping that a genuine show of contrition will make it relent, and come back …”

“But it was stolen.”

Father Jean shook his head. “It seems not. It seems that in the minds of a surprising number of people here, it got up and walked out on its own to indicate Our Lady’s displeasure. And will not return until she is satisfied everybody is in a properly repentant frame of mind. Obviously, I’ve read about phenomena like this in history books, but I never thought that I’d witness such a thing. It’s genuine, you know; absolutely genuine. The trouble is, that the order is being blamed.”

“What for?”’

“For cutting Our Lady off from her people. Closing the doors. It’s all General Bottando’s fault, in fact, as he was the one who told us to lock the doors.”

“That’s his job.”

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