God's Spy (12 page)

In paradisum deducant te angeli In tuo advente
Suscipiant te martyres . . .

People in the crowd began turning around to look at him. Fowler gestured to his porter to move towards the centre of the street, taking attention away from Paola and the others. Several of the faithful – friars and priests for the most part – joined in the hymn for the dead Pope.

Making use of the distraction, the two policemen were able to force open the door to the sacristy using the steel bar. They slipped in without calling attention to themselves.

‘Boys, one of our own is in here. Be very careful.’

They entered one by one, Dicanti taking out her pistol. She left it to the two officers to search the sacristy, while she walked into the main part of the nave. She hurriedly searched the chapel of Saint Thomas. It was empty, still cordoned off by the UACV’s crime-scene tape. She looked over at the chapels on the left, her finger poised on the trigger of her gun. She signalled to Dante, who was covering the aisle on the other side of the church, checking each one of the chapels there. The faces of the saints moved restlessly, projected on to the walls by the flickering, sickly light cast by the candles burning on every available surface. The two met up in the central aisle.

‘Nothing?’
Dante shook his head. No.
They both saw it at the same time. There, written on the floor near

the entrance, at the foot of the baptismal font, in large, red letters:
VEXILLA REGIS PRODEUNT INFERNI

‘The banners of the King of Hell are drawing closer,’ a voice behind them intoned.
Startled, the two agents turned around. Fowler was walking up behind them. He had brought the hymn to a close then slipped into the church.
‘I thought I told you to stay outside.’
‘That’s not important,’ Dante interjected. His attention was riveted to the trapdoor lying open on the floor. ‘I’ll call the others.’
Paola was wild with fear. Her heart told her to go down below immediately, but she didn’t dare step into the darkness. Dante raced over to the front door and opened the locks. Two officers rushed in, leaving the other two standing on the threshold. One of the policemen pulled the MagLite from his belt and offered it to Dante. Dicanti grabbed it and headed down, her back against the steps, her muscles tense, her pistol pointing straight ahead. Fowler stayed above, murmuring a short prayer.
Paola’s head emerged out of the darkness a short time later. As soon as she’d climbed the stairs, she raced out of the church. Dante slowly dragged himself up the steps. He looked at Fowler, and shook his head.
*
Paola stood on the street. She was sobbing. She got as far as she could from the doorway and threw up everything she had in her stomach. Young people who appeared to be foreigners waiting in the queue came over to see if she needed help.
‘Are you OK?’
Paola waved them off. Then Fowler was there, lending her his handkerchief. She accepted it and wiped away the vomit and tears. Her head was spinning. It couldn’t be: Pontiero just couldn’t be that bloody pile she’d found tied to the column. Maurizio Pontiero, detective: a good man, fit, overflowing with an always surprising, pleasant and devilish sense of humour. A paterfamilias, a friend, a companion. On rainy afternoons he slunk around inside his raincoat. He always paid for the coffee they shared; he was always there. He’d been there for many years. It just couldn’t be true that he’d breathed his last, that he’d been reduced to that formless mass of flesh. She wanted to tear that image right off her retina. Her hands pressed against her eyes with terrible force.
Her phone rang. She grabbed it out of her pocket, disgusted, and stood there paralysed. On the screen the caller was identified as M. Pontiero.
Paola was trembling with fright as she took the call. Fowler studied her, intrigued.
‘Yes?’
‘Good afternoon, inspector. How are you?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Inspettore, please. You asked me to call if I remembered anything useful. And I’ve just remembered that I had to take your colleague out of the picture. I’m truly sorry, but he got in my way.’
‘We’re going to catch you, Francesco. Or should I call you Victor?’ Paola was spitting the words out furiously, her eyes damp with tears. She tried to keep her cool and hit him where it hurt – so that he knew his mask had been torn off.
Silence on the other end of the line. But only for a second. She hadn’t taken him by surprise in the slightest.
‘So you already know who I am. Well, give my best to Father Fowler. He’s lost a bit of hair since the last time we saw each other. And you look a little pale.’
Paola’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Where are you, you sick bastard?’
‘Don’t you know? I’m right behind you.’
Paola looked out over the thousands of people crushed into the street, some wearing hats, some baseball caps, waving banners, praying, chanting.
‘Why don’t you come over here, padre? We could have a little talk.’
‘No, Paola, I’m afraid I have to keep my distance from you a little while longer. But don’t think for a second that you’ve made any progress because you’ve unmasked good old Francesco. His life had run its course anyway and it was time to let him go. But don’t worry, you’ll be hearing from me soon. There’s no need to trouble yourself over the way you treated me when we met. I’ve forgiven you. You’re very important to me.’
He hung up.
Dicanti threw herself into the crowd, pulling people aside without rhyme or reason, looking for men of a certain height, grabbing them by the arms, turning them around, tearing off their hats. People scattered and moved away. She was demented, the look in her eyes like that of a lost soul. She was ready to search every last pilgrim, one by one if she had to.
Fowler waded into the heart of the crowd and caught her by the arm. ‘It won’t work.’
‘Take your fucking hands off me!’
‘Paola. Let it go. He’s not here.’
Dicanti started to sob. Fowler put his arm around her. On all sides, the gigantic human serpent moved slowly forward, pushing towards the body of John Paul II.
Somewhere inside its body, the serpent carried a killer.

