The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series)

by Carrie Bedford

  I stared at my screen, my thoughts tumbling over themselves. Randall was the sustainable design project I’d been waiting for. I knew I could do a good job for them. If I didn’t turn up tomorrow, Laura would cover for me, but I absolutely had to be at the meeting on Wednesday. To miss it would almost certainly mean that Alan would take me off the team.

  I checked the time. Five past one in the afternoon. The flight I’d booked from Venice airport was at seven. If I could get another ticket for Claire, we’d fly back to London together. We could research the Custodians just as well from there. And we’d have the help, welcome or not, of Detective Lake.

  Thinking of Lake, I decided to call him. Because of the short charging cable, I had to kneel down by the bed to use the phone. His number was on my contacts list, and he picked up at once.

  “It’s Kate Benedict.” I rushed on before he could interrupt or ask me awkward questions. “There’s something I hope you can look into. About six weeks ago, Ethan’s father, Simon Hamilton, died in a car crash on the M4. We— Claire and I— have concluded it wasn’t an accident after all. Someone deliberately killed him. Will you check it out? Would there be any information on file that might indicate that the car was tampered with? Or maybe a tire was shot out?”

  “That sounds a little far-fetched,” Lake said. “But I’ll investigate. Simon, you said? Do you have the exact date and location?”

  I gave him the details. “If you find out that Simon’s death was intentional, that would help Ethan, wouldn’t it? Prove his innocence in Ben’s murder.”

  “Possibly.”

  “It would have to,” I argued.

  “Not if Ethan had something to do with his father’s death, it wouldn’t.”

  I held the mobile away from me, glaring at the screen. Lake was still talking.

  “I’ll look into it,” he said. “And we can discuss it tomorrow morning. Why don’t you and Miss Hamilton come in at nine?”

  “Okay.” I pressed the End button and stared at the phone until Claire came out of the bathroom. She was wearing the same clothes, which still looked good on her, even with the spot cleaning after the fizzy drink spill.

  “Were you on the phone?” she asked.

  I told her about Lake and reminded her I had a flight booked for that evening. “We should both go to London,” I said. “We can work with Detective Lake to find Ethan and we’ll be safer there too.”

  She gazed at me as though I had two heads. “You’re not thinking of leaving me alone here, are you? Because I’m not leaving Italy until I hear from my brother. Besides, I don’t have my passport with me.”

  My excitement about going home dissipated like the steam in the cold bathroom, leaving only a clinging damp chill. Suddenly tired, I turned to sit down on the mattress and banged my shin against the frame. I rubbed my leg, infuriated by the metal bed and the cramped room that felt like a prison cell.

  “Oh,” was all I could say. I didn’t intend to abandon Claire. Even though our relationship was still fragile and I sometimes felt like I was walking on broken glass, I couldn’t leave her. My head started to ache, a dull throb in my temples, which I rubbed to no effect. Another day lost at work and a difficult conversation with Detective Lake loomed in my future.

  I gave myself a mental shake. A confrontation with Lake was the least of our problems. I knew from experience that when the aura moved as fast as hers did, death could come in a matter of days. Eight months ago, I’d seen an aura like hers over a doctor who’d died less than a week later. But, I reminded myself, a similar aura had appeared over the head of my best friend too. We’d endured some scary moments, but she was alive and well, and doing the job she loved. Claire would be okay. I hoped I would be too.

  “What were you saying about Luca Gardi?” Claire asked.

  I got up, went to the table and picked up the business card. “This was in the notebook.”

  She took it, read the front and checked the back. “The name is familiar. Let me think for a moment.” She tapped the card. “I’m fairly sure it was Gardi who sent the book and the key to my grandfather back in 1948.”

  “And how did Gardi end up with the book in the first place?”

  “I’m not sure. When Grandma moved into a nursing home a year or so ago, Dad spent several weeks clearing out her house. He found the book inside a cardboard box, together with my grandfather’s war memorabilia, including his Italy Star medal, some old photos, that kind of thing.”

