The Relic of San Fruttuoso
A Day of Intentional Relaxation
The air in the small Ligurian hamlet of San Fruttuoso was thick with salt, sun-warmed stone, and the scent of basil. Accessible only by boat or a grueling hike, it was exactly the kind of place Elias Vance needed. After the suffocating, corporate darkness of the Alps, the brilliant turquoise of the Mediterranean felt like a balm.
They were perched on the terrace of a small trattoria carved into the cliff face, overlooking the pebble beach and the thousand-year-old Abbey of San Fruttuoso.
"This is it, Elias," Lena said, raising a glass of crisp, white local wine. "Rule Number One of the New Retirement: No cases that involve snow, finance, or anything with a military background. Today is for carbs, sunshine, and pretending we're normal."
Markus, thoroughly enjoying a plate of trofie al pesto, nodded vigorously. "And no reading the local news! Just appreciate the aesthetic. That abbey is a masterwork of Romanesque simplicity."
Elias, for the first time in weeks, was genuinely trying. He had surrendered his phone to Lena, who promised to screen out anything that smelled like trouble. He watched the light glint off the gentle waves, the sun heating the old scars on his hands. It felt almost… boring.
"The architecture isn't simple, Markus," Elias observed idly, pointing toward the Abbey's main tower. "It's functional. Look at the lower archways—they were designed to flood with the high tide. It was built that way to be protected, or maybe even to flush out an attacker."
Lena sighed, rubbing her temples. "One observation, Elias. Just one, and you've already turned a UNESCO site into a tactical fortress."
He smiled, a genuine, relaxed curl of his lips. "Force of habit. My apologies. The pesto is excellent."
The Sunken Secret
After lunch, determined to fully embrace the relaxation mandate, Elias decided to swim. The bay was famous for the submerged bronze statue, the Christ of the Abyss, a silent guardian twenty meters below the surface.
He didn't have diving gear, but Elias was a powerful, lifelong swimmer. He donned a simple mask and snorkel, paddling out into the azure water.
The sun was high, and the water was crystal clear. He swam leisurely, enjoying the effortless glide. But the detective's eye—the one thing he truly couldn't retire—still scanned.
As he kicked past a shallow outcropping of rock, near the sheer face of the cliff that hid the small, secluded monastery garden, he noticed something unnatural.
It wasn't the marine life, or the familiar shadows of the seabed. It was a discoloration on the white, chalky rock, about three meters down. A streak of color that didn't belong: a thin, vertical line of vibrant, rusty orange.
Elias took a deep breath and dove. The water was cold, a shocking contrast to the surface air. He swam down, finning steadily against the gentle current.
He reached the spot, pushing a clump of seaweed aside. The orange stain was small, no thicker than his thumb, and it wasn't paint. It was a recent run-off, seeping from a hairline fissure in the rock face that disappeared into the ancient, dry stone wall that formed the boundary of the monastery garden above.
He scraped at the stain with his nail. It wasn't simple rust. It was the color of highly oxidized metal, possibly copper or bronze, combined with a faint, oily residue that smelled metallic and chemical, even underwater.
More telling was what he found next to the fissure. Wedged deep into a crevice was a short length of thin, reinforced nylon cord, no longer than a shoelace, frayed at one end. It was the same kind of cord used for specialized rigging, or more commonly, for sealing high-security containers or crates.
Elias ascended quickly, spitting out his snorkel, his heart pounding a quick rhythm against the quiet calm of the bay. Rigging. Oxidized metal. A faint chemical smell.
Someone hadn't just dumped something here. Someone had lowered something—or perhaps lifted something—along that cliff face, and the rope had scraped, leaving the metallic streak from the object's casing or surface.
And the only building on that cliff face was the ancient, secluded Abbey of San Fruttuoso, a place devoted to monastic quiet and prayer.
The Garden Wall
Elias climbed out, wiping the salt from his eyes. He walked briskly toward his friends, his wet hair dripping onto the pristine marble tiles of the terrace.
"Relaxation session is officially over," he announced, retrieving his phone from Lena's hand.
Lena looked up, instantly seeing the shift from sun-drunk tourist to razor-sharp investigator. "What did you find? A better batch of pesto?"
"I found a chemical signature where there shouldn't be one," Elias stated. "And a piece of security rigging cord. Whatever was handled, it was heavy, metallic, and it came from the direction of the Abbey's garden wall."
Markus, ever the historian, grew serious. "The Abbey houses the Mausoleum of the Doria family. A very wealthy, powerful Genoese maritime dynasty. The crypts below the main chapel are full of their remains and—legend has it—some very valuable family artifacts. They had a treasury down there."
"Treasury," Elias repeated, nodding. "Heavy, metallic. Let's assume that whatever left that stain on the rock wasn't removed through the front door."
"So, what's the play, Detective?" Lena asked, already gathering her things. "We call the local Carabinieri? Tell them we found a rusty streak and we suspect grave robbers at a millennium-old church?"
Elias shook his head, looking up at the ancient, weathered walls of the Abbey. "No. That's a tourist problem. This is a time and access problem. Someone used this secluded spot to move something important, and they were trying to be silent. They won't have gone far."
He looked at Markus, the art curator. "The Abbey is a museum now. You're an international curator. You know how to get into the places the public can't. Get us a private tour of the Doria Crypts. Check the security, the locks, the humidity levels—anything that tells us if the treasures within are genuine, or if a recent swap was made."
Then he looked at Lena, the pragmatist. "The cord I found is a specific type of marine rigging. I need you to find me a reputable, quiet marine salvage company in Genoa—the kind that moves things of questionable legality."
"We're going from corporate fraud to ancient artifact theft," Lena observed, a thrill of adrenaline mixed with professional annoyance. "I liked the Alps better. At least there were no boats."
Elias just pointed toward the tiny harbour. "We're in Italy. There are always boats."
He looked back at the cliff face where the tell-tale orange stain was already beginning to fade in the wash of the Mediterranean tide. A new shadow, older and deeper than the Alpine snow, had fallen across their path. The relics of the Doria family, buried for centuries, might have just taken an unscheduled trip out of the crypt.
The next chapter of their "retirement" had begun, and it smelled of salt, basil, and oxidized bronze.