even went to his house once, but was turned away. He went into private practice and spent the rest of his life defending petty criminals and speeding drivers. He saw no one, dropped all his friends, including me. I was very hurt by it, but eventually I gave up. If he didn't want to see me, there was not much I could do about it.”
'His letter to Sabbatini suggested his family had been threatened.”
'Really? Maybe so. Perhaps he wasn't prepared even to risk being seen with me.
Whatever, I forgot about his envelope and would never have remembered it if that idiot Sabbatini hadn't started threatening me. In the circumstances, I couldn't really do much except agree to what he wanted. I opened the envelope, of course; but it meant nothing to me. It was a bank statement.”
'Whose?”
'I have no idea. An anonymous account in Belgium, detailing payments to another in Milan. Just numbers, no names. Quite a lot of money, especially for 1981. Five payments of twenty-five thousand dollars, between June and September. As I say, it meant nothing to me, and I didn't know why Sabbatini wanted it. But if that was the price of a Claude, so be it. I photocopied it and went to the agreed meeting place on a country lane about twenty miles south of Rome. I was to stop in a lay-by and wait outside the car, and he would come along later.
'Sabbatini, of course, tried to be clever about it. He arrived in a white van, stopped, and opened the door to let me see the picture inside. I showed him the bank statement, and the look of triumph on his face suggested it was just what he was expecting and what he wanted. When I asked what it was all about, he pulled a gun on me, and said I would find out on Friday. Then he drove off with the envelope, the picture, and the keys to my car.”
Flavia nodded. 'Fine, if embarrassing. But . . .”
'I was a little annoyed, as you can imagine,' Bottando went on gravely. 'Not least because I was faced with the possibility of having to come to you and confess how stupid I'd been. So before I did, I thought I'd see if I could repair the damage. I hardly expected to find him in his flat or his studio, of course, but thoroughness and a lack of anywhere else to look meant I had to start there. When I got to his apartment, the lights were on, so I waited outside for nearly four hours. And in the end, it wasn't Sabbatini at all who came out, but a short fat little man carrying a bundle under his arm who got into a black Alfa Romeo and was driven off. The dark hand of the state, I thought, so I decided that things were probably back under control. My panic subsided a little and I went to his studio.
'Not there either. I knew he was supposedly doing an exhibition so I went as a last resort to the gallery where he was showing, or performing, or whatever he called it.
Back door was open, and there he was in the vat of plaster, which wasn't set. He was perfectly dead. Now, if you think about it, is it likely that someone who had just pulled off a stunt like that would go back and start rehearsing some damn fool art thing? My suspicion was that the people in the apartment and his presence in the tub were connected, and that he'd been pushed under and held there until he drowned.
'I talked it over with Mary—I would have talked it over with you by that stage, my dear, but I thought that the less you knew the better—and decided that it might be best to keep well out of it. I wasn't joking when I said I wanted nothing to jeopardize my retirement, and this was nasty. Then the whole business of the ransom demand began.
I didn't understand it—still don't, in fact— but at least it was simple. I was merely concerned that you should not be there at the handover. It was potentially very dangerous indeed, so I bullied you into staying in the car. If anyone was going to get shot because I was stupid, then it really would better be me. The rest was as you imagine, except that the person who collected the money didn't really resemble Sabbatini. But don't ask me what he did look like, as I didn't see him very well.”
Flavia digested all of this, although what was at the forefront of her mind really was the desire for a whiskey and a cigarette. 'Not your finest hour,' she said dryly after a while.
Bottando looked suitably mortified.
'Elena Fortini thinks that Maria di Lanna was murdered on the orders of Sabauda, and that Maurizio was going after him.”
'And was going to get the news irretrievably into the public domain by burning the painting?' Bottando said. 'Possible. I think he was right that he would have needed something quite dramatic to avoid the story being hushed up. No good just going to the papers, they wouldn't have touched it.”
'It still doesn't answer why that particular picture,' she said grumpily.
'Does it matter?”
'No. Just a detail. But he went to a lot of trouble and if all he wanted was something that would catch the attention there were simpler ways of going about it.”
'I thought you reckoned it had some cunning meaning,' Argyll said.
'Evidently not. I can't see any connection. The painting's story has got a happy ending.”
'No, it hasn't.”
'Yes, it has. Macchioli told me.”
'That's the sanitized Renaissance version where everything has to come right. I looked it up for you. In the real thing, poor old Procris gets popped with Cephalus's magic arrow and that's it. No goddess to bring her back.”
'So?”
'So nothing. I just thought I'd demonstrate my superior powers of research. You always did say that Sabbatini was a bit weak on ideas.”
Bottando would have become impatient with the way the conversation was going had not the warm night air and soft light on the terrace lulled him and everyone else into a surprisingly peaceful mood. Four people who knew each other well, enjoying a relaxing evening together, talking, speaking softly in the way you do when the light fades to streaks of pinkish blue and the only sounds come from the cicadas in the woods.
'As for Sabauda, I don't know. It's always been known that the security services were every bit as violent as the terrorists. Saying they acted on direct orders is a big leap, though. And I can't see how that bank statement helps. Unless the report explained it. But as we don't have the report, and only have a photocopy of the statement ...”
He paused, distracted by a noise that seemed to be getting louder. An intrusive bumping and scraping of metal suggested that someone was driving, badly, down the stony, irregular path that led to the house. He looked at Mary, who shrugged. Not expecting anyone.
A few seconds later, an ancient red Fiat chugged into view and pulled up outside, its little engine heaving with effort. The driver switched off the engine, making the sudden silence seem all the more remarkable, and then got out, slamming the door in irritation.
'Oh, God, it's Dossoni,' Flavia said, peering at the figure, dimly lit by the terrace lights. It was the night air, she thought afterward. That was why she felt nothing more than mild irritation. An unwelcome guest, breaking the atmosphere. Not one of the party. An interloper into their conversation.
'Who?”
'The journalist and police informer,' she said, as the sweating reporter walked around to peer in the faint light at the wing of the car, dented badly when he drove into a boulder halfway up the track. He seemed from his movements to be very cross.
'Don't know which is worse.”
Dossoni kicked the car, then turned to the house and walked purposefully toward them. 'You should do something about that driveway,' he called angrily from a distance of about thirty meters.
'It's a track, not a driveway,' Mary Verney said mildly. 'What do you think this is, the suburbs of Milan?”
Dossoni snorted. 'Well, at least it still goes.”
'Good evening,' Flavia said. 'What are you doing here? How did you find us?”
'Oh, easy enough. Tapped your mobile phone. Traced the call your husband made to you. One of these little devices. You can buy them in shops these days. Amazing little things.”
'I see. But what do you want?”
'Well, two things. First, I was wondering if you knew where to find Elena Fortini.”
'I thought you wouldn't go near her,' Flavia said, noticing the permanent sheen of sweat on Dossoni's forehead shining in the lamplight, giving him a slightly unearthly appearance.
'I've changed my mind.”
'I don't know. She was planning to disappear. It seems she probably has.”