  She settled against the pillows on the bed and opened another lemon soda, holding the can far away from her as she pulled back the tab. “Grandma told my father that the book had arrived a couple of years after the war ended, that it had been sent by a soldier who’d saved Grandpa’s life.”

  “Really? What happened to your grandfather?”

  “I only remember parts of the story. In 1944, he was a captain in the army. He’d fought in North Africa and was with one of the first units to land in Sicily. I don’t know all the details, except that he was shot during a fight with some Italians who were smuggling artworks out of Italy.”

  “They were working with the Nazis?”

  “No, this was later, after the Italians had joined up with the Allies. Well, some of them had. I got the impression, from what my dad said, that this was more of a private enterprise, expropriating stolen artworks originally intended for shipment to Germany. You wouldn’t believe how much art went missing during the war. First the Germans stole from Jews and anyone in Occupied territory. Then the Allies, Russia in particular, looted massive quantities of art from Germany. It was the ideal time for opportunistic theft by individuals. It’s likely that’s what this operation entailed. The Italian soldiers were loading crates onto a train when my grandfather’s unit discovered them. Apparently, after all the shooting, everyone except my grandfather and Gardi had been killed. Grandpa was badly injured and Gardi took him to a field hospital on a donkey cart. Then Gardi disappeared.”

  “And all the art had been loaded by then? Onto the train?”

  “I’m not sure about that. All I heard was that somehow Gardi tracked down my grandfather in England and sent him the leather-bound Della Pittura book. He said he was terminally ill and wanted to leave it with someone he could trust. That’s what my grandmother told Dad anyway.”

  I crossed the tiny room to grab another bag of nuts from the snack stash Brian had brought in. We had to get some real food before I passed out from salt overload.

  “What did your grandfather do with the book?”

  “Nothing, as far as I know. I’m not sure anyone ever gave it another thought until Dad found it. It was just another relic of a war that no one wanted to remember.”

  I chewed on a handful of nuts, trying to draw connecting lines between the fragments of information we’d collected so far. They were far more meager than I would have liked.

  “What’s the address on the card?” I asked.

  “There’s a street address in Pianoro, near Bologna. Why?”

  “We should pay a visit, see what we can find out.”

  “You’re running on fumes, Kate. Apparently Gardi had TB or a fatal disease of some kind, and that was nearly seventy years ago. He’s been dead a long time.”

  “But there may be someone in his family who remembers the book. You know these small villages. The families stay for generations. We just need a bit of luck to find someone who remembers Gardi.”

  Claire shook her head. “It sounds very unlikely. Besides, how would we get there?”

  “By train, as far as Bologna at least, and then probably a bus. And we’d be heading in the right direction towards Florence.” That reminded me. “I think Dante left a voicemail. I didn’t want to answer it for you.”

  She picked up her phone and listened to the voicemail. “Just another message saying he’s going into a meeting. He’ll call back soon.”

  Frowning, she unplugged my mobile from the charger and reattached her own. Apparently we were having charger wars now
.

  “Should you call him back?” I asked.

  Now I’d learned from Colin that Dante was an upright citizen, and that returning to England wasn’t an option, it seemed sensible to head back to Florence and accept the help Claire’s boyfriend was offering. We could do that as soon as we got Falcone’s approval to leave Venice.

  Claire left another voicemail for him before taking a long look around the minuscule room. “My view is that the trip to Pianoro will be a waste of time, but I’d be happy to get out of here. How long until we hear from Falcone, do you think?”

  I checked my watch again, my stomach clenching in a spasm of unease. If Falcone wasn’t being straight with us, we could be sitting here waiting forever, giving him time to alert his Custodian contact.

  “Let’s call him and find out,” I said. “It’s been two hours since we saw him.”

  Claire made the call to the number he’d given us. There was no answer, and she didn’t leave a message.

