Iain Pears - The Raphael Affair

Some of the buildings and paintings in this book exist, others do not, and all the characters are imaginary. There is no National Museum in the Borghese Gardens, but there is an Italian art squad in a building in central Rome. However, I have arbitrarily shifted its affiliation from the carabinieri to the polizia, to underline that my account bears no relation to the original.

Generale Taddeo Bottando walked up the staircase covered in stolen works of art slightly before the bell of San Ignazio struck seven in the morning, as usual. He had turned up in the piazza a good deal earlier but, as was his habit, had passed ten minutes in the bar opposite the office drinking two espresso coffees and eating a panino filled with fresh ham. The habitués of the bar had greeted him as befitted a regular breakfast customer: a friendly ‘buon giorno’, nods of acknowledgement, but no attempt at any more conversation. Waking up, in Rome as in any other city, is a private matter that is best done in quiet solitude.

That pleasing early morning ritual over, he crossed the cobblestoned piazza and wheezed up the stairs, puffing and blowing heavily before he even finished the first flight. It was not that he was fat, so he reassured himself often. It was years since he’d last needed his military uniform let out. Portly, maybe. Distinguished-looking, he preferred. He should give up cigarettes and coffee and food and take up exercise instead. But what enjoyment would life have to offer then? Besides, he was nearing sixty, and it was too late now to start getting in trim. The effort would probably kill him anyway.

He stopped for a moment, partly to look at a new picture hanging on the wall, but more for a surreptitious opportunity to get his breath back. A little drawing by Gentileschi, by the look of it. Very handsome. Pity it would have to go back to the rightful owners when all the paperwork was done, the culprit charged, and the documentation sent over to the public prosecutor’s office. Still, it was one of the compensations of being the chief of the Italian National Art Theft Squad. On the rare occasions when you did recover something, it was generally worthwhile.

‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ a voice said behind him as he peered at the artist’s work. Suppressing the last remnants of his breathlessness, he turned round. Flavia di Stefano was one of those wonderful women that Bottando believed only Italy could produce. Either they became wives-and-mothers or they worked. And if they worked, they had to strive so hard to stave off guilt feelings about not staying at home that they were twice as good as anyone else. For that reason eight of the ten researchers were women. This, he knew, had caused his department to win an unfortunate nickname in other parts of the service. But at least Bottando’s Brothel, as his obviously jealous colleagues had dubbed his bureau, produced results. Unlike certain others he could mention.

He beamed a benevolent good morning at the girl. Or rather woman; he noted that he was now at an age when any woman under thirty counted as a girl. He liked her a great deal, even though she seemed totally unable to give him the deference to which his rank and age and wisdom entitled him. While some friends referred delicately to his certain roundness, Flavia called him, affectionately and without the least sense of shame, old tub. Apart from this, she was an almost perfect junior colleague.

Flavia, who also resolutely insisted on wearing sweaters and jeans to demonstrate that she fell into neither the policewoman nor serious businesswoman category, smiled back at his greeting. It was genuinely meant. In the last few years, the General had taught her an immense amount, mainly by leaving her alone to make mistakes, and covering for her afterwards. He was not one of those employers who see staff as a convenient herd of lambs to be sacrificed whenever something went wrong. Rather, he took immense pride in teaching his charges to do things properly and allowed them considerable, if always unofficial, independence. Flavia, more than most, had responded with enthusiasm and had become a full investigator in everything but name.

‘The carabinieri near the Campo dei Fiori rang and want to bring someone around,’ she told him. ‘They arrested him last night breaking into a church on their patch and they say he has an odd story to tell. They seem to think it is more in our line of business.’

She spoke in the harsh, nasal accent of the north-west. Bottando had hired her direct from the university at Turin, and she had abandoned a graduate degree to come to Rome. She always maintained that she would finish it eventually, and used this as her main reason for not joining the police fulltime. But she worked so hard in the department that it seemed very unlikely. She had the fair hair and light skin of many northern Italians. Even if she hadn’t been simply but definitely beautiful, her hair would have made her stand out in Rome.

‘Did they say what it’s about?’

‘No. Just something about a picture. They reckon he may be a bit crazy.’

‘What does he speak?’

‘English and some Italian. I don’t know how much.’

‘In that case you will have to talk to him. You know what my English is like. Let me know if he has anything interesting to say.’

Flavia made a mock salute, two fingers of her left hand pressed briefly against the fringe of meticulously disarranged hair that edged half-way down her forehead. Both of them wandered into their respective offices, she to the small, cramped one she shared with three others, he to the more luxurious one, decorated almost entirely with more stolen objects, on the third floor.

Bottando settled down and went through the morning ritual of going through the mail left on his desk in a neat pile by his secretary. Normal nonsense. He shook his head sadly, sighed heavily, and tipped the entire pile into the bin.

Two days later, a bulky document awaited him on his desk. It was the fruit of Flavia’s interrogations of the prisoner brought round by the carabinieri, and bore all the hallmarks of her conscientiousness. On top of it was a little note: ‘I think you’ll like this one — F.’ In principle, the interview should have been conducted by a full policeman, but Flavia had swiftly switched into English and gained control of the proceedings. As Bottando flipped through the pages, he realised that the man clearly spoke Italian quite well. But the policeman on duty was fairly dull and probably would have missed almost everything of interest.

The document was a condensed transcript of the interview, the sort of thing that is sent along to the prosecutor’s office if the police think a case can be made. Bottando got himself an espresso from the machine in the corridor — he was an addict of many years’ standing who now could not even get to sleep at night without a last-minute caffeine fix — put his feet up and began to read.

For the first few pages there was little of any interest. The prisoner was English, aged twenty-eight and a graduate student. He was in Rome on holiday and had been arrested for vagrancy when found apparently trying to sleep in the church of Santa Barbara near the Campo dei Fiori. Nothing had been stolen and no damage reported by the parish priest.

All this took five pages, and Bottando was wondering why his department had been called in and why the carabinieri had bothered arresting him. Sleeping rough was hardly a major offence. Throughout the summer months, foreigners could be found snoring away on almost every bench and in every open space in the city. Sometimes they had no money, sometimes they were too drunk or too drugged to get back to their pensione, just as often there was not an empty hotel room for miles and they had no choice.