‘Tomorrow first thing. Sorry for the short notice but we nearly dropped the ball on this one. The pre-sale exhibition started Saturday and the auction itself is on Tuesday.’ Flora’s mind went blank: there were a dozen or more questions she knew she ought to ask but luckily, Hayek anticipated her. ‘Don’t worry about the Dean, he’s been briefed. A car will pick you up at four thirty tomorrow –’
‘Hold on,’ said Flora. ‘I thought you said it was a morning flight….oh, God, you don’t mean four thirty as in AM, surely?’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. ‘Yup, sorry about that, you’re on the 0645 from Heathrow, but hey, we’ve booked you in business class. Flora,…. are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here,’ she said. ‘I’m just calculating how much I hate you. It’s hardly going to be worth going to bed.’
‘I know, and I really do apologise. Now, in the car will be a briefing pack, all your travel docs in Lavinia’s name of course, a US cell-phone and a sales catalogue from the auction house. A driver will meet you at Geneva airport to take you to the hotel and Mr Grossman will meet you there. You got all that? Flora, are you listening…. Flora?’
‘Four thirty in the morning? Couldn’t you just shoot me, it would be kinder? And what am I supposed to tell my parents and my friends?’
‘Tell your friends whatever you like so long as it’s not the truth. Your folks – well, I guess you could always tell them that the Italian police have asked you to go to Zurich to identify what could be documents from the theft at Pompeii.’
‘Zurich? I thought you said Geneva.’
‘I did. Safer that way, just trust me. And anyway, you’re only going to be there a couple of nights because you leave Geneva at midday on Wednesday for DC. You’re booked into the Marriott.’ Hayek continued his list of instructions and Flora scribbled on the pad by the phone as he spoke: “Zurich”, LHR terminal five, Washington DC, Marriott, 0430, take cat to Mum’s…. Finally, he rang off and cursing to herself at their intrusion into her own little paradise she padded upstairs to start packing, leaving the papers unread and her tea going cold.
***
There is a pitch of tiredness that can only be attained in the small hours of the morning when the body’s cycle is at its lowest ebb and every neuron and cell is screaming for sleep. In a state verging on hallucination, at four thirty on Monday morning Flora opened the door to the uniformed driver who greeted her with a cheerfulness that made her want to hit him. The roads were empty and they made good time, Flora keeping herself awake by reading her briefing. ‘Remember to leave those in the car when you get out, Miss,’ he said, glancing at her in his mirror. ‘And Mr Smith asked specifically that you leave your own passport in the white envelope.’
Heathrow airport, grey and dirty, loomed out of the early-morning mist and the black Mercedes dropped her at Terminal Five – indistinguishable from any other out-of-town shopping centre save for the presence of airliners and its far surlier staff. Lavinia Crump was off on her travels.
The flight was on time and a gritty-eyed Flora was met by a taciturn driver who grunted at her in accented French, treating her to a blast of last night’s garlic. As the Mercedes bumped over the level crossing into rue de Chantepoulet she spotted the famous Lake Geneva waterspout, le jet d’eau, arcing above the buildings. Flora looked at her watch: five past ten – five past nine in Oxford and most of the academic staff wouldn’t be in for another twenty five minutes.
Hayek had been right about the Hotel Beau Rivage. After checking in she’d only just set foot in the tiled atrium with its pink marble Corinthian columns and a circular fountain at its centre when her bags were whisked away and taken to her lakeside room on the second floor.
In the middle of the bed lay a monogrammed envelope with her name printed across it and inside she found a message to contact Mr B. Grossman in room 306. Picking up the bedside phone she dialled. ‘Yes, what is it?’ The voice was barely recognisable, more of a snarl, and overlaid with a thick Israeli accent.
Flora cleared her throat. ‘Good morning, Mr Grossman, it’s Lavinia here. I got a message to call you.’
‘Right. Meet me in reception in five minutes. Don’t be late.’ The line went dead. Charmed, I’m sure, thought Flora.
He looked up from his newspaper as she walked into the atrium. ‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘Come with me, we’re going for a walk.’
