City of Devils: A Novel (2 page)

‘Yes, sir,’ James replied confidently.

‘
Eccellente
! Now I will record the data and with a bit of luck we’ll get there. Keep going, Ottolenghi!’

Ottolenghi, now a deep red colour, continued with his labours and James called out the numbers on the dials, hesitantly at first and then, as they went on, with more certainty. After a number of attempts the experiment was finally completed. Ottolenghi looked relieved that it was over. He was drenched in sweat by his exertions and was clearly exhausted. There was a good deal of handshaking and nodding and expressions of gratitude as the participants inhaled their own, perhaps not entirely deserved, sense of achievement.

As all of this was taking place, out of the corner of his eye James saw the door open and a woman enter the room. She was tall and slim with long dark hair tamed into a loose braid that hung down her back, giving her an exotic air. She had on a sober grey dress that, worn by any other woman, might have been described as dowdy but on her it somehow seemed to enhance her beauty. James blushed slightly as she stared at him with her large brown eyes, a half smile playing about her lips as if she was mocking him. She moved towards the professor and began to whisper in his ear. He started to smile and nod, glancing over at James. Finally he spoke.

‘
Dottor
James Murray, I presume? You are clearly impatient to begin your studies! Sofia here tells me she left you in one of the empty exhibits rooms but when she returned to collect you she found that you had already gone off in search of excitement!’

James bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘Professor Lombroso, I apologise. I was eager to explore the museum.’

Lombroso looked at him through narrowed eyes as if weighing him up.

‘Indeed, Dr Murray. Well, such curiosity is commendable and your arrival was timely. I prefer to conduct my experiments personally whenever I am able and it is obvious that you are going to be a great help in that endeavour.’ The young man who had been the subject of the experiment coughed meaningfully. ‘As of course Ottolenghi here already is.’

Ottolenghi was tall and gangling with a large, dome-shaped forehead and small round glasses perched on the end of his nose. His arms were long and swung about as if he didn’t know quite where to put them. It made him seem awkward which was somehow comforting. He grinned amiably and extended a hand. James seized it gratefully, feeling instantly at ease with him.

‘Salvatore Ottolenghi at your service. I look forward to working with you.’ James returned his smile, happy to see a friendly face.

‘Ottolenghi is my chief assistant and will be your fellow student whilst you are here, assuming that you meet the requirements. But we shall soon see whether or not that is the case,’ Lombroso said.

Suddenly James felt a little nervous. The excitement of participating in an actual experiment had made him temporarily forget the purpose of this visit, an interview with the professor for the position of assistant. Ottolenghi gave him a sympathetic smile. Presumably he had once been in the same situation and James felt reassured to see that someone at least had survived the selection procedure unscathed. His new landlady had kindly informed him that Lombroso was said to be a difficult man to please.

Lombroso turned to the woman. ‘Sofia, could you bring us some refreshment in a moment or two?’

She nodded and left the room. James could not help but watch her retreating form. Their first encounter as she had showed him into the building had been . . . unusual. She was handsome, of course, and a little older than him, in her late twenties, perhaps. But it was more than that. She had looked at him in a way he’d found disconcerting. As she greeted him at the front door he had noticed that her large dark eyes had travelled the length of his body and she looked directly at him, holding his glance in a way that seemed not only incongruous for a servant, but also blatantly inviting.

‘Sofia is my housekeeper,’ Lombroso said firmly.

Ottolenghi smiled in amusement and winked at James. Lombroso looked over his spectacles at them. ‘Ottolenghi, I believe you have some duties to perform. The consignment of skulls from Madagascar – they need to be checked.’

Ottolenghi nodded. ‘Indeed, Professor. I will attend to it directly.’ He looked over to James, as he was leaving and gave a short bow. ‘See you again, I hope.’

Lombroso stroked his luxuriant beard thoughtfully. ‘So, Dr Murray, before we take refreshment what would you think to a tour of our little museum of criminal curiosities?’

‘I would be delighted, Professor.’

