The Seventh Sacrament

by David Hewson

  “Except,” Falcone pointed out, “he didn’t meet his side of the bargain.”

  The man’s face darkened. “He laughed in my face. He said he still didn’t know. Or care.”

  Falcone nodded. “Which is what he told us.”

  “It doesn’t matter!”

  “I—”

  Bramante rattled the gun against the iron bars to silence him. Then he unlocked the door and waved the weapon towards the chamber. Falcone understood immediately. There was a reason Bramante had returned when he did. He knew they were approaching. Perhaps there’d been a call, from a person on the outside. Perhaps…

  Falcone thought of the ritual and the mysteries, the ideas Giorgio Bramante—and Ludo Torchia—had played with all those years ago. Powerful as they were, they remained myths. He was still convinced that what took Alessio Bramante from the world was something both more mundane and more terrible.

  Slowly he shuffled out of the cell, then, when he was beyond the bars, placed his hand against the wall to steady himself. Instantly, with a surge of revulsion, he snatched it away. Something was there: a fat white worm, the size of a little finger, was working its way up the damp green stone, almost luminous in the darkness.

  Falcone turned to look Bramante directly in the face. “What if I could still find him?”

  Bramante hesitated. Just for a moment. Just enough for Falcone to see that somewhere, buried deep inside the dark tangle of hate and confusion that was Giorgio Bramante, a flicker of hope, of belief, still existed.

  “It’s too late.”

  Bramante was edging him forward, towards something emerging out of the murk.

  Falcone’s eyes fell on the far end of the chamber, a place partly illuminated by wan, grey daylight falling through what he took to be a gap in the earth above.

  Something stood there that had not been visible in the dark when he arrived. It was low and long, the colour of good marble. A ceremonial slab of some kind. An altar, Falcone realised.

  “Keep moving,” Bramante, the old Bramante again, snarled, propelling him forward with the barrel of the gun.

  Falcone took a few stumbling steps of his own volition. A smooth white stone slab stood at waist height in front of him. On the perfect marble surface—Istrian, he thought—was a pattern picked out in dark red.

  Leo Falcone had seen sufficient crime scenes to recognise this pattern. These were classic blood spatters, fresh too, he thought.

  “Agente Prabakaran,” he muttered. “We had an arrangement—”

  “She’s safe,” Bramante insisted. “Safe and busy cursing my name no doubt. With good reason. I’ve no complaints.”

  Bramante ran his hand across bloodstains, sweeping his fingers through the dust and blood.

  “I had another to deal with. He wasn’t someone you’ll miss.”

  “Seven rituals, seven sacraments,” Falcone murmured quietly, almost as an afterthought. “Aren’t you there already?”

  “Not with those who count,” Bramante answered, reaching beneath the altar to withdraw a coil of rope that was stored there, then something else. A long, slender knife. Something ceremonial, Falcone thought. Something, he realised, looking at the discoloured blade, that had been used recently.

  NIC?”

  She simply spoke his name into the phone and received, in return, such a torrent of words they silenced her immediately. Emily Deacon recognised this in Costa now. It was the momentum of the case gripping him. In this instance, a case that had far more personal resonance than most.

  There was little she could do but listen. And think. Arturo had exercised his influence. She had a private hospital room overlooking a narrow lane leading up to the Duomo, with an attentive nurse who’d already apologised for the fact that there would now be nothing to eat until the following day. Arturo sat outside alone. Raffaella had appeared briefly to explain her rapid return to Rome, chasing a shadow.

  And Nic was so wrapped up in what was happening in Rome, so engrossed in the hunt to unravel the fate of the man who’d become a surrogate father to him over the years. Emily envied him. That kind of activity had always made her feel alive when she worked in law enforcement. You disappeared inside the case. It was one reason you did the job.

  There was news too. Not of Leo, but of someone who might prove the key to finding him. She listened intently and found herself asking, in spite of herself, “He’s alive?”

  It seemed so improbable. Disturbing, too, from the brief details Nic outlined.

