The Rome Prophecy

by Jon Trace

  Louisa watches him turn and walk away. She can’t believe he just told her to wait. Like she has a choice. Wait is not a word she’s ever liked, but in her current circumstance it’s been elevated to the top of the things she most hates and fears.

  But wait she does.

  Half an hour later, he reappears. With him are two more men, but their cloaks are scarlet.

  Louisa steps away from the bars as Purple Cloak unlocks them. The others enter and Louisa has to do a double-take. Their faces are startlingly feminine, but their hands and feet are distinctly man-sized. Without talking, they grab her wrists and click on a pair of steel handcuffs.

  ‘Ow!’ Louisa looks down at the metal gnawing her wrist bones. ‘They’re hurting.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ says Purple Cloak.

  One of his henchmen – or henchwomen; Louisa’s now not sure – disappears behind her. She’s about to turn around when the other one jerks her by the wrists.

  The stab of pain distracts her.

  A black hood is pulled over her head.

  A stretch of thin rope is looped around her neck and pulled tight.

  Purple Cloak speaks. ‘Don’t scream. Don’t panic. You’ll only make things worse for yourself.’

  Louisa struggles.

  He holds her shoulders. ‘Listen! Nothing bad is going to happen. We can’t get any reception down here, so we’re taking you to a place where you can make your call.’

  The reassurance doesn’t work.

  Louisa is panicking. Panicking like she’s never panicked before.

  The shock of the hood has triggered her claustrophobia.

  She feels like giant balls of cotton wool are being stuffed down her throat.

  She tells herself to stay calm, breathe through her nose.

  Her chest aches.

  Her heart is racing.

  Thin streams of air trickle into her heaving lungs.

  Her shoulder bumps against something.

  They’re moving her.

  ‘Come on,’ says someone. ‘Let’s get her out of the womb.’

  Womb?

  She must have misheard. They must have said room.

  Hands grip her elbows and tow her along.

  She feels sick and dizzy.

  There are other voices now. Women shouting to her, or maybe it’s children.

  Louisa starts to hyperventilate. She needs to stop. Stand still. See light and space. Calm down.

  But they won’t let her.

  Her knees buckle.

  She gasps for air.

  Blackness is just a breath away.

  89

  Tom and Valentina eat at their hotel.

  Federico stays with them for a glass of wine, but gets a call from his wife and says he has to leave.

  Left alone, they leisurely pick their way through a platter of Tuscan prosciutto, before seeing off two small but delicious plates of mushroom risotto. A particularly fine and fragrant bottle of Vermentino di Gallura runs out during their main course of fresh lobster, pasta and salad.

  ‘More?’ asks Tom, holding the bottle aloft.

  She pulls a face. ‘Would you hate it if we didn’t?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  They both know what it means. The meal is heading to a close. Work is rearing its ugly head.

  Tom mops a little of the lobster sauce with a piece of torn bread. ‘Are you starting to think about Anna?’

  ‘A little.’ She pins some pasta down and starts to twirl it on her fork. ‘Though I’m trying not to.’

  ‘And Louisa?’

  ‘Also.’ Her appetite’s gone now. Killed by hearing the names Anna and Louisa. ‘When I try to make sense of everything that’s happened – the murder, or murders, Anna’s death, and this latest development with Louisa – my head feels like it’s exploding.’

  Tom understands. ‘I don’t know how you cope with such horrors as part of a daily job. I came upon death quite a lot as a priest, but nowhere near on the scale that you do, and there was seldom the same amount of violence involved.’

  She untwists the speared pasta and uses her knife to scrape her fork clean. ‘You know, murder is usually straightforward. Wife kills cheating husband. Cheated-on husband kills cheating wife. Jealous jilted lover kills reunited husband and wife, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Plus the drug killings.’

  ‘Plus the drug killings. Then there’s not much more on the spectrum until you reach serial killers.’ She pushes her plate away from her. ‘Where do you think sociopathic cults or paedophile gangs fit in?’

