The Turin Shroud Secret (26 page)

Amy decides to take a break. She goes to the washroom then brews a fresh cup of herbal tea and raids her small office fridge
for one of the emergency Hershey bars she keeps there.

Back at her computer she taps the space bar to click off the screensaver. Nothing happens. The machine has locked up. She
tries ESCAPE and then reluctantly reboots, sipping the tea and eating a square of milk chocolate while the machine gets up
to speed.

Her document has gone. She searches the file folder.
Searches the cute little wire trash basket at the end of the shiny steel dock bar. Nothing. She’s lost everything.

‘No, no,
no.
This can’t be.’ Amy tries to stay calm. The Mac backs things up every couple of minutes. All her work will be somewhere.

It isn’t. She searches every conceivable storage space, then searches it again. An hour later she fearfully opens her mailbox.
Empty. Some kind of virus has penetrated the firewall and destroyed every document, image, file and presentation on the computer.

TURIN

Nic takes a long, slow look around his hotel room.

He knows he’s exhausted and knows tired people often don’t think straight but he’s sure someone’s been in here snooping around.
He opens the wardrobe and stares at the shirts and a sweater dangling from plastic coat-hangers. Are they really as he left
them when he’d unpacked?

He doesn’t think so. They’re strung out across the silver hanging rail. Spaced almost evenly. Neat and tidy. Not at all his
style. He has a longstanding habit of hanging things only on the left side of the bar. It’s what he always does. Carolina
used to hang her stuff on the right and even today he still
leaves space. He can’t help it. He certainly didn’t leave them like this.

He lifts out the suitcase from the shallow well at the bottom of the wardrobe and drops it on the bed. The combination is
8634 – the same as his credit card pin. He always spins the numbers to 7523 to lock it – one digit back on each reel. He remembers
the numbers precisely because in his mind he has a permanent picture of a clock in heaven (rhymes with 7) that’s stuck at
five (5) to (2) three (3) – the time his wife and child died and went to heaven.

The numbers don’t read that any more. They read 1870. Someone has either opened the case and spun the locks randomly or tried
to open it. He enters the combination and flips the locks. The inside is a mess. A gym kit and trainers he’ll never get round
to using, enough socks and underwear to dress an army, a camera that needs new batteries and copies of all the case papers
he could carry.

He sits on the bed and lifts out the documents. There are so many he can’t remember the order of the files stacked in there.
He shuts his eyes and tries to recall what he last looked at.
Craxi’s bank accounts. Carlotta had shown him the final withdrawal when they were in the bank together. He’d closed the file
with that page facing up at him.

He opens the document folder. It’s as he left it. Despite the reassurance he doesn’t feel satisfied. Maybe he’s imagining
things. Tiredness and stress can make you edgy – even paranoid. He needs a long, deep sleep. Another thing occurs to him.
He flicks quickly down the stack of files and finds
the crime-scene photographs showing Tamara Jacobs’s body on the beach. He stares at the bundle not sure whether he feels relieved
or not.

They’re there. They’re not missing. But they are back-to-front.

He’d arranged them in the order a psychological profiler does – pictures that set the scene first and then shots of the victim.

But that’s not how they are. They’re now in reverse order. He’d never do that. He’s as messy as a teenager when it comes to
leaving clothes and crockery around the house, but not work things, never professional stuff. Someone has been through all
the photographs. But who? The Carabinieri? That doesn’t make sense. He would gladly have shown them the photos if they’d asked.
Until a few hours ago, until meeting Goria and talking to Erica Craxi, he’d have shared anything and everything with them.

If not the Carabinieri, then who? Tamara’s killer? He looks down at the crime-scene prints. Is it really possible that the
man who tortured her to death had held these photographs? Had admired his own handiwork in this very room? Nic looks around
the room and finds a pad of complimentary paper and a couple of envelopes bearing the crest of the hotel. He slips the photographs
inside one of the envelopes and seals it. It’s highly unlikely the murderer left his prints behind but even hitmen make mistakes.

As he seals the envelope he thinks of the killer being in his
room – being in the lodge and listening when he’d called Craxi on Goria’s cell phone. The man comes and goes like a ghost.
A tingle lifts hairs on the back of Nic’s neck as he realises the killer knows more about him than he does about the killer.

