The Alchemist’s Code (16 page)

Oscar took the small rectangle piece of paper. “Let me see. Jürgen Herzog,
Antiquitätenhändler
, Berlin. There's also a phone number and an email address. They're all obviously false – he knew that we would find it. We'll analyse it, though, and maybe we'll find some fingerprints that aren't Bruno's.”

Oscar put the card into a plastic evidence bag and handed it to Viola, then turned his attention to the other object that was in the same page of Bruno's diary. It was a thin, ancient looking sheet of metal, dotted with rectangular or square holes.

“What do you think it is?” asked Oscar, while I studied the object.

“It's a Cardan grille, no doubt about it. And it's probably one of the reasons Bruno was killed.”

“A Cardan grille?” asked Viola, who was standing behind Oscar.

“Yes – a rather antiquated system for encrypting messages in code. The Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardan invented it in the sixteenth century,” he said in response to her curiosity. “You put the grille on a blank sheet of paper and write the message you want to encrypt, entering words or syllables inside the boxes on the grille. Then you join them together in a text that makes sense by connecting other words to the coded message. Obviously, the recipient of message must have the same identical grille to be able to decipher it.”

“It seems simple enough as a cipher,” said Viola.

“Yes. In fact, if it's not done properly it isn't very safe, because the secret text jumps right out at you. And if you lose the grille that reveals it, you can say goodbye to the message.”

Meanwhile, as he was speaking, I was looking at the two pages where the grille and the business card had been placed. One of the two had something written on it.

“Look at this, Oscar.”

It seemed that Bruno had tried to leave a message for me before putting the diary in the safe.

“Does that mean anything to you?” asked Oscar.

I shook my head sadly, reading and re-reading those three apparently random words. “Nothing, but it does look as though Bruno wanted to say something to me.”

On the table, a few centimetres from Bruno's diary, was an open package, still partially wrapped in plain brown paper. Oscar took it carefully and read the address. “Look here, Lorenzo.”

“'Lorenzo Aragona, via Chiatamone—' but that's the address of the Églantine.”

“I'll bet anything you want that the grille was inside this and Bruno opened it, suspecting something was up.”

I looked at the postmark of the package's city of origin. “Kiev, Ukraine.”

“Where did you say that the girl who helped you was from?” asked Oscar, tilting his head to one side.

“Russia, but her mother was Ukrainian.”

“Right, the circle's closed. We need to find her,” snapped Oscar, slipping the grille into another evidence bag.

“You'll be keeping that as evidence, right?” I asked, pointing to the bag.

“Of course.”

“Can I just make a copy on a piece of paper?”

“Well yes, but why? Have you thought of something?”

“Not yet, but if someone from Kiev took the trouble to send me this, it means that somewhere there's a message waiting for me to decipher it.”

Oscar nodded. When I'd finished, I returned it to him, sighed, then looked over Viola's shoulder at the door of the secret chamber. Oscar noticed and read my thoughts.

“All right, I'll take you home, so you can get ready. I can't ask any more of you. Although I would like to see the place where you were held captive—”

“I can show you it on the way to my house, it's only a few hundred metres from there.”

Events reconstructed by Lorenzo Aragona

Naples, January, 2013

We reached the decrepit mansion which I had left hours before and which was only a few hundred metres from my home.

“According to Anna I was monitored round the clock by cameras and microphones. She gave me the clothes I'm wearing right now, because she said mine were bugged.”

Oscar pulled out his gun and looked at Viola. “Let's hope we find her soon, she's got a lot of explaining to do. Come on, let's go and have a look at this famous apartment of yours.”

We went through the rusty gate and found ourselves in something like a forest.

Oscar pushed his way through the tangled weeds that surrounded the building. “This place has been abandoned for over fifty years, I'll bet, and so has the house.”

We entered the building, which was derelict and in ruins, and climbed to the top floor. The railing on the stairwell was rotten and the stairs themselves had completely fallen through in several places.

“What kind of place
is
this – it's bloody frightening in here!” said Oscar.

As we arrived at the front door I had walked out of a few hours earlier, I felt myself start to panic.

“Don't worry, you're not alone now.”

Where there once had been a bell there was now nothing but old wires, and the door itself was in a sorry state.

Oscar knocked. “Police, open up!”

No reply.

“Police, open up or we'll break down the door.”

Again no answer.

“All right, we'll do it the hard way.”

He backed off a few steps and kicked the door open as though it were held shut by a piece of string. “Too easy,” he said entering cautiously, his gun pointed into the cold darkness of the apartment. “Police! Anybody here?”

Once again there was no response, so he advanced a few metres inside, followed by me and Viola. He found a light switch, but it seemed that the whole building had been without electricity for who knows how long.

“Didn't you notice that there was no electricity this morning?” he asked in a whisper.

I shook my head. “I was in too much of a hurry to get away. And I was hallucinating.”

The two policemen switched on their torches and we proceeded in the direction of the first room; the kitchen. Oscar walked slowly, his gun aimed into the gloom of that cold, dirty place. His caution was almost excessive. I myself was surprised to find that the kitchen looked even more run down than I had noticed that morning. As though the last hallucinatory traces had gone, and things now appeared to me exactly as they were.

“She was here making coffee—” I said, in the throes of utter confusion, “but it all looks different now.”

“You're sure this is the right apartment?” asked Oscar.

“Of course I am.”

“Ok, stay calm – let's continue with the inspection.”

We left the kitchen and went down the hall until we reached another room, even shabbier than the kitchen. The floor was completely broken up, there was rubble everywhere, the ceiling and roof were smashed in several places, and there were holes here and there that you could see the sky through. In front of a blackened chimney, with its back turned toward us, was an old sofa that had once been covered in leather, and in the corner was a large cardboard box.

