by Will Adams
‘Excellent! Delighted to hear it! I’ll put her on now.’ He handed his mobile to a scowling Isabella. Then, with a reinvigorated appetite, he picked up his fork and set himself to eat.
II
Carmen gazed at Cesco in consternation. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Lucia gave me her keys on trust.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No. No. No. Stop it. I can’t believe you even suggested it.’
He held up a hand. ‘At least hear me out,’ he said. ‘You weren’t the only one to make a discovery this afternoon. I did too.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘How about I tell you while we eat?’
She cut and buttered chunks from a fresh white loaf while he ladled generous helpings into a pair of bowls. She blew on her spoon before slurping it in. Flavours burst like fruits on her tongue. She looked across at him with something like lust.
‘Any good?’ he asked.
‘Unbelievable. I’d forgotten.’ She dipped her spoon again. ‘But your discovery?’
He dipped a crust into his bowl, leaving a buttery glaze on its surface. ‘It’s about Raff. He went down to the Lungomare last night.’
‘I thought he hated it down there.’
‘He did. But he had a reason. To meet a compatriot of yours called Miranda Harcourt.’
‘The antiquities buff?’
‘You know her?’
‘Only from TV.’
‘Well, according to the Internet, she’s up to her chin in stolen goods. Raff knew it too. He googled her before he went to meet her.’
‘Jesus. Have you told the police?’
‘Not yet, no. She was already in the air when the Lamborghini arrived at the Villa, so she can’t have been directly involved. And what if I tell the police, and it leaks? His name would be tarnished for ever, maybe for no reason. Because I can’t see how he could have been stealing from the digitisation project. Everything’s already catalogued before it reaches the studio. But your scroll opens up a new possibility. Apparently, Harcourt doesn’t just sell stolen items through her dealerships. She also runs secret auctions on the dark web.’
‘No way. Raff would never betray Lucia like that.’
‘I doubt it too. But are you sure? One hundred per cent sure? You should see his bottom drawer. It’s stuffed with unpaid bills. I mean stuffed. I didn’t have time to go through everything today. I’ll go back in the morning to do it properly. But we’re talking at least a hundred grand. Probably a lot more. And he knew about the scroll too. That it was special, I mean.’
‘How so?’
‘Remember that day in Capri? The cafe with the flower baskets where you had that tortellini?’
Carmen nodded. ‘When Lucia told us about the quakes.’
‘Exactly. A first one in the early hours that brought down sections of wall and ceiling. How the pumps failed and the water started rising. How she saw the scroll beneath some rubble, with a large fragment broken off, leaving a section exposed. How Raff took photos in case they couldn’t recover it in time, to give them at least some record.’
‘That’s right. He teased her about having kept copies. She got really worked up.’
‘That’s the point. He told her he was teasing, but the next time you both looked away, he pulled a face at me – as good as confessing he’d kept a set. It would have been just like him to check later to see what had got her so spooked.’
‘It’s what you’d have done, you mean?’
‘Damn right. Raff was dyslexic, sure, but he was motivated too. Let’s say he translated it somehow and recognised a passage from Mark. Can you imagine what that would fetch, even on the black market?’
‘Millions.’
‘Tens of millions. Hundreds. And Raff could easily have borrowed or copied Lucia’s keys. She trusted him completely. As did everyone at the library. He was always popping in and out. No one would have looked twice if he’d slipped inside the Colonna room. And no one will realise until it’s next checked, which could be days or weeks away, for all we know. By which time it’ll be too late. So it’s now or never.’
‘No,’ said Carmen.
‘You won’t have to do a thing. Just turn your back a moment. I’ll get Lucia’s keys copied overnight. You’ll have the originals back by morning.’
‘This is insane.’
‘And if the scroll’s really gone? If it had something to do with Raff’s murder?’
‘I’ll tell Lucia,’ said Carmen. ‘I’ll get her permission.’
