The Turin Shroud Secret

by Sam Christer

  Nic speeds the images up some more, thirty-two times normal speed, then a flash of light on the screen makes him take notice. He glances at the time log. It’s just after two in the morning – 02.09:15 to be exact.

  The hood of a car comes slowly into shot and he feels his heart jump. No way should a vehicle even be down there and the driver knows it. The headlights aren’t on – the flash Nic saw was of security lighting bouncing off the vehicle. He leans close to the monitor and watches every pixel as it comes to a halt. He can’t see the front or back plate, nor can he work out the make. It’s an SUV of some kind. Not a big one like a Land Cruiser or Range Rover, something smaller.

  The security lights are so yellow and the camera lens so poor it’s impossible to guess whether the car is black, blue or green. The driver’s door opens. A thin shadow of a man slips out. Nic recalls the height of the rails around the pier edge and where they came up to on him. The driver looks about his size. Six foot, no more. He goes to the back of the car and pops the hatch.

  Nic almost bangs his nose against the screen.

  The guy leans into the vehicle and lifts something out of the back. The shot’s not close enough or clear enough to see what he’s carrying in his arms but it’s draped across them and looks long enough to be a body.

  What else could it be?

  The shadowy figure struggles to the end of the pier and slides his heavy burden into the dark waves of the Pacific.

  22

  TUESDAY

  Mitzi never makes it to work before Nic. That’s the agreement they have. She takes Amber and Jade to school while he gets in early and checks what has come in overnight and been thrown in their tray. If something big is going down, he calls her. Otherwise she usually rolls into the squad room somewhere between nine and nine-thirty. In return, she brings coffee from Starbucks and on Tuesdays donuts or muffins. Today it’s muffins.

  ‘So my little night owl,’ she waggles a paper bag from her bandaged hand as she approaches his desk, ‘did you come up with anything to deserve your treat? I have a choice of stem ginger or skinny blueberry to go with your steaming Venti Americano.’

  Nic doesn’t even look up. ‘What I’ve got for you deserves much more than anything you’ve got in that little bag of yours.’ He taps a printout of timecodes and notes made from viewing last night’s footage. ‘We have a lead.’

  ‘You serious?’ She puts the bag on his desk, slips her jacket and shoulder bag over the corner of her chair. ‘You got lucky?’

  Now he turns to her. ‘Luck had nothing to do with it. I watched every damned frame of that footage.’ He cues up the material on his monitor. ‘This is just before ten past two, the light flash is a car coming into shot. Watch what happens now.’ He sees her drawn to the screen, hypnotised just as he was by the shadowy figure getting out of the vehicle, going to the rear and then carrying something heavy to the far side of frame and dropping it over the rails.

  ‘Yes!’ She slaps the desk with excitement. ‘Play it again.’

  He hits rewind and uncaps his coffee.

  She watches even closer the second time. ‘Any other footage? Any idea of what make that car is?’

  ‘It’s a Lexus hybrid. A four-by-four. Security cameras picked it up travelling east towards the pier.’

  ‘Plate?’

  ‘Don’t be greedy. These are night-time shots, ma’am. You should be grateful for what I’m giving you.’

  ‘Women always want more – especially ones my age.’

  ‘Four-door plus hatch, no sunroof. RX 450h in Argento Ice.’

  She frowns. ‘In what?’

  ‘Argento. I looked it up on the car company’s website. It’s a kind of pearly creamy white that’s really hard to make out beneath sodiums. Came up clean, though, on some of the wider footage.’

  ‘How many Lexuses – do you say Lexuses, or Lexi, are there in LA?’

  He pulls a face. ‘You’re looking at America’s bestselling luxury crossover in the SUV market. Close to a hundred thousand a year.’

  She tilts her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Why God, why us? We’re good people – we just seek to serve.’

  ‘This is the latest hybrid. There are fewer of those around.’

  ‘How many fewer?’

  ‘Lexus shifted ten thousand across the country last year. Figures down badly after the quake and tsunami in Japan snd of course the recession back home.’

  ‘Oh, that makes life much simpler,’ she says, sarcastically.

  ‘Only a couple thou’ in LA and just a few hundred in this spec.’ He glances at his watch. ‘I’ve begged a little extra manpower.’

