The Garden of Evil (7 page)

One

I
T WAS RAINING WHEN HE DROVE OUT OF THE FARMHOUSE
three days later, leaving Bea performing some unnecessary cleaning, and issuing persistent queries about where he was going and why. Costa had no sensible answers. He had a suitcase full enough for a week away, as Falcone had demanded. He felt glad to be out of the place, too, to be moving. Inactivity didn’t suit him, and perhaps the inspector understood that only too well. The previous night he’d barely slept for thinking about the case, and Falcone’s strangely gloomy assessment of what had been achieved so far. It was highly unusual for the old inspector to be so pessimistic at such a relatively early point in an investigation.

The city was choked with holiday traffic. The narrow lanes, now full of specialist shops selling antiques and furniture and clothes, were cloaked in skeins of Christmas lights twinkling over the crowds. It took ten minutes to find somewhere to park near the Piazza Borghese, even with police ID on the vehicle.

Costa’s opinion of the painting at the crime scene had not altered since the black day of December 8. In truth, for him, little had changed since the moment Emily had been snatched from life. It was as if his world had ceased to move, and in this sense of stasis the only certainty that remained was what he’d realised about the canvas he had first seen in the studio in the Vicolo del Divino Amore. Either it really was an unknown Caravaggio or somehow they had come across an extraordinary fake. There had been plenty of copyists over the years, both genuine artists working in Caravaggio’s style by way of tribute and con men trying to hoodwink naive buyers into thinking they had discovered some new masterpiece. At home, alone, desperate to think of something other than those last moments by the mausoleum, Costa had taken out his old art books, delved deep into the images and the histories there, welcoming the respite he could take from the thoughts that haunted him. The dark, violent genius who was Caravaggio had lived in Rome for just fourteen years, from 1592 until 1606, when he fled under sentence of death for murder. Every genuine homage that Costa could find had made it plain through some reference, stylistic or by way of subject, that it came from the brush of another. Every fake was, by dint of the original’s extraordinary technical skill, modest in reach, an attempt to convince the potential buyer that it came from Caravaggio’s early period in Rome, when he was open to quick, cheap private commissions, though even then only on his own terms and for subjects of which he approved.

As Nic remembered it, the canvas from the Vicolo del Divino Amore seemed to fit neither of these templates. That painting was bold, extraordinarily ambitious, and far more substantial than an ordinary collection piece thrown up on some brief commission in order to pay a pressing bill. It stood more than two metres wide and half as high, housed in a plain gilt frame that had faded to the dark sheen of old gold. Even with the briefest of glances, Costa had been able to detect telltale signs of the painter’s individual style. Seen from an angle to the side, close to where the body of Véronique Gillet lay on the grey flagstones, still and deathly pale, he had been able to make out the faintest of incisions, preparatory guidelines cut with a stylus or sharp pen, similar to those etched into plaster by fresco painters, a technique no other artist of the time was known to use on canvas.

The
sfumato
—a gradation from dark to light so subtle that it was impossible to discern the blend of an outline or border—appeared exquisite. Taken as a whole, the abiding style of the piece went beyond mere
chiaroscuro,
the histrionic balance of light and shade first developed by da Vinci. During his brief life, Caravaggio had taken da Vinci’s model and emboldened the drama with a fierce, almost brutal approach in which the core figures were set apart from the background and the characters around them by a bright, unforgiving light, like a ray of pure shining spirit. The effect was to heighten the emotional tension of the scene to a degree hitherto unseen in the work of any artist. There was a technical term for the style Caravaggio had pioneered,
tenebrismo,
from the Latin
tenebrae,
for shadows, and it was this that made paintings like the conversion of Saint Paul and the final moments of Peter on the cross so electrifying, so timeless.

HE FOUND HIS VIVID RECOLLECTIONS OF THOSE CANVASES RACING
through his head as he followed the directions Falcone had given him for the laboratory of the Galleria Barberini. When he got there, he realised it could have been no more than half a kilometre from the studio in the Vicolo del Divino Amore itself, though the distance was deceptive, since a straight line would run principally through hard Renaissance brick and stone, unseen halls and buildings hidden behind high, smog-stained windows.

