Francesca turned on the VCR and played the tape. Fabrizio stared hard at the screen.
‘No. Watch. I’ll show you,’ said Francesca, placing a mirror in front of the screen. As if by magic, a sequence of letters appeared.
‘Latin!’ murmured Fabrizio. ‘I can’t believe it . . .’
‘Incredible, isn’t it?’ said Francesca, obviously pleased with herself. ‘It’s quite archaic, but it’s Latin for sure. Now you know why he’s kept this so secret. Balestra has the key for translating Etruscan if – as I think – this is the translation of the text on the other side.’
Fabrizio explored the paused image at length. ‘Amazing!’
‘How do you explain it?’ asked Francesca.
‘For some reason, the person inscribing the slab must have made a copy in Latin, probably using a material with a slightly different composition. The two slabs were in contact long enough for the oxidation process to create these differentiated shadows. Balestra really has some incredible equipment. I didn’t realize these things were so sophisticated. He must have paid for it himself. I doubt the NAS would finance—’
‘It’s the same equipment,’ Francesca interrupted him, ‘that discovered that the shadows over the eyes of the man on the Holy Shroud are actually coins which picture the head of Pontius Pilate. Extraordinary work, done using the same machine. Now what are you going to do?’
‘About what?’
‘About this inscription, what else? Nothing that would detract from Balestra’s eventual announcement about its discovery, I hope.’
‘No. I wouldn’t dream of stealing his thunder. The only thing I want to do is figure out what it says. It’s the only way to understand what’s happening here.’
Francesca shook her head. ‘You’re mad as a hatter . . . How can you possibly think there could be any connection between these murders and . . . Christ, this stuff happened two thousand four hundred years ago! It’s absolutely impossible.’
‘Last night you didn’t seem so sure about that . . . The one thing I know is that Sonia’s virtual reconstruction of the skull of the animal in the tomb is identical to the head of the animal we both saw last night.’
‘So? It’s a striking coincidence. That’s all.’
‘No, there is one more thing: an open account from the past always has to be settled. Even after two thousand four hundred years.’
Francesca had no answer for that. Even if she had known what to say, she knew Fabrizio would not listen. His mind was going in other directions.
‘Well, what do you propose we do?’ she asked.
‘Start translating.’
Francesca widened her eyes. ‘We’re not philologists. We’ll never succeed.’
‘I was a pretty good epigraphist before I started studying statues, and we can always get help on the Internet or by asking someone who knows more than we do. Vartena, for instance, or Mario Pecci or even Aldo Prada. Why not? Aldo’s a friend of mine. But we won’t do that unless we’re desperate. First of all, though, let me call Sonia. It’s ages since I’ve talked to her.’
‘Forty-eight hours at the most,’ Francesca said sharply.
‘She’s a friend and she’s doing an awesome job,’ said Fabrizio defensively.
‘About time!’ chirped Sonia’s voice from his mobile phone. ‘Where are you? What have you been up to?’
‘Looking for trouble, as usual. How’s your work going?’
‘Really well. I’m assembling the spinal column and the hindquarters.’
‘As soon as I have a minute I’ll drop in.’
‘Oh, listen . . . that carabiniere lieutenant came by. He said he’d be getting your car back to you this morning. What, you were so busy smooching you didn’t notice the tow truck dragging you off?’
Fabrizio ignored her comment.
‘Pretty hot, your lieutenant friend.’ Sonia started on a new tack. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing him again outside the office.’
‘To see how he handles a pistol?’ Fabrizio teased back.
‘You fool,’ concluded Sonia. ‘See you around.’
Fabrizio hung up and went straight to work, using his digital camera to photograph the images on the screen. Then he asked Francesca to drive him home.
‘You could move in here for a while,’ she suggested. We could work on it together. Cook something up when we get hungry . . .’
Fabrizio hesitated a moment, long enough for her to be offended.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘Forget I even said anything.’
