by Sam Christer
‘Grazie. I will come for you at eight. I’m sorry we lost her husband. My men will find him, I promise you.’
‘I hope so – for his sake and hers.’
Goria grabs Nic’s arm as he reaches for the door handle. ‘Be careful. The Carabinieri may be watching your hotel. They could have night sights on you from a kilometre away and we would not know. I will stay here until you get inside and have settled. If they are around, they will move closer and I will see. It is better we are safe than sorry.’
Nic steps from the car, nods goodnight and turns up his jacket collar against the rain. Save for the cars parked at odd angles all over the place, the streets are deserted. The neighbourhood’s shops and bars are filled only with blackness.
He shakes off the downpour as he heads past reception and rides the lift to his room.
He freshens up in the bathroom and notices his toothbrush and razor have been placed neatly in a glass on a shelf by the sink. The maid must have been in. It’s the kind of thing he’d expect in a four-star hotel but not this dive. He turns off the light and walks back to the main room. There’s something different, maybe something wrong. He can sense it, in the same way he senses clues at a crime scene.
The bed has been turned back for the first time since he checked in. And it’s not been done in the professional, neat way a maid does. It’s been done by someone wanting to make it look like a maid’s done it. Someone poking around.
There’s been a stranger in his room.
94
CORONER’S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES
Amy Chang had been hoping to go home early – end her Friday night by cooking a light dinner and sinking a glass of crisp white or two, maybe even put her feet up on the couch, play a little soft music and forget a week’s worth of cold flesh and sterile steel.
But it’s not to be. What’s pinning her to her office chair is the Shroud of Turin. Alexander Hasting-Smith’s call and the subsequent reports he mailed have left her head buzzing so she may as well try to finish the report she promised Mitzi. Amy spends a good hour trawling the internet, pulling up pages, searching through dedicated Shroud websites, diving deep into religious discussion groups and social network blogs. She discovers Shroud universities, multiple Shroud shops and dozens of different video streams dealing with not only the carbon dating of the Shroud but also 3D renderings of its image, microscopic analysis and digital enhancements. Along with all the pictures come countless conflicting opinions about the cloth’s authenticity.
Around 6 p.m. her tummy grumbles a reminder that all she had for lunch was coffee and a salmon bagel. The ME sits back from her Mac, twists her head from side to side to ease the tension from being hunched and reviews the notes she’s made.
HISTORY (dates are approx)
AD 30: The Death of Christ. There are no immediate independent and indisputable reports of a shroud being discovered and being imprinted with Christ’s image. There are similarly no such reports of it being stored, guarded or transported to a place of safe-keeping. Seems strange that something so important wasn’t acclaimed at the time!
AD 40: Reports of a King Abgar V of Edessa (now Sanliurfa, eastern Turkey) viewing a cloth (no dimensions) imprinted with the face of Jesus. Said to lead to conversion to Christianity (there are also later reports of a letter Jesus sent to Abgar promising to protect his country from foreign invaders).
AD 50–500: No reliable mentions of Jesus cloth, then suddenly stories about it resurface.
544: Persian army repelled at Edessa’s walls. The Jesus cloth and letter are credited with affording protection to the city.
679: Edessa hit by earthquake. The cathedral where the Jesus cloth was allegedly kept is damaged – cloth said to be moved to Jerusalem.
690: Iconic bearded images of Jesus, identical to that on the cloth start appearing throughout Middle East.
944: Jesus cloth is said to have travelled length of what is now Turkey and is afforded its own feast day (16th Aug). Interestingly, there are no reports of public showings, only private ones. Cloth is said to have been stored in the Pharos Chapel of Constantinople’s Imperial Palace.
1130: Reports in Western Europe (including monks in Normandy) about the Jesus cloth and how it contains an imprint of Christ’s body.
1146: Edessa conquered by Turkish Muslims – mass slaughter of its citizens (so much for the protective cloth and letter!)
