The Monster of Florence (7 page)

“Why should he copy his own pictures?”

“Money. It wasn’t always easy to get your money out of people as rich as they were.” He waved a hand to his right where hundreds of orange and lemon trees sheltered from the rigours of winter in the long conservatory. “They were always keen on commissioning work but less keen on paying for it. Franchi made ends meet by copying those portraits for the young ladies themselves. They, not being rich and powerful, paid up. They got theirs cheaper, of course, since they were copies and took less time and effort to produce, but you can imagine that the Grand Duchess wouldn’t have approved of this commercial initiative and, what’s worse, in some cases he gave the Princess herself copies because he’d already made portraits of these ladies and been paid by the sitters. I doubt he gave her a discount.”

“No. Well, I see your point. It’s a bit difficult …”

“You haven’t heard the worst. On top of that, Franchi being the most famous painter in town, a lot less famous painters made some pretty efficient copies of his works, sometimes real size, sometimes reduced to cut production costs—and Franchi himself made copies of pictures by painters he admired!”

“In that case it’s a real mess.”

“It’s a mess all right, as far as attribution is concerned and as for my problem … wait, I’ll show you where I found all this …”

They paused a moment beneath the white marble statue of Pegasus, and Marco searched his pockets for a small notebook.

“I found all this out only this morning and I just had to come straight to you. Here: ‘
Ordered on February 10th, 1692 by the Prior of San
Marco for the Grand Prince who wished to remove Fra Bartolommeo’s beautiful and celebrated painting of San Marco to his own palace, replacing it by a careful copy made by our Antonio Franchi, the most choice of all Florentine painters, who executed same with such exquisite perfection in the imitation that it truly seems to be the original.
’ So there you are.”

“Mmph.”

“So you can imagine. It’s a lot more complicated than I bargained for.”

“Can’t somebody help you? Somebody expert, I mean.”

“Somebody will have to—at least to read the
Thieme/Becker
for me. I don’t know a word of German.”

“Read what?”

“It’s the standard dictionary of artists. I thought of getting some German history of art student to help me with that so I wouldn’t have to explain anything.”

“No, no, Marco, you can’t deal with this on your own—”

“I can’t tell anyone. If this picture is a fake, think how many others there might have been. If I’m honest with myself I have to admit that I always knew, or felt, that my father had more money than could be explained, but I could hardly say so. Of course, there’s no saying how much he made out of authentications and so on, and he was quite capable, anyway, of appearing to be richer than he was. He was a great showman, you know.”

“I can imagine.”

Marco pushed his hands deep into his pockets and looked down at the wet gravel as they walked.

“At times I don’t blame him for despising me.”

“And you’re going to such lengths to protect him.”

“To protect my mother.”

“But surely, if she wasn’t in any way involved … And they were divorced.”

“She suffered enough from him when he was alive. Another story of this sort would kill her.”

The Marshal walked on in silence and only a brief sidelong glance
betrayed his having registered that “another.” Marco, his head still lowered, his face dark, seemed unaware of his mistake. They went on their way for a while with only their crunching footsteps and the chinking of birds in the sad wintry laurels for company. The Marshal was willing to bide his time. A forced confidence was never more than half a confidence and he knew Marco well enough to be sure that he was held back by shame, not guilt. A gleam of sunlight was just beginning to penetrate the fog, and in its faint warmth, the wet bay leaves released their perfume, which mingled with the sharper scent of their pruned and burning branches. The gardeners tidying the laurel maze rising on their left were silent and invisible. Only the thin plumes of smoke told where they were.

“There’s one thing I think you should do,” the Marshal said at last, “and that’s go to one of the bigger antique dealers in the city—do you know any of them personally?”

“I know two. One was at school with me and works for his father now in the business.”

“Go to him, then. All of them have a list of stolen paintings to look out for. You must look through it. You know I can’t help you, otherwise, with the best will in the world …”

“No. Of course you can’t. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t worry about it, just check. I should have thought on and suggested it before. It’s just that I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment.”

“Without my inventing work for you. I’ve no business to expect you to talk to Benozzetti—though perhaps if I checked on that list first—”

“Oh, I’ve seen Benozzetti.”