  Alessio Bramante had, for reasons which remained unclear, apparently walked from the Aventino to the peace camp on the Circus Maximus, met an odd couple from one of the left-wing groups there, and, it seemed, had not simply left with them, but been brought up almost as an adopted child until leaving home sometime during his mid-teens, perhaps four or five years ago.

  She recalled what Nic had said about abducted children. How they assimilated to the environment in which they found themselves. All of this was, she now realised with a brief shock of alarm, quite understandable. Normality, to a child, was the situation he or she faced in everyday life. If Alessio Bramante didn’t return to his real home within weeks, he would, surely, be lost forever. He was seven when he disappeared. What memories he had of his life with Giorgio and Beatrice Bramante would be entirely coloured by the picture of the world painted by those who had replaced them. It was possible, she thought, with a growing dismay, to take a child and, with sufficient will, turn it into an entirely different creature. History was full of dictators who had created their own armies of admirers from the schoolroom.

  “You’ll never find him, Nic,” she said. “If he remembers his real parents at all, he’ll hate them. They’re probably more like a dream to him. You can’t possibly hope to help Leo like this.”

  “No?”

  He sounded amused, the way he always did when there was more information to come.

  “Tell me,” she ordered.

  “We got it from one of the neighbours. They hardly met the kid. The couple never mixed. Never after the man died. The neighbour didn’t even know Alessio’s real name. He thought he was called Filippo. But we know what happened to him. He left school at sixteen, and home too. A little while later he came back on a visit.”

  “So?”

  “In uniform. He was a police cadet, Emily. Unless he’s quit for some reason, Alessio Bramante, or whatever name he uses now, is an officer in the state police.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “We’re going back to yell at people in the Questura until they come up with something. We know which year’s cadet class he’s got to have been in. Even if he’s managed to use a different name…”

  “There’d still have to be addresses, references,” she suggested, wishing she were with him now, feeling the adrenaline rising as this palpable lead rose to the surface.

  “Exactly.”

  “Why would someone like that join the police?”

  There was a silence at the other end. Then Nic asked, “It’s not that strange a career choice, is it?”

  “No. You know I didn’t mean that. It’s just so…odd somehow. Why would a boy with that kind of screwed-up background want to sign up?”

  “Perhaps because of it. I don’t know.”

  “Me neither. You’d best go find him.”

  “Of course.” He hesitated. She could feel his embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I never even asked. What happened at the hospital?”

  “Just routine tests,” she said firmly. “All the usual things I’m starting to get used to. Nothing to worry about. You track down your missing schoolboy. And Leo. After that…”

  “I can’t wait,” he said quickly.

  The door opened. A nun walked in and scowled at the mobile phone. Emily said her goodbyes hastily and dropped the handset back in her bag.

  “Is it time?” she asked.

  “Sì,” the nun said, nodding. “I have to do this. A little bee-sting.”

  Emily Deacon r
olled up the sleeve on her green hospital gown and looked away.

  BRUNO MESSINA CAST A WEARY EYE AT THE VIALE Aventino. The rain had stopped. A weak sun was struggling against the falling shade of late afternoon. Behind him the traffic backed up all the way to Piramide. To the east a solid, angry line of cars ran as far as the river. Vehicles traversed the city like blood through arteries. Everything was interlinked. One single blockage in the south could cause chaos in the north. The commissario didn’t want to know what was going on elsewhere. He had turned off his personal radio, intent on avoiding calls from the Questura. This was too important.

  The first team to arrive at the site had discovered a woman’s purse flung away close to the entrance. Inside was Rosa Prabakaran’s police ID card. A clumsy lapse, perhaps indicative of the man’s state of mind. Bramante’s options were closing. Messina was determined that here, at the southeastern end of the long, grassy rectangle beneath the gaze of the Palatino, the man’s bloody adventures would finally come to an end.

  He put Bavetti in charge of dealing with the barriers to keep out traffic, spectators, and the media. For the rest he would lean on Peccia, who seemed energised by the challenge ahead, one for which his men had practised long and hard over the years, with very few real-life opportunities in which to test their mettle.

