1st part link : https://steemit.com/story/@stanley114/the-art-of-thieves-story-first-part
2nd part link **: https://steemit.com/story/@stanley114/the-art-of-thieves-story-part-two#
**> * **Part Three*****
the justification for including all this in the collection. What we need is a set of Babylonian teeth, and one or two of their dental artefacts, to get us going at the left end of the case. I must look around.’
‘With that fine Etruscan set as the finale?’
She was regarding this magnificent object, once part of the ruminatory equipment of an aged male Etruscan of a very late period, which showed clearly the sophisticated dental therapy carried out. How quickly things were resolved between them, Robert thought. No fuss, no argument into which personality or politics was loaded, as was nearly always the case with the other curators. If he and Gabbi disagreed, which was not infrequently, it was always substantive. Eventually one of them acknowledged that the other was better informed on the subject.
‘A whopping idea,’ he said.
They went to work automatically. They had a brief discussion about the shelving, what went where. He then continued to unpack and sort, while Gabbi began to make a preliminary positioning of the objects.
Robert did not realise how the work had postponed a remaining dilemma. As they laboured, he had thought that this was all he wanted. Simply, that Gabbi’s presence, their easy everyday professional connection, should be renewed. It was not until he looked at his watch, and saw that in a few minutes Carmina Manfreddi would be arriving to open up and take charge of the entrance hall, that he realised how things had changed for him in the last hours. He looked at Gabbi’s back, turned to him, her copious brown hair falling forwards as she bent to her task, her slender waist, the curve of her hips, and knew that he loved her, that he had done for months, and that this was the one involuntary, indisputable certainty of his existence.
He felt breathless. Would he ask her up to the empty flat for a cup of tea? He imagined a scene up there. His — no, not a declaration. Between him and Gabbi there would surely be no need of such an overture? If it happened, they would both have to know. It would be instantaneous combustion, or it would not happen.
She finished positioning the last object and closed the glass door. ‘There. What do you think?’
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He came to her side. ‘It looks about right first time.’
‘You think? We can leave it, take it by surprise tomorrow. We’ll have to cover it tonight, won’t we? There won’t be time to put all the tags in position.’
He realised they had spoken of nothing but the case since her arrival. Of Mortimer’s paddy, his London trip, not a word. Perhaps, after all, the tea upstairs?
But she looked at her watch. ‘God, I must go,’ she said in her almost flawless English. ‘Giancarlo will be back, screaming for food.’
Giancarlo would be back, with it her duty to him, and why should he assume she performed that duty with anything less than joy? The surge of emotion he had felt curved and spent itself like a broken wave.
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7
Reg woke and felt the bed shake. It took him a moment to realize he was back in Rome and that he had company. He sat up and observed the girl, who was already up. She was sitting on her side of the bed pulling on her tights. She wore white gloves for the operation and was otherwise naked.
‘You’re up bright and early. I thought you had the day off’
‘I have.’
‘Just bright and early?’
He put one hand behind his head, comfortably. She had the things on now and was wriggling them straight. He observed anew her breasts, which were in the fair to middling category he preferred and milk white below the tan. They swung slightly with her movements. He also liked the Australian accent, warm and caustic by turns. This morning, it seemed, they were into a caustic phase.
‘And what will you do when you’re dressed?’
‘I’m going.’
‘Going where? I thought you wanted us to spend the day together?’
There was no answer to this. She got up, clawing behind her back at the attaching mechanism of a white brassiere. Why didn’t someone invent something easier for them? It was like a pilot climbing into harness.
‘Well, I’m sorry if we’re not. I was looking forward to it.’
‘The part you looked forward to is finished, isn’t it?’
Now this was plain unfair. She had enjoyed it as much as he had, as on the other occasions, and who had made the first sighting and approach last night? None the less, he was prepared to concede. Perhaps she had eaten something.
‘Have I transgressed in some way, Lucy?’
‘No.’
‘Then why am I in the doghouse? I didn’t seem to be last night.’
She sat on the bed again, faced him, and dropped the aggressive manner. ‘It’s no good, Reg — this nibbling between meals. Not for
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me. I swore when I saw you a month ago it would be the last time.’
‘But when you saw me in the hotel last night you changed your mind, right?’
‘Yes. I’m not blaming you. You know you always turn me on. The fact is, as you well know, I’m too fond of you. But you’re SO..
‘I’m so?’
‘Well, you don’t want a proper relationship. For you it is tidbits here and there. You’ve got a vital part missing.’
