Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

‘So tell me,’ says Lorenzo, fresh from learning over his earpiece that Federico and his captain are suspended and shouldn’t be doing anything except staying at home and getting fat on cupboard snacks, ‘what were you and Morassi doing at Santa Cecilia?’

Federico tries to explain. ‘We’d both been working a case involving a psychiatric patient called Anna Fratelli. She’d been arrested in connection with a violent incident in Cosmedin. Subsequent enquiries based on what she said to us also resulted in a mutilated male body being found on the banks of the Tiber.’

Lorenzo senses this is going to get complicated. ‘Hang on!’ He pulls a small notebook and pen from a button-down pocket on the leg of his combat pants. ‘Right, continue.’

‘Anna Fratelli died in hospital last night. The doctor in charge of her, Louisa Verdetti, phoned Captain Morassi. It was a strange call. Valentina worked out that Verdetti was being held hostage by someone who wanted to break Anna out of the psych unit.’

The major’s mind is reeling. ‘I’m full of questions here. Who, what and why being at the front of that queue. But first, tell me, are we talking about someone who wanted to take Anna Fratelli’s dead body, or someone who wanted to kidnap her because they thought she was still alive?’

‘The latter.’

‘Okay. But why did this doctor…’ he glances down at his notes, ‘Verdetti, call your captain? Were they friends?’

Federico shakes his head. ‘No. Far from it. Verdetti was the one who got us suspended. She complained to our top brass that we’d pushed Anna too far during interviews and had made her sickness worse.’

‘And did you push her too far?’

Federico hesitates. ‘No, sir. I really don’t think we did.’

‘Explain something to me, Lieutenant. When my men checked with our control room, there was no record that you and Morassi were attempting this recovery operation. Had neither of you called it in?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Why not?’

‘Sir, even before we were suspended there was bad blood between Captain Morassi and our commanding officer, Major Caesario.’

Lorenzo begins to see the picture. ‘Bad blood or not, you still should have called it in. I know what Caesario is like but you should have gone by the book.’

Federico looks penitent. ‘Yes, sir.’

Lorenzo stops him with the palm of his hand. It’s clear he’s taking a radio message in his earpiece. ‘ Grazie,’ he says to whoever is on the other end. He looks back to Federico. ‘One of my units has just found Doctor Verdetti. She’s fine. Panicky as hell, but she’s unhurt.’

Guilio puts his hand on Tom’s arm. ‘Keep a hold of me. We have a little way to go before I can put a light on.’

Tom grabs a clump of jacket and allows himself to be dragged into the darkness.

‘We’re going down two steps. Watch that leg of yours.’

‘Thanks.’ Tom can’t see his own hands, let alone watch his leg, but he appreciates the concern.

Within a dozen steps, Guilio brings them to a halt. ‘Just stay still while I find something.’

From out of the pitch blackness comes the rough scraping sound of a match being struck. It takes several attempts before there’s a burst of orange flame.

In the tiny halo of light, Tom sees a paraffin lamp and Guilio concentrating on winding up a wick.

As the flickering flame gradually grows in the dusty glass chamber, the room becomes visible.

It’s fashioned out of ancient stone.

There’s no furniture.

Nothing hangs on the bare walls.

The floor is no more than an endless slab of compressed dirt and grit.

Tom can’t see the ceiling, but he’s sure it’s unsafe and given his luck will collapse any minute.

Guilio seems to read his mind. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not going to fall down. This place has existed for more than two thousand years, so it’ll be safe for another twenty minutes.’

‘Where are we?’

Guilio squats beside the lamp and holds his hand near the glass to catch a little heat. ‘It’s an old house. There are two rooms, one to cook and eat in, another for sleeping and breeding.’

‘So it should be part of the excavation out there?’

‘It will be soon enough. The archaeologists are so focused on identifying artefacts that they’ve already recovered they have no current desire to open the dig further.’

Tom gets the feeling that he’s only brushing the surface of Guilio’s knowledge. ‘Do you know lots of places like this – secret hideaways beneath the city?’

Guilio laughs. ‘Most Roman kids do. If you’re brought up here, it’s like living on top of a thousand old building sites covered with boards and sand. Dig a bit and you just find one den after another.’

Tom lowers himself to the floor and rests against the stone wall. His left knee is throbbing. The kick he took has aggravated an old injury.

Guilio watches him feeling the leg. ‘What have you done to it?’

‘It’s been dodgy for years. Every now and again it locks up when I take a knock or a fall. I saw a doc in Paris and he thinks it’s full of gunge, bits of cartilage and gristle.’

Guilio pulls a sympathetic face. ‘You need one of those keyhole ops.’

‘No thanks.’ Tom stretches out his right arm and grimaces. ‘Shoulder might be worse than the knee. I think that guy with the bat has bust something.’

‘Let me feel.’ Guilio kneels in front of him. ‘Say when it hurts.’ He uses his fingers to feel his way from the shoulder to the neck.

Tom flinches. ‘Whoa! You got it.’

Guilio keeps one hand in place and slips the other beneath Tom’s shirt. ‘I can feel a huge bruise. That’s before I even get to the bone.’

‘Then don’t get there,’ urges Tom.

Guilio ignores him. ‘You’ve got a cracked clavicle. There doesn’t seem to be nerve damage, at least not from the way you reacted. When we get out of here, I’ll give you something for the pain and we’ll make a sling. All you can do is rest it. There’s no miracle cure for fixing collar bones.’

‘Impressive diagnosis. You a doctor?’

Guilio smiles. ‘Let’s just say I was taught a lot about the human body.’

Tom stretches out flat.

It feels good to lie down and straighten his spine and shoulders.

He mentally checks off all the aches and pains and realises it’s going to take days for his body to recover from the beating. ‘I need you to tell me something,’ he says into the flickering shadows.

‘What’s that?’

‘Everything. I need you to tell me it all. Let’s start with your relationship with Anna and finish with how come you were at Santa Cecilia at exactly the same time we were.’

A black rat runs into the underground cavern and stops.

It’s been drawn by the light, the warmth and the smell of the paraffin lamp.

It takes a beady look at Tom and Guilio, then turns and scrambles away.

Neither of them comments.

More important matters are being discussed

‘It’s difficult to know where to begin,’ says Guilio. ‘Do you or that policewoman friend of yours have any idea what’s going on?’

‘Let’s pretend we don’t – that way I have more chance of understanding.’

Guilio sits cross-legged on the opposite side of the lamp. ‘Anna and I were brought up together, and I don’t mean in the traditional sense.’ He lets out an ironic laugh. ‘I guess you’ve heard about the children in Romania being raised in the Piata Victoriei subways?’

‘I have.’

‘And the slumdog orphans in Mumbai and the homeless street kids in Rio?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘Well, Italy has its own secret child scandal. Anna and myself, along with a number of other kids, were brought up here in conditions like this.’ He gestures to the four walls of the room. ‘We were bred and raised underground in the catacombs and ruins of Rome.’ He picks up the lamp and twists up more of the wick. ‘Only we weren’t free from adult intervention. Just the opposite. They were the reason we were below ground. Only when we were judged to be fully compliant with the demands of the sect were we allowed to live out in the daylight.’