Book of Stolen Tales

by D J Mcintosh

  “Not offhand. Unless you mean the author himself. He died of the plague in 1632.”

  “He did?”

  “Not the Black Death. The disease that took his life claimed many souls in Napoli. Historians still don’t know what type of epidemic it was.”

  “Wait a second. Did you say Basile died in 1632? But the first volume of the book wasn’t published until 1634.”

  “Didn’t you know? What we’re looking at is a final printer’s proof—like a galley. It wasn’t properly checked and you can see mistakes in some of the story titles and formatting. A terrible volcanic eruption occurred in the winter of 1631 and the following year a plague hit the city. Conditions in Napoli grew very grim, so normal commerce was brought to a halt. Only when Basile’s sister got in touch with the publishers after he died did they go ahead and publish the book. Without her, his great writing might have been lost to us.”

  The sole surviving galley for such a famous book would be even more precious than the first edition. I digested this as I leafed through the rest of her book.

  Katharina checked her watch. “I find myself at loose ends without social obligations tonight. If you have no pressing business, could I interest you in an early dinner? Not many people are familiar with Basile’s anthology. I’d love to talk more about it and there’s a pleasant bistro not far away.”

  She made the offer quite casually, as if it were all the same to her whether I accepted the invitation or not. I was under no illusions, however, and doubted very much she made a habit of inviting strange men to dinner. No red-blooded guy would turn down an invitation like that, and besides, I was intrigued to find out what she really wanted.

  The pleasant bistro turned out to be a five-star restaurant. By the end of dinner, after we’d gone through two bottles of Château Poujeaux, I was feeling no pain and didn’t care how much it cost. Katharina tried to pry out of me how I found out she’d bought the book. It became clear this was the real reason she’d suggested we go out. I deflected her questions and she didn’t insist. When I asked about her husband she said they’d recently separated. Except for her houseman, who didn’t strike me as much of a defender, she was pretty much alone.

  “I want to tell you,” I said, “to be careful. The man who arranged the sale of the book was murdered in Naples. Can you hire someone to watch over you until this affair is sorted out? Will you be all right?”

  My warning didn’t seem to alarm her in any way; in fact, her lips turned up in a faint smile. “How very sweet of you, John. But don’t worry. I’m quite safe.”

  I thought of emphasizing the point but her reaction suggested it would have no effect.

  “I hope you’re right. At least consider it.”

  Rain was pelting down by the time we left the restaurant. Katharina drew me closer under her umbrella. We were both pretty tipsy and in good enough moods not to care about a few drops of rain. By now it was clear she didn’t intend for the night to end at her doorstep. When we reached her place she suggested a nightcap. She brushed my fingers with her lips as I helped her off with her coat. I returned the compliment with a deep kiss. The cognac we had intended to drink became a distant memory.

  The street lamp outside cast a glow in her bedroom, highlighting the wet, golden-brown waves of her hair. Rain water trailing down from her hair glistened on her tawny skin. She let her dress slide to the floor. Underneath she wore only a full-length translucent slip that veiled her body just enough to make me want to see more. I lifted her slip and felt the heat of her bare skin against mine as I took her in my arms.

  As we lay together afterward she ran her fingers down my chest. “You avoided answering me earlier, but I’d still like to know how you found out I bought the book. Did Ewan Fraser figure it out? Did he tell you?”

  I uncoupled from the warmth of her body and reached for my clothes on the floor, putting them on as I sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s a long story and I’ll tell you, I promise, but first”—I paused to brush her cheek with a kiss—”which way is the restroom?”

  “Three doors down the hall. I look forward to hearing your answer when you return.”

  Visiting the bathroom was an excuse to buy some time to think up a good answer without revealing too much. I walked down the corridor, counted three doorways, and realized I didn’t know whether she’d been referring to the left or the right side of the hall. I pushed open the door on my left.

  The odd nature of the room I entered struck me immediately. Not square but octagonal, all eight sides different widths. Even the verticals looked skewed, as if the walls sloped inward. It had bare wooden floors and possessed no furniture save for a mirror in a beautifully enameled frame hanging on one of the angled walls. Its wavy surface and the markings on the glass suggested the mirror was quite old.