‘Not getting the main course from me, you mean, Luce? I thought you always were. I thought we had fun together.’
‘We do. We do have fun. Sometimes there’s no one I’d rather be with. But underneath you’re always sort of distant. Being with you is like seeing someone you know in another train travelling on another track. And the fact is, Reg, I’m twenty-six. I’ve got to think of my future.’
He did not care for the trend of this conversation. Simplicities seemed in danger. But he seized with some relief on this last statement. It was perfectly clear what this was about. When women like Lucy talked about their futures they meant only one thing. He left a short silence in respect for this reality.
‘What you mean, Luce,’ he said then, with sympathy, ‘is that you’ve met someone you want to keep.’
She looked sulky. ‘Perhaps I have.’
‘In England?’
‘No, Kuala Lumpur. I met him there on a stop -over about three months ago. He wants to marry me. I think I’m going to.’
Reg sweated about this for a moment. Not about her intentions, but the place. Christ, he had forgotten she sometimes did the Rome -Melbourne run. He could have bumped into her. She could have been on his flight out or back.
‘OK, Lucy. That’s a very nice decision.’
‘You do understand. You know it’s nothing to do with — what we were talking about. If you were a different sort of man...’
‘What I understand is that you don’t want away fixtures any more. That is fair enough, entendido, entendu and capito.’
She proved difficult. Now she had got her intentions off her chest she expressed an inordinate desire to spend the day together
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after all. Wasn’t it always the same? They wanted it both ways. It was OK while they were breaking it off. They enjoyed that. But when you cheerfully agreed, they wanted to hold a memorial service for the deceased relationship. There was a lot of stuff about how she would write to him. Would he write to her sometimes? And how there was no reason they shouldn’t meet and spend a platonic evening together from time to time on her stop-overs in Rome, as his attitude was ‘so mature’, and ‘if he was free’. He liked that last phrase.
In the end he didn’t spend the day with her. After a long spiel from her about the virtues of her husband -to -be, on the whole, he said, he thought it was better they made a clean break of it. When she had gone, he had an unexpected trap-door feeling as if ground that had been there was not any more. This made him peeved. He liked Lucy. It had really seized him seeing her again, especially while swimming in the uncharted waters of the Tunku’s purposes. He could even imagine circumstances, circumstances that might not now be so far round the corner, in which things could be put on a more permanent basis. But not with her going in for this sort of amateur character analysis.
‘Distant.’ Of course he was distant. Everyone is distant. People inhabit separate bodies. You cannot crawl into someone’s armpit and nest there, as she was suggesting.
He forced himself to return to essentials. The plain fact was he had allowed himself a highly unprofessional lapse. Flying Qantas he could not easily have avoided, since he had been issued with his ticket. But when the Tunku’s minion had phoned and said he had to be in the Excelsior lobby last night at six p.m., it just had not occurred to him it was the hotel used by Qantas crews. Lucy had been far from his mind. The brief conversation with the type was over when she breezed up. She could not have heard anything, but she saw them together on the sofa, saw that they had been talking, and she had had a ringside view of the man. His face was not a variety that bred confidence, nor was it easily forgotten. The brutish bald head looked like a boulder balanced between his shoulder -blades, and his eyes were like the black centres of two Remembrance Day poppies.
‘Who the heck was that beauty you were talking to in the hotel lobby?’ she had said later in the evening.
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One thing was sure. If he ever went to Kuala again, he would not be flying Qantas.
It took him a time to get his cool back. But this he finally managed. Apart from the small aberration of Lucy Tremayne, things were going well, he told himself. Boulder -Head had not exactly been explicit, neither had he delivered a cent of the promised cash, which he had rather set his heart on receiving. But in a croaking voice the senior Godfather would have envied, within a few days of his arrival Boulder -Head had, like the Angel Gabriel, delivered the next clue in the treasure -hunt, a time and an address. There could not have been anything on paper of course, and nothing explicit on the telephone. Again, the style was convincing.
There was another plus point. If he did nothing stupid or precipitate, he suspected the urbane and easy-going Caine was going to graze nicely at his feet. Caine seemed pleased at the chance appointment he had made. Things were surely going forward as evenly as could be expected?
