The Heretic Scroll

by Will Adams

  Lucia invited him in with a weak smile. Her arm and throat and cheek were less heavily bandaged, he was glad to see. And she took her flowers without obvious discomfort. But there was pallor still in her cheeks, grief still in her eyes.

  Yesterday’s chair had been replaced in the corner. He put it back beside her bed and settled in. ‘You’re looking better,’ he told her.

  ‘The miracle of poppy juice. Finally I understand why the ancients so loved it.’

  ‘Don’t get too attached,’ he said. ‘You should see the lost souls we deal with every day.’

  ‘I can look after myself. How about you? Any news?’

  ‘It’s early days. We have good leads.’

  Her face fell. ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ he sighed. ‘This isn’t a wife bludgeoned by her husband, or two drunks fighting in a bar. Someone planned this. They meant to get away with it.’

  ‘Come on, Romeo. You wouldn’t be here this early unless you had something.’

  He smiled at that. She always had seen through him. He sat forward a little, elbows on his knees. ‘There is one thing. It’s not for repetition, and I don’t know if it will be much comfort, but we found traces of a drug called flunitrazepam in your brother’s system.’

  ‘Flunitrazepam?’

  ‘You’ll know it better as Rohypnol.’

  She pushed herself up. ‘Rohypnol?’ she said in alarm. ‘You’re not telling me that—’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Izzo hurriedly, realising too late the inference she might draw. ‘My apologies. There’s no evidence at all of anything like that. That he was interfered with, I mean. We think they simply used it as a tranquilliser. Just like your morphine. It means your brother wouldn’t have felt the flames as severely as he might have done.’ He gave a little grimace. ‘Not much of a consolation, I know, but something.’

  ‘Oh,’ she murmured, resting her head back down on her pillow. ‘Yes. Yes it is.’ Her forehead creased. A little colour even flushed her cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That actually means a lot.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad.’ Yet he’d lost her, for some reason. Her thoughts were elsewhere. He pushed himself to his feet. ‘If there’s anything else I can do…?’

  ‘No,’ she told him. ‘But you’ll keep me informed, yes? You yourself, I mean.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll come back again tomorrow, if you’d like?’

  ‘Thank you, yes. Though to be honest, I doubt I’ll still be here. They’re transferring patients out because of Vesuvius. And I’ve watched them change my dressings enough now. I’m sure I can do it for myself.’

  ‘Then maybe you should give me your contact details. Just in case.’

  ‘Of course.’ She beckoned for his pad and pen and wrote her numbers down for him, resting the pad awkwardly against the back of her bandaged left paw. Mobile and work phone numbers, her home address and email too. He looked into her eyes, held them far longer than was appropriate. But then she didn’t look away either.

  ‘You have a son,’ she said finally.

  ‘Mario, yes. He’s six. You’re going to like him.’

  ‘I’m sure. Once all this is behind us.’

  ‘Yes.’ He found a wry smile. ‘Then I should probably get back to work on it, shouldn’t I?’

  III

  Zeno D’Agostino lay on the broken wet tarmac with his hands clutched over his head, waiting for the fireball to erupt and consume his car. But seconds passed and nothing happened.

  ‘Is everything well, my friend?’

  He looked up. His Ukrainian downstairs neighbour Yuri was standing there, outlandishly tall and impeccably dressed as ever, beaming down at him with amused concern.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Zeno assured him after checking on his Mercedes. He picked himself up, brushed down his trousers and sleeves. ‘Just nerves. I watched a friend die yesterday, you see. Burned alive in his car. You may have seen it on the news.’

  ‘That poor fellow in Herculaneum? You were there?’

  Zeno nodded. ‘There’ve been threats against all of us too. So when a phone went off beneath my seat…’

  They both looked at the car. The phone was ringing still. ‘Not yours?’ asked Yuri. ‘Then whose?’

  ‘My wife’s, I suppose. She borrowed my car yesterday.’

  ‘How terrifying,’ Yuri said. But his words were undercut by the puzzlement in his voice, for he knew full well that Emanuela had a Mercedes of her own. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. I hope your day improves.’