  ‘Somewhere between the mentally ill and the spree killers? You want coffee or anything?’

  ‘Non, grazie.’ She picks up her glass and swirls the last of her wine.

  Tom tries to beckon a waiter to pay the bill, but has no luck. ‘You remember the number ten came up when we first talked about Cybele and the cults and the myths of the other sibyls, the prophetesses?’

  Valentina has to force herself to remember. ‘Something to do with the number on the shelf at the depository where the poor left their cremated loved ones.’

  ‘The Columbarium, that’s right. Well, it’s been driving me crazy. I realised afterwards that while ten doesn’t mean anything to me, nine does.’

  Valentina sits back. She fears a long and difficult story is about to keep her from the soft comforts of her bed. ‘Treat my brain gently. I’ve had a few glasses of wine, I’m stressed to the limit. And I’m getting very tired.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll make it simple.’ Tom blots his mouth with a white napkin before he begins. ‘According to Roman mythology, a sibyl offered nine books of prophecies and wisdom to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, in return for a vast fortune.’

  She grimaces. History – Roman or otherwise – was never her strong subject. ‘For how much?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t think anyone ever knew. Legend just says it was a fortune. Anyway, Tarquinius says no deal, and so the sibyl burns three of the books and then says she wants the same amount of money for the remaining six. Tarquinius still says no deal, so she torches another three.’

  ‘Plucky girl.’ Valentina drains the dregs of her glass in appreciation. ‘She’d be my choice to beat the Deal or No Deal banker every time.’

  ‘So, we’re down to three books, for which the sibyl demands exactly the same amount of money she did for the original nine. This time Tarquinius cracks and hands over the cash.’

  ‘Why? What made these books so valuable?’

  ‘Good questions. Sibyls were prophetesses. As well as foresight, apparently these texts gave great advice on what to do as and when disasters fell upon the empire.’

  ‘A sort of Dummy’s Guide to Pestilence and Plague?’

  Tom can’t help but laugh. ‘Yes, if you like. Joking aside, the three sibylline books that remained were so treasured that they were kept in a guarded vault in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. They were only brought out and consulted during times of crisis.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Pretty much what you said: famine, pestilence in the agricultural areas, meteor showers, slave rebellions, invading armies, those kinds of things.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of these books. Are you thinking that they somehow have a connection with Anna and all her alters?’

  ‘We know there’s a connection to Cybele; it’s pretty likely that that extends to associated cults and the sibylline books or teachings.’

  ‘I suppose these books are in Latin or Greek or something horribly hard?’

  ‘Worse. They’re gone.’ Tom catches the eye of a passing waiter. ‘Il conto, per favore.’

  The young man nods and takes a split second to check out Valentina before waltzing away to get the bill. ‘The temple they were kept in was burned down and the books destroyed along with it.’

  ‘If only they’d backed it all up on hard disk,’ jokes Valentina.

  ‘Actually, they tried to do what I suppose is almost the ancie
nt equivalent of that. They had scribes write down verbal accounts given by everyone and anyone who’d ever read or heard anything from the books. They called the new volumes the Sibylline Oracles.’

  It makes her laugh. ‘God, could you imagine asking everyone who’d read the Bible to give their own account of various passages and lessons? It would be hysterical!’

  Tom sees the funny side. ‘Or maybe a best-seller. Uncharac teristically, the Church seems to have missed a trick there.’

  The waiter arrives with a small bill on a big silver plate.

  Tom counts out cash and adds a handsome tip, despite the fact that the young man can’t stop staring at Valentina.

  ‘I guess you get that a lot?’ he jokes as the waiter glides away.

  ‘Never happened before,’ she says innocently. ‘You ready for bed?’

  Tom puts down his napkin and courteously steps behind her chair to hold it as she rises. ‘I’ve been ready since we got rid of Federico almost two hours ago.’

  90

  ‘She’s waking up.’

