Chapter Seventeen

 

The following morning, Chiara’s foot felt good enough for her to go to school, though she opted to wear three pairs of woollen socks and her high rubber boots, not only because of the still-pounding rain and threatened acqua alta, but because the boots were wide and large enough to allow her healing toe plenty of room. She was gone by the time he was dressed and ready to leave for work, but at his place on the kitchen table he found a large sheet of paper with an immense red heart drawn on it and, under it, in her precise block print, ‘Grazie, Papà.’ He folded the drawing into a neat rectangle and sipped it into his wallet.

He hadn’t bothered to phone to tell Flavia and Brett — he assumed both of them were there — he was coming, but it was almost ten when he rang the bell, and he believed that was a sufficiently respectable hour to arrive to speak of murder.

He told the voice on the intercom who he was and pushed the heavy door open when the switch from upstairs released the lock. He propped his umbrella in a corner of the entrance, shook himself much in the manner of a dog, and began to climb the steps.

Today it was Brett who stood by the open door, she who let him into the apartment. She smiled when she saw him, and he saw again only the white flash of her teeth.

‘Where’s Signora Petrelli?’ he asked as she led him into the living room.

‘Flavia is seldom presentable before eleven. Never human before ten.’ As she led the way across the living room, he noticed that she walked more easily and seemed to be less concerned about causing pain to her body by some entirely natural movement or gesture.

She motioned him to a seat and took her place on the sofa; what little light came into the room entered behind her and partially shadowed her face. When they were seated, he pulled from his pocket the paper on which he had made notes the day before, though he was fairly clear about what he needed to know.

‘I’d like you to tell me about the pieces you found in China, the ones you think are false,’ he began with no introduction.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

‘That’s rather a lot.’

‘I need to know about the pieces you think have been stolen. And then I need to know something about how it could have been done.’

She began to answer immediately. ‘I’m sure now about four, but the other is genuine.’ Here her expression changed and the look she gave him was a confused one. ‘But I have no idea how it was done.’

It was his turn not to understand. ‘But someone told me yesterday that you have a whole chapter on it in a book you wrote.’

‘Oh,’ she said with audible relief, ‘that’s what you mean, how they were made. I thought you meant how they were stolen. I have no idea about that, but I can tell you how the false pieces were manufactured.’

Brunetti didn’t want to bring up the idea of Matsuko’s involvement, at least not yet, and so he merely asked, ‘How?’

‘It’s a simple enough process.’ Her voice changed, taking on the quick certainty of the expert. ‘Do you know anything about pottery or ceramics?’

‘Very little,’ he admitted.

‘The pieces that were stolen were all from the second century before Christ,’ she began by way of explanation, but he interrupted her.

‘Over two thousand years ago?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes. The Chinese had very beautiful pottery, even then, and very sophisticated means of making it. But the pieces that were taken were simple things, at least then, when they were made. They’re unglazed, hand-painted, and they usually have the figures of animals. Primary colours: red and white, often on a black background.’ She pushed herself up from the sofa and walked over to the bookcase, where she stood for a few minutes, considering, turning her head rhythmically as she studied the titles in front of her. Finally she took a book from a shelf directly in front of her and brought it back to Brunetti. She turned to the index, then opened it and flipped through the pages until she found the one she wanted. She passed the open book to Brunetti.

He saw a photo of a gourd-shaped, squat, covered jar, no idea given of its scale. The decoration on the jar was divided up into three horizontal bands: the neck and cover, a broad centre field, and a third band that ran to the bottom. In the broad central field, placed just on the widest part of the vase, he saw a wide view of an open-mouthed animal figure that might have been a stylized wolf, or a fox, even a dog, his white body standing upright and lurching to the left, back legs spread wide and raised forelegs stretched out on either side, The sense of motion created by his limbs was reflected in a series of geometric curves and swirls sketched in a repeated pattern across the front of the vase and, presumably, around to its unpictured back. The rim, he could see, was pitted and chipped, but the central image was intact, and it was very beautiful. The inscription said only that it was Han Dynasty, which meant nothing to Brunetti. 