Lombroso smiled his satisfaction and beckoned to him to follow. James walked behind, struggling to keep up as the professor strode briskly through a series of corridors and up a flight of stairs to an imposing pair of wooden doors. Lombroso flung them open and ushered James into the room. He squinted into the gloom. The sight that met his eyes, once they had become accustomed to the darkness, was one that he would never forget.

From floor to ceiling were shelves packed with the most extraordinary artefacts. There was a selection of wax and plaster death masks propped up on a shelf as if they were ornaments, each carefully labelled with the name of the subject and the date of their execution. James peered into the empty lifeless eyes of one and wondered what the subject had been thinking as the minutes ticked away towards the inevitable. Did he know that his image would be captured and exhibited for all to see – that it would be held up as an example of the features of a born criminal? And what of its creator? How did he feel whilst smoothing plaster onto a dead man’s face? Did he know of his subject’s crimes? Did it matter to him or was it just another work of art? Indeed, could such a curiosity really be called art? He thought back to something his father had told him about Marie Tussaud, whose waxworks had become so popular in London. She had learned her art by modelling death masks on the corpses of the unfortunate victims of the guillotine during the French Revolution. James gave an involuntary shudder at the thought. As he did so he noticed that there was an odd smell to the place – a mixture of formaldehyde and damp mustiness – an apt combination of life and death perhaps.

Above the death masks were some jars of pickled brains and body parts which bobbed around gaily in the preserving fluid like ducks on a pond. Next to them were some samples of tattooed skin stretched onto frames.

Lombroso gestured towards them. ‘Feel free to take a closer look, won’t you.’

James examined the skins gingerly, running his hands over them, feeling their dryness – like parchment. He looked closely at the intricate designs, now fading. He saw angels, serpents, the sun and the moon, the names of long-lost sweethearts and even what looked to be a tarantula. For a moment so lost was he in the artistry that he quite forgot that they were pieces of human skin. Once he remembered he put them down quickly, as if touching them might infect him in some way.

Lombroso smiled and beckoned him over to a selection of books on a nearby shelf; something with which he was at least familiar – or so he thought.

‘Have a look at this,’ Lombroso said, handing him a compact volume. ‘What do you think?’

The book had no title – just the name
Cavaglia
embossed on the front. James opened it, curious as to its contents. A slip of paper fell out. He picked it up and read it. It told him all he needed to know.

This binding is all that remains of the assassin Cavaglia who hanged himself on the hundredth day of his incarceration
.

James had heard of the practice of binding of books with human skin, although he had never seen an example before. It was lighter in colour than leather, almost translucent. As he studied it further it seemed to him that an image of a face looked back at him. He shuddered again and was about to replace it with the others when Lombroso took it from him.

‘Ah yes, Cavaglia was an interesting case. A prime example of criminal man – thick dark hair, not unlike your own, and a large snub nose and jug ears. He murdered his landlord and put him in the closet, folded up like an old blanket.’

‘How did he end up as binding for a book?’ James asked.

‘One of my colleagues arranged it as a gift for me – a tribute,’ Lombroso said, as if it was the sort of thing that happened to him every day. ‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘the most interesting thing about Cavaglia was that his skull and brain also had all the anomalies one would expect to find in a criminal – a round, slightly asymmetrical skull, flat forehead and so on, just like his wastrel of a father, so a prime example of inherited criminality.’

James surreptitiously put his hand up to his own head. It was flat, just like his father’s. What could that mean?

‘Now take a look over here, Murray.’

Lombroso directed him to another part of the room where there were some weapons as well as some manacles and leg irons, shining from repeated polishing. James wondered what the poor wretches who had been held by them had suffered. He looked over to the large mantelpiece and saw some pictures, crudely drawn sketches of various crimes and executions. There were also some jugs and vases with similar illustrations, some of them obscene. He inspected each and every one of them closely, telling himself that his interest was due to scientific curiosity rather than prurience but in truth he could not be certain of his motives.

