The Turin Shroud Secret (22 page)

Nic collects his room key at reception and heads upstairs to sink into his swampy bed. No sooner has he kicked off his shoes
than his cell rings and flashes up Mitzi’s desk number.

‘Pronto,’ he tries to mimic Carlotta’s accent.
‘Signore Carry-can-diss
here.’

She laughs. It’s reassuring to hear him cracking jokes. ‘Glad you’ve still got your sense of humour, Signore. So how’s it
going?’

‘You mean aside from the jet lag, crappy weather and major runaround I’m being given?’

‘Yeah,
aside
from all those exotic treats, how’s it going?’

‘Just great.’ He pushes the pillows back and leans against them. ‘I went to Roberto Craxi’s apartment. He wasn’t there but
I tell you Mitz, that place was so clean – fresh paint everywhere, new units in the kitchen, the works – it was like someone
wanted to erase any trace that Craxi or his wife had ever set foot in the place.’

She toys with the phone cable and wishes he was back in the office with her. ‘Sounds like a professional wipe-down – maybe
after a shooting or at least some kind of bloodshed.’

‘I thought the same, but there are no signs of a crime. No signs of anything. The Craxis just vanished –
poof,
gone!’ He jams the phone between his neck and ear as he pours water from a bottle on the bedside table. ‘I went to his bank
as well. Account’s been closed – all the money withdrawn in cash.’

‘How much?’

‘In euros, about a hundred and fifty thou’. What’s that – about two hundred thousand dollars?’

‘Guess so. However much it is, it sounds like he and his wife ain’t coming back.’

‘Yeah, sounds like it. But why?’

She sips coffee. ‘Usual reasons – avoiding something or somebody. I’ll check emigration, they might have left the country.
Or maybe you can have the Carabinieri do that?’

‘Ha, some hope. I’ve been assigned a beauty queen who couldn’t investigate a crime in her own house.’

‘You being a little sexist?’

‘I don’t know, Mitz. She’s a
loo-geo-ten-ente
or whatever the heck they call it out here. So she certainly ranks big enough to know the ropes. It’s just that everything
takes an age in Italy and she really doesn’t seem so bright.’ He wonders for a second if he’s being fair or whether his irritation
is just the product of not understanding the unhurried pace of the culture. ‘I went to see the Shroud – that was a waste of
time as well.’

‘How so?’

‘I got more BS from the cathedral’s verger than you got from Matthews last time you asked for a raise. The relic is locked
in boxes inside boxes and only the Pope can fix for anyone to see it.’

‘Do you think we’re chasing down blind alleys, Nic?’

‘If it wasn’t for the money, I might think that. But Jacobs paid out more than a hundred K to this Craxi guy for some kind
of information about the Shroud. What was the info and why was it worth so much? It’s important, I’m sure it is.’

She trusts his instinct. It’s one of the things that have made him such a good cop. Instinct. That’s something she’s certainly
been lacking in her personal life. God knows she screwed things up with Alfie.

Nic thinks he’s lost the connection. ‘Mitz, you still there?’

‘Yeah, I’m here. Just …’

‘What’s wrong?’ He can tell from her voice that something is wrong. Can tell from that one lonely word hung out on its own.

Just.

‘Nothing. Well, something, but it’s only personal shit that I have to sort out.’

‘Personal shit called Alfie?’

She nearly laughs – that instinct of his really is good. ‘Yeah, but hey, what the hell, we all have to deal with our own crap,
don’t we?’

He shifts position on the bed. ‘You want to talk about it?’

‘Nah, get some sleep, and solve this case for me. I don’t want you hanging around at work longer than need be, you’ve got
a boat to sail. Bye.’

Nic smiles at the disconnected phone. His boss is a class act. Deserves better than that bum of a husband she’s stuck with.

