The Alchemist's Gift

by Martin Rua

  “Very interesting, bravo Alex. There’s no doubt about it – Matteo’s photo shows the marble slab.”

  “And why do you think he drew the floor plan of the cathedral over it?”

  “Maybe he’d realised something. That’s what I’ll have to find out.”

  *

  We said goodbye to Alma with the promise that we would inform her of any developments. Suddenly, she seemed to be as involved as I was in that dangerous treasure hunt Matteo and Vladislav Hašek had initiated.

  We had just emerged from the building onto the street when my phone rang. It was Oscar.

  “Lorenzo, where are you?”

  “In the centre, Via dell’Anticaglia. What’s happened?”

  “Amato’s arrested Asar’s man.”

  “Shit.”

  “Let’s just hope the situation doesn’t get out of hand.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Here, in the police station. We’re questioning him.”

  “Can I come?”

  “You have to come.”

  I hung up and looked at Alex. He narrowed his eyes in resignation.

  “I get it. I’m going to be your chauffeur for the whole day.”

  *

  Once at the police station, we went to Oscar’s room. With him were Viola and Andrea. My brother looked relieved to see her.

  “So?”

  Oscar wore a doubtful expression.

  “He didn’t put up any resistance, didn’t even try. The car drove around and then it just stopped not far from the City of Science. The driver remained in the car for at least half an hour. Amato waited, hoping that the man was meeting someone, but nobody arrived, so he must have let us follow him on purpose. Andrea and Viola didn’t have time to stop Amato. When they got there, he had already arrested him. In fact, to tell the truth the man turned himself in, docile as a lamb.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “‘You have made a big mistake,’” said Viola, “Just that. Amato is still questioning him, but he’s not answering any of his questions.”

  I shuddered, and I passed my hand over my face.

  “My God…”

  “Lorenzo,” said Oscar, after a moment of silence, “if you agree I would like to bring Àrtemis and Professor Ricciardi here. Now. It’s better if we’re all together. Call her, and I’ll send a squad car.”

  I nodded, dazed and called Àrtemis while Oscar called the police switchboard. “Miranda, send me someone from the flying squad, immediately.”

  Àrtemis was evidently in a lesson, and nothing in the world would convince her to answer the phone.

  “No answer, Oscar…”

  At that moment there was a knock at the door. In came a young blond policeman.

  “Commissioner.”

  “Ah Sinagra, wait a minute – you have to go to the Federico II to pick up two people,” said Oscar as he called Professor Ricciardi. “Professor, good morning, how are you? Good, good. Sorry to bother you again, but I’m going to have to ask you to come to police headquarters… I know, it’s a pain in the neck, but it’s for your protection. No, nothing’s happened, but I need you here urgently. Where are you at the moment? Ah, very good. I’m sending a car. It’ll be at the university in ten minutes, so please be waiting outside. Àrtemis Nicopolidis will be coming with you. Thanks so much.” He hung up. “Thank God Ricciardi was the university.”

  “What are we going to do about Àrtemis?” I said in anguish.

  “Go with Sinagra and get her from the classroom.”

  Chapter 32

  Naples, 18th of June, 13:30

  Three days to the summer solstice

  As Sinagra sped along Via Acton towards the university, my phone rang. I presumed that it must be Àrtemis and relief washed over me, but when I looked at the screen I saw the words ‘unknown caller.’

  “Yes?”

  “We overestimated you, Mr Aragona – you are more stupid than I thought.”

  It was him, Asar. A chill went through my entire body.

  “I assure you I had nothing to do…”

  “That means nothing to us. If you are unable to keep your allies in check, that is your problem.”

  “My allies? But it’s the police, how can I stop them…”

  “Shut up. Perhaps you are not taking us seriously. I’m sorry, but I will show you that we are not playing games. One of the six outlines will turn red.”

  “Don’t, please – I’m working for you.”

  “I warned you. In a few minutes I will activate my Scorpion King. And I will continue every twelve hours for the next three days.”

