Shout in the Dark

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 33

  Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore

  MARCO HAD HIS shower before an early breakfast at his temporary home in the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore.

  This was going to be a good day, and Laura had promised to collect him early. Marco opened the massive front door as soon as he saw the silver Alfa stopping in the piazza.

  "Ciao," Laura said breezily. "Ready?"

  As he settled himself in, Laura started the engine and turned sideways long enough to establish eye contact, but looked forward in time to avoid the oncoming moped as she pulled away from the curb. "We're picking up Riccardo. He wants to meet my mother again."

  This was ridiculous. "Riccardo Fermi? I'm not having him stuck with us today."

  "It's what we agreed."

  "I didn't agree to anything."

  Laura changed gear clumsily. "There's nothing wrong with Riccardo. We're journalists, and journalists are bound to be in places where the news is happening."

  He wasn't going to hide his feelings. "Listen, Laura, if Riccardo gets into this car, I'm getting out. That man is bad news for both of us."

  Laura passed a line of stationary traffic using a non-existent lane up the inside. "You're serious aren't you, Marco?"

  "Too right, I'm serious. I'll only go to your mother's house on condition Riccardo Fermi keeps away."

  The car slowed. "Then you can tell him yourself. This is Riccardo's apartment."

  Marco nodded. "I don't mind. It doesn't bother me what he thinks."

  Riccardo, all gold rings, smiling teeth and immaculate hair, swept out of the house. "Ciao, Laura." Laura received a kiss and a wink.

  "Marco's got something to say to you." Laura looked awkward.

  "Ciao, Marco. Good to see you, my friend."

  "Laura's taking me to see her mother," said Marco.

  "The lovely Signora Rossetti." Riccardo smiled broadly as he got into the back seat. "We're all going there."

  "No," said Marco firmly. "Just me and Laura."

  The Alfa accelerated into the moving traffic.

  Laura twisted round briefly as she drove away. She put her hand out to Riccardo. "It's okay," she said softly, "I'll drop you at the bus stop. Go to work and see what you can find out."

  Marco felt compelled to take a dig at Laura's boyfriend, her ragazzo. "Laura's talking sense, Riccardo. You're a reporter. You ought to be investigating what went on at the Colosseum yesterday."

  The ragazzo put his hand on Marco's shoulder and leaned forward, smiling. "You're right, my friend. The story will go dead if I'm not in the office. Let us hope you can find the relic. The best of luck with the signora's letters." He turned to look out of the back window, his arm still on Marco's shoulder.

  Laura had been glancing in her rear-view mirror. "There's a red car close behind. I'm sure it's following us."

  Riccardo was already looking. Marco didn't like to turn as well. "It's a small red Fiat," said Riccardo. "Go left at the end here, across the piazza and out at the far corner. But don't hurry. Okay, left now ... and right. This will take us back to the main street."

  Marco knew that by turning to look, he would make it obvious they were suspicious.

  The Fiat must still be with them, although Riccardo said nothing as Laura turned the car sharply back onto the Via Catania.

  "Now what?" Laura asked.

  "Do you know who it is?" asked Marco.

  "It's the car we saw near the Colosseum, when Bruno was killed," said Riccardo.

  "You were there?"

  "We're reporters, Marco," said Laura curtly. "Anyway, I told you I don't want to talk about it."

  Riccardo stayed with his arm over Marco's shoulder, but the tightened fist spoiled his relaxed manner. "He's ... another reporter. Probably hoping we'll lead him to a good story. It happens all the time."

  Whoever the driver was, he certainly wasn't from the media. Riccardo's hesitation had been the give-away. Marco guessed he was watching a little play being acted out for his benefit by two worried journalists. He had no idea why. It concerned him to think that Laura and Riccardo had been near the Colosseum when Bruno died, and Laura was still refusing to talk about her phone call.

  Laura swung the car round a tight corner, tires squealing. "Riccardo and I know who it is. Bruno warned us about him, and we don't want him following us to my mother's apartment."

  The driver of the little Fiat stood no chance of staying with the Alfa. Born in Rome and totally familiar with Roman driving, Laura was able to slip in and out of the busy traffic. Marco breathed out a long sigh of relief as they turned undetected into a side street where Riccardo got out.

  KARL CURSED THE priest and his friends. If all he had to do was kill Marco Sartini, then he could do it quickly. But he needed the priest to lead him to the prize.