  Louisa hears them talking before she sees anyone. People are moving all around her.

  Her fluttering eyes finally focus.

  She’s staring up at a ceiling.

  A real ceiling.

  Not the rough roof of a cell.

  The picture before her slowly becomes clear.

  She’s in a strange room that smells of dust and wet plaster.

  It doesn’t matter.

  At least she’s not underground. She’s not in a cell. Not in an enclosed space.

  She hunches up on to her elbows.

  A blurred shape enters her eyeline.

  ‘You passed out.’ It’s the man in the purple cloak. ‘You panicked and collapsed when we were moving you.’

  Louisa looks around. His scarlet-robed henchmen are hovering in the background, along with a woman in a shimmering pale cloak who turns and walks away as soon as she notices Louisa looking at her.

  The woman in her apartment block? Purple Cloak’s accomplice?

  No, Louisa doesn’t think so.

  She looked older. Somehow more important.

  Purple Cloak leans over her again. ‘Let’s get you some water. You haven’t drunk anything for about twelve hours.’

  Twelve hours!

  The words crash around in her mind like a frightened bird stuck up a chimney.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a little after eight a.m. You’ve slept through the night. Probably a combination of shock and stress.’ He remembers the circumstances of her abduction. ‘And perhaps a little after-effect of the chloroform.’

  Louisa takes a plastic cup of water from him. She notices he’s right-handed and wearing a heavy gold ring bearing the image of a woman astride some ugly wild animal. ‘Grazie.’

  She drinks it in two gulps.

  He smiles. ‘I’ll get you some more.’

  Louisa can see the room better now.

  It’s weird.

  She can’t quite think what it reminds her of.

  Then she gets it.

  It’s like a half-decorated room in a new house. The walls are dark peach, the colour of fresh plaster. There are ladders lying on the floor, dust sheets piled in a corner, and a strong smell of gloss paint.

  She sits up a little more.

  No windows.

  It panics her slightly.

  There are workmen’s portable lights off to her left, cables snaking away to some hidden power source or generator.

  She’s certainly in some newly built or newly refurbished building – somewhere that is going to be seen by the public, otherwise what’s the point of decorating it?

  ‘Here.’ Purple Cloak pushes the topped-up water cup into her hand. ‘Don’t even think about wondering if you can run away. Even if I took you outside, you’d have no idea where you are, and our people are guarding all the tunnels and exit routes.’

  Tunnels.

  Was that a slip?

  Louisa sips the water.

  The more she thinks about it, the more she realises that the word tells her nothing. Rome is like a rat run.

  The whole subsoil of the city is riddled with secret tunnels, caves, dungeons and ruins.

  She could be anywhere.

  She passes back the empty cup.

  ‘Good. Now, how about you make that call to your office and explain to us how we can recover Anna?’

  ‘I need my phone,’ she says wearily.

  He clicks his fingers and someone goes off to fetch it. ‘I know. We brought you here so you can get a signal. It would have been impossible in the cells.’

  Cells.

  Plural.

  Cells.

  And tunnels.

  Louisa pushes her luck. ‘I’ll need to go back home and change. I can’t go into work wearing yesterday’s clothes; it’ll look suspicious.’

  He seems amused. ‘If necessary, we can give you fresh clothes, but you won’t be going home until all this is over. And if you don’t achieve what we want, then you won’t be going home at all.’

  One of the henchmen returns and hands his boss Louisa’s phone.

  Purple Cloak flashes a thin smile. ‘We’ve even charged it for you.’ He gives Louisa a long and considered look. ‘Now, who are you planning to call? What are you going to say? And how exactly do you intend to help us get Anna back?’

  Louisa has thought this through. A hundred times. She clears her throat with a rusty cough. ‘We’ve taken her out of the hospital before. We took her to Cosmedin, near to where she was arrested, to see if we could unlock any memories that would help us with her therapy.’

