by Jon Tracy
Valentina tries to make a connection to her case. ‘So, the Latin – Deliver us from evil – and the references to suffrage and souls in purgatory: we take all this as some cry from persecuted souls beyond the grave?’
Tom doesn’t answer at first. ‘Symbols gets hijacked,’ he says finally. ‘They’re often misinterpreted. You’ll have to be careful that this particular one doesn’t mislead you. For example, within cosmic geometric symbolism, triangles are also used to signify a connection between heaven and earth.’
‘Purgatory again?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Egyptians used a triangle with an eye in it to symbolise the sun god Horus and his all-seeing ability. It became the basis of charms to ward off evil. Then again, if you go back to the Greeks, the triangle was a very positive symbol; it represented the vulva of the Mother Delta. And for the Hebrews it was a symbol of truth.’
‘Truth, as in the Bocca della Verita – the Mouth of Truth.’ Valentina scratches her hands through her hair. ‘There are too many coincidences now. A woman with an ancient sword talking as though she is possessed or living centuries ago; brutal violence in a famous church linked with rituals about the public acclamation of truth; and now symbols and souls in a chiesa dedicated to suffrage and Purgatory.’
‘And that’s not all.’ Tom stands up and stretches.
Folding his six feet three inches into a cramped confessional hasn’t been a comfortable experience.
‘There’s the obvious connotation of the triangle. The one we haven’t mentioned.’
Valentina looks duly annoyed that she has to ask. ‘Which is?’
‘The occult one. The one Satanists protect. The pentagram. Five interlocking triangles representing the elements of earth, wind, fire and water, plus a fifth component, the supernatural spirit. It’s a symbol that has different powers according to how it’s drawn and where the spiritual segment of the triangle is located. Drawn pointing down, it is used in occult rituals to direct specific forces and energies against people. Drawn pointing upwards, it is used for protection.’
‘You learn something every day.’ Valentina throws her hands open. ‘But this leaves us where? How can I make sense out of it all?’
‘You can’t,’ says Tom. ‘We know there’s only one person who can do that.’
35
Once the photographer and CSI have been briefed, Valentina leaves the evidence-gathering at the church to a junior officer called Paulo Benchabo. A man who smells strongly of garlicky pasta and more than just the first glass of red wine.
She and Tom are about to return home when Louisa Verdetti calls her.
The medic still sounds edgy. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, it’s just that I know you’re chasing a deadline and I have just had quite a session with Suzanna.’
Valentina traps the phone between her ear and shoulder as she zaps the Fiat open with her key fob. ‘Did she tell you what happened at the church, where the blood on her clothes came from?’
‘No. No, I’m sorry she didn’t.’ Louisa sounds stressed. ‘Listen, I don’t want to raise your hopes; this may be something or nothing. I just thought you should know what happened.’
‘Thanks.’ Valentina slips into the Punto and quickly opens the door for Tom. ‘What exactly did she say to you?’
‘It’s complicated. She became yet another personality, another alter. More riddles, I’m afraid.’
Valentina holds her head in her spare hand and jams the keys in the ignition slot. This is the last thing she wants. ‘Hold on, I’ll get a pen and paper.’
‘Better you come and see. I videoed it. This new alter manifested while I was doing a routine recording of a diagnostic session.’
Valentina starts the engine. ‘I’m on my way. I’ll be with you within the half-hour.’
Both she and Tom know that’s optimistic. The journey is less than seven kilometres, but traffic is always bad around the Piazza del Popolo and Viale del Muro Torto.
By the time they’ve battled their way through and parked, it’s closer to forty minutes.
Louisa Verdetti is alone in her office, blinds half drawn, desk lamp on. She looks up as Valentina knocks and enters. ‘ Buonasera.’ Her expression shows she’s drained.
‘ Buonasera. Doctor, this is Tom Shaman, he’s a friend and has been unofficially helping me.’
‘ Buonasera.’ Tom shakes Louisa’s hand and smiles warmly. ‘I hope you don’t mind me being here. I can wait outside if you prefer.’