In one corner was a gigantic model of a Venus flytrap, complete with a wax facsimile of an insect crawling into its open jaws. In another was an Egyptian mummy in its case, looking as if it would step out of it at any minute and walk around the room.

James glanced over to Lombroso who was busy examining some of his own exhibits, a broad grin on his face as if he was congratulating himself on putting together such a bizarre collection. What kind of a man was he, this curator of the curious whose theories of criminality were famous throughout Europe? Some would say that he was an acknowledged and celebrated expert in evil, but although he had many supporters he also had detractors. What was evident to James, even after their brief acquaintance, was that whatever you thought of his theories, Cesare Lombroso was not the sort of person who could be ignored. And he was just the right man, James believed, to give answers to the questions that he had come all the way from Edinburgh to ask. He fervently hoped that his application would be successful and that Lombroso would agree to become both his teacher and employer. His future depended on it.

James continued to explore, touching things, smelling them, wanting to experience it all – to know everything there was to know about each and every exhibit. He tried to store each image in his memory so he could tell his sister Lucy about it all. What would she have made of it, he wondered, feeling guilty for leaving her behind. But what else could he have done? At seventeen she was too young to accompany him here, but from the expression on her face when he had told her of his plans to come to Turin it was clear that she thought he was abandoning her. What he did not – could not – tell her was that their reduced circumstances meant that there was not enough money to support them both. As a result he had been forced to leave her in the care of a not particularly sympathetic aunt back in Edinburgh whilst he pursued his studies. He resolved to write to her as soon as he could in the hope that he might persuade her to forgive him.

He became aware that Lombroso was watching him and looked up.

‘Tell me, Murray, what do you make of my collection?’

It was difficult for James to find the words to express his feelings. He wanted his answer to be measured and intelligent but instead he found himself merely stating what to him was obvious. ‘Fascinating, Professor, it’s absolutely fascinating . . .’

Lombroso nodded and beamed at him. ‘Good, good – that’s really very good. We will explore them further after we have taken wine. You have only seen one room and there are five others to examine. I will give you a personal tour. Now, shall we make our way downstairs for a glass of something?’

As they went down the corridor Lombroso hesitated outside another door. He turned and looked at James, as if wondering whether or not to trust him with a confidence. ‘I had hoped to show you my study but alas, it is in some disarray. We had a burglary last night.’

‘Was much taken?’ James asked, concerned.

Lombroso shook his head and continued towards the staircase, talking as he went. ‘That was the odd thing about it. All I am missing are a few old notes. No use to anyone except me. But of course that is the thing about criminals, Murray. As you will no doubt learn, their offences rarely make sense, not even to themselves.’ Suddenly he smiled. ‘I must say, your Italian is excellent. It is rare for a young man to speak a second language so fluently.’

‘My late mother was from this city. She ensured that both my sister and I spoke the language at every opportunity.’

‘A wise lady. Communication is paramount in science. I only wish my English was as good as your Italian. Do you have any other languages?’

‘German and a little French . . .’

‘
Eccellente, eccellente
. All points in your favour! Crime has no language barrier.’

Shortly after they reached the room where the experiment had taken place, Sofia arrived. She was carrying a tray on which was a decanter of wine the colour of amber and a plate of small sugared cakes. James couldn’t resist staring at her again as she poured the wine into exquisite crystal glasses. She smiled at him as she handed him a glass of wine and offered him a cake, staring into his eyes so intensely that he began to feel as if he were under some kind of spell. He wasn’t used to this kind of attention, particularly from a servant and it made him slightly uncomfortable. He could not imagine their maid at home being quite so forward. Lombroso looked on, his bushy eyebrows raised.

‘Thank you, Sofia. You can leave us now,’ he said severely. She nodded and left. The room felt strangely empty.

‘I found Sofia in a prison in Pavia,’ Lombroso said evenly. ‘She was serving a sentence for prostitution. It was a tragic case; her father beat her mother constantly and one day he killed her and ran off, leaving Sofia to support herself in the only way she could.’