  At first I couldn’t understand what I saw—or didn’t see—in it. Although the mirror reproduced the room’s background faithfully, my own reflection did not appear. Touching the glass without seeing my hand had a strangely disorienting effect. I guessed the phenomenon had something to do with the mirror’s placement in the context of the irregular walls.

  The only other object in the room was a framed picture with its face turned toward the wall. Unaccountably, this was reflected in the mirror. The backing appeared brittle and browned. It had an inscription in Spanish and a date in Roman numerals. I turned it around.

  José de Ribera’s Mary Magdalene in the Desert

  It was a portrait of Dina. I could hardly believe my eyes. Not just her mass of dark hair, rosy lips, and porcelain skin, but every feature faithfully copied. Even the painted expression resembled that of the woman I’d so recently left in France: a patrician aloofness softened with a touch of warmth. The oil painting had tiny eggshell cracks—the patina—of a centuries-old original. But how could that be? Faked oil paintings are legion in the art industry and some have fooled even the best scholars. This one looked convincingly aged. It had to be a clever reproduction.

  I heard a sound behind me.

  “May I ask what you’re doing?” Katharina stood wrapped in her bathrobe, disapproval stamped on her features.

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” I said. “I got the wrong room. Then I saw this mirror. It’s entrancing. How does it work? Is it related to the angle of the walls?”

  “Something like that,” she replied sharply.

  “Can you see your reflection in it? Mine doesn’t show.”

  “Only that ghastly portrait is caught by the mirror. I saw your reaction to the picture. You know her, don’t you?”

  Her tone, her entire demeanor, had changed. She held herself stiffly. The room’s bright light emphasized the prominent angles of her face and a tiny web of lines around her eyes that I’d not noticed before.

  “Yes, I do.”

  Katharina moved back to let me exit the room; then she pulled the door shut and locked it with a key from her pocket. “Dina sent you here, didn’t she? I took every precaution to hide my name when I bought the book from her agent. How did she find out?”

  “Dina gave me your address but otherwise left me completely in the dark. I had no idea you knew her, let alone had a portrait of her hanging in your home.”

  Her lips trembled in the effort to get her next words out. “She stole my husband from me.”

  The veil fell from my eyes. “You’re Lorenzo Mancini’s wife.”

  Thirty

  November 27, 2003

  Ghent, Belgium

  “Legally, anyway,” she said bitterly. “I use my maiden name now.” Again I was struck by the transformation in her character. While at first she’d seemed so genteel, her eyes now burned with spite. The mere mention of Dina’s name set off a torrent of hatred. “My husband prefers young flesh—that is true. I was seventeen when we married, an alliance forced on me by my parents. Dina came to us in 1998. I suppose she told you the sad story about her life? How she was an aristocrat from an obscure family and that her mother died, her father lost h
is business and essentially abandoned her?”

  “Something along those lines.” I tried to keep my tone neutral.

  “I’m sure you think she’s the picture of innocence,” Katharina said coldly. “Lorenzo brought her home one day and announced she’d be living with us. He gave me no choice at all. She had no identity papers. She was unable to speak proper Italian, had an unusual dialect I could barely understand. Her manners were hopeless. My husband took her on as a project, a kind of Pygmalion. He wanted to see if he could turn an urchin into a lady.”

  “She certainly is that now.”

  Katharina gave me a black look. “She’s anything but. From the start I could see her begin to work on his … emotions. I pleaded with Lorenzo, but in the end, had to stand by and watch it happen. Every flirtatious glance she threw his way was like a razor slicing through my veins. There was nothing I could do. Tell me, where does a fifteen-year-old learn such powers of seduction? She was no virgin, even at that young age. He got her from some brothel.” Spittle flew out of her mouth as she spoke.

  “Why keep her picture then, Katharina, if you hate her so deeply?”

