aware, had anything to do with art or theft before.
'I was thinking,' he said in a tone that had just a touch of insinuation about it,
'about writing a story on security.”
'Oh yes.”
'Yes. You know. Museums. Especially when pictures move around.”
'You mean for exhibitions, things like that?' Flavia asked dryly.
'Just that sort of thing. You know. Look at insurance, the way they are guarded, what might happen if anything went wrong and a picture was lost ...”
'Very good idea,' Flavia said encouragingly. 'Although I can't give you chapter and verse on anything. We haven't lost one that way for ages ...”
'Of course not,' Dossoni said in an oily fashion. Flavia was beginning to dislike him.
'But you must have plans about what you'd do if something like that happened.”
'We run around and try to find it,' Flavia said. 'Same as usual. No story in that.”
'But if there was a ransom, say.”
'Paying ransoms,' Flavia pointed out severely, 'is against the law.”
'You mean you wouldn't pay one?”
'Me? Me personally? How could I? That's not my department. All I would do in those circumstances is pass on the request to a higher authority. As quickly as possible, I might add, although if you quoted me on that I would strangle you. Your guess is as good as mine about how they'd react. As I say, it's against the law.”
She got him off the phone as soon as possible, then leaned back in her chair, a worried frown on her brow. He was clearly fishing. Someone had said something, but not enough for him to know what to do with it. Three possible sources: someone from the museum, someone from the prime minister's office, or someone involved in the theft itself. Not much point speculating about which. She picked up the phone and talked to some contacts about having the journalist's phone tapped. Ten minutes later, she had the response.
No.
That was the trouble with being new at the job. She had no clout yet. No one would have refused Bottando. Although, come to think of it, no one had ever refused her before either. It put her in a bad mood that lay simmering inside her until Argyll once more proferred his well-meaning, and quite possibly sound, advice.
While she was thus employed, Argyll was left at home, feeling terribly left out, abandoned, and slighted. On the whole he hit it off well with Flavia's work; he and it had cohabited nicely for years and tolerated each other with only a few hiccups along the way. He endured the frequent absences, the preoccupations, and the occasional flashes of ill-humor that the work generated in her, and her work, in return, had provided him with a fairly constant diet of entertainment. He had even, so he prided himself and Flavia readily acknowledged, given material assistance on a few occasions.
The three-way relationship had become a little more complex when the great promotion arrived, not least because Flavia spent more time on the drudgery of policing and less time looking for stolen works of art. She had also become more like Bottando in office, more prone to calculate risks, see dangers, and watch for hidden traps. This occasionally gave her a furtive, not to say suspicious, air, and Argyll was interested to note that Bottando, relieved of his position, had become more like her—full of bright, if not always respectable, ideas.
He had been prepared for this and usually it was only an occasional problem. With this particular case, however, domestic life became all but unendurable in a matter of hours. Information had to be wrung out of her, her usual good humor had vanished, she would not discuss, as she habitually did, even the outlines of what was going on.
Quite apart from the fact that she was, in his opinion, taking an appallingly silly risk in having anything to do with the case. The fact that it was her job and that she had been brought in by the prime minister seemed insufficient reason, in his opinion, for not ducking and diving for all she was worth.
So, while he waited for his wife to recover her equilbrium, he lay on the sofa, considering which of his own tasks he should tackle first. This thought process used up a great deal of time that the more censorious might have considered better spent on actually doing one of the tasks, but Argyll was particular and wanted to get the decision right. So his mind wandered from topic to topic. Papers. Export regulations. The weekly shopping. Back again.
And then he had an idea for Bottando's farewell present. He and Flavia would, of course, get him a conventional trinket of some sort to mark the occasion, but Argyll felt like producing something special. He liked the general, and Bottando liked him. He felt he'd miss the old fellow almost as much as Flavia would. And his idea for a gift was perfect. Not long ago they'd been to Bottando's apartment for a drink—the first time Argyll had ever been there, as Bottando rarely invited guests. A dingy place it was, too; Bottando's bachelor existence had never included much housework.
His apartment was where he slept, took showers, and kept his clothes, little more.
They'd only been there for twenty minutes before going out to a restaurant nearby.
All the more remarkable, then, to see the little picture above the long-unused fireplace, covering up the old stained wallpaper. It was the only object in the entire apartment, in fact, that wasn't strictly utilitarian; Bottando had spent much of his career recovering paintings, but he never seemed to have wanted actually to have any himself.
But this one was lovely: oil on panel, eighteen inches by eleven, somewhat bashed and battered, and a representation of the Virgin with a baby flying around in the air just above her head. Unorthodox. Quirky. Not your average Virgin, in fact. Her face was uncommonly pretty, and the painter had added two extra characters on their knees before her, praying devoutly. It was nice, in decent condition, and an asset to any mantelpiece. Little sign of heavy-handed restoration, though the inevitable bit of touching up was visible here and there. Jonathan guessed 1480s or thereabouts and central Italian in origin, although the picture was so far out of his usual area of operation he was incapable of being more precise.
'What's this?' he'd asked, standing as close as possible.
Bottando had paused, and looked. 'Oh, that,' he said with a faint smile. 'It was a present, given to me long ago.”
'Lucky you. What is it?”
'I've no idea. Nothing special in itself, I think.”
'Where does it come from?”
Another shrug.
'May I . . . ?' Argyll said, taking it off the wall before Bottando could say no, I'd rather you didn't . . .
He'd looked more closely and had seen that the damage and wear and tear were more obvious. Flaking in one part, scratches in another, but not bad nevertheless. Then he'd turned it over. No useful scribbles, just a little piece of paper stuck on, with a little stamp that looked like a house, and a number—382—written in faded ink. Not one that Argyll knew. He'd shrugged, put it back, and later jotted down the mark in a notebook he kept for these things; it was one of his rare shows of organization. Useful things, owners' marks; the only decent dictionary of them had been published three quarters of a century previously and was so out of date and incomplete it was only occasionally helpful. Argyll had the vague notion that one day he might publish a supplement, and ensure his everlasting fame. 'Is it in Argyll?' people would ask in decades to come. Or they would, if he ever got around to doing it.
And now, nine months later, the picture and the mark came back to him. That could be his present. He could track down its provenance. Figure out what it was, where it had come from, who had owned it. Make all the details up into a little report. A gesture, nothing more than that, but a nice thing to have, he thought. Personal. Individual.
Better than the little print or watercolor the office collection would probably produce.
The iconographies were of little help, but a start. Virgins with airborne babies were generally taken to be an early representation of the Immaculate Conception, long before the doctrine took over the hearts and minds of the religiously inclined. The two figures kneeling before her probably had the faces of the donors, but might well also represent Mary's parents. And if it was an Immaculate Conception, then it had probably been painted for the Franciscans, who were early enthusiasts for the idea of Mary being born without sin. But he had no artist or even school to start with—just a guess at date and region. All he had was his note of the little stamp on the back. Great oaks from little acorns grow. Argyll phoned his old employer, Edward Byrnes, who said he'd ask around. He always said this, and rarely did anything about it.
