The Modigliani Scandal Part 6

It was one of those cool, s.p.a.cious Knightsbridge flats. The wallpaper was a muted, anonymous design; the upholstery was brocaded; the occasional furniture antique. Open French windows to the balcony let in the mild night air and the distant roar of traffic. It was elegant and boring.

So was the party. Samantha was there because the hostess was an old friend. They went shopping together, and sometimes visited each other for tea. But those occasional meetings had not revealed how far apart she and Mary had grown, Samantha reflected, since they had been in repertory together.

Mary had married a businessman, and most of the people at the party seemed to be his friends. Some of the men wore dinner jackets, although the only food was canapes. They all made the most appalling kind of small talk. The little group around Samantha was in an overextended discussion about an unremarkable group of prints hanging on the wall.

Samantha smiled, to take the look of boredom off her face, and sipped champagne. It wasnt even very good wine. She nodded at the man who was speaking. Walking corpses, the lot of them. With one exception. Tom Copper stood out like a city gent in a steel band.

He was a big man, and looked about Samanthas age, except for the streaks of gray in his dark hair. He wore a checked workmans s.h.i.+rt and denim jeans with a leather belt. His hands and feet were broad.

He caught her eye across the room, and the heavy mustache stretched across his lips as he smiled. He murmured something to the couple he was with and moved away from them, toward Samantha.

She half-turned away from the group discussing the prints. Tom bent his head to her ear and said: Ive come to rescue you from the art appreciation cla.s.s.

Thanks. I needed it. They had turned a little more now, so that although they were still close to the group, they no longer seemed part of it.

Tom said: I have the feeling youre the star guest. He offered her a long cigarette.

Yeah. She bent to his lighter. So what does that make you?

Token working-cla.s.s representative.

Theres nothing working-cla.s.s about that lighter. It was slender, monogrammed, and seemed to be gold.

He broadened his London accent: Wide boy, aint I? Samantha laughed, and he switched to a plum-in-the-mouth accent to say: More champagne, madam?

They walked over to the buffet table, where he filled her gla.s.s and offered her a plate of small biscuits, each with a dab of caviar in its center. She shook her head.

Ah, well. He put two in his mouth at once.

How did you meet Mary? Samantha asked curiously.

He grinned again. What you mean is, how does she come to be a.s.sociated with a roughneck like me? We both went to Madame Clairs Charm School in Romford. It cost my mother blood, sweat and tears to send me there once a week-much good did it do me. I could never be an actor.

What do you do?

Told you, didnt I? Im a wide boy.

I dont believe you. I think youre an architect, or a solicitor, or something.

He took a flat tin from his hip pocket, opened it, and palmed two blue capsules. You dont believe these are drugs, either, do you?

No.

Ever done speed?

She shook her head again. Only hash.

You only need one, then. He pressed a capsule into her hand.

She watched as he swallowed three, was.h.i.+ng them down with champagne. She slipped the blue oval into her mouth, took a large sip from her gla.s.s, and swallowed with difficulty. When she could no longer feel the capsule in her throat she said: See? Nothing.

Give it a few minutes, youll be taking your clothes off.

She narrowed her eyes. Is that what you did it for?

He did his c.o.c.kney accent again. I wasnt even there, Inspector.

Samantha began to fidget, tapping her foot to nonexistent music. I bet youd run a mile if I did, she said, and laughed loudly.

Tom gave a knowing smile. Here it comes She felt suddenly full of energy. Her eyes widened and a slight flush came to her cheeks. Im sick of this b.l.o.o.d.y party, she said a little too loudly. I want to dance.

Tom put his arm around her waist. Lets go.

PART TWO.

The Landscape

Mickey Mouse does not look very much like a real mouse, yet people do not write indignant letters to the papers about the length of his tail.

E. H. GOMBRlCH, art historian

I.

THE TRAIN ROLLED SLOWLY through the north of Italy. The brilliant suns.h.i.+ne had given way to a heavy, chill cloud layer, and the scenery was misty and damp-smelling. Factories and vineyards alternated until they s.h.i.+mmered into a hazed blur.

