The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears Page B

covered with dirt, they looked wonderful, even better than the originals. You should see them. One always tends to assume that fakes are not as good asthe real thing. I’m not so sure. Morneau understood the paintings. That’s where most of these people fall down.’ He smiled at the two of them. ‘There. All along you suspected your old friend was a philistine, eh?’
    They had reached the coffee, and the conversation showed signs of wandering off into the byways and alleyways of anecdote. Flavia stirred herself for another attempt.
    ‘Commissioner,’ she began. ‘The bank’s log of when Morneau opened his box. When was the last visit?’
    ‘I don’t know. We haven’t been able to get that out of the bank yet. However, according to his passport, he last visited Switzerland in May,’ he answered.
    She smiled in quiet triumph. She must remember to point out to Bottando what an extraordinarily good employee she was. Even if she occasionally caused him a great deal of trouble and heartache. As she was about to do now. She reached into her handbag and took out one of the sketchbooks she’d purloined. Apologising insincerely for abducting evidence in such a cavalier fashion, she handed it across to the two men. ‘Have a look at that. Ring any bells?’ she asked.
    Janet glanced at it, looked noncommittally puzzled, and passed it to Bottando. He was equally blank. Then Flavia detected vague stirrings of unease, and a sudden realisation. ‘Ah,’ he said as he handed it back. Very quick on the uptake, really, she thought.
    ‘I don’t mean to be inquisitive…?’ Janet said.
    Bottando looked flustered. ‘Indeed not,’ he said. ‘But this must be kept very quiet. The slightest hint could wreak havoc on the market.’
    Flavia was again impressed. She’d had the entire walk to the restaurant to work out the implications of the discovery; Bottando had had only a few seconds and he instantly saw the problems and pitfalls. Especially the impact on the art market if the slightest breath slipped out.
    ‘Of course, of course,’ replied Janet. ‘But what is it, exactly, that I’m not meant to hint about?’
    Flavia handed him back the notebook. ‘These sketches,’ she said casually, ‘would appear to bear a remarkably strong resemblance to the portrait of Elisabetta di Laguna in Rome. By Raphael. Or perhaps we’d better begin to say, attributed to Raphael.’
    Janet looked again, then nodded. ‘I suppose they do. But so what? Every artist in the western world has probably made sketches of it.’
    ‘Before last May? Before the painting had been uncovered and before anyone could possibly have known what it looked like?’
    Janet leaned back in his seat, and a broad smile slowly spread across his face. ‘How splendid,’ he commented eventually. ‘How delightful,’ he said after further thought. ‘How very awkward for you,’ he added apologetically as an afterthought.
    ‘When you’ve stopped enjoying yourself,’ Bottando said severely, ‘you’ll begin to see why it’s important you keep very quiet. No gossip back in the office. Not a word. Not even to your wife. Or anybody.’
    ‘Oh, quite. Quite. But please, I beg you. Clear this one up quickly. Every day without telling someone will be a day wasted. And, of course,’ he added, with someattempt to return to professionalism, ‘any help you need of me, just let me know.
    ‘Oh dear,’ he said, his face cracking with pleasure once more, ‘I wish I could be there when you tell that awful man Tommaso.’
    ‘Everybody says that,’ said Bottando gloomily. ‘But I’m the one who is going to have to face him. I may not survive the blast.’
    The meal ended shortly after that, Janet heading back for France in good humour and with a promise to send on the log when he’d got it out of the Swiss. Bottando’s spirits were considerably lower. Before they boarded the plane that was to fly them home from Zurich to Rome at four o’clock that afternoon, he