A Season for the Dead

by David Hewson

  She was silent. It was impossible for him to guess what she was thinking.

  ‘I’ve talked to some people I can trust,’ he replied, trying to understand the situation himself. ‘My father’s spoken to some of his contacts too. I can’t guarantee this will work. I know I can’t just walk away. Luca’s dead because of what they did. If they get away with killing your father they get away with everything.’

  His mind was, she knew, made up. ‘You don’t have to be there.’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’

  It came so suddenly. She reached forward, took his face in her hands and kissed him. He tasted her mouth. It brought back such memories. For a moment Nic Costa’s head was lost in recollections of delight.

  ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she whispered. ‘I despised myself for not having the courage. Don’t hate me for this. Please …’

  When she looked at him like this Nic Costa knew he was lost, knew there was no point in protesting.

  ‘When we get there, when it’s safe, I want a minute with him, Nic. Alone. That’s all. You have to give me that. You have to trust me.’

  His fingers gripped her soft, fine hair. ‘I could never hate you.’

  ‘He’s my father. He’s all I have.’

  She kissed him again, hard. He wanted to hold her for ever like this, locked tight against each other, perfect, safe, until all the world went quiet.

  ‘You have me,’ he said.

  The taste of her filled his head. He was lost in her anguished beauty.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  The church was in a medieval lane that ran from the Corso Rinascimento, by the side of the Piazza Navona, into the square of the Pantheon. Years ago the city authorities had raised the pavement at each end and turned it into a dark, narrow corridor for scurrying pedestrians who walked in the shadow of the high Renaissance buildings on both sides.

  The unmarked police car crossed the Tiber into the dawdling traffic of Vittorio Emanuele, the drivers arguing about where to park. Michael Denney sat in the rear and closed his eyes, listening, thinking. Then he turned in his seat and looked around him. It was impossible to judge, but somewhere in the snarl of traffic winding its way out of the Vatican there had to be others. For a moment he thought he glimpsed a Fiat saloon with the brown face and silver beard of Falcone in the rear. Then it flashed past, slipping away over the river in front of them.

  He listened to the plain-clothes men getting nowhere nearer a conclusion then said, ‘Just park in Rinascimento. It’s closest. I won’t be long. You’re police. I guess you won’t get a ticket.’

  The two sets of sunglasses looked at each other. One of them, the man in the passenger seat, turned and asked, ‘You’re sure you want to go to this place at all? We can take you straight to the airport if you want.’

  The driver swore under his breath, hissing at his colleague. The bass roar of approaching thunder rattled down the river and shook the roof of the over-chilled car.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Denney said. ‘This is my church. No one knows it better. And it’s arranged, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to get you boys into trouble.’

  They were quiet after that. As they passed the Oratorio dei Filippini the sky suddenly darkened and thick black rain began to fall, slowly at first, as if uncertain of its intent, then in heavy, driving columns that rebounded from the pavement. The city looked like the bowl of some fantastic fountain designed by a drunken Bernini. The driver turned on his headlights. It was now as gloomy as night. He screwed up his eyes and looked for the turning. Denney patted him on the back, guiding, giving advice. The black Mercedes pulled in at the end of the lane, Denney looked along into the black cavern which led to the church, seeing nothing but people racing for shelter from the deluge.

  He tugged his jacket around him, took hold of the suitcase below their line of sight, and said, ‘Ten minutes. Are you coming?’

  ‘We’ll see you to the door,’ the driver answered. ‘They said to let you have some privacy inside. One way in, one way out of that place. So I guess we trust you. Let’s face it.’ The black glasses peered at him. ‘Where are you going to go?’

  His companion was silent, looking out at the downpour in the street. Neither of them seemed much minded to remove the sunglasses in spite of the weather.

  ‘Where indeed?’ Denney replied, patting the driver on the back before opening the door and stepping out into the rain, holding the case out of sight as best he could, hiding it with his body. The two cops followed and immediately dashed under the paltry shelter of a nearby building.

