The Fifth Horseman watched the police station from a bit down the street. That was one of the great things about Italy. There was always a handy outdoor café if you needed to keep an eye on a building. And the Mediterranean culture meant you could savor a wine or two as long as you wanted. No one ever rushed you except at the tourist places.
At last, his patience was rewarded, as he knew it would be. Peeters came out with that American-looking gentleman in the suit, and that European woman, also in civilian clothes. Two Italian policemen accompanied them.
Who were those two? Interpol?
The Fifth Horseman felt a little tremor of fear, quickly suppressed. Such an emotion was unworthy of him.
He rose and turned away quickly, fearful Peeters might recognize him. They were at a distance, and he wore sunglasses and a hat, but it paid to be careful.
The Fifth Horseman had already paid for his drink and snack, so he could leave right away. It was that sort of foresight, that sort of caution, that had gotten him so close to his goal.
The stars were in alignment, and the universe was giving up the paintings one after another. All his predictions were coming true. He was the one fated to decode the Four Horsemen.
The Fifth Horsemen walked quickly, but not too quickly to attract attention, until he got around the corner to where his rental car was parked. Another propitious gift of fate. Finding a parking place in any European city was like winning the lottery.
And it looked like he had lost. There was a parking ticket tucked under his windshield wiper. He cursed himself. He had forgotten to put more money in the meter, so focused he had been on his vigil outside the police station.
This caused him a mild concern as he grabbed the ticket and threw it in the glove compartment. Didn’t Son of Sam get caught because of a parking ticket?
Well, the stars had been propitious so far. They had not let him down yet, and they would not let him down now.
He hopped in his car, turned on the ignition, ground the gears in his haste, and sped off, getting to the intersection just as the police passed by. Two police cars. One with Peeters and the plainclothesmen, and another as an escort with two officers.
The Fifth Horseman waited. It made his heart and soul ache to wait, but he waited until another car passed before he got onto the road behind the police cars. It paid to be cautious. The stars might be propitious, but they did not reward fools.
The two patrol cars drove along the narrow two-lane street in downtown Bologna, a little canary yellow Fiat between them and him. He hung back a little.
They got to a yellow light and the patrol cars turned left. The Fiat stopped.
“Damn it!” the Fifth Horseman shouted, banging on the wheel. He craned his neck, trying to see around the corner, but he couldn’t.
“How dare he get in the way of my work,” he growled.
He felt tempted to get out and kill whoever was in that undersized European car.
He swallowed his rage and waited. While slaughtering that idiot might give short term satisfaction, it would only cause trouble and delay him. He was no psychopath, to kill randomly. He only killed when it furthered his work.
Once he knew the date of the Apocalypse, of course, things would be different. But it would be justified then.
At last, the light changed. The Fiat took what seemed like five thousand years to get into gear and turn. The Fifth Horseman almost honked but stopped himself at the last moment. That would only attract attention.
“Keep cool. Keep cool. You’re almost there. Only one more.”
The stars smiled on him, as he knew they would. The police cars were still on the same street, almost invisible with three cars between them and him.
Things had turned out better! Now he was less visible. That American-looking man in the suit had looked around suspiciously when he had first arrived at the police station. He was on the watch. He might notice a car following him. Hanging back like this acted as camouflage.
The Fifth Horseman followed them through another couple of turns, always hanging back, always trying to control his impatience. Peeters and the painting were there in the car. He had seen them. So close …
But where were they going? Peeters’s apartment was in the other direction.
The answer came soon enough, when the cars went down the ramp into the underground parking lot of the Sheraton.
The Fifth Horseman smiled as he kept driving past the hotel. So they were putting Peeters up in a room, thinking he’d be safe away from home. He’d soon find out differently.
He headed back to his own hotel. Although he had booked five more nights, he would cancel that booking. Too bad about the late cancellation fee. He had found a much more interesting hotel to stay in for his visit to Bologna.
* * *
Remi looked over the arrangements the police had made in the Sheraton and worried. Peeters was sharing a room with Daniel and a lone police officer. The painting was kept in a storage space behind the front desk, watched at all times by a member of hotel staff and a plainclothes policeman posing as a hotel employee. That was done for extra security. If the killer somehow tracked them down, he might go after the painting instead of Peeters. The retired accountant had taken some convincing to separate himself from his precious painting, but even that horrible man saw sense at last. He would be safer this way.
