Giotto's Hand

“He came and asked what had happened. About the theft, the handover and what had gone wrong. I told him, and he said he was sorry I’d gone to jail for something I hadn’t done, and if I wanted to clear my name by retracting my confession that would be fine by him. And he gave me some money, like I said.”

“But he didn’t actually say he’d done it?”

“Well, no. Not exactly.”

“So how did you know his name?”

“He told me. And gave me his card, in case I missed something and wanted to contact him.”

“Gave you his card. I see. Describe him, would you?”

“I’m not so good on that sort of thing. A bit shortsighted…”

“You should get glasses, then. Do your best. Remember your grandmother.”

“Well, now. He was English, like I say. Rotten Italian. Late fifties or older. Full head of hair, dark brown, almost black… well-cut. Almost well-dressed. Average height, well-built for his age.”

“Average this, average that,” Bottando commented. “Very useful. No distinguishing features? Duelling scars or anything?”

“Not that I noticed. I’m doing my best.”

“Of course. So someone freely tells you his name, gives you his card, visits you in prison, asks you about lots of things that he should have known already had he stolen the painting. And you think that he was clearly responsible for the theft. You must think he was as stupid as you are, hmm?”

Sandano looked offended.

“I suppose you threw the card out?” Bottando asked, then nodded without surprise when Sandano said he had.

“Giacomo, please. As a friend, listen to me. Take my advice.”

“What?”

“Go straight. Give it up. Get a job.”

“Everybody tells me that. Even that judge.”

“You should listen. Now, one last thing. Those statues. What happened to them? Where are they?”

Sandano looked bashful.

“Come on. You might as well get it over and done with. I won’t tell.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“They’re under my grandmother’s bed. You must know that if she… Oh. I’ve done it again.”

Bottando nodded and beamed at him. “That’s what I say, give up.”

“Lovely man,” he said under his breath as he left.

He rang Flavia as soon as he’d finished having a thoughtful drink in the nearby bar to consider matters, and told her about Fra Angelico.

She was not happy to hear his interpretation, especially as it was obviously right: as Bottando said, it’s what comes of underestimating the stupidity of the criminal classes.

“Little moron,” she said when he finished. “When I get my hands on him next time…”

“You can torment him at your leisure. But you see what this means, don’t you?”

“If Forster stole that painting, what the hell was he playing at by going back to talk to Sandano?”

“That’s the problem. It would still be possible to make out a very good case for this all being a figment of my imagination. Especially if you now tell me that his death might not have had anything to do with his business at all. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“It’s a theory, and not a bad one.”

“That’s the trouble. Everything’s circumstantial. Can you get me something? One way or the other. Preferably proving that the time and money you’ve spent hasn’t been a gross waste of department resources such as would be approved only by a senile old lunatic?”

“Ah. Argan. I was going to ask about him.”

“Yes,” said Bottando. “Him. He seems to have laid off for the moment. Perhaps he’s decided we were right to investigate. Certainly he seems to have stopped trying to use it as evidence against me. There’s not been a memo for days now. But I’m convinced there will be: I can hardly wait. I’m sure it will come to nothing. Can you really see people supporting that little twerp rather than me?”

Flavia shook her head silently as she put the phone down. Poor old Bottando, she thought. He was really beginning to clutch at straws. Besides, a nasty thought had just occurred to her.

14

It was one of the great tragedies in the life of the senior partner in the local medical practice that his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Johnson, of Ipswich, had christened him Samuel. It was similarly a tragedy of only slightly less proportions that the lad had, from an early age, desired to become a physician. All his life, it seemed, people had smirked when introduced to him. There could be no jest on the theme of Boswell that he had not heard many times over. The great lexicographer’s comments on physicians he knew as well as if he’d written them himself, so often had they returned to haunt him.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, MD, was, as a result, a man of resigned temperament. And, by some strange fluke of psychology, he had found himself growing, over the years, to look more and more like the eighteenth-century know-all who was the bane of his existence. He was short, round and dishevelled, his jacket splotched with old food, and his reading glasses always perched at an unnatural angle at the end of his nose.