CORONER’S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES

Barney, the emergency IT guy, finishes examining the Mac and gives Amy an expression that says he’s almost at the end of his
shift and she’s screwed.

‘I’m sorry, I just can’t fix this.’ The bespectacled geek repositions a fall of shoulder-length black hair behind his blue
denim shirt. ‘We’re going to have to take your machine away, hook it up and run diagnostics.’

She doesn’t like the sound of that. IT is a graveyard. Few loved machines come back from there alive. ‘What about my files?
They’ll be backed up on the server, won’t they?’

‘Should be. You might have lost stuff you’ve been working on today. We did the last dump around midnight last night.’

‘Shit.’

‘That’s the way it goes. I keep telling the Chief that he should give you guys portable back-ups. It’s the only way to stay
safe.’

Amy shakes her head. ‘So how long? How long do you think it’ll take to get me fixed?’

He looks at his watch. ‘I should have been gone an hour ago. I’m afraid your Mac won’t even get seen until Monday now.’

‘Monday.
That’s a lifetime away.’

‘Sorry. Overtime was cut for us as well as everyone else.’ He peers at the computer as though it just whispered to him. ‘Hold
on. Let me just take a look at something.’

Barney settles in her chair, pounds keys and exposes parts of Amy’s computer that she didn’t even know existed. Administrator’s
privileges. Something akin to a surgical examination of her Mac’s innermost and most private parts.

‘Whoa. I don’t believe this.’

‘You can fix it?’ Amy bends close to the screen.

‘No way.’ He sits back and folds his arms, staring at a mass of codes with apparent admiration. ‘It’s a zombie.’

‘A what?’

‘Some smart ass has infiltrated the firewall, downloaded everything from your computer and has been using it remotely.’ He
reaches round the back and snaps out the cable. ‘Best get this quarantined and cleansed ASAP.’

Amy feels violated.

‘Our guy will know we’re on to him.’ Barney is as excited as a kid playing cops and robbers. ‘He’ll have dropped worms or
Trojans in your system too. They’ll have destroyed most of your programs and you’ve probably been passing on infections as
well.’ He lifts the Mac off her desk.
‘You should go home, Dr Chang. You’re not going to see this baby Monday, or ever again. We’ll order you a new computer.’

WALNUT PARK, LOS ANGELES

BEL-LA-PIZZA is a new restaurant around the corner from Mitzi’s place. It’s the latest in a long line in LA to badly word
pun the connection between bella and LA.

She and the girls are there for several reasons. First, she has nothing in at home. Second, it’s a place they’ve never been
to before – in other words they’ve never been with Alfie. Most important, though, it has a half-price and free glass of wine
offer until the end of the month.

A breadstick-thin teenage waitress with long black hair stands at the edge of the table as Mitzi orders. ‘Two diet cokes and
one glass of house red. One garlic bread. One Minestrone soup. One battered mushrooms. For mains, one medium-sized, thin-crust
Neptune, no anchovies. One large stuffed-crust, Pepperoni with a cracked egg. And – ‘ Mitzi glances again at the card to decide
what she’s having, ‘ – one small lasagne with a chopped green salad, no fries and nothing else.’ As she watches the girl frantically
catch up on her notepad she realises she’s turning into Tyler Carter. No
courtesy, just facts. ‘Thanks,’ she adds, hastily, as the waitress heads for the kitchen. ‘Thanks for your help.’

Bad news is always best broken first and broken quickly. As soon as Jade and Amber have their drinks, Mitzi gives it to them.
‘Your father’s case came up in court today. They sent him to prison. Thirty days.’ She curses herself, again she sounds like
Carter.

Amber drops the Coke straw from her lips. ‘Daddy’s in jail?’

‘Right now? Already?’ Jade looks more annoyed than shocked.

Mitzi reaches across and takes both their hands. ‘Yes. He started his sentence this afternoon.’

Jade snatches her hand away. ‘Oh God. Poor Daddy.’

Poor Daddy?
Mitzi has to bite her tongue.

Amber says nothing. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t touch her drink. Just disappears into private thoughts that her mom can only
guess are horribly painful.

‘So what’s all
this,
then?’ Jade throws her arms wide, her face reddening with anger. ‘Have you brought us here to
celebrate?’

‘No.’
Mitzi is firm but calm. ‘I’ve brought you out to be with you. To show you that life goes on.’