He gave himself to more positive speculation. Would it be the Tunku himself he was about to see again? He hoped it would be. He was beginning to feel an affinity with the man he would not have thought possible that equatorial evening — was it only three weeks ago? — beside his swimming -pool. He had no doubt now he was into the big time. Razzy had come up with some homework, and sent a coded message to his flat address. The dimensions of the missing items on the wall of the Tunku’s study were precisely those of the twin Frans Hals lifted from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam two years ago in mysterious circumstances. The coincidence was too great for another explanation to be credible. As he remembered, the police had no idea how the Hals had been stolen. No clues, immaculate. Just, one morning, they were not there. All the hallmarks of a master craftsman at work.
He was puzzled nonetheless. The Villa Aemelia had many objects of great interest, a few of some value, including a couple of Titians, but nothing that would be in the Tunku’s league one would have thought. Even the Titians were not of immense value.
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The delectable Gabriella Bruneschi, incidentally an area to be examined, was unsure of the authenticity of one of them. The other was not all Titian’s own work.
Well, tomorrow would presumably throw some light on the mystery. Dismissing the subject from the day’s agenda, he gave himself to a re-examination of the newly rented attic flat in the Campo Fiori in which he had lived during his work on Bernini. He was lucky to get it back, even with the crippling sum of key money he had had to put down to have the temporary incumbent thrown out. There were the same horrors he had never got round to changing, like the crumbling mirror whose imperfections made you think you had blackheads, and a more than usually obnoxious crucifix (raised knees, lolling head, bleeding wound, the lot). What a dismal religion Christianity was, he thought, compared with, say, the Hindus, who stuck jolly pricks and tits on to anything they could lay their hands on. The plumbing, too, left much to be desired. The wash -basin and bath exit pipes seemed to be in direct
sympathy with a main sewage conduit.
But the flat pleased him. It had a superb roof -top terrace, crammed with terracotta brimming with flowers and with a view that included the shallow inverted saucer of the Pantheon dome. Inside, crowded with once -distinguished baroque furniture and lampshades artistically decayed, it had a faded charm. Dim, brassy lustres made one feel one was inside a Rembrandt interior. And to crown his aesthetic pleasure, as he was re -admiring the place, Attila, his ex -nomadic roof -top tom, which had no doubt noted his reappearence with speedy sagacity, dropped in with a thud from the open skylight. He gave it the head of the fish he would be frying for his lunch. He watched it, half -crouched and violently masticating on the kitchen floor.
The next day he found the Galleria Ottavio on his street map. It was not so far from the flat, in a narrow side -street just off the Piazza Navona. The appointment was for ten to one. He made sure he got there in good time. He spent a moment or two observing the place from the other side of the pavementless road.
The street was not Rome’s most elegant, but the dark green paint and matching awning of the shop, the gold lettering, denoted class. In the window was a single large flower painting in a gilded
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frame mounted on a miniature black -painted easel. He watched two well -dressed women enter.
He gave the women half a minute, and followed them in. It was a long, narrow room, carpeted in a paler green, stretching back the depth of the building, the walls on either side stuffed with the sort of expensive -looking rubbish you would expect in a place like this. Half -way down one side, stairs mounted with an ornate white balustrade to an upper floor and, presumably, more exhibits. The women were attended at the far end. There were two other well-dressed men, one seated at a desk, and a younger one in attendance near him. The older one said something inaudible.
Reg pretended to view a pretty, modern representation of an opera taking place in the Baths of Caracalla — Aida by the look, there were a couple of live elephants on stage (the artist had omitted the red shit buckets they kept handy for an emergency). Out of the corner of his eye he saw the young man go to the door, lock it, pull down the blind, and turn the sign to ‘chiuso’.
Nothing happened. Should he announce himself? He had an instinct that he should not. At the far end of the gallery the women continued to talk. In a minute or two they left. The man attending them let them out of the door and relocked it behind them. Of course. The coast had to be clear.
The young man approached, paused momentarily beside him, then turned and continued. It seemed to be an invitation to follow. He did. As they passed the desk the other man did not speak or raise his eyes. For Italians, they were unusually expert at silence.
They went through a door into a poorly -decorated passage and down some stairs. At the bottom was a toilet, and a small dingy room with a table covered by a green baize cloth. Apparently minor picture repairs were carried out down here. There was an open cabinet full of small tools, and several frames stacked beside it.
‘Aspette,’ said the youth. The unadorned subjunctive was bared, in a similarly un-Italian way, to the necessary. The door shut, and the footsteps retreated upstairs.
Reg waited ten minutes. Then he heard voices briefly at the top of the stairs. Someone was coming down. He listened for the slight impediment of that leg, and found himself short of breath and standing up.
