A Season for the Dead

by David Hewson

  Sara Farnese would, he felt sure, know this area well, would be able to point out a wall here, a crypt there and know its place in the Roman story. He felt lost, all the more so when he walked into the large, elegant courtyard that now bustled with people. The centre was occupied by rows of simple seats, perhaps three hundred of them, pointed towards a low wooden stage. The floor was still littered with cheaply printed programmes: Vivaldi and Corelli performed by a local semi-professional orchestra. An open-air concert had taken place here the night before. That made the morning’s discovery even more odd. At 8.15 an Irish Dominican named Bernard Cromarty, a senior member of the order that had administered San Clemente for almost three hundred and fifty years, had opened the doors to the chapel to prepare for the morning service. What he found there led him to run, terrified, from the dark, enclosed interior, out into the hardening morning light, screaming for help.

  Nic Costa studied the courtyard, noting how much had been left behind after the concert, took a deep breath and went inside. This was a grander, older church than the place on Tiber Island. It had a solemn, distinguished interior, with a quiet richness of decoration. The murmur of men’s voices sounded like the whispering of monks rebounding off the walls. In the centre of the nave, flanked by two high, imposing pulpits, was an ancient choir leading up to a dimly lit altar, raised slightly above ground level. A group of recognizable figures was bent low around the far edge of the structure studying something out of sight. Falcone stood upright, in expensive jeans, their neat crease visible even from this distance, and a too-white shirt. It was Sunday. Perhaps he had been called away from a social engagement Costa could only guess at. He’d been married once but that had ended in divorce years ago. Now, the gossips had it, he played the field, in fancy company too.

  The cold, bearded face was creased in concentration. Costa joined Luca Rossi by Falcone’s side. The focal point of this part of the church was supposed to be the small casket which lay at the base of the altar, beneath a canopy supported by delicate columns. Now another object stole their attention. In front of the coffin, surrounded by flickering candles which were almost spent, was the figure of a naked man. He lay on his side. His knees were drawn up as if crouching, his arms were extended and bent upwards, with the hands placed together in an obvious position of prayer. His eyes were open, as was his mouth, giving him an expression of mute, dead surprise, as if he had chanced upon something in the night, something that had stolen the life out of him.

  His fair hair was wet and plastered to his skull. His face showed signs of a severe beating: livid dark bruises, a swollen eye and several open wounds. Around his neck was a thick nautical rope which was attached to a small rusty anchor – of a size suitable for a pleasure dinghy – now lying flat on the mosaic floor behind his back.

  Teresa Lupo busied herself around the corpse. With minute care she placed a gloved finger in the mouth, leaned forward and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose and, very gingerly, took a slender arm and tried to move it. There was obvious resistance.

  ‘Well?’ Falcone asked. Standing next to him was a priest, a severe-faced man of seventy or more with a wild shock of white hair and sad grey eyes. He watched them covetously, as if the church and everything inside it was his personal property.

  ‘Brackish water,’ the pathologist said. ‘The salt’s pretty strong. He wouldn’t smell like this if he’d been in the Tiber. Must be somewhere else. Somewhere estuarial. I’ll be able to tell you more once I’ve got him back to the office.’

  Falcone stared at the dead man’s face. ‘How long?’

  ‘Several hours,’ she replied. ‘There’s obvious rigor. He must have been placed here in the evening or early this morning.’

  Rossi stared gloomily at the corpse. ‘How was that possible, Father? I thought there was a concert here last night. How could a dead man be brought into this place?’

  ‘There was a concert,’ the priest answered, warming to the unexpected politeness in Rossi’s question. ‘Every last seat was sold. I was here myself until one in the morning, helping to clear up.’

  ‘Then how?’ Falcone demanded.

  The priest shook his head and stared at the stone floor. Nic Costa nodded towards the sunlight behind them in the open courtyard. Something large, shiny and black leaned against the far wall. ‘What’s that doing there?’ he asked. ‘Why would a musician leave an instrument behind?’

  Rossi grunted, walked out into the daylight, heaved the double bass case carefully under his arm, not touching the handle. From the way he carried it the thing weighed very little. He returned to the nave and placed it on the stone floor. Falcone bent down, took a nail file out from a leather case and gingerly worked his way around the perimeter, flipping up the clasps. When he was done he threw open the lid. The case was empty. The cheap red velvet lining was soaked with water. It had a sour, salty smell.

  ‘I still don’t see,’ Falcone exclaimed. ‘He couldn’t have moved a naked body when you people were clearing up. And afterwards the church would be locked, surely.’

  ‘Of course,’ the priest agreed. ‘There are many valuable items in here.’

  ‘Cameras?’ Costa asked hopefully. The man shook his head.

  Teresa Lupo waved to her men at the door to come and retrieve the body. The interior echoed to the squealing of the gurney’s wheels. She came and stood next to Rossi, staring at the empty well for the double bass.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘Well what?’ Falcone demanded testily.

  ‘Is no one going to ask me how he died?’

  The detectives looked at each other. It had seemed so obvious.

