The Venice Conspiracy

by Jon Trace

  She pulls herself out of a plush armchair as the couple descend the lobby staircase and head their way. ‘Buongiorno, Signor Shaman.’ She pins on her most professional of smiles. ‘This is my colleague, Lieutenant Baldoni. We’re sorry to disturb you.’

  Rocco barely comes up to Tom’s chin. His face is without cheekbones and his eyes are so large they look like they’ve been painted on by a child who’s not yet mastered the fundamentals of perspective. He looks quizzically towards the woman at Tom’s side.

  ‘This is my friend, Tina Ricci.’ Tom glares at Valentina. ‘But I guess somehow you already know that?’

  ‘Signor, we are detectives.’ Valentina enjoys her riposte. ‘Maybe not as well staffed as the LAPD or FBI, but it really does not take us long to call your hotel, then describe you to a few restaurant owners and concierges before we find you. Venice is only a small village if you live here.’

  Tom does nothing to hide his irritation. ‘So, what do you want? I really can’t think that there’s anything I can add to what I’ve already told you.’

  Valentina glances towards Tina then back to him. ‘I’d rather explain away from here. Somewhere more discreet.’ Her eyes roll back to Tina. ‘We won’t keep him from you very long, signorina. You should have him back in time for him to plump up your pillows.’

  Tom reddens. ‘Do I have a choice in this?’

  ‘Si.’ Valentina tries her best to look sympathetic. ‘For the moment we are asking for your help. It would be kind and courteous if you were to give it freely and save us the trouble of seeking the authority to enforce it.’

  Tom gives in. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

  The officers head for the door. He kisses Tina. ‘I’ll call when I’m done.’

  She looks more worried than annoyed. ‘Do you want me to fix a lawyer for you?’

  He smiles dismissively. ‘No. It’s not that heavy. I’ll be back real soon.’

  Minutes later, he boards a Carabinieri boat moored right outside the hotel.

  No one says much as they cut through the iron-grey water and head the short distance to the force’s HQ. It’s a carefully restored and extended two-storey, salmon-coloured building with brown shutters, security cameras and doors that can only be electronically buzzed open. Valentina’s office, like that of her major, overlooks the canal and the lawned grounds of a museum where two young boys are playing soccer on a rare patch of grass.

  ‘Coffee?’ Valentina offers, as they settle on hard plastic chairs near a cheap table filled with expensive paperwork.

  Tom sits with his arms crossed and his legs spread.

  ‘How about an explanation, instead?’

  ‘In good time. How long have you known your friend Tina?’

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘The writer - Tina Ricci - how long have you known her?’

  Tom stares. Angry at the growing intrusion into his private life. Valentina matches him eye for eye, prepared to wait indefinitely for his answer.

  Eventually, he gives it. ‘We met in Venice. I never knew her before I came here earlier this week. Is this really relevant? ’

  ‘And you are already so intimate with her that you spend the night together?’

  ‘That’s none of your business!’ He stands and knocks the chair over as he does.

  Baldoni steps nervously between him and the door. ‘Please.’ He gestures towards the fallen seat. ‘We could go to a magistrate and make this a lot more official and very unpleasant.’

  Tom picks up the chair. ‘I wish to God I knew what you people wanted. I tried to help a man who had found a dead girl in your damned canal. Ever since then you’ve wanted to know my life story and now that of anyone I’ve met.’

  Valentina swings the empty chair around for him. ‘Please sit down and try to see things from our perspective for a moment.’

  He lets out an exasperated sigh and sits.

  The lieutenant finishes her pitch. ‘For years you’ve been a parish priest, minding your own business, having what I guess is a quiet, calm and celibate life.’ She raises one of her pencil-thin eyebrows. ‘Then all of a sudden you kill two people, abandon your vows, cross a continent and end up in Venice, where - lo and behold - you come across a dead girl’s body. Then’ - she gives him her best look of total incredulity - ‘on top of all that, we find you having a relationship with another American whom apparently you’ve never met before. Now, maybe all those things are coincidences. But it’s our job to check they are. Even if that means asking you hours of embarrassing questions until we’re fully satisfied.’

