The Turin Shroud Secret

by Sam Christer

  ‘We got something,’ she says, throwing open the door to Tyler Carter’s office and slapping the ID on his desk. ‘Deliverance is John James and unless I’m mistaken he’s Jenny Harrison’s boss – Kim Bass’s former employer.’

  Carter’s eyes drift from his spread of case papers to the licence. ‘John James. The name of a nobody.’

  ‘I know, but I got bells going off on this guy.’ She flips open her notebook. ‘When I interviewed Jenny, she mentioned the factory being run by a supervisor called James. She said he even rang a local precinct to find out if Kim was in trouble and needed bail.’ She flips the book closed. ‘What do you think about that?’

  Carter muses on it. ‘Could be he was trying to divert Harrison from calling in the local cops – then again, he might just have genuinely been helping out.’

  ‘Sure he was.’

  ‘Get someone to pull his home and cell numbers and see if any of the stations received a call.’

  She nods.

  ‘Harrison’s on her way in, isn’t she?’

  ‘We couldn’t raise her. I’ve got uniforms trawling the neighbourhood, won’t be long before they find her.’

  ‘Okay. Let me know when you’ve spoken to her and had her ID James.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Meantime, I’m gonna send Libowicz to check out his home.’

  ‘You got a warrant?’

  Carter gives her a don’t ask look.

  She heads for the door. ‘I need an hour of personal time – I’ll be back ASAP to interview Harrison.’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘I’m on my cell if you need me.’

  156

  BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES

  Matthias Svenson rushes down the stairs of his rented mansion. Some idiot’s been pressing the bell for the past five minutes and he’s going to tear their head off. He fastens the belt of the short white towelling robe that does little to hide his tanned body and yanks open the door.

  ‘Detective Fallon?’ The Swede looks startled.

  Mitzi slaps the final draft of The Shroud in the middle of the director’s broad chest. ‘I’m coming in. We need to talk about this.’

  ‘I’m not sure I—’

  ‘Believe me, you’re sure.’ Mitzi pushes her way into a cool reception area of dazzling white and grey veined marble. Sunlight pours into an airy reception room to her right and she wanders in and looks around. ‘Nice place. Much snazzier than the cell I’ve got on hold for you.’

  ‘What’s this about, Lieutenant? I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘Just so you know, I don’t have the time or patience for you to lie to me.’ She sits on a plush white sofa and slaps her hands on the rich cushions. ‘I should get one of these. Wouldn’t cost more than my year’s pay, I guess.’

  Svenson picks a phone off a glass table. ‘I’m calling my lawyer.’

  ‘Feel free. Only, have him meet us downtown. Tell him you’ve been arrested in connection with perverting the course of justice in a homicide.’

  The director slots the phone back into its base station and takes the seat opposite her.

  ‘Good decision. That script I gave you, it shows you’ve been holding out on me. You never mentioned the DNA samples taken of the Shroud, the Muslim links, the storyline about Saladin or the Maronite monks. Now why would you forget all that, Mr Svenson?’

  ‘Why is this relevant?’

  ‘Because it’s why Tamara got killed. But you’ve known that all along, haven’t you?’ She points at the script he put on the arm of the chair. ‘Tell me the end of the movie. The scenes that are not in there.’

  He picks up the draft and looks thoughtfully at it. ‘Tamara was a remarkable writer. Her passion for the written or spoken word was only matched by her love of history and its mysteries. Before The Shroud she’d been researching an ancient group of warrior monks, crusaders who fought the Muslims in the Holy Land.’

  ‘Hang on – I feel complicated coming along and I’m not good with complicated. I’m going to need to write this down.’ Mitzi pulls a notebook and pen from her bag. ‘Okay. Fire away.’

  ‘You have heard of the Knights Templar?’

  ‘Sure. An ancient order of fighting monks, right?’

  ‘Right. Well, the Knights of the Mountain are the same, but more secretive and ruthless. They began back in Lebanon in the fifth century, disciples of Saint Maroun, the hermit monk who founded the Maronite Church.’