‘Is this the sort of thing you find in Xian?’ he asked.

‘It’s from Western China, yes, but not from Xian. It’s a rare piece; I doubt we’ll find anything like it.’                                   

‘Why?’

‘Because two thousand years have passed.’ That, she seemed to believe, was more than sufficient explanation.

‘Tell me about how you’d copy it,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the photo.

‘First, you’d need an expert potter, someone who had actually had time and opportunity to study the ones that have been found, seen them close up, worked with them, perhaps worked at finding them, or worked at displaying them. That would allow him to have seen actual fragments, so he would have a clear idea of the thickness of the different parts. Then you’d need a very good painter, someone who could copy a style, catch the mood in a vase like this, and then reproduce it so closely that it would appear to be the same piece that had been in the exhibition.’

‘How hard would that be to do?’

‘Very hard. But there are men, and women, who are trained for it and who do it superbly well.’

Brunetti placed the point of his finger just above the central figure. ‘This one looks worn; it looks really old. How do they copy that?’

‘Oh, that’s relatively easy. They bury the piece in the ground; some of them use raw sewage and bury it there.’ Seeing Brunetti’s instinctive disgust, she explained. ‘It corrodes the paint and wears it away faster. Then they chip tiny pieces away, usually from the edges or from the bottom.’ To explain, she pointed to a small chip on the top rim of the vase in the photo, just where it met the cylindrical cover, and on the bottom, where the vase touched the ground.

‘Is it difficult?’ Brunetti asked.

‘No, not to make a piece that will fool the layman. It’s much harder to make something that will fool an expert.’

‘Like you?’ he asked.’

‘Yes,’ she said, not bothering with the pretence of false modesty.

‘How can you tell?’ he asked, then expanded the question. ‘What are some of the things that tell you it’s a fake? Things that other people wouldn’t see?’

Before she answered, she flipped through a few pages of the book, pausing now and again to look at a photo. Finally she snapped it closed and looked across at him. ‘There’s the paint, whether the colour is right for the period when the vase was supposed to have been made. And the line, if it shows hesitation in the execution. That suggests that the painter was trying to copy something and had to think about it, pause while drawing to get it right. The original artists didn’t have to meet a standard; they just painted what they pleased, so their line is always fluid. If they didn’t like it, they probably broke the pot.’

He picked up immediately on the use of the casual word. ‘Pot or vase?’

She laughed outright at his question. ‘They’re vases now, two thousand years later, but I think they were just pots to the people who made them and used them.’

‘What did they use them for?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Originally.’

She shrugged. ‘For whatever people ever used pots for: storing rice, carrying water, storing grain. That one with the animal has a top, so they wanted whatever they kept in it to be safe, probably from mice. That suggests rice or wheat.’

‘How valuable are they?’ Brunetti asked.

She sat back in the sofa and crossed her legs. ‘I don’t know how to answer that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you have to have a market to have a price.’

‘And?’

‘And there’s no market in these pieces.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there are so few of them. The one in the book is at the Metropolitan in New York. There might be three or four in other museums in different parts of the world.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, and Brunetti could picture her running through lists and catalogues. When she opened them, she said, ‘I can think of three: two in Taiwan, and one in a private collection.’

‘No others?’ Brunetti asked.

She shook her head. ‘None.’ But then she added, ‘At least none that are on display or in a collection that is known about.’

‘And private collections?’ he asked.

‘Perhaps, but one of us would probably have heard about it, and there’s nothing in the literature that mentions any others. So I think it’s a pretty safe guess there are no more than those.’

‘What would one of the museum pieces be worth?’ he asked, then explained when he saw her begin to shake her head, ‘I know, I know, from what you’ve said, it would be impossible to put an exact price on it, but can you give me some idea of what the value would be?’

