Death and Restoration (25 page)

Running and dodging the crowds and concentrating on arriving as swiftly as possible gave her little time to dwell on this problem. She had one chance to catch this man with the icon and link the entire case together, and she wasn’t going to miss it again. She only hoped that her guess about Mary Verney was right. What if, at this moment, she was standing on top of the Gianicolo handing the thing over?

If she was, she was. Too late to do anything about it. Besides, there was the gallery. She slowed down, waited for Giulia to catch up, and stood uncertainly, getting her breath back.

“What do we do now?”’

“Wait. And hope.”

Flavia looked around. “Might as well sit down and look inconspicuous, I guess.”

She led the way over to a cafe, and commandeered a table which gave a good view of the gallery and its approaches.

“What about a back entrance?”’ Giulia asked.

“There isn’t one. I know this place.”

She ordered a bottle of water and drank, opened her bag and peered anxiously at her gun. Then she scrabbled around in the depths to find the bullets she kept in a little purse. As a matter of principle she always refused to go around with a loaded gun in her pocket. Rules now said she had to have one. They never said anything about it being ready to go off at any moment.

Giulia looked nervously at the unpractised way she loaded it.

“Quite right,” Flavia said grimly. “The only time I ever tried to fire one of these things in the past, I nearly killed Jonathan.”

The trainee smiled wanly.

“How do we know he’s not already been and gone?”’

A good question. Flavia looked up as she considered an answer, then frowned. “Because he’s coming down the street now, that’s why.”

She nodded in the direction of the Piazza Navona, and Giulia peered round to see in the flesh the man she’d only seen before in a grainy photograph. He was tall, quite handsome, apart from an incipient paunchiness, and very, very businesslike. The sort of person who was not going to frighten easily and might well not come quietly.

“I think,” Flavia said, “the best thing to do would be to leap on him from behind as he comes out of the shop. He’ll be holding the icon, so will have one arm occupied, and two of us should be able to get him on the ground. Once he’s collected the picture he should relax a little as well.”

Giulia nodded stiffly.

“Nervous?”’

Another tight-lipped little nod.

“Join the club. Come on,” she said as Mikis vanished into the shop. “Stations. You take that side of the door, I’ll take the other.”

She dropped a note on the table to pay for the water and the two women walked across the street, desperately trying to look like a pair of shoppers concerned with nothing more than buying a small memento for a beloved aunt’s birthday.

Flavia was sweating with nervousness, and she noticed that Giulia was trembling with simple fright. She hoped the girl wouldn’t make a mess of things. If both of them did what they should, they stood a decent chance. But if Giulia froze, then she would leave Flavia in deep trouble.

They took up positions on either side of the shop door, Flavia consulting her watch and trying to look like a girlfriend on the verge of being stood up, Giulia concentrating her attention on a red open-topped car with two men in their twenties in it, playing their stereo at an unsociable volume, glancing around to make sure everyone else was looking at them, deliberately doing their best to incite hostility by their noisiness. Don’t go over and ask them to turn it down, Flavia thought. Please. All around, the street was full of people, coming and going, walking arm-in-arm, enjoying the sunlight and warmth. Peaceful and normal people leading a peaceful and normal life. And not a sign of Paolo, nor of anyone else. Where was everyone?

And then it was too late to hope for reinforcements. The door of the gallery opened, and Charanis, with a parcel under his arm, walked out. He paused in the little entrance way before stepping out into the street. Flavia made sure she could grab her gun, the youths in the car turned up the volume still further, and drummed a beat on the side of the door, bobbing their head in time to the music. Giulia looked desperately at her, waiting for a sign, a look of grim determination on her face.

Flavia nodded, and leaped forward to grab Charanis’s free arm, and was relieved to see that Giulia did the same. “You’re under arrest,” she said.

She felt Charanis’s muscles tense up and noticed that the sudden movement and shout had drawn the interested attention of the men in the car, as well as one or two passers-by. One of them got out of the car to see what was happening. Charanis dropped the picture, and began to crouch down to fight for his freedom.

