The Medici Secret

Chapter 25

Venice, present day Vincent had closed the heavy drapes and dimmed the lights leaving the fire to cast its comforting glow across the room. Edie and Jeff were on the sofa, each cradling a large brandy while Rose slept fitfully on a leather chesterfield under the window on the other side of the library. Jeff's apartment had been sealed off, still the subject of forensic investigation. Candotti had told them they had been tailed by a police unit, a move that had clearly saved their lives. Roberto had insisted they stay at his place and had only stopped demanding he be moved there himself when Edie threatened to pack up and leave, alone, on the night train to Florence if he did.

Even though the police had followed their movements since they had left Roberto's hospital room, Jeff and Edie had been quizzed at length by two senior police officers and had recounted the events leading up to the shooting several times over: how they had visited La Pieta simply as tourists, to look at the famous frescoes; how they had then left there just after 5.30 p.m. and returned to the apartment. They each gave detailed descriptions of the gunman and clarified that it was he who had chased them the night before, injured Roberto and killed Dino. They also confirmed this killer was the man who had hijacked Roberto's launch and murdered the driver, Antonio.

A female counsellor had talked to Rose alone, and later, with Edie and Jeff. But Rose really only calmed down once she was inside Palazzo Baglioni. She seemed to have a natural affinity for the place and had bonded closely with Roberto. She felt safe inside the ancient walls of the canal-side residence. She had swallowed a special nightcap created by Vincent from what he claimed was a secret recipe that had been in his family for generations and had drifted off to sleep to the mellifluous sound of Brahms' Intermezzo in A. As Jeff had kissed her goodnight, the last thing she said was, 'I can't believe it, Dad. I only popped out of the apartment for a few minutes.' Jeff gazed over at his sleeping daughter.

'The young have remarkable powers of recuperation,' Edie said quietly.

'I guess this must bring back some horrible memories for you.'

She smiled. 'Years of therapy have plastered over the cracks. I was just eight, a lot younger than Rose when my parents were killed. That's not to say I don't remember it. I do. Every detail, as though it were yesterday.' She seemed to want to talk and Jeff was happy to let her. 'I've relived the experience so many times. It never loses its potency, but I've come to terms with the fact that it really did happen. I really did walk into that makeshift lab in the desert and find my mum and dad practically floating in their own blood. It was simply an opportunist killing; the murderer got away with a few dollars. That was three decades ago, and the clocks don't stop, the world doesn't halt on its axis, even if you think it should.' 'And now you work with the dead.' 'Oh yes.' 'In a strange way, it must help.'

'Not sure about that, but it keeps things in perspective. Jeff gave her a quizzical look.

'Look at Cosimo de' Medici. He was one of the wealthiest men who ever lived. Within the limits of his time, he could do almost anything. He kick-started the Renaissance for God's sake. And what is he now? Wherever his real body lies it will be, at best, a pile of crumbling bones inside a beautiful jacket with solid gold buttons.'

Jeff thought of poor Maria. Her life so violently and needlessly extinguished. And Dino too, who had paid the ultimate price for saving them. That was only two nights ago, but already it felt like a lifetime away. Where was Dino now? Had some element of his being really found his wife and daughter? Had the agonies of their lives finally been washed away? Or was everything Dino had once been now nothing more than a slab of meat decaying in a mortuary nearby?

Jeff shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the ceiling. 'Questions with no answers,' he mused. 'I guess it's only at times like this we stop to consider what life really means. And what do we conclude?'

'We each conclude something completely different,' Edie said. 'But there are some basic truths, aren't there?' 'Probably not,' Edie replied.

'It's all smoke and mirrors, all meaningless, don't you think? Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, the only thing that really matters is what you leave for others, be it great works of art, wonderful music people will listen to for centuries after you're dead, or something as simple as being remembered as a good person, someone who gave more than they took.'

'Maybe,' Edie drained her glass, and poured herself another. 'But whatever you do, whatever you leave behind gradually decays and eventually vanishes. I see it every working day. Eventually nothing remains, nothing at all. Bones crumble to dust, and the dust is blown away in the wind.' She took a large gulp of her brandy. 'And what we do vanishes too, doesn't it?' She didn't wait for Jeff to reply. 'One day Mozart's music will be forgotten, the words of Jesus will mean nothing. Whatever they contributed will have faded beyond memory. As the great George Harrison put it: all things must pass.'

'Quite so,' Jeff said and raised his glass in a mock salutation. And they both laughed. 'So, what now?' Edie said, wiping her eyes.

'Obviously, we leave for Florence first thing. All of us.' Jeff glanced over at Rose, feeling a stab of guilt for landing his daughter in all this mayhem. Then came anger, anger for being so powerless to shield her from the horrors she had witnessed.