It took her a while to think of an answer. When she did, she said, ‘The price would be whatever the seller asked or whatever the buyer was willing to pay. The market prices are in dollars - a hundred thousand? Two? More? But there really are no prices because there are so few pieces of this quality. It would depend entirely on how much the buyer wanted to have the piece, and on how much money he had.’

Brunetti translated her prices into millions of lire: two hundred million, three? Before he could complete this speculation, she continued.

‘But that’s only for the pottery, the vases. To the best of my knowledge, none of the statues of the soldiers has disappeared, but if that were to happen, there really is no price that could be put on it.’

‘But there’s also no way the owner could show it publicly, is there?’ Brunetti asked.

She smiled. ‘I’m afraid there are people who don’t care about showing things publicly. They just want to possess, be sure that a certain piece is theirs. I’ve no idea if they’re prompted by love of beauty or the desire of ownership, but, believe me, there are people who simply want to have a piece in their collection, even if no one ever sees it. Aside from themselves, that is.’ She saw how sceptical he looked at this, so she added, ‘Remember that Japanese billionaire, the one who wanted to be buried with his Van Gogh?’

Brunetti remembered having read something about it, last year. The man was said to have bought the painting at auction and then had it written in his will that he was to be buried with the painting, or, to put things in the proper order of importance, the painting was to be buried with him. He remembered something about a storm in the art world over this. ‘In the end, he gave up and said he wouldn’t do it, didn’t he?’

‘Well, that’s what was reported,’ she agreed. ‘I never believed the story, but I mention him to give you an idea of how some people feel about their possessions, how they believe that their right of ownership is the absolute measure or the chief purpose of collecting, not the beauty of the object.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not explaining this very well, but, as I said, it doesn’t make any sense to me.’

Brunetti realized he still didn’t have a sufficient answer to his original question. ‘But I still don’t understand how you know that something is an original or a copy.’ Before she could answer, he added, ‘A friend of mine told me about that sixth sense you get, that something just looks right or wrong to you. But that’s very subjective. What I mean is this: if two experts disagree, one saying the piece is original and another saying it isn’t, how do you resolve the difference? Call in a third expert and take a vote?’ He smiled to show he was joking, but he could think of no other way out of the situation.

Her answering smile showed she got the joke. ‘No, we call in the technicians. There are a number of tests we can perform to prove the age of an object.’ With a change of voice, she asked, ‘Are you sure you want to listen to all of this?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I’ll try not to be too pedantic about it,’ she said, pulling her feet up under her on the sofa. ‘There are all sorts of tests that we can do on paintings: analysis of the chemical composition of paints to see if they’re right for the time when the picture is said to have been painted, X-rays to see what’s underneath the surface layer of a painting, even Carbon-14 dating.’ He nodded to show that he was familiar with all of these.

‘But we’re not talking about paintings,’ he said.

‘No, we’re not. The Chinese never worked in oils, at least not in the periods covered in the show. Most of the objects were ceramic or metal. I’ve never been interested in the metal pieces, well, not very much, but I do know it’s almost impossible to cheek them scientifically. For them, you need the eye.’

‘But not for ceramic?’

‘Of course you need the expert eye, but, luckily, the techniques for checking authenticity are as sophisticated as they are for painting.’ She paused a moment and asked again, ‘Do you want me to be technical?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said, finding his pen and, in the doing, feeling very much like a student.

‘The chief technique we use — and the most reliable - is called thermoluminescence. All we have to do is extract about thirty miligrams of ceramic from any piece we want to test.’ She anticipated his question by explaining, ‘It’s easy. We take it from the back of a plate or from the underside of a vase or a statue. The amount we need is barely noticeable, just enough to get a sample. Then a photo multiplier will tell us, with an accuracy of about ten to fifteen per cent, the age of the material.’

‘How does it work?’ Brunetti asked. ‘I mean, on what principle?’

‘When clay is fired, well, if it’s fired above about 300 degrees centigrade, then all the electrons in the material it’s made out of will be - I suppose there’s no better word for it — they’ll be erased. The heat destroys their electric charges. Then, from that point on, they begin to pick up new electrical charges. That’s what the photo multiplier measures, how much energy they’ve absorbed. The older the material is, the brighter it glows.’

