The Medici secret

by Michael White

  Father Baggio and his group have been vocal in their insistence that the bodies of the Medici should not be tampered with. The leader of the group recently told THE VOICE, 'I believe Professor Mackenzie and his team are risking their very souls by doing this ungodly work. They are working for the Devil and they will pay for their sins.' Father Baggio is famous for his fundamentalist outbursts from the pulpit, and there have been claims that his extreme remarks and protestations have drawn reproof from his superiors. The priest has made it clear to all who would listen that he sees himself as a latter-day Savonarola, the fanatical Dominican cleric who ruled Florence briefly at the end of the fifteenth century before being burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria in 1498. Bagglo makes no secret of his ambition to, as he has put it, 'scourge modern Italy of demonic forces'. In recent years he has protested against gay groups, attacked local television stations for broadcasting what he calls 'pornography', and most notoriously, he and his followers made a failed attempt to vandalise several pieces on display at a recent Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective. Now, with the man who Baggio claims is 'working for the Devil' murdered in his own laboratory just yards from where Workers For God have been protesting, some are starting to point the finger of suspicion in the direction of Baggio's organisation. Emerging with the crowd through the gates at Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, Jeff paused and surveyed the main concourse, a rather scruffy place with a grimy ticket office to one side and newspaper stalls lining the other. It was a railway station that offered no clue about the splendours of the ancient city beyond. He and Edie saw each other at the same moment.

  They hugged and it felt to Jeff as though she didn't want to let him go. When they pulled apart, Jeff could see she was putting on a brave face. 'It's been far too long,' she said simply.

  Jeff followed her out to the car park. He threw his bag into the boot of Edie's tiny Fiat and squeezed into the passenger seat.

  'God, it's good to see you again.' Jeff smiled at Edie as she drove down the long slope from the station and on to the road.

  It was busy, the streets choked with cars. Edie headed down Via Sant' Antonino. Jeff looked at the ancient buildings, office workers, tourists, street hawkers, shopkeepers and tradesmen, a medley of human activity that had been pursued in Florence with little change for more than a thousand years. 'I guess it's been pretty rough,' Jeff said.

  'A lot of people despised my uncle, and to be honest, he could be a real pain in the arse, but this has come as a terrible shock.' 'Why didn't you call me?'

  'I thought to, several times, but I don't know… I didn't think you could help and I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily. Besides, I was stuck in the police station with my lawyer until late last night. The police have questioned the whole team at least once and none of us is allowed to leave Italy until they've completed their inquiries.'

  She swung the car into a space behind the Medici Chapel and then led the way into the building through a side door. Jeff followed Edie down the steps into the burial chamber. The lights were low and it was eerily quiet. In a room off the main chamber, they could see a man slowly removing his lab coat. 'Have you met Jack Cartwright?' Edie asked. Cartwright offered Jeff his hand. 'Nice to see you again,' he said rather stiffly. Jeff looked puzzled.

  'We met at Edie's thirtieth birthday… in London.'

  'Yes, yes, of course,' Jeff replied. 'That was so long ago.' He grinned at Edie. She gave him a false smile.

  'I'm sorry to hear of your loss,' Jeff added seriously. Jack Cartwright, a man in his early forties, was a highly regarded specialist in the study of ancient DNA. Although much admired in academic circles, for years he had lived in his stepfather's shadow.

  'Thank you. It's hit all of us very hard.' Cartwright had a deep, booming voice and a soft, amiable face. He plucked his coat from a hook and started to pull it on. 'Now, I'm afraid I have to dash. I have a meeting at the university. Hope to catch up with you later, Jeff.'

  Edie turned to Jeff and placed a hand on his arm. 'Come into the lab, let's sit down.'

  She pulled a chair over for Jeff and lowered herself into another. 'You said on the phone you had something important to tell me.'

  'Last night I had a visit from an elderly man who told me he had tried to warn Mackenzie that he was in some sort of danger.'