  She remembers Hix’s forensic report and his insistence that Tamara’s killer had been in the Lebanon. ‘What’s the Maronite Church?’

  ‘Catholicism by another name. It operates parallel to the Church of Rome. The Knights of the Mountain are its ultimate protectors. Suicide warriors. A bloodline of highly trained soldiers who fought secret crusades.’

  ‘Black ops assassins in the Holy Wars?’

  ‘If you like. But they were also devout monks. When they weren’t killing, they fasted and prayed on a saintly scale.’

  ‘And these are the knights in The Shroud, the ones responsible for killing Saladin?’

  ‘The same.’ He puts a hand on the script. ‘We printed off scenes only as far as the cover-up of Saladin’s death. What happened next was that the assassin – a monk called Ephrem, wounded by Saladin’s guards – fell from his horse crossing the mountains and died. As a result, for many years the Maronites didn’t know that the assassination had been successful.’

  Mitzi is intrigued. ‘Then how did they ever find out?’

  ‘Rumours spread around the Muslim camps. Somehow their great leader just didn’t seem the same. He was less decisive. Different. Unusually uncertain. Spies picked up on this and when Muslim soldiers were captured some even volunteered the information in attempts to stop the Christians executing them.’

  ‘So just hearsay?’

  ‘Isn’t most of history? I mean, what proof is there of Jesus Christ’s miracles outside of any religious writings?’

  ‘I’m not a historian, but I get your drift. How’s all this connected to Christ’s shroud?’

  ‘Saladin’s shroud.’ He lets the words sink in. ‘The imprint on the linen is that of Christianity’s nemesis.’

  157

  77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

  Force press officer Adam Geagea sits at Mitzi Fallon’s empty desk and writes a polite note asking her to call him when she gets a chance.

  He knows she’ll ignore it, all the cops do. He casually swings her swivel chair left and right, then takes advantage of the fact that there’s no one else nearby. He opens the bottom drawers first and works his way up. There’s not much of interest. A faxed contract from a lawyer engaging the firm to handle her divorce. Good luck to him, he’ll earn every dime representing a ballbreaker like Fallon. There are pictures of her daughters, a hidden stash of candy, hand cream, spare tampons, a celebrity gossip magazine, cup of loose change and a couple of stacks of old notebooks.

  The top drawer has the good stuff. A copy of The Shroud and a more recently filled notepad. Geagea turns to the back of the pad and examines the final entry. It seems to be some kind of forensic checklist:

  Possible fingerprints from intruder at Nic’s hotel (on photographs)

  DNA sample from locket

  DNA from Tamara’s cat

  Hairs from Sacconi’s bed

  Tape from mouth of dead girl (possibly prints on edges)

  Shroud analysis report/Amy

  Geagea feels his heart quicken. He looks around the room. There are voices in the corridor. No time to write down everything he’s seen. He stares at the page and tries hard to commit it all to memory. The press officer shuts the drawer and stands, just as a couple of sergeants roll in. They glare at him as he beats a hasty retreat to the corridor. He takes the stairs two at a time and locks himself in the safety of his office.

  From the bottom drawer of his own desk he gets out an untraceable cell phone. Geagea’s fingers are trembling as he dials the number of his Ma
ronite contact. The monk was supposed to be good. The best. Undetectable. Well, it doesn’t seem like that to him.

  158

  BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES

  Mitzi stares across the spacious lounge of the millionaire movie director and weighs up what he just said. ‘You’re saying the Shroud of Turin bears the outline of the Muslim warlord Saladin, not Jesus Christ?’

  ‘That was one of Tamara’s shock points in the movie. Plus, of course, the revelation that the Catholic and Maronite churches have been trying to cover up the fact for centuries.’

  ‘Sounds like BS to me.’

  Svenson looks amused. ‘Tamara’s version is actually more credible than the one we’ve been led to believe by centuries of propaganda from historians.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Surely, if Christ’s followers had found the Shroud in his empty tomb, they would have shown this miraculous image all around the ancient world in order to convert people and spread his word?’ Svenson ticks off more key questions on his fingers. ‘Why wasn’t the discovery independently documented back then? Why does the Shroud disappear for hundreds of years and then pop up in the hands of rich Western dynasties like the Savoys?’