  ‘Let me guess, Sandra and Denise in Robbery?’

  He smiles. ‘They seem willing.’

  ‘I’m sure they are.’

  ‘Listen, with their help, come midday we’ll have covered body shops, rentals and insurance claims.’

  Mitzi thinks of another angle. ‘You sure it’s not the vic’s own car? Tamara’s second vehicle?’

  ‘I checked that already. No.’

  She rips open the paper bag and hands him the stem ginger muffin. ‘You’re getting good, you deserve this.’ She shifts to her own desk with her coffee and blueberry muffin. ‘I’m going to finish this shitty low-cal apology of a treat then head back to the film studio to see the archivist. You wanna come or you gonna need to stay here?’

  ‘You go.’ His eyes are fixed to data searches coming up on his monitor. ‘I want to finish the Lexus trawl then I’ll catch you later. Okay?’

  ‘Fine. Trace that hybrid before our debrief with the captain at the end of the day and you could maybe take Sandra and Denise for a drink.’

  He laughs. ‘We’re going to fall out if you keep this up.’

  She raises her palms in surrender and pulls open the cake bag. ‘Just saying, that’s all.’

  23

  ANTERONUS FILMS, CULVER CITY

  The thirty-seat executive viewing room is the most luxurious cinema Mitzi Fallon has ever been in. The place is bathed in a perpetual twilight, the temperature is T-shirt warm and it’s so acoustically perfect you feel like you’re wearing noise-cancelling headphones.

  Executive Assistant Sarah Kenny rides a stream of super-soft blue carpet down rows of calfskin leather reclining chairs. Mitzi caresses the tops of the chairs as she follows. ‘Jeez, this is so plush I could live in here.’ She looks up and halts as the screen flickers into life. ‘What’s that? They going to show something?’

  Everything’s moving backwards. A tape is being rewound in vision. ‘It’s a sequence from The Shroud.’ Sarah points beyond the screen, to the side of the auditorium. ‘There’s a projection room back there – it’s where we’re headed. The archivist must be preparing your footage.’

  Mitzi dips into a row and with all the enthusiasm of a small child on a party outing takes a seat. ‘Let’s watch a minute.’

  The assistant gives her a disapproving look.

  ‘Just this bit.’ Mitzi sinks down in her recliner and snuggles her head against the top cushion. ‘C’mon. Take the weight off.’

  Sarah has no choice. She tucks her stylish white midi dress around her tanned model legs and flips a muting switch on the end of her armrest. Giant recessed speakers engorge with a torrent of rich sounds – rolling thunder and a crack of lightning against a pale sky. The camera cuts to a hillside and slowly zooms in to two centurions standing sentry by the rock face.

  She rolls the volume knob down to a more comfortable setting and leans close to Mitzi. ‘Remember the take of Joseph of Arimathea asking for Christ’s body to keep in his family tomb? Well, this is the next scene – at the tomb in Golgotha.’

  A male narrator’s voice speaks over her – ‘ When it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene to see the sepulchre.’

  ‘That’s just a guide track. The words are from Matthew 28,’ whispers Sarah, proud to add the religious insight.

  ‘And behold there was a great earthquake,’
continues the narrator. ‘For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, rolled back the stone and sat upon it. His countenance was as lightning and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men.’

  The screen fills with fleeing centurions and blinding light. The camera cuts to a close-up of a broken Roman seal lying in the dirt besides the giant rock and the open entrance of the tomb. Sarah points a perfectly manicured finger at the screen. ‘The seal is significant because it bore the authority of the Emperor of Rome. It was a really big thing back then. Breaking the seal on the tomb of a crucified felon was showing disrespect to the Emperor and running the risk of execution.’

  ‘My boss is the same with his coffee mug – anyone uses and breaks that, they may as well hand in their badge and go kill themselves.’

  Out of the swirling dust two frightened women appear. They huddle together. Mourning robes are pulled tight around their bodies and faces. An angelic voice is heard off camera: ‘Fear not you, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he is risen.’

  Mitzi shrugs. ‘Takes a similar miracle to raise my old man.’

