The Heretic Scroll

by Will Adams

  ‘He was kneeling by the fountain with his head underwater. I checked him for a pulse, then someone attacked me with a stun gun.’ He rubbed his neck at the memory. ‘It left me in a daze for a minute or two. Then I called her.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘I went straight out onto the lane. I was spooked, frankly. It was dark and there was a murderer nearby. That was when the Hammerskins got me.’

  ‘So you never went inside the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever been inside?’

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  ‘No. I’ve never been inside. I’d never even been out there before.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Cesco irritably. ‘You think I wouldn’t know?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Izzo. ‘Then perhaps you might explain how come your fingerprints are all over his safe.’

  II

  Carmen woke early to find she’d still had no response from Cesco. It was out of character for him not to respond quickly. It was unprecedented overnight. She sent new messages on every channel she could think of, begging him to call, then showered briskly and threw on clothes and hurried back to his apartment. She let herself in, made her way upstairs, palms pressed against the walls to keep herself composed. He hadn’t been back. Her note was still on his bed and the answerphone pulsed with her own messages.

  A sense of doom consumed her. She remembered the blazing Lamborghini. She took out her phone to check for news. Then she sat down on the end of the bed to absorb it all. In disbelief, she took out Messana’s card to call her on her mobile. Messana answered almost at once. She was evidently in her car, talking loudly over the traffic. Cesco was safe, she assured her, though a little banged-up. As for his location, she couldn’t divulge that. Only that he was helping them with their enquiries.

  ‘They’re saying on the news that you think he killed Taddeo,’ she protested. ‘That’s insane.’

  A hesitation. ‘I’m sorry, Carmen. It doesn’t look good.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘I’ve told you all I can. I have to go now.’

  The line went dead. Carmen sat there staring at her phone. The Hammerskins were one thing. Taddeo was another. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. Yet dread consumed her even so. She had no faith in Italian justice. The papers here were filled with miscarriages of it. People who’d spent months or even years in jail awaiting trials that promptly fell apart. Hapless experts and corrupt officers. False testimony and planted evidence. And she didn’t have the first clue how to help. An awful thing, being unable to protect the people you loved. And she did love Cesco. That suddenly became crystal clear again. Her hands stopped trembling when she realised it. She herself might not know how to handle this, but she still had friends. Friends with friends of their own, one of whom happened to be Romeo Izzo.

  She brought up Lucia Conte’s number and called her now.

  III

  Father Rupert Alberts lay on his side in bed, wide awake yet too consumed by self-loathing and disgust to get up. He’d done it now. He’d put himself beyond the pale. Some sins could be forgiven. But not last night. Because it hadn’t just been a sin. It had been a confession of who, at base, he was.

  He rose at last for another lengthy shower, as though he could yet scrub himself clean. He dried himself and dressed, then turned on the television for the news. Then he stood there stunned. According to the reporter standing in a Posillipo lane, Zeno D’Agostino and Cesco Rossi had both been arrested in connection with the murder of Taddeo Santoro and were currently helping the police with their enquiries.

  He was still trying to absorb this when the anchor switched to an even bigger story. The long-anticipated evacuation of the Red Zone around Vesuvius had been ordered by the authorities. By eight o’clock tonight, Herculaneum would be deserted and then sealed off. And no one could say when people would be allowed back in again. Indeed, if the expert from the Observatory was correct, it was highly likely that the volcano would erupt before that could happen, burying the town, the Villa and any more scrolls still inside it beneath thirty more metres of volcanic sludge.

  When your life had been touched by God as closely as Alberts’ had been, everything had meaning, everything was a sign. The difficulty usually came in deciding which way the signposts pointed. This morning, for once, they all pointed in the same direction. At once he felt better again. He felt invigorated.

