Taking a seat at the table positioned in the center of the room, he spread the pages of his poem before him. Withdrawing ink, a pen, and a fresh sheet of paper from his satchel, he began to write a coded letter to the queen.
LONDON—NIGHT
Thomas Phelippes was writing as well.
Hunched over his desk, he was recopying the missive he’d retrieved from the London Bridge chapel the previous day—Marlowe’s account of the unnamed Englishman allied with a Barbary pirate. Though Phelippes had held the original to a candle, which had turned the previously invisible letters dark brown, it remained illegible, as Marlowe had used a simple cipher. Even so, it required recopying. The foul stench of onion was wholly unsuitable for Phelippes’s secret compendium. This new version, however, would hold a place of prominence—the second to last page.
Finishing, he set down his quill, covered his ink, and burned Marlowe’s original. His thoughts then returned to his need for a title. The decision had to be made by sunup. The binder was expecting him.
Phelippes reached for his list of possibilities:
On Secrets: Being a Distillation from the Work of Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary, 1573–1590.
Legerdemain Curiosities: Wherein Is Contained Selected Secrets of Sir Francis Walsingham, with Additions Annexed Thereunto.
A Catalogue of the Most Curious Secrets in England, Containing Selections from Sir Francis Walsingham and Thomas Phelippes.
Damn. Not one of them was right.
Phelippes wondered when Nick Skeres would arrive with the information for his dénouement. That should give him an idea for the title, he decided. No doubt reading Marlowe’s last report would be a most inspiring moment.
DEPTFORD—NIGHT
Shortly after Marlowe finished penning his final sequence of numbers, a knock sounded on the front door. Hearing Widow Bull move to answer it, he gathered his papers and tucked them into his satchel.
The stairwell creaked. The door to the adjacent chamber opened and shut. Then, more footfalls.
Robert Poley appeared with a bottle of wine and two mugs in hand. “Ralegh’s vessel is leaving with the next tide,” he said. “Come morning, I will bring you to it, hidden in the back of a small cart.”
Marlowe nodded.
“Shall we drink, Kit?”
“What else have I to do?”
“You came across proof of Cecil’s complicity in the smuggling operation, as you anticipated?” Poley asked.
Marlowe didn’t answer. His lips and tongue were tingling, and he was wondering why.
“The proof of Cecil’s guilt,” Poley pressed. “Did you find it?”
Against his will, Marlowe felt his eyes traveling to his satchel. With a concentrated effort, he managed to press them shut, but it was too late. What was happening to him?
“Unfortunately the situation has changed,” Poley said darkly. He drew a dagger from beneath his sleeve.
Watching the candlelight glint upon the blade, Marlowe thought about his sword over on the bed. Could he swing his legs out from under the table and reach the sword before Poley reached him?
He tried to move, but his limbs would not budge. It was as if a blanket woven of iron threads had descended over his body.
The pain, when it came, was agonizing. Marlowe felt warm liquid spurt across his face, and his right eye seemed to have been thrust into the deepest fires of hell.
He heard a chilling scream and was trying to work out whether it had been his when everything went black.
29
RUISLIP,LONDON—12:53A.M., THE PRESENT DAY
At RAF Northolt, a private military airstrip used by royalty, politicians, celebrities, and other VIPs, a Gulfstream G550 recently in from Naples was resting upon the tarmac. Four fit-looking men emerged.
“We’re boarding the chopper now, sir,” one of them said into his mobile phone.
“Has she reached Greenwich?” came de Tolomei’s reply.
“Not yet. We’ll be there just after she arrives.”
Sitting in their headquarters on the southern end of Greenwich Park, the two officers of the Royal Parks Constabulary looked at each other in confusion. What was that noise? Great squeals of young female laughter, by the sound of things. Were kids driving past with the top down? Piling out of a nearby party?
They went back to their reading material. Having returned from a round ten minutes earlier in which they’d let the dogs run loose in three different spots in the park, they considered the idea of intruders unlikely.
Then came a distant sound of splashing.
The river? Or the pool inside the north gates?
Kate and Medina were walking quietly along Maze Hill, the road grazing the eastern edge of Greenwich Park.
As soon as they glimpsed the police car zoom down the park’s central avenue, they slipped in through Maze Hill Gate. Kate had unlocked it a few minutes earlier with Simon Trevor-Jones’s pick gun to let the Russians in.
“You know what they say about Greeks bearing gifts?” she asked, breaking into a jog.
“Beware of Russians in bikinis,” he chimed in softly.
In less than a minute, they reached the gully shaped like a ship’s hull. With nearby trees blocking most of the moonlight, they descended the steep twenty-foot decline carefully.
“From here,” Kate began, positioning herself at the base of the imaginary ship’s bow, “Marlowe says we take ‘one two’ steps toward the stern. His poem doesn’t have the words ‘three’ or ‘twelve’ in it, so I’m guessing he meant either of those. Let’s start with three.” She moved forward, using what she thought were man-sized steps.
Unzipping their tool bag, Medina withdrew a metal detector and held it over the spot she’d reached. Nothing happened.
Kate took nine more steps. Medina tried again. When a series of soft beeps sounded, they grabbed their trowels and started digging.
