Giotto's Hand

He started off slowly, on structural matters, gradually drawing the attention of the meeting to the way decisions were taken in the department and how Bottando was ultimately responsible for them. He then went through the statistics on the number of crimes and the number of recoveries and arrests. Even Bottando could hardly put his hand on his heart and say they were good.

“Numbing and meaningless figures,” Argan went on carelessly. “And I hope that I can make the problem clearer by referring to some particular incidents. In the past couple of weeks there have been several crimes of varying seriousness and not a single one has been cleared up or even investigated competently. General Bottando will no doubt tell you that they could not be cleared up in such a short time. That art crimes need to ripen before they are ready for harvest. For generations, if necessary.

“I do not believe that. I believe that a properly organized and focused approach would have a much higher success rate. Strike while the iron is hot. That should be the watchword.

“It is clearly not the motto of the department as it is currently run. When an Etruscan site of major importance is looted. General Bottando sends off one of his girls to talk to some old woman with a grudge about a thirty-year-old crime. When a gallery in the via Giulia is raided, is it investigated? No; the same girl hares off instead to talk to a convicted criminal about some cock and bull story. The crimes and the thefts mount up and off we go to England, where any nonsense is chased after.

“And why? Because the General has a pet theory. For years now, despite all the evidence of how organized crime is responsible for much of art theft, and despite the fact that routine technology is demonstrably superior. General Bottando has been obsessed with an outmoded, romantic notion. In brief, he believes in the master criminal, the shadowy figure who roams free and undetected. Nobody else even suspects the existence of this person, of course. Not a single policeman throughout Europe agrees with him. All common sense screams it is complete nonsense. But, by using entirely spurious reasoning, you can prove anything—and as a former art historian, believe me I know.”

A little jest, Bottando thought absently. He is confident. But then, of course, so he should be. He is using exactly the same techniques. He knows as well as I do that I never believed in Giotto. He knows that I hadn’t even thought about it for years. He knows that Flavia saw Sandano for only a few minutes. And he knows, above all, that it would never have gone any further if he hadn’t turned his attention on it and started manipulating. The slug.

And Argan was still talking, referring to the dangers of applying spurious theories to inadequate evidence, of wasting police effort as a result. Discipline, he was saying. Rigorous, coordinated control to keep attention focused where it was most needed. Times of economic stringency. No room in the modern world for the hunch, the flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants approach. Need to conserve police—should he say the taxpayers?— resources. Value for money. Cost-effectiveness. Productivity. Authority. Goal-oriented. Accountability.

Not a single buzzword left unused, not a single soft spot unprodded. Argan finished by saying all the right things; the civil servants positively glowed as he trotted out all the watchwords of their trade. They were lost to Bottando’s cause anyway, probably. But even the policemen present looked uncomfortable. And they were the ones he was going to have to win back. Flavia, who deeply resented every word the man had said, especially the cracks about silly girls, glowered menacingly from her subordinate position at the end of the table, using up all her willpower to stop herself from going over and hitting him.

“General?” said the minister with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid you have had to listen to a fairly critical account of your department. I’m sure you would like to reply.”

“I suppose so,” Bottando said, leaning forward in his chair, taking out his reading glasses and perching them on the end of his nose so he could peer round the table in a more magisterial fashion. “And I must say I am rather sad that Dottore Argan, after spending so much time in the department, appears to have formed such a low opinion of the way we go about things.

“I have tried to tell him that the department was set up to defend the national heritage and recover it where possible. On several occasions where there has been a conflict between catching a criminal and recovering an important work, we have always been instructed to do the latter. The attention we give is directly related to this; in the case of the Etruscan site robbery, an assault was committed and the case was taken up by the Carabinieri: we offered assistance and were told it wasn’t necessary.”

“Petty bureaucratic demarcation dispute. Surely we are beyond that sort of thing by now?” Argan muttered darkly.