“This is it. Somewhere in here, I’m certain there’s a message of some kind.”
We started with the ledger page.
“FA–14361608–AG.” Claire read it out loud.
I tapped my fingers on the table. “FA. AG. Initials of a person maybe?”
Pushing her chair back, Claire stood up and stared at the paper, as though a different viewpoint might help. Apparently it did because she suddenly let out a yelp.
“Oh my God. I see it now. There is a pattern.” She turned the list towards her.
“I think the first set of initials is the name of an artist. Look.” She pointed. “MMC, SB, AC, MI. Further down here, JADI, FFL, LV, PPR. What do you think? FA, Fra Angelico, although he was only called that posthumously. FFL, Fra Filippo Lippi; LV, Leonardo da Vinci; MMC is Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. PPR, let me see. Philip Peter Roos? Peter Paul Rubens? It could be either of them.”
“These figures,” I pointed to an entry on the list. PPR–16251882–AG. “Could the first four digits be a date? 1625. Would that make sense? Was one of them born then? Or died that year?”
Claire frowned. “Roos wasn’t born until 1650 or a bit later, so that’s not it. And it’s not Rubens’ birth date. He was born in the 1570s. But it could be the date that the picture was painted. Rubens and his workshop produced large numbers of paintings in the 1620s. That must be it.”
“And the second date. 1882. What could that mean?”
“Date of sale? Date of acquisition?” Scowling with concentration, she gazed up at the ceiling. I looked up there too. The plaster had yellowed with age and was webbed with fine cracks.
“Some of these dates go back centuries,” Claire said, looking at the list again. “See this. FA–14361608–AG. That would mean that the painting was dated 1436 and bought or sold in 1608. Which is possible of course.”
“What about the final set of initials? They could be the name of the buyer perhaps? Or the seller?”
Claire nodded. “Could be.” She ran a finger along another entry, obviously forgetting her own advice not to touch the fragile paper. “In some cases, there is no second date. Just the first date and then a blank. I wonder what that means? That the piece disappeared? It happens all the time, a masterpiece vanishing into someone’s private collection.”
“So we seem to have a list of artworks, but what does that mean?”
“It’s sort of like a provenance list. A summary of one at least.” She flicked a glance at me. “You know what provenance is?”
I could guess, but I shook my head.
“Provenance is a documentary record, a history of an artwork from its creation to current ownership. It’s essential in proving authenticity. This list isn’t exactly that of course, but it does seem to be a record of buy and sell dates for a collection of paintings.”
“So what’s the connection with Alberti and his book?”
Claire looked up at me. “I have no idea. I can’t see it. My brain feels like mush.”
That’s how I was feeling too. Little sleep and a large dose of adrenaline made me feel as though I had a hangover, which seemed a little unfair given that I hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
Even though we were expecting a visitor, I jumped when I heard a knock at the door. Claire opened it, and a fair-haired young man holding several plastic carrier bags took a step inside.
“Here you are, Claire. The bloke in the phone shop told me which cable to get. I hope it’s the right kind. And I got some snacks and drinks.” His Australian accent was charming.
“Thank you, Brian.” She gave him a dazzling smile. “Did I give you enough money?”
“Not quite, but that’s okay. My treat. Hey, do you want to come over this evening? We’re having a beer bash in my room.”
“That sounds fun. We’ll try, but we have a lot of work to do.” Claire took the bags from him. “I’ll get some cash and find you later to settle up. I really appreciate your help.”
“Okay. See you around, then.” Brian gave a little wave before Claire closed the door behind him.
“What are you grinning at?” she asked, looking at me.
“At how you get people to do things for you like that. He seemed quite smitten.”
She ignored me. “Let’s make sure we have what we need.”
When she took the charger from its bag, the receipt fell out and she picked it up. “We owe Brian nearly twenty euros. The cable was expensive.”
“We’ll find a way to get some cash later,” I said, as she searched for a power outlet, eventually finding one on the wall behind the bed. Her mobile pinged as the charge began and she rested the phone on the pillow. She stared at the screen. “Nothing from Dante or Falcone?” I asked.