Both the laboratory and the studio appeared to be part of the black lumbering mass that was the Palazzo Malaspina, an ugly façade for what was reputedly one of the finest remaining private palaces still in original hands. No one set foot inside the palazzo itself without an invitation. But it was no great surprise, Costa decided, that areas of the vast edifice were rented to outsiders. Shops, apartments, offices, and even a few restaurants seemed to find shelter in the area covered by its sprawling wings.

The small, almost invisible sign for the Barberini’s outpost was in a side alley off the relatively busy Via della Scrofa. He rang the bell and waited for only thirty seconds. A guard in the blue civilian uniform of one of the large private security companies opened the door. He had a belt full of equipment and a holster with a handgun poking prominently out of the top. There were valuable paintings here, Costa reminded himself. One perhaps more valuable than anyone else appreciated.

Before he could say a word, a short slender figure in a plain billowing black dress emerged from behind the guard’s bulky frame.

“I’ll deal with this, Paolo,” she declared, in a tone that sent the man scuttling back to his post next to the door without another word.

The woman was perhaps thirty, dark-skinned, with a pert, inquisitive face, narrow and pleasant rather than attractive, with gleaming brown eyes beneath a high and intellectual forehead. A large silver crucifix hung on a chain around her neck. A black garment which Costa thought might be called a scapular was draped around her slight shoulders. She seemed somewhat anxious. Her full head of black shiny hair hung in disorganised tresses, kept untidily together by pins. In her left hand she held a couple of creased and clearly old plastic grocery bags bulging with papers and notes and photographs, as if they were some kind of replacement for a briefcase.

It took a moment for Costa to understand. “I’m sorry, Sister,” he apologized. “I’m looking for the Barberini laboratory. I have an appointment.”

She reached into one of the plastic bags, took out a very green apple, bit into it greedily, and, mouth full, asked, “You are Nic?”

He nodded.

“Come in. You don’t look like you do in the pictures in the papers,” she replied, turning, then marching down the long corridor with a swift, deliberate gait, her heavy leather shoes clattering on the wooden floor.

He followed, hurrying to keep up. “You read the papers?” he asked, surprised.

She turned and laughed. “Of course I read the papers! What am I? A monk?”

They walked into a brightly lit chamber at the end. It was like entering an operating theatre. The painting sat on a bright new modern easel beneath a set of soft, insistent lighting that exposed every portion of it. Costa stared and felt his breath catch. The canvas radiated light and life and an extraordinary, magnetic power.

The nun sat down and finished her apple in four bites. Then she placed the core back in one of the grocery bags, took out a wrinkled paper handkerchief, and patted her lips. Costa had little experience in dealing with the city’s religious community. There was rarely any need.

“I’ve an appointment with Signora Agata Graziano,” he explained. “Will she be long?”

She folded her slender arms and stared at him. “Are you a detective?”

He shuffled on his feet, stealing glances at the painting. “Rumour has it,” he muttered.

“Then tell me what you make of this. You have an appointment with a woman. You come here. I am a woman. You see me.” Her skinny arms opened wide, a look of theatrical disbelief spread across her dark face. “And . . . ?”

Costa blinked. “I never thought you’d be a nun.”

“I’m not. Sit down, please.”

He took the chair next to her.

The woman’s alert, dusky face took on the patient, if slightly exasperated, expression of a teacher dealing with a slow pupil. “I am a sister, not a nun. I took simple vows, not solemn ones. It’s complicated. I won’t trouble you with this.”

“I’m sorry, Sister.”

“Agata, please. When I am here, I am here as an academic. When I am at home, you can call me ‘Sister.’ Except you are not allowed in my home. So the point is moot.”

“I consider myself both enlightened and chastised.”

She laughed. “Oh . . . a
sarcastic
detective. I like that. Convents lack sarcasm. Throw it at me as much as you like. Now, your first question.”

“Is it genuine?” he asked, gesturing at the painting.

She rolled her large brown eyes and threw back her head. Then, to Costa’s amazement, something akin to a curse, albeit a very mild one by Roman standards, escaped her lips.

“Nic, Nic, Nic,” Agata Graziano complained. “When I walk outside my convent, I’m a historian first and a lover of art second. I don’t make rash judgments. I need to ask some scientific people in here to examine paint and canvas samples. To take X-rays and consult with others of their ilk. Also, I need to look further at what records we have from that time.”