  He knew exactly what he had to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I

  A knack one learned early in interrogations: to give no warning of the stiletto question, yet to watch the suspect closely. The flicker of dismay on Rossi’s face when he mentioned his fingerprints on the safe was all the confirmation Izzo needed. Rossi recovered quickly; but too late. And perhaps he realised that denial was now futile, for he folded his arms and bit his lower lip. ‘I want a lawyer,’ he said.

  ‘Your burglaries in Milan,’ said Izzo, not without sympathy. ‘You were going by the name Mateo Greco at the time. But Valentina recognised your mugshot instantly. Unless you plan to dispute it? An identical twin brother, maybe? An arch-villain with a vendetta and a team of the world’s best hackers?’

  ‘My fingerprints have nothing to do with Taddeo’s death.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

  ‘No. I will be.’ He looked Izzo in the eye. ‘Have you opened it yet?’

  ‘It’s being done right now. Why?’

  ‘I want to know what you find before I say anything else.’

  ‘You’re in no position to bargain.’

  ‘And yet here we are.’

  Izzo gazed at Cesco, but he was giving nothing else away. It was odd. The man should be worried sick, but he didn’t look it. ‘You’re a thief,’ he told him flatly. ‘You make your living breaking in to the houses of wealthy people. Houses just like Santoro’s. We found your fingerprints on his safe and him lying dead outside. You admitted yourself that you were there. How do you reckon that all looks?’ He leaned forward. ‘Want to know what I think?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think your Alaric escapade changed your life. You came down to Naples on the back of it, made new friends, found a fun job. Unfortunately, you’re a thief by nature. Dishonesty is bred in your bone. So. Money goes missing from the studio. A few pieces of equipment, maybe a museum artefact or two. Your boss begins to suspect. You realise he’s on to you. Your cushy new life is in danger. Your lovely girlfriend. Then someone pins a letter to the gate of the Villa of the Papyri, and you see a way out. Do it right and the Camorra are sure to be blamed. So you go to Central Station. You call Raffaele and ask him to come meet you at the park first thing. You bang him over the head then drive him out to the Villa. You set his car up to burn, then wait round the corner for Taddeo to arrive before triggering your device and photographing it to give yourself the perfect alibi. Except your friend figured it out.’ He turned on his tablet, raised it to show Cesco his own photograph of Raff sitting up in his front seat, glaring impotently at the camera.

  ‘This is bullshit,’ said Cesco.

  ‘Then it got worse. You learned that Raffaele had secretly been out to see Taddeo the night before he died. You worried he’d told him his suspicions. You had to act fast. You went out to kill him. But what the hell? You might as well take what you can while you’re there. He wouldn’t give up the combination to his safe, however, so you tortured him for it with a stun gun. His heart gave out. You tried to open it anyway, but failed. So you went back downstairs and set his murder up to look like the handiwork of some crazy serial killer. Then you called it in yourself and went to wait outside. Only your German friends turned up first.’

  ‘You’re wasted in the police. You should write screenplays.’

  ‘Then tell me.’

  Rossi bit his lip again. ‘I’ll tell you this mu
ch,’ he said. ‘I went out to Taddeo’s last night to show him some photographs I found on one of Raff’s memory cards. Dieter took the card off me, but he tossed it over the wall opposite, along with my wallet, phone and keys. Have someone look for them.’

  ‘I will. What was on the card?’

  ‘You’ll be angry with me.’

  ‘You think I’m not already?’

  ‘Very well. I found something out about Raffaele a couple of days back. It made him look bad. So I didn’t tell you about it, in case you leaked it.’

  ‘We don’t do that.’

  ‘Sure you don’t.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘He googled a crooked American dealer called Miranda Harcourt last Sunday. Then he went down to her hotel the evening before he got killed. A waitress saw them there together.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  ‘I told you you’d be angry,’ said Cesco. ‘But she didn’t kill him. She was in mid-air by then. I checked with her hotel in Istanbul.’

  ‘You imbecile. You should have let us know.’

  ‘Like I said, I didn’t want you guys leaking it.’

  ‘And like I said, we don’t do that.’

