The Mozart Conspiracy

by Scott Mariani

  Within twenty minutes Mick was ready to cast off. The Isolde’s sails billowed in the breeze as they left the shore behind and headed into open waters.

  Leigh felt obliged to spend time with Chris, so helped him to prepare dinner. Ben could feel her ex-husband’s eye on him and he took the opportunity to retreat to his tiny cabin. He took down his bag, sat back on his bunk and opened up the Mozart file.

  Oliver’s notes were hard to read. Ben gazed for a while at the reference to ‘the Order of R—’. It meant nothing to him, and he tossed the sheet down in frustration.

  On another sheet, Oliver had been writing what looked like some kind of checklist of various historical facts and figures. In red ink he’d scrawled the word ‘ARNO’ and circled it three times. Beside it was a date in late December, just two weeks before Oliver’s death. The writing underneath was burned away and Ben was unable to read it.

  Then there were all the eagles. Oliver was a doodler. The margins that were still intact were filled with little drawings of eagles. Underneath one of them Oliver had scribbled in capitals:

  THE EAGLE?????

  He’d gone over and over the words with his pen until they had worn almost through the paper. It was as though he was trying to make sense out of it, make the words speak to him. Had he understood it in the end?

  By the time Leigh joined him later on, Ben had given up trying to make any sense out of the notes. She handed him a cup of coffee and sat next to him on the narrow bunk.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she said in a low voice. The partitions were thin, and she didn’t want Chris to overhear them.

  ‘Not so good,’ he replied quietly with a shake of the head. He picked up the fallen sheet and showed it to her. ‘I still can’t make out what this Order of R— is about. Then he’s scribbled all this stuff about eagles, and rivers.’

  ‘Rivers?’ She took the paper from him and he pointed out the circled word ‘ARNO’ in red. She peered at it curiously.

  ‘The river Arno is in Florence,’ he said. ‘Was Oliver there? There’s a date next to it.’

  ‘He never said anything about it to me.’

  ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘It’s important. You’re the only person who knew where Oliver was going and what he was doing.’

  She cupped her chin in her hands. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Think,’ he urged her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Did the Mozart letter mention the river Arno? Was there anything in it that could have led Oliver to visit Florence?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ she replied with a note of impatience. ‘It was years ago, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Try to remember,’ he said patiently. ‘If we can’t make sense of it we’ve got nothing to go on at all.’

  ‘Unless…’ she said. Her face lit up.

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘We’re getting it wrong. Arno isn’t the river. Arno is a name.’

  ‘Whose name?’

  ‘The Italian collector,’ she said, remembering clearly now. ‘The one who bought the letter from Dad. He was Professor Arno.’

  Ben remembered the series of digital snaps on the CD-ROM. The old man with the music books behind him in the background. ‘So Oliver went to see him?’

  ‘Must have,’ she said. ‘Which means Arno can’t be dead after all.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Ravenna,’ she said. ‘Remember Dante’s tomb? Oliver was there. And Arno taught at a music institute there, if I remember rightly.’

  Ben thought for a moment. ‘Oliver must have wanted to see him about the letter. I think we should pay him a visit too.’

  ‘You think he might still have it?’ she asked.

  ‘He paid a lot of money for it when nobody else would touch it. It seems to me he’d hold on to it.’

  ‘What do you think might be in it?’

  ‘That’s what we’ll have to find out.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  They ate dinner in the yacht’s long saloon. Chris poured out chilled wine and served fish chowder with a green salad.

  ‘Leigh tells me you write film music,’ Ben said.

  Chris nodded. ‘Mostly. You a movie fan, Ben?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘I see the odd thing.’ He tried to remember the name of the last film he’d seen. It had been in Lisbon, on a job, six months ago. The potential informer he’d been tailing had wandered into a cinema. Ben had sat a couple of rows behind. After an hour the man had looked at his watch and left. Ben had followed, and five minutes later the man was lying in a heap down a backstreet. He couldn’t recall a thing about the movie. ‘What ones have you composed for?’ he asked.

