by Jon Tracy
They turn around and head towards the exit.
On the far wall, over to the left, the soldier’s light picks out something.
A passageway.
Tom grabs his arm and points the flashlight at the opening. ‘Was that there before?’
The soldier shakes his head. ‘No. I checked the whole place and I didn’t see it.’
Tom heads towards it.
‘Wait!’ The soldier gives him a stern look and nods at the gun in his hands.
Tom sees his point.
He follows a couple of metres behind the officer.
Partway through the opening, he knows what kind of place they’ve entered.
It’s a graveyard.
A columbarium.
Identical to the one Anna described in her crazed writings as Cassandra.
The place is vast.
High walls are filled with what look like dovecotes, personal spaces for ancient cremation urns.
Tom examines the edges of the shelves. They’re marked with Roman numerals. The one he’s looking at says DXX and the one next to it DXIX. He knows he’s standing at 520 and 519. He follows the numbers down and back towards the entrance. On the bottom shelf, he finds what he’s looking for.
X.
The amphora is painted with the face of Cybele.
A face that to Tom still looks disturbingly similar to Anna. He wonders what he’s found.
Just a pot of old ashes?
Or the remains of the oldest and most famous prophet goddess the world has ever known?
He’s no archaeologist, but he already senses something strange about this find.
The Cybele pot and those immediately around it aren’t as dusty as the others. Come to think of it, the entire shelf is relatively dust-free.
Tom carefully moves all the pots off the bottom shelf.
He pulls it.
It takes a good tug, but it comes free.
He stares down into a narrow trench.
A trench filled with books.
Books full of secrets.
Secrets people hoped to take to the grave with them.
139
The outside of the unassuming farm has been turned into a military compound.
In the centre is a four-wheel-drive Mercedes Unimog, the size of a small barn. It’s stacked with equipment and stands ready to tow vehicles away, bulldoze down walls and perform all manner of muscular tasks.
Several Iveco armoured vans have already been loaded with prisoners. A soldier slaps the side of one and it heads off down the dirt road, flanked by BMW R85 motorcyclists, blue lights flashing.
Up above, an Augusta-Bell helicopter keeps constant watch as the prisoners are taken down the Appian Way and back towards Rome.
Tom sits on a stone trough and draws breath.
He watches Valentina’s heart breaking as she says goodbye to Sweetheart. The child is being taken away by social workers, and the parting seems to be hurting her every bit as much as it’s hurting the kid.
She joins him at the trough, puts her left hand on his thigh and her head on his shoulder.
He takes her hand. ‘Is she all right?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s even in the same postal code as all right.’
He squeezes her fingers. ‘There’s no more you can do. You have to leave her to the experts now.’
She looks up at him. There are no tears in her eyes; just disbelief and disgust. ‘Silvestri says they freed almost a dozen kids. Some are even younger than that little girl.’
‘How many of the cult have they arrested?’
‘A dozen men. All guards, by the look of it.’ She glances towards the front of the farm. Mater is being lifted on a gurney into an ambulance. ‘Along with the old witch, they’ve taken four women of about her age and another two or three who seem to be in their forties.’
Tom wipes rain from his forehead. ‘The tip of the iceberg.’
Valentina knows what he means. ‘Under interview, some of the old birds will start singing. They won’t want to spend the rest of their lives in prison and should give up a good number of the other members.’
Tom turns further towards her. ‘Down in the place where the lion killed Anna’s friend, we discovered a secret chamber, a columbarium.’
‘One of those old Roman resting places for the poor?’
He nods. ‘We found a stack of books in there, all marked with the number X. They’re being lifted out by your forensics people.’
She’s intrigued. ‘Do you know what they are?’
He thinks he does. ‘The one on top was the most recent one. It was like a cross between an address book and a diary. On the left were telephone numbers and email addresses. No names. On the right were descriptions of the rituals they’d performed with children and names and descriptions of the children. I saw several pages talking about new arrivals and the initiation ceremonies they had to endure.’
Valentina drops her head and feels sick.
Tom puts his hand on her shoulder and rubs it. ‘The books go back years, maybe even centuries. The Tenth Book has nothing to do with wisdom or prophecies; it’s a never-ending paedophile directory and diary, that’s all.’
Valentina looks up and her face is hardened by anger. ‘You’re wrong, Tom. Wrong because it contains the greatest knowledge of all: information on how to find these sick animals, and probably enough evidence to get convictions and send them to their own damned cells.’