She shook her head. “As soon as I have some charge, you can charge your phone up too,” she told me. “I assume it’ll work on yours, even though yours is a later model than mine. It takes forever to buy or upgrade a phone in Italy. I’m far too busy for that.”
I, by implication, was not busy. My job was not important. I sighed, knowing I was being over-sensitive.
Claire emptied the bags on to the coverlet. A small avalanche of notepaper and pens fell out of the first, while the second contained an assortment of nuts, crackers, shrink-wrapped cheese and sodas.
I grabbed a packet of nuts. “I’m starving,” I said as I tore it open.
Claire picked up a can of lemon soda. “I never drink this stuff usually.” She sat on the bed and leaned against the wall. “But it says here it has twelve percent real lemon juice in it, so that’s something.”
When she popped the can open, the drink fizzed out, spilling on to her jeans. “Damn.” She jumped to her feet. “I was feeling grubby enough already without this all over me. I’m going to take a shower, okay?”
“Yes. I’ll take a look through the notebook if you don’t mind? There may be more clues in there that we haven’t seen yet.”
I heard water running as I leafed through the book, past the pages containing the transcribed Prologue. On one page, Simon had scrawled a list of letters, FCBCIHAWBRPSPOVCBUGWLO, with a question mark next to it. I sat up straighter, my fingers and toes tingling. What did it mean? Simon had been working on something. What had he found out?
I stared at the letters for a full minute, but they made no sense to me. I could have been staring at an aura, an impenetrable manifestation that revealed so little and concealed so much. Claire’s aura told me she was in grave peril, but told me nothing about the when or where or how she would die. Not, I reflected, that I needed an aura to tell me there was a threat. Ben’s death and Ethan’s disappearance were clear enough evidence that something bad was happening.
The real question, though, was whether solving the puzzle would eradicate the source of the danger or bring us closer to it. If we walked away, would Claire’s aura disappear? If we kept going, would she die?
Too tired to delve into the mysteries of the aura, of destiny and free will, I carried on flicking through the notebook. Tucked in between two pages was a dog-eared and sepia-colored business card. It held a name, Luca Gardi, followed by an address. No phone number. I picked it up, checked the back, which was blank, and put it aside, wondering why Simon would have put it in the notebook.
When Claire’s mobile buzzed, I hurried to the bed to see who was calling. The screen showed the caller’s name. “Dante.”
I let it ring to voicemail. Falcone had told us to trust no one. I wondered if he’d intended that to include Claire’s boyfriend, but it seemed like a good idea to keep our location secret until we heard from the detective. Still, I had an idea. The previous year, I’d met and collaborated with a journalist in London on a story about a pharmaceutical scam. He’d had access to all sorts of resources for information that I’d been unable to find on the Web. I wondered if he could help me. It was Monday morning and he’d be at work. I’d memorized his number, and I entered it on Claire’s phone. I held my breath while the phone rang five times an
d breathed out when he picked up.
“Colin, it’s Kate Benedict.”
“Ah, the aura-seeing architect. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I need a bit of information. I’m hoping you could help.”
“Fire away.” That was Colin’s style: stingy with words, but generous in spirit.
“Can you track down any details on a Dante Vanucci? He’s an art dealer in Florence.” I spoke quietly, hoping Claire wouldn’t hear. She wouldn’t be thrilled that I was checking up on her friend behind her back.
“Speak up, Kate. I can hardly hear you.”
“Sorry,” I whispered and gave him the name again. “There’s something else. Did you know a journalist called Simon Hamilton?”
“Heard of him, yes, but I don’t know him personally. Early this year he did an exposé piece on the Bratva, the Russian Mafia, and a transnational weapons-smuggling operation. Good, solid work that almost certainly caught the eye of the intelligence agencies here and in the States.”
“Do you have an idea of what he was working on most recently?”