  On the big screen, a naked and shapely angel appears. Her long golden hair and feathered wings just enough to pass the scrutiny of censors. She beckons the terrified women. ‘Come and see the place where the Lord was laid, then go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen.’

  ‘Jeez, why don’t they do something original and have fat angels for once?’ Mitzi turn to Sarah. ‘Or a black angel, or Hispanic or Mexican – why always the naked white chicks?’

  The film freezes and saves the assistant trying to answer. It goes into high-speed rewind and then the screen turns black. ‘They’re changing spools,’ she explains. ‘After this Mary goes into the tomb and finds the sepulchre is empty. There’s just the burial cloth lying there.’ She stops abruptly, almost as though she’s said too much already and gets to her feet. ‘We should go now and collect your copies.’

  Mitzi struggles out of the comforting hug of the seat and follows her. ‘What happens next?’

  ‘We go through the back – to the rooms behind the screen – I’m taking you to meet the archivist.’

  ‘I know that. I meant in the movie. What’s next?’

  ‘I’ve been instructed only to talk to you about what’s been shot and what you are being given copies of.’

  ‘Say what?’

  The tone is enough to add speed to Sarah’s stride. She pushes through a soundproof back door into a passage with restrooms off to the left and a storeroom to the right. In front of her is another heavy door marked ‘John Kaye Snr, Chief Archivist’.

  ‘Hang on,’ protests Mitzi.

  Sarah escapes into a large, cool room almost entirely filled with ceiling-to-floor shelves stacked with cans of film. She gestures towards the far end, to a worktop desk and a tiny old man perched on a stool in front of three viewing monitors. Big headphones are wrapped around his completely bald head. ‘That’s Mr Kaye,’ she whispers. ‘He suffers from dwarfism and his hearing is not good – but he’s a really nice guy.’

  Mitzi grabs Sarah’s arm as she sets off again. ‘Be sure of one thing, when we’re done here, Miss Smarty Pants, you will tell me everything. Even if I have to drag you by your slim little ankles across the parking lot and haul you downtown.’

  The young assistant is shaking as she takes the final steps to where the archivist is working. ‘Hello – Mr Kaye,’ she says loudly. ‘This is Detective Fallon.’

  ‘Lieutenant Fallon,’ Mitzi offers a hand.

  Kaye shakes it but looks away. He’s either embarrassed or more interested in the screen than the policewoman. ‘You’ve come for the rushes. I’m just copying them.’ He glances at a clock high up the wall in front of him. ‘There’s about twenty minutes left to go on the transfer.’

  ‘We’ve burned them onto DVDs for you,’ explains Sarah trying to build a peace. She dips into her large Gucci shoulder bag. ‘There’s also an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, for you to sign.’ She fumbles with two copies of the document. ‘As the material has not yet been transmitted it makes you responsible for ensuring it isn’t copied, pirated or lost.’

  Mitzi takes the paper and looks it over. It’s full of legal mumbo-jumbo that make her and the LAPD responsible for zillions in damages. ‘I’ll sign when the copies are done.’ She peers at the desk monitors. ‘Is this the movie?’

  He nods. ‘What there is of it. They’ve only cut together thirty minutes – about a quarter.’ He points to the footage. ‘These are rough cuts made by the assembly editors, they won’t make a master cut – a fine cut – until the entire film has been shot and the director has had time to consider any changes.’

  The screen shows modern-day Italy. A busy street crammed with cars and scooters, Italian signs, shops, stylishly dressed men and women.

  ‘What’s this? What happened to Pilate’s house and all that old stuff?’

  The assistant doesn’t answer.

  ‘It’s Turin,’ explains Kaye. ‘It’s where one of the contemporary protagonists is introduced.’ He glances towards Sarah, unsure if he should say anything more.

  She tries to pull off the impossible task of not too obviously shaking her head.

  ‘C’mon,’ snaps Mitzi. ‘Why all the secrecy?’

  Sarah colours a little. ‘Truth is, we all signed confidentiality clauses specifically prohibiting us from talking about the movie, its content, or anyone associated with the creation of it, and we’ve all been issued with memos reminding us of the pledges we took.’

  ‘I’m a goddamned police officer,’ fumes Mitzi. ‘Confidentiality doesn’t apply to me, especially when I’m investigating the death of the person who wrote your damned movie.’