  He hung up, leaving me with the taste of bile in my mouth. I looked at Sinagra, who was pulling into the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in via Porta di Massa.

  “Is something wrong, Mr Aragona?”

  I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I looked at him and moved my lips without making a sound. My head was spinning.

  “Mr Aragona, are you ok?”

  I shook my head, tried to regain control of myself and nodded.

  “Y-yes… thank you. Let’s get a move on.”

  “We’re there.”

  Sinagra pulled up next to a stunned Professor Ricciardi, who was awaiting us on the pavement. “What’s happening, Mr Aragona?” the old lecturer asked fearfully.

  “Professor, we’ll explain everything at the police station. Get in the car, I’m going to look for Àrtemis.”

  I raced across the courtyard of the Angevin complex of St Peter Martyr, the former convent which was home to the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, and flew up the stairs to the classroom where Àrtemis usually gave her lectures.

  As I ran like a lunatic, attracting the curious glances of students, professors and non-teaching staff, I phoned Oscar.

  “Asar called me… he says… he’s not joking… and he’s about to give us a demonstration!”

  “Calm down – what exactly did he say?”

  “That in a few minutes he’ll inject his poison into one of us at random,” I said breathlessly. “Oscar, please – think of something!”

  Àrtemis’s classroom door was still closed which meant that she was torturing her students well beyond the time scheduled for the end of the lesson. Without thinking twice I rushed in.

  “… the tablet in question is therefore part of a series of offerings which do not hide any mysterious message of mythical Atlantis or similar nonsense and… Lorenzo!”

  Àrtemis, standing in front of a whiteboard full of markings which were incomprehensible to me, froze, her pen in the air. There were a few chuckles here and there from the students who crowded the classroom.

  “Good morning, sorry for the interruption,” I said with embarrassment, as I tried to catch my breath, then I went over to Àrtemis and whispered, “Please, don’t make a fuss, just come with me now.”

  The expression on my face must have been so worrying that my wife didn’t need to be told twice. She looked at the time and saw that the lesson had in any case, over-run.

  “All right, all right.” She put down her pen and gathered her things. “Thank you for your attention, people. And remember the finds of Agìa Triàda for the next lesson, please. Goodbye.”

  I literally dragged her down the stairs.

  “Lorenzo, what’s going on?” she asked breathlessly. “You’re going to make me fall!”

  When she saw the police car and Professor Ricciardi she went quiet, adding only, “Filippo?”

  I ushered her inside, saying “We're in danger.”

  The car roared off, sirens blaring, and covered the short distance that separated us from the area of Chiaia where the San Fernandino police station was, within minutes. A few metres before arriving the radio crackled.

  “Car two, go ahead.”

  “Sinagra, this is Commissioner Franchi.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come to the Due Sicilie Bank immediately, we’re all there.”

  “Yes, Commissione
r.”

  I watched in amazement as he spun the car round with a risky manoeuvre and headed towards Via Chiatamone.

  “The Due Sicilie Bank? Why?”

  “No idea, Mr Aragona. I’m just following orders.”

  We arrived in under a minute. Oscar was at the entrance and waved at us to hurry. My brother was with him, without his usual sly smile. He was terrified, as were we all.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked Oscar, running through the bank holding Àrtemis’s hand.

  “It’s an idea, Lorenzo – an idea that the guys in forensics gave me. It seems that they built a Faraday cage around the vault of this bank – a huge signal jammer that screens it completely. The manager’s obsessed with security and he has made it available to help us. The techs think that if the poison delivery system works via a radio signal, the vault should be able to block it. The others are already inside.”

  We went down to the basement and found ourselves walking along a re-inforced concrete corridor lit by neon lights. Two bank employees were waiting at the entrance to the vault. We could see Vincenzo Amato, Andrea Kominkova and Viola Brancato standing beyond them, their faces ashen.

