The Last Judgement - Iain Pears

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no financial gain in it for himself. In his heart, he hadn’t really expected tears of joy to burst forth at the very sight. Even for the aficionado, the painting was not instantly appealing. It was, after all, very dirty and unkempt; the varnish had long since dulled, and it had none of that glossy air of well-cared-for contentment that shines forth from decent pictures in museums.

      ‘Let me see,’ said Muller non-committally, and he completed his examination, pressing the canvas to see how loose it was, checking the frame for woodworm, examining the back to see how well the stretcher was holding up. Quite professional, really; Argyll hadn’t expected such diligence. Nor had he expected the growing look of disappointment that had spread slowly over the man’s face.

      ‘You don’t like it,’ he said.

      Muller looked up at him. ‘Like it? No. Frankly, I don’t. Not my sort of thing at all. I’d been expecting something a bit more …’

      ‘Colourful?’ Argyll suggested. ‘Well-painted? Lively? Assured? Dignified? Masterful? Adept?’

      ‘Interesting,’ Muller said. ‘That’s all. Nothing more. At one stage this was in an important collection. I expected something more interesting.’

      ‘I am sorry,’ Argyll said sympathetically. He was, as well. There is no disappointment quite so poignant as being let down by a work of art, when your hopes have built up, and are suddenly dashed by being confronted with grim, less-than-you-expected reality. He had felt like that himself on many occasions. The first time he’d seen the Mona Lisa, when he was only sixteen or so, he’d fought through the vast throng in the Louvre with mounting excitement to get to the holy of holies. And, when he arrived, there was this tiny little squit of a picture, hanging on the wall. Somehow it should have been … more interesting than it was. Muller was right. There was no other word for it.

      ‘You can always hang it in a corridor,’ he suggested.

      Muller shook his head.

      ‘You make me a bit sorry I didn’t allow it to get stolen,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘Then you could have claimed on insurance and got your money back.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      Argyll explained. ‘As I say, if I’d known you didn’t want it, I’d have told him to take the thing away and welcome to it.’

      Somehow his attempts to cheer Muller up didn’t work. The idea of such an easy solution having been missed made him even more introspective.

      ‘I didn’t realize such a thing might happen,’ he said. Then, jerking himself out of the mood, he went on: ‘I’m afraid I’ve put you to a great deal of trouble for nothing. So I feel awkward about asking you for something else. But would you be prepared to take it off my hands? Sell it for me? I’m afraid I couldn’t stand having this in the house.’

      Argyll gave a variety of facial contortions to indicate the dire state of the market at the moment. It all depended on how much he’d bought it for. And how much he wanted to sell it for. Privately he was thinking dark thoughts to himself about people with too much money.

      Muller said it had been ten thousand dollars, plus various commissions. But he’d be prepared to take less. As a penalty for buying things sight unseen. ‘Think of it as a stupidity tax,’ he said with a faint smile, an acknowledgement which made Argyll warm to him once more.

      So a mild spot of negotiation ensued which ended with Argyll agreeing to put the picture in an auction for him, and seeing if he could get a better price elsewhere before the sale took place. He left with the brown paper package under his arm once more, and a decent cheque in his pocket for services rendered.

      After that he spent the rest of the morning cashing the cheque, then went on to the auction house to hand over the painting for valuation and entry into the next month’s sale.

       3

      It was no good, Flavia thought to herself as she surveyed the debris all around her. Something will have to be done about this and soon. She had arrived late at her office in Rome’s Art Theft Department and, after an hour, had achieved nothing.

      It was September, for heaven’s sake. Not August, when she expected everyone in Rome to be on holiday. Nor was one of the local football teams playing at home. She herself was rarely to be seen when Roma or Lazio were playing. What was the point? All Italian government came to an abrupt halt when an important match was on. Even the thieves stopped work for a really big one.

      But today there were no excuses, and it was still impossible to get hold of anyone. She’d phoned the Interior Ministry with an important message only to be told that every secretary, under-secretary, deputy under-secretary, everyone, in fact, from minister to floor-sweeper, was busy. And what was the excuse? Some foreign delegation in town for a beano at the public expense. Top-level meetings. International accords. Mutterings of civil servants and lawyers in dark corners on legal and financial regulations and how to get round stipulations from Brussels. How to obey the letter, and disregard the meaning. All over the continent, similar meetings were taking place. That’s what unity is all about. Fiddlesticks. No wonder the country was going to the dogs.

      And she’d arrived feeling enthusiastic for once, despite the lack of anything really interesting to do. Argyll had recovered from his excursion to Paris, more or less, and at last had something to occupy himself. His client had said yesterday he didn’t want the picture and, as he was getting 10 per cent of the sale price on commission, he’d decided to waste today seeing what he could find out about it. Some notion about trying to up its value a little. He’d come back fired with enthusiasm from at last having a task to undertake and had scuttled off first thing to the library.

      She sympathized with his efforts to find himself something to do; she was in much the same position herself. Not only was the art market in a bit of a slump; the drop in prices had triggered a knock-on effect in the world of crime as well. Or maybe all reputable art thieves had bought package tours for Czechoslovakia, the one place in Europe now where it was even easier to steal art than Italy. Only the second-rankers were still in the country, it seemed. There were the usual break-ins, and all that; but it was petty-crime stuff for the most part. Nothing to get your teeth into.

      And what did that leave? Filing, as Argyll had so maliciously suggested. In her own little room she could see several dozen miscellaneous files lying around on the floor. Her boss, General Bottando, had several dozen more in various states of disarray. And across the corridor, in the rabbit-warren of little rooms occupied by the other members of staff, probably about half the contents of what was laughingly known as their archives were being used to rest coffee-cups on, prop up desks and as improvised floor-coverings.

      Organization and tidiness were not her strong points, normally, and she was quite prepared to admit that she was as bad as anyone else in the building – except for Bottando, but he was in charge so could do as he liked – at putting things away. But every now and then some faint echo of house-proud zeal would rumble in her deepest subconscious and she would develop, enthusiastically if only temporarily, a passion for method and order. Perhaps Jonathan was right, she said to herself reluctantly. Maybe I should do something about this place.

      So she picked all the files off the floor and stacked them on her desk, and found underneath one of them a small pile of forms requiring Bottando’s immediate signature three weeks ago. No time like the present, she thought; so, both to get this little matter seen to and to inform her boss that all pursuit of the criminal element of society would cease until the files were put into order, she marched briskly and with an air of purposeful efficiency up the stairs to Bottando’s room.

      ‘Ah, Flavia,’ said Bottando as she marched in, omitting to knock as usual. That was all right; she never did manage to remember, and Bottando was used to it. Some people stand on their dignity. Many a senior Polizia man would produce a freezing look and remind himself – and his subordinates – that this was a general here who should have his door knocked on politely. But not

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