But the man in the car walked forward just as he was beginning to use all his strength to wrench himself free. “Help us,” Flavia. said. He looked her straight in the eyes, then gave a strange little smile.

There was very little noise and it was almost completely muffled by the cacophony of drumming coming from the car; but Charanis suddenly doubled over so violently that he broke free from Giulia’s grasp, and collapsed on to the floor. The young man calmly picked up the package with the icon, walked over to the car, and got in. It screamed off down the street. No more than seven seconds. There were no screams and no rush of pedestrians to get out of danger. It had been so quick, so neat and tidy, no one had even noticed. Until the thick stream of blood ran away from Charanis’s collapsed body and gathered in a large pool in the gutter.

Flavia recovered her senses first; Giulia was standing looking down at her dress and the red stain that had spread down it. “Call an ambulance,” she said once it was clear that she hadn’t been injured. “Quickly.”

And she bent on her knee to feel for Charanis’s pulse. It was a waste of time. A crowd was gathering, talking nervously and excitedly, and she should have taken control and made sure they kept their distance. But she didn’t. She just sat beside the body and stared into space. She had, no idea what had happened or why.

She didn’t notice the one person who could have explained it to her. At the back of the crowd, a small old man with grey hair and a grim look on his face had watched it all stonily and impassively. From the moment he had left Mary, he had worked hard. He had made sure she was followed every step of the way to keep her safe. And when she had told him where the handover was to be, he had given his orders. He felt it was his duty to be there. In all his long life he had often been ruthless and often cruel, but he had never been a coward and had never walked away from his responsibilities. He fixed his mistakes, and he had now fixed his biggest mistake. After a few moments, he turned round and walked down the street to where his limousine was waiting to take him to the airport.

18

Argyll’s section of the city was less violent, but hardly more tranquil. He didn’t know about the incipient elevation of Father Paul; nor, as yet, did Father Paul, who went into the meeting that had been hurriedly called hoping that he might be able to make out his case, yet again, for being allowed to go home. No; Argyll’s disturbance came from the bundle of documents that he was inching his way through, painfully, word by word and with frequent references to the volume of teach yourself ancient Greek that he had borrowed from the library. If what Father Charles had told him was true, rather than senile fantasy, then a lot of the bits of paper were missing. That hardly bothered him; there was enough to suggest that the general outline was accurate enough, even though proof of the identity of Brother Angelus seemed hard to come by. Practically speaking it didn’t matter, although it was tiresome.

The trouble came from the long reflective pauses that his labours forced him to make. it was a boring job that he was doing, and he was tired. The pauses, as he stared vacantly out of the window, got longer, and the thoughts that filled his mind as more conscious activity took over became more haphazard and random. And, ultimately, more provoking.

For example, he found himself considering the one little detail which, as far as he could tell, everyone else had forgotten about entirely. Which was, if none of the obvious candidates had bashed Father Charles on the head, who had? If the refuse collectors had seen no one but Burckhardt and Mary Verney leave by the church’s main door, how had it got out of the building?

He had a meditative stab at the irregular subjunctive for a while, then considered another matter. He had bought the shopping at the market that day. Now why did that occur to him, apart from the fact that he had to do the same again today? And something else. Burckhardt had a bag with him. Too small, by the sound of it, to fit the picture in. Must have been the money, and he must have left disappointed. If Father Xavier had come to the church shortly before, he must have unlocked the door. He was then attacked. Burckhardt arrived and left without the picture. Therefore the picture disappeared before the door was locked and could not … Did that stand to reason? It did, he thought. It did.

He stood up. A man can only stand so much Greek in one day, and in Argyll’s case the limit was about two lines of the stuff. He’d have another go at Father Charles. He could read it to him, if he was in his right mind. If not, then who knew what he might tell him today? Might conceivably tell him where Atlantis is. Or the lost Treasure of the Templars. Besides, there was no one else around. Everyone had scurried into the library with earnest looks on their faces and had not yet emerged.

