The Last Judgement

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 Bottando. It wasn’t in his nature. Nor was it in Flavia’s, more to the point.

‘Morning, General,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Sign here, please.’

He did as he was told.

‘Don’t you want to know what it is you’ve signed? It could have been anything. You should be more careful.’

‘I trust you, my dear,’ he said, looking at her a little anxiously.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got that look on your face.’

‘A little job,’ he said.

‘Oh, good.’

‘Yes. A murder. Peculiar thing, apparently. But we may have to stake out a minor interest in it. The Carabinieri phoned up twenty minutes ago, asking if we could send someone down.’

‘I’ll go,’ she said. She didn’t like murder at all, but beggars can’t be choosers these days. Anything to get out of the office.

‘You’ll have to. There’s no one else around. But I don’t think you’ll like it.’

She eyed him carefully. Here it comes, she thought. ‘Why not?’

‘Giulio Fabriano’s been promoted to homicide,’ Bottando said simply, an apologetic look on his face.

‘Oh, no,’ she wailed. ‘Not him again. Can’t you send someone else?’