The Titian Committee

By no stretch of the imagination could he be considered handsome, even in the best of circumstances. Late forties, he had a thin face, slightly pointy nose, blotchy skin and small colourless eyes. Apart from that, there was not much to be said for him. If one of the fishermen in the lagoon accidentally dredged up a large herring, dressed it in a crumpled grey suit and arranged it in a chair with a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles over its nose, the resemblance would have been extraordinary.

‘Signorina di Stefano,’ he said eventually, with too much emphasis on the ‘signorina’ for Flavia’s taste. ‘The elegantly-dressed young expert from Rome come to show us how to catch murderers.’ The slightly watery smile that accompanied this made her suspect he was not wildly enthused about making her acquaintance. She was quick that way.

‘From Rome, yes. Expert, no,’ she replied, deploying her sweetest and most disarming smile for the occasion. ‘Whatever the accomplishments of my department, catching murderers is scarcely one of them.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Solely to help if you decide you want it. We do know a lot about the art world, after all. General Bottando was very much of the opinion that my assistance wouldn’t be needed. But as the minister insisted, here I am. You know how ministers are.’

‘And I suppose you’ll go away in a few days and write a report about us,’ he stated with a suggestion of suspicious sarcasm in his voice. ‘No doubt trying to save your own skin.’

Aha. The carabinieri grapevine was working with its usual efficiency. Bovolo had evidently heard Bottando’s back was against the wall, and it didn’t sound as though he was going to do much to help. She’d been afraid of that, but had prepared as best she could.

‘I was hoping to ask you for a favour there,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘As you will be the man on top of the job, knowing exactly what was going on, I wondered – I know of course how busy you must be at the moment – if perhaps you might prepare it for me. Then we could avoid unnecessary errors…’

She smiled cutely once more and could see he’d taken the point. She was giving him the chance of virtually dictating what the report contained – or did not contain. A handsome offer, to her way of thinking. If that didn’t cut the hostility level, nothing would. And, of course, she could always add on appendices and footnotes in Rome.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure I approve of my department doing your job for you, but maybe it would be the best way of making sure all those interfering bureaucrats get an accurate account.’

He nodded and brightened as he considered the choice words of praise for himself he could insert at strategic places.

‘Yes,’ he said, very much happier. ‘Probably quite wise. But I don’t want you hanging around here and getting in our way, you know. We’re busy, understaffed and have got better things to worry about than the murder of a foreigner who didn’t have enough sense to look after herself.’

Evidently not a man who could accept a gift with grace.

‘I’ve no doubt,’ said Flavia, slightly perturbed, but pleased nonetheless that she appeared to be making some progress. ‘And I’d be more than happy to help in any way you suggest.’

‘Well, now,’ he said dubiously, clearly trying to think of something suitably unimportant, ‘I gather you’re the educated type. Languages.’ He had a tone which implied this was a somewhat indecent attainment.

It was becoming a bit of an effort to keep up the vacuous smile. She hoped his manner would improve before her limited reserves of tolerance ran out entirely.

‘Maybe you could talk to some of her colleagues?’ he went on, paying no attention to the increasingly strained appearance of her facial muscles. ‘There’s no point, of course, as we’re after our man already. But it shows we’ve covered all angles. You could have a quick word with them, read over the documents, and go back to Rome tomorrow. You are going tomorrow, aren’t you?’ he added, half-suspecting a nasty complication.

‘Yes. Or the day after. And I’d be happy to talk to them. But haven’t you done that already?’ she asked with some surprise.

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Of course we have. Indeed. Detailed interviews. But it would do no harm to talk to them again, I’m sure. Keep you busy and out of our way.’

‘Well, in that case,’ she said briskly, dropping the smile on the grounds that it was doing little to advance her cause, ‘perhaps you could tell me what it’s all about? The details down in Rome were very vague. Nobody there knows what happened or how. It would be a help to know. If, that is, you can spare the time.’

Bovolo swivelled his fishy little eyes in her direction, not sure whether she was being polite or sarcastic. ‘Hmph,’ he snorted, gracious as ever. ‘Oh, well, why not? Might even help to hear the views of an outsider.’ He clearly thought nothing of the sort, but it was at least an attempt to be civil. Flavia tried to appear flattered.

‘The victim’s name,’ he began after a lengthy shuffle through the piles of papers on his desk, ‘was Louise Mary Masterson. She was thirty-eight, single, American citizen. She lived in New York and was keeper of Western Art at a museum there. One metre fifty-one high, good health. She joined the Titian committee eighteen months ago. This was to be her second session. They meet every year in Venice, at the taxpayers’ expense. She arrived last Monday, and the meeting began on Thursday afternoon. She missed the first session but was there on Friday. Her death took place at, as far as the doctors can say, around 9.30 p.m. the same evening.’

He spoke at a machine-gun pace, making it clear he had not the slightest interest in briefing her properly. Rather, he was making a valiant effort to spew out the maximum number of facts in the minimum time so he could get rid of the tiresome interloper as fast as possible. Flavia let him rattle away: so far, his recitation produced no details she felt like pursuing.

