The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series)

by Carrie Bedford

  “Let me hold it for you,” Claire said, grabbing hold of the ladder at shoulder height. Before Falcone or Ethan could argue, I climbed up five or six rungs, which got me high enough to see the barrel lid. It was a solid piece of wood that appeared to be sealed tightly to the barrel sides. “There’s no way to see into the cask from up here,” I said.

  “The ladder must be here for a reason,” Falcone said, coming closer. “What about that?” He pointed to the plaque in the center of the cask. I stepped down two rungs and leaned over to inspect the plaque. It had a latch on one side.

  “Shall I open it?” I envisaged a deluge of red wine spilling from the container. Falcone nodded.

  My fingers shook as I pulled on the handle but, to my relief, no flood ensued. Instead a door-sized portion of the barrel swung outward, revealing the interior of the cask.

  Falcone darted forward. He leaned into the opening and pulled out a package the size of a book and wrapped in oilskin. He gently peeled back the wrapping. Inside, a silver box that looked like an old-fashioned cigarette holder held a piece of bone nestled on red velvet.

  “Oh yes,” he murmured. He handed it to Oberto to hold while he retrieved another parcel and removed the protective outer layer to reveal a gold casket holding a mummified forearm and hand.

  We all crowded around while he opened two more packages that held an ebony reliquary and an ornate bronze box protecting a vial of something red and viscous. We were indeed a superstitious race, I thought.

  “These are Santini’s stolen relics?” I asked him.

  Falcone nodded. He seemed to be at a loss for words. Claire and Ethan had moved the ladder to the second cask, and Claire clambered up a few rungs to open the door, which revealed another cache of boxes and bags. It seemed fitting that the cardinal had stored his ill-gotten treasures underground, just as the Custodians had hidden their art in a subterranean vault.

  “Are they all here?” I asked Falcone.

  “He’s probably already disposed of a few. We’ll know more when we can do a complete inventory.”

  He took out his mobile to make a call, and then frowned at his screen. I doubted there would be a signal down here in the depths of the old house.

  “Secure the area,” he instructed Oberto. Turning, he eyed Claire, who stood shivering in the chill of the cellar. “Let’s all go up,” he suggested.

  Soon we were seated once again in the warm kitchen. The officer who’d made tea earlier looked at us hopefully. “More tea?” he asked. Maybe culinary duties were more his style than beating down doors and arresting aggressive nuns.

  “A glass of wine would be better,” Ethan said. “I can still smell that magical fragrance of dust and cork.”

  Falcone smiled and nodded at the officer, who went to find a bottle from a wine rack in the adjoining pantry. When he started looking for a corkscrew, I remembered seeing Aldo putting down his gun to open wine for Santini.

  “Second drawer down on the left,” I said to him. He looked startled, but opened the drawer and held up a corkscrew.

  “Here’s to the relics,” Ethan said when we all had a glass in front of us. “But I have no idea what that was all about, if anyone would care to enlighten me?”

  We toasted each other, slightly hysterical about being free and safe and finding the relic stash. I was explaining Falcone’s role and how he’d worked with the cardinal to infiltrate his relic-smuggling operation when Falcone’s mobile rang.

  He stood up and moved away to take the call. Listening in silence, his shoulders slumped and, when the call finished, he remained motionless, staring into space. He’d obviously received bad news. I looked around the table, double-checking. Ethan and Claire were still there and their auras were still gone.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked him.

  He turned to face us. “That was Pedretti, my art expert. They’ve started checking the crates in the vault, but all of them so far are empty.”

  “Empty?” Claire’s hand flew to her mouth. “How? Why?”

  Falcone shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

  I put my wine glass down. Although I was no art historian like Claire or art theft investigator like Falcone, I still mourned the loss of the treasures we’d expected to be there. Everything that Santini and Dante had done was for nothing. Every crime they’d committed had been pointless.

  Ethan put his arm around Claire’s shoulders, drawing her to him. Their father had been killed for no reason. And so had Ben and Santini. We’d never know now what masterpieces had been hidden there or when they had been removed. The Custodians’ vault was not giving up its secrets after all.

