Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

She takes off her blouse and by twisting in front of the mirror she can see small slivers of smashed glass embedded in her spine. There’s also an angry red mark around her lower vertebrae where she’s been kicked.

Valentina contorts her fingers and uses the eyebrow tweezers and mirror to pick out the shards. She looks at the nearby shower. It’s a temptation. A hot soak is just what she needs, but she knows that’s a long way off. Just processing the piece of shit in the other room is going to take ages.

She pulls her blouse back on and now becomes aware of her damaged right hand. She can wriggle all of her fingers, but her knuckles are grazed and swollen. A pity she didn’t connect with the son-of-a-bitch’s jaw instead of the wall.

Her attacker is flat out on the floor when she re-enters the room. Tom is sitting near him, his foot in the middle of the guy’s back.

‘All okay?’ she asks.

‘Fine.’ He looks almost bored.

‘I’m going to check the rest of the place, all right?’

He nods.

Valentina goes back to the bedroom, fumbles for a switch and eventually finds it. She pushes it down, but the light doesn’t come on. She clicks it again.

Nothing.

Something is wrong.

She senses it.

She missed something earlier.

Something important.

Before Valentina can enter the bedroom and satisfy her curiosity, the arrest team arrives.

She fills them in on the prisoner.

Maybe a night in the cells will loosen the eunuch’s tongue. Come tomorrow she’ll have enough energy to find out what the hell he was doing in the apartment rented by their missing woman.

She borrows a flashlight and returns to the bedroom.

The room is spookily cold and smells of damp, like wet and rusty iron.

Under the glare of the torchlight, the darkness gives way to a tobacco-coloured creaminess. Beyond the burn of the beam, all the walls and even the ceiling seem to be lined with some kind of shabby tiles that are hanging loose.

She shines the light up.

There’s no central lightshade or bulb, only a dangling flex and raw open socket where the appliance should be.

Valentina moves the beam around.

Dozens of strange shadows crawl over the walls and move in sync with her torch.

She flicks the beam back to the ceiling.

Unbelievable.

Hundreds of identical rosary beads, complete with silver crucifixes, dangle cross down from the plaster ceiling.

‘Tom! You need to see this.’ She twists the beam to full flood.

He comes to the doorway and stops.

Valentina moves the torch around. ‘What do you make of it?’

He has to shield his eyes from the brightness. ‘Nothing to be frightened of. Do you mind? You’re blinding me with that thing.’

‘ Scusi.’ She dips it and in doing so notices that the floor is also strangely covered.

Tom moves to the centre of the room and touches her hand. ‘This is a place of sanctuary. It’s a refuge for someone who is very frightened.’

‘And someone totally damned crazy.’ Valentina pans the light beam back and forth across the floor. ‘Isn’t this the Bible? Isn’t the whole floor covered in pages from the Bible?’

Tom bends so he can see. ‘Yes, it is. In Latin, too.’

She shines her light upwards and around. ‘And the walls and the ceiling; the whole room is covered in Biblical text.’

Tom crosses himself.

Valentina runs her hand over the papered wall. ‘It’s so creepy.’

‘The word of God is creepy?’

‘Yes. When it’s plastered all over the place like this, it’s immensely creepy.’ Valentina’s light picks out brass candlesticks arranged around a small painted statue of a Madonna and Child. ‘Not only creepy, but a fire risk. It’s a wonder this place didn’t go up in flames every time she lit a candle and said a prayer.’

Tom examines the papered walls. Unless he’s mistaken, it’s not only a Vulgate, a standard Latin Bible, that has been ripped up and stuck there. He recognises some other pages as sections of the Polyglot Bible for the Greek New Testament. He moves along, his hands feeling and tracing the wallpapered text.

He points out several pages of old print. ‘These are extracts from the Septuagint, the oldest Greek version of the Jewish Bible.’ He slides his hand along, ‘Next to it are pages from the classic Hebrew Bible.’ He points a long, shadowy finger. ‘Just at the edge of your light there, I can see English – those are sections of the Old Testament.’

‘What’s going on, Tom?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s like someone has taken out an insurance policy and covered themselves with every form of overlapping religion.’

His foot knocks against something. ‘Shine your light down here for a second.’

She flashes the beam his way.

‘Down at my feet.’

‘My God, what is it?’

He crouches. ‘The bed – it’s made from bibles.’

She steps closer and kneels beside him.

Tom pulls at part of the single bed. ‘The frame is made four bibles high and by the looks of it, one… two… three deep. They’ve been used like bricks to build a small wall, with the openings facing outwards, so the inside fits tight against a single mattress.’ He manages to force some pages open. ‘Looks like masonry nails have been driven through them and into the floor to hold them together.’

Valentina moves her hand beneath the torchlight and over the bed. ‘And the mattress and quilt are both lined with more bible pages.’ She is the first back on her feet. ‘Now tell me you don’t find this creepy.’

Tom gets up as well. ‘I don’t. I’ve seen similar things.’

‘You have?’ she says incredulously.

‘Some people are frightened of being attacked – of being possessed – in their sleep. They’re afraid that when their defences are down they become vulnerable. I guess this is similar. Your girl is scared that when she’s asleep, some evil alter will take over her body.’

Outside, in the living room, there are voices and noises.

‘Forensics and a search team,’ she explains, seeing he’s on edge. ‘We’d better back away while they do their jobs.’

They return to the main room and Tom stands to one side while Valentina takes charge, issuing instructions to several different people.

Within minutes, portable lamps are being brought in and men in latex gloves are unlocking silver suitcases. All of them take a second or two to stare at Tom’s strange pink shirt and baggy grey pants.

Someone shouts something in Italian from the bedroom where they’ve just been, and Valentina flies in there.

Tom rushes to the doorway.

Everyone’s crowded around the tiny wardrobe.

Inside, curled up on the floor, is a young woman.

Covered in blood.

Louisa Verdetti is in a deep and peaceful sleep.

A much-craved and wonderfully healing rest that is slowly dissolving the traumas of one of the worst days of her life.

Losing her patient, getting punched in the face, arguing with her boss and being interviewed and scolded by the cops are all gradually being reduced to mere grains of sand on her beach of mental history.

Another few hours of dream time and they’ll be filed and forgotten. She’ll be fit to go again. Ready for whatever mysteries and machinations a fine new day has to throw at her.

But not yet.

Not now.

Right now she’s good for nothing, and the last thing she wants on her mind is a ringing phone.

But there it is.

For a moment – a very long and sleepy moment – she pretends that it isn’t real. The noise is part of a dream she’s having. Perhaps a call from an ex-lover, pestering her to give him another chance.