‘It’s just that I have everything I need at my house,’ said Fabrizio. ‘A lot of people don’t have my mobile phone and they might leave me messages on the answering machine . . .’
His voice trailed off as he ran out of lies. In reality, he felt suddenly afraid of staying at Francesca’s house, wary about continuing a relationship that had been too serious from the start. He was not at all sure he could cope. He’d felt strange for quite a while now: out of step, out of place, out of his depth. And he felt indebted to her, which made him uncomfortable. What’s more, he was used to the solitary life, to working on his own. And when he thought of what had happened the night before, and might happen again, he knew it was best to keep her out of it as far as he could.
But he couldn’t help but notice the disappointment in Francesca’s face. ‘Besides, this situation has us all acting crazy. You’d end up hating me, sooner than you think!’ he continued weakly.
The girl shrugged, as if resigned, walked out front and opened the door to the Jeep. ‘Go on, get in,’ she said, then sat behind the wheel and, once he was in, started driving.
Neither spoke for a while, then Fabrizio said, as if thinking aloud, ‘The beast seems to strike all of those who have something to do with the tomb.’ Ringing in his mind were the words of the woman who had threatened him the night before. ‘Or maybe even those who have something to do with the statue in the museum, like me.’ He reflected in silence for a moment, then went on: ‘You’re not in on this threat for the moment and it’s best that you don’t get mixed up in it. I have a lead that I’m following and there’s no reason for both of us to risk our lives. Right?’
Francesca took her eyes off the road for a moment and turned to him. ‘If you love someone you take risks,’ she said. ‘But I understand. I’d feel the same way if I were in your shoes. I imagine you won’t answer if I ask you what lead you’re working on.’
‘No, I can’t. It’s a pretty remote possibility anyway. At least for now.’
‘I thought not,’ she said and asked nothing further.
They got to Fabrizio’s house as the carabinieri were pulling up to return his car. Sergeant Massaro handed him the keys and was joined by Reggiani, who stepped out of his regulation Alfa holding a hunting rifle. He said hello to Francesca, then turned to Fabrizio. ‘Do you have half an hour to talk? Massaro has a few more photos to take at the Montanari house, then hell be back to pick me up.’
‘Of course,’ replied Fabrizio, and turned to Francesca. ‘If you’d both like to come in, I’ll make some coffee.’
Reggiani set his gun in the rack, then sat down with Francesca at the table in the big kitchen as the intense aroma of freshly made coffee filled the room.
Reggiani put a spoonful of sugar into Francesca’s cup. ‘Is one good?’ he asked.
‘Yes, fine,’ replied the girl.
‘How are you feeling today?’ the officer asked her as Fabrizio sat down with them and started sipping the coffee.
‘Better, thank you, much better, but I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.’
‘I can believe it. Finding yourself face to face with such a monster. As luck would have it, we got there in time. We were trailing Fabrizio at a distance when we saw your car on that side road. It was dark and I didn’t recognize your Jeep, but when I saw you drive straight into the Montanari courtyard I thought I would have a heart attack. We rushed in and thank God we did. It could have been much worse.’
&nbs
p; ‘What are you going to do with this fourth corpse?’ asked Fabrizio.
Francesca noticed a moment of hesitation on Reggiani’s part. She downed the last drops of coffee from her cup and got up to leave. ‘I have things to do,’ she said at the door. ‘I’ll see you later, Fabrizio.’
Reggiani sighed. ‘We haven’t let the news filter out yet. Montanari lived alone in that isolated house in the middle of the countryside. People were used to him disappearing for relatively long periods of time. He would go off looking for seasonal jobs or work of a more dubious nature. He’s spent plenty of time in jail. No one will notice he’s gone. At least for a while. I guess that’s lucky for us, but we can’t go on like this. I’ve spoken to my superiors and we’re organizing a hunt with hundreds of men, dozens of dogs, helicopters and off-road vehicles, infrared equipment . . .’