To the utter shock of the Royal Parks policemen, three young women in swimsuits were having some kind of splashing contest in the large pool.
“Excuse me. The park closed hours ago,” one of the officers declared.
The girls didn’t notice him.
He tried again. “Ladies, the park is closed! And swimming is most certainly not allowed!”
Pausing, they turned. With big smiles, the girls began speaking in what sounded like slurred, drunken Russian.
Medina’s trowel struck something hard.
Digging further, he gradually exposed a smooth wooden surface about eighteen inches by twelve. “My God,” he exclaimed with excitement, leaning across the hole to pull Kate into a kiss.
“Cid, we’ll have time for that later,” she laughed, nudging him off. She then joined in, scooping earth away from the edge nearest her. They eased the chest from the ground and set it on a patch of grass illuminated by a bit of moonlight filtering through the foliage.
Kate slapped Medina’s hand as he reached for the lid. “Hold on, Mr. Skip-to-the-back-of-the-book.”
Using a dish towel they’d brought from his home, she wiped away the bulk of the dirt. On the front of the chest, clusters of daisylike flowers had been carved into three evenly spaced framed panels, and surrounding them was a thick border containing a twisting, flowered vine that resembled a climbing clematis. The sides, she saw, were similarly decorated but smaller, with one panel of daisies in each.
“Are we about finished?” Medina inquired dryly.
Smiling, Kate nodded.
He lifted the lid, revealing crumpled, decaying red velvet. Gently he reached in and nudged the fabric with his fingertips. Reddish dust drifted upward, filling the shaft of moonlight like blood in a test tube.
A bit of pale green was now visible. A spike.
“The dragon’s tail?” Kate suggested, near breathless.
Medina gestured toward it, palm up.
“Such a gentleman,” she said, gently taking hold of the object.
Lowering her head as she peeled back the velvet layers
, a sheet of black and red hair fell across her face.
In that moment, Medina reached around to the small of his back for the silenced Hämmerli 280 hidden beneath his sweatshirt.
30
O that his heart were leaping in my hand!
—a murderer, in Marlowe’sThe Massacre at Paris
DEPTFORD—NIGHT,MAY1593
Dawn would soon break.
Ingram Frizer was crossing the quiet town green on his way to Deptford Strand. As he neared the river, the pleasant fragrance of the local plum and cherry trees was losing out to the stench of butcher shops, fisheries, and sewage. He turned onto a narrow dirt lane and paused, appraising Eleanor Bull’s home.
All was silent.
The rear entrance was located within a walled garden. The gate was chained and padlocked. Frizer climbed over the wall, picked the back door’s simple lock, and soundlessly eased his way in.
Standing just inside, he listened. Nothing. Carefully he began climbing the stairs.
He entered the first bedchamber. It was empty. Moving farther down the hall, he tried the second one. Empty as well. In the third, he saw embers smoldering in the fireplace and a body on the bed. Squinting, Frizer thought he recognized the doublet Marlowe had been wearing earlier that day at the Rose. The silver buttons down the front were catching a bit of firelight, and they had an odd, memorable shape.
Slowly he approached the bed, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Marlowe’s sword lay on a table across the room, he noticed. Perfect. Frizer raised his own, then groaned with disgust.
Evidently someone had done his job for him. Marlowe’s right eyeball was dangling near his ear, and a dagger protruded from the socket. Droplets of blood had dried upon his unnaturally pale skin, and a large stain darkened the pillow beneath.
Startled by a sharp noise, Frizer turned.
Robert Poley was entering the room. “Ingram, good timing,” he said, unfolding a large white sheet. “Cecil tells me you’re to make this appear as self-defense?”
Frizer nodded.
“Then we should work out the story straightaway,” Poley said, laying the sheet across Marlowe’s body. He then slid onto one of the benches at the table. “I was lucky enough to find him tonight, but you’re the only one who can make this work. Have a seat.”
Frizer did so. “Marlowe’s temper is well known,” he began. “Particularly when he’s in his cups. I thought it fit to say that we’d been—”
Before Frizer could finish his sentence, a soft squeaking sounded from the floor below. It was the front door, he realized. Someone was on the stairs.
Nick Skeres came in.
Frizer could see that Skeres was trying to work out what he and Poley were doing together inthis room, onthis night. He knew Skeres quite well. They did business deals together regularly. Skeres also worked for Thomas Phelippes, but fortunately that would pose no threat, Frizer thought to himself. For he and Poley had stopped Marlowe before he could obtain his so-called proof of Cecil’s illicit undertakings, whatever it might have been.
“I’m looking for Marlowe,” Skeres said. “Phelippes wishes to speak with him. Is he about?”
Frizer pointed to the bed, to the unmistakable shape of a body beneath a sheet. “He refused to pay for his meal. We argued. He took his dagger to me.”
Skeres shook his head in disbelief. “You killed him?”
“I’d no choice,” Frizer replied.
Standing up, Poley took the leather satchel from the table and held it toward Skeres. “Belonged to Marlowe,” Poley said. “I did see a coded message inside. Perhaps you’ll find it’s what you need.”
