Serious trouble.
His juvenile record shows convictions for possession of drugs, assaults on two teachers and even an attack on a Catholic priest inside a young offenders’ detention centre where he spent just over a year.
By his late teens, the librarian’s child had added another volume of serious charges, including burglary and wounding. He spent his twenty-first birthday in jail for theft, assault and breach of previous bail orders.
Recently, though, there’s no trace of any convictions and no outstanding warrants for his arrest.
On paper, Guilio almost looks as though he’s turned over a new leaf.
Or at least he did, until he got caught red-handed in Anna’s apartment and nearly beat Valentina to death.
Federico stops scrolling and sits back.
One thing puzzles him.
Why are there no listed associates? From what he’s just read, it doesn’t seem as though this guy ever hung around with gangs or teamed up with anyone to commit his crimes.
That’s unusual.
He dives deeper into the files and digs around in the assessment notes from the governor at the detention centre.
Eventually he falls on a clue.
Guilio is described as ‘painfully shy’, ‘explosively violent’ and ‘an out-and-out loner’. The centre’s psychiatric report says that ‘pre-puberty castration can be expected to have resulted not only in his anger and violence but also in his introversion’.
Federico logs off and catches the elevator to reception.
He steps outside for a final cigarette before starting his interview with Guilio, and watches people drift by the front of the Carabinieri building. The weather’s turned wintry again. Everyone’s wrapped tight in coats and scarves and gloves. It’s his least favourite time of the year. Give him summer any day. Girls with long smiles and short skirts. That’s how God intended things to be.
63
Administrator Sylvio Valducci has foreign guests arriving within the next hour. This means he’s more than happy for Louisa Verdetti to meet the Carabinieri on her own. With a little luck they’ll lock her up and throw away the key.
Even before her early-morning call to him, he’d already decided that from now on she could take all the risks with this so-called DID patient, and if things turned out all right then he’d take the credit.
His one brush with the law has given him plenty to talk about at lectures around the globe. If things go pear-shaped, then at least by distancing himself from the action, he’s renewing the possibility of sacking Verdetti.
Louisa knows all this as surely as if Valducci had said it to her face and then mailed her a summary of his words.
He’s a health-care politician. In the job purely for power and bonuses, not because it’s a vocation.
It’s only a five-minute walk from the psychiatric wing of the hospital to ICU, so Louisa arrives long before Tom and Valentina. The young Carabinieri guard who was there last night has been replaced by a surly-looking older one who goes to great lengths to check Louisa’s credentials and have her sign a log book.
It seems the patient — the newly named Anna Fratelli — has had a good night. The stitching done by the trauma team has held firm and the spell of sedation has left her patient stable, conscious and calm. According to the ward sister, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be transferred back to the psychiatric department after she’s been checked by her doctor.
Louisa has just finished being updated when Tom and Valentina fill the doorway of the sister’s office.
‘Buongiorno. How is she?’ asks the captain.
Louisa holds up a report in her hand. ‘Good, by the sound of it.’ She nods to the sister, who is watching from her desk, and adds, ‘Let me update you outside, and then we can go and see her.’
Valentina’s pleased to be getting on with things. She feared medical complications would mean putting a hold on the interview.
Tom says hello to Louisa as they walk from the sister’s office, and then falls in line behind them.
‘She’s been moved to a room of her own,’ announces the clinician, ‘so we can talk to her in there, but I don’t want her stressed. Best to chat for a little while, give her a break and then you can talk again if it’s really necessary, okay?’
‘That’s fine,’ confirms Valentina.
‘Did you bring the photographs and diaries you spoke of last night?’
‘No. But copies are on their way over to your office. You should have them within the next couple of hours.’
The doctor enters the room first, uncertain of who she’s going to be talking to. Will it be Anna, or one of her many alters?
The patient is asleep in a bed set up at a thirty-degree angle. Her eyes are closed, but begin to flicker open as she responds to the click of the door handle and sounds of people entering her room.
The psychiatrist rolls the dice. ‘Buongiorno, Anna. Come lei è?’
‘Bene.’ Her voice is weak and sleepy. She tries to gather her wits and politely sit up a little.
Louisa lifts a clipboard from the bottom rail of the bed. ‘Do you remember what happened to you yesterday? How you came to be in here?’
Anna looks down at her bandaged arm. ‘I was hiding in my apartment and I cut myself.’ She glances up at the doctor. ‘You know I do that kind of thing.’
There’s shame in her eyes.
‘It makes me feel safe. I just cut too deeply.’ She looks at Valentina and Tom, then back to the doctor. ‘Who are they?’
Louisa reassures her. ‘They’re friends. Valentina Morassi is a Carabinieri captain. You have met her before.’
‘I don’t think so.’
She doesn’t press the issue. ‘The man with her is her friend, Tom. He’s a former priest.’
He steps forward so Anna can see him clearly. ‘Hi, Anna, I’m pleased to meet you.’
She relaxes a little. ‘A priest?’
‘Yes. I was at a parish in Los Angeles for almost a decade.’
Anna looks as though she might cry. ‘I’m very frightened, Father. Do you understand?’
Tom knows better than to correct her. He takes her trembling right hand gently in his big palms and sits on the edge of the bed, facing her. ‘I think so. I saw your apartment last night and the bedroom where you were hiding.’
She grips Tom’s fingers so hard that his skin turns white. ‘Do you think she’ll know I’m talking to you?’ Anna glances nervously towards Valentina and Louisa. ‘That I’m here with all of you?’
‘Who, Anna? Who will know?’
Anna closes her eyes, dips her head 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, spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum poenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere.’
Valentina leans forward and whispers in Tom’s ear. ‘What’s this prayer?’
He keeps focused on Anna’s closed eyes and whispers back. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
Anna’s voice gets louder, almost as though each sentence gives her more strength.
‘Dum magno animi affectu et dolore tua quinque vulnera mecum ipse considero ac mente contemplor, illud prae oculis habens, quod iam in ore ponebat tuo David propheta de te, o bono Iesu: Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos: dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea. Amen.’
She takes a long breath, then opens her eyes and smiles at Tom. ‘Have you come to save me, to protect me?’
‘We all have,’ says Tom, ‘but you must tell us who we have to protect you from.’
Anna looks surprised. ‘Mother, of course. Our Holy Mother.’