The Rome Prophecy ts-2

by Jon Tracy

  Caesario angles his body towards Assante. ‘You were saying, Lieutenant – you didn’t know until afterwards… finish your excuse.’

  ‘Captain Morassi called me at home and explained that she had visited the clinic. She said she had spoken to both the doctor and the prisoner and consequently visited the area near Tiber Island where the body of a male was found. It was only when I arrived at the scene that I realised there was a relationship between the captain and the civilian who found the body.’

  The major again halts the conversation with his traffic cop hand. ‘Explain, Captain.’

  ‘Explain what, sir?’ She knows exactly what he means. And what’s going on. The sexist pig is dressing her down. Humiliating her. Showing her his station house is run by men – men who don’t take kindly to women being given positions of senior rank.

  Caesario puts his elbows on the desk and then leans forward on pale, chubby forearms. ‘Let’s start with your relationship with this man, Tom Shaman. Explain it to me.’

  Valentina feels Assante’s eyes on her. The disloyal son-ofa-bitch is enjoying every second of this. She swallows and stays calm. ‘Tom and I have a sexual relationship. A recent one. He is currently living with me.’

  Caesario can’t help but look smug. ‘I see. And…’

  ‘Is this a disciplinary inquiry, sir?’ Valentina puts her hands on the edge of his desk and pointedly leans towards him. ‘Because if it is, then I believe I should have been properly notified, and I haven’t been.’

  The major can barely believe her cheek.

  Valentina’s not done. ‘Major, I must also formally object to the manner in which you have encouraged Lieutenant Assante to report directly to you on an operational matter that you personally called me in on and asked me to take charge of.’

  Now it’s Caesario’s turn to try to control his anger. ‘Oh, must you?’

  Valentina stands. Her chair scrapes noisily across the wooden floor. ‘Sir, to be clear, I wish to put on record the fact that I believe your instructions undermined my position, and I feel I should inform you that I will be writing contemporaneous notes of this meeting and seeking representation.’

  ‘Sit down, Captain!’

  Valentina remains standing.

  ‘Sit down – that’s an order!’

  Valentina sits. She pulls the chair up under her legs and feels herself shake.

  ‘Assante, get out. Leave us alone.’

  The lieutenant rises, salutes and leaves without comment.

  The door at the far end of the room clicks shut. Caesario stares across his desk and draws a long breath. ‘What are you doing?’

  Valentina is fiddling nervously with her cell phone.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I forgot to mute my phone and there was a call coming in.’

  He can’t believe the girl. Insolent. Distracted. Unfocused. ‘Put it down! For God’s sake, woman, how unprofessional can you be?’

  Valentina all but drops the BlackBerry on the edge of his desk. ‘I’m not unprofessional, sir. Far from it.’

  Alone now, with the door shut, his anger boils over. ‘Not unprofessional? I’ll tell you what you are. You’re a joke, Morassi, that’s what you are. If the top brass weren’t under political pressure to have some skirts wearing senior rank, you’d be out doing traffic duty. Correction, traffic duty is too important a job for women; you’d be filing reports.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Don’t be so damned insolent, Captain. When a senior officer is talking, you sit and listen. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ His voice becomes almost normal. ‘Look, I don’t know who you impressed or how you impressed them, but I didn’t want you here and I still don’t want you here. Your face is plastered across magazines, my press office is logjammed with requests to talk to you. You are a liability, Captain.’

  ‘Sir, it was the press office that insisted I did the Vanity Fair shoot. I assure you I have no desire to have cameras pointed at me.’

  ‘Enough!’ He drums his sausage fingers on the desk and grits his teeth. ‘Let’s be straight with each other – officer to officer. You and I both know that you have no future here. I need first-class officers, not political pin-up girls. You’re in the Carabinieri, not Berlusconi’s cabinet.’ He lets out another pained sigh. ‘Listen to me. I’m going to give you some advice. This is a good point for you to put in a transfer request. I’ll give you some time off until we get you posted elsewhere and you can spend it at home with your new lover.’ He smiles patronisingly at her. ‘How does that offer sound?’