  ‘Poor bastard was beaten up, wasn’t he?’ Rossi asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that killed him, though. I could be wrong. Ask me again after the autopsy.’ She took off the plastic gloves and smiled at Rossi and Costa. ‘You guys are quite something, you know. I just don’t get this quality of material from anyone else.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Falcone thundered.

  ‘He was drowned,’ Teresa Lupo said. ‘Forcibly, in shallow water, maybe less than a metre, which would explain the amount of muddy material in his mouth. I’ll be able to be quite precise with that I think. The combination of salt water and mud … it can’t be hard to track down where it came from. He was drowned and then, for some reason, the anchor was placed around his neck after he was put on the floor there, after the candles were lit. It couldn’t have been any other way because that thing isn’t heavy enough to hold down a man and the length of rope is too great to have been of any use in the sort of depth I’m talking about. That’s just symbolic somehow. Part of the picture we’re supposed to be appreciating.’

  Costa couldn’t take his eyes off the priest. The man’s eyes were closed. He had crossed himself and was now quietly saying a prayer.

  ‘Father?’ he asked, when the man was done.

  ‘What is it?’ the priest replied grumpily.

  Nic Costa waved at the interior of the church. ‘There are anchors here already. I’ve seen them. Carved into the columns. In the paintings on the walls. What does it mean?’

  ‘And none of you can even begin to guess at that?’ the old priest asked sourly. ‘Is that what it’s come to?’

  Falcone eyed him unpleasantly. ‘If you have some information that could help us, Father …’

  The old man tut-tutted. ‘So many professional people. So little knowledge. This is the church of San Clemente. The fourth pope of Rome.’ He pointed to the tomb beneath the altar, beyond the naked body surrounded by the guttering candles. ‘His remains lie there, as they have done for almost two millennia. Do you know nothing? San Clemente was martyred by drowning. He was found with the anchor round his neck.’

  The man waved at the corpse on the mosaic floor, a controlled fury in his face. ‘This … abomination is a deliberate, a direct insult to his memory. The work of a madman.’

  Nic Costa wondered at that. If it was a madman it was one wi
th a very precise theological knowledge, a very definite purpose. And, more, there was something almost akin to reverence in the violence too.

  ‘Have you any idea who the dead man is?’ Falcone asked.

  ‘None,’ the priest grunted. Luca Rossi shrugged his broad, stooped shoulders. The others in the police team looked just as blank.

  Falcone’s fierce gaze turned on Nic Costa. ‘We’re not moving a damned thing. Call her. Bring her down here. Do it yourself if necessary.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Farnese woman. I want her to see this. Before anything is moved. I want to know if she recognizes him. I want to know what she … thinks.’

  ‘Sir …’ Nic Costa objected and hunted in vain for the words. What Falcone said made sense. She would have to be shown a picture of the dead man. There were too many coincidences here. Still, there were easier, less painful ways of achieving these ends. There was, it seemed to him, no practical reason to drag Sara Farnese into this grim scene.

  ‘Why don’t I just bring her to the morgue? What difference does it make?’

  ‘You heard,’ Falcone said, walking out to the courtyard, reaching for his phone.

  Then he was gone and there was just Luca Rossi staring into Costa’s eyes, looking shifty.

  ‘We fouled up, didn’t we?’ he grunted. ‘We just leapt right in and thought what somebody wanted us to think.’

  It was all there, Nic Costa thought. Just waiting for them in that stinking death-filled room on Tiber Island. I met a man with seven wives …

  ‘I guess so.’ He found it hard to shake off the thought that Rossi had been expecting this all along.

  ‘You know what?’ the big man said. ‘We keep thinking we’re looking for facts. And that’s only half the job. The other half is looking for lies, seeing them for what they are.’

  ‘I’ll do this on my own,’ Costa said. ‘Tell Falcone to give me thirty minutes.’

  Then he was out of the door, feeling the August heat starting to fall from the sky, wondering what he was going to tell her.

  TWENTY

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  Sara Farnese was wearing black: casual trousers and a cotton T-shirt. She looked younger and on her guard. The press mob had yet to arrive at San Clemente but the beggars, Kosovans and Africans, were always there. Without thinking Nic Costa had handed out some money to a young black boy with wide, haunted eyes, choosing him, as always, at random. She seemed surprised they had not simply barged through the small crowd, ignoring them.

  ‘Family habit,’ Costa said. ‘Twice a day, every day. Just in case.’

  ‘In case what?’ she wondered.

  ‘In case … it makes a difference, I guess.’ He’d never thought about it much. They were modest sums of money. The idea had been ingrained into them at such an early age. For his father this was, he thought, an act of faith, one more proof, if Nic Costa needed it, that the old man’s communism was a kind of religion in disguise.

  He took her by the arm. They halted outside the gateway to the church. ‘Let me say something. You don’t have to go through with this, Sara. Not here. We could arrange an appointment at the morgue. It may be a waste of time anyway.’

  Her green eyes watched him carefully. ‘Then why was I asked to come here?’

  ‘My boss,’ he said instantly, not wanting to lie since he felt sure she would know. ‘It was his idea. He thinks this is more complex. He thinks we don’t know everything we ought to know.’

