‘There is no signature. Do you know why?’
‘Yes.’ Leo looked at Angelo. ‘Can you...?’
‘Translate? Sure.’ He listened while Leo spoke in Italian. ‘The painting was stored in the attic of the house where it was painted,’ Angelo translated. ‘There was damage by mice. Nonno had it restored professionally, but the signature was eaten away.’
‘It looks like Carulli’s brushwork,’ Mariana said, inspecting it closely. She took out a jeweller’s loupe just to check, and to her relief the colour didn’t resolve into a dot-matrix pattern. This wasn’t simply a good reproduction: it was a real painting. ‘My gut feel is that you’re right and it is his, but my gut feel alone isn’t enough to authenticate it. I need to study the painting properly and I might need to take it for tests—for X-rays and microscopic analysis. And I definitely need to take a look at the back and see any paper evidence you have, Leo.’
‘So you’re going to use it for the programme?’ Angelo asked.
‘I will lobby Nigel very, very hard,’ she said. ‘This is an incredible painting, and I think it might have an incredible story to go with it.’
Before she could say anything else, her phone rang.
‘Please excuse me—I really do need to take this,’ she said and answered it. ‘Yes, Mum, I’m fine. The paintings are amazing and I’ll ring you straight back on video call so you can see for yourself. Hang on.’ She ended the call, then rang her mother back. ‘Mum—I’d like to introduce you to two people.’ She switched the camera orientation on her phone so her mother could see Leo and Angelo. ‘Signor Moretti and Angelo, I would like to introduce you to my mother, Carol Thackeray.’
‘Buongiorno, Signora Thackeray. I am Leo Moretti. This is my palazzo and these are my paintings,’ Leo said.
‘Hello, Mrs Thackeray. I’m Angelo Beresford, Leo’s grandson and legal representative,’ Angelo said.
‘Hello to you both,’ Carol said.
‘And this is the painting, Mum,’ Mariana said, turning the camera to the painting.
‘Oh, my. It’s lovely,’ Carol said.
‘Isn’t it just? We’re talking about it now. I’ll call you later, Mum.’ She ended the call. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Angelo and Leo. ‘My mother worries about me travelling alone.’
‘Mothers usually have good instincts,’ Leo said.
Though her mother, too, had been taken in by Eric at first.
‘So where do we go from here?’ Angelo asked.
‘I need to put as much evidence as I can together to convince Nigel,’ she said. ‘So if we could perhaps sit down together, Leo, and you tell me everything you can and let me see the paperwork, plus I will take more detailed photographs of the front and the back of the painting to get the physical evidence.’
‘Ah. Paperwork.’ Leo coughed. ‘Mi scusi.’
‘Will you allow me to show Mariana your study, Nonno?’ Angelo asked.
Leo sighed, and said something in Italian that Mariana couldn’t translate.
Angelo supported his grandfather back to the Red Room, and made sure the blanket covered his knees.
‘I warn you now, this isn’t pretty,’ Angelo said as he took Mariana to Leo’s office. He opened the door and she could see boxes piled haphazardly everywhere. ‘It’s what my sister calls the shoebox style of filing your receipts,’ he said. ‘And the boxes aren’t even in order within themselves. If Nonno moved a box to get to a shelf, he didn’t necessarily put it back, and then things have been put in that box out of order. Mamma, my sister Cammie and I have all offered to help him sort it out, but he won’t let anyone touch it.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I love my grandfather dearly, but I don’t know how he can live with all this chaos. It would drive me crackers.’
She could see the genuine warmth in his eyes, mingled with frustration that he was clearly trying to suppress, and she felt for him. Rather than bossing his grandfather around, he was trying to understand. Angelo Beresford was a good man.
‘I’m assuming this is something you’d prefer the cameras not to see—though the camera crew will want to visit the palazzo to show the paintings in place, plus take shots of any documentary evidence you have,’ Mariana said.