Enigma Variations

By Bradley W. Wright

Master thief Justin Vincent and his computer hacker partner Ashna help people recover stolen items when the authorities can't. This time, their client needs his missing research notes back—notes that could help provide the solution to a century old musical mystery. The trail is cold, but the motive is clear: a £1 million reward offered to anyone who can decode the secret message hidden in Sir Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations. Justin and Ashna come up against a mystery steeped in arcane lore lurking behind what they thought was a simple case of theft and a shadowy foe who seems to be a step ahead of them at every turn. Will they be able to identify the thief and retrieve the formula before its dark forces are unleashed on an unsuspecting world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781509232413

Bradley W. Wright

Biography I am a writer, teacher, and educational technology professional. I was born in the midwest and grew up in Seattle but have been slowly migrating southward with stops in Portland, Eugene, San Francisco, and now Los Angeles where I live with my wife, son, and JiJi the cat. I studied Dance and English Literature as an undergraduate and Anthropology in grad school. Before embarking on my current career, I worked as a professional ballet dancer.

Book preview

Inc.

Mister Vincent, Jutting said, clearing his throat. I’m disappointed.

So am I, I replied.

What have you to be disappointed about? You’re the one who has invaded my property, seeking to steal from me.

I wouldn’t call it stealing. I’d call it recovering stolen property. The notes you have that were used by Saint Martin to decode the enigma were stolen from a friend of mine. I simply want them back.

Jutting’s eyes flashed with anger. Wolhardt is a fool! He had no idea how to use the information. The one useful thing Nigel Bathmore ever did for me was stealing those notes. Of course, he didn’t intend to be doing me a service. The idiot thought I would pay him. Jutting laughed, a short bark that echoed around the room and rang in my ears.

Still, you can’t really call it stealing.

I’ll call it what I like, Mister Vincent. You are in no position to argue semantics. I’m afraid I have important business to attend to this evening. Your presence is not wanted. You will remain our guest here in this room until morning. My people will turn you over to the chief constable tomorrow along with your possessions which are rather incriminating. I understand there are quite a few tools in your backpack specifically designed for breaking and entering. Chief Constable Doyle is a very loyal friend of mine. He will know just how to deal with you.

Interesting. I assumed you would just get rid of me.

Enigma Variations

by

Bradley W. Wright

The Justin Vincent Series, Book 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Enigma Variations

COPYRIGHT © 2020 by Bradley W. Wright

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Jennifer Greeff

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Crimson Rose Edition, 2020

Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-3240-6

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-3241-3

The Justin Vincent Series, Book 2

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

For S & T and all the robot eagles

Acknowledgments

The material quoted in Chapter 13 is from The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, in public domain, found at:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4028

~

Special thanks to Kevin Dolan (AKA Dino OʼDell) for advice and consulting on music theory matters.

Special thanks also to my editor Laura Kelly for not giving up, and forcing me to make this a better book.

Chapter 1

Two Brothers

May 25-June 6: Nice, Genoa, Paris

I borrowed my girlfriend Gabrielle’s BMW and left for Genoa mid-morning. We had attended an opening the night before and then stayed at Gabrielle’s apartment in town. I crept slowly along the Promenade des Anglais and up narrow, sun dappled streets. Traffic was light passing through the industrial outskirts of the city. Soon I merged onto the A10, leaving modern civilization behind, rolling back and forth between tranquil sea and low, green hills inland. I had made the trip up and down the coast several times but I was not yet immune to its charms. The Ligurian seaboard, unlike the melodramatic, breathtaking coast of my home in northern California, was warm, inviting, and restful to the eye. The drive from Nice to Genoa would take about two and half hours. I had plenty of time to admire the scenery. The American Bach Soloists’ recording of the Mass in B Minor came on the radio and I settled back in my seat as the first chord exploded like an epiphany of golden light from the speakers.

I was on my way to meet Signor Petru Ortoli about a job. I had very little information about Ortoli aside from his address in Genoa and his name. He was an associate of Santu Cartini, Gabrielle’s father. I assumed he was, like Signor Cartini, wealthy and connected to an old Corsican family. He was probably also connected to organized crime. Close association with mobsters was not something I would have chosen but I had fallen into that world while completing my previous job and had stayed there because of Gabrielle.

Driving that coast I thought about the escapade that had led me to the south of France and introduced me to Gabrielle. I thought about Benoit Legere, the psychopathic lawyer who had come very close to killing me before he took a fatal fall from a cliff in the hills outside of Nice. I thought about Patrice Antonetti and his chateau in the country with a basement crypt full of stolen art. It seemed like years ago but it was only six months since I had stood in Antonetti’s secret gallery and realized the painting I had come to recover was a fake. He had been double crossed by his associates back in San Francisco. I got the real painting back eventually. I didn’t know whether or not he ever figured out his copy was a forgery. We hadn’t heard a word from him. I had seen him a couple of times at events I attended with Gabrielle but he stayed away, across the room, and seemed not to even notice us. He knew Gabrielle’s father would not let him live if anything happened to her. He probably assumed I was under similar protection.