CORONER’S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES

The iMac cursor glides over the Adobe PDF icon and clicks it open. Amy Chang’s jaw drops in astonishment. ‘You are kidding
me.’ In front of her are more than four hundred
pages from Gunter Quentell suggesting the Shroud of Turin was faked by one of the world’s most talented artists, sculptors,
writers, mathematicians and inventors.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Ridiculous. Then again, he was also a scientist and intellectual prankster. He conceptualised tanks, helicopters and solar
power, and created the most reproduced religious painting of all time, the
Last Supper,
in which he inserted Mary Magdalene as the companion of Christ. Maybe not so ridiculous an idea after all.

Gunter’s document claims that just as Leonardo allegedly modelled the
Mona Lisa
on his own face, he did the same with the Turin Shroud. Amy studies three shots – the Shroud print, a portrait of da Vinci
and the Mona Lisa. There are similarities – in the eyes and even nose – but she struggles to be completely convinced. For
a start, the great painter was born a hundred years
after
the disputed carbon dating. And multiple scientific examinations have recorded no sign of any oil or watercolours on the
linen cloth. Could
Leonardo really have invented some form of photography hundreds of years
before
others claimed more widespread recognition for the technique? Not impossible.

At the bottom of the electronic document are copies of newspaper articles from 2011, detailing claims from an Italian art
expert called Luciano Buso that the Shroud was created not by Leonardo but by Giotto di Bondone, who lived in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries.

Amy scans them. It seems Giotto was a master of painting figures – especially Christ – and was allegedly chosen by the Church
to create a replica of the cloth because the original was in such a poor state. He is said to have concealed the number ‘15’
in the painting to denote the year he completed the work.

Further down the PDF there are several other articles completely dismissing Buso’s claims as totally without foundation. Amy
turns back to the images of the Shroud. Fresh questions arise. The cloth appears to show markings made by blood, sweat and
tissue. Contrary to popular belief, bodies
can
still bleed after death, after the heart has stopped pumping, but it would be extraordinary for one to have done so in a
way that left such vivid marks.

Another thing is disturbing her. Putrefaction. A corpse left for days, even inside a closed cave, would undoubtedly putrefy.
If blood were visible on the linen, then other bodily excretions should be too. They aren’t.

Her telephone rings. It’s her secretary. She just missed a call from a professor in England. He left a message saying he
wants to speak to her about the crucifixion of Christ and why he’s convinced the Shroud of Turin is genuine.

TURIN

It’s 9 p.m. when Nic finally gets the phone call he’d been waiting for all day.

‘Are you alone?’ The voice is male and Italian. A voice he has heard only once before.

‘Just me and a TV that doesn’t work properly.’ He drops the remote on the quilt and sits on the edge of the bed.

‘Leave your hotel and cross the road. At the corner turn left and you will see a Fiat Bravo. I will leave the side lights
on.’

Nic wriggles his swollen feet into shoes that have somehow shrunk since he kicked them off. ‘You have some good news?’

‘I have news.’

The line goes dead.

Nic locks his phone, ties his laces, gets up and grabs his jacket and keys.

It’s dark and raining softly as he leaves the stuffy heat of the old hotel for the crispness of the November night. There’s
a drizzle falling, the kind of rain you can’t really see but can feel all the time – an icy mist that surreptitiously
soaks you and leaches your body heat. He turns the corner and within a couple of steps sees the parked Fiat.

He’s never met Fabio Goria but the guy has come strongly recommended. He works for a premier private investigations company
and came courtesy of a friend in the FBI.

He slips into the PI’s Fiat Bravo, shuts the door and offers a hand. ‘Nic Karakandez, good to meet you.’

‘Fabio.’ Goria is gravelly-voiced, unshaven, in his mid-thirties, broad-shouldered and smells of cigarettes.

‘So what have you got?’

Passing car lights play on the investigator’s stubbly face as he talks, his pinched blue eyes focused on either the windshield
or rear-view mirror. ‘You asked me to find Roberto Craxi for you and to keep a trace on him until you came to Torino. This
I have done.’

Nic is more impressed than he is about to admit. ‘Where is he?’