Father Charles was not only aware, he seemed in better form than before, even pleased to have a visitor. He took the proffered manuscript with a light smile.

“Do they not teach Greek in English schools?”’ he asked with surprise.

“A bit rusty,” Argyll explained.

“Oh. What have you learned so far?”’

It was like an exam and, as the old man clearly had no remembrance of what he had said the previous day, Argyll responded in a traditional manner. He cheated, and laid out a brief summary of the conversation.

“It sounds unlikely, but I wondered whether this monk, this Brother Angelus, was some high dignitary of the eastern empire. And that he brought the icon with him.”

Father Charles’s eyes twinkled. “Very good, sir. Very good. I’m impressed. He was, as you say, a high dignitary, whose identity is unknown.”

“Is it?”’

The old man nodded. “It is. A very closely guarded secret at the time, and a very closely guarded secret now.”

“It was the Emperor.”

Father Charles raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that? There is no evidence.”

“Yes, there is. But you are sitting on it. You took it out of the folder.”

“Goodness, that was very clever of you.” He looked puzzled. “I really can’t imagine how you figured that out.”

Argyll decided not to tell him.

“Still, you are right. It was the Emperor.”

“So why hide the information?”’

“To preserve his memory from people like you. And those other people who came nosing around. It would spoil the story, don’t you think? The image of the courageous last Emperor, falling on the walls in the midst of the battle; it is one of the great moments of our history, I always think. How sad if it had to be replaced by a tale of his sneaking on a ship, leaving his men and hiding out in a monastery for the last miserable years of his life.”

“But he was planning a counter-attack. Wasn’t he?”’

“Yes. I believe so, but like most of his projects it came to nothing. His main supporter, Pope Callixtus, died and his successor was more interested in nepotism and works of art than in the safety of Christendom. Constantine—that’s the Emperor, by the way—died a year or so later. Suddenly.”

“How suddenly?”’

“He was struck down by violent stomach pains one evening, after dinner. He died in great agony two days later. Personally, I think it had all the signs of poisoning. That would not have been surprising. There were a large number of people who had a vested interest in the papacy not wasting money on crusades. More for them. Besides, everyone was already negotiating deals with the Turks. Another war would not have been in the interests of the papacy, nor of Venice or Genoa. Constantine was a dreamer and an embarrassment. And he died, allowing the story of his heroism to live on.”

“And you’re making sure that happens.”

Father Charles nodded. “I am not such a vandal that I have destroyed anything. But all the essential bits of paper are well hidden. It would take months of searching to piece the story together again, even if you knew what you were looking for. Do you know what the icon is?”’

“Yes. The Hodigitria.”

Again Father Charles indicated his approval. It was strange, Argyll thought. Like talking to two entirely different people.

“A leap of the imagination on your part, and very impressive, I must say. Yes. That is what it is. Painted by St Luke himself, and left by the Emperor in the monastery under the guardianship of his servant Gratian and his family. He gave instructions that it should never leave the walls of the monastery unless it returned in state to a Christian Constantinople. And cursed be he who disregards that charge. The Emperor himself swore to destroy anyone who laid impious hands on it, and got his servant to swear the same.”

And then, with a leap of the imagination which was real this time, rather than fake, Argyll knew exactly what had happened. It was so clear and obvious, that he was slightly surprised he had not figured it out before.

“You were in that church that morning, weren’t you? When Father Xavier was attacked?”’

He nodded. “It is my habit, when I am well, to pass an hour in contemplation early in the morning, before the others get up. That morning I was indeed well enough.”

“So you saw what happened?”’

He smiled, then shook his head. “Not a thing.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yes,” he agreed equably. “I am.”

“Did you take the icon?”’

“Of course not. She doesn’t need me to look after her.”

Argyll looked at him steadily, and Father Charles gestured around the almost bare room. “You may search if you wish.”