  ‘My latest was Outcast, with Hampton Burnley. Know it?’

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘Maybe you’re more of an opera guy,’ Chris said, glancing at Leigh.

  ‘Ben doesn’t get a lot of time for that kind of thing,’ she said.

  ‘So what do you do for a living, Ben?’

  ‘I’m retired.’

  Chris looked surprised. ‘Retired? From what?’

  Ben drank down the last of his wine. ‘Forces.’

  The bottle was empty. Chris looked at it with a raised eyebrow and fetched another from the cooler. ‘RAF?’

  ‘Army’

  ‘Soldier boy. What rank were you?’

  ‘Major,’ Ben replied quietly.

  Chris tried not to look impressed. ‘So what was your regiment, Major?’

  Ben threw him a glance across the table. ‘It’s Ben. Nobody calls me Major any more.’

  ‘Ben and Oliver were army friends,’ Leigh said. ‘That’s how we met.’

  ‘So you two have known each other for a long time, then,’ Chris said icily, not taking his eyes off Ben.

  ‘But we haven’t been in touch for years,’ Leigh added.

  Chris kept his eyes on Ben a while longer, then grunted to himself and went back to his food. The three of them finished the meal in silence, with just the sound of wind and water outside.

  Ben went back to his cabin and sat quietly for a while, thinking. He checked the pistols again, stripping and cleaning them with well-practised, almost unconscious familiarity. Then he put everything back in his bag and shoved it up on top of the storage unit. He lay on the bunk for an hour, listening to the steady crash of the waves. The wind was rising, and the gentle motion of the Isolde was becoming more pronounced.

  * * *

  Around midnight, Leigh was thinking about bed. Across the table, Chris was sitting slumped in his chair glowering at the television. He’d barely said a word since dinner.

  ‘What is it, Chris?’

  He was silent. His face darkened.

  ‘Come on. I know that look. What is it?’

  He stabbed the remote and turned off the television. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him. I remember now. Ben. The old flame. The one you were madly in love with. The one you wanted to marry.’

  ‘That was fifteen years ago, Chris.’

  Chris laughed bitterly. ‘I knew there was something going on.’

  ‘There’s nothing going on.’

  ‘No? I heard the two of you whispering before. Alone in the cabin like teenagers.’ He snorted. ‘If I’d known what this trip was really about, I’d never have let you sweet-talk me into it. You must think I’m a real fool, a proper soft touch. Getting old Chris to ferry you and your boyfriend over to France for a dirty weekend. Scared the paparazzi will get wind of your little romance? Maybe I should just turn the boat around.’

  ‘You’re getting it all wrong, Chris.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’d do this to me. I haven’t forgotten, you know. All the stories about this guy who broke your heart so badly it took you years to get over him-now you’re running around with the bastard right under my nose, and you expect me to help you? What did I ever do to you? I never broke your heart. You broke my fucking heart.’ He jabbed his fing
er several times against his chest. His face was turning red.

  ‘Yeah, when I caught you screwing that bimbo at my birthday party.’

  Chris rolled his eyes. ‘One little transgression…how many times does a guy have to say he’s sorry?’

  ‘I don’t call it a little transgression.’

  ‘You were never there! You were always off singing somewhere.’

  ‘I was there that night,’ she said. They faced each other, hostility building up between them. Then she sighed. ‘Please, Chris. I don’t want to fight, OK? We’ve been over this before. You know as well as I do that it wasn’t working between us. We’re still friends, though, aren’t we?’

  ‘Retired,’ Chris muttered. ‘How old is this guy? What kind of a bum calls himself retired at his age? You know what army pensions are like? How do you know he’s not just after your money?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Did you buy him that watch?’ he demanded.

  ‘For Christ’s sake. Give me a break. It’s not like that.’

  ‘So what is it like? Why is he here?’