  ‘Please understand, we could get fired,’ says the archivist.

  ‘You could get arrested long before you get fired.’

  There’s a mechanical click and beep from under the worktop. ‘They’re done,’ he says, apparently thankful for the distraction. ‘Your copies are ready. I’ll case and bag them for you.’

  ‘The NDA, Lieutenant Fallon, could you sign it now, please?’ Sarah holds out the papers and a pen.

  Mitzi draws a giant cross through each page of legal text, flips a sheet over and scribbles on the back: I promise to do my best not to lose or show this movie film to bad people. Honest. She scrawls her name and shoves the paper back in Sarah’s hand. ‘Now cut the secret squirrel shit and tell me exactly what’s going on.’

  24

  77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

  Force Press Officer Adam Geagea perches on the edge of Nic’s desk while the detective finishes a call. He knows he’s an unwelcome guest. Cops like to keep cases quiet and his job is to tell the world what’s happening. Chalk and cheese.

  Geagea is nearly fifty and would love to have been a cop. The only things that stopped him were a shortness of height and a dubiously foreign surname. If he had a dollar for every time he had been forced to spell it out or tell people it’s pronounced Zhar-zhar, he’d be a billionaire. Only the well-educated recognise he shares the same family name as Samir Geagea, the notoriously ruthless Middle-Eastern Christian freedom fighter. It’s not something he draws attention to.

  Nic finishes his call and stares accusingly at the man sat on his desk.

  Geagea is fiddling with a flip-over calendar. ‘What is this, Detective, some kind of IQ question?’

  Nic’s not in the mood for small talk but tries to be pleasant, ‘One a day – it’s a vitamin supplement for the brain.’

  The journo examines a sheet and reads it aloud. ‘What do the following have in common – Chairwoman, Peruse, Anomalies, Antiperspirant?’ He looks across the squad room as he thinks. ‘I give up, what’s the connection?’

  ‘It’s for clever people, Adam. Best you leave alone. What do you want?’

  Geagea takes the insult in his stride. ‘I’ve had Variety and the Hollyw
ood Reporter on the phone after quotes on Tamara Jacobs’s death.’

  ‘How do they even know she’s dead?’

  ‘They’re reporters. It’s their job to know things like that.’

  ‘I get it, but how? I mean, it’s got to have come from someone – so who?’

  ‘Not me.’

  Nic smiles. ‘Didn’t say it was. Then who?’

  ‘Morgue. Coroner’s office. A dozen people on the beach when she was fished out. Colleagues at the studio. You want me to go on?’

  Nic surrenders. ‘There’s no statement prepared. Mitzi is over at the studio right now. Tell the media the usual – we’re awaiting the ME’s report, no comment until then.’

  ‘These flies won’t blow away so easy, Detective. In LA, dead film writers are newborn celebrities.’ Geagea shrugs. ‘Hollywood press doesn’t give a damn about them when they’re alive, but dead – well, that’s different, they become saintly.’ He says the word with irony as thick as grease. ‘The hacks are going to be swarming tomorrow.’

  Nic’s desk phone rings. ‘Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Are we done for now?’

  Geagea levers himself off the desk as Nic snatches the phone from the cradle. ‘Karakandez.’

  ‘Nic, Tony Peach. I’ve got news on your car tyres.’

  He reaches for his notebook, eyes flicking back to Geagea who’s still hovering near his desk. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘You’re looking at Maxxis MA-S2 Marauders. High-performance tyres, not cheap, probably around a hundred and fifty bucks a pop.’

  ‘They fit a Lexus Hybrid?’

  ‘Sure would. They’d go on standard eighteen-inch wheels. From the pattern, tread width and depth, we’re talking new shoes here. These babies haven’t run more than two to three thousand miles.’

  ‘Time-wise, how does that translate to a normal amount of motoring, T?’

  ‘Average Joe does twelve thou a year, not as much as they used to because of gas prices. So these babies would probably have been levered on back in September, maybe mid-August. Could be they were a production-line fit or a recent change up. For a rental car, story’s different. Rents can easily burn a thousand miles a week. One other thing – you don’t usually find these treads on a rep’s car, so you maybe want to push salesmen to the back of your filter.’