‘And this is accurate?’

‘As I said, to about fifteen per cent. That means, with a piece that’s supposed to be two thousand years old, we can get a reading that will tell us, to within about three hundred years, when it was made - well, when it was last fired.’

‘And did you do this test on the pieces while you were in China?’

She shook her head. ‘No, there’s no equipment like that in Xian.’

‘So how can you be sure?’

She smiled when she answered him. ‘The eye. I looked at them, and I was fairly sure they were fake.’

‘But to be sure? Did you ask anyone else?’

‘I told you. I wrote to Semenzato. And when I didn’t get an answer, I came back here.’ She saved him the question. ‘Yes, I brought samples with me, samples from the three pieces I was most suspicious of and from the other two that I think might be false.’

‘Did Semenzato know you had these samples?’

‘No. I never mentioned it to him.’

‘Where are they?’

‘I stopped in California on the way here and left one set with a friend of mine who’s a curator at the Getty. They have the equipment, so I asked him to run them through for me.’

‘And did he?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘I called him when I got home from the hospital. All three of the pieces that I thought were fake were made within the last few years.’

‘And the other two?’          

‘One of them is genuine. The other is a fake.’

‘Is one test enough?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Yes.’

Even if it weren’t sufficient proof, Brunetti realized, what had happened to her and Semenzato was.

After a moment, Brett asked, ‘Now what?’

‘We try to find out who killed Semenzato and who the two men who came here were.’

Her look was level and very sceptical. Finally, she asked, ‘And what are the chances of that?’

He pulled from his inner pocket the police photos of Salvatore La Capra and passed them over to Brett. ‘Was this one of them?’

She took the photos and studied them for a minute. ‘No,’ she said simply and handed them back to Brunetti.

‘They’re Sicilian,’ she said. ‘They’re probably back home now, paid off and happy with the wife and kids. Their trip was a success; they did both things they were sent to do, scare me and kill Semenzato.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense, does it?’ he asked.

‘What doesn’t make any sense?’

‘I’ve been talking to people who knew him and knew about him, and it seems that Semenzato was mixed up in a number of things that a museum director shouldn’t have had anything to do with.’

‘Like what?’

‘He was a silent partner in an antique business. Other people have told me his professional opinion was for sale.’ Brett apparently needed no explanation of what the second meant.

‘Why is that important?’

‘If their intention had been to kill him, they would have done that first, then warned you to keep quiet or the same thing would happen to you. But they didn’t do that; they went to you first. And if that had worked, then Semenzato would never have known, at least not officially, about the substitution.’

‘You’re still assuming that he was part of this,’ Brett said. When Brunetti nodded his agreement, she added, ‘I think that’s a big assumption.’

‘It doesn’t make sense any other way,’ Brunetti explained. ‘How else would they have known to come to you, known about the appointment?’

‘And if I had still told him, even after they did this to me?’ He was surprised that she wouldn’t have seen this and was reluctant to explain it to her now. He didn’t answer.

‘Well?’ she insisted.

‘If Semenzato was a part of this, it’s pretty clear what would have happened if you spoke to him,’ Brunetti said, still reluctant to be the one to give it voice.

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘They would have killed you, not him,’ he said simply.

He watched her face as he spoke, saw it reach her eyes, first as shock and disbelief. After a moment, she understood, and her expression stiffened, her lips compressing and drawing her mouth tight.

Luckily, Flavia chose that time to come into the living room, bringing with her the flowery scent of soap or shampoo or one of those things women use to make themselves smell wonderful at the wrong time of the day. Why the morning and not the night?

She was wearing a simple brown woollen dress tied by a bright orange scarf wrapped around her waist a few times and knotted at her side, its end hanging below her knees and swinging as she walked. She wore no make-up and, seeing her without it, Brunetti wondered why she ever bothered with it.