“You have?”

“And for what it’s worth, I think he might well be a forger. Restorer, that’s what he says, but there’s something there that doesn’t smell right. He was defensive and, I thought, a bit crazy.”

“I’ve heard say that all forgers are a bit crazy. But did he bite? Will he come to the studio?”

“I don’t know, Marco. I don’t think I made much of a job of it, to be honest.” Again he could only repeat, “You need an expert.” He did his best to explain about Benozzetti showing him the painting but it was hardly possible since he didn’t altogether understand it himself.

“Do you mean it was a copy of one of the paintings in the gallery here?”

“No. A copy, no. It was like it, but there was something different and there was something to do with where I was standing … But in any case, the arm or the hand was different and perhaps the way he was sitting … No, it wasn’t a copy.”

“Then it was just the sort of thing I’ve been talking about! ‘In the style of,’ the way they copied Franchi—or even the way he copied himself, because he’d make little changes like that, especially if the sitter had no say in the matter the first time round because the work was commissioned by the Princess Violante.”

“This wasn’t your man, though. This was Titian. I’m sure of that.”

“It was? What was the title?”

“It’s a portrait of a man. I don’t recall any particular title. I could show it to you. Anyway, he said he was restoring it for the owner, but that if anyone from the Ministry of Arts came round, he’d say he’d painted it himself and that if they didn’t believe it, he’d paint another.”

Marco stared at him. “He sounds crazy all right, but even so, it’s quite possible that he’s only restoring it and that the owner hasn’t declared it to the Ministry. I wish I’d seen it, though, now I’ve read a bit about these things.”

“Go there.”

“Me?”

“Why not? I’ve prepared the ground.”

“Well, I was hoping he’d come to me. I want to see him looking at the Franchi painting, if Franchi it is. What’s he like, anyway? What does he look like? Act like?”

“Pretty impressive to look at. Well built and very well dressed. Sharp, even if he is a bit crazy … Maybe I should say fanatical. Go there and see for yourself if he doesn’t get in touch with you.”

“You don’t think … I wouldn’t be a danger to him, would I?”

“No, no. I shouldn’t think so.”

“Even though this painting I’ve got … well, it’s evidence, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t evidence of anything, but if it worries you just wait for him to get in touch and, if you like, I’ll try and be there if he comes to see you.”

“And if he doesn’t get in touch?”

“You just carry on with your research and see what you come up with. Something’s bound to become clearer if you insist. We’ll go out by this gate.”

They left the gardens and came out into Via Romana.

“I don’t know if you want to wait for me.” The Marshal indicated the plastic carrier bag. “I’ll have to stay a few minutes with the old lady, check that all her documents are here and so on.”

“I won’t, I think. I can get a bus from Porta Romana that will take me right to the studio and I want to get on straightaway with my research. I’ll check that list first, I promise you.” He held out his hand. “Thanks for everything.”

“I haven’t been much help, but keep in touch—don’t give up on it.”

“I won’t. I’ll phone you.”

The Marshal pressed the doorbell, watching him walk away. There was something about him … He always looked defenceless. A twinge of doubt assailed him for having said Benozzetti wouldn’t regard him as dangerous.

“Who is it?”

“Marshal Guarnaccia, signora. I’ve brought your bag.”

“Ooh, how kind …”

Not that he or his men had found it. As usual it was the rubbish collectors. They often found stolen bags emptied of their cash and dumped in wastebins, and people were only too glad to have their cheque books and identity cards returned. That was especially true of someone as elderly and frail as this poor soul who was in no condition to be queuing for hours to get the documents replaced. He had a reason, though, for bringing it back to her rather than sending one of his carabinieri. Teresa had slipped a fifty thousand note into
it, knowing that the old lady couldn’t possibly survive until next pension day having lost her little all to a drug addict. Knowing, too, that she was too proud to ask for help.

“Another time, signora,” the Marshal suggested, “you slip your money into your pocket with your keys. Don’t carry a handbag in these narrow streets where it’s so easy for some lad on a moped to snatch it!”