Dees elation had dissipated gradually on the journey. She did not yet have a find, she realized, only the smell of one. Without the picture at the end of the trail, what she had found out was worth no more than a footnote in a learned exegesis.

Her money was now running low. She had never asked Mike for any; nor had she given him any reason to think she needed it. On the contrary, she had always given him the impression that her income was rather higher than it really was. Now she regretted the mild deception.

She had enough to stay in Livorno for a few days, and for her fare home. She turned away from the mundanity of cash and lit a cigarette. In the clouds of smoke she daydreamed what she would do if she found the lost Modigliani. It would be the explosive beginning to her doctoral thesis on the relations.h.i.+p between drugs and art.

On second thought, it might be worth rather more than that: it could make the centerpiece of an article on how wrong everyone else was about the greatest Italian painter of the twentieth century. There was bound to be enough of interest in the picture to start half-a-dozen academic disputes.

It might even become known as the Sleign Modigliani-it would make her name. Her career would be secure for the rest of her life.

It might, of course, turn out to be a moderately good line drawing like hundreds of others Modigliani had done. No, that was hardly possible: the picture had been given away as an example of work done under the influence of has.h.i.+sh.

It had to be something strange, heterodox, ahead of its time, revolutionary even. What if it were an abstract-a turn-of-the-century Jackson Pollock?

The art history world would be ringing up Miss Delia Sleign and collectively asking for directions to Livorno. She would have to publish an article saying exactly where the work was to be found. Or she could carry it in triumph to the town museum. Or to Rome. Or she could buy it and surprise the world by- Yes, she could buy it. What a thought.

Then she could take it to London, and- My G.o.d, she said aloud. I could sell it.

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Livorno was a shock. Dee had been expecting a small market town, with half-a-dozen churches, a main street, and a local character who knew everything about everyone who had lived here during the last 100 years. She found a town rather like Cardiff: docks, factories, a steelworks, and tourist attractions.

She realized belatedly that the English name for Livorno was Leghorn-a major Mediterranean port and holiday resort. Vague history-book memories floated back: Mussolini had spent millions modernizing the harbor, only to have it all destroyed by Allied bombers; the town had something to do with the Medici; there had been an earthquake in the eighteenth century.

She found an inexpensive hotel: a high, whitewashed building in a terrace, with long, arched windows and no front garden. Her room was bare, clean and cool. She unpacked her suitcase, hanging the two summer dresses in a louvered cupboard. She washed, put on jeans and sneakers, and went out into the town.

The mist had gone and the early evening was mild. The cloud layer was moving on, and the sinking sun was visible behind its trailing edge out across the sea. Old women in ap.r.o.ns, their straight gray hair pulled back and fastened at the nape of the neck, stood or sat in doorways, watching the world go by.

Nearer the town center, handsome Italian boys paraded the sidewalks in their tight-hipped, bell-bottomed jeans and close-fitting s.h.i.+rts, their thick dark hair carefully combed. One or two raised a speculative eyebrow at Dee, but none made a determined pa.s.s. The boys were display items, she realized: to be seen rather than touched.

Dee strolled through the town aimlessly, killing time before dinner and wondering how to go about searching for the picture in this vast place. Clearly, anyone who knew of the pictures existence could not know it was a Modigliani; and conversely, if anyone knew there was such a Modigliani they would not know where it was or how to find it.

She pa.s.sed through a series of fine, open squares, dotted with statues of former kings done in the good local marble. She found herself in the Piazza Vittorio, a wide avenue with central islands of trees and gra.s.s. She sat down on a low wall to admire the Renaissance arcades.

It would take years to visit every house in the town and look at every old picture in attics and junk shops. The field had to be narrowed down, even though that meant reducing the chances of success.

Ideas began to come at last. Dee got up and briskly walked back to the little hotel. She was beginning to feel hungry.

The proprietor and his family occupied the ground floor of the building. There was no one in the entrance hall when Dee got back, so she knocked tentatively on the door of the familys quarters. Music and the sound of children filtered through, but there was no reply to her knock.