‘Buon giorno,’ she said, smiling and offering him her hand,

He stood to take it. Glancing at Brett, she included her in her next remark. ‘I’m going to make coffee. Would either of you like some?’ Then with a smile, ‘A bit early for champagne.’

Brunetti nodded but Brett shook her head. Flavia turned and disappeared into the kitchen. Her arrival and departure had, however momentarily, deflected his last remark, but now they had no choice but to return to it.

‘Why did they kill him?’ Brett asked.

‘I don’t know. An argument with the other people involved with him? A disagreement about what to do, perhaps what to do about you?’

‘Are you sure he was killed because of all of this?’

‘I think it’s best to work on that assumption,’ he answered blandly, not surprised at her reluctance to see it this way. To do so, obviously, would be to admit her own peril: with Matsuko and Semenzato both dead, she was the only one who knew about the theft. Whoever had killed Semenzato could have no idea that she had brought proof, as well as suspicions, back from China with her, and so they would have to believe that his death would effectively end the trail. If the fraud should ever be detected sometime in the future, it was not likely that the government of the People’s Republic of China could be moved to interest itself in the murderous greed of Western capitalists; it would probably search for the thieves nearer to home.

‘While they were still in China, who was in charge of the pieces selected for the show?’

‘We dealt with a man from the Beijing Museum, Xu Lin. He’s one of their leading archaeologists and a very good art historian.’

‘Did he accompany the exhibits out of China?’

She shook her head. ‘No, his political past prevented that.’

‘Why?’

‘His grandfather was a landlord, so he was considered politically undesirable or, at least, suspect.’ She saw Brunetti’s open look of surprise and explained. ‘I know it sounds irrational.’ Then, after a pause, she added, ‘It is irrational, but that’s the way it is. He spent ten years during the Cultural Revolution herding pigs and spreading dung on cabbage fields. But as soon as the Revolution was over, he returned to the university, and since he was a brilliant student, he couldn’t be kept from winning the job in Beijing. But they wouldn’t let him leave the country. The only people who travelled with the exhibition were party hacks who wanted to go abroad to go shopping.’

‘And you.’

‘Yes, and me.’ After a moment, she added in a low voice, ‘And Matsuko.’

‘So you’re the one who will be held responsible for the theft?’

‘Of course, I’m responsible. They clearly aren’t going to accuse the party cadres who came along for the ride, not when they have a Westerner to take the blame for the whole thing.’

‘What do you think happened?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing makes sense. Or I can’t believe what does make sense.’

‘Which is?’ He was interrupted by Flavia, who came back into the room carrying a tray. She walked past him, went to sit beside Brett on the sofa, and placed the tray on the table in front of them. On it were two cups of coffee. She handed one of the cups to Brunetti, took the other, and sat back in the sofa. ‘There are two sugars in it. I think that’s what you take.’

Ignoring this interruption, Brett continued. ‘One of the party cadres must have been approached by someone here.’ Though Flavia had missed the question that prompted this explanation, she made no attempt to disguise her response to the answer. She turned and stared at Brett in stony silence, then glared over at Brunetti and met his eyes. When neither of them said anything, Brett continued, ‘All right. All right. Or Matsuko. Maybe it was Matsuko.’

Sooner or later, Brunetti was sure, she would be forced to remove that ‘maybe’.

‘And Semenzato?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Possibly. At any rate, someone at the museum.’

He interrupted her. ‘Did these people, the ones you call cadres, did any of them speak Italian?’

‘Yes, two or three of them.’

‘Two or three?’ he repeated. ‘How many of them were there?’

‘Six,’ Brett answered. ‘The party takes care of its own.’

Flavia sniffed.

‘How well did they speak Italian? Do you remember?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Well enough,’ was her terse reply. She paused and then admitted, ‘No, not well enough for that. I was the only one who was able to speak to the Italians. If it was done, it would have to have been done in English.’ Matsuko, Brunetti recalled, had taken her degree at Berkeley.

