‘Did you hear?’ his father said to him. ‘Did you hear about Martin Plessington?’
Christopher shook his head.
‘Dead,’ his father said, starkly. ‘His head stoved in and a Catholic candlestick down his gullet. People are saying the Papists done it, killed a Protestant lad. They’re saying they’ll be trouble in Canterbury for sure. A right civil war. There’s talk of a couple of recusant boys already done in by Protestant gangs. What do you say about that?’
Christopher had nothing to say.
His mother piped up, ‘You wore your good shirt today. I found your other one balled up between your mattress and the wall.’ She reached down between her legs and produced it. ‘There’s blood on it.’
‘Did you have anything to do with this?’ his father demanded. ‘Tell the truth.’
Christopher smiled, showing the gap of his missing milk teeth. He actually puffed out his chest and said, ‘I did it. I killed him. I hope there is a war.’
His father rose slowly and stretched to his full height, towering over the seven-year-old. His lips quivered. ‘Good lad,’ he finally said. ‘I’m right proud of you. There’re dead Catholics today because of you and more to come, I reckon. You’re a credit. A credit to the Marlowe bloodlines.’
ELEVEN
ELISABETTA’S FIRST INSTINCT was to call her father but what would that accomplish beyond rousing him from his bed and upsetting him no end? Micaela, she knew, was on hospital duty. She called Zazo instead. He arrived half an hour after the Polizia and sat with Elisabetta in the kitchen while she waited to be interviewed by an officer.
She clutched her robe to her chest. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you. You’re so busy.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Zazo said. He was out of uniform, wearing jeans and a sweater. ‘Did you call Papa?’
‘No.’
‘Good. So the guy was at your door?’
‘That’s what Sister Silvia said.’
‘Did you get a look at him?’
‘Only his back.’
‘It was probably an addict looking for some cash.’ Zazo said. ‘And too brain-dead to realize he was breaking into a convent. I’ve been unhappy that there’s no alarm system here.’
‘There’s never the money for that sort of thing, and anyway …’
‘Yeah, God protects,’ he finished derisively. ‘I know the man who’s in charge here, Inspector Leone. Let me speak to him.’
Elisabetta’s upper lip quivered. ‘Zazo, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’
‘I know you’re upset. I’ll be right back.’
Leone was a gruff, unpopular fellow nearing retirement. Back in Zazo’s day there’d been no love lost between them and Zazo could say with confidence that he hadn’t thought about the man once since leaving the force.
‘I remember you,’ Leone said when Zazo approached him in the residence hall. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘One of the nuns is my sister.’
‘You’re at the Vatican, right?’ Leone said it with button-pushing derision.
‘I am.’
‘That’s a good place for you.’
In his years of working with the Swiss Guards, Zazo had learned the art of restraint. He drew on it and let the remark pass. ‘So what do you have?’
‘The guy cut a hole in a ground-floor window at the back and let himself in. The Mother Superior is checking through the classrooms and offices on the first two floors but so far there’s nothing missing. He was standing in front of one of the residence rooms when one of the nuns on her way back from the toilet saw him and started screaming her head off. He ran away and probably made his way out a rear door.’
‘It was my sister’s room.’
Leone shrugged. ‘It had to be someone’s. Who knows what he wanted? Maybe he was a thief, maybe a rapist, maybe a junkie. Whatever he was it’s a good thing he never got to her. We’ll do our interviews, dust for prints, check the CCTV footage from surrounding buildings. You remember the drill, right, Celestino?’
‘I’m still a police officer,’ Zazo spat back.
‘Sure you are.’
Elisabetta was sipping at her coffee when Zazo returned. Nuns were busying themselves providing hot drinks for the officers. With so many men on the scene, some of the women, out of modesty, had gone back to their rooms and changed into their habits. ‘You don’t look so good,’ he told her with the bluntness of a brother.
‘Thank you.’
‘What did you mean when you said you had a bad feeling?’
‘There was something about that man.’
‘I thought you only saw his back.’
‘I know. That’s why it’s only a feeling.’ She whispered now. ‘I know it sounds crazy but I think it was the same man who attacked me that night.’
Zazo accepted a cup of coffee from one of the sisters. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It does sound crazy. I think you’re having some kind of post-trauma psychological reaction. That’s all.’
‘There’s more than that to it, Zazo. There’s more that I should tell you.’
‘Whenever you want to talk,’ he said.
Elizabetta looked scared. ‘Now.’
She took him back to her room. Zazo sprawled on her unmade bed and she sat on her reading chair and began by delivering a preamble. She knew that she had no authority to tell him these things but she felt compelled to do so. She demanded an oath of secrecy from him as her brother, as a policeman and as a Vatican employee.
Zazo agreed and listened in rapt attention as his sister told him everything about her work as a student, her flashes of memory about her attacker’s spine, the skeletons of St Callixtus, the old man in Ulm, his tattoos, the Marlowe play.
There was a knock on her partially open door. One of the nuns told her the police were ready for her.
‘You’re not going to tell them anything about this, are you?’ Zazo asked.
‘Of course not.’
He got off the bed and said gravely, ‘I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here any longer.’
When he was awoken Krek’s head was still thick from the good brandy he’d drunk earlier. Alone in his big bed he answered the phone testily, ‘Yes?’
It was Mulej. ‘I’m sorry to wake you. I have news from Italy.’
‘It had better be good.’
‘It isn’t. Vani had to abort.’
Krek couldn’t conceal his rage. ‘I’ve had it with him. I can’t tolerate this incompetence. Did he at least get away cleanly?’
‘Thankfully, yes.’
‘Tell him this, Mulej. Tell him he has one more chance. If he’s not successful he will be terminated. Tell him I will do it personally.’
It was drizzling. From Elisabetta’s seat on the bus, Rome looked drained of color and joyless. Her fellow commuters were too preoccupied with their newspapers and earphones to notice the pinched look on the nun’s pale face.
At her stop she opened her umbrella and walked the short distance to the Institute. Professor De Stefano’s assistant was waiting for her in the lobby.
‘The Professor wants you at St Callixtus immediately,’ he said. ‘Theres’ a car waiting for you.’
The St Callixtus catacombs had been closed to the public since the cave-in and the visitors’ building looked deserted and forlorn in the rain.
Gian Paolo Trapani was pacing in front of the entrance, water dripping from his long hair. He opened the car door for Elisabetta. ‘Professor De Stefano is down at the site. Please come quickly.’
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.