  Michael Denney stood his ground for a moment. The rain left his grey hair drenched in seconds. He didn’t care. He was free in Rome for the first time in over a year. It made his head feel light. It was a delight beyond anything he could ever have expected. He looked around him. He was the only human being not trying to escape the deluge from the gloomy sky above. It would be so easy to walk away, to try to escape. But the two cops were young. They could soon retake him. And, as they said, where would he go?

  He walked along the lane, in the centre, not minding how wet he got. They dogged his footsteps from a distance, dashing from place to place to avoid the storm. Finally he reached the door to the church. Denney closed his eyes, remembering her, trying, too, to remember himself all those years ago. This was a time when he understood a little of the word ‘love’. So much had been lost in the intervening years.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he yelled through the rain. ‘You’re sure you won’t join me?’

  ‘Absolutely sure,’ the one who’d been in the passenger seat bellowed back. The driver struggled with a cigarette. The flame of his lighter looked like a tiny beacon trying to hold back the night. Two successive claps of thunder burst over their heads, with a sudden torrent of rain. They pulled their jacket collars into their necks and leaned hard into the wall, staring at nothing but the black stonework with water streaming down its face.

  Michael Denney smiled at both of them then stepped inside, turned hard left and walked into the small vestibule. It was, as he had hoped, empty, and just as he remembered it. Even the old sofa, where they’d made love so many times, was still there. He walked to it, touched the ancient, dry fabric, remembering the feel, the smell of her, all those years ago.

  ‘I was a fool,’ he said softly to himself. Even so, a small inner voice said, she was dying already. As they coupled with such ecstatic delight on the dusty, old sofa, the worm of sickness was beginning to turn somewhere inside her. Had they married, she would still be gone, in the same space of time, leaving him with two children to raise, no career, and an exile from his own family.

  It would have been worth it, Michael Denney thought. Just for those few short years. Even so, a part of him said that what had happened was for the best. The route of his life forked in two possible directions in this place, and bitterness lay down both. At least there was a part of her still in his life now, though she was not undamaged, for which he was entirely to blame.

  ‘I’m still a fool,’ he said. He put the suitcase on a chair and opened it. Then he took off his jacket, removed the long priest’s surplice and pulled it over his head, letting the black gown fall down towards his ankles. He went into the case again, came out with the hair colouring and carefully dabbed it on his silver head, rubbing in the dark dye, running it through his locks with his fingers, wiping his hand with a cloth when the job was done. He looked at himself in the mirror. His hair had an unnatural sheen to it. Apart from that and a few extra lines he could have been the priest he was more than thirty years before, working the poor, deprived Irish areas of Boston. An anonymous man. One who hardly merited a second glance.

  He smiled at this image of himself. Then he looked up at the boxes on the wall which had, as he hoped, not changed in three decades. Methodically, working quickly, knowing there could be no delay, he began to turn off the lights in the church, one by one, leaving the circuit covering the vestibule till last. Finally he threw that switch too and San Luigi dei
Francesi fell into darkness. From beyond the door he heard noises: cries of surprise in the interior, fear perhaps, and a loud report, like a bulb bursting. Or perhaps a gun. A few people made for the door immediately. The storm had gathered over the city by now, he guessed. There would be so little light. Caravaggio would have recognized the scene.

  When he walked out into the nave it was illuminated only by the spare, warm candlelight of the offerings in the chapels. Something was happening. There was fear in the darkness. Then it occurred to Denney he had forgotten one thing. The circuit for the meters on the paintings was separate from the rest. He had left it turned on. Sure enough there was a round, rich sea of light on one of the canvases: The Vocation of Saint Matthew. It reflected on the image and threw back a waxy yellow tint onto the confused faces of the visitors who had gathered in a line to admire the work.

  Then the ancient mechanism worked its way through the coin. The switch was thrown. Night consumed the belly of the church, only partly rent in places by the guttering flames of the votive candles.

