The Lost Relic

Chapter Sixty-Six

Ben waited, hidden in the back of the van and impatient to get out of his prison overalls, while Darcey did the rounds of a street market in one of Rome’s many little squares. She came back a quarter of an hour later with a pair of white training shoes, jeans and a T-shirt, as well as the biggest pair of sunglasses she’d been able to find and a cheap designer version of a military fatigue hat in desert camo. Ben held out the T-shirt. Its glittery logo proclaimed ‘Yeah, Baby!’.

‘That’s the last time I send you shopping for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to look like an idiot in these things.’

She pointed at the crowds of tourists milling around the piazza. ‘You want to blend in, don’t you? Now hurry up and get changed. I won’t look.’

She only took two little peeks as he peeled off the prison overalls and started pulling on the clothes she’d got him. ‘Who is this Mimi Renzi?’ she asked.

‘The former maid and longtime companion of the artist Gabriella Giordani,’ Ben said. ‘Before all this happened with Tassoni, she tried to get in touch with me. Said she had something important to tell me. I don’t know what, and I didn’t care at the time, but now I want to find out.’

Darcey frowned. ‘And this is relevant because . . .?’

As Ben finished dressing and laced up the training shoes, he ran quickly through what he knew about the counterfeit Goya. ‘My bet is that the real artist was Gabriella Giordani herself. Back when she was a young countess, she had to paint in secret because her husband didn’t allow it. I think she forged ‘The Penitent Sinner’ – maybe for money, maybe just for the hell of it. Pride in her skill or something. I don’t know. The point is, Shikov sent his son to steal it even though he knew it was a fake. His man Gourko told me as much before you crashed the party.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Only one possible reason,’ Ben said, tucking the Browning into the waistband of his new jeans. ‘There’s something about that sketch. Something that goes way beyond any inherent value it could have, even if it was genuine. When I talked to Pietro De Crescenzo in Salamanca, he couldn’t come up with any ideas. But I have a feeling Mimi knows. And I have a feeling it’s going to help lead us to Shikov.’ He pulled the floppy rim of the fatigue hat down low over his face, and clambered into the front passenger seat.

‘Very nice,’ Darcey said, glancing him up and down. ‘A definite improvement. Though I have to say, those overalls really brought out the colour of your eyes.’

‘Please,’ Ben said, and slipped the sunglasses over them.

They made it out of Rome and southwards to Fiumicino without an army of Carabinieri coming after them. Leaving the Ford on the far side of the car park, they merged with the crowds funnelling inside the airport building. A newspaper stand in the lobby was screaming with the latest reports of the dramatic shootout in the streets of Rome and the disappearance of Urbano Tassoni’s killer as his armed gang sprung him from police custody.

‘You just can’t stay out of the news, can you?’ Darcey said. Ben didn’t reply. Security cameras watched them from all sides, and it felt as if every one of them was staring right at them as they crossed the busy lobby. Ben tried not to worry about them, and fretted instead that some resourceful cop going through his things after his arrest might have figured out what the little key tagged ‘187’ was for. At the enquiries desk he did his best rendition of a hapless British tourist who’d lost his wallet with his luggage locker key inside. Darcey handed over the ten euro fine, the attendant went to fetch a duplicate key, and suddenly Ben had one less thing to worry about. Five minutes later he had his old green canvas bag slung over his shoulder, still containing his wallet and cash, and they were heading back towards the car.

Forty-seven minutes after that, shortly before midday, they parked the stolen Ford for the last time near Stazione Termini, Rome’s main railway station. After pressing nervously through the crowds under the watchful eye of armed police, Ben bought tickets and they boarded a Trenitalia express heading for Milan and connecting to the Riviera train service to Monaco.

‘First class,’ Darcey noted as they found their seats, which faced across a table by the window. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to impress me, Ben Hope?’

Ben dumped his green bag on the seat next to his and shoved the holdall under the table. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. First’s quieter. I’d prefer to stay away from crowds right now.’

After a few minutes, the train pulled away. Nobody else had boarded their carriage. Ben leaned back in his seat, watched the outskirts of Rome flash by through the window, and closed his eyes as the clatter of the tracks settled into that same steady, hypnotic rhythm that he’d found relaxing ever since childhood. His thoughts swam for a while.

Then some instinctual sense made him open his eyes suddenly, and he saw Darcey watching him across the table.

‘I thought you were sleeping,’ she said.

‘I can’t sleep with you staring at me. I can feel it.’

‘I was thinking about you and Boonzie,’ she said. ‘He’s been following the news and really worrying about you. If I hadn’t threatened him with all manner of dire consequences, he’d have been out here like a flash to be with you in person.’ She paused, and added, ‘He loves you like a son, you know.’

Ben grimaced. ‘First you disturb me, then you embarrass me. This is going to be a great journey.’

‘A long lost son, from the sound of it,’ Darcey went on. ‘Seems you don’t keep in touch with your old friends much. You’re a bit of a rolling stone, aren’t you, Major Hope?’

‘I told you, don’t call me Major Hope,’ Ben said. ‘He’s ancient history. I’m just Ben, all right?’

‘Tell me about Dr Marcel.’

‘What do you know about Brooke?’ Ben said. He felt his face flush as he said it.

‘Jeff Dekker told me you were on your way to London to see your girlfriend. Brooke is your girlfriend, isn’t she?’

Ben stared out of the window.

‘She’s very attractive,’ Darcey said. ‘I saw her photo on your website. Love that whole pre-Raphaelite look, with the curly red hair.’

‘It’s auburn,’ Ben muttered without looking at her. ‘How come she wasn’t expecting you in London?’ Darcey asked.