‘Yes, Mr Grossman, sorry, Mr Grossman,’ she said, but he was already on his feet striding towards the door with Flora trailing behind him like a dutiful middle-eastern wife. Without another word they crossed the busy Quai du Mont Blanc and turned left towards les Bains des Paquis. At last she caught up with him. ‘Good trip?’ Cohen asked once they were clear of other pedestrians.
‘No, bloody awful since you asked,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been up since half three this morning.’
‘Yeah, sorry, there was a screw-up. Happens all the time, you kinda get to expecting it after a while. You read the brief?’
‘Yes, this afternoon we’re going to –’
‘Forget it,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘That’s changed too. We’ve got outside help.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Doubt it. It’s Sotheby’s – I take it you saw their set-up in the hotel?’ Flora nodded and he continued. ‘A couple of the documents in the sale catalogue are fakes and two others have a provenance that a blind man could see is questionable.’ He stopped talking as they waited to clear a gaggle of Japanese tourists. ‘OK, make like you’re on holiday,’ he said, pointing at the miniature lighthouse on the tip of the Bains de Paquis promontory. As he did so, Flora felt him press something against her hand. It was an envelope which she immediately slipped into her bag.
‘What was that?’ she asked.
‘A list of the dud sale items. I’m sure you’d have found them blindfold, but what the hell, eh?’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’ she asked.
‘I’d like you to take a casual look round and identify the fakes and the stolen items. I’ll make a big public fuss about it and Sotheby’s will pull them from the auction and put out a press release after the sale, by which time you and I will be on our way to DC.’
The subterfuge went as planned. In front of the astonished members of the Sotheby’s team who weren’t party to it, Lavinia Crump was prissy and offended at what she dismissed as little short of outright fraud, Benjamin Grossman stormed, shouted and swore in a mixture of English and Hebrew, working himself into a pitch of fury just short of spontaneous combustion.
Later that afternoon they went for a drink at a lakeside café. ‘It’s not often I get to do that kinda stuff,’ said Cohen.
‘I could see you enjoyed it,’ said Flora with a smile. ‘By the way, what does “benzona” mean?’
Cohen blushed. ‘Literally it’s “son of a whore” but if you use it like you would “sonofabitch” you won’t go far wrong.’
Flora smiled. ‘Thanks, I’ll remember that. So what do we do tomorrow, now we’re not going to the sale?’
‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to check out. They’ve got us on the DC flight tomorrow so we save the US taxpayer the cost of another night in the Hotel Swank.’
Cohen ordered another two beers. At last Flora began to unwind and, for the first time that day stopped wishing herself back in Oxford. Had she known, she’d picked a very good night to be out of town.
***
The silver Ford slowed to a halt and then turned between the wooden gate-posts, bumping over the track that ran through the centre of the allotments. Its headlights went off and two black-clad figures climbed out, one of them holding a small canvas holdall. Moving soundlessly between the vegetable patches and the wigwams of runner bean supports they reached the foot of the wall and crouched down in its shadow. At this time of night during the week, most of the inhabitants were asleep and only the flickering light from a television three doors down from Flora’s cottage bet
rayed any signs of human activity.
At a pre-agreed sign they stood up. Even a close observer would have struggled to make out any more than two shadows sliding over the wall and into the seclusion of the courtyard garden below. Once more they waited and after five minutes motionless in the lee of the garden shed they moved towards the house itself. In the dark only a cat could have seen precisely what tool was removed from the holdall, but in seconds its effects were evident as the door to the living room swung open with a barely audible squeak of protest from the lower hinge. Treading carefully, they climbed the stairs and pushed open the door to the main bedroom. Just enough light filtered through the window to show the bed was empty. Years of experience clicked into action as they systematically checked all the drawers and cupboards, rearranging the contents to leave no trace of their passing.
A whispered order: ‘Check the other one,’ and they tiptoed across the landing to the second bedroom which Flora used as her office. One of the figures closed the curtains while the other shut the door and snapped on a pencil torch. The desk was clear of paper and in the drawers, nothing on her neatly-filed credit card or bank statements indicated the purchase of a ticket to anywhere. On the other hand, there was no sign of her passport.