  Sitting in silence, I contemplated our options. None was good. I wished we were in a city where we’d be able to get a taxi straight from the hotel to the station, but we had no choice but to walk or rely on the vaporetto, which made us more vulnerable to being seen by one of our pursuers.

  “Let’s give Falcone another hour,” I said. “Then we’ll go to the station.” I had a sudden thought. “Do you think Falcone was tracking us somehow?” I said. “How did he find us at that cafe?”

  Claire’s eyes widened.

  “I know it’s possible to track people through their credit cards,” I continued. “So we shouldn’t use them to buy tickets at the station. But we don’t have any cash.”

  “We need to find a cash machine,” Claire said. “Just use it once and move on quickly before anyone can trace the transaction? And then only use cash for everything.”

  I stood up, ready to move. Action of any kind seemed more attractive than waiting any longer. “Good idea. We owe Brian some money too. Let’s go.”

  “Okay, but we’ll have to wait long enough for my phone to charge fully. I’m sure Dante will call again soon.” She stared at the phone as though willing it to ring.

  “I’ll get the cash,” I said. “I’ll move faster by myself and, if anyone’s looking for us, they’ll be expecting two of us.” I picked up Claire’s Venezia hat, gathered up my long hair and tucked it under the cap.

  “You look like a boy,” Claire said. I ignored the comment.

  “There has to be a Bancomat close by,” I said. “I’ll be straight back.”

  Claire looked nervously at the room’s thin door and worn lock, but didn’t say anything. “All right. I’ll take another pass through the Della Pittura while you’re gone.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The sun was warm on my back as I returned to the hotel. The first cash machine I’d found was labeled “Fuori servizio,” out of order, so I’d walked for fifteen minutes before finding another one inside a small grocery store scented with cheese and prosciutto. The machine had a layer of dust on it, which had made me think it wouldn’t work, but it did, spitting out clean, crisp euro notes.

  Aware that Claire was alone in our dismal room, I hurried back through the busy streets, past restaurants full of locals and tourists. As always, auras made an appearance, swirling over the heads of strangers. And, as always, the knowledge that they were there made me sad and uncomfortable that I knew something so personal about the victims. I felt lonely and detached, with the melancholy feeling of not really belonging to the human race, something I’d experienced on and off ever since acquiring my unwanted psychic gift. Until it went away, life would never be completely normal for me, although I tried hard to make it that way.

  Turning the corner towards the Villa Julia, I ran into the back of a small crowd of people blocking the alleyway. For a moment, I thought it was a tour group and began to politely elbow my way through. Then I smelled smoke. Panicked, I pushed forward, ignoring the complaints of the people I shoved out of the way. When I reached the front I saw red fireboats on the canal and black smoke billowing from the hotel windows.

  A policeman blocked my way. “Move back please,” he said.

  “I’m staying at the hotel. My friend’s in there.”

  “Step back.” The policeman raised his hand to make his point just as sirens wailed and two motorboats emblazoned with the word Ambulanza sped up the narrow canal, throwing up a wide wake that splashed water on to the cobblestones. Someone behind me screamed as flames shot out of a first floor window, showering the street below with shards of broken glass. The crowd, as a single unit, shifted backwards, everyone murmuring nervously.

  “Oh my god,” I whispered to myself, as the ambulance crews unloaded stretchers from the motorboats and ran into the building. Smoke, thick and oily, rose high into the air above them.

  “Please let me pass,” I begged.

  The policeman’s face softened but, feet apart, he blocked the way. “The firemen will ensure everyone is out. Wait here with me.”

  The smoke made me cough, and my eyes watered. In the hazy light, firemen emerged from the hotel entrance bearing a stretcher. I peered past the policeman to see that it was occupied by the young Australian, Brian. Even though I felt sorry that he’d been hurt, I was sure he’d be okay. He’d had no aura when he came to our room earlier in the day.