‘You’ll draw a hell of a lot of attention to yourselves. You’ll have the press of half the world on your backs. A story like this . . . I can just imagine.’
‘I know. But at this point we have no choice. Especially because you’re not being of any help. For example, what were you doing at the Montanari house?’
‘You were the one who told me that those mysterious phone calls were coming from there. And are you aware that Balestra is studying an exceptionally important and very rare Etruscan inscription?’
‘Of course. The guys over at archaeological heritage protection told me about it. The slab from Volterra. They were the ones who recovered the piece from an old riverbed, but it had been moved there from somewhere else, if I remember correctly.’
‘You’re right. That was just a temporary hiding place. It was Montanari who reported it to the NAS, saying that he’d dug it up while working in the fields. Balestra immediately ordered further investigations but they turned up nothing. This tipped them off; an inscription that important cannot be devoid of any archaeological context. It was evident that Montanari was lying and that he must have known where it had really been found and where the missing portion of it was. I thought I could get him to talk and that’s what I was doing there.’
‘Without saying anything to me,’ commented Reggiani.
‘I would have told you if I’d been successful. Anyway, you were following me.’
‘That doesn’t justify your behaviour. Go on.’
‘What’s more, inside Montanari’s house I saw a fragment of the same bucchero pottery with the swastika that I found near the Phersu tomb and I realized he must be connected to that find as well. Ill bet you he’s the one who told the tomb robbers where the Rovaio tomb was.’
‘And what about your colleague Dr Dionisi? What was she doing last night at La Casaccia?’
Fabrizio hesitated a moment, looking into the bottom of his cup, then said, ‘She had something urgent to tell me.’
‘What?’ Reggiani pressed.
‘It concerns a discovery she made . . . a scientific discovery.’
‘That was so important it couldn’t wait for today? It must have been very urgent indeed.’
‘It was, but I can’t tell you any more. Give me a couple of days to work on it before you order a full-scale search operation.’
‘So it has something to do with this.’
‘I’m not really sure but maybe it does . . . Give me the chance to find out.’
‘I can’t promise you anything but I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try to put off the operation for as long as I can, but then I’ll turn this whole place inside out. I’ll find that thing and fill it full of lead, then stuff it myself so I can see it hang in some museum. I saw this film the other night, a DVD that I rented.’
‘Yeah? What film was it?’
‘The Ghost and the Darkness.’
‘I remember that one. With Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. The story about those two lions that devour a hundred and thirty workers on a railroad project. In Africa, at the end of the 1800s. Is that the one?’
‘Yes, that’s it. You know, the film is based on a true story. Everyone thought the two man-eaters were spirits, ghosts in the shape of lions who couldn’t be defeated. Well, you know what? They’re now sitting stuffed in a window display in a museum in Chicago. I saw them.’
‘You saw them? In Chicago?’
‘No. I downloaded the image from the Internet. One of the new guys can navigate the web like a real sea wolf. So, you know what else? They don’t even look scary. They are small and scraggly-looking. Doesn’t that console you?’
‘Not in the least,’ replied Fabrizio. ‘I’ve heard the phenomenon explained by animal-behaviour specialists. A predator, for some reason, becomes disabled. He can’t run as fast as the others, or isn’t as strong, and he gets kicked out of the pack. At some point, by pure chance, he kills a human being and immediately realizes that man is a slow, easy prey and, let’s say, has high nutritional value. From that moment on, he hunts and eats only people. Now, would you say that our creature is disabled in some way, or is killing out of hunger?’
Reggiani shook his head, discouraged. ‘I have to admit you’ve got a point there. In any case, I still intend to hunt it down and take it out.’
They heard the sound of an engine outside. ‘That must be Massaro,’ observed Fabrizio.
Reggiani got up and went to the door.
‘Listen . . .’ Fabrizio began.
‘I’m listening,’ said the officer with his hand on the door handle.
‘Nothing . . . I have to check out this thing first and then I’ll let you know, I promise.’