“Eeh, Marshal, at my age it’s difficult to change your habits. It wouldn’t feel right to be out without a nice handbag and gloves. I will think about it, though.” She offered him a sweet from the glass dish on the dark polished sideboard. “I still can’t understand this fifty thousand note.”

She smoothed it out and placed it carefully next to the dish on a strip of lace-edged embroidery. The pendulum of a wall clock ticked loudly in the dark room as she sat down opposite him with a little sigh that was the only indication of the terrible pain caused by her arthritic limbs.

“It’s not so much a question of your pension being stolen,” insisted the Marshal, “or even the time and trouble getting new documents would cause you. What I’m worried about is that you might by instinct keep hold of your bag and be dragged into the road. You’d get very badly hurt. I’ve seen it happen many a time, so think on.”

“I will. I’ll remember. Though I don’t think there’s any chance of my keeping hold of anything with these hands.”

She regarded the shiny twisted joints compassionately as though they were beings apart from her. “Ah, things have changed since I was young. I’m still trying to think … I could swear I only had twenty thousand and a little bit of change—and it was in my purse and that’s gone. Of course, my memory’s not what it was …”

“You probably slipped it in there in an absent moment. Now I must be on my way. You’ll remember about not carrying a bag?”

“Oh yes, I’ll remember …” It was clear to the Marshal that she had already forgotten. “I’m trying to think if my daughter might
have put it in there when she came to see me last month. She lives in Rome now, you know.”

“Yes.” He adjusted his hat at the door and escaped, leaving her with this pleasing if improbable train of thought.

The Marshal walked back up Via Romana, steering carefully so as to allow a shopper to squeeze by him every so often without his having to step into the road in the path of the hurtling orange buses roaring at his back. When he reached the junction at Piazza San Felice he was more than tempted to stop at the brightly lit chemist’s where for once there was no queue and the chemist himself was holding court, seated with a couple of local people at the table on the right. The Marshal hesitated as the white-coated man raised a hand in greeting but then, with an inward sigh, he returned the greeting and went on to Piazza Pitti where the huge file on the “Monster” case awaited his attention. As it happened, quite a number of other things and people were awaiting his attention and at half past eight in the evening the file still lay closed on his desk. He would have preferred not to take it with him but the alternative, coming into his office after supper, was too miserable a thought to contemplate and so he tucked the thing under his arm as he turned out the lights and locked up.

“What have you got there?” Teresa asked, without really looking, as she tried to get to the fridge to open it.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t stand there. Aren’t you going to have a shower?”

He left the file in the bedroom where there was no chance of the boys seeing it and then got showered and changed. Teresa, with the same idea in mind, waited until the boys had gone to do their homework before asking, as she stacked the plates in the dishwasher, “How did you get on?”

“It wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

“Things never are.”

He told her about young Bacci, whom she’d never met as she’d still been down at home in Sicily in those days.

“But he must be a bit young and inexperienced, surely, for a big case like that?”

“He’ll get some experience now, then,” he answered crossly, unwilling to admit that the same thought had crossed his own mind. “Anyway, he’ll be as pleased as punch. He always fancied himself as a detective.” He got up. “I need a coffee.”

“But you never have coffee after supper.”

“I’ve got to stay awake, go through some paperwork. I’ll make it.”

“I’ll go and get the boys moving, then.”

As he waited for the coffee to bubble up he opened the file on the kitchen table. He felt a bit depressed, but it wasn’t because of the case. He realized what it was as he poured his coffee out and sat down. It was that this sitting alone in the kitchen with paperwork in front of him was a strong reminder of the bad old days before Teresa and the boys had come up to Florence, released to him by the death of his mother whom Teresa had cared for after her stroke. That was the only time in his life that he’d lived alone and he’d hated every minute of it. And—that was it—talking about the days when Bacci had been with him had been an even stronger reminder. How glad he was now to think of Teresa there, having a moment’s peace while the boys were in their room playing and quarrelling instead of doing their homework. He spooned sugar into the thick scalding coffee and drank it in two sips. So stimulated and comforted, he opened the file and faced its terrible contents.