  She understood Costa’s point immediately. Sara Farnese acknowledged it in silence then peered inside at the courtyard of San Clemente.

  ‘I’ve been here for concerts. Have you?’

  ‘I’m not much of a one for music.’

  ‘What are you for?’

  ‘Looking at paintings. Running. Making sense of things. How many times have you been here before?’

  ‘Three. Four.’

  Costa nodded, taking in the information.

  She sighed, exasperated. ‘Is that supposed to be significant too? Are you listening to every word I say and wondering what it’s worth?’

  ‘Not at all. I don’t think anyone understands what’s going on here. Except that it’s obvious there seems to be some link that leads back to you. Who did you come here with, Sara? We may need to know.’

  ‘Really,’ she murmured, then pointed up the narrow street of San Giovanni in Laterano. A small electric bus was navigating the cobble stones up the hill, towards the sprawling hospital at the summit. ‘Have you heard of Pope Joan? The female pope?’

  ‘I thought that was a myth.’

  ‘Probably. The myth says she gave birth outside a house there, on her way to take the papal crown in the Lateran. The mob killed her and the infant when it realized what she was. Still, myth or no myth, there was an image on a house nearby, until the sixteenth century, of a woman with her breast bared and a child in her arms. Until it was torn down by the Vatican, along with a portrait of her in Siena.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps because I thought you’d understand. Pope Joan isn’t real. She never existed. Her story is as apocryphal as that of some of the early martyrs but it doesn’t matter. It’s about faith. It’s about how something can be fiction and true too, after a fashion. In Joan’s case it’s a truth about the place women are supposed to have in the world. How we’re meant to be harlots or heroines. Virgins or whores. It doesn’t occur to you that there might be other permutations. Some middle way in which, perhaps, we’re both, or neither. Or something else altogether.’

  ‘You sound like my father,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to judge you. I just feel jumpy about everything. About what’s in there and why this is all happening.’

  ‘Show me,’ she said and then they walked into the dark church interior, towards the group that stood around the body, now covered with a sheet.

  Falcone watched her arrive. He looked hungry for information. The smell of tobacco hung around him. There was ash on his white shirt now. It was the grey, flecked colour of his beard. Luca Rossi shuffled awkwardly on his giant feet, accompanied by some detectives Costa didn’t recognize. Teresa Lupo stood at the edge watching them all, taking in everything. Costa was beginning to appreciate her presence more and more. She was honest. She had some insight, too, that was lacking in the men.

  ‘Miss Farnese,’ Falcone said, coming towards her, extending a hand. ‘I’m grateful you came. This won’t take long.’ He looked at the pathologist. ‘Please …’

  Teresa bent down to the body and carefully pulled back the sheet exposing the dead man’s face. Sara Farnese’s slim hand went to her mouth. She closed her eyes and exhaled a quiet, anguished gasp, then sat down heavily on one of the bench seats. Costa was unable to prevent himself glaring at Falcone. He was relishing this spectacle, as if her grief contained within it some precious intelligence only he could see. Costa was intrigued by some small element of theatricality in her reaction too; he found himself wondering whether she was not expecting to see some other body beneath the sheet. Whether he was, in fact, witnessing her relief.

  He walked to the small office that led off the nave and came back with some water, sat next to her and gave her the cup. She accepted gratefully. Falcone and the other cops watched, curious.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  She opened her eyes and stared at him. It was impossible to know whether there was some personal bitterness in her gaze.

  ‘Why are you apologizing? I know who he is. Wasn’t that the point of bringing me here?’

  Falcone took a step forward. ‘Of course. His name, please?’

  ‘Jay Gallo. He was an American tour guide.’

  ‘Address?’ Falcone asked, indicating to Costa to take a note.

  ‘In the Via Trastevere. I don’t know the number. It was a cheap little apartment above the supermarket.’

  Falcone paused. ‘And you knew him … how exactly
?’

  She sighed and looked at Costa, as if this proved some point. ‘We were both at Harvard together for a while. When he moved to Rome we renewed our friendship.’

  Falcone waited, in vain, for her to go further. Finally, he asked, ‘Meaning what exactly?’

  ‘Meaning,’ she replied icily, ‘that for a while, a few weeks, several months ago, we slept together. Is that what you wanted to know?’

  ‘I want to know what’s relevant,’ Falcone said brusquely. ‘There are four people dead now. Three of them were your lovers. Where did this Gallo character fit in? Would the others have known him?’

  She considered this, appearing to regard it as a reasonable question. ‘No. He’d no connection with the university. Stefano never met him. Hugh came a long time after.’

  ‘But you would have mentioned him to other people?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘What was the point? I was with Jay for a couple of weeks and then we agreed to be friends, nothing more. I haven’t seen him in months. He was an entertaining man but there was something lost about him. He drank too much. He was far too intelligent to be engaged in the work he did. He was failing himself and he knew it. However amusing he could be, that kind of thing wears off pretty quickly.’

  Falcone gave Costa a significant glance as if to say: see the bitch, see what she’s like. The moment she’s bored, the moment she has doubts, she dumps them. And now one of the names on that list of rejections, maybe a long, long list, is fighting back.