  He drew into the side of the street and opened one of the bottles of local beer he'd bought last night. He pounded the side of the passenger seat. "Look what happened to those two Schwachsinnige who came with me from Germany!"

  People who were passing by stooped to look into the car but he took no notice. They were of no consequence. He drained the bottle and opened the next one.

  He'd been doing a lot of thinking. Hitler had made a pact with the spiritual forces. This was one of the first exciting facts they'd taught him at the Total Training weekends. He remembered the long discussions in the bar with his personal instructor. Herr Kessel had said very little about the Shrine, but enough to hint that it would be in Berlin where the people would call for a new leader.

  In the Movement's footsteps must lie a deluge of blood and destruction.

  A good one. His instructor's favorite Nazi teaching from the 1930s. There were others.

  Losses sow the seeds of human greatness.

  Hitler was right: losses could never be too high.

  It is not possible to have power without sacrifice.

  More of the Führer's teaching. He could remember a lot from those Total Training weekends.

  The silver Alfa had gone -- and so had the Priester. He laughed aloud and tipped the bottle back. What the hell, he could be a leading sower of the seeds of human greatness. One day the ADR might ordain him as the chief priest. Power came through possession. He and his friends in the ADR could set Europe ablaze. Fire bombs, Internet hate mail, beatings, killings. He already owned the sacrificial knife. Chief Priest. It was a precious title. With new leadership there would have to be important roles on offer.

  Exactly what were the visions Papa had seen in hospital? He'd taken little notice of his father's inane chatter at the time. Herr Kessel would probably be able to remember, but the old fool was dead. He finished drumming on the wheel and spat out of the window. The beer was putrid. He rammed the small Fiat into gear.

  Otto dead. Herr Kessel dead. The blood was flowing, though not yet in the right direction. He let the clutch in with a jolt and joined the traffic to make his way to the house with the green shutters. Sartini had emerged from there this morning, so he would probably go back there sometime today. He had to wait somewhere, and it was safer to wait in the piazza by the big church than by the old troll's house.

  Signora Rossetti's Apartment

  SIGNORA ROSSETTI lived in an old apartment block of crumbling plaster and stained walls on one of the narrow, cobbled vicoli in this area that had once been the Jewish quarter, teeming with devout families until the war.

  Marco detected a homely smell of herbs in the cool air on the bare stone stairs. In the large rooms of the apartment the aroma turned to a less pleasant blend of damp and coffee. The overweight and elderly Signora Rossetti was sitting in a deep red armchair, surrounded by brown velvet cushions that were trimmed with cream lace.

  "And who is this handsome young man, Laura?"

  Laura's mother looked far older than Marco had expected, at least seventy, and must have been in her early forties when Laura was born. Canon Angelo had obviously not been having a fling with some young showgirl. Several chins o
f fat rested on an expanse of bare flesh on the old lady's upper chest, making it hard to imagine that this woman had seduced, or maybe been seduced by, a man of Canon Angelo Levi's standing.

  "This is Marco, Mamma."

  Marco bowed his head in a formal greeting. In Signora Rossetti he felt there must be something of the Canon's spirit. Then he noticed the ornaments in the room. "You're Jewish!"

  The words made a strange greeting but he was unable to contain his astonishment. Canon Angelo had been a Christian and Laura said she was Catholic. He knew Laura's mother was Jewish by birth, but he'd not expected to see the six-pointed star of her faith above the fireplace. But there was no Menorah and no picture of Jerusalem. This was probably the home of a nominal rather than a devout Jew.

  Laura must have noticed him staring rather too closely at the faded furnishings, and she looked awkward.

  "This is how Mamma wants it to be, Marco. I'm always threatening to buy new furniture but she prefers it as it is. It's the Rossetti family home. Once upon a time all these apartments were full of Jewish families." After a slight pause she added, "Until the war."

  "Laura's a good daughter, Marco. She wants nothing but the best for her Mamma." Signora Rossetti smiled and showed no resentment to the hasty remark about her faith that probably sounded more like an accusation than a statement. "Laura's father was Jewish by birth, so do not be surprised that he had many Jewish friends like me, Marco. He was a very loving man."

