The Rome Prophecy

by Sam Christer

  A muffled ring fights its way out from the pocket of the crumpled coat she’s thrown on the bed.

  Valentina ignores it.

  She sips her wine and it rings again.

  Tom unfolds the coat and offers her the noisy pocket. ‘Maybe it’s good news.’

  She doubts it. She dips her hand in and takes out her phone.

  Tom goes back to the minibar in search of more wine. By the time he’s retrieved some from the back of the bottom shelf, she’s finished the call.

  Her face looks as empty as their glasses.

  ‘It was Federico. He’s been suspended as well.’

  72

  Guilio Brygus Angelis doesn’t go back to the stinking hole he calls home.

  He may never go back.

  The cops didn’t find anything there, he’s sure of that, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before they get lucky.

  He learned that a long time ago.

  You can take all the precautions in the world, but if you hang around in the same place too long, eventually the cops get lucky. They talk to neighbours, shopkeepers, local kids. They get a hold of you.

  Well, he won’t be staying around long enough for that to happen.

  It’s starting to rain – a shower, that’s all – but he backs up into the doorway of a cheap souvenir shop.

  Doorways are always good places to be.

  And this is an excellent one.

  It’s the perfect place to watch the comings and goings at the Carabinieri command building right opposite him.

  He’s amazed by how many cops come out to smoke.

  No sooner are they through the front doors than their big cop hands are jabbing filters in their snarky little mouths and they’re lighting up.

  Lieutenant Assante throws down a match as he lights up and walks out into the rain.

  Guilio follows him to his car, a beat-up Lancia parked a block away.

  Doesn’t look as though the Carabinieri pay very well. There’s a child seat in the back. No doubt his money goes on his kid, or kids. He looks like the type who’ll have as many as his wife will make him.

  Guilio notes the number and watches as the cop climbs in and drives off without even putting on his seat belt.

  Reckless.

  The guy is just asking for trouble.

  73

  Drinking and walking are universal answers to most problems.

  When the minibar is dry, Valentina resorts to the latter.

  Motion to cope with emotion.

  Lots of emotion.

  In fact, she’s fired up and emotional enough to walk the length of the Appian Way, and then some.

  She’s proud of the career she’s built herself. Rightly so. Proud of the crimes she’s solved, the people she’s helped and all the badasses she’s locked up.

  How dare a sexist dinosaur like Caesario try to take that away from her?

  She walks Tom all the way out to the Piazza Navona, but to no avail. Bernini’s ever-flowing Fontana dei Fiumi does nothing to lighten her mood.

  From there she drags him east through the back streets, across Corso del Rinascimento and Via della Rotonda to the awe-inspiring Pantheon.

  Inside, neither of them manages more than marginal interest in the guide’s stories of Agrippa, Hadrian, Constantine and the dozens of other historic figures who created, refurbished, worshipped or were buried beneath its famous dome.

  The walking and the sights aren’t working.

  Valentina just can’t clear her mind.

  As the night starts to frost up and their feet begin to break down, they seek refuge in a touristy restaurant off Via della Fontanella di Borghese.

  Tom chooses octopus cooked in a light tomato sauce with pecorino cheese, followed by mezze maniche pasta with bacon.

  Valentina isn’t that hungry, but gets tempted by a light tempura of baccalà and anchovies, followed by a small portion of tagliatelle with artichokes.

  They pick out a reasonable bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella and try to talk about anything and everything except her suspension and the case she’s been taken off.

  Only when a second bottle has been opened does she feel ready to stop avoiding things. ‘I suppose tomorrow I should find myself a solicitor.’

  ‘Don’t rush into it. Things could look different in the morning.’

  ‘I won’t, but I need representation.’ She stares out of the window at the bright lights and the crowds of noisy strangers, and feels isolated and vulnerable. ‘This isn’t my city, Tom. Aside from you, I don’t have friends here.’

  He tries to reassure her. ‘You probably have more people on your side than you think.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ She swills wine in her glass. ‘When will you need to leave?’

  The questions stings. ‘Not until you tell me to.’

  ‘Grazie.’ His gesture of kindness makes her feel tearful. The only other person who would have been this understanding and supportive was her cousin, Antonio.

  She curses herself for letting her guard down and thinking about him.

  One moment of sadness, and memories of him flood in on her.

  She blinks tears from her eyes. ‘This damned disciplinary case could take weeks.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay weeks.’

  ‘Or months.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay months.’

  She doesn’t laugh, but there’s a suggestion of a smile. ‘Years? Maybe a lifetime?’

  ‘Now you’re pushing it.’

  Finally the laugh comes. She looks into his eyes and thinks that if he does stay, then she might just cope with all the madness that Caesario and his cronies are going to throw at her.

  They ask for the bill while drinking the last of the Valpolicella.

  Tom tips the waiter, and at the door helps Valentina into her coat.

  Outside, the night is crisp, and they link arms snugly as they walk back towards the Spanish Steps.

  Valentina is feeling mellow and more than just a little drunk. She gestures to the fountain at the foot of the steps. ‘Rome is beautiful – but it doesn’t stop your life turning to rat shit.’

