Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

“Why?”

“To avoid awkwardness. You see, long ago, before she was with me, Angela was Harry’s.”

Caterina interrupted. “I beg your pardon? She was his-as in she belonged to him?”

“Yes. Exactly that,” he said with irritation. “He owned her. That’s what Harry was like. It was he who persuaded her to paint, told her she had talent, when she manifestly did not, drew her into a bohemian way of life, molded her to fit his idea of what he thought his woman should be. Then when he tired of her, he walked away, calling her bourgeois. People still used that as an insult back then. People like Harry, anyhow.”

“I don’t see the need for the subterfuge all those years later,” said Caterina.

“Angela had told Harry she had had her tubes tied. She told me that. Maybe she did, maybe she had a reverse op, and maybe Emma is a miraculous birth. Angela used to say she never wanted children, made a sort of philosophy of life out of it. Kids kill off sex in the home, they are little Disney-fixated capitalists, and they kill your youth and replace it with their own. The planet can’t take any more, and.. ”

“And yet…” said Caterina.

“And yet nothing. I’d just started on the good reasons not to have any,” said Nightingale.

“And yet Angela had a child, is what I meant,” said Caterina.

“Ah. Yes, quite right. She had a child after all. I think she felt embarrassed about it for a long time, until she finally stopped trying to be an independent, free-floating artist. But there was another reason not to advertise the fact. When Angela and I started going out, Harry, well, he was vile. One day, shortly after we returned from Mexico and I had started working with him again, we invited him down to Anzio for a sort of truce negotiation. He arrived already half pissed, then got viciously, violently, and overwhelmingly drunk like only the bloody Irish can get, and he called her bitch, whore, or ‘hoo-er’ as he mispronounced it, puttana, troia, zoccola, cunt, and threw a full bottle of wine at her. It hit the wall behind and shattered, and a piece of glass pierced her neck, narrowly missing the jugular. There was blood everywhere, and the hospital called you people, and I was questioned since Angela refused to name Harry. The morning after he claimed not to remember anything. But that was it. Angela cut all ties with him. So you can see why she did not want him coming near her child, or knowing of her existence. Harry and I never again mentioned Angela between us. He did not even know when we eventually broke up.”

“Henry Treacy had a mean streak,” said Blume.

“A broad stripe of cruelty, more like it.”

“He was mean when drunk. What was he like sober?”

“Angry. Confused. Funny. Bad-tempered. Clever. An immensely gifted second-rate artist. Generous. Underhand. It depends what you’re looking for. I knew him for so long, I got to see all sides.”

Blume said, “Can you explain what you mean by immensely gifted and second-rate.”

“He copied others,” said Nightingale. “He did it well, but he copied. Also, there were things he couldn’t copy. He could draw anything, and that was his great gift, but there were things he could not paint. He was like a prodigiously gifted child.”

Blume shook his head. “No. I’m not following you. You’re talking as if his limitations were plain to see, when evidently, given the money you made off him…”

“And he off me,” said Nightingale.

“… which, given the money you both made, was not the case. What was his failing? As a painter or forger, I mean, not as a human.”

“He could not paint air,” said Nightingale. “Look, as long as we’re dealing with Early and Middle Renaissance painting, it was not a problem, because for most of them, color was something that came after composition. But later on, when northern Italian painters started doing pictures where you could see and feel the air, the sunlight, and the shadows, Harry was lost.”

“What sort of painters?” asked Blume.

“You know, Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione, and basically anyone after them who used light in a certain way, or painted directly, Caravaggio or, for that matter, Turner, but also-”

“What about Velazquez?” said Blume. “Could he do a Velazquez?”

“No, I don’t believe he could. Why are you asking that, Commissioner?”

“No particular reason,” said Blume.

“I am sure you do have a reason,” said Nightingale. “And it’s probably based on something you read in Harry’s writings, because you have read them.”

“I’m not in the mood for sharing,” said Blume. “Did Henry Treacy hate you?”

“Maybe. But he had mellowed with age. I might have told him about Emma someday.”

“Do you think he would have betrayed you?”

“Possibly. I’m not sure. It depends what you mean by betray.”

“That’s what drove you to Colonel Farinelli, isn’t it?” said Blume. “You knew Treacy was writing his memoirs, and there would be details that compromised you. I don’t know if you were worried about the whole story or just one episode, I can think of at least one that would have got Farinelli interested. I’m talking about your sale of false paintings to the Cosa Nostra boss.”

Nightingale plucked at his pant legs exposing thin vein-colored socks. “False?”

“Yes, they were false. He is quite specific about it in his writings. He even gives instructions on how to prove they were false. I believe you when you say you didn’t know, because he’s specific about that, too.”

“That bastard.”

“So he betrayed you twice,” said Blume. “Once by swapping real paintings for forged ones, and then once again by writing about it. The stolen paintings went back to their rightful owners. Or so Treacy says. If this were to be published, it could spell a special kind of trouble for you and the Colonel, only I think the Colonel is probably better equipped than you for defending himself from the Mafia,” said Blume.

“I could leave this damned country. It is probably not worth their while sending someone abroad after me.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Blume.

“And you might be surprised to know that the Mafia threat is not my first thought. Only once was I involved in the sale of stolen works, but here you are telling me I was not. In a certain sense, I feel relieved. No doubt I’ll get round to worrying about the implications of selling forgeries to the Mafia later-though the danger was surely greatest at the moment of sale. Perhaps the buyer is dead now.”

“Don’t pin your hopes on that,” said Blume. “The Mafia has a corporate memory.”

“I see you like to comfort people, Commissioner. So have you read all his writings?”

Blume nodded. “Yes. Three notebooks. Two dedicated to his life, one to technique.”

“The Colonel was right about you, then,” said Nightingale. “Before this conversation began, I had entertained the very faint hope that Harry might have destroyed his manuscripts. Sadly, that is not the case. The reason I called in the Colonel in the first place was to persuade Harry. Force him, if you will. Harry was bound to compromise the Colonel many times over. I am sure the sale of the stolen paintings, or what we thought were the stolen paintings, is just one of several questionable episodes. Did Harry by any chance speculate as to why I broke the habit of a lifetime and went along with the Colonel that day? Does he even wonder what I felt about dealing with violent criminals?”

“No. He doesn’t speculate. He just has you turning up at the sale in the hotel room.”

“He never considered that I might have my reasons. That the Colonel might have forced me to act. That’s Harry all over. He’s always the only victim. It’s the Irish in him.”