“Nope. Investigative journalists tend to keep cards close to their chests while researching and writing a story. The good ones, and Hamilton was certainly that, won’t leak a word of what they’re working on until they’re absolutely positive their hypothesis is correct, backed up with evidence, etc., etc. Not like the little project you and I worked on, which was handled rather sloppily with little regard for my usual accuracy or rigor of research.”
“But we were right in the end,” I said, to which he responded with a harrumph.
“Anyway, if you can dig up anything on Dante Vanucci… oh, and a detective Falcone with the Carabinieri in Rome. I need to know if he’s legit.”
“Give me a couple of minutes. Do I call you on this number? It’s not an English one, is it?”
“It’s Italian. I really appreciate your help.”
“You know the drill. A pint of beer and a bag of crisps is all the reward I ask for.”
After ending the call, I made sure the charger was properly connected and went back to the rickety table to resume my examination of the notebook. I flipped through empty pages until I found another entry, written in Simon’s looped script. It seemed to be a flight number and a date, AZ1711, February 21st. That was the day that Simon had died. Next to the date was one word. “Custodians.”
I felt goosebumps prickle my arms. So Simon had known about the Custodians. And now he was dead.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The shower stopped running, and soon Claire came out with a towel wrapped around her. She glanced at the open notebook. “Anything new?”
Her aura seemed denser, I noticed, rippling over her wet hair so fast that it blurred the wall behind her. Anxiety knotted my stomach and acid burned my throat. We were running out of time. I swallowed hard and tried to focus.
“Nothing useful,” I said. I didn’t want to bring up the date of her father’s death and make her think about that awful day again.
She frowned. “So what’s that?” She pointed to the open page. “It must be something. Don’t hold out on me, Kate. We need to explore every possible angle if we’re to find Ethan.”
She was right. “Your dad flew from Rome, right? The day of his accident?”
“Yes. Fiumicino to Heathrow. Why? Did you find something in his notes?”
“An Alitalia flight number on the 21st. But it’s the comment next to it that jumped out at me. It says ‘Custodians.’ ”
Claire sat down on the bed. With her red hair falling in damp waves down past her shoulders, she resembled Venus in the Botticelli painting.
“Dad knew about the Custodians?” She bowed her head lower over her clasped hands.
We were both quiet, absorbing the significance of this piece of information. Somewhere in the distance, a motorboat buzzed along a canal. A pigeon landed on our windowsill with a flutter of wings.
Claire raised her head to look at me. “Dad died on the way home from Heathrow after his meeting in Rome.”
I nodded, guessing where she was going.
“What if my father’s car crash wasn’t an accident?” she said. “What if he alerted these people to the fact that he had information about the key? They’re pursuing us, Ethan’s missing, Ben is dead. That means my dad’s death might have been deliberate.”
I thought it was possible, but I also recalled what Colin Butler had said about Simon Hamilton’s recent piece on the Russian mafia. Had Simon angered some Russian arms dealer who was out for revenge? Rubbing my temples, I mulled it over. I remembered thinking earlier that I don’t believe in coincidences. What could be more of an unlikely coincidence than Simon’s car accident on the day he left Rome after a mystery meeting? And that meeting seemed, from his notes, to have been related to the Custodians. My heart pounded. Had he met with a Custodian? Or with someone who knew about the secretive group?
When Claire stood up and walked to the window I saw her reflection in the old glass, a pale, undulating version of her that appeared incredibly vulnerable.
“Falcone’s investigating the man who wants the key. But if this guy was responsible for your father’s death, why would he have him killed before taking possession of the book?” I asked. “He was destroying his one lead to the key.”
“Dad must have posed a threat of some kind. He was a journalist, don’t forget, and maybe he threatened to go public with what he knew. However valuable the key is, perhaps the risk of exposure was worse. And this man, whoever he is, probably guessed that either Ethan or I would find the book after Dad died. All he had to do was watch us and wait. Somehow he must have discovered that Ethan retrieved it from the safety deposit box at the bank early last week.”