EPILOGUE
Three days later
Valentina and Tom are shown through to Lorenzo Silvestri’s office.
Neither of them is sure why they are there.
Lorenzo called and said they were to come. Valentina hardly questioned it. She’s learned the painful way that it’s best not to disobey the orders of a Carabinieri major.
The time of the meeting is seven p.m., and that gives her a clue. That and the fact that Lorenzo said they should both look smart. She thinks he’s a good guy, and is guessing that she and Tom are being invited along to share a glass of wine with the troops, get a slap on the back and hopefully an update on the case.
Lorenzo greets them both with a smile as broad as the Tiber. ‘Capitano Morassi.’ He spreads his arms wide. ‘You look even more magnificent than in Vanity Fair.’
She almost blushes. ‘You saw those shots?’
‘Valentina, everyone saw those shots.’ He embraces her warmly. ‘And Signor Shaman.’ He pretends to stand back and admire him. ‘Take away that sling and you look the perfect companion for our capitano.’ He extends his hand and shakes Tom’s firmly before pulling him close and kissing both cheeks. ‘Sit down, please sit down.’ He gestures to two black plastic chairs on the other side of his unassuming glass desk.
Lorenzo sits and folds his arms contentedly. ‘So – I have much to tell you. Where should I begin?’
Valentina helps him out. ‘How’s the little girl we found in the cells?’
He nods. ‘She’s very well. She’s called Cristiana, is eleven years old and has written a letter for you.’ He searches the top of his desk. ‘I’m sorry; I thought I had it here.’ He reads the disappointment in Valentina’s eyes. ‘I’ll find it later, don’t worry.’
He picks a manila file off a stack of three trays. ‘First, let’s tidy up some loose ends.’
Both Tom and Valentina note his change of tone. Perhaps this isn’t going to be any kind of celebration after all.
Lorenzo pulls out a black and white photograph and spins it round for them to see. ‘Not pleasant, I’m afraid.’
And it isn’t.
The picture shows the corpse of a woman in a shallow grave.
Her hand is missing.
Valentina picks it up. Her mind races back to Cosmedin and the time she stood in the bloodstained portico with Federico. This was the start of it all. She looks towards Lorenzo for an explanation.
‘We found the corpse inside the underground complex. The pathologist thinks she was buried ali
ve.’
‘Dear God.’ Valentina returns the photograph to the major. ‘Scientists at the RaCIS told us that the blood from the severed hand came from Anna’s sister, Cloelia. Is that correct? Is this body that of her sister?’
‘It is.’ He waits for the news to sink in. ‘Forensics also found DNA that links the killing to one of the men we arrested. Blood from Anna’s sister was on this man’s robes, and his DNA was found on her, so we have a strong evidential chain.’ He puts the photograph back in the file. Sombrely he produces another picture and puts it down for them to see. ‘This one you know. Anna Fratelli.’
They both look at it and feel a pang of sadness.
She could have been so much more.
Lorenzo rubs his chin thoughtfully. He dips into the file again, produces two more photographs and puts them either side of Anna’s.
The first is a picture of the amphora that Tom discovered in the columbarium; the second is a mug shot of a woman in her sixties. The woman Valentina fired shots at in the underground temple.
Lorenzo taps Anna’s picture. ‘This is her genealogical table.’
‘I don’t understand,’ says Valentina, although a part of her actually does, and she simply doesn’t want to accept what she’s hearing.
The major touches the mug shot. ‘This is the woman they all call Mater. Her real name is Sibilia Cassandra Savina Andreotti.’ He looks towards Tom. ‘She claims to be a divine descendant of the goddess Cybele. I don’t believe in goddesses.’ He glances at Valentina. ‘At least not that kind. But what I can substantiate is that she is Anna Fratelli’s mother, and they both share the DNA of whoever was cremated and put in this pot centuries ago.’
The air seems to have been sucked out of the room. Tom and Valentina are speechless.
Tom clears his throat and sits forward in his chair.
Lorenzo looks towards him expectantly.
‘There’s something I should say.’
Valentina looks surprised. She and Tom have barely spoken about the case in the last few days. They’ve been trying to forget it.
‘The man who took me into the tunnels.’
Lorenzo names him. ‘Guilio Brygus Angelis.’