‘Come on. She’s already heartbroken over Raff. And now you want to tell her you think he stole her scroll? She’ll hate you for it, maybe even banish you from the library. And all you have to do is turn your back. If I’m caught, I’ll swear you had no idea.’
‘That’s not the point,’ she said. ‘You know it’s not the point.’
‘But it’s the only way we can—’
‘Forget it,’ she told him sharply. ‘It wouldn’t work anyway. Not in Rare Books & Manuscripts. Victor might have let Raff in without keeping an eye on him. He was the boss’s brother. But not you. You’re no one to him. And he watches what goes on there much more closely than people realise. He’d spot you for sure. And with your record…’
‘We need to check on the scroll, Carmen. How else can we do it?’
She gazed at him across the table. ‘By me going in myself.’
III
‘You bitch!’ yelled the man in the apartment across the landing from Rupert Alberts. ‘You useless bitch! How am I supposed to eat this shit?’
‘You think I care?’ yelled back his wife. ‘Stuff it up your arse, if you like.’
‘An arse is what it just came out of.’
The diocese of Naples owned several apartments fit for a Monseigneur of Alberts’ seniority and distinction, including a sumptuously appointed one within the cathedral itself. But his mission here was so delicate that he’d chosen to carry it out incognito, to avoid having to lie. That was why he’d taken this small flat in the city’s port district instead. At first glance, it had looked ideal for his purpose: modest enough to satisfy his vows, quietly situated and with its own small roof terrace too. And no Internet to tempt or distract him.
But life was never that straightforward.
He stood, almost frozen, by his front door. He hated every second of his neighbours’ arguments, yet somehow he found himself transfixed. Not that it was them he worried for. They could flay ribbons from each other, for all he cared. No. What concerned him was their teenage son. He passed him on the stairs sometimes, sitting there pretending to be absorbed in one of his graphic novels, while in truth sheltering from his parents’ fights. Every time, Alberts considered speaking to him, to offer consolation, reassurance, even sanctuary. To tell him that this too would pass. But he never dared. A single man living alone in a strange city; they’d likely call the police, putting his mission here in jeopardy. More importantly, he knew from his own experience how sensitive to pity the boy would be, how he’d recoil from sympathy precisely because it would breach the high wall of his denial and mean he couldn’t use the staircase as his refuge any more. Then there was the greatest fear of all: what was the nature of his desire to help? Was it compassion or something darker?
‘What happened to you?’ shouted the man. ‘When did you turn so fucking ugly?’
‘The same time you got so drunk and fat and lazy.’
It was something, at least, that they hated each other so directly. His own childhood hadn’t been like that. His parents had had such different ideas about raising children that he himself had been their proxy battleground. But it had only turned truly poisonous after they’d found a bodybuilding magazine beneath his mattress, its pages half stuck together. His father had blamed it on her pampering. She’d blamed it on his bullying. Their fights had grown unbearable. His forearms and thighs still bore the hatching of self-inflicted scars. He could sometimes feel the roughness of the orange rope around his neck as he’d tested h
is noose while standing on the stairs; the ice-lolly coldness of his father’s shotgun in his mouth. But he’d proved coward as well as pervert. So he’d declared for the priesthood instead, simply to shut them up.
A door banged across the landing. One or the other had quit the field. The tension began to leave his limbs. His neck and back loosened and relaxed a little. He returned to his bedroom and his latest nightly report; but he couldn’t concentrate on it, even though he knew his Cardinal would be eagerly awaiting it, to share at the Vatican’s very highest levels – even with the Pope himself, despite him being on a South American tour. The thought brought back all his stress, and then some more. For his Cardinal was a shrewd politician, naturally enough. He’d never have ascended so high otherwise. He’d made clear to Alberts the outcome he desired, then he’d waved away all his efforts to discuss the methodology, giving himself and the Church full deniability should the truth of what Alberts had done here ever come out.