  ‘There are things I can’t explain right now. You have to trust me, OK?’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘I swear there is nothing between me and Ben. And I appreciate that you care, and that you’re helping me out like this. Really.’ She hugged him, and he squeezed her tight.

  ‘I miss you, Leigh,’ he said in a plaintive voice. He kissed her hair. ‘I think about you a lot, you know,’ he murmured. Then he moved back a little and tried to kiss her on the mouth. She pushed him away.

  Ben had come out of the cabin and stood framed in the doorway.

  Leigh abruptly broke away from Chris and they all stood frozen for a moment, staring at one another.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ben said quietly. ‘Didn’t mean to interrupt.’ He turned and headed for the companionway steps to go on deck.

  The wind was much stronger than earlier, and he zipped his jacket to the neck. Cold swathes of rain were lashing across the Isolde’s bows from the east, and the sails fluttered and rippled loudly above the groan of the wind and the steady crash of waves. Mick was tending the wheel, wrapped in orange oilskins. They exchanged nods. Ben reached for his cigarettes and offered him one. He shielded the flame of his Zippo lighter from the breeze, inhaled deeply and looked out for a while across the dark, choppy water, narrowing his eyes against the cold spray and holding on to the rail.

  The Isolde’s prow rose on the unsettled sea, climbing the crest of a big wave, then cleared it and plunged down into a trough with a huge splash of flying foam. Ben steadied himself against the swell as the deck under his feet sloped and settled. The sails crackled like fire.

  ‘Bit of weather up ahead,’ Mick said, interrupting his thoughts.

  Ben looked up at the dark sky. Black clouds raced across the face of the moon. In the dim light he could see the white water of the breaking crests.

  He stood on deck for a long time. There was no point in going below. He wouldn’t sleep. His thoughts were confused and rambling, switching from one thing to another. Oliver. The Mozart letter. The video-clip. The murder. Langton Hall. The call from the police.

  But he wasn’t just thinking about the mystery. His mind kept drifting to Leigh. The vision of her in Chris’s arms lingered stubbornly and perplexingly in his mind. Why did it make him feel so uncomfortable that she might still have feelings for her ex-husband?

  What were these feelings he was having? Was he jealous? He resisted the idea. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the way it made him feel to be around her again.

  She must be asleep now. He imagined her lying on her bunk, just a few feet away below deck, with her hair spread out on the pillow.

  He smoked more cigarettes and sipped whisky from his flask, and forgot the rise and fall of the deck under his feet.

  He barely noticed the growing storm until the Isolde lurched into a broach that made him stagger. The waves were roaring in with fierce intensity. The yacht hit another crest, climbed steeply and her bows crashed down. A wild turmoil of water and foam blinded Ben for a few seconds as he hung grimly on to the rail. His cigarette fizzled out and he threw the soggy stub into the sea.

  In the cabin below, Leigh was tossing and turning restlessly in her bunk, trying to relax her mind. But it was no use. She couldn’t keep Ben Hope out of her head. What was wrong with her?

  She checked her watch and saw that it was almost four in the morning. She wrapped herself in a blanket and went to make herself a coffee. The yacht was lurching and it was hard to walk.

  Chris heard her moving about and came out of the master cabin, looking bleary-eyed and pale. As she drank her coffee he checked the computer for the latest Met Office weather report. ‘This blow should be over soon.’ He shot her a wild look. ‘Where’s your Major friend?’

  ‘Leave it alone, Chris. Isn’t he in his cabin?’

  ‘His door’s open. He’s not in there.’

  ‘Oh, right. And you thought he was in with me. You really don’t trust me, do you?’

  Chris grunted and headed up to the deck. As he opened the hatch, a lash of spray caught him in the face and he spluttered. He cleared his eyes, shook his head and watched across the deck. Ben and Mick were working together, silently and doggedly, their oilskins glistening with rain. The Major seemed to know what he was doing, Chris thought. He swore under his breath, slicked back his dripping hair and went below again.