  If she intended two meanings, Signora Rossetti's eyes did not betray the fact. Marco felt overwhelmed by thoughts of the past, but he could understand something of the thread of love running through wartime families in Italy, binding them tightly together. Christians sheltering Jews, and Jews risking death for one another. In demonstrating his part in this thread of love, the Canon had surely shown a devotion that exceeded the commitment required of a priest.

  "I knew your ... knew Canon Angelo." His heart skipped a beat. What had he been going to say? Husband? Lover? Boyfriend? It was difficult to find the right words.

  "He was a good man." Signora Rossetti made Canon Angelo sound no more than an acquaintance.

  Laura went close to her mother and adjusted one of the cushions. "Marco has come to look at Papa's letters. You promised to show them to us."

  Marco wondered just how the family had worked. Laura and Signora Rossetti must have lived in a single parent relationship, for surely Canon Angelo would not have been able to keep his post at the Vatican while living here. Yet Laura referred to him as Papa. Well, a loving man would have wanted the family provided for. Perhaps he'd left enough money for Laura to go to college for her journalism.

  There had been occasional whispers of such scandals, running like fire through the college. Strangely, scandal became more defensible when the characters turned out to be real people rather than figures of gossip. Laura's mother was speaking to him.

  "Tell me about your work, Marco. I've always been interested in the clergy."

  "Take your time," said Laura. "I'm going into the bedroom to phone Riccardo at the paper."

  Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore

  KARL READ THE brass plate beside the doorway. This building belonged to a religious order of Sisters with a very long Italian name. He wanted to ask them to phone him at his hotel as soon as Sartini returned, but he couldn't speak the language. He parked the little Fiat at the top of the piazza, where he grew tired and hot-tempered. He knew that if the stradale knocked on the window to tell him to move on, there could be trouble.

  He reflected on how quickly the spiritual vision had come. Two days ago he'd been nothing more than a hired hand -- a nobody in Achtzehn Deutschland Reinigung. And now he was the one chosen to make use of the relic. It was all part of his father's prophecy. It must be some sort of divine revelation.

  Sacrificial Priest? He was appointing himself to the position.

  He smiled. Such a Held must think nothing of heat and suffering -- even in a foreign land. He opened his last beer. This afternoon he would get hold of some more money and try to find a German brew.

  Signora Rossetti's Apartment

  LAURA SPOKE QUIETLY into her cell phone. "Riccardo, I'm sorry Marco seemed so anti this morning. He'd made up his mind you couldn't come with us, so I had to agree."

  "That's okay. Play along with him. Without his help, we can't trap the rest of Enzo's group. Do you still fancy him?"

  Laura felt herself hesitate for a moment. "No, I don't think so."

  "Then pretend you do. Stay with him until we know where that jam pot is. Then you can drop him. In the meantime, play on his emotions."

  "What do you mean, play on his emotions?"

  Riccardo laughed. "Undo your top buttons and lean forward so he can see inside. And sit with your legs crossed so he can look up your skirt. Lead him on a bit. Let him think he can have it with you any time he wants."

  "He's not like that, Riccardo."

  "All men are like that," insisted Riccardo. "He's been married, hasn't he? I bet he misses it. Tell him all he has to do is raise a finger or something, and you'll oblige. I'll make it up to you in bed later."

  "Riccardo, you're sick."

  MARCO WAS BY the window, looking into the central courtyard when Laura came back into the room. She blushed red as she gave him a friendly smile. He wanted to rush over and hug her. The top button of her blouse had come undone and he felt aroused. He was glad that Riccardo had taken the hint and decided not to come. His dislike of Riccardo Fermi might be jealousy, but whatever the reason he wanted to be alone with Laura.

  Laura reminded him so much of Anna. His feelings for Laura were growing deeper each time they met. Her legs were not as slender as Anna's, but they looked good.

  Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore

  KARL SAT IN his rental car and waited, his thoughts turning again to future plans. He felt sleepy after that revolting Italian beer. In his hand he held his favorite possession, the Göring dagger. He attempted to lessen the boredom by balancing it by the point on the end of one finger. The sacrificial knife.

  Only through sacrifice is it possible to have power.

  The teachings of the Führer were a favorite declaration of faith at the ADR training weekends. This one would also be his, the personal motto of the new Chief Priest.

  He watched the sun glint on the graceful blade. His father had given him the future. The prophecy was already coming to pass. The sacrificial knife. What power had inspired such a beautiful object?