Shout in the Dark

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 37

  "DON'T GO TO the police." Laura's voice shook as she pleaded with Marco when they were back in her hotel room. "Promise me you won't."

  Below in the darkened street, a barrier of yellow tape marked the site of the killing. Marco felt a strong desire to protect Laura, even though he had been appalled by her lack of concern for Riccardo. Perhaps she was right to leave the scene quickly. Riccardo was obviously dead.

  "The gendarmes are still down there." He stood well back from the window. "We can't hide up here forever."

  "Don't let them see you, Marco. I don't trust the French gendarmes. I don't want them to know we came here with Riccardo. He and Bruno were killers; I can see that now." Laura pulled him away from the sight of people in the street.

  Marco put his hand on her shoulder, feeling her hot skin. "You weren't involved were you?" He tried not to shiver. That sense of evil was back.

  "You surely don't think I could do anything like that."

  The violence sickened him. "How should I know what to think? You wanted Riccardo to come with us to Paris. I told you he was involved in something bad."

  "I'm so frightened. Someone wants to kill us, and you don't even trust me." Laura's protests turned to tears.

  In the presence of tears Marco always felt powerless. "You've been mixed up in something terrible."

  Laura wiped her eyes with a crumpled pink tissue from her sleeve, smudging the dark eyeliner. She fell back onto her bed and made no attempt to halt the flow of tears.

  Marco sat by her side. "I don't think you've been telling me the whole truth." He said the words gently.

  Laura was staring past the open curtains to the blackness of the night, and her eyes suddenly lit up with hostility. "What do you mean? Do you know something?"

  Marco realized it was time to face up to his discovery. A close relationship could never succeed if there was a lack of trust. "You told me you're a freelance journalist. You're not. You work full time for TV Roma. Why did you lie to me, Laura?"

  She looked so helpless and vulnerable on her bed, but he had to know. If only he could tell the innocent from the guilty. He felt ashamed for asking.

  "I'm sorry, Marco." She lay back with her head on the pillow. "My producer thought you'd lead me to the relic. He heard you telling your story in the Newsroom interview at the studios. He told me what to say to you. You're the 'confidential source' that TV Roma boasted about. I didn't want to deceive you; I wanted to tell you the truth when we first met in your apartment. Honestly I did, but I knew you wouldn't see me again if I explained everything."

  "I'm not bothered about TV Roma. I'm more worried about the gendarmes down there, and your involvement with Bruno Bastiani and Riccardo Fermi."

  Laura rolled onto her side. "I've known Bruno and Riccardo for ages. All our families suffered in the war because of Sturmbannführer Kessel. Bruno and Riccardo kept talking about revenge. They called it justice. At first I didn't think they were serious and I certainly never wanted any killing. I told them I wouldn't mind helping with an investigation. I was a fool to get mixed up in it." Her speech became faster. "You're right about Riccardo. He was as guilty as Bruno. That German skinhead is behind all this. Riccardo tried to kill him at the Colosseum, but he's followed us to Paris. It's all Riccardo's fault."

  Laura's long, dark hair felt beautiful as he ran his fingers down it and leaned over her face. He could smell her warm breath. "And was Riccardo really your boyfriend?"

  "Is that what you think?"

  He pulled his hand away. "I don't know. That's why I'm asking. You don't seem to be missing him much."

  Laura turned onto her back again and looked at the ceiling. He had a strong desire to caress her body.

  "I liked Riccardo a lot, but that was before I saw what he was really like. Riccardo and Bruno wanted to destroy the neo-Nazis."

  "You still haven't told me why you phoned me from the Colosseum. I can't help thinking they must have shared their plans with you."

  "No!" She sounded very certain. "They never discussed any details in front of me. I thought we were going to get revenge by exposing the fascists in the media, not kill them. I phoned you to come and take me away. It was a cry for help."

  "Did Bruno and Riccardo kill the man in the Audi at Monte Sisto?"

  Laura just nodded. The tears began to clear. She was still looking at the ceiling. "You remember the first time we went to Monte Sisto?"

