Iain Pears - Giotto's Hand

“Isn’t that a risky way of selling hot pictures?”

“Evidently, as we are sitting here talking about it,” she said drily. “But who am I to judge? If you think about it, I suppose you could say that the painting’s original ownership was undocumented; it had been hidden away for some time, there was nothing to prove that it hadn’t come from Weller House and the inventories here were vague. Forster got suspicious only because he knew Veronica and at some stage after Uncle Godfrey’s death had gone through the Weller collection inventory, so knew what was in it—and what certainly wasn’t. Very bad luck on their part.

“Anyway, Forster figured out what might have happened, and decided to follow up. He wrote Veronica a letter, came to see her and put his cards on the table: ‘Hi. Remember me? I knew you in Florence. When you were stealing a Uccello. Nice to see you’re still at it. Pollaiuolo now, eh? And I have documents to prove it. What’s it worth?’

“At this stage, you see, he didn’t even know the start of it, but once he was in the house, it didn’t take him long to figure it out. He began dropping little hints; asking for favours, then money, then a house.”

“So what was the problem with your cousin? Couldn’t she be stopped?”

“Again, you’re asking the wrong person. I would have stopped her, but no one asked me. When she came back from Italy, she told my uncle everything and he panicked. He asked Winterton’s advice. Personally, I think the obvious thing would have been to go to the police and help them recover the picture. ‘Sorry, Veronica had one of her little turns; you know how it is.’ Then followed it by locking her up or getting her good psychiatric treatment.

“But, of course, my family didn’t think like that. The first thing that worried them was the shame of it all. All their instincts were to cover it up, and Winterton encouraged them to think that it would be easy to do this. I honestly don’t think that it ever occurred to them that a real crime had been committed. That’s what oiks like Gordon Brown do; Beaumonts are merely indiscreet. And, of course, they kept Veronica’s cut from the sale.

“Besides, initially no one thought it would become a habit. And then it was too late: by the time Veronica had hung half a dozen little acquisitions on the wall and Winterton had got rid of them, they’d compromised themselves rather badly. Manufacturing fake provenances? Handling stolen goods? Benefiting from the sales? How could they explain that away? The only problem was Forster, but Winterton did a fine job of persuading him that he was just as guilty and more likely to go to jail if anyone said anything. Fine for as long as Forster thought it was an isolated incident.

“As I say, Winterton built a lucrative clandestine career on it, and recycled the money into legitimate picture dealing. Did very nicely too, once he’d worked out who were the richest clients with the smallest scruples. He’s a prig and a snob, but he’s no fool either.

“Unlike Forster who, once he’d started, didn’t know when to stop. He pushed too far, asking for this house and everything. He knew she was ill, and he had a vision of himself as Lord of Weller or something. Always a climber. Now, Veronica was crazy, but not that mad: and he attacked her in the one area where she would fight back—her family pride. She was determined to preserve Weller in the Beaumont family, even if that was me.

“So she dug in her heels, and told him to do his worst. Forster says he will do just that. Veronica realizes he means it and she reaches for the pills as the only way of stopping him. That’s one interpretation.”

“What’s another?”

“That Veronica decides to give herself up, confess all and denounce Forster as a blackmailer. And that Forster murders her.”

“Is that likely?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all a bit too much like a Victorian melodrama, really.”

“Why, then, did you revive it all? I assume it was you who prompted Fancelli to call in the Italian police?”

“Absolutely not. That wasn’t the idea at all.”

“So what did happen?”

She sighed wearily, then nodded sadly. “I was always on the outside of the family; I knew Veronica was a bit loopy, but never exactly how much. She died, I inherited this place, and realized the finances were catastrophic. So I decided to cut back, and the biggest—and pleasantest—saving was to get rid of Geoffrey Forster. And I got a little visit. It was the first I’d heard of any of it. At first I just laughed and said I didn’t believe him. He suggested I go and ask Winterton. I did, and Winterton told me the whole story.

“It was a bit of a shock, as you can imagine. I inherit a stately home, and find that what I’ve really inherited is a rundown money sink kept afloat by thieving lunatics, up to its eyes in debt, pursued by the taxman and being blackmailed into the ground as well. I mean, Jesus. What a bloody mess.

“The trouble was knowing whether Forster really had enough proof. Winterton figured out who might have known something which would back him up, and the riskiest two characters—apart from himself—were Fancelli and Sandano. It wasn’t certain if they knew anything, but it was important to find out. So, he visited them and made sure that, if asked, they would deny anything about Veronica and say that they thought Forster was the thief; and I went through all the papers here and destroyed any embarrassing ones. And there were quite a lot, believe me.”

“But Forster still had the vital evidence in the safe deposit box,” Flavia said, fascinated by the story now.

“Yes. And we still didn’t know what it was. Which was why Winterton also got statements signed by Fancelli and Sandano saying more or less what they told you—that they knew Forster was a thief and had stolen these two pictures.

“He had statements indicating Veronica was a thief; we had statements saying he was. So I offered Forster a draw: his documents for my documents and a lump sum to show there were no hard feelings.”

“This was the deal he told his wife about?”

“I assume so. I’d scraped away and raised the money and got the documents ready and was just waiting for a final few thousand to be credited to my account. All we were waiting for was Forster’s agreement.”

“So what happened?”

“Then all hell broke loose, because of that stupid woman Fancelli. She was rather taken with the idea of saying Forster had stolen the Uccello, you see, once the subject was raised. And after thirty years, she saw a means of getting her revenge.”

“Hold it. Forster was the father of her child?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. That was all true. And behaved abominably, I gather. His child takes after him, as well.”

“He wasn’t paying for the nursing home?”

She shook her head. “I am. Or rather Winterton is. A fair exchange for her statement. Where was I?”

“Fancelli’s revenge.”

“Oh, yes. Anyway, the trouble was that she wanted to do it before she died—Winterton said she was in a bad way, and I imagine that is what triggered it. So she gave the police a prod to start things off, and in due course Jonathan telephones Forster.

“Difficult. Especially as Forster thought that we were double-crossing him. I managed to persuade him that the best thing was to do the deal and destroy everything as fast as possible. Make sure there was nothing to investigate. So that wild allegations from a daft old woman and a confessed thief remained just that.

“And, as the situation had arisen, I confess I used it. He didn’t have much time. He had to make up his mind. Did he accept or not? I put as much pressure on him as possible. I don’t mind saying, I was getting a little panicky myself by then. I like a quiet, tranquil life, and this isn’t.