  ‘Fuck you, you don’t,’ snarled Cesco. ‘How the hell else did the media get my name? I didn’t give it to them, that’s for sure. Dieter and his bastard Hammerskins found me thanks to you. All this shit I’m in right now, it’s your fault.’

  They glared at each other a few moments. But there was little to be gained from that. ‘This Harcourt woman,’ said Izzo.

  ‘Yes. I got worried that Raff had been stealing pieces from the museum to sell to her. Except I couldn’t work out how. Then, last night, I found some photographs he’d taken out at a museum warehouse. One of them looked exactly like a piece I’d seen on Harcourt’s website. I went back to double-check, but it had been pulled.’

  Izzo nodded. ‘Covering her tracks?’

  ‘Exactly. I couldn’t work out how Raff could have stolen it, so I started thinking about it differently. What if Raff had come across this photo while browsing for ideas? He thinks it’s the same piece, but he can’t be sure. And he doesn’t want to accuse anyone, because the most likely suspect is someone he’s fond of, and whose goodwill he needs. So he keeps an eye on Harcourt instead – easy enough to do, as she lives on social media. Last Sunday morning, she tweeted about coming to Naples. She even gave her time of arrival and the name of her hotel. So Raff went to see who she’d come to meet. And that was why the waitress thought they’d left together. Because he followed her when she went by.’

  ‘This friend of Raffaele’s. This most likely suspect. Who?’

  ‘Her name’s Emilia Notaro,’ said Rossi reluctantly. ‘She was Taddeo’s PA for years until she retired. He brought her back specially for the digitisation project. She runs it herself, top to bottom. She’s the only one I can think of who could steal pieces without being caught. Anyway, I figured that Taddeo needed to know at once. I called him at the museum. He’d already left for home. You can check with his office. I could hardly leave a message, so I drove over there instead. The rest you know.’

  ‘Except for how your fingerprints got on his safe.’

  ‘Except for that, yes.’

  ‘Ready to tell me yet?’

  ‘When you’ve opened it. Maybe.’

  Romeo scowled. But he knew a bollard when he drove into one. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said. ‘I need to make a call.’ Then he left the interrogation room, bringing up Messana’s number as he went.

  II

  The locksmith was a tall, thin fifty-year-old in corduroy trousers and a paisley sweater who moved and spoke with such exasperating slowness that sheer impatience compelled Valentina Messana to wave off his apology for being late before he’d even finished it. He fetched a pair of heavy canvas bags from the rear of his van, then followed her upstairs to the guest bedroom and the safe. He unzipped both his bags, took out a pair of bright white dust sheets that he flapped out on the floor of the walk-in closet. He set up lights and a canvas pop-up stool, then laid his equipment out piece by piece beside him, including a power drill that Messana dearly hoped he wouldn’t have to use. He taped the chestpiece of a stethoscope to the safe and listened through headphones as he turned the dial this way and that with his delicate long fingers.

  ‘How long?’ she asked.

  He checked his watch. ‘I’ll be able to tell you that to the nearest minute. Once I’ve opened it.’

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  ‘Well, now,’ he said, stretching each word out as far as it would go. ‘It’s an easy enough calculation. You can do it yourself, if you like. Start with “as long as it takes”. Then add on all the time I waste answering stupid questions.’

  She watched him for a while, filming clips for Senator Santoro. But soon enough she grew bored. The room had been too crowded last night to study it properly. She did so now. The bathroom was in showroom condition. A wicker basket between the double sinks was filled with luxury soaps and shampoos. The bedroom itself was gorgeously finished in peach and eggshell white. The king-size bed was fitted with a mosquito net, Egyptian linen and a summer duvet. There was a walnut desk against the end wall with three DVDs on it resting against a Blu-ray player connected to a huge wall-mounted ultra-HD TV. She flicked through the DVDs. A classic heist movie and a couple of old comedies. An underwhelming selection for such expensive equipment, but presumably there were more downstairs by their main…

  Messana frowned. The downstairs TV was fine. But it was smaller and older than this one. Odd to put one’s best TV in a barely-used guest bedroom.

