Ken Follett - The Modigliani Scandal (1976)

But he did not have the picture yet. That last stroke of genius was essential, to put the crowning touch to his personal renaissance. The postcard from the girl who signed herself ʺDʺ was a shaky foundation on which to build his hopes, he knew: yet it was by following up dubious leads that great finds were made.

The prospect of the Modigliani had receded a long way during the interview with the priest. If it was here in Poglio it was going to be hard to find. There was one consolation: it looked as if Julian was the first here. For if a painting had been bought in a little place like this, every villager would know about it within hours.

He stood beside his rented baby Fiat, wondering what was the next step. He had entered the village from the south, and the church was one of the first buildings he had come across. He could look around for a public building: a village hall, maybe, or a police station. The priest had said there was no museum.

He decided on a quick reconnaissance, and jumped into the little car. Its engine whirred tinnily as he started it and drove slowly into the village. In less than five minutes he had looked at every building. None of them looked promising. The blue Mercedes coupe parked outside the bar must belong to a rich man: the owner obviously did not live in the village.

He drove back to his first parking-spot and got out of the car. There was nothing else for it: he would have to knock on doors. If he went to every house in the village, it could not take all afternoon.

He looked at the small, whitewashed houses: some set back behind kitchen-gardens, others shoulder-to-shoulder at the roadside. He wondered where to start. Since they were equally improbable places to find a Modigliani, he chose the nearest and walked to the door.

There was no knocker, so he banged on the brown paintwork with his knuckles and waited.

The woman who came to the door had a baby in one arm, its small fist clenched in her unwashed brown hair. Her eyes were set close together about a high, narrow nose, giving her a shifty look.

Julian said: ″I am an art dealer from England, looking for old paintings. Have you any pictures I could look at, please?″

She stared at him silently for a long minute, a look of disbelief and wariness on her face. Then she shook her head silently and closed the door.

Julian turned away dispirited. He wanted very badly to give up the door-to-door stratagem—it made him feel like a salesman. The next house confronted him forbiddingly. Small windows on either side of a narrow door reminded him of the face of the woman with the child.

He willed his legs to carry him forward. This door had a knocker: an ornate one, in the shape of a lion′s head. The paintwork was new and the windows clean.

A man came, in shirtsleeves and an open waistcoat, smoking a pipe with a badly chewed stem. He was about fifty. Julian repeated his question.

The man frowned; then his face cleared as he penetrated Julian′s bad Italian. ″Come in,″ he smiled. Inside, the house was dean and prettily furnished: the floors were scrubbed and the paintwork gleamed. The man sat Julian down.

″You want to see some pictures?″ The man spoke slowly and a little too loudly, as if talking to someone who was deaf and senile. Julian assumed his accent was the cause of this. He nodded dumbly.

The man raised a finger in a gesture meaning ″Wait″ and left the room. He came back a moment later with a pile of framed photographs, brown with age and obscured by dust.

Julian shook his head. ″I mean paintings,″ he said, miming the act of brushing paint onto canvas.

Puzzlement and a trace of exasperation crossed the man′s face, and he fingered his mustache. He lifted a small, cheap print of Christ from a nail on the wail and offered it.

Julian took it, pretended to examine it, shook his head, and handed it back. ʺAny more?″

ʺNo.ʺ

Julian stood up. He tried to put gratitude into his smile. ″I am sorry,″ he said. ″You have been kind.″

The man shrugged, and opened the door.

Julian′s reluctance to go on was even greater now. Disconsolate and indecisive, he stood in the street and felt the hot sun on his neck. He would have to take care not to get burned, he thought inconsequentially.

He considered going for a drink. The bar was a few dozen yards down the road, by the blue Mercedes. But a drink would not progress matters.

A girl came out of the bar and opened the car door. Julian looked at her. Was she a bitch like Sarah? Any girl rich enough to own one of those had a right to be a bitch. She tossed her hair over one shoulder as she climbed in. The spoiled daughter of a wealthy man, Julian thought.

A man came out of the bar and got into the other side of the car, and the girl said something to him. Her voice carried up the street.

Suddenly Julian′s mind clicked into gear.

He had assumed that the girl was going to drive, but now that he looked more carefully he could see that the steering wheel was on the right-hand side of the car.

The girl′s words to the man had sounded like English.

The car had British registration plates.

The Mercedes came to life with a throaty chuckle. Julian turned on his heel and walked briskly to where his Fiat was parked. The other car passed him as he keyed the ignition, and he did a three-point turn.

A wealthy English girl in a British car in Poglio: it had to be the girl who sent the postcard.

Julian could not take the chance that it was not.

He raced after the Mercedes, letting the tiny engine of the Fiat scream in low gear. The blue car took a right turn, following the west road out of the village. Julian took the same turning.

The driver of the Mercedes went fast, handling the powerful car with skill. Julian soon lost the flashing brakelights in the bends of the lane. He squeezed the last ounce of speed from his car.

When he shot past the Mercedes he almost missed it. He braked to a halt at a crossroads and reversed.

The other car had pulled in off the road. The building it was outside looked at first like a farmhouse, until Julian saw the beer advertisement in the window.

The young couple had got out and were entering the door to the bar. Julian drove the Fiat in next to their car.

On the other side of the Mercedes was a third car: another Fiat, only this was a big, prestige model, painted a hideous metallic green. Julian wondered who it could belong to.

He got out of his car and followed the others into the bar.

IV

PETER USHER PUT DOWN his safety razor, dipped his washcloth in hot water and washed the remains of the shaving cream off his face. He studied himself in the mirror.

He picked up a comb and drew his long hair back off his face, so that it lay flat above his ears and on top of his head. He combed it carefully down the back of his neck and tucked the long ends under his shirt collar.

Without the beard and mustache his face took on a different appearance. His hooked nose and pointed, receding chin gave him the look of a spiv, especially with his hair slicked back.

He put the comb down and picked up his jacket. It would do. It was only a precaution, anyway.

He walked from the bathroom into the kitchen of the little house. The ten canvases were there, bound in newspapers and tied with string, stacked up against the wall. He stepped around them and went out through the kitchen door.

Mitch′s van was parked in the lane at the bottom of the garden. Peter opened the rear doors and wedged them with a pair of planks. Then he began loading the paintings.

The morning was still cool, although the sun was bright and the day promised to be warm. Some of the precautions they were taking were a bit extreme, Peter thought as he lugged a heavy frame down the cracked garden path. Still, it was a good plan: dozens of possible snags had been foreseen and taken care of. Each of them was changing his or her appearance slightly. Of course, if it ever came to an identification lineup the disguises would not be enough—but there was no way it could come to that.