She pushed the door open and stepped into the room. It was a living room, with newish furniture of appallingly bad taste. A 1960s splayed-leg radio/ record player hummed in a comer. On the television a mans head soundlessly mouthed the news. In the center, on top of an orange nylon rug, a vaguely Swedish coffee table bore ashtrays, piled newspapers, and a paperback book.

A small child playing with a toy car at her feet ignored her. She stepped over him. The proprietor came through the far door. His stomach sagged hugely over the narrow plastic belt of his blue trousers, and a cigarette bearing a precarious finger of ash hung from the comer of his mouth. He looked at Dee inquiringly.

She spoke in fast, liquid Italian. I knocked, but there was no reply.

The mans lips hardly moved as he said: What is it?

Id like to book a call to Paris.

He moved to a bowlegged kidney-table near the door and picked up the telephone. Tell me the number. Ill get it.

Dee fished in her s.h.i.+rt pocket and took out the sc.r.a.p of paper on which she had written the number at Mikes flat.

Is there a particular person you want to speak to? the proprietor asked. Dee shook her head. Mike was not likely to be back yet, but there was a chance that his char would be in the flat-when they were away she dropped in whenever she felt like it.

The man took the cigarette out of his mouth and spoke a few sentences into the receiver. He put the phone down and said: It will only be a few minutes. Would you like to sit down?

Dees calves ached slightly after the walk. She sank gratefully into a tan leatherette armchair that could have come from a furniture store in Lewisham.

The proprietor seemed to feel he should stay with her: either out of politeness, or for fear she might steal one of the china ornaments on the mantelpiece. He said: What brings you to livorno-the sulphur springs?

She was not inclined to tell him the whole story. I want to look at paintings, she said.

Ah. He glanced around his walls. We have some fine work here, dont you think?

Yes. Dee suppressed a shudder. The framed prints around the room were mostly gloomy ecclesiastical pictures of men with haloes. Are there any art treasures in the cathedral? she said, remembering one of her ideas.

He shook his head. The cathedral was bombed in the war. He seemed a little embarra.s.sed to mention the fact that his country had been at war with Dees.

She changed the subject. I should like to visit Modiglianis birthplace. Do you know where it is?

The mans wife appeared in the doorway and threw a long, aggressive sentence at him. Her accent was too strong for Dee to follow. The man replied in an aggrieved tone, and the wife went away.

Modiglianis birthplace? Dee prompted.

I dont know, he said. He took the cigarette out of his mouth again, and dropped it in the already-full ashtray. But we have some tourist guides for sale-perhaps they would help?

Yes. Id like one.

The man left the room, and Dee watched the child, still playing his mysterious, absorbing game with the car. The wife walked through the room without looking at Dee. A moment later she walked back. She was not the most genial of hostesses, despite her husbands Friendliness-or perhaps because of it.

The telephone rang and Dee picked it up. Your Paris call, the operator said.

A moment later a woman said: Allo?

Dee switched to French. Oh, Claire, is Mike not back yet?

No.

Will you make a note of my number, and get him to call? She read the number from the dial then hung up.

The proprietor had returned meanwhile. He handed her a small glossy booklet with curling edges. Dee took some coins from her jeans pocket and paid him, wondering how many times the same book had been sold to guests who left it behind in their rooms.

I must help my wife to serve dinner, the man said.

Ill go in. Thank you.

Dee crossed the hall to the dining room and sat down at a small circular table with a checked cloth. She glanced at the guidebook. The Lazaretto of San Leopoldo is one of the finest of its kind in Europe, she read. She flicked a page. No visitor should miss seeing the famous Quattro Mori bronze. She flicked again. Modigliani lived first on the via Roma, and later at 10 via Leonardo Cambini.

The proprietor came in with a dish of Angels Hair soup, and Dee gave him a wide, happy smile.

The first priest was young, and his severely short haircut made him look like a teenager. His steel-rimmed spectacles balanced on a thin, pointed nose, and he continually wiped his hands on his robes with a nervous movement, as if drying the sweat from his palms. He seemed edgy in Dees presence, as anyone who had taken a vow of chast.i.ty was ent.i.tled to be; but he was eager to be helpful.

We have many paintings here, he said. There is a vault full of them in the crypt. No one has looked at them for years.

Would it be all right for me to go down there? she asked.