The Raphael Affair Read Free Page A

of old age.’
    ‘I suppose so. But I’ve never got on with hairy-chested clerical enthusiasm. The intense beady look in their eyesalways makes me uncomfortable. Give me corpulent corruption any day.’
    Bottando began to remark that he would never have thought she was interested in priests. He was trying to push his mind off the subject of his own little paunch, and the worry that this signified decadence in his assistant’s mind, when the subject of their discussion came through a small door behind the old altar.
    At first sight, he didn’t fit the caricature of the tall, gaunt, jesuitical type that Flavia evidently had in mind. He didn’t look at all like the sort who spend a few years doing good in the suburbs before rushing off to upset the Pope by running guns in South America. Short, pink and fleshy of face, he seemed more inclined to stay in Rome with a cosy sinecure in the Vatican. But, thought Bottando, you never can tell with priests. At least his greeting when Bottando introduced himself was courteous.
    ‘I gather that you have lost a painting,’ the policeman began once the preliminary polite noises were over. ‘As I have been told it might have been stolen, I thought I had better make some enquiries.’
    The priest frowned, cupping his hands together in front of his stomach in a gesture of clerical thoughtfulness. ‘I can’t imagine who told you that. There used to be an altar painting, true. But we sold it a month or so ago.’
    ‘Sold it? To whom? Isn’t that church property? I thought these sales normally went through the Vatican. They generally tell us about them.’
    The priest looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, it’s like this.’He paused. ‘Do you have to make a report or something? I really don’t want to get into a bureaucratic muddle over forms and things.’
    ‘It all depends. We’ve been told that a painting here was stolen. The niceties of Vatican routine are not our concern if it wasn’t.’
    ‘It wasn’t.’ He thought for a moment, then launched into an explanation. ‘I run a small programme for the addicts who live in the Campo area – food, shelter, some attempts to keep them off drugs, and awake.’ Bottando nodded and politely encouraged him to get on with it. He had come across dozens of these individual programmes in Milan, generally run by well-meaning priests. As a rule, they didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the problem, but the state provided no better alternative.
    ‘We need a lot of supplies and, as you can see, it’s a poor parish. We don’t get any donations from visitors, not a penny from the diocese, nothing from the city. About a month ago a man appeared and wanted to buy the altarpiece. He offered enough money to keep the programme going for a year and I took it. The sale wasn’t registered with the Vatican because it would have taken most of the money. I decided that my addicts needed it more.’
    Bottando nodded again. It happened all the time and was understandable, even if it did make his job more difficult. ‘How much did he pay?’ he asked.
    ‘Ten million lire,’ the priest replied. ‘I knew all about the painting. It’s virtually worthless. I told him so, but he said it was for a collector who wanted a piece by Mantini and was prepared to pay over the odds for it.’
    ‘Did he give you a receipt or anything like that?’
    ‘Oh yes, it was all done properly. The deed of sale was even franked properly. If you will wait I’ll get it.’ He hurried back to the sacristy and returned a few moments later with a large piece of white, lined paper with a stamp in the top-right corner. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Sold, One Reposo by Mantini from the Church of Santa Barbara, Rome, for ten million lire. Dated 15 February and signed by myself and Edward Byrnes, dealer. I see he gave no address. I’d not noticed that before. But he paid me in cash and gave me a donation for the programme as well, so I suppose that doesn’t matter much.’

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