  Valentina stares down at the big wooden desk. Caesario’s fat little fingers start drumming again, just centimetres from the cell phone he berated her for trying to turn off. She picks it up and turns it in her hands. ‘I think your offer sounds fine.’ She presses the touch screen on the phone and holds it up towards his face. Caesario’s voice rolls out from the phone: ‘ If the top brass weren’t under political pressure to have some skirts wearing senior rank, you’d be out doing traffic duty.’

  Valentina hits pause and looks him in the eye. ‘I don’t think that’s the most damning part of the recording, sir, but I’m sure that even that bit is sufficient to end the career of a misogynistic bully like you.’ She turns the BlackBerry off and slips it inside her jacket.

  Caesario sits back in shock.

  He can’t believe what she’s done.

  A man would never have done that. A man would have taken his rollicking and done the decent thing. He can’t believe she’s been so sneaky, so cowardly, so duplicitous.

  Valentina’s voice is calm and deliberate. ‘ Officer to officer, Major, let me be straight with you. I am not about to walk away from my position here, or this case. So – unless you want a copy of this recording to be the centre point not only of your own disciplinary inquiry but also of news reports from one end of Italy to the other, from this moment onwards you’ll afford me your total trust and support and allow me to do my job.’

  Caesario is still speechless.

  ‘I need an answer, Major.’

  He nods.

  Valentina stands. ‘And for the record, the phrase total trust includes me exercising my discretion as to whomever I wish to involve in this case.’

  He nods again.

  ‘Thank you, Major. Your support and confidence in me is greatly appreciated.’ She allows herself a small smile, and makes sure he sees it before she turns and heads for the door.

  45

  There are close to thirty busy desks in the open-plan office, which houses two serious crime squads. Federico Assante is sitting slap bang in the middle of all the action. He’s talking confidentially to colleagues around him, telling them of the impending demise of his captain.

  Phones are suddenly hung up and the chatter of the office vaporises. Valentina has emerged from Caesario’s office at the end of the corridor.

  Dead woman walking.

  The only noise that can be heard is her feet on the floor.

  From ten metres away her eyes lock in on Assante and she can see he’s struggling to even acknowledge that she’s there.

  She reaches his desk, calmly folds her arms and looks down at him. ‘Make sure you put all your files, memory sticks, actions and contacts on my desk within the next hour.’

  ‘ Scusi? ’ He swivels in his chair, looking around the room to show his audience his disbelief.

  ‘Stand when you’re addressing a senior officer.’

  He hesitates.

  Valentina leans across him and picks the phone up off his desk. ‘You want me to call Caesario and have him make you stand?’

  They both have the attention of the entire office. A distant phone rings, someone picks it up and immediately disconnects the caller. No one is going to miss this.

  Assante slowly gets to his feet and stretches like it’s something he was going to do anyway.

  She waits for him to finish.

  ‘You’re off the case.’
/>
  Across the room there are gasps.

  ‘Get all your stuff together – logs, records, contacts, electronic files; anything that has relevance to what I’m working.’

  ‘You’re joking, right?’

  ‘I only joke with friends, Lieutenant, and you’ve made it very clear that’s not what you are.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She laughs. ‘Oh, but you do. You thought that by undermining me you’d win favour with Caesario and further your career. You gambled and you lost.’ She shrugs like it’s of no concern. ‘I guess you played dirty because the stakes were high. So in your case, the price you pay is being dumped from this investigation by the female officer you sought to embarrass. Life is rough. Then again, if you were a woman in the Carabinieri, you’d already know that.’

  Applause breaks out from behind her. Valentina turns to see several women standing and clapping,

  She swivels back to Assante. ‘We’re done. I’m going out now and will contact you later with the name of the officer I want you to hand over to.’

