The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series) (9 page)

Valeria’s flat occupied the second floor of an ochre-painted villa on the south side of the river. The living room was small and neat, filled somewhat eclectically with contemporary furniture covered with bright-colored cotton fabrics. Glossy fashion magazines lay in haphazard piles on the coffee table. Ethan would want to straighten them into perfect stacks, I thought. My stomach clenched. He’d been out of touch for so long.

“I’ll make some tea,” said Valeria. “Claire, if you want to lie down for a while, you can use my bed.”

“No thanks, I’m fine. I’ll help you.”

When they both disappeared into the kitchen, I found my mobile and called Detective Lake. I hoped that once he knew about the attempted robberies, he might take Ethan’s disappearance more seriously, but the brusque woman who answered the phone said he was out, and she’d put me through to his voicemail. I left a message to let him know that I was in Florence looking for Ethan, and that there seemed to be other parties who were interested in a key that had been in Ethan’s possession.

“You should be getting a phone call from the police in Florence,” I concluded. “Can you ring me when you get this message?” I left my mobile number. “And you’ll have to enter the country code first. It’s 39.”

I considered making a quick call to Leo, but my phone was running out of power. Claire and Valeria were still clattering around in the kitchen, so I walked to the window to look outside. The air was crystalline, the sky arching blue over the orange dome of the cathedral in the distance and burnishing the muddy Arno into a shimmering ribbon of bronze.

On the street below, a green three-wheeled Ape trundled by, loaded with firewood, its loud buzzing engine shredding the quiet of the afternoon. As the noise faded, I caught a glimpse of a man standing on the opposite side of the road looking up at the building. Instinctively, I pulled backwards, and peered cautiously around the edge of the curtain. He wore a leather jacket and black jeans. I didn’t recognize him.

Valeria came in and put a tray on the table before joining me.

“Did you see something?” Her voice was sharp.

“That man over there. He’s been standing there since we arrived in the taxi.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for a bus,” she said. I noticed he was standing close to an orange ATAF bus sign. “But even in Florence, he wouldn’t need to wait this long.”

“Do you recognize him? Is he the one who attacked Claire?”

“No,” said Valeria. “I’d recognize that skunk if I ever saw him again.” She peered out of the window. “He seems to be watching this building. How on earth could anyone know that you are here? Do you think we were followed from the hospital?”

I’d been keeping an eye open for any signs of pursuit but hadn’t seen anyone.

“Don’t say anything to Claire,” suggested Valeria. “Let her be for a while. She’s worried to death about Ethan, and still in shock from the attack. I’ll bolt the front door to be sure we don’t have any unwanted visitors.”

We sat on the sofa, waiting for Claire, who came in carrying a plate of small cakes. “I missed lunch and now I’m starving,” she said.

For a few minutes we enjoyed the tea and snacks. I wriggled into the cushions, trying to ease a pain in my lower back. I’d noticed recently that it seized up when I was stressed.

“What happens next?” asked Valeria.

Claire chewed on a cake for a minute. “I’ve been thinking about going to the family house in Venice,” she said. “A great-aunt of mine bought the place in the fifties. She was working with Peggy Guggenheim on the art foundation there. Anyway, my mum inherited it and we stayed in it quite often before my parents were divorced.”

“But why would you go there?” I asked, thinking I was missing something.

“Mum still owns the house, but she hasn’t been to Venice for ages, so she didn’t mind Dad using it.”

After Claire’s parents divorced, her mum had married again to a nice man called David. They lived somewhere in the north of England now, I seemed to recall.

“Dad often stayed when he was writing a book or a story for the newspaper,” Claire continued. “He spent several days at the house just before he died.”

I raised an eyebrow, still unsure why Claire would want to trek all the way to Venice.

“Remember I told you my dad was doing some research on the
Della Pittura
? It’s possible that he left something at the house that might help us. It seems to me that if we can understand the significance of the key, we might be able to discover where Ethan is?”

Her voice rose as she finished the sentence, more of a question than a statement.