  He had fond memories of that journey. "You drove like a maniac."

  She laughed through the remaining tears, looking at him for the first time. "I always drive like that."

  "The second time we went you drove more slowly," he reminded her. "There must have been a reason."

  Laura looked serious. "Bruno told me to stay in Rome. I had to phone him on his cell phone and let him know as soon as the Germans left their hotel."

  "So you were part of the plan." Laura's silky hair trickled through his fingers. He could sit here in her room and do this for ever.

  "Marco, listen. Would I have taken you to Monte Sisto if I thought Bruno and Riccardo were going to kill someone there? But you're right, I knew they were planning something horrible. I think perhaps I wanted an alibi. If anything went wrong you'd have been able to speak up for me."

  "But it did go wrong." He stood up by the side of her bed. "Now I know what Riccardo meant when he joked in the restaurant about hot work. They burned the German to death in his car, and probably beat up that poor kid in the bushes. I can't believe you didn't know anything about it."

  Laura reached up and took his hand. "I was caught up in something terrible. Believe me, Bruno and Riccardo took the whole idea of revenge much too seriously."

  He held her hand tightly. "I'll get you safely back to Rome -- and we don't talk to the gendarmes in Paris. That's a promise. But we report Riccardo's death as soon as we get home. In the meantime, I'm going to the cemetery at Montmartre. Perhaps I should have brought the metal detector and spade." It was a poor attempt at humor. As he watched the tears running from Laura's large eyes, he could feel her body shaking.

  "Don't leave me alone," she pleaded.

  "We'll go to Montmartre together." He felt a great rush of love. "You don't seem to realize that I want to stay with you. Can't you see that?"

  Placing his hands behind Laura's head he pulled her up slowly, to meet her lips with his. Then he began to run his hand slowly up her back beneath the loose blouse.

  RICCARDO HAD taken the map on his walk, and there was no way of recovering it now that he was dead. Marco found a page in Laura's guidebook that mentioned the cemetery they were looking for. The cemetery was described as a landmark, glimpsed only fleetingly by tourists in passing coaches. It was near the nightlife of the Moulin Rouge, below the white Basilica of the Sacré Coeur. So Laura's mother had been right about the strippers!

  In the famous cemetery of Montmartre, according to the book, visitors could see miniature shrines which it irreverently referred to as marble dog kennels and Gothic dolls houses. Bizet and several other composers were interred in the cemetery. It was here that visitors could view the grandiose depositories for the dead of Paris from another age. Marco closed the book. In plain words it all came down to ornate graves filling the valley by the rue Caulaincourt in the 18th Arrondisement.

  He wished it could be daylight. The German skinhead was in Paris with a gun and had already killed Riccardo. Laura could be next, and the prospect appalled him.

  He turned around slowly. The dark alley might be a trap. It would be so simple down here in the darkness -- and no one would find their bodies for hours. Laura and the neo-Nazis? The idea was ridiculous. She wouldn't have let him kiss her like that if she didn't want him. He could still taste her lips on his, the salt from her tears. He recalled the softness of her body and the anticipation of sex as he began the foreplay. Then the sudden rebuttal of his advances and the unexpected relief he felt when Laura had told him to stop.

  All he wanted
now was to make sure that Laura stayed safe. She'd been right to persuade him not to contact the authorities in Paris. Every city had fascist sympathizers, and Father Josef had warned about the dangers of talking to the wrong people. He had heard there were over one hundred thousand extreme right-wing supporters in France. Only a few of these admitted a neo-Nazi agenda, but there was no way of telling which officials were involved with the fascists. Even less extreme organizations like the National Front had received ringing endorsements from the far right in Germany. Karl Bretz, the zoticone, might have high-up connections. The sooner they could check out the cemetery and find the grave of the Giorgio family, the sooner they could recover the relic -- if it was there -- and get back to Rome to make a full confession to priest and state. Rapidamente.

  Riccardo's death would need explaining, and so would their decision to leave the scene of the crime. Their evidence could have helped catch the killer, but until they got back to the safety of the Vatican, Laura was obviously in great danger.