‘I hope so,’ said Reggiani. ‘For your sake.’ He started out, then turned back again. ‘You know, I was wondering . . . that colleague of yours . . .’
Fabrizio couldn’t help but smile. ‘Francesca?’
‘No, the other one.’
‘Sonia?’ asked Fabrizio with pretended nonchalance.
‘Yeah, I think that’s her name. You two aren’t . . . together, are you?’
‘No. We’re not.’
‘If I wasn’t in the shit up to my eyeballs, I wouldn’t mind having a go. Good God, someone like her can’t just spend all her time with bones, right? She must like flesh as well, I hope.’
‘I imagine she does,’ replied Fabrizio. ‘I’d bet on it actually.’
He closed the door behind Reggiani, went back to the table and switched on the computer.
12
HE HAD JUST sat down when the telephone started to ring. He raised the receiver after a moment of hesitation and said firmly, ‘Hello.’
‘This is Signora Pina,’ said the voice on the other end.
‘Signora! What can I—’
‘It was you, Doctor, who told me to call you if I saw anything that . . .’
‘Oh yes, of course, of course. You’re not disturbing me at all. I was just about to start working.’
‘Well, I wanted to let you know that I heard noises last night.’
‘What sort of noises?’
‘I really couldn’t say . . . And I saw that light glowing again from down in the cellar.’
‘Did you see anything else?’
Signora Pina fell silent for a moment, then spoke up again. ‘Nothing. I didn’t see a thing. The house went pitch dark afterwards and as silent as a grave.’
‘I see. Thank you, Signora Pina. Be sure to keep me informed if it happens again.’
‘You can count on it, Doctor. Nothing escapes me from here.’
Fabrizio lowered his head and sighed. He was lost in thought for a few long moments, then he shook himself and went back to work.
He scanned the sequence image by image, passage by passage, until he had the entire inscription saved on his computer. He opened a program in which he could divide the screen into three parts and inserted the Etruscan version on the right and the Latin version on the left, leaving the centre open for his translation. He plugged in his laptop alongside, turned it on and connected it to the largest, most complete Latin dictionary that existed on the planet, the Thesaurus Academiae In
ternationalis Linguae Latinae, as well as to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and the Testimonia Linguae Etruscae. He took the phone off the hook, turned off his mobile phone and focused on the task at hand.
He worked for hours and hours with no interruption and without even getting up. He sipped at a glass of water, as he was accustomed to doing when he was dealing with a particularly thorny intellectual challenge. On the wall in front of him was a blow-up of the lad of Volterra, which seemed to fill the empty kitchen with its melancholy aura. He didn’t stop until he was utterly exhausted, at nearly two a.m. He got up to stretch his stiff limbs and contemplated the screen with satisfaction. The central column was slowly filling up with Italian words, nursed along by the Etruscan and Latin texts. Word after word, the past was coming alive, one scrap at a time. He sat down again and went back to work. There were still a number of gaps, some longer than others, empty spaces that interrupted the flow, and as his frustration grew, so did his excitement. But he was feeling utterly drained and fatigue was setting in.
He got up, took an amphetamine and put on a Mahler symphony to buoy up his emotions, which were taking off every which way. The hours passed as the text was pieced together, taken apart and reassembled in an uninterrupted series of interpretative hypotheses. Streams of data filled the laptop’s plasma screen: word lists, tense sequences, exemplifications, hundreds of alphabetical symbols representing all the possible variants. In Latin, in Greek, in Etruscan. Fabrizio paused only to watch the sun rising over the forested hills that loomed to the east with their curving, undulating shapes. Then, forgetting how early it was, he called Aldo Prada, his linguist friend, to consult with him about all the doubts that had emerged in his long night’s work.
‘I’m so sorry!’ said Fabrizio when he realized he’d woken his colleague up. ‘I’m so tired I don’t know what I’m doing.’
The Ancient Curse Page 14