  Halfway down the companionway steps, Chris had an idea. The Major was out of the way. An opportunity. He sneaked past the doorway of the saloon and quietly slipped into the open door of Ben’s cabin. He shut it carefully behind him and bolted it, then looked around the room. He lifted the green canvas bag down from above the bunk and started undoing the straps.

  Chapter Twenty

  Vienna

  That evening

  Kinski was pacing up and down in his living room. His nerves felt like broken glass and he could feel a migraine coming on. His hands shook violently and his stomach churned.

  Where was she? Who had taken her? Was this a reprisal for someone he’d put away? He thought of some of the cold bastards he’d dealt with over the past few months. Ran through their names and faces in his head. He knew what they could do to her. He’d seen what they could do.

  If they harmed her he’d kill them. Kill every last one. Kill everybody.

  He fell into an armchair with his head in his hands, crying and trembling. Then he paced again and slammed his fists into the wall until they bled. Max the dog watched him nervously from his bed in the corner.

  The phone rang and he leapt at it. This was it. Ransom demand. He lifted the receiver with a shaking hand.

  Somebody trying to sell him roof insulation.

  ‘Fuck you.’ Kinski slammed it down.

  He was startled by the noise outside of a car pulling away, then a moment later he heard the doorbell. He raced to the door and ripped it open just in time to see the black Audi speeding away down the street. He didn’t get the registration.

  Clara smiled sweetly up at him from the doorstep. ‘Hi, Daddy. Hey, Maxy.’ The big dog had jumped out of his bed and was all over her, licking her face, wagging the stump of his docked tail. She turned her face away from him, laughing as she trotted into the house.

  Kinski pushed Max away. He threw his arms around Clara and clasped her hard against his chest.

  ‘You’re crushing me.’ She wriggled back and looked at his face, puzzled at his expression. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ was all he could say.

  He sat her down in a chair and made her tell him everything. She didn’t understand why he was so upset, what the big deal was. Franz was nice. He said he was a friend. A cop, like her dad. Dad had asked him to look after her for a while. They had ice-cream in a nice café. Franz was funny He told her stories that made her laugh. No, he didn’t touch her. He never touched her at all, except to take her hand to lead her into the café. No, she didn’t remember the name of th
e café or the street where it was. It was just a café somewhere. What was wrong?

  Kinski listened to all this and his head hung lower. ‘What does Franz look like?’ he asked. He tried to keep the fury out of his voice.

  She shook her head, as though it was a silly question. ‘He’s big like you but not so fat.’ She giggled.

  ‘This is serious, Clara.’

  Clara brushed back wisps of sandy hair and looked serene. ‘He’s old. He must be forty. Probably even more.’

  ‘OK. What else?’

  ‘He has a funny ear.’

  ‘What do you mean, a funny ear?’

  She made a face. ‘Kind of horrible. Like it was chewed up or something.’

  ‘Scarred?’

  ‘I asked him what happened to it. He said a big old parrot landed on his shoulder and tried to pull his ear off. He acted it out. It made me laugh. I liked him.’

  He wanted to slap her. ‘Don’t you ever do that again. I mean it, Clara. The only car you get in is our car or Helga’s. Do you understand?’

  She lowered her head, sniffed and wiped away a tear. ‘Yes, Daddy.’

  The phone rang again. Kinski answered it on the second ring.

  ‘Herr Kinski?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Just listen.’

  ‘OK, I’m listening.’

  ‘This is a warning. Stay away from the Llewellyn case.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Next time that pretty little girl of yours won’t be coming home smiling.’

  Kinski bit his tongue and tasted blood. The line went dead.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Eve checked her makeup in the mirror and sprayed a little perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. He had her wearing the long blonde wig today. She made a couple of little adjustments to it. Perfect. She emerged from the ensuite bathroom wearing just her silk underwear, and went into the walk-in wardrobe. The racks of expensive dresses had all been tailored for her.

  A voice spoke out of nowhere. She knew that the speakers were all around the room. ‘The black one’, said the voice. It was impassive and controlled.