‘Not for Dad, though.’ Jade gets up and throws her napkin at the table. ‘I’m not doing this. I’m not sitting here in a restaurant
while my father’s in prison, probably with
nothing
to eat or drink.’

Mitzi stands up opposite her. ‘Yes, you are. Sit down.’

Tables fall silent around them.

Jade glares at her mother. ‘I’m leaving. I’m going home and you’re not stopping me.’

‘Yes, I am. Now
sit
down.’ Mitzi says it in a tone that never gets disobeyed.

Jade stares defiantly then starts to move towards the door. ‘What are you going to do? Beat me up? Call your cop friends?
Have me locked up as well as my dad?’

Mitzi needs all her willpower not to slap the child, not to shake her and tell her to grow up.

‘Go on!’ Amber pulls up right in front of her. ‘I know you want to hit me.’ She sticks her face out. ‘Do it, if that’s what
makes you feel better.’

A small middle-aged man in a black suit turns up in the gap between the tables. Behind him is the breadstick waitress with
their coats. ‘I am sorry, you have to leave.’ He looks nervously at Mitzi and then motions with both hands to the door like
he’s shooing an unspeakably dirty animal. ‘You go now, please. You go now.’

She doesn’t put up a fight. She grabs their coats. He’s doing her a favour. The stand-off is over. Even though they’re being
thrown out, they’re still all together.

TURIN

Nic turns off the bedroom light and eases back an inch of curtain. He stands at the window looking at the wet, empty street
as he calls Goria. ‘My room’s been turned over.’

‘What?’

‘Someone’s searched it. They haven’t taken anything but I know they’ve been through case files, maybe even photographed stuff.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘I am still around the corner. Check out. You can stay at my place. We have to move quickly tomorrow anyway.’

Nic leaves the curtain and starts gathering his things. ‘Good idea. I’ll be down in a moment.’

It takes him ten minutes to pack and head downstairs. While paying the bill he thinks about asking who cleaned his room and
could have messed with his personal belongings but decides against it. From the look of the half-asleep reception clerk he’d
be unlikely to get a helpful answer.

Nic slips into what remains of the cold rainy night and scans the street for watching eyes as he turns the corner to find
Goria’s Bravo. To the best of his knowledge no one has seen him leave.

‘This is like a day that never ends,’ says the Italian as the detective settles into the passenger seat.

‘I’ve had too many of those recently. Thanks again for your help.’

‘Not a problem.’ He starts the engine and pulls away.

‘Listen, I need to call my boss. You mind?’

‘Go right ahead.’

Nic dials the number. It takes a few seconds to connect, then he hears it ringing.

‘Yes.’

The bluntness of the answer shocks him. It’s almost like it’s not her and he’s got a wrong number.

‘Mitzi, it’s Nic.’

‘Hi Nic. I’m sorry this isn’t a good time.’

He can tell that from her tone. She’s in a car going somewhere – there’s the noise of traffic and of one of the girls shouting
at her and another crying. ‘Mitz, I can hardly hear you. Call me back when you can. There are some strange things happening
and I need to bring you up to speed.’ The line goes dead and he closes down his phone. ‘Seems like my boss is having a tough
time too.’

‘Tough times sometimes they make for good memories,’ says Goria, swerving to avoid a pothole. ‘For me, the happiest time of
my marriage was when our lives were tough and we had nothing. My wife and I just ate soup and went to bed to stay warm and
make love.’ He turns and smiles at Nic. ‘You know what I mean?’

‘Yeah. I know what you mean.’

They head north-west across the city to Venaria Reale, a quiet area not far from the sprawling grounds of the Strada Militare
Carlo Grassi. Goria’s place is a small new house protected by its own iron gates and high metal fence. He thumbs an electronic
zapper. The gates open and a roller door slides up and reveals a long garage.

Nic can’t help but look over his shoulder as they exit the narrow street. He sees a flash of passing headlights but no following
cars.

‘We are safe here. Do not worry any more tonight.’ Goria turns off the car engine and steps out into the garage. ‘I have security
cameras and a full perimeter alarm around the house. All necessary precautions in my line of work.’ He goes to a metal box
set in the cinderblock wall and presses several buttons. ‘It is armed now for the night, nothing can get in without it being
triggered.’