Iain Pears - The Raphael Affair

The result was not entirely to his liking, but better than nothing. He had lobbied for extra manpower, using Elisabetta as a way of making his case for a larger budget. In fact, the result was that the security staff of the Museo Nazionale was doubled. Although it was never stated directly, the effective conclusion was that his department was relieved of any responsibility for guarding the picture once it was hung.

This provided some protection. But Bottando realised, with a perception honed by years of watching for trouble, that there existed no official document proving his lack of responsibility, and that was worrying. Especially because in Cavaliere Marco Ottavio Mario di Bruno di Tommaso, the sublimely aristocratic director of the National Museum, he was dealing with a man who would have been a natural politician had he not gone into the museum business. A smoother operator, in fact, was not to be found in the Camera dei Deputati. Tommaso had had a painting snatched from under his very nose, had been forced to buy it back at an outrageous price, and had turned it into a triumph. Impressive, without a doubt.

He was reminded of the justice of this opinion as he stood talking to the director at a reception thrown to celebrate the picture’s installation in the museum. A very select junket indeed. A sizeable chunk of the cabinet and their inevitable hangers-on; museum folk, the occasional academic, a few journalists just so the affair would reach the papers. Tommaso was, if anything, Bottando’s superior in making sure glowing reports of his activities frequently adorned the pages of the newspapers.

‘Taking a bit of a risk, aren’t you? I mean, all these dubious types around your prized possession?’ Bottando gestured contemptuously at the justice minister and an army chief peering at the work, cigarettes in hand.

Tommaso moaned softly in agreement. ‘I know. But it’s difficult to ask the prime minister not to smoke. He gets withdrawal symptoms after ten minutes. We had to switch off all the fire alarms to make sure they weren’t all drenched by the sprinklers. Can’t say it makes me all that happy. But, there you are. What can you do? These people will insist on sharing the limelight.’ He shrugged.

The conversation dragged on for a few minutes more, and then Tommaso slid off to talk to others. He was always like that. Everybody got the regulation five minutes of urbane conversation. He was a perfect host; Bottando merely wished that he didn’t make you feel it all the time. He was always pleasant, always remembered everyone’s name, always recalled something about your last conversation with him to make you think he valued your company. Bottando hated him. The more so because he’d just sprung a very nasty surprise.

There was to be another liaison committee, he’d said. Were there not enough already, for heaven’s sake? A joint meeting of the museum and the police, to discuss security matters in the museum: Bottando heading the police end and Antonio Ferraro, the head of sculpture, the museum side. It had been Ferraro’s idea, apparently. Serve him right. Had Bottando heard about this in advance, he could have sabotaged the whole thing. But Tommaso had gone ahead, getting all the various approvals, before broaching the subject.

It was, of course, true that what this place did need was a long, hard look at its security procedures, which were neolithic. But a committee wasn’t going to achieve much and, in fact, it wasn’t intended to. Instead, Tommaso meant it to serve as a layer of protection between him and responsibility if anything should go wrong.

The only person Bottando felt sorry for was Ferraro, standing over on the other side of the room. Tall, broad, and powerful-looking. Dark hair, of the sort that clung to his scalp as though it had been heavily anointed with hair dressing. A voluble conversationalist, one of those who tends to interrupt you in mid-sentence so that he can continue his enthusiastic narrations. Mid-thirties, with a permanent look of mild sarcasm on his face. A clever, impatient man. No wonder he and Tommaso never got on well; neither was prepared to accept the other in anything but a subservient role. Maybe Bottando could have him replaced on the committee with someone a bit more amenable?

‘You’re scowling,’ said a voice by his side. ‘I deduce that you’ve just been talking to our beloved chief.’

Bottando turned around, and smiled. Enrico Spello was unofficially the deputy director and someone he had a certain liking for. ‘Right as usual. How did you guess?’

Spello clasped his hands together to indicate the mysteries of human intuition. ‘Simple. I always look like that after a conversation with Tommaso as well.’

‘But he’s your boss. You’ve a right to dislike him. He’s always pleasant to me.’

‘Of course. He’s always delightful to me, as well. Even when he’s cutting my budget by twenty-five per cent.’

‘He’s done that? When?’

‘Oh, it’s been going on for a year or more. No interest in the Etruscans any more. For archaeologists and antiquarians. What’s needed is more brightness, stuff to bring in the crowds. As you know, he’s a bit of a whizz kid, our Tommaso. My department gets sliced so he can afford some very expensive beige fabric on the walls of western art.’

‘Is yours the only department to be cut?’ Bottando asked.

‘Oh, no. But it’s one of the worst. It has lost our friend over there a lot of popularity.’ He smiled whimsically. Bottando felt for the man. He was a real scholar, the sort of person who was dying out in the museum world. He lived, breathed and slept Etruscan antiquities. No one knew more about those mysterious people than Spello. His sort were now being replaced by administrators, by fund raisers and by entrepreneurs. Not at all like the short, stout and eccentrically dressed Spello.

‘I didn’t know he had any popularity to lose,’ Bottando commented.

‘He didn’t really. I don’t know why he bothers. He’s got so much money he doesn’t have to.’

Bottando raised an eyebrow. ‘Indeed? I never knew that.’

Spello looked sideways at him. ‘And you call yourself a policeman? I thought you were meant to know everything. Vast family riches, so I’m told. Won’t do him any good. One day he’ll be found in his office with a knife in his back. Then you’ll be spoiled for suspects.’

‘Where should I start?’

‘Well,’ Spello began, considering the matter. ‘I trust you would do me the honour of making me top suspect. Then there’s the people in Non-Italian Baroque, who’ve been shunted into a tiny little attic where no one can ever find them. Impressionism doesn’t at all like his decision to merge them with Realism, and Glassware greatly resents the imperialistic designs of Silver. Quite a hornet’s nest, in fact. Our little dining-room resounds daily to tales of his outrages, past and present.’

‘And which past ones do you have in mind at the moment?’ Bottando prompted. He loved gossip, and realised Spello wanted to tell him some anecdote. Besides, he was irritated that he hadn’t known of the Tommaso money.

‘Ah. I was thinking of the Case of the Bum Correggio. This was back in the sixties, when our friend was keeper of pictures at Treviso. Nice museum, traditional starting place for One Who is Destined to Rise in the World. Being an ambitious and aggressive young man, Tommaso began to buy pictures from abroad, commandeering almost everyone else’s budget to do so.

‘He bought dozens of pictures and established his reputation as a thrusting up-and-comer. He likes buying pictures, you may have noticed. He alienated everyone else in the museum by doing so but, what the hell? He’d soon be moving on to better things.

‘But he made a false step. He bought a Correggio for a considerable amount of money, and hung it in the gallery. Then the whispers started. An article appeared, saying that on stylistic grounds it might not be genuine. Then some pieces of provenance were dredged up suggesting it was merely a copy. He forces the dealer — none other than Edward Byrnes — to take it back. But the storm over his competence continues, nonetheless.