  Falcone came back to the table and sat down. His dark eyes showed no emotion as he watched Ethan comfort Claire.

  “At least you found the relics,” I ventured, hoping to console him.

  He nodded. “That is something, it’s true. But I confess that I’d become drawn into the Custodians’ story. I would have liked to know more about what the vault once held.”

  I, too, had been drawn in. The Custodians, whose intentions had been so honorable at the outset, had devolved into a secret society, guarding their hoard of treasure with puzzles and codes and keys. And now there was no fortune left to protect.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I woke up confused and unsettled, roused by the sound of my mobile ringing. A heavy weight immobilized my legs. Then I remembered. I was home, at Dad’s house, and Bianca was sleeping on my bed.

  I grabbed the phone. It was Laura. “Still skiving off, eh?” she asked.

  Oh damn. I’d forgotten it was Wednesday morning. The Randall meeting must be about to begin.

  “Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “Randall rescheduled the meeting for next week. One of the partners has the flu. It’s better for us anyway as Alan and Josh will be back by then. Might I assume you will be too?”

  She cut me off as I started to apologize. “Just get your pretty derriere back here as soon as you can. Alan emailed me this morning to say they’re coming home a few days early.”

  I lay still in the bed for a few minutes after finishing the call, patting Bianca’s head. I barely remembered getting home. Falcone had dropped me off while Capitano Oberto had taken Ethan and Claire back to her apartment. Dad had been surprised to see me of course, but I’d given him a summarized version of what had happened before collapsing, exhausted, into bed.

  Fingers of light poked their way around the curtains and a bird sang in the garden. I eased myself out of bed and was almost dressed when my phone rang again. It was Falcone.

  “I have some news,” he said. “Pedretti found one painting in the vault, in a crate propped up in a dark corner. It seems that whoever emptied the vault overlooked it. I thought you’d like to know. We’re meeting this afternoon to look at it if you’d care to be there.”

  Nothing would keep me away.

  Five hours later, I stood with Claire, Ethan and Valeria at the back of a storeroom at the Uffizi, a small plain room with white walls and no windows. The art guy, Pedretti, in jeans and a T-shirt, stood to one side, talking with Falcone and several men in suits and ties.

  “Apparently we’re waiting for Riccardo Manfredi,” Claire said, glancing at her watch. “He’s the ultimate expert on Renaissance portraits.”

  In front of us stood a single easel covered with a cloth. We all fell silent when another man shuffled into the room. I wasn’t sure what a Renaissance art expert should look like, but this one resembled Santa Claus. He was overweight, with a white beard and pink cheeks. His suit was brown, though, and he wore tan brogues and an orange patterned tie that might have looked acceptable in the seventies.

  Pedretti came forward to greet him. “Welcome, signor Manfredi. Let us know when you’re ready.”

  Manfredi positioned himself a couple of meters away from the easel. At his nod, Pedretti removed the cloth.

  The picture was a head and shoulders portrait of a middle-aged man dressed in a black velvet hat and a dar
k green robe embroidered with gold thread. Fine ivory lace adorned his neckline and cuffs. He was positioned in the center of the canvas against a backdrop of blue sky and rolling green hills.

  Claire grabbed at my arm. “The man in the picture. He’s my ghost in the Vasari Corridor,” she whispered.

  “Are you sure? Don’t all the men from that era look the same?”

  She shot me a look of disdain. “Of course not. But see his nose? How it must have been broken at some point? That’s exactly how my ghost looks. He has the same short grey beard, the same dark eyes. And those are his clothes.”

  Pedretti frowned in our direction. I gathered we were supposed to be gazing at the picture in the same rapt silence as everyone else in the room.

  “I wonder if your ghost will disappear now. Perhaps he’s been waiting all these years for this painting to see the light of day? Perhaps he wanted you to find it?” I whispered.

  Claire’s cheeks were flushed with excitement. “I’ll let you know.”

