…”
“I’d be delighted. But I was going to invite the both of you. If there’s a decent restaurant nearby …?”’
“That is kind. Why not?”’
They smiled at each other with total lack of sincerity. Argyll scowled at both of them.
“Not me, I’m afraid,” he said with entirely fake regret as he saw his opportunity and patted the pile of essays by his side. “Confined to barracks.”
Five minutes of a routine attempt at persuasion followed, but he stood firm, and although it cost him disapproving comments about being an old misery, he eventually saw the pair of them off to the restaurant round the corner which was their usual eating place when cooking seemed too much to bear. He had a miserable meal of pasta instead, followed by two hours of essays. Not an ideal evening; not what he’d planned at all. But in comparison to the alternative it seemed positively heavenly.
It was an agreeable meal; no doubt about it. Pleasant little trattoria, simple but delicious food and that combination of amiable informality that only Italian restaurants ever seem to manage properly. The two women chatted happily throughout, working their way through a fund of gossip like long-lost friends. Flavia even enjoyed herself. The same could not be said for Mary Verney.
She was seriously, deeply alarmed. It was too much to expect that the Italian police wouldn’t notice her arrival, but she had assumed that demarcation disputes, bureaucracy and lack of manpower would delay things. She had done her best to be invisible, arriving by train rather than aircraft because checks at airports were better, not using her credit card, that sort of thing. It must have been the hotel registration that did it. Odd that; she’d believed no one bothered with those sort of checks any more. Evidently wrong. Maybe it was the computers. It just showed how old she was getting.
And instead of coming to police attention in a week or so, or not at all, they had noted her on her first day, and gone out of their way to make that clear. It was obvious that Flavia didn’t know why she was here, but it was likely she would be watched; and that would cramp her insufferably.
She poured herself a whisky when she got back to her hotel room to think it over. She had stayed in the Borgognoni once before, in 1973. It was an ideal hotel, even nicer now it was under new management and had been redecorated. Then it had been comfortably luxurious and had the inestimable advantage of being within a few minutes’ walk from the Barberini Gallery. As she had been in Rome to steal a picture from the Barberini—a small but delightful Martini, which she had been seriously tempted to keep for herself—it could not have been better. But the feature which tipped her finally in the hotel’s favour, now as then, was the number of exits it possessed. Front ones, back ones, side ones. For guests and employees and delivery men. She had always insisted on this when working; you never knew when a discreet disappearance might come in handy. Like now.
So she made her phone call, set up an appointment, and slipped out the back when she’d changed and finished her drink. As she walked across Rome to the Hassler hotel, she cursed her ill-luck once again. She had been quite genuine about retiring. She had spent more than twenty-five years stealing paintings and had never been caught; only came close once. And that was enough. It had been the rule she had made in her youth, and she intended to stick to it firmly. Never, ever, take risks. She had totted up her winnings, disposed of her last embarrassing possessions, and settled back to grow old in comfort.
Until three weeks ago when her daughter-in-law, even more hysterical than usual, telephoned. She never had much to do with the silly woman. Why her son—normally a sensible person—had decided to marry such a fusspot was quite beyond her. She was completely brainless but—and here Mary Verney had to give grudging approval—a doting mother to her grandchild. Louise, eight years old, was in fact the only member of her family Mary had a great deal of time for; the only one who had much in the way of spirit. You could see it in her eyes. An adorable child; Mary Verney’s normally well-disciplined heart melted each time she thought of the little beast.
How Kostas Charanis divined this she could never figure out. She had worked for him once, more than thirty years previously, and it was the one time a working relationship had become more than merely professional. He paid, she acquired the painting he wanted. And then she had, over the next year, spent a great deal of time in his company, in Greece and elsewhere. A lovely man. With an edge of steel when he wanted something. As, at the time, he had wanted her, she found it exciting rather than frightening.
Nonetheless, when Mikis, his son, turned up out of the blue four or five months previously with another commission, she had been friendly but firm: no thanks. Never revive old flames, never take commissions out of sentiment, never come out of retirement. She had worked because she needed to, not for the hell of it. Now she didn’t need the money, and saw no reason to take any risks at all.
And, quite apart from such practical reasons, she didn’t like Mikis Charanis. Didn’t like him at all, in fact. None of the father’s intelligence, or subtlety or strength. A spoilt brat, with delusions of unearned grandeur. She remembered him as a six-year-old, the last time she had met Kostas and they had said their final farewells; the child was standing in the street with a friend. There’d been a fight, and the boy had deliberately and cold-bloodedly taken his friend’s hand and broken every finger on it. To teach him a lesson, he said afterwards. Even if she’d been short of cash, the fact that he was involved would have made her turn it down, no matter what fond memories she had of his father.
She thought he’d taken it well, even though he’d made another approach, more pressing this time, a few weeks later. Again, she had no trouble in turning him down. Tell your father I’m too old, she said. Find someone more sprightly.
Then he took her granddaughter. One morning, she had been taken to school by her mother, dropped off at the gates. Two hours later a teacher had rung, wondering where she was. Even before the police could be told, Mikis had rung, warning against contacting anyone in authority. She remembered those broken fingers then, and the look on his face.
The child was well and being indulgently looked after, he’d said. Nothing to worry about. She’d been told it was a surprise holiday, and she would have a wonderful time for the next month or so. If all went well. Mary Verney was told that all depended on her. It was a simple job.
She was paralysed with anger and terror in equal measure, but had swiftly understood that there were no alternatives. She had tried ringing the old man in Athens to plead with him, but had not got through. She left messages, but he didn’t reply. Eventually, she realized he was not going to. He wanted something, and the steel was showing.
This time, she didn’t find it exciting.
For herself she could take risks, but this was the one area where she would never risk a thing. It was all agreed with Mikis that same day: she would go to Rome and would acquire the painting Charanis was so excited about. The sooner it was handed over, the sooner Louise would be restored to her family.
She had not yet figured out why it was so important to him; she’d done a little background work the first time he came, but couldn’t even find the thing listed in any of the guidebooks, directories or inventories she’d consulted. Mikis hadn’t been so keen to tell her, either. She’d found a little on the monastery, of course, but that was no substitute for a close examination.
The problem was the rush; she wanted her granddaughter back, and Charanis was in a hurry as well. A project she would usually plan for six months at least, to make sure everything went well, had to be done in a couple of weeks. Even worse was his insistence that she, and she alone, should be involved. She’d protested about this.
“Look: give me half a year and there would be no problem. But if you want it this quickly then slightly more direct methods might be better. Drive a truck through the door, grab it and run. It’s not a method I approve of, but it shouldn’t worry you. I know some people …”
Mikis shook his head. “Absolutely not. I want only the smallest number possible involved. That’s why I chose you. If I’d wanted a gang of bruisers I could have found them myself.”
That she believed. She seethed but accepted, then laid the best and safest plans she could come up with in time. In five days’ time, a party of pilgrims from Minnesota would arrive in Rome and, because of local connections, would be offered bed and board in the monastery of San Giovanni. Mary Verney, aka Juliet Simpson, was already booked into the party through an old contact in America. All she needed was a few days in advance to double-check the plans and check for possible problems. In principle, it should be easy, as long as her luck held.
Less than twenty-four hours after she arrived, it broke; Flavia noticed her and, although the meal was entirely polite and unthreatening, made it clear that she would be watched. Looking out of her hotel window as she finished off her drink, she saw the Italian had meant it. Sitting at a table in a cafe opposite the entrance was the same
