The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears

He had also taught in Lyons before going commercial. As she looked at the sketches with a critical eye, she could seewhy. He was very skilled, and the line drawings particularly were executed with ease and dexterity. But they were old-fashioned in the extreme, and almost entirely derivative. Dredging up the remnants of her education, she spotted drawings after Rembrandt, legs copied from Parmigianino, endless repetitions of fragments from the Sistine Chapel, all done with minute changes as the artist experimented to see what the painters had been doing.
    Intermingled with the sketches were voluminous jottings. The notes were probably part of the dreary lectures in art history that were churned out until the riots of 1968 produced a revolution in methods. The new way didn’t produce any better painters, but it was probably less boring. Recipes for paints, quotations from artists, extracts from books on techniques, all written in a fast, ill-formed hand that was often barely legible. The other books, many in better condition than the first, were of the same type. The newest were the three at the top of the pile and, once more, followed the same pattern.
    Flavia decided that recognition of painterly style was merely a matter of keeping the eye practised. In the first volume she examined she had had to concentrate hard to tell even Rubens from Correggio. Now, after only a few minutes, the recognition was coming much faster and more easily.
    She looked again, concentrating hard, and then glanced up to confirm that the five men were still busy talking to each other and were ignoring her very existence. She slipped three of the books in the black leather handbag that everyone in her office always made fun of for being so absurdly large and unladylike, bound the rest in thered cotton tape, and replaced them on the table with the bundles of money.
    Forty-five minutes later, the two Italians and the Frenchman were sitting in a restaurant ordering food. Lunch had been Flavia’s idea, and it had been taken up enthusiastically by her superiors, if for different reasons. There had been a polite disagreement about where to go. Janet had suggested an Italian trattoria, Bottando had returned the compliment by insisting that they go French. Because he was very much of the opinion that this was by far the best decision, Janet had let himself be persuaded, but made up for his chauvinism by ordering a bottle of Montepulciano, which he considered one of the few Italian wines that might deservedly have been produced in his home country.
    He took an appreciative sip then asked, ‘Well, my friends, and what is it that I can do for you?’
    Bottando looked surprised. ‘For us? What makes you think we want something?’
    ‘I do apologise, but I’m sure one of you does. I am a thoughtful person, and observant. And I know you well. You are a polite man, and you were very rude in disposing of those Swiss so that you could eat alone in my company. I am flattered, and I know your opinion of our Swiss colleagues. But you could have asked me earlier and made it less obvious. So, I think to myself, you want to ask me something that has only just occurred to you. And the invitation came after that whispering in your ear from your assistant here. Therefore…’
    ‘Entirely incorrect. I just wanted to enjoy my lunchrather than have to suffer through it. Although I must admit I do want to hear what you know about Morneau. He sounds a character.’
    ‘He was. I recommend, by the way, the trout. It comes with one of the few sauces they do here which doesn’t have too much flour. Otherwise, stick to the veal. It is very good to see you again. But, I must insist that you play fair. I will tell you about the life and secret career of Monsieur Morneau – as much as we know – if you tell me the latest goings-on and scandal in Rome. I haven’t seen you for some time. There must be a great deal I’ve missed.’
    He fussed over the bread, spearing it on his