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The door opened. Revealed... the unillustrious and very unwelcome and black -suited personage of Haji Kassim. For some reason he felt his skin tighten across the top of his scalp. He sat down again quickly to counteract the sensation.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Griffin.’
There was an ironic, slight dropping of the head, which revealed the familiar jet black hair and the central parting. Not unexpectedly, there was no trace of a smile, only a disgusting stink of oriental aftershave.
Reg made corrections to his instinctive response. No doubt Kassim fancied himself as the Malaysian equivalent of a Grand Vizier, bureaucratically ordering heads off for the Sultan. But he was nothing of the sort, he told himself. He was a time -serving creep who had had his sense of humour removed at birth, and to be treated as such.
Kassim was carrying a smart black leather brief -case with brass corners and locks, one finger over the edge. He put the case on the table, well on his own side of it.
‘I think you will prefer it if we go straight to the business, yes?’ he said as, after inspecting the chair for dust, he committed his small buttocks to it, eased his crutch, pinched his trousers at both knees, and clasped his fingers in front of his face like a priest about to pray. His dismal features then assumed an even more disagreeable expression.
‘I am first to communicate to you the Tunku’s satisfaction with your services so far. He wishes me to congratulate you again on your handling of the matter in the Baker Street restaurant, which was, in His Highness’s word, “immaculate”.’ He paused, seeming to need to restore himself One could not imagine Kassim found congratulation of anyone much to his taste. ‘I am also to inform you that he considers your approach to the person we are talking about, here in Rome, to be along the right lines. A cordial relationship is much to be desired. Only upon this can any meaningful structure result. We have of course noted the progress you have made.’
Reg swallowed quickly. He was realising, a lot too slowly, what this was about. Kassim had been ordered to offer these palliatives no doubt, and was doing so, but he was making full use of them.
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Behind the suavity, he now saw, was the ugly conclusion he was meant to draw.
He rapidly drew it, and made the mistake of going public with his finding. ‘Are you telling me I’ve been under close surveillance here?’
Kassim’s contempt also went public. His mouth twitched, he made a small movement, and fully recovered his poise.
‘You will find, Mr Griffin, if you continue in Tunku Raschid’s employment any length of time, that he is a very meticulous man. There is nothing he leaves to chance. You are very much a newcomer. Naturally, yes, precautions are taken. Would you expect otherwise?’ He paused. ‘Shall we now proceed with more concrete matters?’
Who would be the sleuth in Rome? Someone in the museum, one of the guardians, Pietro perhaps? Reg was astounded that he had noticed nothing. He had been looking. But he kept these further thoughts to himself. He had already handed Kassim a couple of tricks too many. He arched his back, folded his arms, and sat back in his chair.
‘Proceed away.’
The brief -case was being opened, two little explosions which Kassim took care to make simultaneous like a child setting off a small firework. It was filled with Italian bank notes. Kassim swivelled it like a commercial traveller demonstrating his wares.
‘I am next to give you this. It is exactly fifty million lire — that is, rather more than twenty thousand pounds. This represents payment of ten thousand pounds for services rendered to date as promised, and a further ten on account. If you wish to count it, please do so.’
Reg stared, and again felt the ghostly presence on the upper part of his head and neck. Money did not appear like this in such quantity without strings, especially when it was double the sum offered. It seemed Kassim read his mind.
‘I see you do not wish to count the money? Very well. I will come to the main point. You are now entering an entirely new phase of your work. The Tunku is being generous. He is displaying a degree of trust which I have to say is — unusual. I hope it will not prove misplaced. I should like to point out to you
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that from this moment there is no question of withdrawal on your part. Acceptance of this advance is a total commitment to the greatly more difficult services you will now be asked to carry out. You will be from now on in possession of privileged information. Do you give this undertaking?’
‘My actions so far indicate I do.’
‘I hardly think so. All you have done so far is to get yourself a job. You have not taken the smallest risk and are in no personal danger. None the less, I take your remark to be a positive answer. Very well, here then are your next instructions. You are aware of course that an event is to take place at the museum next October?’
Reg stared. ‘Of course —the Cellini Exhibition?’
‘The Tunku wishes, first, that you acquaint yourself very thoroughly with all the internal preparations for this event, especially those relating to security.’
Reg gave a quick indrawn whistle. Mamma mia, he had been slow. Of course it would be the exhibition, the perfect opportunity for an inside job. He tried to keep his voice offhand.
‘What’s in mind? The sculpture, or the goldsmithery, or both? Jesus, it’s not the Perseus, is it? You’d need a fork-lift and a helicopter for that lot.’