He glared at her. ‘Jesus, you’re like a pit bull with these questions.’

‘Just that it seemed to me that if she’d known you were on your way to see her, she’d have stayed put. She appears to have gone off somewhere.’

‘Portugal,’ Ben said. As it came out, he heard the sigh in his voice and wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

‘You don’t want to talk about her, do you? Raw nerve?’

‘That’s very perceptive of you. So yes, I’d appreciate it if you could either change the subject or shut up.’

Darcey smiled. ‘Ah. I think I get it now.’

He looked at her sharply. ‘Get what?’

‘The answer to a question I’ve been asking myself ever since I heard you’d been arrested. How a guy good enough to get away from me twice could have been stupid enough to get himself picked up for drunken brawling in some bar-room.’

‘It’s so unusual for people to get away from you?’

‘Never happened before,’ she said. ‘Kind of got under my skin.’

‘So what’s your expert analysis, Commander Kane?’ Ben snapped.

‘You and she met up in Portugal. What happened between you? Lovers’ tiff? That’s why you got so boozed up. Next thing, picking fights with the local lads.’

Ben looked away. He gazed at a farm that was rolling by in the distance. The fields and orchards looked peaceful. He suddenly felt a great yearning to be there, strolling in the long, waving grass under the late summer sun.

‘I’m sorry,’ Darcey said, noticing his expression. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘She has a place there,’ Ben said quietly after a long pause. ‘Isolated, quiet. Somewhere to lie low, hide out. I didn’t know she’d be there.’

Darcey watched him closely, reading his thoughts. ‘She wasn’t alone, was she? That’s what this is about.’

Ben frowned. ‘Can we stop talking about this now, please?’ He leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

The train rumbled on. Darcey sat and watched Ben’s body relax slowly and in stages, as if it was a struggle for him to give in to sleep. After a while he was completely still, breathing slowly, his head nestled against the patterned cloth of the seat, rolling gently with the movement of the train. She studied his face, the faint lines around the eyes, the way his thick fair hair fell across his brow. There was a serenity about him as he slept that almost made her want to reach out to him and stroke his cheek.

‘Darcey, Darcey,’ she muttered under her breath. She looked at her watch. They were still an hour out from Milan. She got up from her seat and wandered down the length of the train to stretch her legs and fetch a coffee from the buffet car. None of the carriages were packed. On the way back, she spotted a newspaper lying discarded on an empty seat. A British paper, she noticed – a copy of that day’s Daily Telegraph. She picked it up.

Ben was still fast asleep when Darcey returned to her seat. She sipped her coffee and spread the paper out on the table. ‘Tassoni killer still on the loose’ was becoming old news now in the UK media, as they sought to divert their readers’ attention to a breaking scandal of some ageing former pop idol who’d been caught allegedly grooming twelve-year-old girls for sex via the Internet. Darcey flipped overleaf.

And stopped, staring at the photo of the young man smiling up at her from the page.

It was Jamie Lister. The headline shouted: ‘Civil Servant Slain in Paris Shooting’. Darcey’s heartbeat picked up a step as she dived into the text. ‘French police launched an official inquiry yesterday following the death of junior British civil servant, James Lister, 29, in a brutal attack in Paris earlier this week . . .’

‘Junior civil servant,’ she muttered. She read on.

‘. . . speculation that Mr Lister’s murder may have been a case of mistaken identity . . .’

‘Huh,’ she said. ‘Right.’

‘. . . body of a male passenger so far remains unidentified. Police are also searching for a woman seen leaving the car at the time of the incident. French Ministry of Justice official Philippe Roux is urging members of the public to come forward with information that . . .’

Darcey thought about Paolo Buitoni and her throat tightened. She shifted her gaze to an adjoining article with the heading ‘Tennis Club Mourns Loss’.

‘“We here are all devastated by this tragic news,” said Edward Harrington, Secretary of London’s prestigious Queen’s Club, where James Lister had been a member for four years. “Jamie was more than just a popular member and a talented tennis player. I counted him as a close personal friend. He will be sorely missed.”’

Darcey looked up from the paper. ‘Borg,’ she muttered.

He hadn’t chosen the name at random. Poor Jamie.

Darcey’s brow furrowed as her mind went into overdrive. Then a second realisation hit her. ‘Queen’s,’ she said out loud.

‘What?’ Ben said, waking up.

‘The coin,’ she told him. ‘The Queen’s head on the coin.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘In the car. In Paris. It wasn’t money he was talking about. He was trying to tell me the name of his tennis club.’

Ben looked confused. She ignored him, biting her lip, thinking hard. Why? Why?

As she racked her brains, she found herself staring at Ben’s green army bag on the seat next to him.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘That’s it. The locker. Every locker has a number, right?’

Ben was beginning to catch up. He’d flipped the newspaper round and was scanning quickly through the text. ‘Lister. The MI6 guy.’

‘Just before he died, he was trying to tell me a number. On his fingers, like this. A number you can make on one hand.’ Darcey struggled to remember, visualising the scene in her head. ‘One-five-three,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

Ben pushed the newspaper back across the table. ‘The man was dying,’ he said. ‘His brain was shutting down, neurons firing randomly all over the place. I’ve seen people do strange things in those last moments. You can’t always take them at face value.’

Darcey shook her head adamantly. ‘This wasn’t just a brainstorm, some kind of neural meltdown. He looked right at me. He was trying to communicate, and he had a specific reason.’

‘What reason?’

‘I reckon Jamie Lister wanted me to see whatever it is that’s inside locker 153 at the Queen’s Club in West Kensington,’ she said. ‘And I know someone who can help us get to it.’