  “My husband checks on me. He insists I keep the painting in that exact location and always makes sure it’s there. ‘A little torture,’ he says—to pay me back for leaving him. The mirror was his idea too. A little beauty he picked up in Lohr. Ours was not a great love match but it fell apart when he met Dina. He has a legendary temper. I go along with his wishes to keep the peace.

  “Anyway, that’s not your Dina,” Katharina snapped. “It’s a 1638 Renaissance portrait attributed to José de Ribera, the illustrator of our little book. One of the painter’s earlier works. An almost identical painting by him now hangs in the Prado that dates to 1641. My husband was mistakenly told it was a portrait of Margarete von Waldeck. That proved untrue, since von Waldeck died thirty-seven years before de Ribera was born.”

  “Who is Margarete von Waldeck?” I said, still reeling from the date of the painting and the name of the artist.

  Katharina’s angry stance hadn’t abated in the least. “How do you know Dina?” she asked shrilly.

  “I met her in the course of searching for my stolen volume. How does Margarete von Waldeck fit in?” I repeated. “The likeness to Dina is unbelievable.”

  I followed Katharina as she walked back toward her room. “Von Waldeck’s a young woman with a sad history. Some believe her personal story became the basis for ‘Snow White.’ Her father’s estate bordered a village in Hessen whose poor laborers were small as a result of malnutrition and long hours spent working underground in local copper mines. Hence her association with dwarfs.”

  Renwick’s conviction that the old tales were based on actual events came back to me. Katharina continued, her voice brittle with anger. “Margarete’s stepmother was extremely jealous of the young girl’s beauty so she sent her away to the Spanish court at Brussels. The family hoped she’d gain a prominent marriage and their plan succeeded too brilliantly. The young prince, soon to be Spanish king Phillip II, fell deeply in love with her. Margarete’s father wanted a match with a nobleman but never dreamed of so high a prospect. It was a dangerous alliance for the girl. The Spanish court would never allow such a marriage.”

  “Was she poisoned like Snow White?”

  “She died at the age of twenty-one. And yes, many think court officials poisoned her.”

  “Pretty difficult to prove when so much time has passed.” “People will believe anything, though—won’t they?” The implication of her words was directed more to my defense of Dina than to the poisoning of Snow White.

  We’d reached her room. I shrugged on my shirt and jacket and stepped into my shoes. Katharina watched me dress in silence, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I still don’t understand how a picture that’s centuries old could be a mirror image of Dina,” I said.

  “You have it the wrong way round. My husband became entranced with Dina because she resembled this picture he so loves. She wormed her way into his heart and ruined my marriage.”

  “And yet Dina’s terrified of him. He abused her.”

  She hesitated for a moment, trying to pull herself together. “No doubt you’ve come under her spell as well. Dina must have wanted something from you—what was it?”

  “My help to get away from him.”

  Katharina allowed herself a twisted smile at hearing this. “Well, perhaps she’s finally finding that my husband’s obsession cramps her style.”

  “I’ll say. She sold the book to fund her escape from him.”

  “She never had money of her own. I bought my volume anonymously, to help her on her way. Stupid girl. Of course, it was also a way to restore the book to our family.”

  Quite unintentionally, I’d opened a raw wound and our pleasant interlude had blown apart with the force of a cannon shot. Katharina certainly didn’t want any solace from me. She made it obvious she had no interest in prolonging the misery. The best thing I could do for both of us was bid her goodbye.

  Back in my hotel room I fell into a troubled sleep, only to be jolted awake with a feeling of dread, the way I often felt in the aftermath of a nightmare. Sirens wailed outside the window. I tossed and turned for the next few hours and, finally giving up, took a long shower to shake off the uneasiness. As I trimmed my beard I noticed the marks where Alessio had pressed his cane into my neck seemed to have grown darker. That gave me a moment of worry until I figured they’d probably just been aggravated by the cascade of hot water.

  I packed hurriedly, hoping to grab a coffee before I boarded the train for Brussels. Naso’s bookshop was next on my list. I planned to fly from Brussels to Rome and then transfer to the Naples train.