  ‘Fine!’ Tom bites back a building rage. ‘Now look at things from my perspective: I try to do the right thing by crossing the road to stop a woman being attacked. But despite my efforts, she’s raped, just yards from me.’ The memory stops him. He wonders for a moment about the poor girl he couldn’t save and how she’s piecing her damaged life together. ‘That night, I had to fight for my own life, and as a consequence ended up killing two people.’ He pauses again, more memories painfully surfacing: the dead kid’s face, white and drained . . . Blood all over his shirt, two dead men - men he maybe could have restrained rather than killed . . . ‘So, you tell me,’ continues Tom, ‘how would you have felt in that situation? Like you’d done the right thing - or got it all wrong? Like God was pleased with you - or angered at the complete mess you’d made?’ Their silence tells Tom he’s getting through to them. ‘Yeah, well, maybe you’d be like me - traumatised - lost - desperate to run away from it all.’

  Neither Valentina nor Rocco speak as Tom pours himself water from a plastic bottle on the table. The glass is hazy and probably dirty from someone else using it, but he doesn’t care. ‘And as for Tina—’ His anger boils over now. ‘Well, that really is none of your business, but I’ll tell you anyway. Yes, we’re strangers. And we’ve become intimate. Now maybe I’ll go to Hell for all this - somehow I don’t think so - but right now getting involved with her is about the only good thing I’ve done.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Valentina. She studies him for a moment; his passion seems genuine - more than genuine, quite impressive, quite moving. Carvalho had told her she had to be sure about him - absolutely sure - before following through with what they’d decided. She looks again into his eyes. She’s a good judge of people, and this guy doesn’t flinch. He’s hiding nothing. She motions to her colleague. ‘Show him the papers, Rocco.’

  Baldoni passes Tom a file. ‘It’s the medical examiner’s report.’

  Tom screws up his face. ‘If it’s all the same, I’d rather not look at it - I’m sure there’s nothing pleasant in there. I’d just like to leave now.’

  Valentina takes the file off him and opens it. ‘We don’t normally let civilians see things like this, but we need you to look.’ She turns it around and places it in front of Tom. ‘You’re right: it’s not pleasant. I’m sorry for that. But right now, none of us in this room can afford pleasantries. Like it or not, we’re all caught up in this young girl’s death.’

  Tom glances down. It’s not what he expected. No gory post-mortem photographs. Instead, what he sees is a computerised sketch of Monica’s body. Arrowed, listed, numbered and described are each and every wound inflicted by the killer. Tom turns it around and pushes it back. ‘I’m sorry. I still don’t understand. Is this supposed to mean something to me?’

  Valentina stands and walks around the table. She perches on the edge of it alongside Tom. Close enough to feel some electricity from being in his personal space. ‘When you first met me and Major Carvalho, you said something that stuck in our minds. You said, and I quote, “You’re dealing with the devil’s work.” Do you remember?’

  He glances down at the sketch on the table. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘Well, maybe you were correct.’ Valentina pulls the ME’s report close to him. ‘In the bottom corner you’ll see the total number of wounds inflicted upon Monica. The ME has checked them; my boss has checked them; even Rocco here has checked them. There were s
ix hundred and sixty-six, Signor Shaman. Six Six Six. We suspect that number means even more to you than it does to us.’

  CHAPTER 18

  A tray of coffee signals the end of hostilities. Tom toys with a double espresso then downs it like a shot of vodka. His eyes are still glued to the expansive sketch of the teenager’s six hundred and sixty-six wounds. Lieutenant Valentina Morassi waits until he’s wiped his mouth. ‘Father, we asked you to help because you have spiritual knowledge and because in finding Monica’s body you’re already part of the enquiry. That gives you a unique insight. It also means we don’t have to risk telling other people about what we’re doing. Even church circles have mouths that can’t keep secrets.’

