Ben hit the piano again. The pedestal hummed through the air. Another shuddering crash. The leg gave way and folded out from underneath the keyboard. The front corner of the instrument tipped downwards and he stepped quickly out of its way.

A ton of iron frame and heavy wooden casing toppled over and smashed through the plinth it stood on. Splinters flew. The massive ringing chord of the fallen piano filled the whole museum with a cacophony of sound.

Germana was getting very scared now. There were thieves in the place. She reached the bottom of the stairs and waddled across the hall to the ladies’ toilets. She wedged herself into a cubicle and bolted the door. Her heart was pounding and her breathing came in rasping gulps. She felt the shape of her mobile in her pocket. Yes. Call the police.

Leigh was standing over the wrecked piano with her mouth hanging open. All her father’s work, hundreds of hours he’d spent restoring the valuable instrument. The loss of this piece of musical heritage. It was terrible, sickening.

The strings were still resonating as Ben picked up the smashed leg. He hoped it had been worth it. He pulled away at splintered bits around the broken end. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said. He picked up the saw and hacked frantically at the end of the leg. The sharp blade skipped off a splinter and sank into his hand, biting at the flesh and drawing blood from a jagged gash. He swore and ignored the pain. He sawed harder. Leigh was standing at his shoulder, her eyes widening.

He blew sawdust away, wiped blood off the wood. Nothing.

‘This wood is solid,’ he said. ‘There’s no hollow.’

Germana spoke in a flurry to the police switchboard. There were thieves in the Museo Visconti. Relief spread over her face as the man’s voice on the other end of the line reassured her. The police were on their way.

Ben glared up at Leigh. ‘You said you were sure.’

‘I-maybe it was the left leg.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he muttered. He jumped to his feet, glancing at his watch.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘I will be too, when someone walks in on us.’ He grabbed the pedestal and raised it up again. The devastated instrument was lying like a beached whale with its remaining front leg sticking out at an angle. Ben brought the pedestal down hard. Another tremendous crash filled the museum. Leigh covered her ears.

Ben stood back. The leg had broken cleanly away. He dropped the pedestal with a clang on the wooden floor and fell on his knees. He picked up the severed leg.

It was hollow. His heart jumped. He pushed two fingers inside the smooth cavity and felt something.

There was a roll of paper inside. He turned the leg upside down and shook it out. The tight roll was old and yellowed, tied neatly around the middle with a ribbon. It fell on the floor amongst the wreckage of the smashed piano.

Leigh knelt and snatched it up. She picked at the ribbon and unfurled the single sheet, handling it as though it could break apart at the slightest touch. ‘My God, this is it,’ she said, staring at it. The ink was faded, but there was no mistaking the handwriting and the signature.

She was holding her father’s prize. The Mozart letter.

When she heard the sirens, Germana Bianchi ventured out of the toilet and opened up the front door to let the police in. She pointed and jabbered and led them through towards the piano room where the robbers had been. A whole gang of them, vicious, armed. She was lucky to be alive.

They rounded the corner. The keyboard exhibit room was empty. They all gaped speechlessly at the wrecked piano. Who would do this? It was senseless.

The thieves were far away by then, the old Fiat lost in the crazy sea of Milanese traffic.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Ben drove fast out of Milan, wanting to put as much distance between the city and themselves as possible. He checked his mirror every few minutes. Nobody was following them. Sleet and hail hammered the Fiat’s windscreen for two hours as they headed north-east towards the Austrian border. Beside him, Leigh was bent over the old letter, deep in thought. Signs flashed up for autostrada services.

The motorway cafeteria was half-empty. They bought two coffees and headed for a corner table that was far from the other diners and close to an emergency exit. Ben sat facing the room and kept an eye on the entrance.

Neither of them had eaten anything since the night before, but the letter came first. Leigh unrolled and flattened it carefully across the plastic table, using the salt and pepper mills to weigh down the edges and stop it from springing back into a tight curl.

‘This is so precious,’ she said, running her fingers over the aged, faded paper.

‘Fake or no fake, it’s only precious if it can teach us something.’ Ben took Oliver’s file out of his bag and opened up his notebook. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got. How’s your German?’

‘I can sing it better than I can translate it. How’s yours?’

‘I can speak it better than I can write it.’ He ran his eye over the handwriting. Was this really Mozart’s original hand? It looked authentic enough, but then, what did he know? He studied it up close. The writing was scratchy in places, and it looked as though the letter had been dashed off in the back of a carriage.

The best place to start was from the top. ‘Mein liebster Freund Gustav,’ he read. ‘My dearest friend Gustav.’

‘Good start.’

‘That’s the easy bit,’ he said.

They worked for an hour, and the coffee cooled untouched on the table. The translation came together very slowly, piece by piece. Ben glanced over his shoulder around the room every few seconds, checking for any unwelcome company.

‘What’s Die Zauberflöte?’ he asked.

‘That’s easy. The Magic Flute. What about this word?’ she said, pointing. ‘I can’t make it out.’ She chewed her pen thoughtfully.

‘It’s Adler.’

‘Adler?’

‘Adler is eagle’, Ben said, biting his lip. It didn’t mean anything. He filled the word into his patchy translation. Understanding could come later. First, get it all down.

It took another three coffees and several pages of crossed-out notes before the translation had taken shape. Ben turned the notebook sideways on the table so that they could read it together.

Vienna

16 November 1791

My Dearest Friend Gustav,

It is in great haste that I pen this letter to you, and I hope with all my heart that it may reach you in time. I so wish I could write to you with only good tidings about the magnificent reception of The Magic Flute. But alas I have more pressing things to relate to you. There is nothing more pleasant than the freedom to live peacefully and quietly, and how I wish that could be for our Brethren! However, God seems to have willed it otherwise.

Yesterday I was taking my favourite walk near the Opera when I met our friend and brother ‘Z’. He was most distressed and agitated, and when I asked him what was wrong he told me of new developments. As you know, ‘Z’ is privy to certain information that has been discussed at the meetings of the Order of Ra. Thanks I am sure in no small part to the favours that our Emperor has placed upon The Eagle, our enemies grow stronger and more influential with each passing day. I fear that the success of my opera has angered them exceedingly and that our Craft may be in greater danger than ever before. Our friend advises great caution in all our movements. I urge you to be most careful, my dear Gustav. Do not trust strangers. The Order of Ra has agents everywhere, and not only in our beloved Austria.

I am sorry for the brevity of this letter, but I will sign off now in the deepest hope that my warning may reach you before the forces pledged to destroy us can do greater harm. Keep yourself safe and well. I send my love to your dear Katarina and am always