  Purple Cloak stays poker-faced. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m going to call my assistant and tell her to get Anna ready to go out again. I’ll say I’ve been reading through the case notes and want to take her on another cognitive trip.’

  ‘You can authorise that?’

  ‘Of course. That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?’

  He accepts her point. ‘Where would you say you were taking her? How will she get there?’

  Louisa knows she has him hooked. ‘Wherever you like. You tell me.’

  He thinks for a moment, then looks pleased with himself. ‘Piazza di Santa Cecilia. Do you know it?’

  Louisa does.

  It sends a shudder rippling through her.

  ‘Yes. I can go into work, collect Anna and bring her there with my assistant.’

  He holds up the phone. ‘No. You’ll get your assistant to bring her. You only go free as and when we see Anna.’

  That’s not the way Louisa was hoping to play things. ‘I’ll have to be there to sign her out,’ she lies. ‘It can’t be done.’

  ‘It can. Find a way. And remember, if you try to trick us, we will kill you.’ He passes the phone over. ‘Show me on the display who you are going to call before you press any buttons.’

  Louisa takes her cell and thumbs her way through the electronic directory.

  Her hands are shaking. She can feel her breathing quickening.

  Another panic attack is on its way.

  Finally she holds up the name and number for him to see.

  He peers closely at the display. ‘Okay. Make the call.’

  91

  Valentina’s been lying awake for ten minutes.

  She’s naked in bed, facing Tom and doing nothing but watch him breathing gently. Just being beside him makes her feel calm and safe. She can’t remember looking at a man in this way before. Just staring at him, studying him, trying to understand more about him.

  She lifts her left hand from beneath the warmth of the quilt and puts it gently on the side of his face.

  He shifts a little.

  Right now he seems more like a baby than a man, and she has to stifle a laugh.

  She scrutinises his face.

  Her old boss Vito always said a man’s face was a map to his life. A thin white scar runs just below the hairline on the left side of Tom’s
head.

  A fall as a child?

  A tumble off his first bike?

  This little white snake looks old enough to be either.

  She touches his hair. It’s thick and dark, but not completely black. It’s somewhere north of chestnut brown. She looks closer. She spots a few grey hairs in the part that joins his almost military-short sideburns. It suits him. Makes him look distinguished. He may be one of those rare beasts who gets even more handsome with the passing years.

  Valentina’s cell phone rings. Her eyes dart in the direction of the noise.

  It’s on the dressing table and out of reach.

  Tom stirs.

  She was hoping to keep him asleep a little longer.

  She slips from the covers and quickly grabs the phone.

  She intends just hitting the dismiss button, but recognises the caller.

  Louisa.

  ‘Pronto,’ she says, somewhat apprehensively.

  ‘Valentina, it’s Doctor Verdetti.’ Louisa leaves no pause for a usual response. ‘I don’t have much time, so please don’t chatter like you normally do; just listen carefully for once.’

  Valentina is instantly on edge.

  Louisa has never called herself doctor, and the off-hand reference to chattering is peculiar, to say the least.

  ‘Tell me first,’ Louisa continues, almost brusquely, ‘what kind of night did Anna have? She looked awful when I last saw her. I’m hoping she’s much better this morning.’

  Valentina quickly picks up on the verbal clues. Whoever Louisa is with, whoever has been scaring Anna so much she felt it necessary to sleep in a bed of bibles, doesn’t know she is dead – mustn’t know she’s dead – and is probably listening in right this second.

  Valentina plays her part. ‘ Anna is all right. A little weak. I think you need to see her for yourself. When will you be coming in?’

  ‘Good, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Actually, I won’t be coming in. Just the opposite. I’ve been looking through Anna’s notes and have decided that therapeutically she needs another trip out. It will give us a chance to learn more about how she reacts to certain surroundings. Could you get her wrapped up nice and warm and bring her out to the Piazza di Santa Cecilia? I’ll meet you there.’ Louisa looks to the man in the purple cloak leaning close to her and whispers, ‘What time?’