Fanatics

by William Bell

  IV

  “IN HIS RESEARCH into the after-affects of Savonarola’s life and death,” Raphaella began, “the prof discovered the existence of a sort of underground cult that started right after the friar’s execution. A few of Savonarola’s supporters continued to meet secretly and to work toward putting his ideas into practice by influencing the government through whatever means they could. This cult kept going for over five hundred years, and still exists. From then until now, one thing bound the cult together and ensured its continuation-a relic.”

  “ ‘Let there be no remains to tempt the relic hunters,’ ” I murmured.

  “Pardon?”

  “In my vision-dream of Savonarola’s execution three men shovelled the burned remains of the gallows and the dead Dominicans into a cart and dumped them into the river. At least, that was what was supposed to happen. But I saw one of the men sift through the ashes and pick something up before they got to work. I didn’t realize until now what I had witnessed. The hangman had specifically ordered the men, ‘Let there be no remains to tempt the relic hunters.’ His bosses in the government and the Church were afraid that Savonarola would become a martyr. That’s why they dumped the ashes in the river-no grave, nothing to dig up and worship. But they missed a piece! The atlas!”

  “Of course!” Raphaella exclaimed, energized again. “Everything you’ve said jibes with what the prof wrote.”

  “Finish the story,” I said, pointing to the manuscript.

  “The cult continued down the years, held together by the belief that the friar was an unacknowledged martyr who had died for a Christian theocracy-Savonarola-style, of course. They continued the commitment to influence government in that direction whenever and however they could. The prof wrote that he couldn’t pinpoint when the cross was made, but it’s been dated by experts to within a hundred years of Savonarola’s death, which makes it more than four hundred years old. How he got his hands on it, he doesn’t say.”

  Raphaella paused and pulled her backpack toward her, rummaged around, and came up with a bottle of apple juice. She offered it to me.

  “You first,” I said.

  She took a long drink and handed the bottle over. I finished it as Raphaella took up the story.

  “Anyway, the prof’s book is a warning that there are always people at work, in democratic countries as well as undemocratic ones, pushing to set up a theocracy of one kind or another. He calls these people fanatics, hence the title of his book, because they only see one side of things and close their eyes to other viewpoints, and that leads to intolerance and persecution of any who disagree. A theocracy is an enemy of democracy.

  “He uses the Savonarola cult as one of his strongest arguments. The reliquary is physical proof that the cult exists, which is important because there’s very little documentary evidence of it.”

  “This,” I put in, “is beginning to sound like one of those conspiracy novels with secret religious brotherhoods and paintings with hidden messages.”

  “The prof wrote that the Savonarola cult is always small-no more than a dozen or so extremely religious Catholic men. Needless to say, women weren’t allowed-and still aren’t. It’s not like he thinks these guys will take over the world. It’s more like he uses the cult as an example of a trend he sees all through history, in more than one religion-various denominations of Christianity, Islam, and others.”

  We fell silent for a while, slumped in our chairs. I looked around the library. The thousands of books resting on their shelves seemed to mock me. The professor’s learning seemed to have been as deep as an ocean.

  “It’s the cross-or rather the relic-that brought the spectre,” Raphaella replied. “It’s part of him, part of his body. And until the prof’s death, it was in the hands of an unbeliever.”

  “It still is.”

  Raphaella looked terrible-pale, her shoulders stiff with stress, her eyes with that otherworldly brightness I had seen before. She was tuned to the spirit world, felt the vibrations rattle through her, shaking her to the core. Until today I hadn’t worried too much about her-not as much as she did about me-but today we were stumbling toward a fierce reckoning, and it was taking a toll on her.

  After listening to her, I believed that now I saw things clearly.