  ‘Your life’s fine, Valentina. You are defined by who you are and who you love, not by your job and what your boss does to you.’

  Even through the haze of too much alcohol, she knows he’s right.

  She holds him tighter and hopes she doesn’t fall and make a fool of herself before they reach the hotel.

  An almost full moon shines on them, and Tom briefly looks up at it. For the first time that night he isn’t thinking of Valentina.

  His thoughts are with another woman.

  One lying in a psychiatric bed across the city. A woman terrified of the dark and the evil she’s certain it will bring.

  74

  There are no windows in the room.

  No natural light can spill in from the world outside the hospital and make the occupant feel part of normal life.

  There’s only the homogeneous, alien whiteness of the forever-buzzing fluorescent tubes.

  But Anna Fratelli knows the day is over.

  It is night-time.

  She knows it as surely as if she was standing outside and watching the great Roman sky grow black around her.

  She clutches a Bible that one of the nurses has given her and rubs it over her body like a bar of soap.

  No inch of skin is left unlathered.

  The words of the Lord will protect her.

  His are the only true words.

  Mother is wrong.

  What She says about Him is wrong.

  Anna kisses the Bible and stands it, cover facing her, on the cabinet beside her bed.

  She kneels and prays.

  ‘En ego, o bone et dulcissime Iesu, ante conspectum tuum genibus me provolvo, ac maximo animi ardore te oro atque obtestor, ut meum in cor vividos fidei …’

  They will come now.

  From out of their own darkness, from places beyond the womb, the others will come.

&
nbsp; And one will take her.

  ‘… spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum poenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere …’

  The doctors have given her medicines. Pills. Liquid on spoons. Drips. They’ve put them in her mouth and in her veins and told her they’ll make her better.

  She doubts it.

  Maybe it’s the drugs that are making her sleepy.

  Or – more likely – it’s the others.

  It’s always tiring when they take her. They sap her energy and drain her.

  She feels increasingly listless.

  She looks across the room for the paper and crayons that the nurses let her have.

  No pen. No pencil. You might hurt yourself.

  She’s too tired to reach them. Her eyes close for a second.

  Cassandra is there.

  She’s dressed in a beautiful white intusium topped by a lavishly embroidered white and gold stolla. She looks as pale as moonlight as the soldiers trundle her past in a rough wooden chariot.

  Cassandra’s eyes see Anna. She calls to her. ‘Have faith, sister. You and I are strong. I am coming to help you. I will be with you soon.’

  Anna can feel Cassandra’s voice penetrating her.

  Touching her soul.

  In the wall mirror in the hospital room she sees her lips moving, but it is Cassandra’s calm and dignified voice she hears.

  She walks to the mirror. Stands before it and sees Cassandra talking directly to her.

  ‘Mother cannot hurt you. Whatever She does to you, sweet Anna, She cannot harm you.’

  Behind Cassandra, crowds are jeering and throwing things at her. Stones. Rotten fruit. Broken pottery.

  Anna covers her face for fear of being hurt. She turns from the mirror. She slowly rotates three hundred and sixty degrees.

  Cassandra is there again.

  Her hand has been cut off.

  Blood drips in pools of jelly from the stump.

  Her eyes roll back in their sockets.

  Anna turns back to the mirror.

  Behind the Bible, blood pours from her stitched arm while she mouths the words that Mother says most …

  You mustn’t tell, Anna.

  Mustn’t tell

  Mustn’t tell.

  75

  For a fleeting second, Valentina has forgotten about yesterday.

  Her eyelids blink, her brain tells her body she’s awake, and her first thoughts of the day are about Tom.

  But they’re quickly chased off.

  Someone has let the bad thoughts out as well.

  Suspension, Caesario and court martial.

  They’re all there again, banging on her window and pulling faces at her.

  Tom’s out for the count, breathing as peacefully as a baby.

  She slides from his warmth and goes to the bathroom.

  The face peering back at her from the harsh light of the mirror above the sink looks scared and drained and old.

  It’s not her.

  Valentina determines that she’s not going to be that face.

  Not for much longer.

  It’s not even five a.m., but she gets dressed and lets herself silently out of the room. There’s something in the boot of the car that she wants.

  Her feet make slapping noises and echoes in the deserted car park.

  It’s cold enough to see her breath in front of her.

  She beeps open the central locking of the Fiat and grabs the carrier bags of personal belongings she collected from her desk when Caesario suspended her.

  It hurts to even touch them.

  As she walks back to the room, she realises she feels something more today than just anger and frustration.

  Shame.

  Its icy fingers are digging into her shoulder and won’t let go.

  How will she tell her parents that she’s been suspended? How will she break it to friends back in Venice and to her old boss, Vito Carvalho?

  Vito might actually understand. She confided in him about her brush with Caesario, so he might not think badly of her.

  She lets herself back into the bedroom, trying to be as quiet as possible.

  But Tom hears her.

  He turns the bedside light on and screws up his eyes. ‘Where have you been?’

  She holds up her bags. ‘The car. I wanted to get these.’

