The Turin Shroud Secret by Sam Christer Read Free Book Online Page A

audacity to imaginethat this man might stop troubling me just because he is dead?
    JOSEPH (ignoring the outburst)
    I have money, power and influence. All of which you know you will need in abundance in the nearest of future. I beg you to
     reconsider.
    NICODEMUS (touching Pilate’s sleeve)
    You would do well to listen to him. It is nothing to you to give up the corpse of this man.
    PILATE (pacing away)
    It is plenty – and you know it, Nicodemus.
    JOSEPH (following PILATE)
    It is a favour I will never forget – one I will gladly repay.
    PILATE (hand to chin)
    This is what is possible. You may have your crucified Jew, but he must remain in your tomb until a year has passed. Only then
     may his family take his body.
    ‘Okay – cut. Cut there!’
    The instruction comes from an unseen male with a Scandinavian lilt in his voice. ‘Tack själv – thank you. Stand down, please.’
    Sarah Kenny looks like she’s just witnessed a real-lifemiracle. ‘I’ll get Mr Svenson now.’ She bounces away, chasing the Swedish echo.
    ‘Look at her, Little Miss Bright Eyes.’ Mitzi’s gaze tracks the assistant. ‘So loved-up it almost hurts.’
    Nic fakes a frown. ‘I thought you were on a quest to get everyone
loved-up?’
    She glares at him. ‘Not everyone – just dumb partners who are living too much in the past.’

17
    DOWNTOWN, LOS ANGELES
    Twenty-four-year-old Emma Varley stares in the mirror over the row of cracked and filthy sinks in the staff washroom. Like
     a zillion women before her, she wishes things were different.
    She peers in particular at a thumb-sized strawberry birthmark in the middle of her left cheek. Her mom always told her it
     looked like a cute dimple. If she ever earns any decent money, she’ll have surgery. Until then she does her best with cheap
     concealers and powder.
    Now that she’s been tricked into looking at herself, she finds other things to hate. Thick brown hair that won’t grow a decent
     length without frizzing and eyes that are so damned short-sighted they need itchy contacts or bottle-lens glasses.She wishes her nose were smaller, her chin longer, her cheeks less fat.
    Even retreating from the mirror has its dangers. As she stands back she’s reminded that her breasts are too small, her waist
     too big and legs too short. Her mom says looks aren’t everything – but in LA it sure as hell feels as though they are.
    The girls at work bully her, make her life unbearable. They’re such douchebags they even make the manager’s life hard. They
     flirt with him and mock him, tease him with flashes of breasts and legs then ask him about the girlfriend they know he doesn’t
     have, possibly never has had. They call him Fish Face.
    Emma leaves the washroom the way she always does – angry and depressed. Head down and hand self-consciously over her birthmark,
     she veers towards the exit and the prospect of some fresh air.
    ‘Hey, watch what you’re doing!’
    She’s barged into Fish Face and made his day as bad as hers. She’s knocked a cup of piping-hot black coffee over his pants
     and shoes. Now he’s dancing like a scalded cat.
    ‘Oh God, I’m sorry!’ She takes the cup from his left hand and a soggy clipboard and papers from the other. ‘I’ve got some
     tissues.
Sorry.’
She puts his things down and pulls a wrap pack of Kleenex from her purse. ‘What a mess. I’m so—’
    He turns and walks away. Leaves her hanging. Strides angrily towards the men’s room.
    ‘God almighty!’ Emma stamps her feet. She’d scream the f-word and pull her ugly hair out if it was in her characterto do that. But it isn’t. That’s not how she’s been brought up. She takes deep breaths and tries to calm down. If she gets
     fired, she gets fired. It’s a crappy job anyway.

18
    ANTERONUS FILMS, CULVER CITY
    When Matthias Svenson appears, Mitzi immediately understands why Sarah Kenny and probably every other female on the film lot
     has fallen for him. Late thirties, he has a thick mane