  There was a huge black leather recliner right in front of it. It was the only piece of furniture that looked at all worn. She sat down in it. It was so big it made her feel like a child, particularly when she put its leg rest up. It had a remote control pouch made of elasticated netting on one side, and a foldable tray on the other, faintly marked with rings left by glasses and tumblers, slightly tacky to the touch. She brought her fingertip to her nose. It smelled of brandy.

  The recliner was closer to the TV than she found comfortable. It took up her whole view. Close the shutters, turn off the lights, crank up the volume, it would be like being there. Her skin began to crawl. She knew suddenly not only why Cesco Rossi had broken in, but why he’d refused to explain it too.

  A knock at the door. The young policewoman she’d sent across the road to hunt for Rossi’s belongings came in holding evidence bags containing keys, a wallet, a memory card and the component pieces of a mobile phone. ‘Exactly where you said they’d be,’ she said.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Messana.

  ‘Bianca.’

  ‘Well, Bianca, go tell your colleagues that I’ll be needing your help for a while. Then come back.’ She pushed herself back to her feet and returned to the closet to film the locksmith.

  ‘Two of the three tumblers down,’ he said, without looking round. ‘Shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes now.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She filmed on her phone as he turned the dial with gentle, smooth movements, listening intently through his stethoscope. Bianca returned. Messana motioned for silence. The locksmith sat up. He spun the wheels to reset the tumblers, then turned the dial briskly clockwise, anticlockwise then clockwise again. He pushed down the handle and was about to pull it open when Messana stopped him. ‘That’s enough,’ she told him. ‘We’ll take it from here.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  He untaped the stethoscope from the safe, packed his equipment carefully away, piece by piece. Messana signed his work order and walked him to the bedroom door. She locked it behind him, then handed her phone to Bianca to film as she opened the safe herself. There were three cameras inside, two extensible tripods, and a CD tower with at least two dozen DVDs in in it, each in its own white cardboard sleeve bearing a date and a pair of initials.

  Bianca pulled a face. ‘Are those what I think?’

>   Messana pulled on gloves and chose a DVD at random. ‘Let’s find out,’ she said.

  III

  It took Carmen three attempts before Lucia finally answered her phone. ‘Carmen?’ she said groggily. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I woke you,’ said Carmen.

  ‘These damned painkillers,’ said Lucia. ‘First you can’t drop off and then you can’t wake. What is it?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? About Taddeo?’

  The rustling of bedclothes being thrown back. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘What now?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Carmen. She gave her a moment to brace herself, then told her the terrible news.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ muttered Lucia, bewildered. ‘And they think Cesco did it? But that’s insane!’

  ‘I know. But they’ve arrested him anyway. All Messana would tell me is that it doesn’t look good. But I was thinking maybe your friend Izzo might know more…’

  ‘You want me to call him?’

  ‘Would you? I’m going out of my mind.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll do it now. I’ll ring you back.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She hung up, then went from room to room, too restless to stay still. Their neighbours were shouting at one another as they readied themselves to leave for work, though not out of rancour; the husband was simply hard of hearing, and for ever running late. Their front door banged closed. She went to the bedroom window to watch them kiss farewell before they hurried off in opposite directions. Her phone rang. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lucia. ‘I keep getting voicemail. I’ve left a message, and I’ll let you know the moment he calls back. But I’ve also had a thought. I think I can prove Cesco innocent.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’ll have to trust me, I’m afraid. Can you meet me at the library later? I’ll explain everything.’

  ‘Of course. When and where?’

  ‘Rare Books & Manuscripts. Say ten thirty.’

  ‘I’ll see you there.’ She ended the call, then sat there, somewhat reassured, yet puzzled too, racking her brains for what Lucia might have in mind. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t see it.