But would he be safe enough? The Italian police felt confident that a change of venue was sufficient. The officer was armed, as was Daniel.
Remi would have liked to have agreed with them, but the last case had made her nervous. The Cryptex Killer had struck again and again, out of the blue and without warning. The man hunting down the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse showed himself to be equally resourceful. She could not discount the possibility that he would show up.
She wished Torsson was here. Another gun would be good, but he was back at the station, helping run the investigation from that end. The police were following up the records of every tourist in Bologna, a massive list that was taking ages to wade through. Even assuming the killer had American nationality, that left several hundred people.
Remi sat alone in the hotel room next to Peeters’s, her phone at her side and her laptop open in front of her as she trawled through the information on the paintings once again, hoping to find something she had missed.
Her phone rang. Francesco Costa, the Sicilian astrologer who had been staying with Pier Paolo Manetti.
“The stars are very bad,” he said before she could open her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Remi asked.
“You asked me to look at the stars for today and the last few weeks. Naturally I do that as a matter of course for my work, but now I’ve taken a second look in light of events. To put it bluntly, if I wanted to commit crimes, now is the time to do it.”
Remi tensed. So this was what was egging the killer on, and why he had waited even though he knew Peeters had one of the paintings. He wanted the stars aligned correctly.
“Tell me more,” she said.
“Mars in Orion. While it’s difficult to see much from the photo of War, I believe Mars is the planet shown in the scholar’s book. It’s obvious that Orion is the constellation featured in Death. Also, Mars in approaching perigee, the spot in its orbit where it’s closest to Earth, and thus it’s brighter in the night sky than usual. Also, Venus is close to the Sun and hidden, thus negating her calming influence. The Moon—”
Remi cut him off. She didn’t need to know all the pseudoscientific details. “So if you wanted to commit a crime, what day would be the best?”
“Any time in the last month, getting better and better until the end of this week.”
Remi let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. She never thought she’d ever take a horoscope seriously, but the killer did and that was all that mattered.
“Did you get anything from the paintings?” she asked.
“Not much. The photos are too grainy. I’ll keep working on it.”
“Thank you, Signor Costa.”
She hung up. Rising from her place at the hotel room desk, she walked over to the window. Night had fallen. The hotel had been cheap, and their view was of nothing but an office building, now dark. The good views were on the other side of the hotel, looking out over Bologna’s skyline and those towers Daniel was so oddly engaged with. Strange fellow. So rough and so hypersensitive at the same time.
Thinking of her partner made her think of Cyril. He still hadn’t called or texted, and that left a hollow loneliness inside her that felt bottomless.
She grabbed her phone. Still no message. Damn him.
Before she could think, she texted him. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t, but she found her fingers flying across the screen.
“In Bologna and still on the case. We might be close to solving it. I’ll give you a call when I know when I'm coming back.”
She paused, finger hovering over the Send button.
Then she went back and deleted “give you a call” and replaced it with “notify.” More neutral and businesslike. It showed she was still angry.
She had to keep that much of her pride at least.
The response came almost instantly.
“Glad to hear you’re safe. We’ll talk more when you’re free.”
Remi’s heart leapt. That he had responded so quickly showed he felt bad about their fight. The neutral-sounding message was just his way of soothing his pride. But even that expressed that he wanted to talk.
It would have been nice if there had been a “sorry” in there somewhere.
He’s a middle-aged man who went through a bad divorce and is worried he won’t ever get married again. Go easy on him.
Well, he wouldn’t have to worry about that so much if he went easy on me.
Her fingers hesitated over the screen, trying to formulate a reply.
A text came in from Daniel. She opened it.
“All good over here except the company. I feel like killing this guy myself. How are you?”
Remi smiled. She imagined him falling asleep as Peeters droned on and on about his not-so-famous ancestor and his own theories of art. Poor man. She’d leave that job to him. Peeters didn’t want to talk to her anyway.
She texted back, “Better you than me.”
She got a crying emoji in return. That made her laugh.
Just then the lights went out.