  More firemen appeared with a stretcher bearing another of the Australians, who was conscious and talking to the men who carried him. But where was Claire? I jumped when another window shattered, splashing glass like chunks of ice into the canal.

  Then I spotted her coming out of the front door, gripping her bag to her chest. A paramedic had his arm around her shoulders. “That’s my friend,” I said. “Can I go over there?”

  The policeman turned to check and then nodded. I ran to her, wrapped my arms around her. “Are you all right? I was scared.”

  “I’m fine.” She pushed me away so she could watch a stretcher being loaded onto one of the boats. “What happened to the Australians?” She turned back to the paramedic. “Will they be all right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Only a little smoke inhalation. Nothing serious. Now let’s get you on the boat. You must go to the hospital for a check-up.”

  Claire and I looked at each other and I shook my head slightly. “I’m really all right,” she said.

  It was hard to discern in the miasma, but her aura was still there. So the fire hadn’t been the threat to her life, obviously. Whatever it was, the danger was still out there. I quickly changed my mind. The hospital would be a safe place for us to gather ourselves and work out how to get to the train station.

  “You should go, Claire,” I said. “To be sure.”

  I talked to the paramedic. “Can I go with her?”

  “Certo.” He led the way to a water-borne Ambulanza, where he settled us both on a bench. Then he put a blanket around Claire before sitting down next to her. Another admirer, I realized. He gripped her wrist under the pretext of taking her pulse.

  “What caused the fire?” I asked him as the boat puttered slowly past the crowds of onlookers.

  He shrugged. “Could have been a kitchen fire. That place is famous for not meeting building codes.” He eyed us both for a few seconds. “I can give you a list of safer places to stay if you’re going to be in Venice for a while.”

  “Why are we doing this?” Claire asked me in English. “I don’t need to go to the hospital. We should keep moving.” Black smudges covered her cheeks and her eyes were red and watering.

  “If the fire wasn’t an accident, then we’re in the best place for now,” I said. “Did you see anything?”

  “No. When the alarm went off, I shoved everything in my bag and waited in the room, hoping it was a false alarm. Then I smelled smoke, which was scary, so I went out into the corridor. It was hard to breathe, but when Brian and two of his friends came out of a door further along the hall, I shouted to them for help. Brian ran over and he more or less c
arried me down the stairway.”

  She took a deep breath. “Someone ran past us on the stairs and jostled us so violently that Brian let go of me and he fell the last few steps.” A tear spilled down her face, smudging the soot into grey swirls on her skin. “Luckily, a group of firemen came in through the front door, saw him on the floor, and called for a medic. They got him on a stretcher and then helped me out.”

  “The man who passed you on the stairs… did you recognize him?”

  She shook her head. “No, but if it was someone who’s chasing us, he’ll know where we’re going, won’t he? I mean, the hospital is the obvious place for him to look next.”

  “Yes, but my thought is to make a speedy exit as soon as we arrive. Our pursuer, if there is one, won’t expect us to leave the hospital immediately. We have the advantage, for now at least.”

  As if to reinforce what I’d said, the Ambulanza sounded its siren and we watched as gondolas and delivery boats cleared the way ahead of us. The boat sped smoothly through a network of canals, heading north before emerging into open water with views towards the island of Murano. We slowed, cruising alongside the Fondamente Nove to a dock outside the SS Giovanni e Paolo hospital.

  When we pulled to a stop, the paramedic assisted Claire off the boat and put her into a waiting wheelchair. I followed him into the Emergency area, along a corridor, and into a cubicle with a bed and a chair.

  “A nurse will be here soon,” he said. “Arrivederci signorine.” He looked sad at having to leave Claire behind, but he managed a brave smile. We heard the stomp of his boots fading as he made his way back along the hallway.

  It was a weirdly familiar experience, standing in a cubicle in a hospital with Claire hurt and vulnerable. I was impatient for this to be over, for her to be safe. She was suffering; she’d lost her father, her brother was missing, and she was in more danger than she knew.