Goria doesn’t answer immediately. He glances from the mirror into the detective’s eyes. He has to be able to trust this man.
There are things he needs to know – things he has to be certain about – before he tells him anything. ‘I spoke to Special
Agent Burge. He told me you are a good policeman, so I help you. But before we speak about Craxi and where he is hiding, tell
me what you know about him.’

Hiding.
The word makes Nic’s heart quicken. ‘I don’t know much. He’s Italian and the recipient of a sizeable income from a murder
victim in LA. Oh, and the Carabinieri couldn’t find him.’

Goria’s smile is barely visible in the half-light.

‘Craxi worked for the Carabinieri until only a few years ago.’

‘What?’

‘He was a member of the Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale – the ROS. You know what this is?’

‘Special operations group?’

‘Exactly. One of their main bases is here in Turin. It is the arm of the Carabinieri that deals with organised crime and terrorism.
It reports directly to the Carabinieri general command. Not much is known about it.’

Nic starts to put the pieces together and it doesn’t make for a pretty picture. In none of his calls from LA or the meetings
today did any of his Carabinieri contacts mention that Craxi had been one of their own, let alone a special operative.

Goria can tell what’s on his mind. ‘Your pretty lieutenant wasn’t of much help, was she?’

‘No,’ says Nic, ‘And now I know why.’

The Italian lights a cigarette and winds down an inch of window to blow out the blue-grey smoke. ‘Craxi wasn’t only ROS, he
was
un’ombra –
a shadow. He was part of a black ops team.’

‘You mean she might not have known Craxi was part of her own force?’

‘It is possible. The Carabinieri is a big organisation, with both military and policing functions. They overlap at times and
are entirely separate when it suits them. The executives will know. They probably figure you are here for two or
three days at most and will then have to go back to Los Angeles, so they assign someone to show you around a little and frustrate
you.’

‘They’re certainly doing that.’

Goria grips the cigarette between his lips and digs inside his jacket. ‘Take a look at this.’ He hands over several long lens
photographs of a man in a raincoat crossing a street.

‘Dino di Rossi. This is the verger of the cathedral. I saw him earlier.’

‘I know you did. We took these straight afterwards. One of my team has been watching you all day.’ He takes the photographs
back. ‘But this man you met, he is not the verger of the Duomo.’

‘Then who is he?’

‘His name is Pausini. He is also from ROS, an undercover specialist. He is good, no?’

‘I guess he is.’

‘I don’t know all of the details of your case, Nic, but I do know a little about the ROS. You don’t want to upset these people.
They are trained to kill. If they are involved in your inquiry, then I advise you to leave. Go home to America. Burge told
me that you like to sail. Good. You should do that. Go home, sail as far away as you can from all this.’

Nic shakes his head. ‘I can’t do that. Much as I’d like to. There’s been a murder and—’

‘And there will be more -if you don’t leave.’ The statement hangs as unpleasantly as the fug of smoke around him.
‘I can only help you so much, Nic. Only so much, then I am gone. Understand?’

77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

Being called to Matthews’ office is never good news.

Especially on a Friday afternoon. Mitzi thinks over the cold hard facts as she heads down his corridor. There are two times
a week a boss will most likely lay you off, fire you or bust your balls. If he’s a nice guy, he does it first-thing Monday
morning. That way you’ve already had your weekend in blissful ignorance and most likely you’re in for an extra week’s pay
if he takes your badge. If he’s an asshole – or the timing’s just plain bad – you catch it Friday afternoon. This way he gets
the weight off his mind and the weekend ahead is a nice one for him but not for you.

She knocks on the upper glass part of his door, twists the dull brass knob and edges it open enough to stick her head through,
‘You called for me, sir.’

‘I did.’ He’s behind his desk in blue-checked shirtsleeves, cuffs rolled to his elbows, feet resting on the edge of a chair
and a pile of financial papers spread over the vast curvature of an ample midriff restrained by black braces. ‘Sit down and
adopt a mood of joyous opportunity and stoic professionalism.’