The Rainaldi Quartet (15 page)

This fake Stradivari before me had come much later, long after Ruffino and I had parted company, but I remembered him making it all the same. It had taken him years to finish. Occasionally it would be out on his bench when I paid a social call on him in his workshop and he would show me with glee exactly how he was faking it – finishing the back and belly with scrapers which, like Stradivari's, were made from the blades of sabres, completing the final smoothing of the wood with dried dogfish skin and horsetail, a coarse, abrasive grass which still grows along the banks of the Po as it did in the Master's day. He was disarmingly honest with me, much as he had been when I had been apprenticed to him. He knew I would never turn him in to the police. I had too much affection for him as a person and, besides, I had spent my apprentice years helping him. To expose Ruffino would have been to destroy my own hard-won reputation as a luthier and Ruffino knew I would never do that.

His painstaking work on the Stradivari had paid off. Even my expert eye could not detect any flaws in its construction. Ruffino had imitated every facet of Stradivari's style with consummate mastery, and in addition he had ‘aged' the violin convincingly. He had darkened and dirtied the varnish, simulated wear and tear on the upper treble bout where a player's hand would have rested in third position, and rubbed away some of the varnish on the middle of the back and the chamfers of the scroll. Even the label inside had been discoloured to make it appear three hundred years old. It was the most perfect fake I'd ever seen, yet Ruffino had never tried to dispose of it. I wondered sometimes if he'd hung on to it because he knew it was the apotheosis of his forger's craft, something never again to be equalled. There again, Stradivari was a dangerous subject for a deception. He produced a large number of instruments – probably close on 1,100, of which only around 650 survive – so there would appear superficially to be scope for finding a few hitherto undiscovered examples. In fact, those 650 are so well documented, and so many people over the years have tried unsuccessfully to track down the remaining 450, that the arrival in the marketplace of an unknown Strad would arouse the most profound suspicion and a
prima facie
assumption that it was a fake. Maybe Ruffino had kept his ‘Stradivari' because he feared he might be caught if he tried to sell it.

I picked up the instrument and hung it back on its hook. It had been there for almost a quarter of a century. Sometimes I had thought about destroying it – in case on my own death it was brought out into the light and believed to be genuine – but I'd always resisted the impulse. I liked having it there on the wall. It was a memento of my old teacher, a reminder of the skills he had taught me, and perhaps also a warning to me about how those skills should be used.

For the next two hours I worked on the genuine Stradivari, making the plaster of Paris mould I needed to repair the damaged belly of the violin. I was so engrossed in my task that I didn't notice Guastafeste coming into my workshop until he closed the door behind him with a loud click. I looked up sharply.

‘Sorry,' Guastafeste said. ‘I didn't mean to startle you.'

‘Come in,' I said. ‘What time is it?'

‘Seven-thirty. Am I interrupting?'

‘It's time I stopped. I'm tired.' I stretched my shoulders and slid down off my stool. ‘How about a drink?'

We sat out at the table on the terrace with a glass of Valpolicella each and a large bowl of olives between us. Guastafeste looked unkempt, a dark stubble on his face. He was wearing the same shirt and tie he'd had on in Venice almost twenty-four hours earlier.

‘What happened with Christopher Scott?' I said. ‘Or is that confidential?'

‘You're inside the loop, Gianni,' Guastafeste replied. ‘What I know, you can know.'

‘Did he kill Forlani?'

Guastafeste chewed on an olive, spitting the stone out into the palm of his hand.

‘He has an alibi. Corroborated by several witnesses. He would seem to be in the clear.'

‘What kind of an alibi?'

‘He was staying at the Cipriani in Venice. You know it?'

‘No. I'm not very familiar with Venice.'

‘It's an exclusive, very expensive hotel on the Giudecca. The kind of place film stars like to hide out. It's private, secure, yet only a five-minute boat ride from St Mark's. The hotel has its own taxi service across the lagoon – a fleet of swish luxury motorboats to ferry guests to and from the city. The drivers keep a log of who they transport – stops the
hoi polloi
and
paparazzi
from sneaking into the hotel compound. Christopher Scott, according to both the taxi driver and the hotel night receptionist, came back to his room at half past twelve on Monday night. He had an early-morning alarm call at seven, then took a water taxi from the hotel to the airport at Jesolo at eight. He caught a nine-thirty Alitalia flight to Milan.'