The painting was so near he could almost touch it. Costa was enjoying the ability to see it up close again, under decent light. Nothing there changed his original opinion.

“The records won’t tell you much,” he suggested.

She stared at him, another teacher-like look, this time of exaggerated surprise, and said, “What?”

“If this is a private commission of Caravaggio’s, the chances are there won’t be a mention of it anywhere,” Costa replied. “From what I’ve read, the only reliable records are for his church works. It makes sense. Those paintings had to be paid for with public money. That had to be accounted for. When he was employed by individuals, he might have had nothing more than a letter. Perhaps not even that.”

“I was under the impression art was the responsibility of the Carabinieri,” she observed.

“I was under the impression the Barberini employed its own people.”

She delivered up a jocular scowl, one that said
touché.
Then nothing else.

“Why
are
you here?” he asked.

“Because they believe I happen to be the best person for the job. Their usual suspects are in New York, supervising some coming show at the Metropolitan Museum. My luck. And”—she emphasised this point with a sharp look at the painting—“they are correct. There are a few things I don’t know about our mutual friend Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. But they are just a few, and on those no one else is any the wiser either. There. Immodesty masquerading as frankness. I have one more thing to confess.”

She hesitated. “And you?” she asked.

“I’m just interested. That’s all,” Costa answered.

“I meant about something to confess.”

He didn’t know what to say.

Agata Graziano screwed up her eyes with a sudden embarrassment so real Costa wondered what to do.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I read the papers. I’m an idiot. I apologise.”

“For what?”

“For treating you like this. You lost your wife and here I am making jokes.”

Costa wanted to utter something about the way the earth kept turning regardless of individual tragedies. Instead, he said, “I came back to work because I wanted to. I’ll deal with what that brings.”

“A brave idea,” she observed. “But a wise one? What do I know? I’m just an academic who thought this was purely business when clearly it isn’t.”

“This is business,” he emphasised.

“If you insist. I am not very good at sympathy, I’m afraid.”

“There’s no need to be. You don’t know me.”

“Is that relevant?” she wondered. “In any case I am saddened by your cruel loss. I cannot begin to imagine how it must feel.” She paused, a little uncertain of herself. “Can we consider that done with now?”

“Please. There’s one other reason to think you won’t find a record,” he said quickly, wishing to change the topic.

“That being?”

“Paintings like this weren’t for public viewing. They were commissioned for some special room in the house. To be seen only by a wife or a lover, or a male friend one wanted to impress.”

He stopped, wondering whether he was blushing. Years ago he had read widely about this type of work in an effort to understand how much of Caravaggio’s output, and that of his peers, might have been lost. The depressing answer was: a lot. The famous canvases of naked young boys—works that, some believed incorrectly, had led the artist to be accused of being a homosexual—fell precisely into this category. They were daring, at the very edge of acceptability in a city where sexual crimes could carry heavy penalties and sodomy itself was deemed worthy of a death sentence. Such paintings only survived because they had entered large and well-maintained collections early in the seventeenth century. Lesser, or more obscure, works were often destroyed or reused by later artists for their own purposes. Countless examples from private collections of the period, by Caravaggio and his contemporaries, had been lost forever, recorded, if at all, only in the private correspondence and diaries of those who had been lucky enough to see them. Costa was unsure how to elaborate on these delicate matters with a woman who called herself a sister.

“So you think it might be genuine?” he asked again.

“Persistence,” she answered. “You are a detective after all. I have a confession. When your inspector called, I was able to obtain a dispensation from my normal duties in the convent. Most of them, anyway, for a few days. So I have a little spare time on my hands, which I spent yesterday examining this painting, then this morning looking at what archival material I could lay my hands on easily. They kept very good records in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by the way. You should be grateful. The Uffizi owns a letter from a contemporary of Caravaggio’s, the poet Giambattista Marino, which may refer to a canvas very like this one. In 1599 Marino writes that he saw a painting of Caravaggio’s which was so consummate in execution, and so reckless in subject, he doubted anyone dare show it, even to those closest to him. Least of all the man who commissioned it, who was a cardinal in the Church.”