Valerio Manfredi - The Ancient Curse

Reggiani put a spoonful of sugar into Francesca’s cup. ‘Is one good?’ he asked.

‘Yes, fine,’ replied the girl.

‘How are you feeling today?’ the officer asked her as Fabrizio sat down with them and started sipping the coffee.

‘Better, thank you, much better, but I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.’

‘I can believe it. Finding yourself face to face with such a monster. As luck would have it, we got there in time. We were trailing Fabrizio at a distance when we saw your car on that side road. It was dark and I didn’t recognize your Jeep, but when I saw you drive straight into the Montanari courtyard I thought I would have a heart attack. We rushed in and thank God we did. It could have been much worse.’

‘What are you going to do with this fourth corpse?’ asked Fabrizio.

Francesca noticed a moment of hesitation on Reggiani’s part. She downed the last drops of coffee from her cup and got up to leave. ‘I have things to do,’ she said at the door. ‘I’ll see you later, Fabrizio.’

Reggiani sighed. ‘We haven’t let the news filter out yet. Montanari lived alone in that isolated house in the middle of the countryside. People were used to him disappearing for relatively long periods of time. He would go off looking for seasonal jobs or work of a more dubious nature. He’s spent plenty of time in jail. No one will notice he’s gone. At least for a while. I guess that’s lucky for us, but we can’t go on like this. I’ve spoken to my superiors and we’re organizing a hunt with hundreds of men, dozens of dogs, helicopters and off-road vehicles, infrared equipment…’

‘You’ll draw a hell of a lot of attention to yourselves. You’ll have the press of half the world on your backs. A story like this… I can just imagine.’

‘I know. But at this point we have no choice. Especially because you’re not being of any help. For example, what were you doing at the Montanari house?’

‘You were the one who told me that those mysterious phone calls were coming from there. And are you aware that Balestra is studying an exceptionally important and very rare Etruscan inscription?’

‘Of course. The guys over at archaeological heritage protection told me about it. The slab from Volterra. They were the ones who recovered the piece from an old riverbed, but it had been moved there from somewhere else, if I remember correctly.’

‘You’re right. That was just a temporary hiding place. It was Montanari who reported it to the NAS, saying that he’d dug it up while working in the fields. Balestra immediately ordered further investigations but they turned up nothing. This tipped them off; an inscription that important cannot be devoid of any archaeological context. It was evident that Montanari was lying and that he must have known where it had really been found and where the missing portion of it was. I thought I could get him to talk and that’s what I was doing there.’

‘Without saying anything to me,’ commented Reggiani.

‘I would have told you if I’d been successful. Anyway, you were following me.’

‘That doesn’t justify your behaviour. Go on.’

‘What’s more, inside Montanari’s house I saw a fragment of the same bucchero pottery with the swastika that I found near the Phersu tomb and I realized he must be connected to that find as well. Ill bet you he’s the one who told the tomb robbers where the Rovaio tomb was.’

‘And what about your colleague Dr Dionisi? What was she doing last night at La Casaccia?’

Fabrizio hesitated a moment, looking into the bottom of his cup, then said, ‘She had something urgent to tell me.’

‘What?’ Reggiani pressed.

‘It concerns a discovery she made… a scientific discovery.’

‘That was so important it couldn’t wait for today? It must have been very urgent indeed.’

‘It was, but I can’t tell you any more. Give me a couple of days to work on it before you order a full-scale search operation.’

‘So it has something to do with this.’

‘I’m not really sure but maybe it does… Give me the chance to find out.’

‘I can’t promise you anything but I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try to put off the operation for as long as I can, but then I’ll turn this whole place inside out. I’ll find that thing and fill it full of lead, then stuff it myself so I can see it hang in some museum. I saw this film the other night, a DVD that I rented.’

‘Yeah? What film was it?’

‘The Ghost and the Darkness.’

‘I remember that one. With Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer. The story about those two lions that devour a hundred and thirty workers on a railroad project. In Africa, at the end of the 1800s. Is that the one?’

‘Yes, that’s it. You know, the film is based on a true story. Everyone thought the two man-eaters were spirits, ghosts in the shape of lions who couldn’t be defeated. Well, you know what? They’re now sitting stuffed in a window display in a museum in Chicago. I saw them.’

‘You saw them? In Chicago?’

‘No. I downloaded the image from the Internet. One of the new guys can navigate the web like a real sea wolf. So, you know what else? They don’t even look scary. They are small and scraggly-looking. Doesn’t that console you?’

‘Not in the least,’ replied Fabrizio. ‘I’ve heard the phenomenon explained by animal-behaviour specialists. A predator, for some reason, becomes disabled. He can’t run as fast as the others, or isn’t as strong, and he gets kicked out of the pack. At some point, by pure chance, he kills a human being and immediately realizes that man is a slow, easy prey and, let’s say, has high nutritional value. From that moment on, he hunts and eats only people. Now, would you say that our creature is disabled in some way, or is killing out of hunger?’

Reggiani shook his head, discouraged. ‘I have to admit you’ve got a point there. In any case, I still intend to hunt it down and take it out.’

They heard the sound of an engine outside. ‘That must be Massaro,’ observed Fabrizio.

Reggiani got up and went to the door.

‘Listen…’ Fabrizio began.

‘I’m listening,’ said the officer with his hand on the door handle.

‘Nothing… I have to check out this thing first and then I’ll let you know, I promise.’

‘I hope so,’ said Reggiani. ‘For your sake.’ He started out, then turned back again. ‘You know, I was wondering… that colleague of yours…’

Fabrizio couldn’t help but smile. ‘Francesca?’

‘No, the other one.’

‘Sonia?’ asked Fabrizio with pretended nonchalance.

‘Yeah, I think that’s her name. You two aren’t… together, are you?’

‘No. We’re not.’

‘If I wasn’t in the shit up to my eyeballs, I wouldn’t mind having a go. Good God, someone like her can’t just spend all her time with bones, right? She must like flesh as well, I hope.’

‘I imagine she does,’ replied Fabrizio. ‘I’d bet on it actually.’

He closed the door behind Reggiani, went back to the table and switched on the computer.

HE HAD JUST sat down when the telephone started to ring. He raised the receiver after a moment of hesitation and said firmly, ‘Hello.’

‘This is Signora Pina,’ said the voice on the other end.

‘Signora! What can I- ’

‘It was you, Doctor, who told me to call you if I saw anything that…’

‘Oh yes, of course, of course. You’re not disturbing me at all. I was just about to start working.’

‘Well, I wanted to let you know that I heard noises last night.’

‘What sort of noises?’

‘I really couldn’t say… And I saw that light glowing again from down in the cellar.’