‘Guilio…’ Tom says it almost reverently. ‘He told me what had happened at Chiesa Santa Maria in Cosmedin. The sect members had recaptured Anna and taken her to the Bocca to frighten her and to find out if she’d told anyone about the temple and the rituals. They cut off her sister’s hand and said they would kill her and then do the same to Anna if she didn’t tell them the truth.’ Tom takes a breath to make sure he recounts things accurately. ‘Guilio appeared as Anna was screaming, and fought with the guards. During the fight, Anna picked up one of the ceremonial swords and killed the man who’d injured her sister.’
Valentina interrupts. ‘That’s why the blood on her robe was AB and didn’t match that of the handless victim, which we now know was Rhesus negative and belonged to her sister.’
Tom is unsure of the biological evidence. ‘I guess so; I’ll take your word for it. There’s more though that I need to tell you.’
Lorenzo motions for him to continue.
‘In the panic, Anna ran off. The Galli took Mater and the injured sister away. Guilio was left with the dead guard. He put the body into a workman’s sheet that had been draped over the portico so that people couldn’t see inside. He carried the corpse to the boot of his car, then drove down to the Tiber and buried it beneath some rocks.’
‘What about the mutilation?’ asks Valentina. ‘Did Anna do that?’
‘No. Guilio did. At first he tried to make the death look like an accident. He laid the body down by the river, chopped out much of the stomach and threw it in the water. He then piled rocks on the corpse, probably causing the skull injuries, and fled.’
‘We’ll need you to make a statement.’ Lorenzo gathers the photographs and returns them to their file.
Valentina wishes she was somewhere else. Anywhere other than back in the midst of already painful memories. She sits forward and tries to stay polite. ‘Are we free to go now?’
‘Not quite. There is still the note the child wrote for you. Uno momento.’
He picks up the phone and dials his secretary.
She doesn’t seem to be there.
He hangs up and looks slightly annoyed. ‘Sorry. I am having no luck today.’
Valentina gives him a resigned nod.
‘Still. I must not let you leave without the good news.’
She looks bored. ‘Which is?’
‘The disciplinary charges against you and Federico have been dropped. I have spoken with our chief of staff and he has spoken to the Commandante Generale. You and Assante will both be reinstated tomorrow.’
Valentina is relieved and shows it. ‘ Grazie. What about Louisa Verdetti’s complaints against us?’
‘Withdrawn.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘And how is she?’
‘Getting better. The whole affair has shaken her up, as you would expect. Before you disappear, tell me, how do you feel about going back to work with Major Caesario?’
Until now, Valentina hasn’t thought about it. She takes some seconds to answer and tries not to sound disrespectful. ‘I’m proud of the job I do and proud of how I do it. I will be pleased to be back at work.’
‘After a little holiday?’ suggests Tom.
She smiles at him. ‘After a big holiday, I promise.’
Lorenzo smiles at them both. They make a good couple. ‘Only, if you don’t want to work with Caesario, I’d be honoured to have you on my team in the GIS.’
She looks surprised.
‘Don’t answer now. Vito Carvalho tells me I’d be lucky if you worked with us, and I believe him.’ Lorenzo checks his watch and gets up from his chair. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to go now. I have some pressing matters.’
Tom and Valentina scrape their chairs back and head towards the door.
‘ Grazie,’ says Valentina. ‘I’m grateful for your help with my personal problem.’
‘You’re very welcome.’ He opens the door. ‘Let me walk you out.’
Lorenzo walks alongside Valentina and makes small talk until they reach the end of the corridor.
‘This could be your office,’ he teases, pointing at a closed door with an empty nameplate.
She treats him to a warm smile.
He can see she’s interested in the job. ‘I’m serious. Go on, take a look inside.’
She feels foolish. ‘Let me think about it, molto grazie.’
Lorenzo won’t take no for an answer. He turns the brass knob and pushes the door open.
The room is full.
‘Sorpreso! ’ choruses a crowd of familiar faces.
Party poppers and streamers explode and fill the air.
Valentina almost cries as she spots her parents – and Vito Carvalho – clapping her. Alongside them is Louisa Verdetti.
Finally she recognises half of the team from her own office at Carabinieri headquarters.
The day couldn’t get better.
Except it could.
From out of the forest of legs, a small girl appears.
Sweetheart is wearing a new bright blue dress and a smile that melts every heart in the room.
Valentina picks her up and kisses her.
Tom Shaman stands back a pace.
He’s never loved anyone as much as he loves Valentina. He just hopes she understands why, when their holiday’s over, he is going to have to move on.
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