Exasperated, Flavia snapped out, ‘Brett, when are you going to stop being stupid about this and take a look at what happened? I don’t care about you and the Japanese girl, but you’ve got to look at this clearly. This is your life you’re playing with.’ As suddenly as she had started, she stopped, sipped at her coffee but, finding the cup empty set it roughly down on the table in front of her.

No One spoke for a long time until Brunetti finally asked, ‘When would the switch have been done?’

‘After the closing of the exhibition,’ Brett answered in a shaky voice.

Brunetti shifted his glance to Flavia. She remained silent, glancing down at her hands, clasped loosely in her lap.

Brett sighed deeply and whispered, ‘All right. All right.’ She sat back in the sofa and watched the rain drive down against the glass of the skylights. Finally, she said, ‘She was here for the packing. She had to verify each object before the Italian customs police sealed the package and then sealed the crate that the boxes were put into.’

‘Would she have recognized a fake?’ Brunetti asked.

Brett’s answer was a long time coming. ‘Yes, she would have seen the difference.’ For a moment, he thought she was going to add something to that, but she didn’t. She watched the rain.

‘How long would it have taken them to pack everything?’

Brett considered for a moment and then answered, ‘Four days? Five?’

‘And then what? Where did the crates go from here?’

‘They were flown to Rome on Alitalia, but then they were held up there for more than a week by a strike at the airport. From there, they went to New York, and they were held up there by American customs. Finally, they were put on the Chinese airline and taken back to Beijing. The seals on the crates were checked every time they were put on or taken off a plane, and guards stayed with them while they were in the foreign airports.’

‘How long was it from the time they left Venice until they got to Beijing?’

‘More than a month.’

‘How long was it before you saw them?’

She shifted around on the sofa before she answered him, but she still didn’t look at him. ‘I told you, not until this winter.’

‘Where were you when they were being packed?’

‘I told you. In New York.’

Flavia interrupted. ‘With me. I was making my debut at the Met. Opening night was two days before the exhibition closed here. I asked Brett to go with me, and she did.’

Brett finally looked away from the rain and across at Flavia. ‘And I left Matsuko in charge of the shipment.’ She put her head back on the sofa and looked up at the skylights. ‘I went to New York for a week, and I stayed three. Then I went back to Beijing to wait for the shipment. When it didn’t arrive, I went back to New York and got it through US customs. But then,’ she continued, ‘I decided to stay in New York. I called Matsuko and told her I was delayed, and she offered to go to Beijing to check the collection when it finally got back to China.’

‘Was it her job to verify the objects in the shipment?’ Brunetti asked.

Brett nodded.

‘If you had been in China,’ Brunetti asked, ‘then you would have unpacked the collection yourself?’

‘I’ve just told you that,’ Brett snapped.

‘And you would have noticed the substitution then?’

‘Of course.’

‘Did you see any of the pieces before this winter?’

‘No. When they first got back to China, they disappeared into some sort of bureaucratic limbo for six months, then they were put on display in a warehouse, and then they were finally sent back to the museums they had originally been borrowed from.’

‘And that’s when you saw that they had been changed?’

‘Yes, and that’s when I wrote to Semenzato. About three months ago.’ With no warning, she raised her hand and slammed it down on the arm of the sofa. ‘The bastards,’ she said, voice guttural with rage. ‘The filthy bastards.’

Flavia put a calming hand on her knee. ‘Brett, there’s nothing you can do about it.’

With no change in her voice, Brett turned to her. ‘It’s not your career that’s over, Flavia. People will come and hear you sing no matter what you do, but they’ve just destroyed the last ten years of my life.’ She stopped for a moment and then added, voice softer, ‘And all of Matsuko’s.’

When Flavia tried to object, she continued, ‘It’s over. Once the Chinese find out about this, they’ll never let me go back. I’m responsible for those pieces. Matsuko brought the papers back from Beijing with her, and I signed them when I got back to Xian. I verified that they were all there, in the same condition as when they left the country. I should have been there, should have checked them all, but I let her go instead because I was in New York with you, listening to you sing. And it’s cost me my career.’

