Iain Pears - The Raphael Affair

Eventually the door swung open, revealing a cameo of Tommaso shaking hands with the senior American and evidently bidding him farewell. The gracious look on his face suggested he’d got his cheque. Bottando waited for the right moment to go up and ruin his evening. He didn’t want another public explosion on his hands.

He was staring idly around him, uncertain about what to do, and the indecision lost him his chance to catch the director on his own and escape home early. Ferraro had also materialised at the doorway and had engaged the man in an earnest conversation. Even at a distance of many metres, Bottando could see the expression of benign good humour drain out of the director’s face like water out of an unplugged bath. It would be an exaggeration to say that he turned green, but a sickly shade of off-white was well within the bounds of accuracy. Ferraro, in contrast, looked in control of himself but decidedly grim.

He was spared the trouble of having to go over and find out what was so evidently distressing to both men. Tommaso walked swiftly over to him, the air of effortless grace still present in his every step despite the look of concern on his face. Perhaps he hadn’t got the money after all?

‘General. I’m glad to see you,’ he said shortly, missing out, for once, the elaborate courtesies he habitually employed. ‘Could you come with me, please. I’ve just had a piece of shocking news.’

The director set off at a fast clip through the museum, along the entrance hall and up the stairs. Bottando puffed along to keep up. ‘What is the matter?’ he asked, but got no reply. Tommaso looked as though he had just seen a ghost. Ferraro was unusually silent as well.

There was no need for complex explanations. As they opened the door and went into one of the smaller galleries on the second floor, it was immediately clear what the matter was.

‘Mother of God,’ said Bottando quietly.

The frame of the Raphael was still there, badly charred in its upper parts, but nobody could ever have suspected that the few blackened threads and dark congealed liquid that hung loosely from it had been, until very recently, the most expensive and treasured painting in the world.

Four or five square inches of the bottom right-hand side, Bottando estimated, had been untouched by the fire, which had reduced the rest of the canvas to charred rubbish. The smell of burning oil, wood, and material, still hung in the air, and wisps of smoke rose from the few pieces of cloth that had not been entirely consumed. Above the picture, the wallpaper was badly charred, and had evidently come close to catching fire as well. Bottando found time to be thankful the museum had not decorated the room with padded silk, as they occasionally did. If they had, the whole building would have been ablaze by now.

None of the three said anything at all, but simply looked. Bottando saw very grave difficulties, Tommaso the ruin of his reputation, Ferraro the end of his ambitions. ‘No,’ said Tommaso, and that was all. For the first time, Bottando felt sorry for the man.

Memory of his occupation reasserted itself. ‘Who found it?’ he asked quietly.

‘I did,’ said Ferraro. ‘Just now. I came back down immediately to tell the director and found him by the door.’

‘What were you doing in here?’

‘I was going up to my office to get a packet of cigarettes. And I saw smoke coming from under the door. I knew something was wrong the moment I smelt it.’

‘Why?’

‘No fire alarm. It’s very sensitive. We turned it off for the rooms where the party was being held, but it should have been on for every other room.’

Bottando grunted and looked around. It required no great genius to see what had happened. He crouched down by an aerosol tin on the floor, not touching it. Engine starter. Highgrade petrol you squirt into carburettors to start the car on cold days. Spray the picture, push a lit match against it, leave and shut the door behind you. The fuel lit up the dry but still inflammable paint on the canvas, and the whole thing was burnt away within minutes. He looked at the picture once more. Someone right-handed, he guessed. He seemed to have sprayed in an arc from bottom left to top right. Hence the relative lack of damage in the bottom right-hand corner. He lightly and cautiously touched the remains hanging in the frame. Still warm.

He sighed, and turned to Ferraro.

‘Close this door and put a guard on it. Go downstairs, tell them the party’s over but no one is to leave. Don’t say what’s happened. We’ve enough to do at the moment without worrying about the press. I will phone for reinforcements. Perhaps we can use your office, director?’

Bottando spent another three hours there, dealing with the more stratospheric consequences of the evening’s events. Phoning his colleagues in other departments, informing the arts minister, mustering his forces. He occupied the desk, while Tommaso fretted around, summoning assistants and public relations officials to draft a release to give to the press. Despite Bottando’s strictures, they had already sensed something had happened, and they would have to be told sooner or later.

It was some time before the policeman and the director had time to talk. Tommaso was sitting listlessly on the ornate nineteenth-century sofa, staring at a Flemish painting on the opposite wall as though he’d suddenly discovered it was a personal enemy.

‘Do you have any idea why the fire alarm didn’t work?’ the policeman asked him.

‘The usual reasons, I imagine,’ Tommaso replied with a barely concealed groan. ‘The electrical system in this place is a menace. Hasn’t been changed since the 1940s. We’re lucky the entire museum hasn’t burnt down. That’s why I submitted the proposal to have the place rewired to the security committee. It’s a pity Spello vetoed it.’

‘Hmm,’ replied Bottando noncommittally. He picked up the double implication clearly. Spello had made this attack possible by stopping the proposal. Secondly, it wouldn’t take much manoeuvring to divert any blame for the destruction from the director to the committee.

That would have to be dealt with later. He concentrated instead on the matter at hand. ‘How often does the thing shut down?’

‘Constantly. Well, about once a week. The last time was in the evening a couple of days ago. Ferraro was still here, fortunately. He had to pull all the fuses out to stop the entire building burning down. The guards had gone off to the bar, as usual. It really is like trying to run a madhouse in here, at times,’ he added with some considerable despair. Bottando sympathised. He could imagine.

‘Anyway,’ the director continued, ‘that, indirectly, was the point of this party. I persuaded those Americans to hand over a donation that was going to rewire the entire building. Thus overcoming Spello’s prejudices about modernisation.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Shutting the stable after the horse has bolted, if you like. I imagine they’ll cancel the cheque.’

‘Was this problem generally known?’

‘Oh yes. The bell going off at random all the time is not the sort of thing you can keep secret. Oh. I see what you mean. This indicates it was done by someone inside the museum, you think?’

Bottando shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. But I think we should go and have a look at that fuse box. Could you show me where it is?’

A few minutes and several flights of stairs later, they were standing in the basement. ‘There you are,’ said Tommaso. He opened the gigantic, rusty box on the wall. Inside was line upon line of heavy ceramic fuses. He searched around, pulled one out, looked at it, and handed it to Bottando. ‘Thought so. Blown again,’ he commented.

Bottando held it up to the light and looked, a favourite theory evaporating as he did so. No one had removed the fuse, no one had cut any wires. It had just burnt through of its own accord. Only in Italy, he thought to himself, would things be done in such a ramshackle fashion. He found himself beginning to have more sympathy with Tommaso’s reformist efforts. Tactful, he wasn’t. But no one could say there wasn’t a job to be done here.