  “The spirit probably tormented the prof without mercy, glad to get revenge on the descendant of his old enemy, Corbizzi,” I began. “It definitely came after Professor Corbizzi on the night of his death. What you’ve read and told me explains why. He was a descendant of the Arrabbiato Corbizzi who stood against Savonarola all those years ago in Florence. In a way, the professor inherited a mission from his Renaissance ancestor. He lived in Florence for most of his life, taught university there, wrote books. But he hadn’t yet written the book that would expose the Savonarola cult and what it represents. He wrote that book here, in this library.”

  “And at the same time he knew the spectre was after him.”

  “Right. The professor acquired the cross somehow and brought it to this house. The ghost comes with the reliquary. Move the cross and the ghost must go with it. Maybe the spirit appeared to the professor and maybe it didn’t-we don’t know. But he was at risk, especially once he began to write the book. That’s what raised the stakes. That’s what the spectre couldn’t accept-the anti-theocracy book. Savonarola’s reaction fits with his life. He was a book-burner. He torched hundreds of books he considered immoral when he was alive. Like all book-burners, he couldn’t tolerate a different point of view.”

  Raphaella nodded wearily. “It all fits,” she said. “It all makes sense. Savonarola had two reasons to haunt Professor Corbizzi-to silence him by burning his book, and to wreak revenge on him.”

  “I think the fire in this room that night started before the prof died-and guess who started it? The official explanation of the events was that the prof had a seizure and the force of his body hitting the floor dislodged a log from the fireplace, starting the blaze. That’s what Mrs. Stoppini believes. But that doesn’t explain the books hurled all over the place, the upturned table, the knocked-over chair. No, what happened was that the spectre appeared, maybe not for the first time. But because the prof had finished the book, it came with furious vengeance. The prof got up from the table where he was editing the manuscript. He knew what was about to happen. Flames broke out near the fireplace-maybe that’s where Savonarola was standing. The prof’s terror brought on the beginnings of the seizure. He experienced dizziness. Loss of control, loss of strength. He gathered up the manuscript, struggled toward the open secret cupboard, clutching at the walls as he lurched along, displacing books. He got to the fire-proof cupboard-which, remember, is insulated metal-and shoved the manuscript inside and locked the door. When I found it the pages were loose, piled on top of the file folder. With the manuscript safe he staggered toward the spectre and fell to the floor, knocking over the chair. And he died.”

  We were silent for a little while, picturing Professor Corbizzi’s last moments of life.

  “What an incredibly courageous man,” Raphaella said.

  “He sure was.”

  “But there’s one thing that isn’t explained,” Raphaella said, her brow wrinkled.

  “The keys.”

  “Right. How could Professor Corbizzi have had time to lock the cupboard, cross the room, and drop the keys into the desk drawer?”

  “He didn’t.”

  Raphaella smiled. “Mrs. Stoppini?”

  “Indeed.”

  Three

  I

  AFTER LOCKING THE CUPBOARD and windows, Raphaella and I dragged ourselves along the hall and into the kitchen. Mrs. Stoppini stood at the table, her hands and forearms white with flour, kneading a fat roll of bread dough, her narrow body leaning into the task. I saw her in a different light now. She knew a lot more than she pretended, but how much she was aware of was still an open question.

  We said our goodbyes and I remembered to leave my laptop in the shop. Then, under a sky that still
refused to brighten, we climbed wearily into the van. I started the engine, turned around, and drove down the foggy lane.

  “I feel like I’ve been dragged behind a train for an hour,” Raphaella sighed, stifling a yawn.

  “Me, too.”

  And I meant it. We were both emotionally beaten up, brain-whacked, and mauled by fear.

  “But you have to admit, life with me isn’t boring,” I added as the gates closed behind the van.

  “Should we have left Mrs. Stoppini there alone?”

  “I was thinking the same thing-and not for the first time. But I think that if anything was going to happen to her, it would have by now.”

  “I guess.”

  “The only way to be sure she’s safe is to get the spectre to leave the mansion permanently. And that means moving the reliquary to another location. If we’re right in thinking that he’s bound to the cross, shifting it should solve the problem temporarily.”