I thought her plan made sense. “How would you get to Venice?” I asked.

“
We
,” she said. “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

“I have to go to work tomorrow. My flight’s already booked for ten in the morning. I’ll keep looking for Ethan from England, I promise, and you and I can coordinate by phone.”

Valeria and Claire put their cups down on the coffee table and stared at me. I felt like a bug pinned to a mounting board.

“You want to help Ethan, don’t you?” Claire demanded. “I can’t do this by myself, and you’re involved whether you like it or not. Those men know who you are.”

She had a point. I could give her the key and go home, but these people wouldn’t necessarily let me off the hook. More importantly, I wanted to find Ethan. He was my friend, and he was in danger. If I walked away and something happened to him, I’d always regret it.

It was more than forty hours since I’d seen him outside his office and I hadn’t heard a word since. He was obviously in serious trouble. If my aura sighting had been correct, I was confident he’d still be alive. The aura had been distinct, but moving slowly. That usually meant that death was several days away at least, perhaps even longer. Of course, it had been raining, and he’d been some distance away. I’d only seen the aura for a couple of seconds.

I looked at Claire’s aura, which looped around her head. It still moved slowly, but the fact was that it existed. And that meant her life was in danger too. I couldn’t just leave her.

“You can take my car,” offered Valeria, as though I hadn’t said anything about flying to London. “Claire, do you have the keys to the Venice house with you? I don’t think you should try to get back to your apartment.”

Claire grabbed her purse. “Yes, but let me check.” She fished out a large keyring, which held more than a dozen keys. “My flat, Ethan’s flat, the Venice house, my office keys.” She touched another key but didn’t identify it. A faint blush tinted her cheeks. A boyfriend, I guessed.

I wondered how to phrase my next objection without coming across as defeatist.

“How do we get out of here without being seen?” I looked in the direction of the window, thinking of the man in the leather jacket.

Claire looked at me in alarm. “Are we being followed?”

“Possibly. There’s a man standing across the road who seems to be watching us. He could be police, but I doubt it. More likely a colleague of your mugger.”

“You can go out the back way,” Valeria said. “There’s a staircase we use to access the
vicolo
behind the houses.”

She picked up her key chain and unhooked a key. “This opens the door at the bottom. Try to remember to lock it afterwards or the old lady in the flat below will make a big fuss. Take the alleyway to the left— it leads to the street where my car is parked. It’s a hundred meters away or less. Claire, you’ll recognize it. I think it has enough fuel to get you out of Florence.”

She handed me the key.

“I’m worried about leaving you alone,” I said. “You were a witness to the mugging and it appears that those men have followed us. They might come after you.”

Valeria laughed, showing her small white teeth. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m going to move upstairs with my mother. She’s a formidable lady. She’s got bigger muscles than you have and more locks on her doors than the Italian Treasury. I’ll be fine. And I’ll have Guido walk me to and from work.”

“Guido?”

“An admirer of Valeria’s,” said Claire, already buttoning up her coat. “He’s very tall and as wide as the Duomo.”

“Maybe Guido should come with us,” I suggested, only half joking.

We crept out into the hall and down the narrow back stairs to find the door on the ground floor already unlocked. I peered outside where a middle-aged woman in a wool coat stood in the middle of the alley. At her feet, a small brown dog sniffed the ground, its tail wagging. She glared at us and bent to pick up the dog, as though we might try to snatch the little animal, so I smiled at her and kept moving, following Claire out to the street.

“This is it,” she said, stopping next to a grey Smart car. “I’ll drive, as I know my way around Florence.”

I knew my way around Florence too, but I didn’t say anything as I folded my legs into the cramped passenger side. The little car purred into life. Traffic was light as Claire navigated the city, heading for the A1 to the North. I kept checking the mirror to see if anyone was tailing us. At the first traffic light, we seemed to sit forever waiting for a green. In the wing mirror, I saw a large black sedan speeding up behind us. Claire saw it too. She put her foot down the second the light turned green, and we shot through the intersection, took a sudden left hand turn and came to a halt at yet another light.