  Valentina walks the rest of the room to the corridor amid a cacophony of wolf whistles and thunderous applause.

  46

  The video recordings make fascinating viewing.

  Hospital administrator Sylvio Valducci still isn’t convinced they prove the existence of dissociative identity disorder, but they’re certainly jaw-dropping enough to attract some substantial new grants. The bit where the patient seeks shelter under Verdetti’s desk is priceless. Pure theatre.

  Who knows, they could even be good enough to land some plum keynote speeches at top medical conferences around the globe.

  For him, of course, not Verdetti.

  The clinician remains a thorn in his side. He quite hoped she’d make a terrible mess of this case, then he’d have an excuse to discipline her.

  But it’s not working out like that.

  Even the way she acted with the police doesn’t warrant an official warning. At best she was being public-minded. At worst she was slow in notifying him of an instant demand of the Carabinieri. She’d have walked any disciplinary hearing on that one.

  Such a shame.

  He’d certainly have liked to take the wind out of her ambitious young sails and make his own life easier. The last thing any under-pressure administrator wants is a mouthy clinical director who is trying to do more and as a result spend more every damned year.

  Valducci puts the recordings back in their covers and stores them on his shelves.

  The distance from his office to Verdetti’s amounts to a lift ride and a short walk down a couple of corridors. He’s making it to flatter her. To throw her off-guard. He learned long ago that it’s politically smart to seize an opportunity to be nice to those you like the least. It allows you to manipulate them towards your own ends, especially when they’re tired and stressed.

  The eyes of a young nurse at the ward station almost pop out when he rounds the corner. In her fluster she stands up and knocks a plastic cup of water over her paperwork.

  ‘Wipe it! Wipe it!’ he barks. ‘And don’t let it get near the damned computer.’

  Eva Boscono quickly mops with tissues, while he leans on the top of the reception station and makes no effort to help her.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ She tosses the last of the Kleenex into the waste basket beneath the desk and rubs her wet hands together. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Dr Verdetti. I just walked past her office and it’s in darkness.’

  ‘She left about an hour ago, sir.’ She glances down at a calendar on the desk top. ‘She’s at a funeral. I believe she will be back late this afternoon.’

  He grimaces. She never mentioned the funeral to him. Not that he doubts she’s properly booked the time – though he’ll check, of course. ‘Never mind. Tell her I came round. Get her to call my secretary and arrange to see me.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He starts to walk away and then has an idea. ‘The patient in room 116, how is she at the moment?’

  Eva scrabbles through a tray of damp paperwork. ‘I’ll just find her notes for you to see.’

  ‘I don’t want to see her notes,’ he snaps. ‘Just tell me how she is. Surely you know enough about those in your care to have an instant overview?’

  Eva reddens. ‘I’m told she slept well. This morning when I saw her she was subdued but not sedated. She complained of a headache about three hours ago and was given ibuprofen. An hour ago she was fine and was sitting out of bed, reading and drawing.’

  ‘Drawing? Drawing what?’

  The question throws her. ‘I don’t know. She likes to doodle; it seems to calm her.’

  ‘She had a pen?’

  ‘No. She has crayons to draw with, but there’s nothing sharp in her room when she’s alone. We’re careful about self-harming.’

  ‘Good. Take me to see her.’

  ‘Now, sir?’

  He looks exasperated. ‘When else? You want me to make an appointment and come back at a time that better suits you?’

  ‘No, sir.’ She scurries from behind her desk. ‘Please follow me.’

  The Carabinieri guard outside the door takes their names and then allows them in.

  Nurse Boscono closes the door and introduces her boss to Suzanna. ‘This is Signor Valducci. He is the administrator, the man in charge of the whole hospital.’

  He smiles at Suzanna, and then turns to the nurse. ‘You can leave us now. I’d like to be alone with the patient.’

  47

  Valentina parks up at the morgue and makes a phone call before she heads inside to see Medical Examiner Filomena Schiavone.