I thought, too, about the months I had spent with Gabrielle—hiking in the countryside, reading by the fire in the evenings, drinking a little too much, eating a bit too well. I felt dissipated and unsure of my own identity. I had been away from my home for too long. I yearned for some kind of activity. I needed to be planning and executing a job. Gabrielle’s father had asked me weeks before to meet with Signor Ortoli. I hadn’t realized I was ready until, two nights before, Gabrielle had looked up from her book and said simply, You have something you want to talk about. A statement, not a question. She was good at reading my face. That was when I put a name to the restlessness that had been building in me and decided to meet with Ortoli and consider the details of the job he was proposing. My relationship with Gabrielle was at an impasse. This job was a stopgap.

Two hours later, still mulling over recent history and projecting into the future, I finally reached the bridge spanning the Torrente Polcevera and, crossing over, saw the industrial flatlands of the port city down below. Above, climbing the hills to the north and east were the dense neighborhoods of Genoa. My destination lay outside the city to the east. I let my phone navigate and ended up circling around north of the city before coming back down toward the sea. I left the freeway there and piloted through residential streets where the homes grew larger and the lots more generous until finally, at a dead end, the pleasant robot voice announced we had arrived. A guard house crouched at the bottom of a long driveway that wound away up a wooded hillside. I stopped and lowered the window. The guard wore a blue blazer that bulged in conspicuous places. He nodded to me.

Justin Vincent, I said. "Sono qui per visitare il Signor Ortoli." My Italian was not great but it was getting better. The guard nodded again and spoke quietly into his lapel.

"Continua," he said, gesturing toward a grove of trees, his face as blank and unreadable as an Easter Island Moai. I followed his taciturn advice and continued up the driveway, passing through the trees, dappled sunlight on the windshield, then emerging into a circular drive at the front of a typical, two-story roman villa of the luxurious sort. The lower part was stone, the upper part red brick. Green shutters stood at the ready to close off the arched windows. A fountain surrounded by a low stone wall that looked like it could be as old as the hillside itself stood in the center of the drive, water dancing in the sunlight. I parked the car, stepped out into the warm air, and surveyed the grounds for a moment. When I turned back to the house I was surprised to see a man standing just outside the main entrance. White haired and small, dressed in linen trousers rolled at the ankle and an untucked shirt, he seemed to have materialized out of thin air.

Mr. Vincent, he called, please come in.

Signor Ortoli. I strode up to the entry, holding out my hand. Pleased to meet you. He took my hand in a strong grip and gestured me into the entry hall.

"Tè freddo? he asked. Limonata?"

Thanks, I replied. Iced tea would be fine. We passed through a barrel vaulted entry hall with a floor of exquisite tile—a mosaic with a white ground and black arabesques and garlands arrayed in an almost mandala-like pattern. Signor Ortoli gestured to a uniformed woman standing nearby, speaking to her in rapid Corsican. She hurried off at once. A light hand on my arm, he continued leading me through a reception room and out to the central courtyard of the house.

Thank you for coming, he said as he led me onto the covered porch that wrapped around the courtyard. Please sit.

Doric columns supported the porch roof. Between the columns, arched openings revealed geometric arrays of plantings, white gravel paths, pools and fountains. Groupings of elegantly curved wicker furniture were spaced along a gallery floored in blue and white tile. I seated myself in an aerodynamic lounge chair and he sat across from me.

You have a beautiful home, Signor Ortoli, I said.

He waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss the compliment. It’s fine, he answered. My ancestral home is where my heart is, Mr. Vincent. But sometimes I must come to the mainland for business. I have several real estate ventures near Genova that require oversight. He stopped, staring blankly into the bright courtyard. My ancestral home, he continued with a sigh, is not so pleasant now though, not so restful. Something is missing. He turned to me with a steady gaze. I don’t like small talk and you don’t strike me as a man who does either. Signor Cartini recommended you. He says you are capable of recovering missing things with discretion.

Maybe, I answered, sizing him up. He reminded me of Gabrielle’s father—not a large or physically powerful man but a man used to power, a man fully engaged in the moment, not missing anything that could be useful, his brain cataloging and interpreting with intense focus. I would need to know the details, I continued, letting the statement hang between us as an invitation. The woman we had seen earlier arrived with a tray and set out glasses of iced tea, lemon, sugar. She smiled at me as she handed me the glass and I smiled back, thanking her.