  “The bigger problem being to have him move on permanently,” Raphaella added. “But where could we put the cross? The workshop? Maybe the friar could help you repair antiques.”

  I laughed.

  “But you’d have to keep him away from flammable liquids.”

  “Lame joke. Do you know that ‘edible’ and ‘inedible’ are opposites but ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’ mean the same thing?”

  “You’re being evasive.”

  “Okay. There’s too much fire hazard in the shop to take the risk of having a firebug Dominican in there. Unless…”

  Raphaella turned toward me in her seat. “What?”

  “If we remove the manuscript, maybe we accomplish the same thing. He wants to incinerate it. That’s his goal. No manuscript means he’s stuck in the library with the reliquary.”

  “But then we’d have a totally infuriated murderous spirit in the house.”

  “Well, there is that.”

  “Incandescent with rage,” Raphaella added.

  “Inflamed with anger.”

  “Hot under the collar.”

  “Fuming.”

  I turned on to Raphaella’s street.

  “How did we get into this mess?” she asked, her exhaustion colouring every word.

  “I went to the Half Moon for a coffee one morning-what?-three weeks ago? But the truth is, I fell for a business deal that was too good to be true. I signed a contract with a very strange old lady who is a mystery cloaked in another mystery. And I talked you into helping me.”

  “My normally excellent judgment was undermined by your magnetic charm.”

  “Hah.”

  “Or it could have been the Thai stir-fry that got to me.”

  “You know what? I think it’s time Mrs. Stoppini came clean. I think I need to confront her.”

  “I should go with you.”

  “That would help. Mrs. Stoppini likes you. But I got us into this mess.”

  “Will you go back and talk to her now?”

  “No hurry,” I said.

  II

  FOR THE FIRST TIME in a long while I got a good night’s sleep, and the cloudless blue sky that greeted me when I got out of bed gave me a welcome lift.

  Dad was at the breakfast table when I entered the kitchen, reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee. A bowl sticky with the streaky remains of porridge sat beside his cup. Dad made it the old-fashioned way, with real rolled oats. No instant stuff for him.

  “How you can eat that glop is a mystery to me,” I greeted him.

  He lowered the paper and folded it, putting it aside. “Like most things nowadays, it’s a lost art.”

  “Hah.”

  “Porridge is the food of the gods. It sticks to your ribs.”

  “And the pot, your spoon, and anything else it comes into contact with.”

  “Did I tell you the joke about the Englishman and the Scotsman arguing over the benefits of oatmeal?”

  “Not this week. Interested in a grilled cheese sandwich?”

  “No, thanks. By the way, my customer was very pleased with the job you did on that pine table.”

  “I’m glad,” I said, searching the fridge for a block of cheddar.

  “And there was a young couple in the store looking over the walnut cabinet you made. Spent twenty minutes there. They said they’d be back.”

  “Let’s hope,” I replied. “I could use the money.”

  I turned on the broiler and grated cheese onto two buttered baguette halves, sprinkled them with pepper, and popped them onto the broiling pan. Sitting down opposite my father, I nodded toward the newspaper.

  “Anything in there about that dead guy they found up the shore a few days ago?”

  Dad shook his head, then got up and topped up his coffee and tilted his head in the direction of Mom’s study. “I think she’s given up on the Herat assignment,” he said, taking his seat again.

  “Really? That’s great.”

  “She hasn’t actually said so, but she’s working away on something big. She told me last night. It’s very hush-hush. It could be huge-international, even. She didn’t even mention Afghanistan.”

  “That’s a relief,” I replied, keeping up the pretense that I knew nothing about it. I got up and turned off the broiler, then slid my breakfast onto a plate.

  “So what’s on your agenda today?” Dad asked.

  “Back to the estate, I guess. More inventory to do.”

  He checked the clock on the wall above the sink. “Well, I’d better skedaddle. See you later, alligator,” he said, pulling open the back door.