  The poorly lit steps disappeared steeply down from the rue Caulaincourt, into the darkness of the avenue Rachel. Over the high green fence Marco could see the tombs, exactly as described in the guidebook. Grotesque, scale-model chapels running down the hill in tightly packed rows. The orange streetlights glinted on the marble slabs and added to the sense of foreboding. They stood on the steps in awe. To the left the graves became a sea of Gothic horror, even more crowded and all in disarray. The guidebook had been too restrained. This cemetery resembled a nightmare.

  Laura looked at him. "I keep thinking about Riccardo. If only he'd not gone out alone, he'd be here with us. Don't go in there, Marco."

  They turned the corner. The gates were locked. Marco pointed. "There's a sign. They open at eight tomorrow morning. We'll find another hotel for the night. There are plenty around here, and we can share a room for safety. If you want to."

  "But all our things are at La Porte de la Chapelle."

  "We're not going back there," he insisted. "The zoticone may be waiting."

  "Good," said Laura. "With a bit of luck, he'll hang around there all night and keep out of our way." She sounded worried. "But we've got no luggage."

  He held her arm as they climbed the steps away from the gloomy graveyard. "Leave your Alfa on the main road. It will be safe enough under the lights. Hotels round here don't expect all their visitors to have luggage. Some of them let rooms by the hour as well as the night."

  "Just because I let you kiss me, you needn't think..."

  He took hold of her hand. "I'm not expecting anything."

  "Good, because you're not getting it." There was a surprising lack of emotion in Laura's voice. "It's not going to be easy to be friends, Marco. There are things you don't know."

  "About your family?"

  "No."

  "About the killings in Rome?"

  She took her hand away. "You don't understand. You hardly know me."

  "You don't know much about me, either. I haven't always been like this."

  "What does that mean?"

  "After Anna died, I lived my own life. I messed with drugs, hoping to forget the false accusations and innuendoes by the carabinieri before the inquest. I'm not proud of how I behaved. My local priest eventually talked some sense into me. You're seeing a reformed character now." He tried to put his arm round her shoulder. "But we can still be close friends."

  She pulled away, snubbing his advances. "You don't know anything about my past!"

  Then the tears started again. Laura was still crying when they managed to find a hotel with a vacancy. She didn't stop crying until long after midnight.

  They had agreed to share a room for safety; perhaps for more than safety. The desk clerk obviously thought it odd that two Italians, both young and healthy and both without bags, wanted a room -- with separate beds? Marco shrugged. Anyway, he'd heard that the French always said the Italians had strange tastes.

  Laura was right, the past could never be easily forgotten. Anna's life had been taken away by three drunken maniacs who were never caught. But his Christian faith was now important to him. And so was love. Laura's mother seemed to understand more of forgiveness than he did. In spite of all his sanctimonious talk, he was living a lie when he spoke of forgiveness in his own life.

  What sort of relationship could he offer Laura? He looked at her, taking in the shape of her body. The Church taught that sex outside marriage was a sin. Here he was, a priest who must remain chaste and celibate, lying on a bed in a hotel room watching a woman remove her earrings as she began to undress. This was the start of the nightly ritual he had shared so many times with Anna.

  There could be no half-way choice: it was either chastity or full sexual sharing. Deep inside Laura, his body one with hers. He felt a desperate desire to be in bed with her, their bodies together night after night. His thoughts conjured up a vision of a future that was impossible. He found himself hardening, again thinking the unthinkable -- excited by it.

  Laura started to remove her blouse. He had no sense of awkwardness, no feeling that he should turn away. She was wearing a white lace bra but she got no further than her underwear. With a rather forced smile she said goodnight and slipped between the sheets.

  "Just stay in your own bed, Marco. I mean it."

  He turned out his bedside light and hoped there would be other opportunities, other nights. He lay on his back and thought about the kiss that could so easily have gone much further. Memories of Anna, and the sight of Laura undressing, brought powerful memories of lovemaking.

  He ached for Laura. Literally ached for her. He had to face up to his predicament. Priest or lover. He couldn't be both.