‘And Forlani died some time between six and eight a.m. on Tuesday morning?' I said. Guastafeste nodded. ‘What if Scott somehow slipped out of the hotel during the night, went back to Forlani's house and then returned to the Cipriani in time for his seven a.m. alarm call?'

‘Can't be done. The only way off the Giudecca is by boat. The Venice police have spent the day checking out Scott's alibi, talking to every water taxi operator in the city. They're pretty sure he never left the island until he went to the airport. Not unless he swam across the lagoon which, frankly, is not a credible option.'

‘Did he admit he went to Forlani's that evening?'

‘Oh, yes, he was very forthcoming.'

‘He say why?'

‘To discuss violins.'

‘Any violin in particular?'

‘A Guarneri that's coming up for auction in London next week. Scott had the catalogue with him. He showed it to us. He said he was going to be bidding on Forlani's behalf and they'd met to discuss how high he should go.'

‘At half past eleven at night?'

‘That was the time specified by Forlani, apparently. I can believe it, having met him.'

‘Did you ask Scott about the Messiah's Sister?'

‘He said he'd never heard of it.'

‘Or Tomaso?'

‘The same.'

‘Do you believe him?'

Guastafeste helped himself to another olive and toyed with it between his fingers.

‘I'm not sure. We had to conduct the interview through an interpreter. Scott speaks very little Italian and my English – as you know – is atrocious. Spadina's is even worse. That makes it hard to pick up the nuances. But from his demeanour, his facial expressions, his body language, he didn't strike me as a particularly trustworthy individual. When you've been a policeman as long as I have, you get a feeling for these things.'

‘He's a dealer,' I said sardonically.

Guastafeste smiled. ‘That's not yet a criminal offence in Italy.'

‘Are you holding him?'

‘We had no grounds to. He's gone back to England.'

‘So what now?'

‘As far as Forlani is concerned, that's Spadina's problem.'

‘And Tomaso?'

Guastafeste slid his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a thin sheaf of papers.

‘I've been back to his workshop, checked his house. I can't find any trace of the photocopied letters he showed Forlani. Clara knows nothing about them either. They seem to have disappeared.'

‘Do you know any more about his trip to England?'

‘We've obtained his credit card records. He was there for three nights. The first night he stayed in a hotel in London, the third night he stayed in a hotel in Oxford. The second night is unaccounted for. We don't know where he was, but he didn't use his credit card.'

Guastafeste unfolded the sheaf of papers in his hand and spread them out on the table.

‘We've also got his telephone records – this is a photocopy of them. His two land lines, that is – home and workshop. He didn't have a mobile phone.'

‘Nor do I,' I said. ‘It's a generation thing. Mobile phones are toys for the young.'

‘We've identified most of the numbers he called. There were three in England. Two were the hotels in London and Oxford I mentioned – calls to book his rooms, I would guess. The third we're not sure about. We've tried it a few times and got no answer. It's registered to a Mrs V. Colquhoun. You ever heard the name?'

‘No.'

‘Tomaso never mentioned it?'

‘Not that I can recall.'

‘I'll leave you the list. Will you have a look through it? See if you recognise any of the numbers?'

‘Of course.'

‘I'm going home to bed. I was up all night. Thanks for the wine.'

I went into the house after Guastafeste had left and made myself a light supper. Then I poured another glass of Valpolicella and retired to the armchair in my back room to study the list of phone numbers. Several entries I recognised as my own – Tomaso and I had spoken on the phone almost every week – and there were others I knew: mutual friends, other luthiers in Cremona, for we are a close-knit community of craftsmen. Most of the calls were local. Only three – the three to England Guastafeste had mentioned – were international. Next to most of the numbers was the name of the subscriber. There were lengthy calls to Tomaso's daughter, Giulia, and his granddaughter, Sofia, who was studying music at the Conservatorio in Milan. There were calls to members of Clara's extended family, who were spread all over northern Italy.