  From somewhere came a scream. He began to move, praying she would remember his brief and precise instructions.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Gino Fosse had listened to Cannonball Adderley twice, all the while watching the people come in and out of the church. There were more than there should be. It wasn’t that much of a tourist attraction. They had men there. Men pretending to look at the paintings on the walls, men pretending to pray. Michael Denney was nowhere to be seen. He knew him so well. He could recognize that distinguished silver head anywhere. It lived in his imagination twenty-four hours a day. He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past midday. Torrential rain sounded like drumbeats on the roof. The light beyond the windows was now a dull, threatening grey. He let the music come to a stop and knew he couldn’t listen to one more note. With a muttered curse he tore the headphones off and stuffed them back into the pocket of the white tunic along with the CD. Then he thought about the act, almost laughed, took the things out and put them on the pew beside him. There was no more need for them.

  He removed the gun from his pocket and held it under the cover of the bench ahead. The metal was soon hot and clammy in his grip. ‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.’ The melody still ran through his head, sparking pictures in his mind: of Michael Denney dead. Of Sara, naked, staring mutely back at him as he thrashed over her, limbs spreadeagled in the shape of St Andrew’s cross, one simple question in those sharp green eyes: Why?

  ‘Because I thought you were like the rest,’ he whispered, seeing her now, on the floor of the tower room in the Clivus Scauri, recalling the way she hardly fought, the shock in her expression. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Not until Hanrahan whispered the truth in the darkness of San Lorenzo in Lucina, with the rats’ eyes glittering from behind the iron rack. From that point on, everything seemed a swirling, unreal dream.

  He thought of his own end: a crouched, huddled figure, the white alb stained with red, the gun still pointed at his own temple. This was one final deliverance. He wasn’t waiting for them to get around to it.

  ‘Where are you?’ he said to himself in a low voice racked with tension.

  The rain was bringing in too many people. They struggled through the door, most unaware of where they were, what they might see. The church was simply a refuge for them. He thought about that idea: it was what he’d always wanted it to be. He’d been cheated of that experience, by his father, by his own nature too.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Gino Fosse looked at the door and caught his breath. She was walking through the entrance, leading the little cop, the one he’d nearly killed a couple of days before. They were striding into the nave with no fear, no caution on their faces. It was impossible. He blinked to make certain this could be true. They were heading for the paintings now, over to where the small crowds had gathered. Were they looking for him? Or were they looking for Michael Denney? He racked his mind to try to find some answers.

  One small certainty made sense. He rose from the bench, the gun tight in his hand. His voice rose to a roar. ‘Sara!’

  Her eyes met his across the nave. The little cop watched him intently. He didn’t even move a hand to his jacket. They shouldn’t have been there, either of them.

  Then the lights failed altogether. The electric bulbs died. He’d been staring straight at them, into the pool of light around the painting: the image of the naked madman murdering the prone Matthew on the ground, sword raised, ready to deliver the final blow.

  ‘Run!’ he bellowed, and raised the gun, firing a single shot into the black air.

  There was still some light. A few bulbs remained lit in an adjoining alcove. People huddled there, terrified, waiting. He staggered towards them but before he could get there even that was snatched from him. The wan lights failed with a clatter as the meter swung the switch. The image of Matthew, in his medieval costume, staring at the biblical Christ, asking ‘Why me?’, faded to black.

  Fosse loosed off two more shots into the air. A woman began screaming hysterically close by. As his eyes adjusted to the velvet gloom and the random sea of tiny candle flames that now shed the last illumination on the scene, something brushed past him, something black and fast-moving, a man who never spoke a word.

  He swore and lunged to catch the fleeing figure. There was nothing there. Everything eluded his grasp. Everything was denied him. He stumbled forward again, colliding with terrified bodies in the darkness, yelling every last obscenity he could think of, screaming his father’s name, begging the black maw of the nave to give up his body for vengeance.

  He stumbled against a pillar, banged his face hard against the stone. A warm, sticky stream began to flow from his nose. He tasted blood on his tongue.