  ‘Good questions, but I still don’t get how the Catholics came to possess and venerate the Muslim shroud.’

  ‘They stole it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Simple as that. Back in those days, both Christian and Muslim armies sacked each other’s cities and temples. When they came across a protected case containing a shroud of a bearded man, they had the arrogance to assume it was that of Christ. They took it thinking they were actually reclaiming one of their own religious artefacts.’

  ‘And of course the Muslims wouldn’t be too keen to admit Saladin had been assassinated and generations of people deceived by his replacement.’

  ‘Exactly. Historians even reported Saladin as though he were two separate people. Some chronicled him as blood-curdlingly vicious. Others said he was a great statesman.’

  Mitzi’s cell phone buzzes. She glances down at a text message from Carter: Hix has forensics. Harrison’s here – where are you? She pulls herself out of the comfy chair and addresses Svenson. ‘I gotta go, but we’re not done.’

  He gets up and walks her to the door. ‘Please keep the lawyers and press off my back. I’ll cooperate any way you want.’

  She steps out onto the driveway. ‘I’ll try.’ She glances down at his short robe. ‘By the way, you either need a longer robe or lessons in how to sit in it without showing all you’ve got.’

  159

  77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

  Crime Scene Investigator Tom Hix lives for moments like this. The point in the grand play of homicide when science takes centre stage and cops are rightfully reduced to mere supporting acts.

  He hurries across the squad room floor as soon as he sees Mitzi heading to her desk. ‘Hi there. I’ve got some reports—’

  ‘Jeez, Tom. I ain’t even put my bag down yet.’ She picks up the note left by Geagea. ‘Little prick.’ She balls it and tosses it in the waste bin.

  Hix looks offended.

  ‘Not you. Our freakin’ press officer. Now what you got?’

  He lays a manila file on her desk ‘I’m flat-out running samples on the Creeper case, but I thought you’d want to see this.’

  She flips open the front of the folder. ‘This being what?’ Then she remembers her call to him. ‘The Tamara Jacobs case?’

  ‘Let me talk you through it.’ He pulls two transparent sheets out and puts them side by side on the desk. ‘I’ve got a DNA match.’

  ‘Which samples are these?’

  ‘The first is hair we took from the headrest on the Lexus traced out to the rental at LAX. The second is from skin we recovered on the claw of the dead cat at the writer’s house.’

  ‘Kitty’s revenge.’ She overlays the transparencies. ‘One and the same. You’re right, you’ve got a matching pair, but to win the game you have to also have the name of a perp to pin to the samples.’

  His face says he hasn’t. ‘Ran Profiler, no hit. Didn’t expect there to be. I already told you, your guy is an out-of-towner.’

  ‘Way out. You said Lebanon.’

  ‘Mount Lebanon to be precise.’

  Mitzi looks across at the photograph of Tamara Jacobs pinned to a board, the one reproduced every time Variety or Hollywood Reporter ran a story on her. ‘Her script contains whole scenes set in the Middle East. Historic scenes not modern. Svenson told me a tale about Maronite—’

  The phone on her desk rings.

  She snatches it. ‘Fallon.’ After a slight pause she adds, ‘Okay, tell her I’ll be right down.’ She drops the receiver back on the cradle and looks pissed at the distraction. ‘Sorry. My other case calls. Jenny Harrison is acting up downstairs. The uniform minding her says she’s going to walk if I don’t get my ass down there quick.’

  ‘I understand.’ He shuffles the transparencies back in his file. ‘You know where to find me when you want to come back to this.’

  160

  GENEVA-NEW YORK

  An hour out from Geneva the seatbelt lights are still on. Storms and high winds are blowing in from the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay. France and Spain are getting a savage whipping and the turbulence is tossing the plane as it heads west.

  ‘I hate flying.’ Broussard pulls down the window blind, hoping to shut out the misery. ‘As a young man I had phobias. Now I can cope, but I still do not like it.’