1203: Reports attributed to French Crusader Robert de Clari say he saw a cloth in which Christ had been wrapped in the Church of St Mary in Constantinople.
1204: French crusaders ransack Constantinople and churches are looted. Robert de Clari denies the French took it.
1287: Reports say a knight called Arnaut Sabbatier, on being received into the Order of the Knights Templar in Rousillon in France, was taken to a secret place by the brothers and shown the shroud of Christ.
1307: Friday the 13th October (allegedly this is where the legend of the date being unlucky springs from) King Philip the Fair issues orders to arrest all the Knights Templar on heresy charges for worshipping the image of Christ. Many, including the grand master Jacques de Molay, are burned at the stake.
Amy decides to take a break. She goes to the washroom then brews a fresh cup of herbal tea and raids her small office fridge for one of the emergency Hershey bars she keeps there.
Back at her computer she taps the space bar to click off the screensaver. Nothing happens. The machine has locked up. She tries ESCAPE and then reluctantly reboots, sipping the tea and eating a square of milk chocolate while the machine gets up to speed.
Her document has gone. She searches the file folder. Searches the cute little wire trash basket at the end of the shiny steel dock bar. Nothing. She’s lost everything.
‘No, no, no. This can’t be.’ Amy tries to stay calm. The Mac backs things up every couple of minutes. All her work will be somewhere.
It isn’t. She searches every conceivable storage space, then searches it again. An hour later she fearfully opens her mailbox. Empty. Some kind of virus has penetrated the firewall and destroyed every document, image, file and presentation on the computer.
95
TURIN
Nic takes a long, slow look around his hotel room.
He knows he’s exhausted and knows tired people often don’t think straight but he’s sure someone’s been in here snooping around. He opens the wardrobe and stares at the shirts and a sweater dangling from plastic coat-hangers. Are they really as he left them when he’d unpacked?
He doesn’t think so. They’re strung out across the silver hanging rail. Spaced almost evenly. Neat and tidy. Not at all his style. He has a longstanding habit of hanging things only on the left side of the bar. It’s what he always does. Carolina used to hang her stuff on the right and even today he still leaves space. He can’t help it. He certainly didn’t leave them like this.
He lifts out the suitcase from the shallow well at the bottom of the wardrobe and drops it on the bed. The combination is 8634 – the same as his credit card pin. He always spins the numbers to 7523 to lock it – one digit back on each reel. He remembers the numbers precisely because in his mind he has a permanent picture of a clock in heaven (rhymes with 7) that’s stuck at five (5) to (2) three (3) – the time his wife and child died and went to heaven.
The numbers don’t read that any more. They read 1870. Someone has either opened the case and spun the locks randomly or tried to open it. He enters the combination and flips the locks. The inside is a mess. A gym kit and trainers he’ll never get round to using, enough socks and underwear to dress an army, a camera that needs new batteries and copies of all the case papers he could carry.
He sits on the bed and lifts out the documents. There are so many he can’t remember the order of the files stacked in there. He shuts his eyes and tries to recall what he last looked at. Craxi’s bank accounts. Carlotta had shown him the final withdrawal when they were in the bank together. He’d closed the file with that page facing up at hi
m.
He opens the document folder. It’s as he left it. Despite the reassurance he doesn’t feel satisfied. Maybe he’s imagining things. Tiredness and stress can make you edgy – even paranoid. He needs a long, deep sleep. Another thing occurs to him. He flicks quickly down the stack of files and finds the crime-scene photographs showing Tamara Jacobs’s body on the beach. He stares at the bundle not sure whether he feels relieved or not.
They’re there. They’re not missing. But they are back-to-front.
He’d arranged them in the order a psychological profiler does – pictures that set the scene first and then shots of the victim.
But that’s not how they are. They’re now in reverse order. He’d never do that. He’s as messy as a teenager when it comes to leaving clothes and crockery around the house, but not work things, never professional stuff. Someone has been through all the photographs. But who? The Carabinieri? That doesn’t make sense. He would gladly have shown them the photos if they’d asked. Until a few hours ago, until meeting Goria and talking to Erica Craxi, he’d have shared anything and everything with them.
