Shout in the Dark

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 27

  MARCO HESITATED before writing his report on the day's activities. Whatever the reason for the burned body in the Audi, even if there really were partisans still active in the area, he'd done the right thing in telling the carabinieri.

  As he wrote the report for Father Josef he hoped that the carabinieri would keep Laura's name out of their press release as they'd promised. If her name became public she could still be in danger. Laura had been behaving oddly, but perhaps for good reason. When he'd taken her Alfa back she'd refused to see him, saying she was too upset by what had happened at Monte Sisto. He'd put the key through the letter box and walked back to the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore.

  The last few days had been stifling, but this was the hottest night he could remember for a long time, and the noise of traffic seemed unusually loud. All he wanted was sleep, but Father Josef had warned him not to neglect his spiritual life. He knew he was rushing through each day without the depth of personal prayer and Bible reading that had helped him in the past. His ordered existence had taken a sudden, confusing turn with the death of Old Savio.

  Never get drawn into relics, Father Marco.

  It was a bit late now to heed the words of a homeless man in the Piazza Venezia. But he could spend time in prayer. Quickly he got on his knees, making the sign of the cross. But his mind kept turning to the sight of the grinning, charred corpse strapped to the steering wheel of the Audi. And to the kid lying in pain in the bushes. Mo, the farmer said he was called. The paramedics hadn't held out much hope for him. They thought his skull had been badly fractured.

  Most of all, Laura's admission affected him more than he had realized at the time.

  Canon Angelo was my father!

  It was a shattering admission. A well-loved and respected Canon in the Church of Rome had once had a secret affair -- and the result was Laura. The revelation was still hard to digest. And Father Josef seemed to know about Laura Rossetti and her father, but had chosen to say nothing. What else had the old priest not revealed?

  Canon Angelo was a fallen angel. He was seeing the Canon in a new and judgmental light. Father Josef could be right -- it was definitely easier for God to forgive than it was for man.

  An unbidden vision of Laura swept away the memory of the burned body. Rossetti must be her mother's name. It would be helpful to have a close friend at times like this. Sharing a bombshell with a fellow priest was beneficial, but to have a woman to share with was so much better. He had shared many things with Anna in their small apartment in the Piazza San Cosimato.

  Laura could never replace Anna, but Laura had an innocence about her, a joy for life that he wanted to be part of, even though this desire was in painful conflict with his calling. He got up from his knees and sat on the bed staring at the ceiling, as though to get inspiration from heaven.

  Canon Levi had clearly been a good man, although on at least two occasions he had stepped outside the lines of acceptable behavior for anyone in the Church. First there had been the affair. And then, later, the Canon had tried to sell a fake relic. The lovely Laura was the result of the first transgression; a vast sum of money for the needy had been the motive for the second. Transgression or not, few men in the Church, pillars of respectability, could hold a candle to the goodness that had clearly flowed from Canon Angelo's life.

  His intended time of prayer forgotten, he stood up, sweating profusely from the overbearing heat. He looked at the clock: just after twelve. Too late to phone Laura. He felt a yearning for her but knew he was behaving stupidly. Forbidden fruit? Perhaps this was what Laura meant when they stopped to pick the figs. Was there such a thing as right and wrong if you really wanted something badly enough -- if the goal was good?

  There was no question of an intimate relationship with Laura. But would a close friendship, and nothing more than that, be immoral? Any daughter of Canon Angelo would have to be a gift from heaven. He could unwrap that gift just a little. The thought made his heart pump, and he began to check back through his report.

  As he finished the last page someone shouted in the street. From his room he had a clear view of Signora Silvini, the owner of the apartment block, opening her window across the courtyard.

  Under the light a large youth with a shaven head called up. "Sartini! Marco Sartini!"

  The voice had a German accent.

  "Go away!" scolded Signora Silvini. "Everyone here is asleep!"

  "Marco Sartini!" The skinhead was not giving up on account of the signora.

  "I'm Marco Sartini," Marco shouted down.

  He was about to run downstairs and confront the youth, when a carabinieri patrol car turned the corner. The skinhead jumped into a small red Fiat and accelerated up the street in a screech of rubber. The carabinieri car stopped at the large house opposite and the driver rang the bell. A young woman quickly appeared at the door and the driver went inside. The youth had been frightened off by something as trivial as the officer's regular rendezvous with Pippa, who everyone knew as the local hooker. Marco pulled his head back into the room, a thrill of excitement in his stomach. A German, a German skinhead. Exactly like the one outside TV Roma.

  He made sure his cell phone was handy. Yes, the enemy had finally made contact!

  He waited for over an hour, but the youth did not return. It was long past time for bed and it looked so comforting, even though it was empty. He crashed down into it and was soon asleep.

  HE SAT UP QUICKLY. Anna was facing away from him, slowly removing her clothes, her skin soft and beautiful. She turned and it was not Anna at all: it was Amendola with bushy eyebrows and heavy glasses.

  "Marco Sartini!" Amendola shouted, pointing at the bed.

  The bedside clock said almost six-thirty. With dreams like this it was definitely time to get up. Dreams of Anna being back were always painful. The events of last night immediately filled his mind. The young German in the street had looked like the skinhead outside TV Roma. Did Bruno know what he was doing when he insisted that he keep quiet about the photographs? The carabinieri could easily identify the men from the pictures taken outside TV Roma. He would give the Bruno the benefit of the doubt for two days, then he would have to give serious consideration to passing the information on to the carabinieri.

