Scott Mariani - The Mozart Conspiracy

Leigh began to cry.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know this is hard for you. Do you want to stop?’

‘What I want is to find out what happened to him,’ she said through the tears. ‘But what can we do? Where do we even start? We can’t even go to the police.’

Ben shook his head. ‘We are not going to do anything. It’s too dangerous for you. I’m going to take you somewhere safe, and then I’m going to go to Europe to start retracing Oliver’s footsteps. That’s the only way we’re going to figure this out.’

‘Where am I going to go?’

‘My place.’

‘Your place?’

‘It’s in Ireland. Very secluded, out on the west coast. You’ll be safe there. I’ll rent a car. We’ll drive up to Scotland. Ferry from Stranraer to Northern Ireland, and then across the border to Galway That way, we avoid passport controls. Nobody will know where you are.’

Her tears had stopped now, a growing look of defiance on her face. ‘And meanwhile you hop on a flight and go off on your own?’

‘Something like that.’

She shook her head. ‘There’s no way, Ben, absolutely no way that I’m going to sit this out on some deserted beach in Ireland while you go off to the continent following Oliver’s trail on your own. This is my brother we’re talking about.’

‘What if I said you could come with me? You saw what happened today. People recognize your face. I can’t move around with you. I’d be better working on my own, and you’d be a lot safer.’

‘You’d be amazed what a scarf and a pair of shades can do. I’d keep my head down and not mention my name.’

‘And anyway, you can’t travel on your passport. It’s too traceable, and if there’s someone connected to the police involved in all of this, they’ll catch up with us the minute you step into Europe.’

‘What could the police have to do with this thing, Ben?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ he said.

Leigh thought for a while, gazing out of the window at the naked trees flashing by. The bus rocked and swayed on the bumpy road. She nodded to herself, as though a sudden idea had come to her. ‘There is one way we could get out of the country and into France without being noticed.’

Southampton

Two hours later

Orion’s belt was bright in the east and the moonlight rippled on the water of the marina near Southampton. Either side of the long jetty, rows of white yachts drifted gently on their moorings.

Chris Anderson stood on the deck of the Isolde , his sixty-foot yacht, sipping on a hot mug of coffee and listening to the lapping water. A car door slammed in the distance, and a minute later he recognized the unmistakable figure of Leigh approaching down the jetty.

He grinned. He’d been surprised to hear from her earlier that day, and was looking forward to seeing her again. It had been a while.

Chris’s jaw tightened as Leigh came closer. She wasn’t alone. There was a guy with her. Did he know him? He didn’t think so. A good-looking bastard, too, thick blond hair, athletic-looking in jeans and a leather jacket. A couple of inches taller than him, just under six foot. Probably about five years younger than him, too. Chris sucked in his belly. He regretted now that he hadn’t played squash for a few weeks and had put on a few pounds. Who was the guy? Leigh hadn’t mentioned anything about a guest.

‘I’m still not too happy about this,’ Ben was saying as they neared the moored yacht. He could see Chris’s figure under the marina lights, a heavily built man wearing a thick white woollen fleece and a baseball cap, staring at him with a frown. ‘And I don’t think your ex-husband is thrilled either.’

‘Relax,’ Leigh said. ‘He’ll be fine.’ She skipped lightly over onto the deck and greeted Chris with a broad smile as he put his arm out to steady her. ‘Thanks for doing this at such short notice, Chris,’ she said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

She introduced them. Chris nodded curtly at Ben. ‘You never told me you were bringing a guest along,’ he said coldly.

Leigh put her hand on Chris’s shoulder and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. ‘Be nice’ , she warned him softly. She looked up to see the familiar face of Chris’s old skipper who was checking the rigging, and smiled. ‘Hey there, Mick.’

‘Long time no see,’ Mick called down. ‘Good to have you on board. Like old times.’

‘Hope I haven’t put you out too much,’ she said.

Mick jumped down on deck, wiping his hands. He was a small, hard, wiry man with dark eyes and a grey beard. ‘Nah, not a bit. A hop across the Channel’s just a stretch of the legs for the Isolde , even in December.’

‘You’re a star, Mick. This is my friend Ben. He’s coming too.’

‘Good to meet you, Ben.’

‘You too,’ Ben said. He looked admiringly at the yacht. ‘How long’s the crossing?’

Mick shrugged. ‘Hamble to Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue? Nine hours, give or take.’

‘Travelling a bit light, aren’t you?’ Chris observed. ‘No luggage?’

‘Just my credit card.’ Leigh grinned. ‘I’ll do some shopping when we get into Saint-Vaast.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Chris replied. ‘What happened to your knee?’

Leigh reached down to the rip in her jeans. ‘Oh, that. I tripped.’

‘You’re cut.’

‘It’s just a little graze. It’s nothing.’

Chris turned to Ben. ‘Welcome aboard the Isolde ,’ he said with the merest touch of warmth. ‘I’ll show you to your cabins.’ Chris put the emphasis on the plural s. He led them down below through the companionway

The interior of the yacht was surprisingly spacious and plush. ‘The woodwork is cherry,’ Chris said proudly, throwing a glance at Ben and stroking the varnished panels as he went by. ‘Handmade. She’s got it all. Oyster 61, classic model. Push-button everything. Done her share of ocean crossing, too, as Leigh will tell you. We’ve been everywhere in her. Madeira, St Lucia, Grenada. Remember that little pad we used to rent on Mustique, Leigh?’

‘Wasn’t that the place you got bitten on the arse by the monkey, and ended up in hospital?’ Leigh said flatly as she followed them down inside.

Chris cleared his throat and Ben suppressed a smile.

‘It’ll be strange for you, sleeping in the guest quarters instead of the master cabin,’ Chris said to Leigh.

‘I’ll survive,’ she said.

Chris showed Ben into the smallest of the Isolde’s three cabins. ‘You can put your things over there.’ In the light of the cabin he ran his eye up and down Ben’s scuffed old brown leather jacket and tatty-looking green canvas haversack. It looked heavy. Ben wedged it up on top of a storage unit above the bunk. His jacket sleeve rode up as he raised his arms, and Chris noticed the expensive diver’s watch on his wrist.

Within twenty minutes Mick was ready to cast off. The Isolde’s sails billowed in the breeze as they left the shore behind and headed into open waters.

Leigh felt obliged to spend time with Chris, so helped him to prepare dinner. Ben could feel her ex-husband’s eye on him and he took the opportunity to retreat to his tiny cabin. He took down his bag, sat back on his bunk and opened up the Mozart file.

Oliver’s notes were hard to read. Ben gazed for a while at the reference to ‘the Order of R- ’. It meant nothing to him, and he tossed the sheet down in frustration.

On another sheet, Oliver had been writing what looked like some kind of checklist of various historical facts and figures. In red ink he’d scrawled the word ‘ARNO’ and circled it three times. Beside it was a date in late December, just two weeks before Oliver’s death. The writing underneath was burned away and Ben was unable to read it.