  ‘Sorry to pull you up, but I’m no longer a Father. Just Tom. Plain Tom Shaman.’

  ‘Scusi,’ says the lieutenant, holding up her hands. ‘Tom, where do we begin? What is the meaning of the six hundred and sixty-six wounds?’

  ‘Okay,’ says Tom, putting down the empty cup. ‘Then we go back to Book of Revelation. Chapter thirteen, verses seventeen to eighteen. There are many translations and they all differ by a word or two, but in the main it’s understood to go like this: “This mark is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”’

  Valentina looks confused. ‘What does that mean? Are we looking for some killer - or killers - tattooed with six-six-six? ’

  ‘You might be, but I would have thought that unlikely. I don’t believe your killer is from the crazed lunatic end of the Satanic spectrum. To inflict so precise a number of wounds and then to leave the body on public display seems indicative of someone who plans things very well - and that will most probably include meticulously hiding his Satanic beliefs.’

  Valentina’s impressed. ‘We call them organised offenders. I suspect now you’re just plain Tom Shaman you might make a good psychological profiler.’

  ‘I’ll try to take that as a compliment,’ says Tom. ‘Six-six-six is a highly significant number to Satanists,’ he adds. ‘By inflicting exactly that number of wounds, someone with Satanic beliefs is making an offering, a sacrifice. I think you can also say that they want you to notice what they’ve done. So you should see it as a declaration, a show of their power and statement of intent.’

  The answer’s more than Valentina expected. ‘It’s certainly true that there are more cases of Satanic killings than ever before. That’s not just here in Italy, it’s the same across Europe and America too.’

  Tom nods. It’s not news to him. ‘There’s been a rise in Satanic activity for the last decade. Some of it is just cranks seeking sexual thrills or publicity for their newly formed rock band. Some of it, like the attack on this poor girl, is more sinister.’

  Rocco looks surprised. ‘The church has been aware of the rise in these crimes?’

  ‘The Vatican follows this kind of news as closely as the FBI tracks terrorist incidents. Many exorcists maintain that disciples of Satan are building towards something, deliberately increasing coven activity and pushing the boundaries of their ceremonies and sacrifices.’

  Valentina spoons sugar into her nearly cold espresso. ‘I pulled up a case from Yaroslavl in Russia, about three hundred miles from Moscow. Two teenage girls were stabbed six hundred and sixty-six times and had their hearts cut out. The killers poured their blood over the body of another teenager they were initiating into their cult.’

  Tom nods. ‘I remember those killings. The following day the gang killed another two youngsters and then hid their remains in graves marked by upside-down crucifixes. They set fires, too, didn’t they?’

  ‘They did,’ confirms Valentina. ‘We’ve only got outline intel at the moment, the Russians are sending us more details. But, yes, there was a sacrificial fire, and apparently some of the victims’ hair was burned on it.’

  ‘It follows. And cannibalism, right?’

  ‘Right again. They drank some of the blood and roasted slivers of flesh on the fire.’

  ‘You think your case and that one are connected?’

  Valentina shakes her head. ‘They made arrests in Russia, so there can’t be a direct connection. There may be a copycat element. In Italy there have been other cases too. A Satanic cult was unearthed in Milan after the ritualistic killings of a young rock singer and two women.’

  Tom nods. ‘Very often you’ll find modern Satanic rituals involve three killings. It’s their way of defiling the Holy Trinity - three corpses to mock the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and to show Christians that Jesus is powerless in his endless struggle against Satan.’

  Valentina does her best to hide her fear that Monica Vidic may just be the start of such a sequence. ‘Tom, I apologise for ruining your trip to Venice and your new romance. We’ll get you back to the hotel as soon as possible. Would you do us one more favour?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘It’s a big favour. My major would like to fix a meeting - a sort of brainstorming session with you and the medical examiner, Professore Montesano.’ She lets a beat go by. ‘At the morgue.’

