that this time he had no choice. The package found tucked away in the caves deep beneath the castle had seen to that.
Why here? he asked himself again. Why, of all the places in the world, of all the places that would welcome the attention such a discovery would bring, why had what could be the lost pages from the fabled Salus Totus, the legendary Book of Wholeness, had to turn up here? When had fate taken to wearing a clown’s mask?
He grunted his displeasure and dropped into the chair behind his desk. One week Professor Rousseau had promised him the job would take. No longer than one week to examine and document the pages, to determine whether they were genuine, and if so to stabilise their condition until they could be taken away and prepared for display. One short yet no doubt interminable week, with a stranger clattering around the castle, asking questions and expecting answers, and probably expecting him to be civil in the process.
He looked down at the file he’d been reviewing before the onshore wind had carried with it the thumping beat of an approaching engine, but his skin pulled achingly tight over his jaw and the words before him danced and spun and could have been printed in a different language for all the sense they made.
It could be worse, he rationalised, clamping down on the rising black cloud of his resentment, forcing himself to focus on the résumé in his hands. He flipped the page, turning to the photograph of the woman he was expecting. Reputedly one of the best conservators in the business, Professor Rousseau boasted more than forty years’ experience in the industry. And with short grey hair cut helmet-style around features that looked as if they’d been sculpted from parchment rather than skin, she looked the kind of person who enjoyed books more than people. If he had to put up with a visitor to his island, he could do much worse than this shrivelled-up scientist.
Maybe. And yet still this heavy sense of foreboding persisted in his gut; still the jagged line of his scar burned and stung, as if someone had dragged their nails down his face and chest and sliced open his wound.
One week, he thought, touching fingers to his burning cheek, half surprised when they didn’t come away wet and sticky with blood. One week with a stranger poking around his castle, asking questions, getting under his feet. And whoever she was, and however she looked, it would be one week too long.
CHAPTER TWO
DR GRACE HUNTER TOOK a gulp of sea air and did her best to ignore the butterflies that had seized control of her stomach and were right now threatening to carry it away. Excitement, she told herself. Anticipation. Maybe a little bit of motion sickness too, given the way the launch bounced and lurched over the chop.
But excitement. Definitely there was excitement.
The Salus Totus was the Holy Grail, the Troy of the conservatorial world, and the plum job of examining the pages discovered had fallen right into her lap. If the pages were authentic, and indeed the fabled long-lost pages, if she could prove they were no hoax, her studies of it and the papers she produced on it could make her career.
She should feel excited.
And yet there was something else beneath the thrill of the chase. Something else lurking below the anticipation of holding a page written hundreds of years ago, of feeling that connection between writer and reader that transcended the centuries and rendered time meaningless. And that something else twisted in her gut until the butterflies turned into a serpent that coiled and squirmed in her belly.
Difficult, Professor Rousseau had described Count Alessandro Volta, during her unexpected and rapid-fire phone call from the hospital yesterday, and when Grace had asked what she meant there’d been a distinct hesitation on the line, before other muffled voices had intruded, and she’d added a rushed, ‘I have to go. You’ll be fine.’
Sure. She’d be fine. She gulped in air as the boat ploughed resolutely through the chop and headed for the relative safety of the shore. Relative, because nothing about the rocky island and the imposing castle set upon it looked remotely welcoming. Not the rocky shore or the towering cliffs or the clouds that seemed to hover ominously above the brooding castle in an otherwise clear sky.
She frowned up at them. Lucky she was a scientist, really, and not some paranoid panic merchant who saw portents of doom in every swirling cloud or flutter of apprehension. She was here to do a job after all.
The skipper cut the engines, letting the wash carry the boat into the dock, while the other crew member secured a line, taming the motion before starting to offload cargo onto the dock, her duffel bag amongst it. She gathered her things, her leather backpack and her briefcase containing the Professor’s letter of introduction, along with her specialist tools, glancing up at the castle that sprawled so arrogantly across the clifftop. From sea level the sheer scale of the place was daunting. Up close it must be intimidating, with its high walls punctuated at intervals by perimeter towers topped with crenellated battlements, a central tower rising high above it all, almost sending out a challenge—enter if you dare.
Welcoming? Definitely not. A movement startled her and she jumped as a figure unexpectedly stepped from the shadows thrown by the rocky escarpment into the bright sunlight. Through grizzled eyes in a leathery face the man looked her over as one might consider an unwelcome stray dog found whimpering on the doorstep, before he grabbed her duffel in one dinner-plate sized hand and flung it in the back of a rusty Jeep. He made a lunge for the briefcase in her hand and she pulled her arm away. There was no way she was letting Mr Sensitive loose on her tools.
‘Thank you, but I’m good with this one.’
He grunted. ‘You are not who we were expecting,’ he said in gravelly English, his accent as thick as his ham-hock biceps, before he muttered a few words in Italian to the skipper and hauled himself into the driver’s seat.
‘No. Professor Rousseau sends her apologies. Her mother—’
‘The Count will not be pleased.’
She had no comeback to that, other than to swing herself onto the withered and cracked upholstery of the passenger seat before he could drive away without her.
The Jeep lurched into life and she clutched her briefcase tighter in her lap as the vehicle tore up the narrow road. If you could call it a road, Grace thought, as it narrowed to little more than a one-lane track, zig-zagging up the cliff-face. She made the mistake of looking out of the car as he took another impossibly tight bend, and saw stones spraying over the edge of the cliff, spilling towards the boat now shrinking below. She squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Do you think maybe you could drive a little slower?’
He shook his head gravely, muttered something under his breath.
‘Only I would like to get to look at the discovery before I die.’
‘The Count,’ he almost grunted, ignoring her attempt at humour, ‘he is expecting the Professor.’
‘Yes, you said. I tried to explain—’
‘He will not be pleased.’
Conversation was clearly not his forte. She tried to concentrate on the spectacular view across the expanse of Mediterranean to where the coastline of Italy was just visible in the distance, while trying not to think about the height of the cliff they were scaling that made such a magnificent view possible. But it was the subject of her driver’s concern who stole her concentration and reminded her that the real reason for this coiling uneasiness in her gut was not down to anticipation at working on