  We were now at the vault. As Àrtemis and I crossed the threshold, we heard a strangled cry behind us. We looked round and saw that Filippo Ricciardi, still outside the vault, was clutching his chest while his face grew increasingly blue. He collapsed into the arms of Sinagra and Alex, who were right behind him.

  “Oh my God, Filippo!” shouted Àrtemis, turning.

  I grabbed her just in time.

  “Àrtemis, no! Don’t go out!”

  “Close the door, now!” shouted Oscar. The huge vault door swung on its massive hinges and closed with a sort of slight sigh. An instant later the electronic lock activated, leaving us in complete silence.

  Àrtemis was paralysed. Breathing heavily, her eyes stared straight ahead.

  “Filippo… Filippo,” she murmured, unable to move a muscle.

  “Àrtemis, please come and sit down,” I said, as I hugged her.

  In the vault there was a metal desk and four chairs. With great difficulty Viola and I managed to get Àrtemis to sit down.

  She lifted her gaze to me, her eyes full of tears.

  “What happened, Lorenzo? My God, what happened?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer.

  “I don’t know, Àrtemis. I don't know…”

  Chapter 33

  Naples, 18th of June, 14:30

  Three days from the summer solstice

  We spent about an hour in the vault of Due Sicilie Bank, hardly speaking and in oppressive silence, expecting to see at any moment one of the remaining five of us simply collapse the way poor Ricciardi had a few minutes before.

  At one point the huge vault door opened, and we turned to see, through the slowly widening gap, first the bank employees and then Oscar, his face wearing an expression of anguish.

  Àrtemis stared at him expectantly, but Oscar shook his head and said, with sad eyes, “I’m sorry Àrtemis – Professor Ricciardi is dead.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, while Amato, putting a hand to his forehead, murmured in a faint voice, “They’re going to kill us… They’re going to kill us all.”

  “I don’t think so, Enzo,” said Oscar. “As soon as the vault door was closed we called an ambulance. It arrived immediately, and the doctor and the paramedics immediately realised the gravity of the situation. Within seconds, they had made a diagnosis. A heart attack. A straightforward heart attack.”

  “But perhaps it was caused by the poison,” I hypothesised.

  “We will have to wait for the autopsy and toxicological tests, of course, but the doctor seemed very certain. When I mentioned the venom he expressed strong doubts. I repeat, as far as he was concerned, it was a perfectly normal heart attack.”

  We looked at one another, not fully understanding what had happened. Professor Ricciardi hadn’t been killed by Asar’s Scorpion King? Was it all a bluff?

  “What should we do now, Oscar?” asked Amato. “Stay shut up in here?”

  I shook my head, remembering Asar’s words.

  “No, there’s no need. Even if Professor Ricciardi was killed by the poison, if Asar can be trusted, we have about eleven hours before… it’s the turn of another of us.”

  Oscar put his hands on his hips. “So let’s try and get the truth out of the guy we arrested.”

  *

  Asar’s man sat with his arms folded at a table in a bare room in the police station. He had no documents with him and his data – photos and fingerprints – were not in the police database. He had a clean record, and the only thing that was certain, from the very few words he had spoken, was that he was Italian.

  Amato wanted to smash his face in, but Oscar’s presence prevented him from giving vent to the anger that was mounting within him by the minute. The man had a perfectly average face, close cropped brown hair, thin lips and a vacant gaze imprinted like a still image on his perfectly average eyes.

  Oscar had allowed me to watch the questioning from behind a one way mirror, and I heard him repeat the same question for the umpteenth time: he wanted Asar’s real name and he wanted to speak to him. The man, however, was locked in stubborn silence. Oscar took out the smartphone which had been seized when he was arrested: there were no stored numbers and the outgoing calls list was empty. The police technicians, however, had found on it the application which supposedly activated the release of poison, and Oscar showed the screen to Asar’s man.

  “You killed an innocent man, a respected university professor, right before my eyes. You did it with this, right? By just pressing a button.”

  The man looked up for the first time and gave a slight smile. “We haven’t killed anyone. You’re making a big mistake.”