“Viola, check out that box while we continue with the other rooms.”

“It all looks so different from this morning,” I said, unable to comprehend.

“Maybe you were still under the influence of the drugs, as you said yourself,” suggested Oscar.

We went into the bedroom. At least that seemed the same as what I'd seen a few hours earlier. There was a bed – a simple iron frame with a mattress and blankets – a rotten, wooden bedside table, which still bore traces of Victorian decoration, the wardrobe from which I'd taken the clothes and a desk with a smashed leg, which was propped up on some bricks.

“There are some clothes wrapped in cellophane in the wardrobe – that's where I got the bugged clothes from.”

Oscar walked over and opened the doors, and a large rat, surprised by the intrusion, ran out squealing. Oscar had just enough time to get out of its way. “What the hell!” He returned to look inside the wardrobe, pointing the torch inside, and after a while turned to me. “Come here and see for yourself.”

I couldn't believe my eyes. Except for the dust, dirt and splinters of rotten wood, there was absolutely nothing in the wardrobe – no trace of clothing, with or without cellophane.

“These bastards are trying to drive me crazy, they've taken them away.”

Oscar looked at me with concern for a few seconds, then Viola entered the room and looked around in disgust. “God, this is awful. This place is a dump.”

“Literally—” he said. “Did you find anything of interest in that box?”

“Just some worthless junk – key rings, coins and a pile of toys.”

At her last word, a jolt ran through me.

“Did you say toys?”

“Yes, a lot of really old toys.”

“Of course – the box!” I said, slapping my forehead. All three of us went into the room containing the sofa and the box.

“The toys, my toys—” I said, digging frantically through the contents of the box.

“What does this mean?” asked Oscar, stooping to look.

I turned around, my eyes wild. “Last night I think, or it may have been one of the other days, that woman, the one who was pretending to be my wife, asked me to sort out this box of junk. I did, and I came across my old Spider-Man toy, the one I told you about – one I was really fond of as a kid.”

I took the little blue and red man out of my pocket and stared at him intently.

“The strange thing is that when I touched it, I had some kind of vision, though I can't clearly remember what it was now. My mind was blurred. Maybe if I concentrate—”

I stared at the doll for a few seconds in the hope that the phenomenon would repeat itself, but nothing happened. I emptied the contents of the box out onto the floor and began to rummage through the junk like a maniac. I was looking for something that would evoke memories. At that moment Oscar's phone rang.

“Yes, hello, yes, Valenti, what is it? I see, thanks, keep me informed if there are developments. Lorenzo?”

I wasn't paying attention, I was lost in my attempts to procure that vision again.

“Lorenzo, listen! There's nothing in here, and anyway, those hallucinations might have been caused by the drug, not the doll.”

I turned to look at him angrily. “What are you talking about? I don't remember the visions, but I remember this box and it was this old toy that set them off. Even Anna said it might be possible. Maybe there's some other object in here that can do the same thing—”

“Lorenzo, come on, there's nothing here. There's no crackling fire in the fireplace, no clothes in cellophane, no soft, warm sofa, no coffee… Lorenzo, there's none of that, nor of what you saw this morning or what, as you say, you saw while you were under the influence of the drugs. That was one of my colleagues on the phone just now. He and some other officers went to have a look at the old shop where you say you attacked that man.”

I looked at him, waiting for him to finish.

“They didn't find anything, just an abandoned warehouse like so many others in Naples. There were no sheets of paper with strange writing on them, nor was there a computer or anything else. Above all, there was no dead body.”

He paused, indicating the squalor around us. “And this is just an empty flat that's falling apart.”

“But these are my things, I recognise them.”

“Lorenzo, don't you understand?”

I stared at him with a stunned expression.

“You brought this box here yourself, you created all of this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that maybe you're in the grip of a profound depression, which is probably what's causing your hallucinations. The last time we spoke when you were still in full possession of your faculties, just after Bruno's murder, you told me you'd gone back to Zurich, but in reality nobody saw you. Àrtemis's parents, who have been looking after your wife with you since August, have been worried sick. The same goes for your brother Alex and your parents. They're all trying to help in whatever way they can, but it's been impossible to keep track of your movements. It‘s been hard for us, even though we've got more resources at our disposal than them. The pain made you lose touch with reality, Lorenzo, and so you created a fake one.”

I stood up and stared at him with a look of disappointment on my face. “You came here with your mind already made up, didn't you?”

“No, you're wrong.”

“You think I'm out of my mind, or maybe I've started drinking again, right? Just like I did years ago. Tell me to my face, Oscar, or do you feel too much sympathy for this poor sick man to speak frankly?”

“Lorenzo, I didn't say that you're sick.”

“Yes, you just did, you said I was depressed.”

“I only said that to try and make you understand what might have happened. There's nothing supernatural going on.”

“Then save your breath, I know how to find an explanation for all this on my own. If we've finished here I'm going home, to my real home, to pack my bags.”

Oscar ran his hand over his face. He looked suddenly exhausted. “Ok, all right. Calm down. We'll do whatever you want. Just let us drive you there.”

I hesitated.

“Aren't you even going to offer me a cup of coffee? Despite everything I'm doing for you?” said Oscar, in a feeble attempt to break the tension.

I smiled weakly.

We arrived in front of Palazzo Aragona and I strode purposefully towards the right side of the gate and pushed one of the tuffstone bricks that made up the wall where the gate itself was mounted. A hidden door, five centimetres thick, slid aside, revealing a small compartment from which I pulled out a bunch of keys.

“Ah, of course – secret doors, your trademark!” said Oscar.

“Yeah – chasing lost treasures is good for the imagination.” I was glad to have Oscar with me when I crossed the threshold of my real home. Upon entering, I was overcome by a kind of vertigo and it took all my strength not to faint from the emotion.