‘So where the hell is she?’
The living room and the kitchen were treated to the same painstaking examination but even the pinboard next to the fridge gave no clue, so after a murmured conversation they decided to abandon the search; after all, they’d done most of what they’d been paid for; but luckily for Flora, not all of it. As they left the kitchen, the one holding the torch swept its pale, narrow beam around the hall. ‘Hold on a second,’ he said, advancing towards a Victorian bureau just inside the solid front door.
‘What is it?’
‘Probably nothing….hold on a minute, I think this is… bingo, we’ve got it,’ he said in a whisper, focusing the beam on the notepad Flora kept by the telephone.
‘Got what?’
‘Just listen.’ He read: ‘Zurich, BA, LHR – that’s Heathrow I think – yes, that makes sense… Marriott… 0430… Washington DC. I think we’ve found her.’
‘What the fuck’s she doing at the Marriott in Zurich for Christ’s sake?’
‘Shagging some rich bloke, how should I know? Come on, let’s go: we’ve spent too much time faffing about in here as it is.’
Exactly seven minutes after the silver-grey Ford left its hiding place on the allotment behind Flora’s house it passed a black Audi coming the other way. The Audi drew up outside the cottage and two men let themselves in through Flora’s front door with a key. Closing all the curtains they began turning lights on and one of them walked over towards a nondescript black box, about two inches square and seemingly wired into the lighting flex that ran along the top of the picture rail in the living room. Then he removed what looked like an old-fashioned mobile phone from his pocket and pressing a button on its side, held it up towards the box. The readout told him all he needed to know so he replaced it in his pocket and pulled out his real phone.
On the third floor of a serviced apartment block, just off Kensington Church Street, Giles Smith cursed as he rolled over in bed, fumbling in the darkness for his mobile phone. ‘Smith here. What is it?’
‘We’ve got a problem, Giles. You were right.’
‘What’s happened? Is she all right.’ He was suddenly wide awake.
‘She’s had visitors. According to the IR detector in the sitting room, someone let themselves into the house through the back door at 02:08 and left the same way nine minutes later: two distinct heat sources. We can’t have missed them by more than ten minutes. Pros I’d say because there’s no sign of forced entry.’
‘Any damage inside? Anything taken?’ Smith asked.
‘No. That’s what worries me. I reckon they were looking for her.’
‘Shit. That’s all we need.’
‘I can get a forensics team here if you think it’ll help.’
Smith thought for a moment. ‘No. Firstly, given the likely suspects I don’t think they’ll have left anything for us to find and secondly, if we have the Thames Valley forensic brass band marching in and out of the place all day, chances are our friends will get to hear about it. Leave it for now and call me later at the office.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
Rome AD 65
‘Bloody thing gets bigger every time I see it. No good will come of this, you mark my words.’ Vespasian folded his arms and turned away from the construction site of the new palace in disgust. For the past nine months both he and Josephus had been monitoring the progress of what the senator referred to as “Nero’s folly” with a mixture of alarm and disbelief. Paul seemed to have vanished into thin air along with the five other survivors of the “Seven Stars”.
‘You know what the mob are saying, don’t you?’ Josephus asked, trotting to catch up with him as he paced up the slope.
‘Of course I do,’ he snapped. Even Lady Poppaea was talking about it the other day. They’re saying the fire was started on his orders just so he could enlarge the palace. The emperor of course says the Christians started it.’
‘They did. I was there when it happened, remember?’
Vespasian stopped, sat down on a pile of bricks and stared down towards the forum. ‘Doesn’t matter what he says: nobody’s listening any more,’ he said with a rueful shake of the head. ‘Worse still, Nero’s stopped listening to what people are telling him. Even Seneca can’t get through to him.’
Josephus sat down beside him. ‘Do you think anyone will make a move against the emperor?’ he asked.
Vespasian’s reply was as matter-of-fact as it was horrifying. ‘They have already. It’s started.’
‘What? B-but we’ve got to tell him,’ said Josephus, panic-stricken. ‘Without Nero’s support I won’t be able to find Paul and the others.’
