The Alchemist's Secret (25 page)

She reclined back in the swivel-chair, gazing out of the window. The stars were coming out, beginning to twinkle in the darkening blue sky above the black-silhouetted line of mountaintops. Her eye followed the string of Orion’s Belt. Rigel was a distant sun, over 900 light years away. The stars brought history alive to her. The light she was seeing now had started its journey through space almost 1,000 years ago; just to gaze up at it was to travel back in time, commune with the living past. What dark, terrible, beautiful secrets had the stars witnessed over medieval Languedoc? She sighed and tried to get back to her work.

The mountaintop castle of Montségur, March 1244. Eight thousand crusaders, paid with Catholic gold, surrounded a defenceless band of three hundred Cathar heretics. After eight months of siege and bombardment the Cathars were starving. All but four of them were to die, burned alive by the Inquisitors after the final storming of the ramparts. Before the massacre, four priests fled the besieged castle bearing an unknown cargo, and disappeared. Their story remains a mystery. What was their mission? Were they carrying the fabled treasure of the Cathars, attempting to hide its secret from their persecutors? Did this treasure really exist, and if so, what was it? These questions have remained un answered to this day.

She put down her pen. It was only just after nine, but she decided she’d have an early night. Her best ideas often came when she was relaxed in bed. She’d have a hot bath, make a drink and curl up with her thoughts. Maybe the morning would see her with a clearer mind, and she’d be able to call Ben Hope and arrange to see him again.

She wondered what trail he was following, what significance the gold cross and this Fulcanelli manuscript might have. Was it connected with her own research into the Cathar treasure? So little was known about it that most historians had all but given up on the old legend.

A curious feeling, one she hadn’t felt for a long time…She smiled to herself. The excitement she felt at the prospect wasn’t just out of intellectual curiosity. She was keenly looking forward to their next meeting.

She shut her study door and walked along the corridor to her bedroom. She went through to the ensuite bathroom beyond and turned on the bath taps, then undressed and slipped into a bathrobe, tying up her hair. She glanced at her face in the mirror, but it was already steaming up from the splashing hot water.

She stiffened. Was that a noise from downstairs? She turned off the taps and cocked her head, listening for it. Maybe the pipes. She turned the taps back on, clicking her tongue in irritation at her own jumpiness.

But as she was just slipping her robe off her shoulders to get into the bath, she heard it again.

She knotted the belt of her bathrobe as she walked edgily back through the bedroom and out onto the landing. She stood listening, her head cocked to one side, a frown furrowing her brow.

Nothing. But she’d definitely heard something. She quietly lifted up the Egyptian bronze Anubis statue from the wooden pedestal on the landing. Weighing the jackal-headed god’s effigy in her hand like a club, she padded silently down the stairs in her bare feet. Her breathing was quickening. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the statue. The dark downstairs hall rose up to meet her with every step. If she could get to the light switch…

There it was, that sound again.

‘Who’s there?’ She wanted her voice to sound strong and confident, but it came out in a shaky treble.

The loud knock at the door made her jump. She gasped, her heart thumping. ‘Who is it?’

‘Anna?’ said a man’s voice from outside the door. ‘It’s me, Edouard.’

Her shoulders sagged with relief and her arm hung limp by her side, still clutching the Anubis. She ran to the door and opened it, letting him in.

Edouard Legrand hadn’t been expecting such a warm welcome, after she had turned him down flat on the phone several times. He was pleasantly surprised as she ushered him inside the front hall.

‘What are you doing with that thing?’ he said with a smile, nodding at the statue in her hand.

She glanced down at it, feeling suddenly foolish. She set the Anubis down on a table. ‘I scared myself so much just now,’ she said, placing her palm on her still-fluttering heart and closing her eyes. ‘I heard noises.’

He laughed. ‘Oh, these old houses are full of strange noises. Mine is just the same. You probably heard a mouse. It’s amazing how much noise a tiny mouse can make.’

‘No, it was you I heard,’ she said. ‘Sorry if I seemed flustered.’

‘I didn’t mean to alarm you, Anna. You were not asleep, I hope?’ he added, noticing her robe.

