Free The Garden of Evil by David Hewson Page B

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