He pulled out a chair and sat across the table from me, laying a folder between us. “My art history professor is a curator at the Petit Palais—do you know it?”
“That’s the museum that’s in a former cardinal’s palace, right?”
“Exactly. Specializing in medieval art from the time of the Avignon popes. There is one painting on display there by Simone Martini—a Madonna and Child, not very interesting to you, I think. But my professor showed me a drawing in the storage room—not on display—that she is certain was made by Martini. It’s not signed, but it was found in the city archives, filed along with some very old records about Martini’s house and studio. She let me make a photocopy of it.” He slid the folder across the table to me. Slowly I opened it. The image inside was a charcoal sketch of a man’s face—or, rather, parts of a face: a pair of eyes and a nose. The nose was long and broad and slightly crooked. It looked like a nose that had been broken in a fight.
It looked like the nose on the Shroud of Turin.
TWENTY MORE MINUTES CREPT BY AFTER PHILIPPE left me with the Martini sketch of the Shroud nose, and still no sign of Miranda. Finally, unable to sit still any longer, I went to the window that overlooked the library’s leafy courtyard. The window was open, and the late-morning air wafting from the street was getting steamy with heat and smells. Along with the mouthwatering aroma of onions and potatoes frying, I caught the sour tang of sewage—one of the signature perfumes of ancient cities, I’d decided. Down below, two kids scampered toward the children’s wing; they were trailed by a mother who—at 11 A.M.—already looked weary. On the opposite end of the courtyard, a stout dowager waddled behind a fat, waddling dog, reminding me of Miranda’s comments on dogs and gods.
Suddenly, floating up from below, I heard music—the angelic voices of a mighty choir, funneled through a puny speaker. To my surprise, I realized that the angels were singing in English: “Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!” Scanning for the source of the sound, I glimpsed movement across the street. A man stepped from a shadowy doorway, pulling a cell phone from a holster. As he raised the phone, the hymn swelled by a decibel or two, then ceased as abruptly as it had begun. The man put the phone to his ear, and I thought I heard him say, “Praise God.” I leaned out the window for a better view, and when I did, his face swiveled toward me.
I’d seen that face before. I’d seen it framed by upraised hands—one of them clutching a Bible, the other waving a sword—and I’d seen it in a Paris airport security photo, taken the day before I’d arrived in Avignon. As I stared, frozen in the open window, Reverend Jonah Ezekiel smiled at me for what seemed an eternity, his smile and his gaze never wavering, until a car—a sleek black sedan with dark windows—screeched to a stop directly in front of him. It paused just long enough for the preacher to slip into the backseat. Then it spun forward, skidded around a corner, and was gone.
Inspector Descartes didn’t answer until the fourth ring, and by then my throat had clamped shut in fear. As I fought and failed to form words, he snapped, “Oui? Il y a quelqu’un? C’est quoi, ?a?” Hearing no response, he hung up. I forced myself to draw a deep breath, then another, and hit the redial button. “Oui, Descartes,” he practically shouted when he answered.
“Inspector, it’s Bill Brockton,” I managed to choke out this time.
“Docteur? Is something wrong? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt, but I’m afraid something’s wrong. Terribly wrong. I’m afraid Reverend Jonah has Miranda.”
“Merde,” he cursed. “What has happened? Why do you think this?”
Haltingly, with frequent pauses to breathe and to tamp down my panic, I told him.
“Merde,” he repeated. “What kind of car? Which way did it go?”
“I don’t know. Black. Four doors. A Mercedes? A BMW? Something French? Hell, I don’t know, Inspector. I only saw it for a second before it disappeared around the corner.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“No. The windows—” Suddenly the phone vibrated in my hand; startled, I nearly dropped it out the window. When I saw the number of the incoming call, though, my heart soared. “Inspector, I have to go. I’m getting a call from Miranda.” I pushed the “send” button. “Miranda? Thank God. I was worried sick.”
“No need to worry,” said a man’s voice, smooth and sarcastic. “She’s in very good hands. She’s in God’s hands.” The floor seemed to drop away beneath me, and the vast, frescoed reading room spun. “But you can get her back if you do exactly as I say.”
“Who is this? And what do you want?”