Brunetti looked at Flavia, saw the flush that had come into her face at the sound of Brett’s growing anger. He saw the graceful line her shoulder and arm made as she sat turned towards Brett, studied the curve of her neck and jaw. Perhaps she was worth a career.

‘The Chinese don’t have to find out about it,’ he said.

‘What?’ both of them asked.

‘Did you tell your friends who did the tests what the samples were?’ he asked Brett.

‘No, I didn’t. Why?’

‘Then we seem to be the only people who know about it. Of course, unless you told anyone in China.’

She shook her head from side to side. ‘No, I told no one. Only Semenzato.’

Flavia interrupted here and said, ‘And I doubt we have to worry he told anyone, aside from the person he sold them to.’

‘But I have to tell them,’ Brett insisted.

Instead of looking at her, Flavia and Brunetti glanced across the table at each other, understanding instantly what could be done, and it was only with the exercise of great force of will that each of them resisted the impulse to mutter, ‘Americans.’

Flavia decided to explain things to her. ‘So long as the Chinese don’t know, then nothing has happened to your career.’

To Brett, it was as if Flavia hadn’t spoken. ‘They can’t keep those pieces on display. They’re fakes.’

‘Brett,’ Flavia asked, ‘how long have they been back in China?’

‘Almost three years.’

‘And no one has noticed they aren’t genuine?’

‘No,’ Brett conceded.

Brunetti picked it up here. ‘Then it’s not likely that anyone will. Besides, the substitution could have happened any time during the last four years, couldn’t it?’

‘But we know it didn’t,’ Brett insisted.

‘That’s just it, cara.’ Flavia decided to try to explain it to her again. ‘Aside from the people who stole the vases, we’re the only people who know about it.’

‘That doesn’t make any difference,’ Brett said, her voice once more rising towards anger. ‘Besides, sooner or later, someone is going to realize they’re fake.’

‘And the later it is,’ Flavia explained with a broad smile, ‘the less likely it is that anyone will link you to it.’ She paused to let this sink in, then added, ‘Unless, of course, you want to toss away ten years’ work.’

For a long time, Brett didn’t say anything, just sat while the others watched her consider what had been said. Brunetti studied her face, feeling that he could read the play of emotion and idea. When she was about to speak, he suddenly said, ‘Of course, if we find out who killed Semenzato it’s likely that we’ll get the original vases back.’ He had no way of knowing if this was true, but he had seen Brett’s face and knew she had been about to refuse the idea of remaining silent.

‘But they’d still have to get back to China, and that’s impossible.’

‘Hardly,’ Flavia interrupted and laughed outright. Realizing that Brunetti would be more receptive, she turned to him to explain. ‘The master classes.’

Brett’s response was instant. ‘But you said no, you turned them down.’

‘That was last month. What’s the good of my being a prima donna if I can’t change my mind? You told me yourself that they’d give me royal treatment if I accepted. They’d hardly go through my bags when I got to the Beijing airport, not with the Minister of Culture there to meet me. I’m a diva, so they’ll be expecting me to travel with eleven suitcases. I’d hate to disappoint them.’

‘And what if they open your bags?’ Brett asked, but there was no fear in her voice.

Flavia’s response was immediate, ‘If memory serves, one of our cabinet ministers was caught with drugs at some airport in Africa, and nothing came of it. Certainly, in China, a diva ought to be far more important than a cabinet minister. Besides, it’s your reputation we’re worrying about, not mine.’

‘Be serious, Flavia,’ Brett said.

‘I am serious. There is absolutely no chance that they’d search my luggage, at least not when I’m going in. You’ve told me they’ve never searched yours, and you’ve been going in and out of China for years.’

‘There’s always the chance, Flavia,’ Brett said, but it was audible to Brunetti that she didn’t believe it.

‘There’s more of a chance, from what you’ve told me about their ideas of maintenance, that my plane will crash, but that’s no reason not to go. Besides, it might be interesting to go. It might give me some ideas about Turandot.’ Brunetti thought she was finished, but then she added, ‘But why are we wasting time talking about this?’ She looked at Brunetti, as if she held him responsible for the missing vases.