  Amato lost control and, like a large predatory animal, leapt forward, snatched the smartphone from Oscar’s hands and pounced on the man, grabbing him by the shirt collar. He threw him to the floor and dragged him along the ground, pressing the phone forcefully against his face.

  “You piece of shit, I’ll ram this phone into your brain, you hear me?”

  “Enzo, calm down!” said Oscar, trying in vain to stop Amato.

  “Tell me how it works! Tell me how the fuck it works!”

  “Enzo, enough! Let go of him!”

  The door opened and two officers came in to help Oscar restrain Amato’s fury. Asar’s man, now looking frightened, adjusted his clothes and sat down again.

  “You are violating my rights. I want a lawyer,” he said arrogantly.

  Oscar gave him a withering look.

  “What lawyer, you scumbag? Start by telling us your name and how you killed the professor and maybe you’ll make it to tonight with your bones intact.”

  The man grew strangely calm again and, enunciating his words, repeated, “We did not kill anyone.”

  A strange idea had already begun to form in my mind after listening to Oscar’s account of what the doctor and the paramedic said. Death caused by heart failure. Asar too had insisted that the police had no evidence for accusing them of murdering Hašek. Naturally, I had assumed it was an attempt to exculpate himself, but now, listening to the man repeat several times, with conviction, that they had not been involved in those crimes, I began to have doubts.

  A minute later, my suspicions received confirmation. Oscar had asked to have the results of the tests on Ricciardi’s corpse as soon as they were ready. To find out exactly how the professor had died we would have wait a few days, but the doctors were able to provide us with a fairly clear picture after only an hour.

  Viola entered the interrogation room.

  “Oscar, can I talk to you for a second?”

  The enraged Commissioner turned towards the glass mirror which separated me from the room, so I was able to observe his face, at first frowning and then growing confused when Viola said, “The medics are ninety-nine percent certain that the professor
died of a heart attack. They’ve carried out a rapid analysis and an initial examination found no traces of any kind of poisoning. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the autopsy, but…”

  “I get it. Thanks Viola.”

  Oscar turned away. Asar’s man held his gaze confidently.

  Chapter 34

  Naples, 18th of June, 15:51

  Three days to the summer solstice

  Exhausted and tense, we gathered in Oscar’s office. Àrtemis was missing: exhausted by stress and upset by the death of Ricciardi, she had allowed herself to be driven home by my brother. I would meet her for dinner before going back into the vault of the Due Sicilie Bank. Without knowing exactly what had killed Professor Ricciardi and unable to communicate with Asar, the best thing to do in Oscar’s opinion was to shut ourselves up in the bank at the expiration of the twelve hours, hoping that in the meantime my masonic brothers and I would get to the bottom of the riddle of the cathedral so as to have something concrete to give to Asar.

  Agent Miranda brought us some sandwiches. Having had neither the time nor the inclination, none of us had eaten, and it was only in that moment that Oscar seemed to awaken from the stupor into which he had fallen. He couldn’t get over the idea that it might have been the agitation caused by the sudden race to the police station that had killed Ricciardi and not Asar’s poison. A race that he had set in motion. The professor had timidly mentioned his heart problems and Oscar hadn’t taken them seriously enough, so in the light of the initial forensic examination, natural death seemed plausible enough. The only person who was in a worse state than Oscar was Vincenzo Amato. Like Àrtemis, the deputy commissioner had been sent home. If he lost control again he might jeopardize everything. We would meet him later before returning to the bank vault.

  “Oscar, you only had a few minutes to act and you may well have saved all our lives – don’t blame yourself,” I said, reluctantly chewing my sandwich, which felt as heavy as a boulder.

  The inspector glanced at his own and put it aside without taking even a bite.

  “I’ve been handling this badly since yesterday, Lorenzo. It’s time to stop. It doesn’t matter whether Ricciardi was actually physically killed by that lunatic. He is still a victim of this situation. A victim that maybe we could have saved if I had acted with a bit more level-headedness and determination.”