  Toxic air hit the back of my throat the minute I stepped outside. A couple of emergency vehicles swept past. Several blocks away a crowd gathered on the sidewalk. As I drew nearer, I could see puddles of water, and fire hoses curled on the wet pavement like fat black pythons. Firemen were winding the hoses back onto the trucks blocking the street.

  People chattered in the low, excited tones used for calamities that did not affect them personally. They were kept at a distance by police tape and several officers, but I was tall enough to get a view of the damage. The street-level windows of Katharina’s home had been punched out. Soot covered most of the first-floor stucco in an ugly black stain. The door, rocking in the breeze at a crazy angle, had been bashed in. Steam or smoke, I’m not sure which, sifted out the wrecked window and entrance. My gut twisted in dread.

  I tried to ask several bystanders whether anyone had been injured but they spoke only Flemish. I was on the point of breaking through the crowd to find a cop when I felt a light hand on my shoulder.

  A middle-aged woman wearing a knitted coat thrown over her dressing gown said, “You wish to know about the fire—I heard you asking.”

  “Yes, can you tell me what happened?”

  “It started around four this morning. We woke up with flames turning the street red outside our window. The fire trucks came and we were ordered out of our houses in case the fire spread. Flames were shooting out of Katharina’s first floor. They found her inside, dead.”

  When you fear something, learning that fear is real does nothing to lessen the shock.

  “Did you know her then?” the woman asked sympathetically, having noticed the look of dread written all over my face.

  “Briefly.” I remembered the children. “Was anyone else hurt?”

  “Her houseman and the maid are safe. They got out through the garden level.”

  I recalled Katharina telling me the housekeeper was taking the grandchildren back to their parents. An even greater catastrophe had been narrowly averted.

  The woman turned around to chat with her neighbor.

  Like a horde of wasps, press photographers swarmed a black limo as it pulled up in front of the house. The burly man with a white scar on his forehead exited the front passenger seat and tried to clear t
he reporters away. The back door swung open and Mancini emerged. He wore sunglasses and kept his head bowed, but his snow-white cap of hair and hawkish nose were unmistakable. The guard stared menacingly at the journalists pressing in as they shouted questions at Mancini. He batted away at them, yelling back in Italian.

  I was glad of the diversion. I faded to the back of the crowd and made my way toward the Ghent railway station, feeling overcome by the horror of Katharina’s death. Not for the first time that morning, I wondered what had become of her volume. Was it back in Mancini’s hands?

  Thirty-One

  November 27, 2003

  Ghent, Belgium

  Shaheen slouched against a stand of multicolored pillars at the Gent-Sint-Pieters railway terminal main entrance. He’d been waiting for almost half an hour. The noon train was due to depart soon. John Madison would be on it and Shaheen intended to intercept him. Shaheen’s location gave him a panoramic view of the area in front of the station. Directly across from him was a drop-off point for cars, beyond that a busy tramway and a heavily treed plaza crowded with hundreds of commuters’ bikes.

  No one paid him any heed and that was how Shaheen liked it. Just another out-of-work migrant, a scrounger hanging around to milk commuters and tourists. He fit right in with a local thug standing nearby, sporting a big belly that swelled like Niagara over his belt. The guy wore oversized hip-huggers and a hoodie. Universal uniform of hip-hop. The man’s appearance was made all the more repulsive by the fact that his top barely covered his stomach; he stretched out surprisingly delicate white hands to the commuters for money.

  Shaheen had spent a couple of productive days in London. He’d interviewed Renwick’s solicitor and the business partner, Tye Norris. After a request from DCI Wilson, Norris turned over all of Renwick’s notes and bills. Described by Norris as a fastidious man, Renwick was anything but when it came to his personal papers. Shaheen had unearthed a jumble of scribblings on torn-offpaper scraps, disordered bills, bank charges skewered on an old paper spike, looseleaf notebooks started and never finished, all dumped helter-skelter into large drawers. Renwick kept no private diary so it took two days of pawing through the heap of material to discern what was relevant.