  ‘Bastard!’ he screamed and let off another shot.

  Something else collided with him, taking away his breath, almost bringing him to his knees. He recognized what it was: the iron railing that ran in front of the altar, the same kind of worked metal on which Arturo Valena had died screaming. He felt his way along it, towards the tiny sea of candles. The dark, glittering eyes, human this time, looked back at him in their reflection, scared, scattering as he approached.

  ‘Bastard!’

  A hand came to his shoulder, turning him. Gino Fosse lashed out with the butt of the gun, missing, and found his arm thrust briskly aside.

  The pool of light from a few guttering candles revealed the man’s face. It was the little cop. He held Fosse’s gun hand high above them. It wouldn’t be hard to overcome him, Fosse thought. He didn’t look right for the part he was trying to play. But then perhaps none of them did.

  ‘I didn’t come for you,’ Fosse hissed. ‘Get away. Take her with you.’

  A face came out of the darkness. She looked at him, serene, controlled, unafraid, which was, he thought, stupid.

  ‘You have to run,’ he said. ‘They’ll kill you too.’

  ‘Gino,’ she answered, and a slim hand came and touched his face. He shrank back, unable to comprehend what was happening. ‘Come with us,’ she said. ‘Don’t do this.’

  He needed her gone. He didn’t want to face her. Her fingers moved against his skin.

  ‘It’s not your fault. You didn’t know who I was. I should have told you.’

  ‘Too late for that.’ Gino Fosse shook his head, wishing he could get the pictures out of his mind. ‘Too late!’

  ‘I forgive you,’ she said. She seemed so calm. He wanted to believe her.

  The little cop’s grip was relaxing somewhat. There were people moving nearby. He wanted to catch their faces. He needed to see that silver head running away in the darkness.

  ‘It’s what they want,’ the cop said. ‘They’ve been using you, Gino. Who gave you the names? Who told you where to go and when?’

  He thought of Hanrahan, smiling in the darkness of San Lorenzo in Lucina. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Because they’re just playing with you, Gino,’ the cop insiste
d.

  He laughed. ‘You think I don’t know that?’

  Sara’s face, compassionate, loving, stared at him. ‘Then why do it?’

  He waved the gun in front of her. ‘Because this is what he deserves.’

  ‘He’s our father,’ she said. ‘He deserves our pity. Not our hate. If I can forgive you …’

  The little cop seemed puzzled. Gino watched her face in the half-light. It could have been an image from a painting. She seemed so placid, so sure of herself. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘We can belong to each other. We can heal ourselves if we want. Don’t let them use your fury for their own ends. Don’t give them that pleasure. Or they win.’

  He listened hard in the dark space beyond them. They had to be there. The rats chattering away in the darkness, shredding what little was left of his soul. But all he could hear, deep inside his head, was the refrain of the music: Cannonball Adderley’s alto chanting ‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy’ with an insistent lilting sadness, like a gospel singer praying for absolution.

  ‘If you talk to people I know, Gino,’ the little cop said, ‘there can be justice for them all. Your father. For these people who led you to do these things.’ The cop hesitated. He was hardly holding the gun now. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’

  Fosse thought again of the Irishman, his hot breath in his ear, saying those hated words in San Lorenzo in Lucina. How it would be so easy to make things right if only Michael Denney could be persuaded to flee from behind the high walls of the Vatican. He would like to see Hanrahan face justice, he thought. There was, when he considered it, so much he could tell them.

  The cop’s hand went up and grasped the gun. Fosse let go, let him take it.

  Nic Costa’s eyes flashed at Sara. ‘Try to find your father. He must be hiding somewhere while the lights are out. Keep him safe until I say so. I don’t know if the right people are here or not.’

  In another situation, Costa knew, she would have kissed him quickly on the cheek. But Gino Fosse was still on a knife edge. Neither of them wanted to push their luck. Her hand reached out and squeezed his, then she was gone, a fleeting figure vanishing into the black maw of the church.