  Edie sighed and shook her head slowly. 'I imagine you're talking about Mr Sporani?' Jeff nodded.

  'He's been here a few times. He's convinced he found a Medici artefact sometime back in the sixties. But he can't support the claim with any hard evidence.'

  'He told me he was visited by some people who threatened his family. And he really was the warden here, wasn't he?'

  'Yeah, until about five years ago. To be honest, Jeff, I think he's lost it a bit.'

  Suddenly Jeff felt a little foolish. 'I must say, Sporani struck me as quite together,' he said. 'I thought he was the genuine article.'

  Edie took his hands in hers. 'I really appreciate your concern,' she said. Then standing up, she added. 'Now you're here, would you like a look around?' 'I'd like that very much.'

  Edie led the way into the burial chamber. 'There are fifty-four members of the Medici buried here,' she said. 'Just before Carlin died… was murdered, we had started work on a body my uncle believed was Cosimo the Elder.' She indicated a table with a white plastic sheet covering a lumpy object. 'Believed?' 'It's a long story.' 'You're still working here?'

  'Jack and I came back early this morning. I find it helps to keep busy. The others have been given some time off.'

  Jeff glanced into the other room where Mackenzie had his office. 'The police have almost emptied it,' Edie said.

  The computers had gone, as had many of the folders once housed on shelves over the desk. The remaining papers on the late professor's desk had been arranged in neat piles.

  'Do you have any idea what all this is about?' Jeff asked and perched himself on a vacant dissection table just beyond the entrance to Mackenzie's office. He caught something odd in her expression. 'You know something.'

  'My uncle had received at least one death threat,' she said simply. 'When?'

  'The first was a few weeks ago. He didn't know I knew, but not much gets past me here. I was in his office searching for a lab report and came across a note. One of those ridiculous cut-up newspaper messages. Such a bloody cliche. It said something like: Stop work, or… or there will be consequences.' 'So when Sporani came along?' 'Well I couldn't let on I had seen the letter.' 'No, quite. You must be scared out of your wits.' 'I am.' 'Does Jack know about this?'

  'He and I have never been close and I couldn't say anything about the letter, he would think I'd been snooping.' 'What do the police say?'

  'Not much, actually. One of the lab assistants has a brother in the force and we've gleaned a little from her. They're working on the assumption it was simply an opportunistic murder. We have no real security here, as you can see.'

  He looked into her eyes. 'There's more though, isn't there?'

  'Yes,' she said quietly and told him about the object they had found inside the body only a few hours before Mackenzie was murdered, and how it had since vanished. 'And you've told the police about this?'

  'Of course. But it means little to them. We didn't have time to properly analyse the artefact and it appeared to be completely featureless.' 'Appeared to be?'

  She sighed. 'My uncle called me late the evening he died. I was at a function in Pisa. He left a message on my mobile, which I only picked up the next morning, just after Jack called to tell me Carlin had died.'

  'The last time I saw my uncle alive he was sitting in that chair studying the tablet under a desk light. He was still irritated with me over a silly disagreement hours earlier and he hardly acknowledged me when I wished him goodnight. That was about seven o'clock. The police think he died not long after that, no later than ten o'clock. His message was left just before nine.' 'What did he say?'

  'This.' Edie produced her mobile, flicked to 'mes
sages in' and put it on speaker.

  The dead scientist's voice emerged from the phone. 'Edie. I don't have long. I…' Mackenzie sounded both excited and nervous, his voice pitched higher than Jeff remembered it. 'I'm looking at the tablet and lines have just started to appear on the surface. It's extraordinary. I can only conclude the chemical structure is changing as the tablet absorbs moisture. In the body it must have been coated in a thin layer of embalming fluid which sealed it against the atmosphere. When we took it out and washed the surface, the tablet began to hydrate again. The lines are appearing with amazing speed now, fluorescent green against the black. Must be some odd sulphurous compound.

