Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

She doubts it. She dips her hand in and takes out her phone.

Tom goes back to the minibar in search of more wine. By the time he’s retrieved some from the back of the bottom shelf, she’s finished the call.

Her face looks as empty as their glasses.

‘It was Federico. He’s been suspended as well.’

Guilio Brygus Angelis doesn’t go back to the stinking hole he calls home.

He may never go back.

The cops didn’t find anything there, he’s sure of that, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before they get lucky.

He learned that a long time ago.

You can take all the precautions in the world, but if you hang around in the same place too long, eventually the cops get lucky. They talk to neighbours, shopkeepers, local kids. They get a hold of you.

Well, he won’t be staying around long enough for that to happen.

It’s starting to rain – a shower, that’s all – but he backs up into the doorway of a cheap souvenir shop.

Doorways are always good places to be.

And this is an excellent one.

It’s the perfect place to watch the comings and goings at the Carabinieri command building right opposite him.

He’s amazed by how many cops come out to smoke.

No sooner are they through the front doors than their big cop hands are jabbing filters in their snarky little mouths and they’re lighting up.

Lieutenant Assante throws down a match as he lights up and walks out into the rain.

Guilio follows him to his car, a beat-up Lancia parked a block away.

Doesn’t look as though the Carabinieri pay very well. There’s a child seat in the back. No doubt his money goes on his kid, or kids. He looks like the type who’ll have as many as his wife will make him.

Guilio notes the number and watches as the cop climbs in and drives off without even putting on his seat belt.

Reckless.

The guy is just asking for trouble.

Drinking and walking are universal answers to most problems.

When the minibar is dry, Valentina resorts to the latter.

Motion to cope with emotion.

Lots of emotion.

In fact, she’s fired up and emotional enough to walk the length of the Appian Way, and then some.

She’s proud of the career she’s built herself. Rightly so. Proud of the crimes she’s solved, the people she’s helped and all the badasses she’s locked up.

How dare a sexist dinosaur like Caesario try to take that away from her?

She walks Tom all the way out to the Piazza Navona, but to no avail. Bernini’s ever-flowing Fontana dei Fiumi does nothing to lighten her mood.

From there she drags him east through the back streets, across Corso del Rinascimento and Via della Rotonda to the awe-inspiring Pantheon.

Inside, neither of them manages more than marginal interest in the guide’s stories of Agrippa, Hadrian, Constantine and the dozens of other historic figures who created, refurbished, worshipped or were buried beneath its famous dome.

The walking and the sights aren’t working.

Valentina just can’t clear her mind.

As the night starts to frost up and their feet begin to break down, they seek refuge in a touristy restaurant off Via della Fontanella di Borghese.

Tom chooses octopus cooked in a light tomato sauce with pecorino cheese, followed by mezze maniche pasta with bacon.

Valentina isn’t that hungry, but gets tempted by a light tempura of baccala and anchovies, followed by a small portion of tagliatelle with artichokes.

They pick out a reasonable bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella and try to talk about anything and everything except her suspension and the case she’s been taken off.

Only when a second bottle has been opened does she feel ready to stop avoiding things. ‘I suppose tomorrow I should find myself a solicitor.’

‘Don’t rush into it. Things could look different in the morning.’

‘I won’t, but I need representation.’ She stares out of the window at the bright lights and the crowds of noisy strangers, and feels isolated and vulnerable. ‘This isn’t my city, Tom. Aside from you, I don’t have friends here.’

He tries to reassure her. ‘You probably have more people on your side than you think.’

‘I doubt it.’ She swills wine in her glass. ‘When will you need to leave?’

The questions stings. ‘Not until you tell me to.’

‘ Grazie.’ His gesture of kindness makes her feel tearful. The only other person who would have been this understanding and supportive was her cousin, Antonio.

She curses herself for letting her guard down and thinking about him.

One moment of sadness, and memories of him flood in on her.

She blinks tears from her eyes. ‘This damned disciplinary case could take weeks.’

‘Then I’ll stay weeks.’

‘Or months.’

‘Then I’ll stay months.’

She doesn’t laugh, but there’s a suggestion of a smile. ‘Years? Maybe a lifetime?’

‘Now you’re pushing it.’

Finally the laugh comes. She looks into his eyes and thinks that if he does stay, then she might just cope with all the madness that Caesario and his cronies are going to throw at her.

They ask for the bill while drinking the last of the Valpolicella.

Tom tips the waiter, and at the door helps Valentina into her coat.

Outside, the night is crisp, and they link arms snugly as they walk back towards the Spanish Steps.

Valentina is feeling mellow and more than just a little drunk. She gestures to the fountain at the foot of the steps. ‘Rome is beautiful – but it doesn’t stop your life turning to rat shit.’

‘Your life’s fine, Valentina. You are defined by who you are and who you love, not by your job and what your boss does to you.’

Even through the haze of too much alcohol, she knows he’s right.

She holds him tighter and hopes she doesn’t fall and make a fool of herself before they reach the hotel.

An almost full moon shines on them, and Tom briefly looks up at it. For the first time that night he isn’t thinking of Valentina.

His thoughts are with another woman.

One lying in a psychiatric bed across the city. A woman terrified of the dark and the evil she’s certain it will bring.

There are no windows in the room.

No natural light can spill in from the world outside the hospital and make the occupant feel part of normal life.

There’s only the homogeneous, alien whiteness of the forever-buzzing fluorescent tubes.

But Anna Fratelli knows the day is over.

It is night-time.

She knows it as surely as if she was standing outside and watching the great Roman sky grow black around her.

She clutches a bible that one of the nurses has given her and rubs it over her body like a bar of soap.

No inch of skin is left unlathered.

The words of the Lord will protect her.

His are the only true words.

Mother is wrong.

What She says about Him is wrong.

Anna kisses the bible and stands it, cover facing her, on the cabinet beside her bed.

She kneels and prays.

‘ En ego, o bone et dulcissime Iesu, ante conspectum tuum genibus me provolvo, ac maximo animi ardore te oro atque obtestor, ut meum in cor vividos fidei… ’

They will come now.

From out of their own darkness, from places beyond the womb, the others will come.

And one will take her.

‘… spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum poenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere

…’

The doctors have given her medicines. Pills. Liquid on spoons. Drips. They’ve put them in her mouth and in her veins and told her they’ll make her better.

She doubts it.