If not the Carabinieri, then who? Tamara’s killer? He looks down at the crime-scene prints. Is it really possible that the man who tortured her to death had held these photographs? Had admired his own handiwork in this very room? Nic looks around the room and finds a pad of complimentary paper and a couple of envelopes bearing the crest of the hotel. He slips the photographs inside one of the envelopes and seals it. It’s highly unlikely the murderer left his prints behind but even hitmen make mistakes.
As he seals the envelope he thinks of the killer being in his room – being in the lodge and listening when he’d called Craxi on Goria’s cell phone. The man comes and goes like a ghost. A tingle lifts hairs on the back of Nic’s neck as he realises the killer knows more about him than he does about the killer.
96
CORONER’S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES
Barney, the emergency IT guy, finishes examining the Mac and gives Amy an expression that says he’s almost at the end of his shift and she’s screwed.
‘I’m sorry, I just can’t fix this.’ The bespectacled geek repositions a fall of shoulder-length black hair behind his blue denim shirt. ‘We’re going to have to take your machine away, hook it up and run diagnostics.’
She doesn’t like the sound of that. IT is a graveyard. Few loved machines come back from there alive. ‘What about my files? They’ll be backed up on the server, won’t they?’
‘Should be. You might have lost stuff you’ve been working on today. We did the last dump around midnight last night.’
‘Shit.’
‘That’s the way it goes. I keep telling the Chief that he should give you guys portable back-ups. It’s the only way to stay safe.’
Amy shakes her head. ‘So how long? How long do you think it’ll take to get me fixed?’
He looks at his watch. ‘I should have been gone an hour ago. I’m afraid your Mac won’t even get seen until Monday now.’
‘Monday. That’s a lifetime away.’
‘Sorry. Overtime was cut for us as well as everyone else.’ He peers at the computer as though it just whispered to him. ‘Hold on. Let me just take a look at something.’
Barney settles in her chair, pounds keys and exposes parts of Amy’s computer that she didn’t even know existed. Administrator’s privileges. Something akin to a surgical examination of her Mac’s innermost and most private parts.
‘Whoa. I don’t believe this.’
‘You can fix it?’ Amy bends close to the screen.
‘No way.’ He sits back and folds his arms, staring at a mass of codes with apparent admiration. ‘It’s a zombie.’
‘A what?’
‘Some smart ass has infiltrated the firewall, downloaded everything from your computer and has been using it remotely.’ He reaches round the back and snaps out the cable. ‘Best get this quarantined and cleansed ASAP.’
Amy feels violated.
‘Our guy will know we’re on to him.’ Barney is as excited as a kid playing cops and robbers. ‘He’ll have dropped worms or Trojans in your system too. They’ll have destroyed most of your programs and you’ve probably been passing on infections as well.’ He lifts the Mac off her desk. ‘You should go home, Dr Chang. You’re not going to see this baby Monday, or ever again. We’ll order you a new computer.’
97
WALNUT PARK, LOS ANGELES
BEL-LA-PIZZA is a new restaurant around the corner from Mitzi’s place. It’s the latest in a long line in LA to badly word pun the connection between bella and LA.
She and the girls are there for several reasons. First, she has nothing in at home. Second, it’s a place they’ve never been to before – in other words they’ve never been with Alfie. Most important, though, it has a half-price and free glass of wine offer until the end of the month.
A breadstick-thin teenage waitress with long black hair stands at the edge of the table as Mitzi orders. ‘Two diet cokes and one glass of house red. One garlic bread. One Minestrone soup. One battered mushrooms. For mains, one medium-sized, thin-crust Neptune, no anchovies. One large stuffed-crust, Pepperoni with a cracked egg. And – ‘ Mitzi glances again at the card to decide what she’s having, ‘ – one small lasagne with a chopped green salad, no fries and nothing else.’ As she watches the girl frantically catch up on her notepad she realises she’s turning into Tyler Carter. No courtesy, just facts. ‘Thanks,’ she adds, hastily, as the waitress heads for the kitchen. ‘Thanks for your help.’