  Manfredi approached the easel, pulling a pair of glasses from his breast pocket. He put them on and perused the painting for a very long time. Then he ran a finger over the frame, which was heavily gilded and carved with rosettes and curlicues.

  “The frame looks right for the time period,” Claire murmured. “But he will check it later for authenticity, even down to the type of nails used to put it together.”

  The art expert took off his glasses, removed a magnifying glass from his pocket and stared through it at one corner of the painting. “He’ll be looking for brushstrokes and craquelure.” Claire kept up her running commentary. “Tiny cracks that appear as the oil paint and varnish shrink over time.”

  Finally, Manfredi asked to look at the back of the painting. Two flunkies in white gloves lifted the frame from the easel and turned it for his inspection.

  “The back often provides as much information as the canvas itself,” Claire said. “He’ll look for dates, stamps, any sort of markings.”

  After a while, Manfredi summoned Pedretti with a hooked finger, and the two men conferred in hushed tones. The room was growing warm, and I was hungry.

  “Yes,” Santa Claus said at last, bestowing the gift everyone had been waiting for. “Of course, we will run the usual scans and other technical tests to verify. But my opinion is that this is a genuine Botticelli.”

  A collective gasp echoed around the small room and then everyone started talking at once. A man in a dark suit with thinning hair clapped his hands together. “Meraviglioso. Let us adjourn for refreshments,” he said.

  Valeria led us all into the tiled entrance hall, now closed to visitors for the day. Waiters poured flutes of prosecco and offered trays of tiny appetizers.

  “So what happens to the painting now? I asked Claire. “Who does it belong to?”

  “It could take years to unravel its history and provenance, and perhaps a legitimate owner will eventually be found,” she said. “But Pedretti has suggested…” She blushed. “Because of my connection to the museum and our involvement in finding the painting, this is an appropriate place for it to remain for now. You should be proud of yourself, Kate. You helped discover a long-lost masterpiece.”

  “I think the brothers would have found the painting anyway,” I said. “Even if you and I hadn’t been there.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “Santini might have triggered the booby trap if you hadn’t been there to stop him. And, even if the vault hadn’t flooded, then what? One or other of the brothers would have sold the piece privately, so no one would ever have known it existed. It would never be on display for people to enjoy.”

  Around us, everyone was talking loudly. Even Falcone was smiling. He caught my eye and came over to join us, clinking his untouched glass of prosecco against Claire’s and mine. With that brief moment of celebration over, his face settled into its more usual serious expression.

  “Dante’s leg is badly broken,” he said. “So he won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. We’re drawing up a list of charges, and we’ll see which ones stick. I’ve talked with your Detective Lake in London, Kate, and I believe you will soon hear from him. He’s following up on a lead I’ve given him regarding Ben Shepherd’s killer. I have also given him a full explanation of the assistance you— and Claire— have provided to the authorities here in Italy. I think that without your help we would not be here at this moment applauding this extraordinary find.” He nodded in the direction of the portrait.

  “The nun, Renata, has been talking. After Dante ran from the vault, he decided to recover his brother’s stash of relics. It was a risk he thought was worth taking. His intention was to rebuild some of the wealth he’d left behind in the warehouse. Without the relics, he would have had nothing.”

  I thought of Dante’s lavish apartment, his fabulous collection of historical artifacts and paintings, the expensive cars and the staff. For some people, too much is never enough.

  But now I wondered if it had all been for the money, or was it just about outdoing his brother? Those two, each corrupt in his own way, had been locked in a lethal battle, a conflict that killed one of them and would ruin the life of the other.

  I’d never taken Leo for granted, but I felt a sudden burst of love for him, a warm flush that rose from my toes to my ears. We would always share the memories of our mother and our lost brother, always be there for each other. And Claire had Ethan. Together, they’d recover from the trauma of the last four days and grieve for their father. They’d make it through. But it seemed that Santini and Dante had never known the comfort of sibling love. And now it was too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “I heard that your aura-sighting ability has surfaced again,” my sister-in-law said as we rolled out pastry for a pastiera, a luscious Easter specialty of Naples.