  Messina drove past this place every day he went to work, and, like most Romans, had scarcely given it a second thought. It was, he now realised, much more than the simple stretch of open land it appeared to be.

  He stood by the empty tram lines, facing the length of what had once been a great stadium, trying to understand the geography of what lay before him. To his right stood the honey-coloured ruins of the former Imperial palaces, now reduced to a network of multi-storeyed arches, rising up the hill, their shattered tops like jagged teeth, yet still high enough, grand enough, to reach the summit. Like many a Roman schoolchild, he’d been taken here on a class trip. He could remember the view to the Forum and the Colosseum and Trajan’s Markets, across the hideous modern thoroughfare built by Mussolini. It was like gazing down on the city from an eagle’s nest. The greener lee of the hill, looking south, always seemed more serene, part of a different, more ancient place, one, Messina ruefully reminded himself, Giorgio Bramante knew far better than most.

  What had once been the racetrack of the stadium was now grass with a dirt track worn by the feet of amateur runners. At the far end, from his present position, the view to the Tiber was blocked by a low building. To his left ran the park that led to the Aventino. Ahead, before the shallow dip of the racetrack, was something Messina had scarcely noticed in almost four decades. A small tower—like the remnant of some shrunken medieval palace—stood remote in a meadow of long grass.

  Blocked off from the stadium by a tall green wire fence stood the familiar detritus of the archaeologist’s trade: white marble stones cast in irregular lines, some still showing evidence of fluting; rows of low brick walls rising from the soil like old bones; rusty metal gates and barriers delineating a pattern that was impenetrable from the surface, marking some subterranean warren of chambers and alleyways dug out of the rich, damp soil and the rock below.

  And, to his left, on the Aventino side, the low, shallow roof of some more important site, rusting tin resting over the half-visible entrance to God knows what. As a child, Messina had gone into the bowels of the Colosseum, come to understand that the ancient Romans liked to build underground, finding it a hospitable place to hide practices that were never fit for the light of day. There could be a subterranean enclave the size of the old stadium itself running from the small arched entrance, little more than a cave, that was visible from where he now stood.

  No doubt Giorgio Bramante knew. Perhaps he’d picked this place for that very reason. Perhaps, it occurred to Messina, he had no plans to run any further, not after the final death, the last sacrifice to his lost son.

  Messina couldn’t shake from his brain the image of Prabakaran’s little purse, left idly by the entrance to the site. It was almost an invitation, and that thought left him deeply uneasy.

  Judith Turnhouse was poring over the set of maps which she had asked to be brought from the university. Messina joined her, eyed the complex maze of corridors and chambers outlined there, on multiple levels, it seemed, and asked, “Do you understand this site, Professor Turnhouse?”

  She looked up from the map and grimaced.

  “I told you. It’s not a project I’ve ever been involved with directly. Giorgio worked on it when he was a student. It’s hardly been visited in years.”

  She peered at the paper, squinting.

  “Also,” she added, “this map is twenty-five years old. It’s not accurate. The site’s changed since then. I think there’s been some ground collapse that isn’t described here. It’s tricky.”

  “What is this place?” Peccia asked.

  She stared at him. “I sometimes think this city is wasted on the Romans,” Judith Turnhouse declared. “This was part of the barracks of the third cohort of the Praetorian Guard. The same military unit that had the temple on the Aventino. They were wiped out when Constantine invaded Rome. Giorgio always had a thing about that.”

  Peccia looked puzzled. “An underground barracks?”

  “It wouldn’t all have been underground back then,” she replied. “Only part. The temple. The ritual quarters. The ground level of the city has risen considerably over the years. You really never noticed?”

  Messina shook his head. “There’s a temple here as well?”

  “They were soldiers. Most soldiers, certainly in the Praetorian Guard, were followers of Mithras. That, ostensibly, was why Constantine slaughtered them. They were the heretics all of a sudden.”

  “So what does this tell us?” Peccia demanded crossly.

