Except, Elisabetta thought, there was one more she’d keep to herself: the fleeting image of her attacker’s hideous spine on the awful night when Marco was killed.
De Stefano rubbed his hands nervously together as if cleansing them. ‘So we’re not in a position to weave them together into a cohesive hypothesis?’
She shrugged. ‘From my knowledge of the period, astrology was highly important to the Romans. Aristocrats and common citizens alike placed a great deal of value in the predictive value of star charts. Maybe for this particular cult or sect, the stars and planets were of pre-eminent importance. Its members’ physical abnormalities clearly made them different from most of their contemporaries. We know that they clung together in death. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that in life they were associated in some cultural or ritualistic way. Perhaps they were intensely guided by astrological interpretations. Or maybe they were a sect of actual astrologers. This is all pure conjecture.’
‘And you think this cult or sect might persist to this day?’ De Stefano asked incredulously. ‘Is that what this Ottinger is telling us?’
‘I wouldn’t begin to go that far,’ Elisabetta said. ‘That would take us beyond the boundaries of proper speculation. For a start, we need to understand the message on the envelope and to decipher the meaning of the tattoos.’
De Stefano had been growing more haggard and sallow-looking by the day and she was becoming worried about his health. He seemed to labor at the simple act of pushing himself up from the chair’s armrests. ‘Well, the good news is that the media hasn’t gotten wind of the columbarium yet. The bad news is that the Conclave begins in four days and as it gets closer my superiors are certain to get more and more anxious about the risk of a leak. So please keep working and please keep me informed.’
Elisabetta turned to her computer screen, then caught herself. She decided she ought to devote a few minutes to prayer. As she was about to close her eyes she glanced at the title of a search result at the top of the next search page and to her shame, she found herself clicking on the link and postponing her devotions.
The title read: The Marlowe Society calls for papers to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the birth of Christopher Marlowe.
There was a thumbnail photo of a mild-looking man with sandy hair, the Chairman of The Marlowe Society. His name was Evan Harris and he was a Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge in England. The posting on the Society’s web page was an international solicitation for academic papers to be published in book form in 2014 on the milestone anniversary of Marlowe’s birth.
Clicking through Harris’s biography, Elisabetta learned he was a Marlowe scholar who, among his other interests, had written on the differences between the A and B texts of Faustus.
It took little effort to click on his contact button and type a brief email.
Professor Harris:
In my work as a researcher based in Rome, I recently received the gift of a 1620 copy of Doctor Faustus. I attach a scan of the title page for your inspection. I have a number of questions about the topic of A versus B texts and wondered if you might be able to help me. As the matter is somewhat pressing, I enclose my telephone number in Rome.
She hesitated before signing her name as Elisabetta Celestino. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d used her last name on anything but a government form. Sister Elisabetta seemed, in general, to suffice these days but it wouldn’t, she thought, for a Cambridge don.
Elisabetta took the Marlowe book to the copier room, gently pressed the book against the printer glass and scanned the title page to her email address.
On her way back to her office she saw the tall young priest again. He was standing at her door and from the position of his head she was sure that he was staring straight at the symbol on her whiteboard.
When she got halfway down the hall he shot her a sidelong glance and scurried away like a startled deer.
Unsettled, Elisabetta returned to her desk, attached the Marlowe file to the Harris email and sent it off. She felt the need for a strong cup of coffee.
There were two nuns in the canteen who were drinking coffee. She knew them by name but hadn’t gotten much beyond that. She cleared her throat. ‘Excuse me, Sisters, I wonder if you could tell me the name of the very tall young priest in the department?’
One nun answered, ‘He’s Father Pascal. Pascal Tremblay. We don’t know him. He arrived the same day as you. We don’t know what he’s doing here.’
The other nun added, ‘But then again, we don’t know what you’re doing here, either.’
‘I’m here on a special project,’ Elisabetta answered, sticking to Professor De Stefano’s instructions about secrecy.
The first nun huffed, ‘That’s what he said, too.’
The phone was ringing when she returned to her office.
It was an English voice. ‘Hello, I was trying to reach Elisabetta Celestino.’
‘This is Elisabetta,’ she answered suspiciously. This was the first time her office phone had rung.
‘Oh, hi there, it’s Evan Harris, replying to the email you just sent.’
She’d been out of academia for a long time but she was incredulous that in the interim people had become so responsive to requests for assistance. ‘Professor Harris! I’m quite surprised you came back to me so soon!’
‘Well, ordinarily I’m a bit more tardy with my inbox but this copy of Faustus you’ve obtained – do you have any idea what you’ve got?’
‘I think so, roughly, but I’m hoping you can further enlighten me.’
‘I certainly hope you’ve got it in a safe place because there are only three known copies of the 1620 edition, all of them in major libraries. May I ask where you got it?’
She answered, ‘Ulm.’
‘Ulm, you say! Curious place for a book like this to land but we can, perhaps, go into its provenance at a later date. You say you have questions about the A and B texts?’
‘I do.’
‘And, if I may ask, are you with a university?’
Elisabetta hesitated because the answer would inevitably lead to more questions. But she was hard-wired to be as truthful as she was allowed to be. ‘Actually, I work for the Vatican.’
‘Really? Why is the Vatican interested in Christopher Marlowe?’
‘Well, let’s just say that the Faustus story relates to some work I’m doing on the attitudes of the sixteenth-century Church.’
‘I see,’ Harris said, drawing his words out. ‘Well, as you can gauge by my lightning response, this B text of yours interests me a great deal. Perhaps I could come to Rome, say the day after tomorrow to see it in person, and while you have me as a captive audience I can tell you more than you probably care to know about the differences between Faustus A and B.’