  “Skedaddle?” I could almost hear Raphaella ask.

  III

  I HAD RUMMAGED THROUGH my brain and couldn’t come up with a good reason why Mom or I should hang on to paintballer’s cellphone. Mom had copied all the data from the cell’s memory card and backed it up, so she had call lists, messages, the whole works. We had the information. The device itself was a liability.

  Being the son of a journalist I was familiar with a few cases over the past couple of years where vindictive cops had hassled uncooperative reporters with search-and-seizures, carrying off files, computers, cellphones, and anything else they thought would cause grief to men or women forced to stand by while the law combed through their lives. The spies, as Mom called the Mounties’ security branch and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service types, were worse. I wasn’t sure what progress Mom was making with her investigation or with her lawyer, but I decided on my own to get rid of the evidence, as they say in the crime movies.

  But first the little electronic instrument needed to be sanitized. Wearing rubber dishwashing gloves, I took it apart and wiped down every component-battery, data card, the casing-with a mild cleaning solvent, then reassembled it before dropping it into a fresh sealable plastic bag.

  I had concluded that the cell belonged to the drowned man, and that nobody in the paintballer crowd knew about it. Mom had agreed with my deduction. But just in case, why not put it back where I’d found it? Mom had thought about turning it on and waiting to find out if anyone called, but she decided that would not be wise. Phone signals could be traced or monitored. Why invite cops or spies or criminals to our house? No, if the phone was dropped back into the hole under the juniper, we’d be free of it.

  I got into my jacket and helmet and fired up the Hawk, already nagged by second thoughts.

  IV

  BUMPING ALONG the Swift Rapids Road-if a narrow, rock-strewn track can be called that-I followed the dust cloud thrown up by two ATVs, grateful for the rise and fall of their engine noise, like two furious bees in a can, which would make the Hawk’s low rumble less conspicuous on an otherwise quiet sunny afternoon.

  After I parted with the ATVs I rode into the cool green woods and turned off on the leaf-covered path, torn up now by my panicky escape last time, and stopped a hundred metres or so from the end, just in case the paintballers had a lookout posted there. Struggling against the Hawk’s dead weight, I pushed it backwards into a patch of saplings alo
ngside the path. I remembered to save the location on my GPS, then took off my helmet. Before calling up the waypoint for my destination I stood motionless for a short while, listening for any sign of the boys in camo, but heard only bird-song and the wind in the treetops.

  It was rough going and I made slow progress, but I reached the rock outcropping after twenty minutes or so. I scanned the little clearing from the safety of the trees before I ventured into the open, then climbed onto the granite cap, followed the fissure to the juniper, and took the bagged cell from my pocket. To avoid any possibility of fingerprints-Mom’s caution about the cops hassling her had sunk in-I had wrapped it in a supermarket sack. Careful to touch only the sack, I dropped the sealed cell into the hole, exactly where I’d found it a few days before. I rolled up the sack and stuffed it into my pocket. Mission accomplished. I slipped back into the trees, eager to return to my motorcycle.

  But once again curiosity inspired the impulsive angel on my right shoulder to nudge into my consciousness. “Why not just take a quick look at the cabin?” it whispered innocently. “Just to see if anything’s changed. Come on. It’s not far.”

  True, I told myself. And I could take more photos for Mom. The more info, the more she’d be hooked by this camo-boy story.

  With my stomach doing the jitters, my ears tuned to pick up the slightest human sound besides mine, every nerve tingling, I crept toward the cabin until I could make out the open space through the foliage, flooded with morning sunlight. The pile of cordwood along the cabin wall was lower now. Three three-man tents-I guessed that the leader slept apart in the cabin-stood in their places, their flies undulating in the fitful breeze that swept the clearing, the weather flaps on the front entrances tied closed. Good, I thought. The paintballers have gone off somewhere. Fire rings, one for each tent, had been set at a safe distance, each with a grate laid across the stones and a blackened tripod over it for cooking.