The Lost Relic

Chapter Fifty-One

Salamanca

Pietro De Crescenzo’s eyes became huge and round in the rear-view mirror. He twisted round in horror to stare at the man who’d suddenly appeared in the back of the Volvo.

‘Good to see you again,’ Ben said. ‘Remember me?’

‘Mio dio. The murderer.’

‘That’s right,’ Ben said. ‘I’m a sick, sick man. A raving psychotic, just like the papers say. I killed Urbano Tassoni and I enjoyed doing it, just like I enjoyed killing a hundred other men, women and children before him. And I’ll kill you, too, Pietro, unless you do exactly what I say.’

De Crescenzo cowered behind the steering wheel. Ben dangled the Volvo keys from his fingers. ‘This town’s pretty by night. Why don’t we take a scenic tour while we talk?’

De Crescenzo took the key from him with a trembling hand. He was shaking so badly it took him three attempts to fit it into the ignition.

‘Don’t drive too fast,’ Ben said. ‘Don’t drive too slowly. Don’t do anything that might attract attention to us.’

De Crescenzo nodded frantically, took a deep breath and pulled away. The Volvo glided through the night streets. Traffic was thin. As they skirted the old city, the ancient sandstone buildings and domes and steeples were lit gold under the moonlight.

‘How did you know where to find me?’ De Crescenzo quavered.

‘The contessa was a great help,’ Ben said. ‘She even lent me her car.’

‘Ornella! You did not—’

‘You can relax, Pietro. She’s fine, apart from a hangover. Needs to ease up on the Smirnoff a little. As soon as I’m finished with you, you should think about getting home to her before she overdoes it. You’re not giving her the attention she deserves.’ Ben Hope, marriage counsellor.

De Crescenzo’s shoulders slumped at the wheel. ‘What is it you want from me?’

‘I came to ask you what the hell’s going on,’ Ben said. ‘But now I can see you don’t know any more than I do.’

De Crescenzo glanced back at him in the mirror. ‘You were there? In Segura’s home?’

‘I heard every word you said, Pietro.’

‘Then I can tell you no more. Please. Let me go. I promise – I swear – I will tell nobody that I saw you here tonight.’

‘Tell me one thing, and you won’t see me ever again,’ Ben said. ‘Tell me about the first time.’

‘The first time?’

‘Something you said to Segura. “The first time, the crooks left with nothing.” You weren’t talking about the gallery heist, were you?’

De Crescenzo was silent for a few moments, then let out a long, sad sigh. ‘When Gabriella Giordani passed away in October 1986 from a heart attack, it was as the direct result of a violent intrusion at her secluded home outside Cesena. She was all alone when it happened. Her former maid and longtime companion and confidante was no longer living with her. When Gabriella was later found dead at the scene, the coroner’s conclusion was that the heart attack had been induced by acute terror.’

‘What were they looking for? Cash? Valuables?’

De Crescenzo grunted bitterly. ‘That is the strange thing. Gabriella Giordani had been an established artist for quite a few years and her work was worth a fortune. She was extremely wealthy, her home filled with beautiful things. Antiques, jewel-lery, artwork, every piece itemised for insurance purposes. The burglars could have helped themselves to everything. And yet, they touched not a single item of her possessions, though they searched the house violently from top to bottom. What they were looking for remains a mystery.’

Ben could see a pattern forming here. Criminals broke into a house full of valuables, were willing to cause death in order to obtain what they wanted, yet left the place apparently empty-handed. Twenty-five years later, an armed gang committed multiple murder, just to obtain a relatively valueless drawing once owned by the same person, which now moreover turned out to have been a fake. When history repeated itself like that, there had to be a reason.

‘You think they were looking for “The Penitent Sinner” the first time round?’ he asked.

De Crescenzo shrugged helplessly. ‘I have asked myself this many times. There is no way to know the answer.’

‘I can think of one way. Talk to the people who did it.’

De Crescenzo said nothing.

‘Tell me again about this drawing,’ Ben said. ‘What was it, a pencil sketch?’

‘Charcoal, drawn on laid paper.’

‘Laid paper?’

‘A special kind of art paper, thick, textured rather like a fabric print. But essentially just a piece of paper, nothing more. The sketch itself is interesting and masterfully executed but, as you have seen yourself, it is by no means a spectacular piece of art. Its only possible value was the signature at the bottom. If it had only been genuine,’ De Crescenzo added sourly.

‘The sketch couldn’t have been superimposed on some other piece of artwork?’ Ben asked. ‘The original painted out, then redone over the top?’ He was thinking that maybe whatever the thieves had been after was hidden underneath – but he was clutching at straws and he knew it.

‘Impossible,’ De Crescenzo said. ‘On canvas, this could be feasible. On paper, however, such an overpaint would be immediately apparent, as well as highly impractical. No artist would do such a thing. The mystery is simply unsolvable.’

Ben leaned back against the seat as De Crescenzo drove on, and thought for a while in silence. Then an idea hit him. ‘You mentioned Gabriella had a longtime companion. Someone she might have confided in. Maybe that person would know something.’

‘I do not know what happened to her after she left Gabriella,’ De Crescenzo said. ‘If Mimi is even still living, she would be impossible to trace.’

‘Did you say Mimi?’

De Crescenzo looked blank. ‘Yes.’

‘That wouldn’t be Mimi Renzi, would it?’

‘Her surname was unknown. In all the biographical accounts of Gabriella’s life, she was referred to only as Mimi.’ De Crescenzo’s bemused look turned to one of desperation. ‘Now you know everything I know. That’s it. There is nothing more I can add. Will you please let me go?’

‘I’m true to my word,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not who you think I am.’

‘Why did you kill Tassoni?’ The question burst out of De Crescenzo’s mouth as though it had been burning on his tongue all day.

‘You really think I did?’

‘It was on television.’

‘I thought you were smarter than that, Pietro.’

At that moment, something caught Ben’s eye out of the car window. He turned and saw it again – a blinking light suspended high in the air over the rooftops. He whirred the glass down a few inches, felt the hot sticky night air on his face.

And heard the thump of helicopter blades over Salamanca – as well as the high-pitched chorus of police sirens.

Ben reached into his pocket for the Maserati keys. It was time to be out of here.