Bad news is always best broken first and broken quickly. As soon as Jade and Amber have their drinks, Mitzi gives it to them. ‘Your father’s case came up in court today. They sent him to prison. Thirty days.’ She curses herself, again she sounds like Carter.
Amber drops the Coke straw from her lips. ‘Daddy’s in jail?’
‘Right now? Already?’ Jade looks more annoyed than shocked.
Mitzi reaches across and takes both their hands. ‘Yes. He started his sentence this afternoon.’
Jade snatches her hand away. ‘Oh God. Poor Daddy.’
Poor Daddy? Mitzi has to bite her tongue.
Amber says nothing. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t touch her drink. Just disappears into private thoughts that her mom can only guess are horribly painful.
‘So what’s all this, then?’ Jade throws her arms wide, her face reddening with anger. ‘Have you brought us here to celebrate?’
‘No.’ Mitzi is firm but calm. ‘I’ve brought you out to be with you. To show you that life goes on.’
‘Not for Dad, though.’ Jade gets up and throws her napkin at the table. ‘I’m not doing this. I’m not sitting here in a restaurant while my father’s in prison, probably with nothing to eat or drink.’
Mitzi stands up opposite her. ‘Yes, you are. Sit down.’
Tables fall silent around them.
Jade glares at her mother. ‘I’m leaving. I’m going home and you’re not stopping me.’
‘Yes, I am. Now sit down.’ Mitzi says it in a tone that never gets disobeyed.
Jade stares defiantly then starts to move towards the door. ‘What are you going to do? Beat me up? Call your cop friends? Have me locked up as well as my dad?’
Mitzi needs all her willpower not to slap the child, not to shake her and tell her to grow up.
‘Go on!’ Amber pulls up right in front of her. ‘I know you want to hit me.’ She sticks her face out. ‘Do it, if that’s what makes you feel better.’
A small middle-aged man in a black suit turns up in the gap between the tables. Behind him is the breadstick waitress with their coats. ‘I am sorry, you have to leave.’ He looks nervously at Mitzi and then motions with both hands to the door like he’s shooing an unspeakably dirty animal. ‘You go now, please. You go now.’
She doesn’t put up a fight. She grabs their coats. He’s doing her a favour. The stand-off is over. Even though they’re being thrown out, they’re still all togeth
er.
98
TURIN
Nic turns off the bedroom light and eases back an inch of curtain. He stands at the window looking at the wet, empty street as he calls Goria. ‘My room’s been turned over.’
‘What?’
‘Someone’s searched it. They haven’t taken anything but I know they’ve been through case files, maybe even photographed stuff.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘I am still around the corner. Check out. You can stay at my place. We have to move quickly tomorrow anyway.’
Nic leaves the curtain and starts gathering his things. ‘Good idea. I’ll be down in a moment.’
It takes him ten minutes to pack and head downstairs. While paying the bill he thinks about asking who cleaned his room and could have messed with his personal belongings but decides against it. From the look of the half-asleep reception clerk he’d be unlikely to get a helpful answer.
Nic slips into what remains of the cold rainy night and scans the street for watching eyes as he turns the corner to find Goria’s Bravo. To the best of his knowledge no one has seen him leave.
‘This is like a day that never ends,’ says the Italian as the detective settles into the passenger seat.
‘I’ve had too many of those recently. Thanks again for your help.’
‘Not a problem.’ He starts the engine and pulls away.
‘Listen, I need to call my boss. You mind?’
‘Go right ahead.’
Nic dials the number. It takes a few seconds to connect, then he hears it ringing.
‘Yes.’
The bluntness of the answer shocks him. It’s almost like it’s not her and he’s got a wrong number.