Kassim’s face expressed the sarcasm of a schoolmaster listening to the ramblings of a backward pupil. ‘I think we shall do better if we do not indulge in speculation, Mr Griffin. I am in the process of giving you new instructions. May I please proceed? I have given you your first order, here is the second. You are aware perhaps that the Director has at present retained full responsibility for the organisation of the exhibition in his own hands. The Tunku considers that it might be very advantageous if in some way you could get yourself involved in this work as directly as possible - without, naturally, arousing any suspicion.’
Reg sobered. He pushed away from the table and crossed his legs. ‘Well, I can tell you that’s out of the question. I’m a junior. Nobody in their right mind would choose someone relatively unknown like me. Besides, I suspect Caine likes exhibitions. They’re his babies, as I gather, and he enjoys doing the work himself.’
Something was happening to Kassim’s features. There were definite signs of movement behind the mask. Was it, could it be, the embryo of a smile?
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‘You are very vehement with your negatives, Mr Griffin. Surprisingly so for a man who — may I venture? — prides himself on a positive outlook. Perhaps it will be necessary for me to point out the obvious to you?’
‘I can’t see anything at all obvious about this idea.’
‘You can’t? Then permit me to assist you.’
‘Permission granted.’
‘You will have discerned by now no doubt that it is the owner of the museum who carries ultimate power, is it not, rather than the Director?’
‘I suppose so. So what?’
‘Very simple. If the owner has the power, it would seem a very elementary deduction that he is the person to be worked on. Would you not say so?’
‘You mean go behind Caine’s back?’ Reg paused, reflecting. ‘Well, it’s true, I believe, they don’t get on. I’m told by a reliable source that Ready’s jealous of Caine in some twisted way, and can’t keep his hands off the place. I’d also guess from my own observation that Caine isn’t at his best on commercial matters. The egghead pressed against his will into the world of business, that’s the sort of scenario.’
It was a smile. It broke surface momentarily, lopsidedly, like a swing at its highest point, finishing somewhere up by his left ear. Quite definitely Kassim would have qualified as a Dickensian pedagogue. His mastery of irony was total. A Malaysian Squeers.
The smile quickly disappeared. Kassim, Reg realised then, was preparing to go. He had closed the suitcase and was pushing it towards him across the table.
For a moment he really lost his cool. ‘Look, Kassim, this is all very well. But there are a number of other matters that need discussion, and I’m going to want a contact of some kind. I can see we’ve got to be careful about communication, but I can’t work in total darkness like this. I need to know more precisely what’s on. The exhibition isn’t for five months yet. I’ll certainly need to ask things. I need to ask one thing right away. What’s the final sum I’ll be paid, and how do I know for instance...’
Kassim got to his feet.
‘I have three further things to say to you. The first concerns this money here. You will bank it immediately, after this meeting, in a
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deposit account that has been opened for you. The name of the bank and the address of the branch are inside the case. Although it is now after closing time, if you ring the bell you will be admitted. The account is opened in the name of Alberti. If you wish, the bank will facilitate transfer of funds to a numbered Swiss account of your choosing, but to nowhere else. You will keep your present bank account, continue to use it for all daily transactions, and make no deposits except your professional earnings. I also need not add that you should avoid any large or ostentatious expenditure here in Rome, or anywhere, in the foreseeable future. Your lifestyle should remain constant. The second point should be obvious to you. Do not, for any motive, be tempted to enter these premises again or loiter anywhere near them. If you were to be so foolish, nobody would own to knowing you anyway, but the Tunku would not be pleased.’
Reg also got to his feet. ‘And the other matter?’
Kassim clearly savoured his last words. He cleared his throat.
‘You have entered territory where a modest fortune may be made,’ he said, with fastidious hauteur. ‘It is also very dangerous territory, dangerous in itself, and very dangerous if you were to make a mistake.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I mean, Mr Griffin, that if you were to make what I term a “voluntary mistake”, if you were to have second thoughts about your own participation for example or if there were a breach of security of any sort, it would, shall we say, be most regrettable from your point of view. Now I will take my leave. I shall go first. Someone will come down in a few minutes to escort you to the back door of the building. I wish you good day.’
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In a sports shirt and yellow shorts, Robert sat with Kate on their balcony, eating a late breakfast. It was Sunday, May, warm. Restless, he listened to the miscellany of church bells ringing for morning mass down in the city. Not far away a couple of rival treble -toned bells were striking frenetically like a chiming clock out of order. More distantly, from the direction of the Vatican, a deeper one boomed. Above them spread a hazy blue sky. The colony of swifts that nested under the broad eaves of the pala77o were out, madly dashing in all directions and screaming ecstatically. The air was heavy with the fume of rising pine sap.