She smiled, relaxing now. ‘Actually I was just about to have a bath. Perhaps you could fix yourself a drink, and I will be down in five minutes.’

‘Please, go ahead, don’t let me rush you.’

Damn
, she was thinking as she walked into the steamy bathroom. It looked like encouragement, the way she’d hurried him inside. Talk about giving out mixed signals.

She couldn’t say she actually disliked Edouard Legrand. He wasn’t completely without charm. He wasn’t at all bad-looking either. But she could never in a million years return the feelings he obviously had for her. There was something about him, something she couldn’t define, that made her feel uncomfortable around him. She’d have to get rid of him as gently as possible, but quickly and firmly before he started getting the wrong ideas. She couldn’t help but feel a little pang of guilt. Poor Edouard.

Downstairs, Edouard was pacing up and down in the living-room, working over the lines he’d prepared. Then he remembered the champagne and flowers that he’d left in the car, not wanting to appear too boldly at the door like a serenading suitor brimming with expectations. But as she’d let him in without protest and was obviously eager for his company, now was the time to produce them. Where was the kitchen? Maybe he’d time to stick the bottle in the freezer to chill it down while she was having her bath. They could have such a perfect evening together. Who knew where it might lead? Jittery with excitement, he went back outside to the car.

Anna climbed out of the bath, towelled herself dry and pulled on a pair of jogging pants and a blouse. The Mozart symphony playing on her bedroom stereo system was entering its bright second movement, and she hummed along to it. As she came downstairs she still hadn’t quite figured out how she should handle her unexpected visitor. Maybe she should let him stay a while, try to play it cool.

The front door was wide open. She tutted. Where had he gone? For a walk around the garden, in the dark? ‘Edouard?’ she called out through the doorway.

Then she saw him. He was leaning through the open window of his car, his head and shoulders inside as though he was reaching for something.

‘What are you doing?’ she said, half-smiling. She trotted down the steps from the villa, breathing in the warm night scent of flowers.

His knees were bent and his body seemed to sag against the side of the car. He wasn’t moving. ‘Edouard, are you all right?’ Was he drunk?

She reached out a hand and shook his shoulder.

Edouard’s knees gave way and he flopped backwards. He crunched down on his back on the pebbles and lay staring up at her with sightless eyes. His throat was slashed open in a wound that gaped from ear to ear, cut to the spine. His body was soaked in blood.

Anna screamed. She turned and ran back towards the house. She slammed the door behind her and picked up the phone in the hallway with a shaking hand. It was dead.

She heard it again-the sound she’d heard before. This time it was clearer, louder. It was the metallic scraping of steel against steel. It was in the house. The living-room. A knife-blade dragging slowly, deliberately, down the bars of her birdcage.

She ran for the stairs. Her foot pressed against something soft, warm and wet. She looked down. It was one of her canaries, lying broken and bloody on the step. Her hands flew to her mouth.

Through the half-open door of the living-room she heard a laugh, the rasping chuckle of a man who was plainly enjoying his little game with her.

On the table by the foot of the stairs, the Anubis statue was standing where she’d left it. She snatched it up again in a trembling hand. She could hear footsteps coming towards her. She dashed back towards the stairs. Her mobile phone was in the bedroom. If she could get to it and lock herself in the bathroom…

Her head jerked back and she cried out in pain. The man coming up behind her was tall and muscular, with cropped steely hair and a face like granite. He yanked her hair again, twisted her around and punched her hard in the face with a gloved hand. Anna fell to the floor, her legs kicking. He bent down towards her. She lashed out with the Anubis and caught him across the cheekbone with a crunch.

Franco Bozza’s head snapped sideways with the blow. He put his gloved fingers to his face and studied the blood with an impassive look. Then he smiled. All right, the game was over. Now to business. He grabbed her wrist and twisted it harshly. She screamed again, and the statue fell from her hand and bounced down the stairs. She crawled away, and he watched her go. She was almost at the top of the staircase when he grabbed her again. He slammed her head against the banister rail and her vision exploded into white light. She slumped on her back, tasting blood.