That’s not what Valentina wants. ‘Tom is a former priest. He and I worked together in Venice on a serious crime case, and I can vouch for his confidentiality.’
Louisa looks too tired to argue. She waves a hand at the sofa and picks a DVD off her desk. ‘Please sit down. Let me play this for you. Would you like a drink?’
‘Just water, please,’ replies Valentina.
Tom agrees, so Louisa grabs three glasses and a bottle from off the top of a metal filing cabinet and pours the drinks. She slips the DVD into a player beneath a TV mounted on the wall and starts the recording. She studies the time code at the bottom of frame, then skips it on, until the recording starts mid-sentence.
Louisa: ‘… all right to continue, Suzanna?’
Suzanna: ‘I’m not Suzanna. Why do you call me Suzanna? Get down on the ground, quick, get down with me. Keep low!’
Louisa: ‘I’m sorry, I thought Suzanna was your name. Who are you then?’
Suzanna: ‘Claudia. I’m Claudia.’
Louisa: ‘Claudia. That’s a nice name.’
Claudia: ‘Who are you? I didn’t see you arrive. You didn’t travel with us. Are you some demon sent from the underworld to punish me?’
Louisa: ‘No. No, I’m not. Don’t be frightened. I’m here to help. You can trust me.’
Claudia: ‘Then get down flat like me; lie on your belly, or they’ll see you.’
Louisa: ‘Like this?’
Claudia: ‘Flatter. Right down, like you’re a snake.
’ Louisa: ‘My chin’s almost on the floor, Claudia, I can’t get-’
Claudia: ‘Shush. Quiet! If they hear you they’ll take both of us again.’
Louisa: ‘ Who? Who will take us?’
Claudia: ‘The soldiers over there. The ones lying like lizards on the rocks.’
Louisa: ‘I can’t see any soldiers, Claudia. Outside the door there’s a Carabinieri guard, that’s all. He’s there to protect you, not hurt you.’
Claudia: ‘How can you say that? We are at war with them. They took my sister, my friends. They killed my brother and my father. We are at war with them.’
Louisa: ‘I don’t understand. What war?’
Claudia: ‘The war that never ends between us Sabines and those pig-faced Romans. Our men have either fled, been killed or are still in battle. My brother fought for me, but a brute like that one out there came along and cut him down with his sword.’
Louisa: ‘How did you get away, Claudia? Did you run, is that how you escaped?’
Claudia: ‘No. At first, the Romans took me. They trussed me up like a lamb for slaughter, then flung me in a cart with the other Sabines. Sweet Curitis, our divine goddess, must have been protecting me. There was a battle some hours back. The soldiers had to leave our cart to fight with troops sent by Mettus. We were on low-lying land by the bend of the river near where an island floats in the great water. We could see Romans on the hills, moving around near their fires, working their lands. While the soldiers fought, another woman and I escaped from the cart. We cut our bonds on sharp rocks by the shore. We were beneath a bridge about to try to make it to the island to hide, when…’
Louisa: ‘What happened, Claudia?’
Claudia: ‘… a soldier grabbed me. I didn’t see him. He came up behind me and put his arm around my throat. I thought I was going to choke to death. I’m sure I would have if it hadn’t been for the other woman. She was very brave. Very quick.’
Louisa: ‘What did she do?’
Claudia: ‘S
he hit him. She had to. She hit him with a big stone. Hard. Hard on the back of his head. It made a sound like a dropped melon. She kept hitting him and he fell. Then… then she picked up his sword and plunged it into his stomach. It was horrible. His blood was everywhere. All over him – all over my face and my clothes. I was terrified.’
Louisa: ‘Are you all right?’
Claudia: ‘I can still see his eyes. Staring at us. She pulled out the sword and stabbed him again and again to make him be quiet.’
Louisa: ‘It’s okay. It’s all over. We don’t need to talk about this any more, Claudia.’
Claudia: ‘We hid his body. We hid it beneath a place where they launched boats to the island. Just piled boulders, wet with plants of the river, on top of his corpse and left him. The woman said she hoped that Mars, the soldier’s god, would forgive such an inglorious death.’
