Michael White - The Medici secret

'No, no – hold on, hold on.' Jeff perched himself on the edge of a desk and stared at the floor. 'The other body, the woman. You've been assuming that was Contessina de' Medici, right? But the artefact was under the body posing as Cosimo. Maybe whatever the clue from La Pieta is leading us to is under the other body.' 'What makes you think that?'

'Well,' Jeff replied. 'CD, M might stand for Cosimo de' Medici, but it could just as well mean Contessina de' Medici, couldn't it?' It took them half an hour to remove the body from the alcove, a nerve-racking procedure requiring patience and a great deal of experience to avoid ending up with a pile of powdered bone and rags on the laboratory floor. Edie and Jack transferred the body of the woman from its resting place on to a trolley which Rose had helped prepare with Sonia. She didn't want to be left out of anything any more. And Jeff calculated that ultimately, this was better than packing her off at every opportunity. She had faced the most terrible adversity and had shown herself to be a courageous and resilient young woman. He found himself watching her, admiring her as she worked. He was feeling distinctly proud.

The two palaeopathologists had donned gowns and latex gloves and prepared to begin their investigations. Edie positioned a powerful light close to the trolley while Jack adjusted a loupe in his left eye. Neither spoke. Jeff noticed for the first time the blinking red light of the CCTV camera in the lab and thought what odd footage it would be recording.

'The body is in pretty much the same sort of condition as the male,' Edie noted as she inspected the clothing and a few strands of grey hair around the corpse's temples. 'Quite possibly buried at the same time.' She clipped some of the hair and placed it in a test tube which she stoppered and labelled. Cartwright dusted some fibres from the woman's dress and put these into a similar tube.

Much of the woman's clothing had disintegrated, especially on her underside, leaving a layer of cloth like a sheet lain over the body. Between them they carefully removed this, placing the various pieces on a table nearby that had been covered in plastic. They then laid another sheet of clear plastic over the garments.

The skin of the body was brown, the colour of old teak in patches under the arms and around the pelvis. In places, it had disintegrated to nothing, revealing tawny bone. 'OK,' Edie said. 'Let's take a look "under" the body.'

Repeating almost precisely what the team had done little over a week earlier, Jack pivoted the body on to its side. They could see the shape of the spine and the ancient bone where many of the vertebrae had become exposed as the flesh and skin had disintegrated. Then Edie saw it, between the sixth and seventh rib in the space where intercostal muscles and tissue had once been. A silvery object.

'Turn her back over,' Edie instructed and helped Jack turn the featherweight body.

'Anything?' Jeff asked, leaning in to get a closer look. 'I think so. Jeff, could you…?' 'Sorry.' He took a step back.

Repeating the procedure Carlin Mackenzie had followed, Edie sliced open the remains of the woman's chest. She could just see, nestled in the dried-out tissue, the edge of what looked like a small metal container. Several of the woman's ribs had turned to powder. Edie carefully eased away a bone fragment and with a soft brush she dusted the cavity, before sliding her latexed fingers into the opening.

The room was silent – the four of them stared at the object Edie had retrieved. It was a metal box no more than two inches square with a tiny clasp along one side. She walked over to a small table and placed the object carefully on to a plastic sheet.

It was plain. The metal appeared to be silver, or a silver alloy. It looked as new as the day it was made. Jack leaned over and adjusted his loupe, then he removed it altogether and pulled over a magnifying glass on a stand. 'There's not a mark on it,' he said. 'Can we open it?' Jeff asked.

Edie lifted the clasp with a pair of tweezers and eased open the lid. It rolled back smoothly. Inside lay a small silver key on a bed of faded purple velvet. Along the shaft of the key were the words: GOLEM KORAB. Edie plucked it from the box and held it between latexed finger and thumb. She had just turned it over to see if anything was written on the other side, when she heard a strange voice. 'Bravo.'

A tall man with blond spiky hair was standing halfway down the stairs into the burial chamber. They had been so engrossed none of them had heard him arrive. He was clapping slowly, the sound muffled by black leather gloves. He stopped, put his hand into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a revolver. 'It appears I've arrived at just the right moment. Now…' He stared directly at Edie. 'Please replace the key and step back from the table.' Edie didn't move. 'Very well.' He raised the gun. 'Edie!' Jeff yelled.

The man smiled, but kept the gun fixed on them. 'Very sensible.' He was at the table in three paces, lifting the key from the box. 'Pretty, isn't it?' He slipped it into his pocket. 'Now, I'm very sorry but I am going to have to kill you anyway. My employer would not like my visit made public, and well, neither would I. Get on your knees.'

None of them moved. He slammed the gun against the side of Jeff's face and sent him sprawling across the floor. 'Dad!' Rose cried and rushed over to his side. 'On your knees,' the gunman repeated. Jack and Edie obeyed. 'Face the wall. And you.' Trembling, Sonia followed suit. 'Now, who'd like to go first? I think the youngest, don't you?'

Jeff acted instinctively, and made a lunge for the gunman's hand. With a strength he didn't know he possessed he head-butted the blond man and heard his nose crunch. The gun skittered across the floor. The blond man stumbled back, just managing to grasp the edge of a table, breaking his fall. But Jeff still had the momentum of rage and desperation. He punched the gunman hard in the solar plexus. With a grunt, his opponent bent double.

Jack and Edie were both on their feet now too, and Sonia reached down to pick up the gun. He might have been outnumbered, but the blond man was no ordinary bar brawler. Blood pouring from his broken nose, he caught hold of the trolley with the body and shoved it hard towards them. It shot across the floor, collided with a computer rack on a mobile stand and slammed into a corner of the lab where two workbenches met. The mummified corpse slid diagonally off the trolley and on to the stainless steel top of the workbench, scattering beakers and racks of test tubes, and landing head-first but miraculously intact in a tangled nest of wires and paper. Knocking Rose to one side, the gunman took the stairs three at a time.

Jeff dashed over to Rose and pulled her to him. 'You OK, sweetheart?' 'I'm fine, Dad. You're the one who's bleeding.'

Jeffs hand went up to his head where he had been struck by the barrel of the gun.

Sonia brought over a cold, wet cloth and dabbed gently at the wound. It was not deep but already the skin around it was starting to bruise. 'Shouldn't we call the police?' she said.

'Shouldn't we first check that bastard isn't still here?' Edie said.

Jeff took the gun from her and ran upstairs. But there was no sign of the gunman anywhere. After all, he had what he had come for.

'Well, that looks like the end of our adventure,' Jack said. 'That could be just as well,' Jeff replied ruefully. 'I saw what was written on the key,' Edie said. 'GOLEM KORAB.' 'Sounds like an Indian pudding,' Sonia said.

Rose was the only one to laugh. But then her expression became more serious. 'Hang on, Edie,' she said suddenly. 'You saw what was on one side of the key. What about the other?'

'Unfortunately I didn't get to see that. Our friend with the peroxided hair interrupted us just as I turned it over.'