January 1996

Transcript of Interview Number 72 between Patient Number 3643 and Doctor Canice Conroy, with the Assistance of Doctor Fowler and Salher Fanabarzra

Dr Conroy: Good afternoon, Victor.
No. 6: Hello again.
Dr Conroy: It’s regression therapy day, Victor.

[Transcription once again omits the process of hypnosis, as in previous reports]

Fanabarzra: It’s 97. From here on in you will listen to my voice and no other. Are we in agreement?
No. 6: Yes.
Fanabarzra: He cannot hear you, gentlemen.
Dr Conroy: The other day we performed a Rorschach test. Victor participated in the process in a normal fashion, pointing out the usual birds and flowers. Only in two did he say that he saw nothing. Take note, Father Fowler: when Victor takes no interest in something, it’s because it affects him deeply. What I hope to do is to provoke that response during the state of regression, so that we can learn its origin.
Dr Fowler: I disagree more about the soundness of the method than whether it is empirically possible. When he’s in a state of regression, the patient doesn’t have as many defence mechanisms at his disposal as he would in a normal state. The risk of inflicting trauma is too high.
Dr Conroy: Those same defences are what’s holding back his treatment and progress. You know that this patient suffers from a profound rejection of particular episodes in his life. We’ve got to get past the barriers to uncover the origins of his illness.
Dr Fowler: At what cost?
Fanabarzra: Gentlemen, please keep your discussion to a minimum. In any case, it is impossible to show the patient any images, as he cannot open his eyes.
Dr Conroy: But we can describe them. Go ahead, Fanabarzra.
Fanabarzra: Yes, sir. Victor, it’s 97. I want us to go to a place that you like. Which one shall we choose?
No. 6: The fire escape.
Fanabarzra: Do you spend a good deal of time on the fire escape?
No. 6: Yes.
Fanabarzra: Tell me why.
No. 6: The fresh air. It doesn’t smell bad out there. It smells really bad inside the house.
Fanabarzra: It smells?
No. 6: Like rotten fruit. The stench is coming from from Emil’s bed.
Fanabarzra: Your brother is sick?
No. 6: He’s sick. We don’t know why. Nobody takes care of him. My mother says he’s possessed. He can’t stand light and he has shaking fits. His throat hurts.
Dr Conroy: All symptoms of meningitis: photophobia, rigidity of the neck, convulsions.
Fanabarzra: No one is taking care of your brother?
No. 6: My mother feeds him sliced apples when she remembers to. He has diarrhoea and my father doesn’t want to know anything about it. I hate him. He looks at me and then tells me to clean up my brother. I don’t want to: it makes me feel sick. My mother tells me to do something. I don’t want to and she pushes me against the radiator.
Dr Conroy: We’ve already documented the bad treatment he received. Let’s find out what makes him see the images he sees when

00 he takes the Rorschach. This one in particular concerns me.

