Michael White - The Medici secret

Jeff thought of poor Maria. Her life so violently and needlessly extinguished. And Dino too, who had paid the ultimate price for saving them. That was only two nights ago, but already it felt like a lifetime away. Where was Dino now? Had some element of his being really found his wife and daughter? Had the agonies of their lives finally been washed away? Or was everything Dino had once been now nothing more than a slab of meat decaying in a mortuary nearby?

Jeff shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the ceiling. 'Questions with no answers,' he mused. 'I guess it's only at times like this we stop to consider what life really means. And what do we conclude?'

'We each conclude something completely different,' Edie said. 'But there are some basic truths, aren't there?' 'Probably not,' Edie replied.

'It's all smoke and mirrors, all meaningless, don't you think? Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, the only thing that really matters is what you leave for others, be it great works of art, wonderful music people will listen to for centuries after you're dead, or something as simple as being remembered as a good person, someone who gave more than they took.'

'Maybe,' Edie drained her glass, and poured herself another. 'But whatever you do, whatever you leave behind gradually decays and eventually vanishes. I see it every working day. Eventually nothing remains, nothing at all. Bones crumble to dust, and the dust is blown away in the wind.' She took a large gulp of her brandy. 'And what we do vanishes too, doesn't it?' She didn't wait for Jeff to reply. 'One day Mozart's music will be forgotten, the words of Jesus will mean nothing. Whatever they contributed will have faded beyond memory. As the great George Harrison put it: all things must pass.'

'Quite so,' Jeff said and raised his glass in a mock salutation. And they both laughed. 'So, what now?' Edie said, wiping her eyes.

'Obviously, we leave for Florence first thing. All of us.' Jeff glanced over at Rose, feeling a stab of guilt for landing his daughter in all this mayhem. Then came anger, anger for being so powerless to shield her from the horrors she had witnessed.

Toronto, present day The call to a Venetian number was made by one of Luc Fournier's junior assistants and patched through to the speeding limo en route to the airport.

'Good evening,' Fournier said. He heard an intake of breath as the man at the other end of the line was about to speak.

'There's no need for you to say anything,' Fournier was clipped and precise. 'Let's make this as simple as possible. I want you to intervene personally. Do you understand?… Good. That's all. Don't fail me.'

Venice, present day The two men wore identical grey suits. One had a pair of aviators perched on the bridge of his nose even though it was 10.30 at night and black as a coalface outside the police station. The other, taller man had spiky bleached blond hair, with black roots. He was chewing gum. They approached the main desk and the officer in charge, Gabrielli Risso eyed them, a faint tingle of fear edging along his spine. 'Yes?'

The man wearing the sunglasses silently surveyed the room. The other took a wallet from his pocket and held it up close to the desk officer's face. ROS: Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale, an elite division of the Carabinieri, an anti-terrorism unit. 'How may I help you?' Risso asked.

Still chewing on his gum, the blond man said, 'We're here to collect the prisoner.'

'If you mean the murder suspect brought in from San Marco this evening, he's still being processed.' 'Get your commanding officer here… now.'

Risso stared into the man's slate-grey eyes and decided not to argue. He lifted the receiver and punched in three numbers.

A few moments later, a middle-aged man dressed in the uniform of a Vice Provincial Commander appeared. 'Commander Mantessi.' He had a strong Neapolitan accent. 'My duty officer tells me you're interested in the San Marco murder.' 'Is there somewhere we can be more private?'

The Commander indicated a room off the main hall. It was empty apart from a steel table. There were metal bars at the single square window in the wall opposite the door. The man wearing shades stood silently at the end of the table. The blond man sat down. 'We have been sent to transfer the prisoner.'

The Commander lowered himself into a seat opposite, placed his arms on the table and interlocked his fingers. 'I've heard nothing about this.' 'Our Commander emailed you this evening.' 'I have not received an email.'

The ROS officer kept his eyes fixed on Mantessi and withdrew a sheaf of papers from an inside pocket of his jacket. 'Here.'

Mantessi glanced at them and stood up without a word. 'Wait here.'

In less than a minute he was back in the room. 'There's no record of this request other than the document you showed me. There's no email,' he said simply.

'I anticipated that eventuality,' the ROS officer said. 'You cannot rely on the new technology. So I took the liberty of contacting your superior, Deputy Prefect Aldo Candotti.' He handed Mantessi his mobile. The commander took it as though he had been offered a stale halibut. Placing it to his ear, he said. 'Yes, Deputy Prefect. Yes, that is correct. But sir, we have no formal…' He glanced at the ROS officer who was gazing at his shoes and rocking on his heels. The other officer appeared to be staring straight at him, but it was hard to tell for sure. 'That's correct sir. Yes, naturally. I see… Very well… Goodnight.' He made a show of finishing the conversation even though Candotti had already hung up. The ROS van pulled up at the back entrance to the police station. The prisoner had been cuffed, his hands behind his back. Four officers escorted him to the doors of the van. He smirked at Mantessi who watched the process from the doorway. Two uniforms pushed the prisoner's head down to clear the frame before they closed the doors and banged on them to tell the driver all was secure. The van sped away. A black Alfa Romeo 159 carrying the ROS officers swept out behind it.

The two vehicles crossed Ponte della Liberta and took a turning off to Mestre, the lights of Venice dipping behind them. The main road twisted north and plunged past fields skirted by olive groves before it narrowed to a two-lane street with modest stone houses on either side. The van and the car pulled off into a lane and stopped. The two men jumped from the Alfa Romeo and met the driver of the van midway between the vehicles. The lane was slushy underfoot. Sleet had only stopped falling an hour before. Their breath hit the cold air and swirled around their faces. They swapped keys. The car reversed, swung around in the lane and skidded off while the two ROS officers jumped into the cabin of the van, fired the engine and continued on along the muddy track. A mile further on, they could see headlights in the night. They slowed and pulled over under the branches of a tree close to a black car. Running round the back of the van, they opened the doors.

'God, am I glad to see you,' the prisoner exclaimed and scrambled out into the chill air.

One of the ROS men patted him on the back. 'Good to see you too, Giulio.'

The other officer quickly unlocked the cuffs. Giulio rubbed his wrists. One of the men offered him a cigarette. He took it gratefully and lit up, following them around the side of the van.

The headlights switched off and a burly figure emerged from the black car. Aldo Candotti had his hands in the pockets of a shin-length black coat that flapped around his legs. He shook hands with the three men. 'Excellent work' he said, his voice flat. 'Now gentlemen.' He turned to the two ROS officers. 'If you could wait here for a moment. I would like a private word with Giulio.'