  The report on the trip to Monte Sisto lay on the table, and he decided to deliver it to Father Josef immediately -- to Father Josef Reinhardt, the self-confessed former wartime member of the Nazi Party. He hesitated. Father Josef would not be party to any conspiracy, but there were others in the Vatican who might be guilty. People like Monsignor Augusto Giorgio who wanted all investigations stopped at once. If the Monsignor was involved with the local fascists, he could have sent the skinhead round last night.

  The two journalists, Bruno and Riccardo, made him feel uneasy. Their working relationship seemed to go considerably deeper than two men helping each other with a newspaper story. He pulled on his jeans and noticed just how flat his stomach was. The daily workouts in the seminary gym for three years had got him into good trim. Just as well, if there was to be a fight.

  Laura!

  Laura was the answer. How stupid he'd been not to have tried to contact her again last night. Laura was the one person he could count on to give good advice.

  When he tried Laura's phone it was answered by a recorded message. Possibly she was still in bed. He poured a second glass of orange juice -- a rare lapse into self-indulgence -- and wondered whether to phone Father Josef this early.

  At seven-thirty the machine was still answering Laura's telephone.

  "Laura, Laura, where are you?"

  She might have gone round to Riccardo's for the night. For company or for safety. Well, it was no business of his. He tried to push the thought of Laura and Riccardo in bed together from his mind.

  A scream in the large hallway startled him. From the landing outside his apartment door he had a clear view over the ornate iron banister rail that ran down to the entrance hall in a sweeping circle. A woman
was screaming on one of the landings. Residents from each apartment flung their doors open and hurried out to discover the source of the piercing sound.

  He recognized the woman responsible for all the noise as Lina, the donna di servizio, the cleaner who came twice a week and had once caused such mayhem with the study papers that his friends barred her from the student apartment. He ran down. The source of the screams seemed to lie in the first floor apartment, the home of Signora Silvini.

  "She was such a good woman," Lina was sobbing. "She kept herself to herself and was so particular about not letting strangers in."

  Marco pushed his way past the wailing cleaner. His services as a priest seemed likely to be needed. But the body was very much alive, sitting in a chair with blood and bruising covering her face.

  "A doctor," Marco shouted at Lina. "Have you sent for a doctor?"

  "Si, si, the doctor is coming."

  Signora Silvini seemed to be more frightened than injured. When she saw Marco she tried to get up. "Father Marco, he was trying to get upstairs to find you."

  "Who was?"

  "A German I think. A lout, a zoticone. A nasty young man with his hair shaved off. He came last night and said he must talk to you. I would not let him in." Signora Silvini was proud of her duties as custode. It was almost impossible to come and go without her knowing. Everyone said it was her way of keeping in touch with the affairs of the residents.

  The donna di servizio pushed Marco to one side, demonstrating considerable strength in her stout arms, and announced firmly, "The doctor, he is coming soon, Signora Silvini. You must keep still."

  Neighbors crowded round the doorway, though none seemed inclined to enter the apartment. "When did he do this to you, signora?" Marco tried to keep a safe distance between himself and the arms of the muscular Lina. "You haven't been like this all night have you?"

  "No, Father Marco. The young German went away last night, when the carabinieri officer called to see his fancy woman in the house opposite. He came back this morning very early. I thought it was the postino." She began to cry again. The defensive donna moved to stand between Marco and her employer.

  "And where is he now?" Marco asked.

  Signora Silvini let out another deep sob, almost a laugh. "He told me to show him your room. He said that he would kill me if I refused." Signora Silvini sobbed, putting her hands to her face but gasping at the pain as she touched the bruised and raw skin. "You can be sure I didn't tell him. He was an evil bastard, Father Marco. An evil bastard."

  Lina came forward to intervene but Signora Silvini waved her away. "I keep a small pistol by my door," she said quietly. "My father brought it back from the war. It doesn't work, but the zoticone didn't know that. He ran away like a frightened cat when I managed to get hold of it."

  Marco stood aside as the inquisitive neighbors stopped talking long enough to usher the doctor into the room. They seemed pleased that there was some action at last. The neighbors moved to let Marco leave, before closing back around the doorway to continue their noisy chatter.

  The situation had become serious. Until now the neo-Nazis were little more than an intriguing diversion, but in reality they had brought violence and a threat of death. Father Josef had warned that the investigation could prove dangerous. He must take a chance and have a long heart-to-heart with the ex-Nazi priest. He phoned the building in the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore.

  Father Josef ordered him to speak to no one, not even the carabinieri, and come straight over with the report. Marco put the telephone down and packed a bag with spare clothing and a few personal possessions. He'd be foolish to remain in the apartment for another night.

  The best way to the bus stop would be past the shops. He did not intend to meet the large skinhead in some lonely vicolo. Keeping an eye open for a tail was easy enough. Remembering a scene from a thriller he'd watched on television only last month with his seminary flat-mates, he dodged into the local food store and out through the rear entrance to the street market.

  By the time he jumped on the bus for the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore, he knew that only an expert team of shadows would still be with him. Even so, he snatched the opportunity to change buses at the next stop and was relieved to see that no one else left his bus when he did.