  ‘Unnatural, isn’t it?’ Nic agrees. ‘So much heavy metal and so many people, floating through the air, defying science. But you know, statistically—’

  Broussard holds up a hand. ‘Science it does not defy. It only flies because of the science.’ His tension makes him sound curt. ‘And I know all the statistics, merci. It is safer than crossing a road, smoking a cigarette, etc. but I still do not like it.’

  ‘The storm will pass,’ says Nic, reassuringly. ‘And when it does, I’m going to walk the plane. It’s routine, that’s all. I just want to make sure the only people we’re up here with are friends.’

  ‘Surely, you can’t think the man who attacked us is on this flight?’

  ‘I have to think that. It’s incredibly unlikely. But I have to think it. Don’t worry. Let me do my job. Everything will be fine.’

  Broussard distracts himself by pulling out dreary magazines from the seat pocket in front of him. He wishes none of this was happening, that he’d never met Roberto Craxi and wasn’t leaving his wife thousands of miles behind.

  Finally, the turbulence passes and Nic hits the call button above his head. A heavy-hipped brunette is soon bending over him. She introduces herself as Glenda and asks how she can help. Conscious of others watching, Nic unfolds his ID wallet on his lap and answers in hushed tones. ‘Miss, I’m a Los Angeles police officer and I need to see both the chief steward and the air marshal. Can you fix that for me?’

  Glenda’s experienced enough to take it all in her stride. A ten-year transatlantic veteran, she’s dealt with everything from heart attacks to terrorist alerts. ‘Certainly, Officer. If you come with me to my station, I’ll call them both.’

  He follows her to the curtains and glances back at the scientist as he goes. Broussard has his head in some magazine article and looks happy enough. Nic stands in the galley kitchen while Glenda calls the steward, then makes a discreet announcement only the air marshal would understand. ‘Could any passengers who forgot to pick up duty-free when boarding the plane in Geneva please identify themselves to a member of the cabin crew. We have a bottle of very nice brandy here that doesn’t yet have an owner. Thank you.’

  A prim middle-aged steward with dyed black hair appears through the curtains, eyes wide as he addresses Glenda. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She nods to Nic. ‘This is Detective Karakandez from the LAPD. He wanted to see you and the marshal.’

  The steward pulls his tie straight. ‘My name is Brian. May I
see your identification, please?’

  ‘Sure.’ Nic pulls it from his back pocket and hands it over.

  Brian is reading as a stocky, blond-haired guy with gingery stubble comes into the galley. He’s mid-thirties, in a baggy grey sweat top over black Levis and, if Nic is right, is packing a standard-issue Taser.

  The steward hands him the ID. ‘This is Officer Karakandez.’

  The man glances at the wallet and passes it back to Nic. ‘Gerry Brookes. What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve been working a case that brought me to Europe.’ Nic nods beyond the curtain. ‘Man back there in 48A is an important witness, connected to a homicide. I want to walk the plane and check there’s no threat to him. Would you babysit while I do the rounds?’

  ‘Sure thing. What’s his name?’

  ‘Édouard Broussard.’

  ‘When do you want to do this?’

  ‘Now would be good.’ Nic turns to the chief steward. ‘Do you have a copy of the passenger manifest? I need to put faces to names as I do the sweep.’

  ‘Certainly.’ The steward unfastens a list hanging from a clip board on the galley wall. ‘That’s everyone.’

  ‘Any way you can identify late bookings?’

  Brian shakes his head. ‘Not from this list. We could have done it at the gate.’ He glances to Glenda. ‘Do you have any prelim sheets?’

  Her face says she hasn’t.

  ‘Sorry,’ says the steward.

  ‘One thing,’ adds Glenda. ‘Even when we’re coming in to land we always find empty seats. People who’ve snuck off to the washrooms or they’ve swapped places with other passengers or just moved to a spare seat for a bit more space. You want we order everyone back to their own places?’

  Nic thinks about it for a second. He doesn’t want to frighten passengers after the storm – or, if the assassin is on board, make him edgy and aware that someone is looking for him. ‘No, leave it for now. Let me do a circuit and see how many people I miss. If necessary we could make your announcement.’