What did such a day of promise promise him? He thought of Gabriella, began to daydream of taking her for the day into the country somewhere but, obeying the command he had given himself that day they had set up the new showcase together, quickly turfed the thoughts away. He leant back resolutely in the basket chair, and clasped his hands behind his head.
‘How about tripping up to Tivoli today? In all these years we’ve never been to the d’Este Gardens. We could gape at the fountains, have a nice lunch, and generally behave like tourists.’ Kate was half -concealed behind a three-day old copy of the Daily Telegraph. She too was lightly, though as always faultlessly, dressed in well -cut trousers and a white silk shirt, her fine grey hair modishly styled.
Robert knew she had registered what he had said, but she did not move her eyes from the paragraph she was reading. Finishing it, she lifted the paper higher and began to search for another item. ‘You’ve forgotten we’re lunching with Mortimer,’ she murmured, like a parent dealing with an over -eager child.
Robert remembered. Mortimer’s secretary had phoned the day before and left a message: ‘You and Kate come for lunch tomorrow at one. I’ll expect you if I hear nothing by this evening. I have something to say to you.’
Mortimer had made Franca write it down verbatim. Robert doubted very much if there was anything of substance that needed ‘saying’ to him, but the wording had the ring of a command attendance? Surely it was not Gabbi again? He had thought that had blown over.
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‘Hell,’ he said. ‘I had forgotten for a moment. What a frantic bore.’
Kate’s eyes were still zipping up and down the columns. ‘It is at least a function to attend, isn’t it?’ she said, her reproof now overt. ‘And the food will be good. You should at least appreciate that, shouldn’t you? He employs a decent chef of course.’
The implications of this remark were compendious. Did she really wish to suggest that, if he had pursued the sort of ‘brilliant’ career she imagined but never specified, they too would have a cook to cover her disinterest in, almost her contempt for, cooking and food? Certainly her remark was designed to assert anew how dull and uneventful their life was.
For once he took the latter inference seriously. It was true he showed less enthusiasm than she did for the British Council dos, the occasional government reception, the dinner parties with the rich and titled she solicited so assiduously. But what social intercourse did he ever initiate? Almost none that was not dutiful and mandatory, arising from museum necessities. Had he really become so ungregarious, he thought, looking away over the balcony railing?
He never used to think of himself like that. At Cambridge he had had a lot more friends than Kate. Certainly they had been drawn from a wider social spectrum than hers. Perhaps he had allowed work, habit, good sense, most of all Kate’s narrow certitudes, to encase him. Perhaps some effort of will was required of him, a breakout?
A breakout did not seem likely today. At elevenish began a procedure of total predictability. Kate went into the bedroom to start dressing up. Half an hour later he followed her to put on trousers which had a crease, a shirt and tie, and to substitute shoes for sandals. Then, Kate resplendent in an all -white suit, they went down to the Citroen and, riding together on the portly bench seat, began the drive out to the Castelli Romani. In the lighter Sunday traffic they soon broke free of the confines of the city and began to lap the broad and monotonous boulevard of the Appia Nuova.
Ahead loomed the dark volcanic shape of the Castelli, the white villages of Frascati and Castelgondolfo clinging precariously to the spreading slopes and, as yet out of sight, Nemi.
There was no doubt Mortimer had been right to choose this
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picturesque village built inside the crater of an extinct volcano. It was a place of unique beauty. In the well of the crater was a lake with a smooth black surface. ‘Diana’s Looking -Glass’, it was called in Italian. Apart from Mortimer’s house on one side of the lake, there was little modern building, and what there was had followed the traditional style. There were no billboards.
But Mortimer’s place was surely, by any standards except his own, a gross perpetration against good taste. A huge concrete structure of three storeys, only at the lower level its harsh lines broken with bougainvillaea, it was built in the shape of the front end of a liner, each storey — or ‘deck’, the word Mortimer archly used — set back from the lower one, so that the upper part of the building had the appearance of a white, bow -fronted chest with the drawers pulled out. The lowest, which had the widest of the three balconies and curved almost to a point to make it look like the prow, was only a few feet above the level of the lake. One almost expected to see a simulated plastic bow -wave at water -level. On the top level there was a swimming -pool.
Robert knew that Mortimer had only been granted planning permission after much twisting of governmental arms and, almost certainly, egregious bribery.