He kept glancing at the steel lockbox atop his hanging cupboard. It was a kind of therapy for him. A way to alleviate anxiety. And suddenly he couldn’t help himself. He moved his chair across, took it down, set it on his bed. It was secured by a padlock whose key he kept on a silver chain round his neck. He stooped to unlock and open it, then stood back up. A thrill ran through him as he contemplated its contents. The thin black driving gloves and mirror sunglasses. The shapeless blue jeans and sturdy brown boots. The grey jacket with its red piping and drawstring hoodie. The stun gun and the packet of spare batteries. The sheaf of woven cream writing paper. The fountain pen and bottle of green ink. And now today’s addition of a cheap business card too.
In case you should ever want me. Day or night.
A delicious tremor ran through him as he touched it with his fingertip. But no. He was stronger than that. Or, more accurately, too drained from his monstrous day. He locked it back up, replaced it atop the hanging cupboard. He washed and prayed, then read a little Luke, his favourite of the gospels for its authority and compassion. By chance, he came across a familiar parable.
No man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
The passage stayed with him after he’d turned out the light. An obvious parable for Christianity’s relationship with Judaism. But there was something incongruous about that last sentence. Almost as though it had been added deliberately to undermine what went before.
With a jolt, he suddenly remembered the tour of Rare Books & Manuscripts that Victor, the department head, had given him. When he’d mentioned his interest in the Church Fathers, a look of glee had crossed Victor’s face. He’d fetched them each a pair of the loose white cotton gloves that he normally discouraged for their tendency to snag and tear the fragile old leaves, explaining that a number of their books had been rebound during the seventeenth century in jackets containing small quantities of arsenic, making the gloves a necessary protection. Then he’d unlocked one of the steel cabinets in the end room and taken from it an early edition of Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem.
From that one stepping stone, Alberts’ mind jumped to another, nearly twenty years before, and the seminars on Marcion led by that pious old bore Father Serafino. He’d hardly listened at the time; he’d never imagined they might prove relevant. But surely his buried memories of them were why his attitude to this mission had changed so markedly over these past few weeks – from his initial euphoria and sense of privilege through growing unease to the sporadic panic attacks he’d recently been suffering. And then he suddenly glimpsed the why of it, and in a single moment his whole understanding of the world completely inverted, much as a clever trompe l’oeil can switch to reveal not just a different picture but its very opposite, making it a struggle even to remember how it had looked before.
He sat up in alarm, his heart hammering. If this was so, it would be a catastrophe on an unimaginable scale, worse by far than any of his previous fears. The immensity of it was like a stone lodged in his chest. He had to find out one way or the other. But he had no Internet here, even if the text was available there in its original Latin, which he very much doubted.
He’d have to consult the library’s copy.
Rare Books & Manuscripts had, of course, long since closed for the night. But it would open again at nine sharp tomorrow morning.
He needed to be there when it did.
IV
Fish stew was followed by salted caramel ice cream. Carmen groaned with glutted pleasure as she pushed herself to her feet. She tweaked back a curtain to look outside. It was still raining and windy, less violently than before, but enough to make her shiver at the prospect of walking back to her hotel.
Cesco came to stand beside her. ‘Stay the night,’ he said, handing her a shot of limoncello. ‘I’ll take the sofa.’
‘Early start,’ she said. ‘Things to do, remember?’
‘You’re not still thinking of that, are you?’
‘You were prepared to do it.’
‘I have less to lose. What if they tell the police? You could lose your visa.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
‘Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?’ he said tautly. ‘I’ve fucked up already. I did some stupid stuff as a kid and—’
‘It wasn’t stupid stuff,’ she replied. ‘You burgled houses. You jacked cars. You conned your friends. At least call it what it was.’
‘I know what I did. I was an idiot. Worse than that, I was a dick. I’m sorry as hell about it. You know yourself how hard I’ve been trying to put it right. But let’s not compound it. If you’re kicked out of Italy, and I’m not allowed in America…’ He tailed off, leaving the question hanging.