  He glances at the digital clock near the lamp. ‘So early? It’s not even five.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She climbs on the bed, kisses him and turns the light out. ‘You try to get some more sleep.’

  She smells of fresh air and the start of a new day. Her hair and skin are cold and sensual.

  ‘Not yet. Kiss me awake some more.’

  Too tired and drunk to make love last night, Valentina now desperately needs sex. She needs it to renew herself.

  Tom drags her clothes off.

  He cups her breasts while she straddles him.

  Her long hair falls around his face as she bends and covers his mouth and neck in kisses.

  It’s an eternity before they’re spent.

  They lie together in blissful post-coital slumber. Shafts of sharp winter sunshine arrow through gaps in the curtains and lodge in the wooden floor.

  They wake at almost exactly the same second.

  Valentina kisses him lightly.

  ‘Will you order some breakfast while I shower?’ She steps naked from the tangled quilt and escapes to the bathroom.

  ‘Sure.’ Tom watches her every step. ‘Anything special?’

  ‘Carbohydrates!’ she calls from the bathroom. ‘Lots and lots of carbs.’ She sets the shower going. ‘And juice. And coffee.’ Her voice becomes more distant. ‘Oh, and maybe some fruit. Berries if they have any.’

  He dials room service and orders croissants, pastries, muffins, a fruit platter, granola, some low-fat yoghurt, cranberry juice and a pot of black coffee.

  Valentina emerges from the bathroom dressed in a thick white robe, her hair wrapped in a towel.

  Tom kisses her as he squeezes past and heads for the shower. ‘Food should be here in a minute.’

  He takes a fraction of the time she did, and is already towelling himself dry when he hears the door open. For a second his heart jumps.

  She’s in danger.

  He rushes naked into the room.

  An astonished young man in a white jacket and perfectly pressed black trousers all but drops the heavy silver breakfast tray he’s carried from the lift without spilling anything.

  Even Valentina looks shocked

  Tom pulls up, only a pace away from throwing a wall-breaking punch.

  ‘Sorry.’

  The word is hugely inadequate, but it’s the best he can manage. He turns as nonchalantly as is possible when you’re naked, and creeps back in agonising embarrassment to the bathroom.

  ‘He’s very jealous,’ says Valentina as she signs for the breakfasts and adds a generous tip.

  It’s enough to restore normality. The waiter smiles and heads off to the kitchen.

  ‘What was that all about?’ She grins at Tom as he reappears, a towel now around his waist.

  ‘Sorry. I thought for a moment that you were in danger.’

  She moves plates and cups off the tray. ‘I wasn’t. And by the way, don’t you think I know to use a safety chain?’

  He glances over to the door and sees the brass slider.

  She rubs his arm as he stands close. ‘But it’s nice that you care. You want coffee?’

  ‘Just juice for the minute.’ He lifts the carrier bags off the bed. ‘What’s so important in here that you had to raid the car at the break of dawn?’

  ‘Give me the one in your left hand. I’ll show you.’

  Tom passes it over.

  Valentina empties it on the bed.

  Three thick volumes of photocopies flop out.

  ‘They’re copies of Anna Fratelli’s journals. Her life – or should I say, lives – in her own tortured words.�
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  76

  Louisa Verdetti sits in Sylvio Valducci’s office biting a thumbnail and waiting for her boss to finish a call.

  Finally he clunks the phone down on its cradle.

  ‘Both the police officers you complained of have been suspended.’ He smiles triumphantly.

  Louisa doesn’t say anything.

  He gives her another second.

  Surely she appreciates his power? What he’s done for her? What he could do for her if she was nicer to him?

  It’s a while since any woman’s been nice.

  A good session of nice with the not unattractive Signora Verdetti and he could see her as something entirely different from the pain-in-the-ass clinician always nagging for more funds.

  But there’s not even a hint of the gratitude he’s hoping for.

  ‘What, no thank you?’ He jerks his arms. ‘You don’t think I had to pull strings to get these police officers kicked out of your way?’

  She concentrates harder on the hangnail.

  ‘Well, let me make something clear to you. There’s no room for excuses now. I expect to see results, Louisa, and I expect to see them soon.’

  ‘I didn’t want them suspended!’ She’s so angry she can’t look at him. ‘I asked you to make a call to someone senior to see if there was any way to get them to back off and give me some space and time alone with Anna.’ She feels sorry for Valentina. Being appreciated as a woman in the medical world is tough, but in the Carabinieri it must be close to impossible. ‘What will happen to them?’

  He lets out a small laugh. ‘You care?’

  ‘Yes!’ Louisa looks down at her hands. Her thumb’s bleeding where she’s chewed the nail. ‘They were only doing their jobs.’

  Now he’s angry. ‘Oh, please! No bleeding hearts. Be a bit more professional.’

  He loves the fact that she’s feeling guilty, feeling so bad about things that she can’t help but let off steam.

  ‘What’s done is done. You’ve got your personal victory and beaten the bad lady captain and her army, so enjoy it. Then forget it and get your job done.’

  In a sense, Louisa has already forgotten it.

  Her mind is back on her patient. ‘She damaged herself again last night.’

  ‘What?’