Fanabarzra: Let’s go back to the fire escape. Sit there. Tell me what you’re feeling.
No. 6: Fresh air. The metal beneath my feet. I can smell the Jewish food from the store in front.
Fanabarzra: Now I want you to picture something. A large black blotch, very big. It fills up all the space in front of you. In the lower part of the blotch there is a small white oval. Does that look like something to you?
No 6: The darkness. All alone in the closet.
Dr Conroy: Pay attention. I think we have something here.
Fanabarzra: What did you do in the closet?
No. 6: They shut me in there. I’m alone.
Dr Fowler: For God’s sake, Conroy, look at his face. He’s in pain.
Dr Conroy: Shut up. We’re getting where we need to be. Fanabarzra, I am going to write further questions on this blackboard. Read them just as they are written – are we agreed?
Fanabarzra: Victor, do you remember what happened before they shut you up in the closet?
No. 6: Many things. Emil died.
Fanabarzra: How did Emil die?
No. 6: They’ve locked me up. I’m alone.
Fanabarzra: I know that, Victor. Tell me how Emil died.
No. 6: He was in our room. Papa was watching the television; Mama was out. I was sitting on the fire escape when I heard a noise.
Fanabarzra: What kind of noise?
No. 6: Like a balloon when all the air flies out. I stuck my head into the room. Emil was very pale. I spoke to my father and he threw a beer can at me.
Fanabarzra: He hit you?
No. 6: On the head. I’m bleeding and crying. My father stands up and raises his arm. I tell him about Emil. He gets really angry; he says it’s my fault. That I should have been taking care of him. That I deserve to be punished. And he starts doing it again.
Fanabarzra: The same punishment as always? He touches you there?
No. 6: He hurts me. I’m bleeding on my head and in my bottom. But he stops.
Fanabarzra: Why does he stop?
No. 6: I hear Mama’s voice. She’s shouting terrible things at Papa – things I don’t understand. Papa says she knew already. My mother screams and calls out to Emil as loud as she can. I know Emil can’t hear her and I’m very happy. Then she grabs me by the neck and throws me into the closet. I shout. I’m afraid. I bang on the door for a long time. She opens it and shows me a knife. She says if I open my mouth, she’ll stab me with it.
Fanabarzra: So what do you do?
No. 6: I keep quiet. I’m alone. I hear voices outside. Voices I don’t recognise. They are there for hours. I stay in the closet.
Dr Conroy: Must have been the voices of the ambulance service taking the body of his brother away.
Fanabarzra: How long are you inside the closet?
No. 6: A long time. I’m alone. My mother opens the door. She says that I’ve been very bad. That God doesn’t like bad little boys who make trouble for their parents. That I am going to learn God’s punishment for those who misbehave. She gives me an old plastic container and tells me to do my business in there. In the morning she gives me a glass of water, bread and some cheese.
Fanabarzra: How many days were you there?
No. 6: A long time went by.
Fanabarzra: You didn’t have a watch? You couldn’t count the time?
No. 6: I try to keep count, but it’s too long. If I press my ear hard against the wall, I can hear Mrs Berger’s transistor radio. She’s a little deaf. Sometimes she listens to baseball.
Fanabarzra: How many games did you listen to?
No. 6: I don’t know – forty, maybe fifty. I lost count.
Dr Fowler: My God, the child was locked in the closet for almost two months.
Fanabarzra: You never went out?
No. 6: Once.
Fanabarzra: Why did you go out?
No. 6: I made a mistake. I kick the container with my foot and it turns over. The closet smells like death. I throw up. When Mama comes back, she’s angry. She rubs my face in the dirt. Then she drags me out of the closet so she can clean it.
Fanabarzra: You don’t try to escape?
No. 6: I don’t have anywhere to go. Mama does it for my own good.
Fanabarzra: And when does she let you leave?
No. 6: One day. She runs a bath for me. She says she hopes that I’ve learned my lesson. She says that the closet is Hell and that’s where I’ll go if I’m not good, except that then I won’t be able to leave. She puts on my clothes. She says that I should have been born a girl and that there’s still time to change that. She touches my little packages. She says it’s all pointless, that I’m going to Hell in any case. That there’s no way out for me.
Fanabarzra: And your father?
No. 6: Papa isn’t around. He took off.
Dr Fowler: Conroy, stop this right now. Look at his face. The patient is very ill.
No. 6: He’s gone, gone, gone . . .
Dr Fowler: Conroy!
Dr Conroy: That’s enough. Fanabarzra; stop the recording and take the patient out of the trance.

Wednesday, 6 April 2005, 3.21 p.m.

For the second time that week the Crime Scene Analysis team passed through the doors of Santa Maria in Traspontina. They went about their business as unobtrusively as possible, dressed in street clothes so that the pilgrims wouldn’t notice them. Inside, Inspector Dicanti barked out orders, jumping back and forth between her mobile phone and the walkie-talkie.