Louisa: ‘This other woman – what was her name?’
Verdetti stops the tape.
She looks towards Tom and Valentina. ‘She didn’t answer. I asked her several times but it just became incredibly distressing for her.’ She points to her desk. ‘She was so emotionally exhausted and so frightened she crawled right under my desk and fell asleep. I couldn’t move her. It was almost as if she was in a coma.’
Valentina wishes she had time to sympathise.
But knows she doesn’t.
She looks down at some notes she’s made and tries to ask her questions as gently as possible. ‘Louisa, I have to confess my ignorance. I’m not from Rome. Are there significant things in what she said? Things that have special Roman meanings.’
The doctor nods. ‘The place Claudia is describing – the spot where she said her friend killed the soldier is on the edge of Campus Martius, The Field of Mars. I know exactly the area that she’s describing. It’s the Ponte Fabricio, what I think is the oldest surviving bridge in Rome – maybe in the world – and a link to Tiber Island. She mentioned seeing Romans on the hillsides across the water – that would be right as well. I think she would be looking towards the Quirinal Hill.’
‘What’s that?’ asks Tom.
‘An area of Rome, like the Aventine, but originally it was essentially a shrine to Quirinus, the Sabines’ equivalent of Mars.’
Valentina takes a deep breath. She knows she shouldn’t ask what she’s about to, but she’s going to anyway. ‘Louisa, this may sound strange, but would you take us there?’
Verdetti frowns. ‘Now?’
‘I know,’ says Valentina, ‘It’s dark, cold and ridiculously late. But I’m running out of time. Will you? Please.’
36
Tom folds himself into the back of the Punto and they trundle towards the Field of Mars.
It’s a near-impossible fit.
Certainly a feat worthy of a Guinness World Record for the biggest ex-priest carried in the smallest ever space.
Tom remembers just a few days ago standing on top of the Eiffel Tower with his friend Jean-Paul, looking down at the Parisian park by the same name.
Coincidence?
He certainly hopes so.
There must be dozens of military parade grounds throughout the world dedicated to the god of war. The only nagging doubt is that while looking out across the great darkness, he felt the overwhelming conviction that he would not be returning to France. Since then, he has increasingly felt that Rome is where his own god wants him to be, the place where a very specific type of modern battle is about to be fought.
His type.
Louisa coaches Valentina on the route. ‘You’ll have to cross the river twice because of our stupid roads. Go west at the Popolo, south down the Lungotevere, all the way past the Ospedale Santo Spirito and keep on until I tell you.’
‘Frankly, I’m struggling with all this,’ says Valentina. ‘Not the roads, the case. I thought I was making sense of the Cassandra Complex, then phew, straight out of the blue, another alter breezes in and turns everything upside down.’
Louisa smiles. ‘I know. I find it difficult too. There is a pattern, though.’
‘There is?’
‘Our patient is fixating on special women and events. Cassandra is the name of a goddess.’
‘And Claudia?’
‘Almost as special. The Claudii were among the most powerful and respected clans of ancient times. Just as the Cassandra alter was caught up in the history of the Bocca della Verita, Claudia is caught up in the epic chapter depicting the Rape of the Sabines.’
‘Not rape as we generally refer to it,’ adds Tom from the back seat.
‘No, that’s right. It wasn’t enforced intercourse. Well, at least not initially. We’re way back in history, probably the days of Romulus, when Rome was mainly male and there was a shortage of wives. The incident she was living out was when Roman soldiers crossed into Sabine, the area we now call Lazio, Umbria and Abruzzo, and carried off the women. They brought them back to the Seven Hills to raise families.’
The thought makes Tom shudder. ‘Horrendous.’
‘Well, actually, after the kidnapping, the women were treated very well. Most became dutiful wives and mothers. They probably wouldn’t have returned even if they’d been able to.’
Valentina thinks she understands. ‘An early form of Stockholm Syndrome?’