  ‘Thank you. You too.’ The ringing finally stopped. But it was silent only a few seconds before starting up again. He went across, felt beneath the driver’s seat for the phone. Its fascia pulsed yellow with each ring. Not a bomb, at least. Not today. But it might as well have been. For surely this was Cousin Claudio showing him how easily he could get to him if he chose. So it was with a trembling thumb that he answered it. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know who I am this morning, I trust,’ said Claudio. ‘No more games.’

  ‘No,’ said Zeno. ‘No more games.’

  ‘Good. Then listen close. The Secondigliano cops have arrested a mate of mine on a bullshit assault charge. It’s a joke. He was with me and some others at the time. But they refuse to believe us, just because we all have records. So he needs a suit to speak for him. A suit with weight.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Who the fuck else? You think I’m after a recipe?’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last Tuesday night. Around ten.’

  ‘Last Tuesday?’ Hope flared in Zeno’s chest. ‘Then I’m sorry but I can’t help. I was at dinner with a friend.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘His name’s Taddeo Santoro. He’s director of our Archaeological Museum.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘How the hell do you think I mean. Was it just you two or were there others?’

  ‘Just us two, though I’m sure the waiters would—’

  ‘Waiters!’ scoffed Claudio. ‘And don’t worry about your mate. He’ll never even hear of this, I promise.’

  ‘But what if he does? What if he tells the police that I—’

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Claudio. ‘I burned a man to death for you yesterday morning, just for sleeping with your wife. Now you owe me.’

  Zeno looked around in alarm. But there was no one in sight, let alone in earshot. ‘But I never asked you to—’

  ‘Yes, you did. Yes, you fucking did. Don’t you dare try that now. Not unless you want what he got. Because I can do it. I just proved that. And I will too, if you push me. Understand?’

  That memory again: Raffaele engulfed by the flames like some poor medieval heretic. His awful screams and the unexpected stench of it too, of burning flesh and fuel, of melted plastic and rubber and synthetic fabrics. It would stay with him until he died. ‘Yes,’ he said, as the last dregs of fight drained from him. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. The person you need to see is Pietro Chiellini. Works out of Secondigliano polizia di stato. You’re gonna go there now and—’

  ‘Now? But I have a meeting at eleven. I can’t possibly be late for—’

  ‘Right this fucking minute. And when you get there, this is what you’re gonna tell him.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  I

  More so even than yesterday, there were ghosts in the studio with Cesco. The whole place thrummed with memories. The jokes he and Raff had shared, the bantered insults. His impatience, rudeness, wit and generosity. The sheer talent revealed by all the photographs Cesco had never seen before, tucked away in private folders. Yet none of them were of the Philodemus scroll, and then it was too late anyway. Carmen would be at the library already. And he had other duties.

  He locked the studio back up, set off for Raff’s apartment on the Harley. A white van pulled out after him. On edge as he was, he watched it in his mirrors. It followed him up Via Duomo and pulled up ri
ght behind him at the junction. He glanced round at the driver’s face. He didn’t recognise him, but he had that Hammerskin look: muscled, shaven-headed, neck tattoos and with a North European pallor. And deliberately not looking at him either. The lights changed. Cesco stayed put, to see what he would do. A second or two passed, then the man frowned irritably and gestured for him to get moving.

  Cesco drove on, but away from Raff’s apartment rather than towards it. The van briefly followed, then headed left up towards Capodimonte. He waited until it was out of sight then circled around back to Rione Sanità, still feeling uneasy. He parked on the cobbled piazza outside Raff’s block and waited a minute, in case the van returned. It did not. He shrugged it off, went inside and upstairs, jiggled his key in the front door lock until it opened. He poured himself an orange juice and took it through to the office, where he pulled Raff’s bottom drawer all the way out and set it on the floor to begin the painful process of sorting through his finances.