Suddenly she was crying, sobbing so hard that she had to take big breaths. She walked to the bed with one hand in front of her like a blind person and collapsed on the mattress. I rushed over and knelt down in front of her, taking her hand in mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay. It’s just that I always feel so guilty when I think of that last evening. I wish Dad and I had been able to have dinner together, so I would have a happy memory to hang on to. Instead, I only remember being angry and resentful.” She coughed to clear her throat. “I sometimes think that if I’d reacted differently, said something else, he would have changed his plans. Then he wouldn’t have gone to Rome, got on that flight, been on the motorway at that time of day.”
She glanced up at me and then pulled her hand away. “I’m going to get dressed.”
Left crouching by the bed, I watched her disappear into the bathroom. When the door closed, I rested my forehead on the edge of the mattress, aware of the heavy feeling in my chest, acknowledging it, understanding how Claire felt. Two years ago, my mother had been killed in a pedestrian crossing while responding to a text I’d just sent her. Everyone — Dad, Leo, Josh, Anita and all my friends— tried to convince me it wasn’t my fault. The driver, an elderly woman whose license had been annulled because of previous infractions, had shot through the red light. But I couldn’t help feeling that if Mum hadn’t been looking at her phone, at my text, she’d have seen the car coming, or she would have been walking faster, would have been out of harm’s way when that ton of metal came hurtling through the crossing.
For months, I’d been crushed with grief and guilt, a deadly combination that I was already more than familiar with. My little brother Toby had died in a swimming pool while I was supposed to be watching him. I couldn’t see a pool now, twenty years later, without breaking into a cold sweat.
I stood up and inhaled deeply to shift the pressure in my chest. It was time to refocus. If the Custodians were responsible for Simon Hamilton’s death, then Ethan was in terrible danger. We had to find him before it was too late.
Back at the wobbly table, I picked up the business card I’d found in the notebook.
“Claire, does the name Luca Gardi mean anything to you?”
> “Give me a minute,” she called back through the closed door.
Momentarily at loose ends, I stared at the notebook until the phone buzzed loudly again and I hurried to pick it up. As I hoped, it was Colin Butler.
“Any news?” I asked impatiently.
“Yep. Not very interesting though. Dante Angeli Vanucci. Aged thirty-seven, lives in Florence, owns an outfit called Angeli Arte. He has a gallery that is open to browsers, but ninety percent of his business is done privately. He sometimes buys pieces and sells them on to buyers or agents, or he acts as a broker between seller and buyer and takes a percentage on the sale. A lot of buyers prefer to remain anonymous.”
“Sounds a bit shady,” I said.
“Apparently not. Art buyers don’t want the world at large to know they’ve got a million pound Renoir hanging in the living room, so the transactions are often conducted in confidence. Perfectly above board, according to my source.”
“So, no sign of anything illegal?”
“Nothing I can see. He takes pieces to the big auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s occasionally to remind people that he’s in the business, but he has a reputation for being eminently discreet. Very wealthy. Attractive, if you like the tall, handsome type, judging from a photo I found.”
I laughed. “I really appreciate your help. Oh, and anything on Falcone?”
“Not yet. I put out some feelers to a chap in Rome. I’ll let you know.”
“As soon as I’m back in London, I’ll buy you that pint I owe you. Thanks again, Colin.”
“De nada,” he replied. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that was Spanish, not Italian.
I grabbed my bag and took out my very dead mobile to plug it in now that Claire’s phone had enough power to operate. It took a few minutes for mine to show any signs of life. When it did, I saw I had about a dozen voicemails. Most were from Leo, scattered over the last two days, and one was from Laura with a message that made my stomach flip. I played it back twice.
“Great news, Kate! The Randall Group project is a go. Big meeting on Wednesday morning to introduce them to the team members. So tomorrow we have a lot to do. I want you working on the presentation with me as we have to make the best possible impression right from the start. I’m planning on being in the office obscenely early, so get there as soon as you can. Love ya.”
The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series) Page 12