  'I can see some sort of animal and below that a few lines of writing. Let me see.' They could hear his chair scrape on the floor as he repositioned himself under the lamp. 'The animal is a lion. It's strange though… Hang on, it's a winged lion. Yes, I see it now. Below that… writing, Italian, a verse by the look of it. "SulPisola dei morti, i seguici di geographus incomparabilis', progettato qualcosa nessuno ha desiderato, Sara ancora la, Al centro del mondo."

  'Haven't a clue what that means…' Then, 'Hang on… I can just see a couple of centimetres from the bottom… two, no three evenly spaced wavy lines. Now listen Edie…'

  There was a bleep to indicate the phone's memory had expired. Edie locked up the lab and they left through the upper level of the crypt. The Via dei Pucci was busy as they made their way to a small cafe across from the chapel. It had red awnings and plastic screens protecting customers from the winter wind. Inside, only a few tables were occupied. A waiter who recognised Edie showed them to a table close to an open log fire and they ordered coffees.

  Jeff picked up a napkin. Taking a pen from his top pocket, he drew a rough representation of a winged lion. 'What was the verse?' She played the message again.

  'It sounds archaic, and my Italian is far from perfect,' Jeff said. 'But I think it translates as:

  "On the Island of the Dead, the followers of the 'geographus incomparabilis'"… What the hell is that?' Edie shrugged, '"Great geographer", I guess.' Jeff looked at her blankly. 'OK, so, "On the Island of the Dead, the followers of… the great geographer .., made, no, designed something no one wanted." Can you play it again?' As he listened he wrote the verse out on a napkin: On the Island of the Dead, the followers of the great geographer designed something no one wanted. It will be there still, At the centre of the world. Edie looked at the napkin. 'What does it mean?'

  'Well, the winged lion is the symbol for Venice, obviously.' 'The Island of the Dead? The centre of the world?' 'Search me.'

  The coffees arrived and Edie stirred hers absent-mindedly. 'Your uncle sounded scared.' 'That was my immediate impression too.'

  'Which would imply he had taken the death threats more seriously than he let on.' 'He had no shortage of enemies, he knew that.'

  'But you think it goes further; that the artefact you discovered is directly linked to his murder? What about this character Baggio?'

  Edie looked angry. 'Don't think I haven't considered him,' she said. 'But the police have drawn a blank. The good Father has a perfect alibi. He was taking a late night mass in front of some seventy people when Carlin was believed to have been killed. Then he was in a prayer group until midnight. He's just what he appears to be: a nut, but not a murderer. Even so, I'm totally convinced my uncle died because of the tablet we found. It's too much of a coincidence otherwise.'

  'In that case, why haven't you told the police about the mobile phone message?' 'Because I don't see how it can help, and…' 'And what?' 'I don't know, some instinct. Maybe it's silly He gave her a quizzical look. 'I feel I can't trust anyone.' The sun hung low in the sky as they left the cafe and returned to Edie's car. She pulled out on to Via del Giglio heading south-west towards the Ponte alia Carraia and her apartment across the river. The Arno was a blazing orange, the stone of the bridge had turned grey-black and was flecked with the red tail lights of hundreds of cars. Edie took them on to the bridge and they were immediately gridlocked.

  She leaned on the horn in a futile effort to shift the cars ahead of them. A tiny opening appeared and she sped into it before swinging left off the bridge. They drove beside the river towards Piazza Frescobaldi. There they turned right before doubling back and taking another right into a narrower street relatively free of traffic.

  Jeff peered into his side mirror and glanced through the back window. 'This may sound a bit ridiculous,' he said, 'But I think we're being followed. Look in the mirror. A grey Mercedes with darkened windows, two cars back. It took off after us on the bridge.'

  Edie took the next left, then, without indicating, turned a sharp right into a side street. A few seconds later, the grey Mercedes reappeared and accelerated towards them. 'Shit,' Edie exclaimed and put her foot down.

