Join the Angelico Vespucci Admiration Society today – only $100.
As if! Jobo thought, returning to Google and checking if there were any other entries. There was just one, entitled angelicovespucci.1555.com
This site was altogether different. No cheap visuals, no crass music, just a very professional-looking biography of Vespucci, and a copy of an engraving of him. But, most importantly, across the top was written in copperplate:
ANGELICO VESPUCCI NEWS –
TITIAN’S FAMOUS PORTRAIT OF THE
KILLER HAS RE-EMERGED IN LONDON.
Immediately Jobo looked to see who had created the site. But there was no name, only an email address – avespucci-Venice.1555.
He typed a note:
I am interested in knowing more about this person. Can we compare notes?
Then he sent the message.
Jobo waited. No reply. Five minutes later there was still no reply. But when he came back into the office after an hour, having attended to business in the gallery, there was an email waiting for him.
Answer: What do you want to know?
Jobo wrote back: What can you tell me?
Answer: You want to know about Vespucci? Or his victims?
Jobo: Both.
Answer: Who are you?
Jobo: A fan.
Answer: Where are you based?
Jobo: Tokyo. You?
Answer: I’m everywhere.
Jobo: Can we talk?
Answer: We are talking.
Jobo: How did you hear about the painting coming to light?
Answer: Contacts.
Jobo: Who has it?
Answer: Wouldn’t you like to know.
Jobo: Do you know?
Answer: I know everything about Angelico Vespucci. You’ve heard of the legend ‘When the portrait emerges, so will the man’ – well, he’s back.
Nonplussed, Jobo paused for a moment before continuing to type.
Jobo: Who were Vespucci’s victims? I know about Larissa Vespucci and Claudia Moroni. Who were the others?
Answer: Vespucci chose his victims with care. He picked them for a reason.
Jobo: Don’t you know who his other victims were? Rumour has it that he killed four women.
Answer: Of course I know! After Claudia Moroni he killed Lena Arranti …
This was news to Jobo, the first time he had heard of her.
Then he murdered the Contessa di Fattori.
Surprised, Jobo considered the name, then remembered the woman who had been killed in Venice weeks earlier – Seraphina Morgan, previously Seraphina di Fattori. A relative? Was the newly murdered woman a descendant of the Contessa? If so, there might be a genuine connection between the 16th and 21st centuries. Between two murderers five hundred years apart.
The realisation made him uncomfortable and he typed out his next words carefully.
Jobo: You said Vespucci chose the women for a reason. Why did he choose them? I know he killed his wife because she was unfaithful, but why the others?
Answer: Why do you want to know so much?
Jobo: I’ve told you, I’m a fan. You must be too, or you wouldn’t have set up a website for Vespucci.
There was a long pause before the answer came back.
Answer: I worship at the shrine of Angelico Vespucci. He was a rare man, his reputation has been abused. What he did he did for a reason, which will be made clear in time. His acts were deeds of great beauty. He made murder into an art form, poetic, brutal, sensual.
Groaning, Jobo read the words and leaned back in his seat. The man was a lunatic. Some anonymous moron who had found his niche on the internet glorifying someone like Vespucci. A sick fantasist, getting a thrill from revelling in a murderer’s grotesque actions. He could imagine some sweaty nobody in a sleazy flat, endlessly crouched over a computer, building up a fan base for a dead killer.
Irritated, Jobo wrote back: No one should glorify murder.
Answer: So why are you asking all these questions? Or are you only interested in the painting?
Jobo: Have you seen it?
Answer: Of course.
Alerted, Jobo leaned towards his computer screen, typing hurriedly.
Jobo: Where is it?
Answer: I can’t tell you that. But it’s safe. He’s safe.
Jobo: Who’s safe?
Answer: Vespucci. I’ve told you, he’s back – and he’s killing again.
The dealer held his breath, his hands shaking as he typed out the next words.
Jobo: What are you talking about?
Answer: I’m talking about Seraphina di Fattori, Sally Egan and Harriet Forbes. Shall we chat again tomorrow, Mr Kido?
And with that, he broke the connection.
Sweating, Jobo wiped his forehead. The stranger had used his name! But how the hell did he know who he was? Had he given himself away? Or was the man enough of a computer geek to track his email address? Jesus, Jobo thought, alarmed, he was really out of his depth … Unnerved, he walked over to the window. Opening it, he breathed in the humid Tokyo air, but it seemed thick and tasted of tar. The absurd heatwave was glowering over the autumn trees, making their branches calligraphic symbols against the burning sky. And as he wiped his palms the first few drops of rain began outside. Then they stopped, drying on the bleached pavement below.
In the past, Jobo Kido’s fascination with murderers had only ever gone so far. It was true he wanted the Titian, but his admiration for evil had always been from a distance. At close quarters, it was terrifying. How did the man on the website know about the killings? And how had he connected them to Angelico Vespucci?
Jobo tried to calm himself. The murders had been in the news, on the internet – anyone could have found out about them. A fanatic could easily have made a connection with Vespucci. The present-day killer had skinned his victims, so had Vespucci. Some unbalanced mind could easily have paired the acts.
Some unbalanced mind could just as easily have committed them.
Uneasy, Jobo moved back to his seat. He thought fleetingly of Farina Ahmadi and wondered if he should call her, but dismissed the notion. She would just mock him. And if she didn’t, would the news tip her off, help her find the portrait? Likewise Triumph Jones … Jobo flicked over the pages in his diary, trying to engage his thoughts on anything that wasn’t Vespucci. But it didn’t work. He had no interest in lithographs any more – all his concentration was on the exchange he had just had over the internet.
Did the man really know where the Titian was? And if so, could Jobo somehow bypass his rivals to get it? The thought excited him. What risk wasn’t worth the chance of securing the portrait? He paced the room restlessly, knowing that, like last night, he wouldn’t sleep. Instead he would be waiting for his next website conversation.
A conversation with a freak. Or a killer.
27
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London
Having developed a chest infection, Gaspare Reni was kept in hospital, and Nino stayed at the convent gallery. He had tried to contact Sally Egan’s family, but had been told that her only living relative – her father – had Alzheimer’s and had been admitted to a nursing home. Further enquiries led him to Jean Netherton, who had helped to care for Mr Egan, and Nino had left her a message to get in touch with him.
In the meantime, he continued reading through the Ravenscourt notes. His research had been meticulous, thorough, dozens of little additions in the margin giving away his contacts.
Visit the Victoria and Albert, for painting … Check British Library for Joseph Hardone’s book, Diary of The Grand Tour, Volume 2.
And on page 56 of the second notebook, he had written –Sir Harold Greyly, Courtford Hall, Little Havensham, Norfolk. (Check him out for more information on Claudia Moroni.)