‘Well, yes,’ said Carmen. ‘Finally he gets it!’
‘Come on. I’m not prepared to give up on us that easily. Are you?’
‘I don’t want to. I really don’t. But tell me what I’m supposed to do. Mum will never move here. America’s where her doctors are. Where her life is.’
‘She must have friends.’
‘Not that kind.’
‘Nursing, then. A home. I have money. What’s it for if not for this?’
‘Stop it. Stop it. I’m not putting her in a home. Not yet. Not before I have no choice. So I’m going back once I’m finished here. I have to. How can you not see that?’
‘We’ll find a way.’
‘You keep saying that. Yet you never tell me what it is.’
‘I don’t know. Just that we’ll find it together. Why else do you think I asked you to marry me?’
‘For God’s sake! Not this again.’
‘Yes. This again. At least you could tell me what my bloody sin was. We’d talked about getting married enough. It can’t have come as that big a shock.’
‘Stop it. I beg you.’
‘Just tell me what was so—’
‘My mum had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,’ cried out Carmen. ‘My mum. She’d just learned that she was dying. I had too. And dying from a particularly cruel disease that needs constant attention and nursing. So I needed sympathy. I needed support. I needed help. I needed time and space and understanding. And what did you do? You tried to make me choose.’
‘That’s not what—’
‘Yes it is. Yes it is. Don’t fucking deny it. You ambushed me and tried to make me choose. Between Italy and America. Between you and my mother.’
‘How could you think that?’ he said, appalled. ‘All I wanted was to show you we were in this thing together.’
‘Except we’re not, are we? We can’t be. Because I’m moving back to America, I have no alternative, and you’ll never even be allowed in. Not as a tourist, not as my husband. All because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself when you were a kid; and then you went and lied about it on your fucking vi
sa application.’ And she stared at him as he stood there, rendered speechless by her anger. She nodded to herself, glad to see that she’d finally got through. Then she grabbed her bag and jacket and headed for the door.
Chapter Fourteen
I
It was, inevitably, a long and troubled night for Cesco. Carmen’s anger lingered with her perfume after she’d left for her hotel. He kept rehearsing their argument in his mind, wondering how he might have phrased his points better to convince her that their future lay together. Yet he felt sick all the while. Because the fights themselves weren’t the real issue. The real issue was that Carmen had decided in her heart to return to America to care for her mother. She’d blamed her walkout on their fight, but the truth was she’d simply begun the painful process of separation. And he didn’t have a clue how to stop that. Or even if he should.
The rain turned to drizzle then died out altogether. The wind, by contrast, grew only fiercer. Panes rattled in his bedroom window, tiles on his roof. His neighbour’s broken shutter kept getting caught by gusts and banging against the wall like gunshots, while a low scratching started outside his front door, as though someone were working at its lock. And what if the Hammerskins or other old enemies had seen his name in the news and tracked him down? Or what if – as Taddeo had suggested – Raffaele’s murder was only the first from that long list of threats? The scratching got so bad he got up to check. No one there, of course. But the anxiety wouldn’t leave him.
He rolled onto his side to illuminate his clock. 3:49, it read. Then 4:32. 5:17. The streets here were too narrow to park, so residents mostly used the private lot at the top of their road, cut out of the limestone mount that rose steeply above this whole area. Now that the wind had finally died a little, he could hear the squeak of its barrier being raised to let someone out. Headlights slid like a blade between his curtains to slice a yellow scar across his ceiling.
The new day had started.
Carmen would no doubt be getting up shortly. She’d always been the early riser of the two, teasing him for his laziness as he’d lain there snugly, watching her as she dressed. She’d be off for the library soon, to check up on Lucia’s scroll. Cesco rarely felt nervous taking on such tasks himself. He had faith in his own quick tongue and lucky star. But the thought of Carmen getting caught…