  It’s not Tom she’s calling, but another man.

  One she thinks of almost as a father.

  ‘Vito?’

  ‘ Si.’

  ‘Vito, it’s Valentina. How are you?’

  ‘I’m good. Very good. And you – how are you?’

  ‘ Bene. Va bene. But I could do with your advice.’

  And so for ten minutes Rome’s newest Carabinieri captain tells her old boss about her brush with her sexist new boss and the dismissal of her disloyal lieutenant.

  Former Major Vito Carvalho listens wryly. Discrimination and bullying are nothing new to him. He built his early career in the old days of the armed forces. A time when women were taken on to nurse or file or cook, but very little else.

  ‘He’s going to come for me, Vito. He’ll be hurting now and lying low, but at some point Caesario is going to come for me. What should I do?’

  ‘You’re thinking of handing in the recording anyway?’

  ‘It’s on my mind. Maybe if I go to the colonel, it’ll lay down a marker. I’ll say I don’t want to press charges, don’t want to cause difficulties, but I’ll ask for a guarantee that I’m not going to be set up or wrongly accused of anything.’

  ‘Politics is a dirty game, Valentina.’

  ‘I know. But what choice do I have but to play?’

  ‘None. But don’t go to the colonel, leave it with me. I have an idea of how to buy you a little protection, but I need to call some old friends first before I guarantee anything.’

  ‘ Grazie. I’m so sorry to bother you. It’s just that I’ve always respected-’

  ‘Shush, I’m glad to help.’ He laughs. ‘It feels good to still be needed by my former staff.’

  Now it’s her turn to lighten up. ‘I think I’ll always need your counsel, Vito. I’m pretty much what you made me.’

  ‘You mean troublesome and awkward?’

  Valentina laughs now. ‘I guess so.’

  He’s more worried about her than he lets on. ‘Have a think about what you did to that lieutenant. Slicing and dicing a colleague in front of a crime squad can have a way of backfiring.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure most people fully agree with what you did. I certainly do. But you can be sure there’ll be some who don’t. His friends, for a start
. They’ll stick by him. They have to. That means you made a whole new pack of enemies today. Players who know the local turf and the local game a whole lot better than you do.’

  Valentina never thought of it like that. ‘You mean the cloud that I thought had a silver lining actually turns out to have an even cloudier lining?’

  He laughs. ‘Maybe not that bad. I just suggest you give it a little more thought, and work out a smart way to make sure the cloud doesn’t turn to rain and leave you surprised and soaked to the skin.’ Vito’s said his piece and knows it’s now time to change the subject. ‘I saw your parents a couple of nights ago. They looked very well. Said how proud they are of you.’

  She smiles. ‘I think they’d be proud of me if I was working tables for five euros an hour.’

  ‘Of course they would. That’s the privilege of being parents.’

  Valentina sees the time on the car dashboard. She’s about to be late for the appointment she’s made with the ME. ‘I have to run, Vito. Thanks again for your advice. I am indebted.’

  ‘Yes, you are. Never forget it. I’ll call you when I have an answer on that other matter. Ciao! ’

  ‘Ciao! ’

  She’s still smiling as she locks the car and walks into the hospital.

  If only her new boss could be like her old boss.

  Then life would be perfect.

  48

  ‘So, who are you today?’

  Sylvio Valducci smiles at the cleverness of his opening question as he lowers himself on to a hard bedside chair.

  The young woman sitting a metre from him says nothing.

  If she’s faking, he knows he’ll be able to tell.

  He can always tell.

  The little actress might be able to fool Verdetti, but not him. ‘I asked you for your name. Who are you?’

  The answer comes creeping back in the voice of a frightened child. ‘Suzie.’

  Valducci leans forward on his elbows. ‘Good. Thank you for telling me that. Suzie, my nurses say you’ve been drawing. Can I see? Would you like to show me what you were drawing?’