The Immaculate Deception. Iain Pears

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      She was home early, even before Jonathan, and drank a glass of wine on the terrace – her promotion, their marriage and the fact that even Jonathan now had a regular salary of a sort meant that, finally, they could afford an apartment they were happy to be in. Still in Trastevere, but four whole rooms now, high ceilings, and a terrace overlooking a quiet square. If you stretched you could just see a bit of Santa Maria. Flavia was too short, but Jonathan could see it, and it gave him a twinge of pleasure just to know it was there. Although the least houseproud of people, even she made something of an effort to keep it neat and tidy. A sign of age, perhaps.

      She had left early because she wanted some time to think, and there were always too many distractions in her office. Phones, secretaries, people popping in and out to ask her opinion, or to get her to sign something. She loved it all, most of the time, but it made it difficult to reflect and consider. That was best done looking out at the ochre-coloured buildings opposite, watching people doing their shopping, listening to the quiet murmur of a city going about its business.

      Bottando’s lack of practical advice had given her more than a little to think about. She had gone through it all, backwards and forwards, considering every option and possibility in a methodical way, and come up with nothing better. However, the essence of it – keep your head down, do nothing, but avoid any involvement – appalled her. And struck her as almost as dangerous as doing something. Her head was on the block, come what may. If something, anything, went wrong, she would be the one to take the blame. Acting head. Never yet confirmed in her post, even after a year. A matter of a moment to get rid of her; no noise, no fuss. Simply an announcement that a new and permanent chief, more experienced and fitted for the job, was being drafted in over her.

      But what could she do? It was certainly the case that she couldn’t do anything practical without somebody finding out quickly. Nor could she go trotting round the wealthy of Italy asking if they had a spare suitcase full of unwanted dollars lying around. Fund-raising was hardly her job. If anyone could do it, it should have been Macchioli’s task. That’s what museum curators did these days. Or were supposed to. Alas, his talents notoriously did not lie in this direction at all. Still, it might be worth while having a serious talk with him, just in case a ransom note arrived.

      Argyll came home an hour later, in a relatively good mood considering he’d spent the day trying to din the rudiments of art historical knowledge into his students, and plonked himself down beside her to admire the view. Once it had been as admired as was possible, he asked about the meeting with the prime minister. She didn’t want to talk about it yet, so she fended him off.

      ‘How’s the paper?’ she asked mischievously to take her mind off things. This was a sore point with Argyll. He had been taken on in his current job to teach baroque art to foreign students passing a year in Rome, a task he was eminently fitted to do. Then the administration – a baroque organization itself – had decided for reasons that no one really understood that salary levels would be partly determined by academic production as well as hours put in at the coal-face. Raise the reputation of the institution. Must be taken seriously as a university, not dismissed as a finishing school for rich kids. Which, of course, it was. The essence of the edict, however, was that if you want more money, produce articles. Papers. Better still, a book or two.

      Not really that easy, and Argyll was of a stubborn disposition. The idea of being forced into writing things made his hackles rise. However, a bit more money would be agreeable. He was nearly there; he had ruthlessly exploited his old footnotes and conjured up two articles of extraordinary banality for minor journals, and had also been invited to give a paper at a conference in Ferrara in a few weeks’ time, and that would put him over the required limit.

      Except that he didn’t have a paper to deliver and, while he did not hesitate to produce grandiose trivia in the comforting anonymity of a journal no one read, he hesitated to stand up in front of a live audience and parrot out obvious nonsense. So, no paper; not even the glimmer of one. He was beginning to get worried. Flavia did her best to sympathize when she was informed, again, that he still couldn’t think of anything, and eventually Argyll СКАЧАТЬ