  At the end of the street they turned left on to a major road, Via Romana and headed south towards a broad piazza. There they hit traffic again. It gave them a moment to think, and, as soon as they started moving, Edie took the first turning off the main road. She sped along the street and swung left at the end, skirting the Piazzale di Porta Romana.

  Jeff looked back and his heart sank as he saw their pursuer turn into the same street no more than twenty metres behind them.

  'We can't go to the apartment,' Edie said. 'I've got to lose them.'

  She was about to accelerate when a woman pushing a pram stepped out on to the road. Edie slammed on the brakes. The woman pulled back with phenomenal speed and cursed them as" Edie changed down to second and shot away. 'Head for the motorway,' Jeff said.

  The Al was just a few miles south along a broad road. They slipped into the traffic, and for a moment they lost sight of the grey Mercedes. Edie drove fast and Jeff found himself gripping the plastic dashboard every few moments. 'Can you try not to enjoy this quite so much?'

  'Believe me, this is not my idea of fun,' she snapped back.

  As they approached the motorway, they caught sight of the car with the darkened windows again. It was dodging between slower cars and gaining on them.

  They took the Rome exit on to the A1 and headed east.

  'Perhaps this was a bad idea. We can't outrun that thing,' Jeff said.

  Edie ignored him and floored the accelerator, shooting past the cars in the inside lane. The dark fields flashed past. Far off to their left they could see the lights of Florence. 'If you have any ideas, this would be a good time,' she said.

  Jeff saw a sign for a service station 200 metres ahead. 'Turn off there.'

  She slowed a fraction and left it to the last second before swinging the wheel. Tyres screeched as they careened off the motorway.

  It was darker here, but ahead and to their left they could see a multicoloured glow: a gas station and food hall.

  Edie killed the headlights and they were suddenly thrown into a tunnel of darkness as trees obscured the service station. Barely slowing, she took a hard left and then dodged between two lanes of parked cars. Jeff looked back. There was no sign now of the other car. Edie spun the wheel and they skidded through a sharp bend with a line of parked trucks to their right. She brought the car to a halt. Between the trucks they could see the Mercedes speeding along the stretch of road they had just left. It shot past the narrow turning.

  'What now?' Edie's face was cast in deep shadow. Just a sliver of light came through the window.

  'Leave the car here. We can't risk going back to the motorway without being seen. Head for the service station. We've probably only bought ourselves a couple of minutes.'

  The entrance to the food hall was no more than ten metres away up a covered stairway. It was busy and they blended in with early evening travellers, families and people stopping off for a quick coffee on the commute home.

  Upstairs, a small galleria consisting of a pharmacy, a bar, a cafe and some toilets formed a bridge across the motorway. The whole place stank of cigarettes and fast food. They kept looking behind them, but they had no idea who their pursuer was or
what he looked like. They walked quickly across the bridge trying not to attract attention. On the far side, they descended the stairs and found themselves in a lorry park. An articulated truck turned slowly right in front of them and they had to step back. The air was rank with diesel fumes. Around a corner, they saw a white van. The driver, a man in jeans and a sheepskin jacket with a cigarette dangling from his lips, was pulling shut the back door and they glimpsed stacks of cardboard boxes inside. Jeff ran up to the driver and Edie waited on the pavement staring around anxiously and pulling her coat tight about her. The temperature had dropped and she could see her breath in the air. She watched Jeff take out his wallet and fish out a couple of notes. A moment later, he was waving to Edie to join them and the driver was sliding the door up a few feet. They climbed in and the driver pulled down the door. The van accelerated away. ? The man was on his way to Bologna and had agreed to take them as far as Galluzzo a few miles south of Florence just off the motorway. From there they caught a taxi back into the city. Edie's apartment was on Via Sant' Agostino. They directed the taxi driver to drop them at Piazza S. Spirito, a short walk away. It was seven o'clock and the bars were filling up, the piazza flooded with a rainbow of colours from the shop fronts and eateries.