I took a sip of my wine and turned to the final page of the list of calls from Tomaso's workshop. One number stood out immediately – a number in Milan that I could identify even without the subscriber's name written next to it. It was Vincenzo Serafin's office line. I felt my pulse rate increase and sat back in my armchair until the throbbing had subsided. Serafin? Tomaso had called Serafin just five days before he died; a call that had lasted nearly six minutes. And yet when I'd visited Serafin in Milan last week he'd told me he didn't know Tomaso.

*   *   *

Our passage through life is marked by births and weddings and funerals, though when you get to my age the last seem to predominate. I am not an unduly old man – sixty-three is not a great age these days – but I am aware that the years are ticking away. In my more morbid moments I feel the darkness drawing nearer. Perhaps He does not have me in His sights just yet, but I am acutely conscious that I am within range.

For my generation, our births and marriages are long behind us. When we gather together now it is more likely to be grief than joy that unites us. In the last few years I must have attended half a dozen funerals; some for family members or close friends, others for little more than acquaintances. And now Tomaso was gone. He had been so much a presence in my life that it was almost impossible to believe that he would no longer be around – that I would never again hear his voice, share a bottle of wine with him or play quartets beside him. Irrationally, I was angry with him for leaving me, for pulling such a monstrous disappearing trick on us all, and as I watched his coffin being carried into the church I half expected him to leap out suddenly and laugh at us for our gullibility.

We were in San Sigismondo – after the cathedral, the most magnificent church in Cremona. Built by Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan, and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti in the fifteenth century, almost every centimetre of the interior – from the walls to the vaulted ceiling – is decorated with elaborate paintings of Biblical scenes. The ostentation is quite overwhelming. It was in this church that the young Luigi Tarisio – the itinerant dealer who bought
Le Messie
from Cozio di Salabue – is said to have acquired his remarkable gift for discovering precious violins. At harvest time San Sigismondo was famous for its Festival of the Dove. A high tower was erected outside the church with a wire stretching from the top of the tower through the main doors to the altar. A ‘dove' made of straw and gunpowder, said to be a manifestation of the Lord, was attached to the wire and set alight. The gunpowder ignited, sending the blazing dove whizzing along the wire. It was considered a blessing to touch the flames. Tarisio, the story goes, stretched up his arm as the dove sped by and his hand passed directly through the fire.

I thought briefly of that tale as Tomaso's coffin was placed on the catafalque before the high altar and I saw the flickering light of candles reflected in its polished sides. The church was crowded with mourners, almost every seat occupied. Tomaso had been a sociable man. He had had many friends. Then Father Arrighi turned to face the congregation, his sombre, powerful voice reaching out to us, joining with us in a celebration of Tomaso's life.

I listened to Father Arrighi's words, but I didn't really hear them. I knew the kind of man Tomaso had been. I didn't need a priest's oration, however heartfelt and eloquent, to tell me his qualities. His personality, his being had infected my life for more than half a century. In the days since his death I had thought at length about him, reconciled myself to his passing and tried to make some kind of peace with my emotions. The funeral was simply a formal valediction, a ceremony to bring us all together and send Tomaso on his way. But I had already said my farewell to him.

I looked around the walls of the church, at the frescoes of saints and apostles and angels, and I thought of a different place, a different funeral. It was six years since my wife had died, but I still thought about her every day. At strange moments – at my workbench, in the garden, even doing mundane things like the washing up – I felt she was beside me. Sometimes I woke in the middle of the night with the feeling that she had been watching over me while I slept. And I found my pillow damp from my tears as I wondered who was watching over her while she slept.

Father Arrighi was asking us to join him in prayer now and I slipped to my knees automatically though I was no longer sure I was a believer. Once I had had faith in the goodness and the mercy of the Lord, but the day Caterina was taken from me I knew it was all a lie. I knew then that He did not exist, yet even so I raged against Him like a madman chasing a shadow, for who else could I blame for my grief? He had taken her from me. Taken her in suffering and pain and for that I could never forgive Him.