Vespasian snorted and looked down his well-bred nose in disgust. ‘Nice to see you’ve got Rome’s wider interests at heart, young man. No, we wait. If we tell the emperor now he’ll go after the tiddlers, the bait fish. Wait a bit and we’ll help him find whoever’s holding the rod.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We don’t do anything until I’ve spoken to Volusius Proculus –’
‘You mean the admiral?’ asked Josephus.
Vespasian raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you know him?’ Josephus nodded and the senator continued. ‘He’s due to arrive in Rome tomorrow. You can come along and say hello if you like.’ He stood up and made to leave. Suddenly he turned round. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, there’s one more thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re now an accessory to the crime. Putting aside what I just said about bait and fishermen, if anyone finds out you knew and didn’t report it, I wouldn’t rate your chances. The worst Nero can do to me as a Roman citizen is cut my head off but I’m sure he’d come up with something far more inventive and prolonged for you.’ Josephus’ face fell and he stared back at Vespasian open-mouthed. ‘Still want to run with the big dogs, Josephus?’
‘Er…yes, I think so, sir.’
‘Good lad. Come to my house at the fifth hour tomorrow and don’t be late.’
The next day when the Nubian slave showed Josephus through to the garden at the centre of the villa, Proculus and Vespasian were deep in conversation. Despite their difference in rank, Proculus rose as the young Judean entered, greeting him like an old friend. ‘Glad to see you’re still in one piece,’ he said, embracing him warmly. ‘Your old friend Gubs wishes to be remembered to you.’
Josephus smiled. ‘I owe Gubs my life,’ he said.
‘Gubs was too modest to put it that way,’ said the admiral. ‘But he’s back working for me now; the Classis Pontica is a bit of a backwater if you’ll pardon the pun so he asked if I’d have him back.’ Josephus sat down on the bench next to them and Proculus’ face became grave. ‘Vespasian tells me you understand the personal risks you’re about to t
ake. Now you’ve slept on it, do you still want to be involved?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Even at the risk of being crucified by the very man you’re trying to help?’ Josephus nodded and did his best to look grimly determined. ‘Right. Here’s what we know so far: Gaius Calpurnius Piso thinks Nero is mad.’
‘As do a lot of people,’ added Vespasian.
Proculus continued. ‘Piso also thinks he’s leading the empire to ruin – again, a widely held sentiment in certain circles – and he thinks he’d make a better emperor than Nero. He’s cobbled together enough support to have a reasonable chance of success and we have most, but not all, of the conspirators’ names. Once we’ve got the complete list, we can shut the conspiracy down and thereby gain the emperor’s undying gratitude and loyalty.’
‘You mean you’ll own him?’ asked Josephus.
‘I wouldn’t put it as cynically as that,’ replied Proculus. ‘Let’s just say there’s a possibility he’ll be somewhat dependent on those who remained loyal if he plans on staying alive.’
‘Nice,’ Josephus said with a smile.
‘The players we know about are Piso himself, Faenius Rufus from the Praetorian Guard, Subrius Flavus who’s a member of the Praetorian Court and a centurion called Sulpicius Asper.’ He then reeled off a list of senators and Equestrians, most of whom Josephus had heard of. ‘Now you’re probably wondering how I got involved,’ said Proculus. ‘My wife is friendly with a woman called Epicharis – her husband is a senator and they’ve got a summer villa near Puteoli, that’s how we got to know them. Anyway, while the senator is in Rome, Epicharis tempers her boredom with drink.’
‘Luckily for Nero, in vino, veritas,’ said Vespasian.
‘Very true,’ continued Proculus. ‘Now, we were entertaining friends a few weeks ago, Epicharis got drunk, cornered me on the terrace and started on about Nero. I was going to explain, very politely of course, that I didn’t like my guests talking treason when she told me about a conspiracy to kill him involving the Praetorians. Naturally, I assumed it was just the drink talking but the more she said, the more names she mentioned, the more credible it became. I confided in her that I was no friend of Nero’s either and we agreed to meet the following day. Basically, she repeated the same story word-for-word with a few more names thrown in and I said I’d gauge support among senior officers in the fleet and get back to her.’
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