He knelt over her, taking his time. His eyes were shining as he slid a hand inside his jacket and drew out the blade from its sheath with a smooth hiss of steel on synthetic fibre. Her eyes opened wide as he playfully drew the blade from her throat to her abdomen. Her breath came in rapid tremors. He kept her head pinned back with a fistful of her hair.

‘The information the Englishman was after,’ he whispered. ‘Give it to me. And I might let you live.’ He calmly held the knife against her cheek.

She managed to speak. Her voice sounded tiny. ‘What Englishman?’

She felt the coldness of the steel, and then she screamed in agony as he pressed the blade into her flesh. He took the knife away, looking at the three-inch gash. Blood streamed down her face. She shook her head from side to side, struggling against his grip. He held the knife against her throat. ‘Tell me what he wanted from you,’ he repeated in his rasping undertone. ‘Or I will slice you into small pieces.’

Her mind raced. ‘I gave him nothing,’ she insisted, blood trickling between her lips.

Bozza smiled. ‘Tell me the truth.’

‘I am,’ she protested. ‘He was looking for a document-an ancient script.’

Bozza nodded. This was what he’d been told. ‘Where is it?’ he whispered.

She paused, thinking hard. He pointed the knife at her eye and looked at her enquiringly. ‘Over the fireplace,’ she whimpered. ‘I-in the frame.’

His cold eyes looked into hers for a moment, as though assessing whether she was telling the truth. With deliberate movements he wiped the blade clean on the carpet and laid the knife down on the floor beside her head. Then he drew back his fist and smashed it into her face. Anna’s head lolled to the side.

Bozza left her lying on the stairs, sheathing his knife as he went down to the living-room. He ripped the frame down from the wall, broke the glass against the corner of the mantelpiece and shook the fragments out. He pulled the medieval script away from its mounting, rolled it up into a tight cylinder and slipped it into the deep inside pocket of his jacket.

So Manzini hadn’t given anything to the Englishman. Usberti would be pleased with him. He’d found the woman quickly and efficiently, and he had found what his boss had sent him to bring back.

Now he’d bring the woman round and enjoy her for a while. He loved the looks on their faces when they realized he wouldn’t let them live after all. That terror in their eyes, that delicious moment when they were so powerless in his grasp. It was even better than the slow torture and the screaming climax that came afterwards.

He stepped back into the hallway and his eyes narrowed. The woman was gone.

Anna staggered into her study. She could hear the sound of breaking glass downstairs as the frame was torn apart. Blood was dripping down her throat from her gashed cheek, the front of her blouse sticky and warm with it. Her head was spinning but she managed to focus on the desk. Her outstretched hand dripped spots of blood across her research notes. Her fingers closed around the notebook in its plastic wrapping. Clutching it tightly, half-blind with pain and nausea, she staggered back along the corridor towards the bedroom.

From the foot of the stairs Bozza saw the bedroom door close. He followed, climbing the stairs in his easy, unhurried walk. As he approached the bedroom door he was reaching for the plastic pouch on his belt.

The woman’s bedroom was empty. On the far side of the room was another door. Bozza tried the handle. It was bolted from inside.

Locked in her bathroom, Anna jabbed panic-stricken at her phone, smearing the plastic with bloody fingerprints. With a sick lurch she remembered it was out of credits. She dropped the phone, giddy with horror. She knew this madman wasn’t going to let her live. She was going to die horribly. Could she kill herself before he got to her? The window wasn’t high enough. She would only be crippled and he’d soon catch her again.

The door flew open with a crackle of splintering wood. Bozza strode across the room and slapped her to the floor. Her head cracked against the tiles and she passed out.

Her outflung hand was clutching something. He uncurled her bloody fingers, took it away from her and studied it.

‘Trying to hide this, were you?’ he whispered at her inert body. ‘Brave girl.’ He slipped the plastic-wrapped notebook into the pocket of his jacket, then took it off and hung it neatly over the back of a bathroom chair. Underneath he was wearing a double-sided shoulder holster, a small semi-automatic and spare clips under his left armpit and the sheathed knife under the right. First drawing out the knife and laying it down on the edge of the sink, he unzipped the pouch on his belt and took out the tightly folded overall. He pulled the rustling plastic garment over his head and smoothed it down carefully as he always did.