Skeres extended his arm.
Poley took a step back. “Ifyou’ll return at midday and swear to the coroner that what Frizer says is true.”
“Of course,” Skeres said.
Watching Poley hand over the bag, Frizer marveled at how expertly the man had manipulated the situation. Whatever the contents of Marlowe’s message, Frizer was sure that it couldn’t be what Phelippes was looking for, but Poley had convinced Skeres otherwise. In so doing, Poley had secured another witness to bolster their case. Brilliant.
After Skeres had left the room, Poley turned to Frizer. “Would you mind fetching the royal coroner?” he asked. “Lives in Woolwich, five miles east of here.”
“Not at all,” Frizer replied. “I came by horse.”
31
GREENWICH—1:04A.M., THE PRESENT DAY
Cool, pale mint green with a hint of a shimmer. Flashing rubies set beneath angry brows. Small, embedded diamonds forming a pattern of scales. The wings and tail, curling upward, accented with delicate golden inlay.
The jade dragon was exquisite.
Sensing movement, Kate raised her eyes. Medina was in the process of standing up, with a gun pointed at her head.
“Cid? What are…all this time, it’s beenyou?”
He did not reply.
“Jade Dragon—he was just an illusion,” she murmured, rising slowly as well. “To create a false sense of danger, of urgency…to get me to decipher the manuscript without making it public.”
He disengaged the safety on his pistol.
“You didn’t even find the manuscript, did you?” she asked, voice shaking. “It was Andrew Rutherford. That file I came across in his office…the one that made it look as if he’d been working on it himself for a while…hehad been. My God, you murdered him. A defenseless old man, poring over the discovery of a lifetime. Howcould you?”
“I prefer to think of it as alleviating his suffering,” Medina said tightly. “And if you hadn’t been so coy with the details in Marlowe’s letter, I could have avoided doing this.” Taking aim, he pulled the trigger.
“Got him,” Detective Sergeant Colin Davies heard Max exclaim through his earpiece. As they all knew, a confession was the only way they’d tie Medina to the tutor’s death.
“She’sgood, ” Davies remarked. “That quiver in her voice? My word.”
“Tell me about it. And thanks, by the way. For everything,” Max said.
“Likewise.”
At first, Davies had been reluctant to go along with Kate’s plan for the evening, saying it was too dangerous for her, but he gave in when she asked if he really wanted to let Medina get away with murder.
Eyes trained on the pool inside the north gate, Davies was watching the frustrated park policemen shepherd the Russian girls into their jeep. One of them said something about a translator due to arrive at their headquarters within twenty minutes.
Perfect.
Jogging south, he headed for Maze Hill Gate.
Medina was confused.
He tried again.
Nothing.
The park police jeep roared past without pausing. Down in the gully, he and Kate were well out of sight. As he squeezed the trigger for the third time, she lunged toward him and slammed her right knee upward, driving it into his groin.
Kate had slipped the bullets from his gun an hour earlier. Not long after she’d fallen asleep that afternoon, Max had called to tell her that he’d begun the genealogical research and learned that Medina, through his mother, was an indirect descendant of Robert Cecil. It hadn’t taken them long to put the rest of the pieces together.
Doubling over, Medina clutched his stomach and groaned in agony.
“That was for the Cat,” Kate said coldly. “The so-called friend you betrayed. And this,” she said, unzipping her sweatshirt a few inches, “this is for Andrew Rutherford.”
Looking up, Medina saw the wire taped to her chest. He was silent, but his eyes hurled daggers.
Kate whipped her head to the left. And as Medina followed her gaze—toward nothing—she pivoted on the ball of her left foot and slammed her right boot into the base of his skull.
“Nowthat, motherfucker,” she told his inert, unconscious form, “was for me.”
“The Russian girls will get a stern reading of the park rules and be sent on their way,” Sergeant Davies sai
d when he reached Kate.
“Cool.” And Max, she knew, was hacking into one of Medina’s offshore accounts to ensure they received the remainder of their money.
Faintly a siren began to wail.
“Press will arrive soon,” Davies then told her, as he snapped a set of cuffs around Medina’s wrists.
“Then it’s time for me to go,” Kate replied, gazing at Medina for a moment. It was a nice bit of cosmic justice, she decided. Sir Robert’s treachery finally exposed—his stolen treasure returned to the state—on account of the greed of his descendant.
“Not one for the limelight, are you?”
“Setting up a client for a very public arrest would not be good for company PR.”
“See you in the morning,” Davies said. “Nice work, by the way.”
“Thank you.” Kate turned and ran up the edge of the gully.
As she crossed a large clearing, two men materialized before her. Dressed in black. The Met police cars were still on their way, she thought to herself, still hearing the sirens approaching. And these were definitely not reporters, or officers of the Royal Parks Constabulary. Had Medina anticipated her plan? Had he arranged for backup of his own?
“Hello,” she said calmly, slipping a tube of lipstick from her pocket.She might know they weren’t on her side, but they didn’t have to know she knew. “You must be Sergeant Davies’ partners,” she said, raising the lipstick to her lips. “I know I’ve got like thirty seconds before the press descends, so…”
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