  Tom doesn’t flinch but his reaction gives away the fact that it’s an appointment he’d prefer not to keep. ‘And if I do that, then you’re done with me? Finished, completely?’

  Valentina looks to Rocco, then back to Tom. ‘Completely.’ She hopes her face doesn’t give away her deception. Now is not the place to mention what else the killer had done to Monica’s body.

  CAPITOLO XIII

  666 BC

  Atmanta

  Two heavy, S-shaped iron hooks hang over the top of one of the city walls.

  They’re rusty from being there so long. Ugly brown deposits stain the honey-coloured stone.

  No one ever asks what they’re for.

  Everyone knows.

  They know, because when they’re in use, the entire community lives in fear.

  The hooks belong to Larth. He hangs things from them. Living things.

  Once, he hung a villager’s dog by its hind legs. The animal had been stupid enough to run at him barking. Larth had almost broken its neck with his bare hands, but that wasn’t enough. He strung the mutt up from the hooks and made its owner and his six-year-old son sit beneath it until the dog died in the baking sun. The animal had taken more than a day to give up its last yelp. Larth had warned the owner that if he so much as touched it, let alone comforted it or gave it water, then he’d be strung up as well. When the hound was dead, he made the child cut it down and bury it outside the walls.

  Beneath the hooks are a series of smears and stains. Blood, sweat and tears. Most of it human. Most of it male.

  But don’t be fooled, Larth is certainly not opposed to hanging a woman if circumstances demand it.

  A foreign whore who slighted a friend of his was recently strung naked from dawn to dusk. In the afternoon he spun her around, face to the wall, so some of the diseased and deformed men who slept rough by the cemetery could pleasure themselves.

  The hooks have sharp ends and dig hungrily into the soft wall when a rope is wound around them and a body hung from them. Larth made them himself. Heated the metal white and pounded it until he had just the right angle. A labour of love.

  He thinks of every beat of the hammer and flying white spark as he and his assistants make their way to what the locals call the Punishment Wall. He likes that they call it that. That they recognise its importance, its place in their lives.

  Today’s victim, a petty thief, is stripped bare. He’s an old man known as Telthius. When he was a child, Larth was often left with him and his wife while his own mother and father worked. He thinks briefly of that now, and how he used to playfully pull the old man’s long beard and hair. The memory stops as soon as his assistants have finished lifting Telthius on to the platform and stringing him up.

  Back to the wall, he hangs from ropes around his wrists, his face already distorted with pain. />
  Larth feels his anger rise. The thief’s suffering ignites something inside him. Something exciting. Something that makes him feel more powerful and complete than at any other time in his life.

  Telthius disgusts him. His long beard is white. White hair sprouts from his nose, his ears, his armpits and even around his manhood. White is revolting. The old man is revolting. What he did was revolting. He was caught stealing from Pesna’s silver mine where he labours. Now the magistrate has decreed that he must be publicly punished. Taught a lesson. One he’ll never forget. One everyone will remember.

  Larth puts out his hand and takes a flaming rag torch from one of his aides. ‘Open your eyes! Open them, Thief!’

  The kindly elder who once rocked him to sleep in the sticky afternoon heat squints towards his former charge.

  Larth holds the flaming torch between the old man’s legs and smiles.

  The white pubic hair catches fire.

  Larth laughs. A throaty roar that rolls across the gardens. Telthius jerks with pain.

  The torturer’s assistants can’t bear to look. The air smells of burning skin and hair.

  Larth sniffs at the aroma, like a maiden savouring the fragrance of a rose. ‘You stole from your master. Betrayed his trust. Defiled his good name. For these crimes I justly punish you, so others will see the errors of your ways and respect the rights of good men.’

  He rolls the flaming torch over the hair that covers the old man’s chest and arms. Telthius screams in agony.

  The torturer is careful not to go too far. He lets the fire burn only briefly. Enough to hurt, not to kill. There is no fun in setting fire to a dead body. Well, not nearly as much as setting fire to a living one.