  “It never goes away,” I replied. “I’ve just become accustomed to ignoring it most of the time. Imagine walking up to a stranger on the street and telling him I know he’s going to die because I can see swirly air over his head.”

  Olivia pinched two pieces of dough together. “I can see that would be rather awkward. But this was different. It seems you saved a few lives, Kate. Again.”

  I didn’t answer, busying myself with finding a bowl in which to mix up ricotta and orange flower water. The aroma of roasting turkey filled the kitchen. We’d all gathered at my father’s house for Easter weekend. My nephews were in the den coloring eggs with a kit Olivia had brought with her. Although the boys had grumbled they were too old for it, they seemed to be having fun painting superheroes and cartoon characters on the fragile canvases. Claire chopped vegetables, while my dad and his friend Paolo were down in the cellar picking out wine to drink with dinner.

  “Did you tell Ethan he had an aura?” Olivia asked.

  “Yes, but not until long after it’d gone. He reacted pretty well, considering everything.”

  The list of people who knew about my strange gift kept growing longer.

  “He told me he thought it was cool,” Claire said, with a grin. She and I had learned a lot about each other; we had more in common than we’d ever imagined, including our ability to observe things that were out of the ordinary.

  “Hey, Kate, Claire, come and see this,” Ethan called from the living room. We downed tools and traipsed over to the living room to find Ethan and Leo sitting on a couch with beers in their hands.

  Claire groaned. “Are you both watching rugby again?”

  “We were planning to, but look at what’s on the news,” Ethan said, pointing with his beer bottle at the television. On the screen, a somber reporter described the scene as a solemn cortege of cardinals in red robes followed a black casket into St. Peter’s in Rome.

  “This is the coffin of Cardinal Santini Vanucci, who died of a heart attack five days ago,” the reporter intoned.

  “A heart attack?” Leo repeated. “Five days ago? He died ten days ago.”

  “They’re not going to tell anyone that
he was shot in an underground vault that he was trying to loot,” Ethan said. “And they probably needed a week to sort out their story.”

  “The cardinal has worked at the Roman Curia since 1998,” the reporter continued. “There he held a number of senior positions, many of which involved the protection of the Holy See’s artistic treasures.”

  “Protection!” Claire sputtered. “That’s like giving a cat a mouse to look after.”

  “I wonder how much the Vatican really knows,” Ethan said.

  “Most of it,” I said. “Although Falcone told me the cardinal’s relic-smuggling activity will probably be swept under the rug. All the relics we found will be returned to their rightful owners and that will be the end of it. Renata and Aldo are facing a raft of charges relating to theft, receiving stolen property, kidnapping, and assault, but Falcone doubts the cardinal’s sins will ever be brought to light.”

  Surges of mournful music punctuated the breathless narrative of the reporter as the cortege moved into the cathedral. “The Mass of Christian Burial is to be held here at St. Peter’s,” he whispered. “And the cardinal will later be buried in a private ceremony in an undisclosed location.”

  “ ‘An undisclosed location’ seems appropriate,” Ethan said. “If anyone knew what actually happened, they wouldn’t want him contaminating their church or graveyard.”

  We all gazed at the screen for a minute. Then Leo picked up the remote.

  “Back to the rugby,” he said. “I have to watch it while I can before Olivia comes to drag me out for a walk.”

  Claire and I wandered back to the kitchen, passing Olivia on the way. “Good luck with hauling Leo off that sofa,” I said. “You’re competing with Scotland v. Wales.”

  She laughed. “Just watch me.”

  I made Claire sit down at the kitchen table while I made some tea. She still looked pale and fragile, with dark circles under her eyes.

  “Are you feeling any better?” I asked, wondering how she could be. Although she’d been ecstatic at being reunited with Ethan and delighted with the discovery of the portrait in the vault, she was still grieving for her father, his loss all the more painful now that she knew who’d been responsible for it. I couldn’t imagine how long it would take her to get over what Dante had done to her.