  It proved easier than he’d expected to work out. Until their divorce, Raff and his wife had been doing very well. They’d owned this place outright and had saved a healthy nest egg too. But then it had fallen apart. Raff had bought Rosanna out of the apartment by signing over their nest egg and taking out a new mortgage. Except he’d foolishly borrowed extra cash to remodel this place and buy his Lamborghini too – though he’d got that second-hand for well under half of what he’d claimed. Then, when he’d started to struggle with the payments, he’d taken out new loans and credit cards instead of cutting back, hiding the evidence away in this Dorian Gray drawer in the hope that everything would somehow resolve itself.

  As, in a way, it just had.

  II

  Carmen returned to her studies in Rare Books & Manuscripts, while keeping half an eye on Father Alberts, hunched over his poisoned tome at the end table, his back to her and his elbows out like an exam student convinced his neighbours were spying on his answers. Ten thirty came and went. She gave up hope. Then to her surprise he rose abruptly, packed the Tertullian away in its archival box and carried it by her with a strained look on his face. No. It was more than strain. He looked aghast.

  He returned the volume to Victor. She expected him to come back to wait for Taddeo Santoro and Professor D’Agostino. Instead, he pushed out through the swing doors and hurried off, perhaps to clear his head. As for Victor, he put the Tertullian onto his trolley for later return. Just like that, her window opened. She checked her watch. Nineteen minutes to eleven. It was tight. If Alberts came back, or Taddeo or Zeno arrived early, she was sure to be caught. Yet she stood anyway and walked briskly along the aisle to the Colonna room door, taking Lucia’s keys from her bag as she went. She could justifiably claim, after all, that she wanted to make sure the keys worked before Taddeo and the others turned up.

  A glance over her shoulder. Researchers and librarians were milling about the shelves. None were looking her way. The door had twin locks: a mortice and a latch. She opened the mortice first. It made such a heavy, clunking noise that she couldn’t help but check again. Still no one was paying her any attention. She fitted in the latchkey. Almost in a daze she opened the door a crack and slipped on through, pulling it quietly shut again behind herself. It clicked as it locked on its latch.

  It was much darker in here than outside. But then those other rooms all had French windows out onto the terrace, whereas this one had instead a pair of sturdy oak doors, each fitted only with a small pane of security glass whose light was further dimmed by the floor-length white cotton curtains that hung in front of them. Enough light still filtered through, however, to illuminate the galaxies of motes set swirling by her entry.

  She looked around. The room was clearly designed for meetings rather than study or storage, with a round Formica table large enough for eight, but set with just four chairs, each equipped with a mouse, a keyboard and a large monitor connected to a server beneath.

  There was supposed to be a safe. She found it beside a cheap pine desk next to the terrace doors. It had a stack of books on it, and another of CDs. She crouched before it. It was bolted to the floor, heavy, old, dented and scratched. It had clearly been here years rather than being specially installed. She found its key, opened its door, looked inside. It contained a pair of hard drives and a mahogany scroll-holder laid crosswise to make it fit. Her hands trembled as she reached in and drew it out. Heavier than she’d expected. Almost certainly the scroll was still inside.

  But she needed to make sure.

  She set it on the tiled floor, undid its catches, lifted its lid. And there it was, nested in specially cut soft cream foam, a charred cylinder perhaps eighteen inches long, chubby as an infant’s arm, along with the smaller fragment that had broken off, in a companion nest of its own. Some faded black ink was visible on the surfaces where the pieces had split, though it was impossible to read in this poor light, or even to make out an alphabet. Her breath caught all the same. If this was what she suspected, it would without doubt be the most precious artefact in the world – more valuable than any palace or regalia. Forget hundreds of millions. People would pay billions.

  Not that it could ever be sold.

  Not openly, at least.

  She was still staring down at it when there came a knock upon the door. ‘Hey, Carmen,’ called out Taddeo Santoro. ‘Are you in there?’

  III

  Izzo was at his desk chomping at a cheese and salami panino when the call came through. He swallowed down the outsized mouthful, leaving an unpleasantly stretched sensation in his throat and chest. ‘Pronto?’

  ‘Hey, Romeo, old friend. Pietro here. Pietro Chiellini. Secondigliano precinct. Remember?’

  ‘How could I forget, you damned Juventus turncoat.’