It surprised Brunetti to realize he had no idea if she was serious or not about trying to take the pieces back to China. He spoke to Brett. ‘In any case, you can’t say anything now. Whoever killed Semenzato doesn’t know what you told us, doesn’t even know if we’ve managed to come up with a reason for his murder. And I want to keep it that way.’

‘But you’ve been here, and you came to the hospital,’ Brett said.

‘Brett, you said they weren’t Venetian. I could be anyone: a friend, a relative. And I haven’t been followed.’ It was true. Only a native could successfully follow another person through the narrow streets of the city; only a native would know the sudden stops, the hidden turns, the dead ends.

‘So what should I do?’ Brett asked.

‘Nothing,’ he answered.

‘And what does that mean?’

‘Just that. Nothing. In fact, it would be wise if you were to leave the city for a while,’

‘I’m not sure I want to take this face anywhere,’ she said, but she said it with humour, a good sign.

Turning to Brunetti, Flavia said, ‘I’ve tried to get her to come to Milan with me.’

A team player, Brunetti asked her, ‘When are you going?’

‘Monday. I’ve already told them I’ll sing Thursday night. They’ve scheduled a piano rehearsal for Tuesday afternoon.’

He turned back to Brett. ‘Are you going to go?’ When she didn’t answer, he added, ‘I think it’s a good idea.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ was as much as Brett would say, and he decided to leave it at that. If she was going to be convinced, it was Flavia who could do it, not he.

‘If you decide to go, please let me know.’

‘Do you think there’s any danger?’ Flavia asked.

Brett answered the question before he could. ‘There’s probably less danger if they think I’ve spoken to the police. Then they don’t have to stop me from doing so.’ Then, to Brunetti, ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

He was not in the habit of lying, even to women. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. Once the Chinese are notified about the fakes, whoever killed Semenzato will no longer have a reason to try to silence you. They’ll know the warning failed to stop you.’ Or, he realized, they could try to silence her permanently, but he chose to say nothing of this.

‘Wonderful,’ Brett said. ‘I can tell the Chinese and save my neck, but I ruin my career. Or I keep quiet, save my career, and then all I have to worry about is my neck.’

Flavia leaned across the table and placed her hand on Brett’s knee. ‘That’s the first time you’ve sounded like yourself since this began.’

Brett smiled in response and said, ‘Nothing like the fear of death to wake a person up, is there?’

Flavia sat back in her chair again and asked Brunetti, ‘Do you think the Chinese are involved in this?’

Brunetti was no more inclined than any other Italian to believe in conspiracy theories, which meant he often saw them even in the most innocent of coincidences. ‘I don’t believe your friend’s death was accidental,’ he said to Brett. ‘That means they have someone in China.’

‘Whoever “they” are,’ Flavia interrupted with heavy emphasis.

‘Because I don’t know who they are doesn’t mean they don’t exist,’ Brunetti said, turning to her.

‘Precisely,’ agreed Flavia and smiled.

To Brett, he said, ‘That’s why I think it might be better if you were to leave the city for a while.’

She nodded vaguely, surely not in agreement. ‘If I do go, I’ll let you know.’ Hardly a pledge of good faith. She leaned back again and rested her head on the back of the sofa. From above them all, the sound of the rain pounded down.

He turned his attention to Flavia, who signalled towards the door with her eyes, then made a small gesture with her chin, telling him it was time to leave.

He realized that there was little more to say, so he got to his feet. Brett, seeing him, pulled her feet out from beneath her and started to rise.

‘No, don’t bother,’ Flavia said, standing and moving off towards the entrance hall. ‘I’ll see him out.’

He leaned down and shook Brett’s hand. Neither said anything.

At the door, Flavia took his hand and pressed it with real warmth. ‘Thank you,’ was all she said, and then she held the door while he passed in front of her and started down the steps. The closing door cut off the sound of the falling rain.

* * * *