The Raphael Affair. Iain Pears

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СКАЧАТЬ went unrecognised. And everyone agreed that the painting’s fame made it a perfect target for some deranged attention-seeker.

      Finally, the room was bathed in subdued lighting, with a single spotlight illuminating the work. The museum’s interior designers freely admitted to their friends, if not to anybody else, that this was a bit melodramatic. Drawings, such as Leonardo’s Madonna in the National Gallery in London, actually needed such protection from light to preserve them. Oil paintings were much more resilient and could do perfectly well in natural light. But the effect was splendid, creating an atmosphere of almost religious awe and causing visitors to speak in respectful, hushed tones which added greatly to the work’s impact.

      Visitors there were in abundance. In the first few months attendance at the museum doubled. A visit suddenly became almost compulsory not only for tourists – who had often left it out hitherto because of its inconvenient location out of the centre – but even for Romans themselves. Thousands of postcards were sold; Elisabetta di Laguna T-shirts were popular; a multi-national biscuit company paid the museum a fortune for the right to put her face on one of their products. Combined with the hugely increased entry fees, the museum directors calculated the state would have recovered most of the vast cost of the picture within four years if the painting’s popularity continued at this rate.

      For Bottando and his assistant, the return of the painting had triggered one of their busiest periods for years. Setting up security, keeping tabs on known national and international thieves, worrying lest anything should go wrong, chained them to their desks.

      Bottando, looking at the work through the eyes of an old-time policeman whose budget was already not big enough, spent much of his time in a frenzy of anxiety. He knew perfectly well that, whatever the picture’s artistic merits, it was a painted time-bomb for his department. If anything should happen to it, the blame would move around the government with the speed of a ball in a pinball machine before coming to rest on his desk.

      Much of his work, therefore, consisted of preparing his defences. Although not a cynical man, and no politician, he was no fool either. A lifetime’s work under the aegis of the ministry of defence had taught him a great deal about survival techniques in a world that made fighting in the army seem genteel and civilised. So he spent many hours sweating over cautiously worded reports, drafted and redrafted memoranda and wasted a great deal of time taking a few, carefully selected, bureaucrats and politicians to dinner.

      The result was not entirely to his liking, but better than nothing. He had lobbied for extra manpower, using Elisabetta as a way of making his case for a larger budget. In fact, the result was that the security staff of the Museo Nazionale was doubled. Although it was never stated directly, the effective conclusion was that his department was relieved of any responsibility for guarding the picture once it was hung.

      This provided some protection. But Bottando realised, with a perception honed by years of watching for trouble, that there existed no official document proving his lack of responsibility, and that was worrying. Especially because in Cavaliere Marco Ottavio Mario di Bruno di Tommaso, the sublimely aristocratic director of the National Museum, he was dealing with a man who would have been a natural politician had he not gone into the museum business. A smoother operator, in fact, was not to be found in the Camera dei Deputati. Tommaso had had a painting snatched from under his very nose, had been forced to buy it back at an outrageous price, and had turned it into a triumph. Impressive, without a doubt.

      He was reminded of the justice of this opinion as he stood talking to the director at a reception thrown to celebrate the picture’s installation in the museum. A very select junket indeed. A sizeable chunk of the cabinet and their inevitable hangers-on; museum folk, the occasional academic, a few journalists just so the affair would reach the papers. Tommaso was, if anything, Bottando’s superior in making sure glowing reports of his activities frequently adorned the pages of the newspapers.

      ‘Taking a bit of a risk, aren’t you? I mean, all these dubious types around your prized possession?’ Bottando gestured contemptuously at the justice minister and an army chief peering at the work, cigarettes in hand.

      Tommaso moaned softly in agreement. ‘I know. But it’s difficult to ask the prime minister not to smoke. He gets withdrawal symptoms after ten minutes. We had to switch off all the fire alarms to make sure they weren’t all drenched by the sprinklers. Can’t say it makes me all that happy. But, there you are. What can you do? These people will insist on sharing the limelight.’ He shrugged.

      The conversation dragged on for a few minutes more, and then Tommaso slid off to talk to others. He was always like that. Everybody got the regulation five minutes of urbane conversation. He was a perfect host; Bottando merely wished that he didn’t make you feel it all the time. He was always pleasant, always remembered everyone’s name, always recalled something about your last conversation with him to make you think he valued your company. Bottando hated him. The more so because he’d just sprung a very nasty surprise.

      There was to be another liaison committee, he’d said. Were there not enough already, for heaven’s sake? A joint meeting of the museum and the police, to discuss security matters in the museum: Bottando heading the police end and Antonio Ferraro, the head of sculpture, the museum side. It had been Ferraro’s idea, apparently. Serve him right. Had Bottando heard about this in advance, he could have sabotaged the whole thing. But Tommaso had gone ahead, getting all the various approvals, before broaching the subject.

      It was, of course, true that what this place did need was a long, hard look at its security procedures, which were neolithic. But a committee wasn’t going to achieve much and, in fact, it wasn’t intended to. Instead, Tommaso meant it to serve as a layer of protection between him and responsibility if anything should go wrong.

      The only person Bottando felt sorry for was Ferraro, standing over on the other side of the room. Tall, broad, and powerful-looking. Dark hair, of the sort that clung to his scalp as though it had been heavily anointed with hair dressing. A voluble conversationalist, one of those who tends to interrupt you in mid-sentence so that he can continue his enthusiastic narrations. Mid-thirties, with a permanent look of mild sarcasm on his face. A clever, impatient man. No wonder he and Tommaso never got on well; neither was prepared to accept the other in anything but a subservient role. Maybe Bottando could have him replaced on the committee with someone a bit more amenable?

      ‘You’re scowling,’ said a voice by his side. ‘I deduce that you’ve just been talking to our beloved chief.’

      Bottando turned around, and smiled. Enrico Spello was unofficially the deputy director and someone he had a certain liking for. ‘Right as usual. How did you guess?’

      Spello clasped his hands together to indicate the mysteries of human intuition. ‘Simple. I always look like that after a conversation with Tommaso as well.’

      ‘But he’s your boss. You’ve a right to dislike him. He’s always pleasant to me.’

      ‘Of course. He’s always delightful to me, as well. Even when he’s cutting my budget by twenty-five per cent.’

      ‘He’s done that? When?’

      ‘Oh, it’s been going on for a year or more. No interest in the Etruscans any more. For archaeologists and antiquarians. What’s needed is more brightness, stuff to bring in the crowds. As you know, he’s a bit of a whizz kid, our Tommaso. My department gets sliced so he can afford some very expensive beige fabric on the walls of western art.’

      ‘Is yours the only department to be cut?’ Bottando asked.

      ‘Oh, no. But it’s one of the worst. It has lost our friend over there a lot of popularity.’ He smiled whimsically. Bottando felt for the man. СКАЧАТЬ