Read Online The Bernini Bust by Iain Pears - Free Book Online Page B

evidently enjoyed trips round the countryside and to movies and dinner and museums with her, but that was it. She had provided the openings, had he been so minded, and he had not taken them. He just stood there, looking awkward.
    She’d eventually got used to that and settled for his company. It was the blithe way he announced he was leaving Italy that finally made her lose patience. Just like that. A career to be made, so he was off.
    And what about her? she’d felt like asking. He was just going to go and forget her? Just like that? Who was she meant to go to dinner with?
    But if that was what he wanted to do, he could go, as far as she was concerned. So she said, in a chilly, angry voice, that if his career needed it, he should go. The sooner the better, in fact. Then she’d got on with her work.
    Now here he was again, with problems.
    “I’m not interested,” she said shortly. “I don’t care if the whole of the National Museum is scattered along the Pacific Rim, and I don’t have any time to waste talking to you, you… Englishman.”
    And slammed the phone down and made chuntering noises as she tried vainly to remember what it was she’d been doing before he’d rung.
    “Jonathan Argyll, I assume,” came a deep, reassuring voice from the doorway behind her as General Bottando walked in clutching a sheaf of papers. “What’s he up to these days? I heard he was in America.”
    “He is,” she said, turning round and hoping he hadn’t heard too much of her conversation. “He just rang me up to tell me about a murder.”
    “Really? Whose?”
    Flavia told him, and Bottando whistled in surprise. “Good heavens,” he said. “I’m not surprised he rang. How extraordinary.”
    “Fascinating,” she said shortly. “Is there anything you want? Or is this a social visit?”
    Bottando sighed and looked at her sadly. It was perfectly obvious to him what was wrong, but it wasn’t at all his job to say. And even if he had tried to give her the benefit of his advice, he was fairly certain it would not have been well received. She was touchy that way, and had no respect for the wisdom of age.
    “I’ve got a little job for you,” he said, confining himself to business. “Needs tact and delicacy, I’m afraid.” He looked at her doubtfully before proceeding. “You remember that little drinks party we had a few weeks back?”
    It had been a small celebration for Bottando’s fifty-ninth birthday. A date and a number shrouded in secrecy, but the office had weasled it out by dexterous spying on the personnel returns. They’d all clubbed together to throw a surprise party in his office, and presented him with a little Piranesi print and a large plant to replace the one that had died because he always forgot to water it.
    “Well,” he went on a little nervously. “That plant. Someone watered it to show me how to do it, and water spilled over the desk and I grabbed a piece of paper to mop it up.”
    Flavia nodded impatiently. He did ramble sometimes.
    Bottando produced a stained, crumpled and almost illegible document and handed it to her shamefacedly. “Been under the pot ever since,” he said. “Carabinieri report about a burglary in Bracciano. Should have followed it up weeks ago. You know the remarks they’ll make if they ever find out. Could you go and do something about it?”
    “Now?” she said, glancing at her watch.
    “If you could. Damned man’s a curator at some museum. Influential. The sort who complains. I know it’s getting late…’
    With a long-suffering look she got up and stuffed the report in her bag.
    “Oh, all right,” she said. “Got nothing else to do. What’s the address?”
    And, radiating disapproval of her boss’s inefficiency, she marched out of the office.
    *
    The Alberghi family inhabited a castle - a small one, but a castle nonetheless - rather handsomely sited overlooking the lake. The area has gone downhill in recent years; the nearest bit of fresh water to Rome,