‘Something like that.’ Louisa points through the wind-screen. ‘That’s Tiber Island, the Insula Inter-Duos-Pontes.’ She half turns to Tom. ‘It means the island between two bridges. We’re on the wrong side of it. Claudia would have been on the eastern side, so you need to take the road to your left.’
Valentina turns the wheel and takes them across the Ponte Garibaldi, a fast modern carriageway that speeds traffic both ways across the Tiber.
For the next half-hour or so they loop back and forth over this causeway and the Ponte Cestio, a bridge that runs to Tiber Island from the south side of the river, leading to the Ponte Fabricio, which in turn connects the island to the eastern bank. During the day it’s a walkway teeming with musicians, artists, hustlers and pickpockets.
Now it’s deserted.
They park up and walk back and forth along the bridge and both embankments.
Just after midnight, a cruel winter wind begins to swirl off the Tiber and hits their faces like a million skimmed stones.
Tom insists Valentina and Louisa go back to the Fiat to get warm while he does a final search on the walkways running north and south of the old bridge.
They don’t argue.
Tom isn’t exactly sure what he’s looking for.
A sign, he supposes.
Some strange clue, like the one he and Valentina found in the Sacro Cuore del Suffragio.
Anything that links the harsh, cold reality of this winter’s night to the ramblings of some mentally ill woman he’s never met.
He tries to tune out the modern world – the street noise, the cars and the fashionably dressed couples hurrying home arm in arm. He wants to imagine the early days of Rome, the fear of the Sabines during a time when rape and pillage were as common as breakfast and supper. It was a savage age. An era when a pantheon of gods was thought to guide every mundane act and superstition cast its shadow over everyone and everything.
Walking the pavement along the Lungotevere, he realises that if, like Claudia, he was on the run from soldiers, he’d be on much lower ground, on the eastern bank of the river, so that he couldn’t be seen from the vast open plains around.
A steep flight of stairs takes him down from road level and opens up on to a wide, potholed gravel path. To his right is Tiber Island. Straight in front of him is an isolated ancient arch in the middle of the Tiber. Behind him, the Ponte Palatino.
He begins to head towards the Fabricio, then on instinct turns and heads south. Close to the edge of the lower walk-way, he sees there’s a further drop on to a banking of rocks.
In places it’s almost sheer, and threatens a comedic slip into the fatally icy water. Gradually it becomes less treacherous, and eases out into a gentler
incline that he’s able to work his way down.
Being next to the roaring black beast of the Tiber makes him nervous.
The river is astonishingly fast and dangerous.
He can easily envisage its spectral claws grabbing his ankles and sweeping him away to an unseen death.
Tom looks off into the darkness towards the Field of Mars, the place where centuries ago the most formidable army on earth trained for battle.
Lights of apartments flicker now where there were once the camp fires of soldiers.
He gets out the Maglite that Valentina gave him and shines it along the banking.
Soon he reaches the point where the Ponte Fabricio joins the Lungotevere dei Pierleoni. Out in the furious flow of the river there’s a giant scrub of land between the bank and Tiber Island. Centuries ago, before it was eroded by the relentless Tiber, it was probably connected to either the bank or the island.
Tom turns away and steps over some rocks.
He shines the torch beam in front of him to make sure he doesn’t twist an ankle and take a tumble. The ray catches something pink to his right.
Flesh.
A human face.
His heart jumps.
‘ Vaffanculo!’ A male voice shouts at him.
A hand comes up to dark, angry eyes.
Tom can see the man now.
He’s sitting on a patch of grass with his back against some rocks. His trousers are around his ankles and a woman is bent attentively over his crotch.
Tom diverts the light and walks on. He wonders whether the closeness to the murderous water adds a fetishistic frisson to the sex act he’s just fleetingly witnessed.
He starts to work his way up the banking towards the street.
There’s no grass now, just mounds of rocks, gathered as a sort of breakwater for the tide. He crosses them as you would stepping stones in a small stream, moving sideways almost as much as forward.
The bouncing Maglite picks out another couple.