  “If you don’t need me here,” Judith Turnhouse said sharply, “I will quite happily go back to my work. I was rather under the impression you wanted to know where Giorgio might be in this rabbit warren. There are three levels of tunnels. Probably close to a hundred different chambers and anterooms of different dimensions. This map doesn’t tell you perhaps eighty percent of what it’s like now. You could spend the next two days wandering around down there. Or I could make an educated guess. It’s your call.”

  “So you know where this man is?” Peccia asked, with a childish degree of sarcasm.

  She shook her head. “No. Do you?”

  “What about there?” Messina, determined to seize back the direction of this argument, pointed to the emblem on the map: the picture of the altar, with its powerful figure subduing the bull. “This is the temple, isn’t it?”

  “Read the fine print, Commissario. I told you: This place has changed.”

  The two policemen stared at the paper. Sure enough, something had been scribbled underneath the figure.

  “I think,” she added, “that’s Giorgio’s handwriting. It indicates that the altar has been moved. The original position”—she pointed towards the Palatino—“was over there. Where you can see a visible collapse in the ground. Whatever Giorgio found, it didn’t go into a museum or I’d know about it. So it’s a safe bet it’s somewhere else inside this complex for safekeeping.” She looked them both in the face. “And for what it’s worth, yes, I think that would be where Giorgio would go. This is all some kind of ritual for him, isn’t it?

  Sacrificing the people he blames for Alessio. Where else would he be?”

  Messina squinted at the labyrinth of lines on the map. “Where the hell do we begin?” he asked of no one in particular.

  Judith Turnhouse peered at the map, scrutinising what looked like an indecipherable maze.

  “I can tell you how I’d proceed in there. I can see where a professional archaeologist would want to go. If they moved that altar, it can’t be that far away.”

  “So where?” Messina demanded.

  She laughed in his face. “I’d need to be inside. It’s not something you can tell from a map. I’d have to s
ee what it’s like on the ground—”

  “No, no, no, no,” Peccia exclaimed. “This man is armed! I will not have a civilian around. It’s impossible.”

  Messina couldn’t avoid the woman’s gaze. She wanted to do this for some reason, and he wasn’t remotely interested in what it was. All he cared about was Giorgio Bramante. And, he reminded himself, the fate of Falcone.

  “Professor,” he said, “this may be a dangerous offer you’re making.”

  “Giorgio hates you people,” she insisted. “But he has no reason to harm me. I don’t believe, for one moment, there’s even a possibility he would do so. Perhaps if I’m there, someone he knows, I can talk a little sense into him. I can try, anyway. I wouldn’t say we’re the best of friends, but at least he doesn’t loathe me. Are you really going to pass up that possibility?”

  “Sir—” Peccia began to say.

  “If the professore wishes to help,” Messina interrupted, “it would be foolish to reject her offer.”

  She muttered some short thanks.

  “I must insist,” Messina went on, “that you follow the strict orders of Peccia’s men. This is important.”

  “I’m not intent on getting myself killed, Commissario. You don’t need to worry about that.”

  “Good.” Messina stabbed a finger at the map. “I want a team down there within twenty minutes. Look at this map. Listen to Signora Turnhouse. Go where she suggests. Your men in front. Always, Peccia.”

  “Sir…” Peccia seemed to expect something else. “What are your orders?” he asked.

  “If Falcone’s alive, get him out of there.”

  “And if Bramante resists?”

  “Then do what you will. If there’s a corpse at the end of this, let it be his. No one else. You hear me?”

  Peccia gave him a cold look.

  A large black helicopter swooped overhead, its blades so loud the roar blocked out the desperate timbre Messina knew was in his own voice. He waved to Bavetti and ordered him to call off the surveillance flights. They were, surely, no longer needed. Then he ordered Peccia to assemble his team. The man grunted and stalked off to one of the dark blue vans, all bristling with antennae, from which his unit operated. He returned with four individuals, each dressed entirely in black, each carrying the same stubby, deadly-looking military machine pistol Messina had seen before.