The details, Signor Ortoli said with a deep breath after the woman departed. I have a brother, Carlu, two years younger than me. When our father passed away he left my brother a sizable sum but he left me the family business. Partly, he showed this by leaving me the family home and everything in it, including a painting. A very old painting of our great grandfather. It is small, he held out his hands, indicating a painting maybe fourteen inches by ten. It was painted by Filippo Agricola. My brother has coveted that painting for many years. He always felt he was the better businessman, that our father should have left the family business to him. We had a falling out over this and we have barely spoken for twenty years. The painting is a symbol for him. I know that it was he who stole it. No one else would bother or dare. The painting itself is valuable but not something a collector would want. Only a museum would want to buy it but no museum would touch it, knowing that it is stolen and belongs to me. Its value to me, though, is inestimable. It has to be my brother who stole it. I would like you to get it back, Mr. Vincent. The painting belongs above the mantel in my house, not with my brother. It must go to my son, not his. It must be recovered quietly. I would not use force against my own brother. I need an expert thief.

I leaned back in my chair, sipping my tea. The story interested me. I found myself liking Signor Ortoli. We had barely met but I could tell by his lined face and the way he spoke that he was a man who adhered to principles. They might not all be principles I would agree with but at least he would be predictable. I imagined I would hear a very different version of this story were I to speak with his brother. Signor Ortoli clearly believed strongly in his claim. His brother probably did too. It would take years of Freudian psychoanalysis to tease out the knot of contention between them. If Ortoli was telling the truth, though, the painting did legally belong to him. Also, I felt the restlessness rising in me. My brain was already starting to work on the problem, before I even knew the details. I had to admit to myself that I was willing to consider it.

And where does your brother live Signor Ortoli? I asked. Where do you believe he is keeping the painting?

****

I arrived in Paris by train two days later, rolling through the thirteenth arrondissement past old, mansard-roofed apartment blocks with bedding airing on the balconies and into Gare D’Austerlitz. The day was unseasonably warm and the city had that feeling cities get on the first warm day of spring. Men sported shirt sleeves. Women wore light dresses. Children skipped and laughed. Signor Ortoli’s brother had a house in the fourteenth arrondissement on Rue Cassini near the Cimetière Montparnasse. I had managed to book an Airbnb apartment on the same block, opposite side of the street. It was a tiny apartment but it would do. I had it for two weeks although I hoped I wouldn’t need it for that long. I had been planning on riding the metro from Gare d’Austerlitz but it was less than two miles to my Airbnb and the weather was so nice I decided to walk.

I strolled along Boulevard Saint-Marcel, enjoying the warmth, the trees sprouting new green leaves, the clinking of glassware in the cafés. Even the smell of Paris—whiffs of sewer gas, strong tobacco smoke, coffee, diesel, damp basement exhalations from ancient buildings—seemed pleasant in the haze of spring. Paris was one of my favorite cities and it had been too long since I had spent time just walking its broad boulevards and narrow alleys.

I stopped a couple of times along the way for the kinds of Parisian treats that just weren’t the same anywhere else—a café crème, a macaron—but did eventually turn onto Rue Cassini and find the building where I would be staying. Four stories high with flattened columns and stacked ornamentation placing it clearly in the deco period, the apartment block blended seamlessly into the character of the neighborhood. A rack of Velib public bikes stood just outside the front door. The owner had given me a code for the outer door and I was to check in with the concierge for the keys to the apartment itself. Inside, I found a tiny foyer with a gray marble floor. The concierge’s office adjoined the lobby, the solid oak door ajar. I knocked and poked my head in. A small woman, maybe five feet tall, with short hair going gray and a broom clutched tightly in one hand came to the door. Her French was heavily accented with what I took to be her native Portuguese and mine was probably just as difficult for her to understand. I had been practicing French with Gabrielle for months but I was still only an intermediate speaker. Eventually, after much back and forth, we established that I was the guest of Monsieur Thibault and it was okay to give me the keys.

I rode a clattery elevator up to the third floor, found the right number, and managed to make the key work in the lock. Inside at last, I dropped my heavy rucksack in the entry hall and gave myself a tour of the apartment. An aroma of floor soap and tobacco permeated the place, swirling ahead of me as I explored a miniature kitchen off the entry hall, hardly larger than a closet, a living room maybe twelve feet by ten, a bedroom of similar size completely taken up by an Ikea closet unit that stretched the full length of one wall and a queen sized bed, and a bathroom even smaller than the kitchen. Standing at the window in the living room, I knew that I had chosen well. Carlu Ortoli’s house lay nearly directly across the street. I would be able to stake it out easily. First, though, I would need provisions. There was a grocery store a couple of blocks away. I emptied my backpack and set off.