As they topped the rim of the crater he slowed the car to take in the beauty of the view below. He threaded carefully through the village street which was thronged with holiday-makers sitting at the café, buying from the ceramic and basket -ware stalls, or just strolling. Finally, turning a sharp corner, he began to descend the fertile, cultivated slope to the house.
Mortimer was obsessed by security. The drive was protected by massive iron gates kept permanently closed. As the car approached, they swung open, controlled electrically from within. ‘Leathers’, as Mortimer archaically called his English butler, would have been alerted to watch for them. Knowing what was expected, Robert drove under the porch. Sure enough, as he braked Leathers issued ritually from the front door in a glossy black suit. With an absurd kind of walking bow, he went round to Kate’s side of the car. ‘Good morning and welcome, madam, sir,’
he said in his fruity voice.
Almost simultaneously, summoned no doubt by Leathers, the Italian chauffeur appeared at the run from the garage block to one
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side of the drive, doing up the buttons of his striped waistcoat on the way. Robert always felt like resisting this grotesque protocol. Why did cars have to be garaged? But what would be the point? He handed the man the keys and, preceded by the ludicrous Leathers, they went in.
They entered the huge hall, floored with polished black marble, relieved here and there by expensive -looking oriental rugs, and from which on opposite sides two polished mahogany staircases twisted upwards to the first floor, like two greedy arms clutching a possession. On all sides were ceramic dragons and dense clumps of dark green foliage standing in large Chinese pots of yellow and green. Below them, another broad staircase descended like Niagara to the equally vast — what did one call it? Sitting -room, living -room, drawing room? It looked most like a hotel lounge. Still preceded superfluously by Leathers, who took the stairs diagonally with a curious rhythmic sideways movement as if negotiating a steep mountain -side, they went down.
They crossed the room and went out on to the large wooden floored balcony, which was shaded by a striped awning. Sitting at a large Florentine inlaid table on red velvet chairs brought out from the house sat Mortimer and a youngish Italian couple. The man was familiar. Robert remembered. He was Mortimer’s self-effacing accountant, who managed the whole of his fortune other than the museum. They had met briefly once or twice at Mortimer’s office in central Rome.
Mortimer usually dressed eccentrically on these occasions. Once he had appeared in an outfit suitable for the Raj at its height, tropical khaki shorts, topee and all. Today the theme was nautical. He wore a blazer with brass buttons embossed with anchors and a navy blue, short -peaked cap. As they appeared he rose and, ignoring Robert, pounced on Kate’s hand like a terrier.
‘Kate, I want your advice,’ he said. He led her to the edge of the balcony, which was set off with a semicircle of rampant bloom. ‘Lek is tired of geraniums. She knows nothing about European flowers. All she can suggest is orchids, which are hardly practical here. You’ve got to tell me what I put in instead.’
Robert was left to greet the Italian couple by himself. They also had risen, rather sheepishly, Robert thought. Their name, the man reminded him was Barbone — Ernesto and Rosalina.
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For a moment, as they chattered vaporously, he thought they were odd co -guests for Mortimer to invite. Usually when he and Kate came he was at pains to show off some distinguished people he had lured to his home, fellow tycoons, film directors. Last time there had been two British MEPs on a fact-finding mission in Italy. He recalled that Mortimer had ‘something to say’. Clearly Mortimer had some novel financial bee buzzing in his bonnet. He relaxed, and set himself to play his part in the small talk. Another Italian flunkey arrived to ask about drinks. Mortimer seemed to have about four servants, all male.
Whilst Robert and the Barbones sought for new hyperboles with which to admire the polished surface of the lake and its setting, Lek appeared suddenly, like a cat winding herself unobtrusively round the edge of the sliding door. Robert wondered anew at her childish figure and her gift for almost total self-effacement on social occasions. What she wanted, plainly, was to join the group without fuss, but Mortimer saw her and gave a whoop. ‘Ah, my jungle flower,’ he said, loudly. He advanced upon her delicate frame, clad today in diaphanous yellow silk, and swept his hand round her waist as if he were the corps de ballet male lead.
‘Isn’t she a little flower, Ragioniere?’ Ernesto gave a weak grin. ‘Lek, my dear — Kate, and Robert, of course you know — but not my old friend Ernesto, and Rosalina. Ernesto and I usually do our business in town,’ he explained to Kate.
Lek offered her tiny, cool hand and had it grasped in turn by both Barbones. She smiled shyly at Robert. Released, she then glided towards Kate who had not yet got a drink.