The throaty roar of an engine made me turn to see the black car again. From the sleek trapezoid shape of the hood and the distinctive shield on the front, I knew it was an Alfa Romeo
Giulia
, powerful, capable of high speeds and tight cornering. It rode inches from our rear bumper, looking like a giant bat with folded wings waiting to swoop on its prey. The diminutive Smart car was a mere insect about to be ingested.

“Is he following us?” I asked.

“Only one way to find out,” said Claire. She swung the steering wheel to the right, pulling out into the lane of oncoming traffic. I took a deep breath and pressed myself back into the grey fabric of my seat. Straddling the center line, the Smart car slid between the queue of stopped vehicles on one side and the cars coming towards us on the other. Italians love to honk at other drivers, and Claire’s maneuver was more than adequate justification for a torrent of blaring horns. At the next light, she hesitated only for a second before accelerating and shooting out into the centre of the intersection. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, we were safely across the junction. I looked out of the rear window.

“If he was chasing us, I think we lost him,” I said.

“Good. Just to be sure….” She turned again, this time on to a narrow cobbled street that appeared to be a one way. And we were going in the wrong direction. Praying we didn’t meet a vehicle coming towards us, I held on to my seat to avoid bouncing around and hitting my head on the roof. The walls of the houses that flanked the road were only a hand’s breadth from the side mirrors. I forgot to breathe until we turned on to a main road, where a sign for the
autostrada
rose like an angelic proclamation, showing us the way.

The number 82 v
aporetto
rocked gently as the passengers shoved their way on board and the conductor pulled the gate closed. With a roar of engines, the vessel pulled away from the dock, moving into the center of the Grand Canal. I leaned on the railing, Claire beside me with her red hair streaming in the wind and attracting the appreciative attention of several older Italian men. The drive from Florence had been uneventful, and we’d made good time. We’d left the Smart car at the Tronchetto car park on the outskirts of Venice.

It was almost eight, and the evening sun dipped low, washing the sky lavender and pink. The colors echoed the pastel facades of old palazzi that lined the canal. They resembled elegant old ladies in pretty dresses standing with their feet in the mud. Waterside restaurants teeming with diners and waiters reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast time.

We got off at San Marcuolo, and I followed Claire across the rocking landing stage. “We’ll walk north towards the Fondamente Nuovo,” she said. “I haven’t been here for two years, but I remember the shortest way there.”

As we crossed the Piazza San Marco, I paused to gaze at the cathedral’s squat, Eastern-looking domes. The square was crowded with tourists taking photographs and children chasing the pigeons. A string quartet played at Cafe Florian. Once we left the piazza, we walked through increasingly empty streets over narrow wooden bridges that crossed small canals. After passing through a deserted square in front of a small church, we turned into a street of houses with shuttered windows.

“Not many people live here permanently,” Claire said. “Mostly older folks who’ve been here all their lives. The others are second homes like ours.”

Perhaps disturbed by the sound of her voice, a cat materialized from the shadows. Tail twitching, it ran past us into an alleyway and melded into the shadows.

“Here at last.” Claire pointed at a house with a weathered green door. She fiddled with the key in the lock for a few seconds before leading me through a small tiled hallway into a spacious living room decorated in ornate Venetian style, with deep red wallpaper on the walls, thick Persian rugs on the worn wooden floors, and delicate Murano glass chandeliers hanging from high, dark-beamed ceilings.

“Come and see,” Claire said, leading the way across the room, weaving between a pair of damask sofas and an antique coffee table. She unlatched the windows and pushed open the outside shutters, letting soft light into the room. Along the back of the house ran a narrow canal, the water as lustrous as colored glass in the sunset. A few meters up, a wooden footbridge arched over the waterway. Below the house, a wooden boat nestled up against a mossy landing dock.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Claire said. She sighed and looked around the room. “Shall we start looking? We can go through the desk in the library. That’s where Dad would have worked.”

“Can we eat first?” I said. “I’m starving.”

“In or out?” she asked.

“In. We can investigate while we cook.”