  Chiellini laughed. ‘What can I say? I got bored of losing. Come join us. You know you want to.’

  Izzo grunted. ‘Over my cold dead body. What can I do for you?’

  ‘That thing of yours yesterday morning. The guy in the car. The Lamborghini, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, that guy in the car. I thought you meant some other one. What about him?’

  ‘You looking at the professor at all?’

  ‘The professor?’

  ‘Yeah. The history buff. From the TV. You know the one.’

  Izzo set down the rest of his panino. In this city, in this line of work, you grew wary of using people’s names if you suspected any kind of connection to the Camorra. Particularly working in Secondigliano, as Chiellini did. Too many extended families, too many greased palms, too many ears. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘He just came in here to provide an alibi for one of our local thugs. Thing is, he’s lying.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Ninety per cent, yeah. Maybe ninety-five. Our vic didn’t recognise the guy, but he’s got a very distinctive scar. So, you know, we pretty much had him. Until your guy pops up. And why would he risk his rep for a piece of shit like this, I ask myself. So I do a spot of checking. Turns out his cousin’s in the business. Not only that, this piece of shit thug is one of his crew. So maybe he’s just doing a solid for the family. But I can’t help but wonder…’

  ‘You’re thinking tit for tat?’

  ‘Gotta be worth a phone call, right?’

  Izzo allowed himself a moment. Professor D’Agostino had been so angered by Raffaele Conte’s impersonations that he’d lobbied against him being awarded the museum contract. Hardly motive to burn the man alive, but feuds had a way of escalating. Then there was that odd coincidence of him appearing in the programme about the punishments. He took out his pen and notepad. ‘Tell me everything,’ he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I

  Taddeo Santoro knocked again on the Colonna room door. ‘Carmen!’ he called out more loudly. ‘Are you in there?’

  To Carmen’s surprise, his arrival didn’t unnerve her so much as fill her with a perverse euphoria. Was this how Cesco felt whenever he got into one of his scrapes? she wondered. It would cert
ainly explain his recklessness. She closed and replaced the scroll-holder in the safe, locked it back up. It was still only ten to the hour. She felt almost cheated. Perhaps she could bluff her way out, claim she’d come in early to set the room up. But there was nothing to be set up. And then the moment passed, and she was stuck.

  Father Alberts now returned. She heard him and Taddeo greeting one another, the ritual kissing of the cheek. They wouldn’t be leaving now. The terrace doors were her only hope. She drew back the curtains, the better to study them. No alarm, at least. But they were triply secured: a standard old lock; bolts at top and bottom; and a steel locking bar. None of Lucia’s keys fitted, so she searched the desk’s drawers and found a likely-looking candidate. The light was better now that she’d opened the curtains. Her eye was caught by the stack of books on top of the safe – more precisely, by their familiar bright blue and yellow jackets. Four brand new copies of the twenty-eighth edition of Nestle–Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece – text of choice for scholars of the Greek New Testament everywhere, surely reference sources for the work here, and conclusive proof that this was no Philodemus scroll. What was more, the top one was bookmarked; and not near the beginning either, as you’d expect for the Gospel of St Mark, but beyond halfway.

  Even with Taddeo and Alberts waiting impatiently outside, Carmen couldn’t help herself. She flipped the book open to its mark. Several passages were underlined or circled with different colours. The margins were heavily annotated in both Greek and Italian. Her eyes flickered to the heading. As suspected, not the Gospel of Mark after all. But her disappointment lasted only a flicker. For when she saw what it was instead, when she understood the possible ramifications, her head swam so dizzily that she had to take a moment to steady herself.

  Another knock on the door. Louder now. Frustrated. Angry. She flipped forward through the pages and then backward, scanning the annotated ones. Enough! She had to leave. She closed and replaced the book, returned to the terrace doors. The key fitted and turned. The bolts were stiff enough that she had to wiggle them back and forth. She lifted the locking bar and slipped outside, holding the bar up with her index finger between the gap before trying to shut it quickly enough that it would drop back into its slot. It took her three goes to get it right.