Out of the corner of his eye, Robert watched. Lek had always had a strange attachment to Kate, and Kate, touched perhaps, incongruously played up to it. It had always warmed him to see them together. It was not so often Kate did things that had no apparent social motive.
With Kate, Lek seemed to relax. After proudly giving her a comprehensive list to choose from, she went herself to get the brand of fruit juice Kate had selected.
Through drinks, and the meal — for which they moved indoors to the dining -room where a table was sumptuously laid — Robert continued to have the notion that Mortimer was avoiding him.
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There was nothing unusual about this. It often happened when there were other people present. Mortimer had a sly habit, too, of addressing remarks really intended for him through statements ostensibly made to the others. But wasn’t there something more than usually deliberate about the severance today? Robert had the impression Mortimer was excited.
The chef was from Bali. Mortimer had collared him on the same trip which had yielded his marriage to Lek, a Vietnamese refugee. Kate was right, his repertoire was amazing. Today it was to be Chinese food, about which Mortimer showed off his knowledge at the top of his voice.
Robert was sitting between Rosalina and Lek. When he managed to detach himself from Rosalina’s description of the new bathroom she was installing in their flat and the poor attitude to work taken by the plumber, he managed to get Lek talking about her two interests, which were pop music and pets. This was a great deal more entertaining.
Lek had what she called a ‘Soo’ in the garden, which boasted an Angora rabbit, a tortoise, various birds in an aviary, as well as a cat. He asked after these creatures, and she told him gravely she had recently added to her menagerie a loris, which she had decided to keep in their bedroom. Though, she added with a giggle and a quick look at Mortimer across the table, she was not sure Mortimer approved of this. The loris did have ‘rather naughty habits’. While she chattered happily about these, Robert wondered anew at the apparent success of the marriage, which Mortimer had openly confessed he had arranged through an agency. Though, on the other hand, was it so surprising? Would not only total feminine subservience appease and soothe Mortimer’s petty tyrannies?
What was not Chinese about the meal was the replacement of tea by wine. It flowed freely. You had only to turn your head to find a white -gloved hand coming over your right shoulder and a bottle neck being thrust into your glass. Robert always drank more when he was bored. Towards the end of the meal, he realised he had drunk rather more than was politic.
Mortimer attacked him just as he was sitting back, his head tucked into his chin, in an attempt to suppress an upsurge of wind. ‘Robert, your finances are not satisfactory. I would say in fact they are in crisis. Something’s got to be done, and fast,’ he snapped.
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Robert had forgotten ‘the matter of importance’, and it caught him off guard. For a moment he regarded the almost neckless round head which had the appearance of a golf -ball cupped in a tee, the thin ginger hair and eyebrows, and the rather coarse, full mouth which now had a sneering twist to it. He noted again the ridiculous blazer which was nautically piped along the pockets and the lapels. He was not sure afterwards if it had been anger exactly that prompted him. It could have been genuine levity. But the words were out of his mouth before he could corral them.
Not another crisis?’ he said. ‘I thought we’d had our ration for this month.’
He saw the shaft go home like an Exocet missile. Two orange spots bloomed amid the boyish freckles on the plump part of Mortimer’s cheek. He swivelled eyes glazed with annoyance briefly round the table. Kate and Ernesto were still eating the exquisite compote of oriental fruits. The orange spots widened into a full flush. Three servants were standing round the table like fielders in a game of cricket. He moved his head aside suddenly and, without turning, spoke to Leathers.
‘Clear the table,’ he said, loudly, abruptly, and with menace. As the waiters converged and Kate and Ernesto hurriedly abandoned their unfinished food, he stood up.
‘Kate — Rosalina — I hope very much you will excuse us, but Ernesto and I have business to conduct. Lek, take them upstairs, if you please.’ His voice bristled with dangerous inflections.
The three women left, the servants cleared the table at breakneck speed as if their lives depended on it. While this was going on, Mortimer got up suddenly and retreated into his study on the other side of the sitting -room. He seemed to wait until the scene -shifting had been effected, then reappeared, puffing on a cigar which looked much too big for him and walking with an exaggerated, rolling gait as if he had just got off a horse. He flung Ernesto the brief -case he had parked on an armchair. Half -turning in his seat, Ernesto had to catch it against his chest.
Robert and Ernesto had not moved from their original seats on opposite sides of the table. Looking now ominously calm, Mortimer sat in his at the top. They were thus about as far from each other as they could get.
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