The Titian Committee. Iain Pears

Miller began reluctantly, evidently uncertain whether he was about to step out of line and still not entirely recovered from the nasty shock that Roberts had given him with his opening remarks, ‘that’s not exactly true. She was at Columbia with me and took off for a year to live in Paris. She had enough family money to do that sort of thing. She joined Bralle’s classes, and came back a year later with a reference from him. On the strength of that she got her job and never looked back.’

      Flavia noted the comment, which didn’t exactly brim over with affection and regret, but decided to ignore it for the time being. She turned her attention back to Roberts. ‘She joined about eighteen months ago, is that right?’

      He nodded again. ‘Yes. Because Dr Bralle retired. Do you know the story of the committee, by the way?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘It was formed as a sort of private venture twelve years ago. By Bralle, with myself and Kollmar. We were both the great man’s pupils. Van Heteren joined a few years after, Miller here about five years ago. We burrowed away as best we could and then we were, so to speak, nationalised.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Taken over by the state. We were working on our own, on a shoestring and basically couldn’t afford it any more. Then the Italian Arts Ministry decided it wanted to fund a prestige project and offered us vast subsidies and official status. I negotiated the arrangement, which came into operation a few years ago.’

      ‘Very nice for you.’

      He didn’t seem so grateful.

      ‘The money was very useful. But a lot of bureaucracy comes with it, of course. Bralle didn’t like the idea much and decided to retire. Naturally, an Italian had to be appointed to the committee – Dr Lorenzo, who joined us two years back. As we had more money and the pointed desire of the Arts Ministry for something to show for it, we had to step up the workpace and settled on Dr Masterson to help.’

      There was something in his tone which suggested that the changeover wasn’t quite the smooth and amicable operation that was laid out. ‘And Masterson didn’t turn out as well as you thought?’

      Roberts paused to weigh his words. Flavia sensed that he was trying to finetune his message – maliciousness with the appearance of objectivity. She found herself not liking him as much. ‘I had no complaints,’ he said with careful emphasis.

      ‘But…?’

      ‘Let us say that she was fairly young and inexperienced. She would, of course, have settled in and become indispensable once she’d got the hang of how we proceeded. Some of my colleagues, I think, had less faith than I did.’ It was extraordinary the way he talked as if Miller wasn’t even in the room.

      ‘You don’t think you made a mistake in recommending her, in other words.’

      Roberts was not the sort of man who ever admitted to making a mistake. Either that, or he believed in loyalty. ‘Goodness, no. She brought conscientiousness and enthusiasm, but she did need a bit more practice in the technique of committee work. And, of course, she didn’t always express herself as tactfully as she might have.’

      All these little hints. Why on earth could people not be direct? Discretion was one thing, but it could be carried too far.

      ‘What exactly do you mean, Professor?’

      ‘Well. To take one example. I might as well mention it as you are bound to hear the tale eventually. Do you, by any chance, know how we go about our task here?’

      Flavia shook her head. She’d had to master a considerable amount of detail in the past twenty-four hours; the minutiae of art historical collaboration was not amongst the information given high priority. It was, unfortunately, an excuse for a major diversion.

      As Roberts explained it, their method was very simple. Each member of the committee was allotted a picture to study, either alone or in collaboration, and wrote a report. This was discussed at their annual meetings and the committee then voted to assign the work a rank. ‘A’ meant a genuine Titian, ‘B’ was uncertain and ‘C’ meant definitely not genuine. Those deemed ‘A’ were then subjected to further scientific tests to check for mistakes. The individual reports and assessments were then slowly accumulated and produced in a series of expensive, glossily illustrated volumes.

      Flavia became increasingly surprised as he explained. ‘Do you really mean to say that most of you vote on whether a picture is genuine or not without even seeing it?’

      ‘Yes. In most cases it is quite unnecessary. Titians are spread all over the globe and we can’t all go running around looking at each and every one. Besides, since we accepted state money we have been put under steady pressure to produce what the ministry likes to call value for money. It’s this new and competitive age we live in, as Dr Lorenzo keeps on telling us. An appalling state of affairs.’

      ‘So how long do you spend on each picture?’

      ‘Examining it, you mean? Oh, that depends. Often a couple of hours is enough.’

      ‘That’s ridiculous. It seems very rushed to me. This is meant to be a definitive study, isn’t it?’

      Roberts shrugged. ‘I assure you it is more thorough than most such projects. We have several hundred pictures to study and we are all getting older. The point I was getting at is that at Louise’s first meeting Dr Kollmar recommended that a picture in a Milanese collection be rated “C”. It was a picture I had examined, with Dr Kollmar doing the archival research. I had no definite opinion one way or the other, but Dr Kollmar concluded the documentary evidence was inadequate. Everybody agreed to accept his judgement, except Louise. She had also agreed initially, then turned round the next day and caused a fuss.’