‘The body was discovered in the Giardinetti Reali. That, by the way, is between the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal. She worked late in the Marciana library nearby and evidently went for a walk. All public transport was on a lightning strike and she may have been waiting for a taxi to come free. She was found in a greenhouse, stabbed seven times with a knife about ten centimetres long. Penknife. Swiss Army, maybe. That sort. Once in the throat, four times in the chest, once in the shoulder and once in the arm. None was fatal if she’d got help in time, but she was clearly dragged into the greenhouse to make sure she died.’

‘So essentially she bled to death?’

‘That’s about it. Nasty way to go, I must admit. Quiet part of the world. Anywhere else, someone would have come across her in time. But that, unfortunately, is about it. None of her colleagues knows why she was there, and we’ve found no one who saw her in the garden. There weren’t many people around because of that damnable strike. Murder, obviously. But by whom and why we don’t know.’

‘Suspicions?’

‘Oh, well, now. Suspicions, of course we have. More than that. It was certainly a simple robbery that got out of hand. There was no sign of rape, and her briefcase was missing. Not a Venetian crime obviously. A Sicilian, or some other sort of foreigner, no doubt.’

Flavia decided to pass over this outrageous statement in silence. She, at least, did not consider her southern compatriots as foreigners, nor did she necessarily assume that Venetians were incapable of murder. But there was no need to ruffle feathers unnecessarily.

‘No other hints or indications of what might have taken place?’ she asked.

Bovolo shrugged in the manner of someone who has said his piece and is beginning to think further discussion unnecessary. Still, they had an understanding – she would not criticise, and he would humour her. He pushed some papers across the desk for her to examine while he continued talking.

‘Those include as much as we know of her movements before her death. There is nothing at all out of the ordinary. She didn’t know anyone in Venice apart from her colleagues; when not in the library she spent nearly all her time on the Isola San Giorgio, either in her room, eating or having meetings with the other members of the committee. These,’ he continued, just as Flavia was about to say that the details seemed very thin, ‘are photographs of the victim.’

She looked intently, more out of a wish to seem professional than because she wanted to study them. Merely glancing at them seemed almost an invasion of the woman’s privacy.

Even dead, she could see that Masterson had been a fairly striking woman. A well-formed face, make-up smudged. The clothes, dishevelled and bloodstained, were evidently of high quality and, to her eyes, a little conservative and severe. A close-up photograph of her hand showed that it was curled round a bunch of flowers, obviously grabbed hold of as she died. There was something else Flavia couldn’t make out.

‘What’s this?’

‘A lily,’ Bovolo said.

‘Not the flower. This.’ She pointed to it.

‘Crucifix,’ Bovolo said. ‘Gold. With a silver chain.’

‘That must be fairly valuable,’ she said. ‘I would have thought any robber would have taken it.’

Bovolo shrugged noncommittally. ‘Maybe, maybe not. She probably fought for it, that prompted him to kill her, he panicked and ran away. Or perhaps he really only wanted cash. It’s safer, after all.’

‘What was in her case?’

‘Professional papers, wallet, passport, that sort of thing, as far as we can work out.’ He handed over another list and a few xeroxes.

Flavia thought for a few seconds. She was very keen on instant impressions, mercurial guesses which always made Bottando adopt his long-suffering expression. He liked routine, and had tried over the years to convince her of its merits. Fair enough; he was a policeman and such procedure part of his job. She wasn’t, and preferred imagination – which was as often right as Bottando’s reliance on drudgery. Still, might as well show her devotion to method.

‘No footprints, nothing like that?’

‘It is a public garden,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Tourists tramp through all the time, treat the place like a dustbin. The shoreline was absolutely disgusting. Do you know how many empty cans and half eaten sandwiches my men had to collect?’

The last thing she wanted was to hear a long lecture on the nasty habits of tourists. Apart from the fact that Bovolo would probably want to ban all foreigners from the city, she lived in Rome and knew about the problem already.

‘I just thought that if she’d been dragged into a greenhouse there would have been some prints nearby.’

‘Well, there weren’t. Not recent ones anyway. Very dry summer, hard ground. Hasn’t rained for weeks. With a bit of luck it may any day now; we certainly need it. Of course, you can use up your time looking for yourself, if you think you can do a better job than our technical experts who have spent years examining this sort of thing…’

Flavia nodded in a way that hinted she might just do that. Not that she would, but it clearly irritated Bovolo, so was worth it.

There wasn’t much to wrap her imagination around, it had to be said. But the photos of the woman interested her strangely. How much can you tell from photographs? Not much, admittedly, but Masterson looked as though she might have been a bit complicated. She dressed in a hard, no-nonsense style that Americans often prefer; there was none of the femininity that an Italian in her position might have manifested. Her face, also, had a determined edge to it. But there was an ambiguity there. Underneath was something softer, especially around the eyes, which contradicted the firm set of the mouth. Masterson gave the impression of someone trying to be more ruthless than was natural. She might have been quite pleasant had you managed to get through to her.