****

I spent the next two days watching Ortoli’s house, eating baguettes and drinking coffee while I observed the routines of the security guards and the neighborhood, making notes. Three times I saw Ortoli leave and three times return, picked up or dropped off by a driver in a shiny black Mercedes SUV. He wore dark sunglasses but he was unmistakably the man of the house. He looked and moved like a slightly younger version of his brother. Twice a woman with high cheekbones and straight, dark hair accompanied him. She looked thirty years younger but also somehow protective and maternal.

The house itself was a typical four-story early Belle Époque edifice with elements of Byzantine, Moorish, and gothic architecture. The windows were arched and each had its own wrought iron balcony. A portico of Corinthian columns surrounded the front door and a jutting cupola broke the slate tiled roof line.

Ortoli’s security seemed very good. They were professional and well trained. During the day, there was always a man outside the house and one somewhere inside. At night, just one guard plus probably remotely monitored systems. They didn’t lose focus, slip away for a smoke, get caught up in conversations with people from the neighborhood. As I had suspected, they were not native French speakers. By using a shotgun mic I was able to determine that they spoke Corsican when conversing with Ortoli. If my plan ended up requiring me to interact with them, I would hopefully be able to speak limited French without giving away my non-native speaker status. I needed to figure out some sort of convincing ruse to get inside and case the house. I had to see the interior before I would be able to plan my next step but it wasn’t going to be easy. It was time to call on my partner Ashna.

It felt weird to call Ashna my partner but after I recovered my friend Valerie’s stolen painting—with a fair amount of help from Ashna—she had convinced me she wanted to be a full accomplice the next time I took on a job. I normally liked to plan, work out details, and execute on my own. I had always been a loner when it came to my work—be it art, or my past career as a cat burglar. There weren’t many people I could see myself partnering with but something about Ashna made me think it might work out. Longtime friend, highly skilled programmer and hacker, intense and no-nonsense personality—she was a huge asset and definitely worth a fifty-fifty split.

The morning of my third day I made coffee and sat down in the chair I had dragged over to the open window overlooking the street. It was sunny and warm and the window was angled enough toward the east to admit a shaft of sunlight. The owner of the apartment had a window box full of nasturtiums in full bloom. I inhaled the sweet aroma of the flowers and sipped my coffee while composing a quick text to Ashna.

—Need some help. Sending details via email.—

It was late evening in San Francisco but she responded within a few minutes.

—Cool. Awaiting your communiqué.—

I opened my laptop and quickly typed up the details including a brief outline of the job, Ortoli’s Paris address, and my observations. I encrypted the document with a ridiculously strong password Ashna had forced me to commit to memory, and then sent it off to her from my Protonmail account. After I sent it I deleted the unencrypted version and spent a few minutes writing an email to an old friend who lived in Paris, letting him know I was around for a few days. Soon, my phone buzzed with an incoming text message:

—Doing some digging. Will reply soon.—

I went for a walk around the neighborhood and stopped at the local brasserie for breakfast. The setup had me a little perplexed. Normally I liked to enter buildings only when they were empty. Lately, I had found myself needing to break that rule more often than I liked. A new set of skills and a reconsideration of strategy was needed. On my way back in, I ran into the concierge in the lobby mopping the floor. I nodded hello to her and was about to continue upstairs but, on a sudden instinct, decided to ask her about Ortoli. Apartment building concierges in Paris were famous for knowing everyone’s business. They were discreet but watchful and knowledgeable, not just of their own buildings but of the neighborhood.

Pardon, Madame. The house across the street, I said in my halting French, gesturing toward it. Does a celebrity live there? Someone famous? There are always security men outside.

She stopped mopping and leaned on the handle, happy to talk. A rich man, she responded, wiping her forehead with a handkerchief from the pocket of her gray smock. Some kind of gangster. Corsican. The word sounded like a truly vile insult the way she said it. She looked back and forth as if checking to see that no one else was nearby to hear, then held her hand up to her nose, twisting it back and forth in a very French gesture I recognized to mean intoxicated. Always drunk, she said. Every night passing out. I see the guards and his woman carry him out of the car sometimes. Other times, I see him stumble home from the bar.

I shook my head, trying to feign a scandalized look. Oh well, I responded. Many people drink too much. It’s a sad affliction.

Also, the smuggling. Things go out but I don’t see them go in. Trucks in the night. Very bad. From where do they come?

I can’t say Madame. It sounds very disturbing, I replied, shrugging. She shrugged too, shaking her head sadly, and went back to sweeping. This was interesting intelligence. If things came out of the house that were not seen going in, it could mean there was a secret entrance.

Upstairs, I checked my email and saw a response from Ashna waiting. I clicked to open it, entered the password to decrypt the file, and began reading.

This Ortoli character uses France Telecom for internet access. I got an associate who speaks native French