Fowler approached one of the UACV investigators. ‘Finished with the murder scene yet?’
‘Yes, padre. We’re about to remove the body and start examining the sacristy.’
Fowler looked at Dicanti apprehensively. ‘I’ll go down with you,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I don’t want to miss anything. What is that?’
In his right hand the priest held a small, black case.
‘It contains holy oils. We use them to give extreme unction.’
‘Is that going to help in any way?’
‘Not in the investigation, no. But for Pontiero, yes. He was a devout Catholic, wasn’t he?’
‘He was. And little good it did him.’
‘With all due respect, that’s not for you to say.’
The two of them started down the steps cautiously, taking pains to step around the inscription at the entrance to the crypt. They quickly moved along the short hallway and found themselves standing at the edge of the chamber. UACV technicians had installed two electric generators, with powerful lights that lit up the whole room.
Pontiero’s inert body, nude from the waist up, hung between the two truncated columns. Karosky had fastened his arms to the stone with duct tape, evidently the same tape as he had used on Robayra. The eyes and tongue had been torn out and the face was horribly disfigured, while strips of bloody flesh hung from his thorax like macabre decorations.
Paola lowered her head while the priest administered the last rites. Fowler’s black shoes, shined to a high polish, stood deep in a pool of congealing blood. Paola swallowed hard and closed her eyes.
‘Dicanti.’
She opened her eyes again. Dante had joined them in the underground chamber. Fowler had finished and was tactfully preparing to leave.
‘Where are you going, padre?’
‘Upstairs. I don’t want to get in the way.’
‘You aren’t in the way. If half of what they say about you is true, you are a very intelligent man. You’ve been sent to help us, haven’t you? Well, help us.’
‘With pleasure, ispettore.’
She swallowed hard and began. ‘It looks as if Pontiero entered by the door to the sacristy. He would have knocked on the door and our false friar would have opened it for him. Nothing unusual there. Pontiero then spoke to Karosky and was attacked by him.’
‘But where?’
‘It must have been down here. If it wasn’t, there would be blood upstairs.’
‘Why did he do it? Perhaps Pontiero was suspicious?’
‘I doubt it,’ Fowler said. ‘I think that Karosky simply saw an opportunity and seized it. I’m inclined to think he showed Pontiero the way into the crypt and that Pontiero came down here of his own accord, with Karosky following right behind him.’
‘That sounds about right. Pontiero had probably ruled out Brother Francesco immediately – not only because he looked like an old man who had trouble moving around . . .’
‘But because he was a priest. Pontiero would never suspect a friar – am I right? Poor fool,’ Dante said sadly.
‘Please, Dante.’
Fowler glared at Dante but the Vatican agent avoided his look. ‘I’m sorry. Go on, Dicanti.’
‘Once they were down here, Karosky struck him with a blunt object. We think it was a bronze candelabrum. The boys at UACV have already taken it away for testing. It was left sitting on the floor close to the body. He then tied him up and . . . Well, you can see what happened next. What Pontiero must have gone through . . .’ Paola’s voice broke.
The two men pretended not to notice the criminologist’s moment of weakness. Paola coughed, to conceal her emotions and give herself time to recover before speaking again.
‘A dark room – extremely dark. Is he repeating the trauma of his early childhood, the time he spent locked up in the closet?’
‘Could be. Have they found any deliberate clues?’
‘We think the only message is the one upstairs: “Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni”.’
‘The banners of the King of Hell are drawing closer,’ the priest translated again.
‘But what does that mean, Fowler?’ Dante asked.
‘You ought to know.’
‘If you’re trying to make me look like a fool, you’re not going to succeed.’
Fowler gave a sad smile. ‘Nothing could be further from my mind. I was referring to a quotation from one of your ancestors, Dante Alighieri.’
‘He isn’t my ancestor. It’s my surname, and it was his first name, but we’re not connected at all.’
‘I apologise. I thought every Italian always declared himself a descendant either of Dante or of Julius Caesar.’
‘At least we know who we’re descended from.’
Fowler and Dante stood their ground, glaring at each other. Paola broke in: ‘If you two are quite finished with the xenophobic backstabbing, we can proceed.’
Fowler cleared his throat. ‘As I was saying, “Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni” is a quote from the Divine Comedy, from the moment when Dante and Virgil are about to enter Hell. It’s a paraphrase of a prayer in the Christian liturgy, except that it’s dedicated to Satan instead of God. Many people want to read heresy into the declaration, but in reality the only thing that Dante was trying to do was scare his audience.’
‘That’s what he wants to do? – scare us?’
‘He’s telling us that Hell is close at hand. I don’t believe that Karosky’s interpretation goes any further than that. He’s not a very cultured man, although he likes to pretend he is. There aren’t any other messages?’
‘Not on the body,’ answered Paola. ‘He realised we were coming and he panicked. And it’s my fault he knew, because I kept trying to call Pontiero’s mobile.’
‘Any luck pinpointing the phone now?’
‘We contacted the phone company. The tracking system indicates that the telephone is turned off or it’s out of range. The last call recorded in this area was from the top of the Hotel Atlante, barely a thousand feet from where we stand,’ Paola replied.
‘Which is exactly where I’m staying,’ Fowler pointed out.
‘Wow. And I thought they were putting you up in a hostel for priests. You know – something a little more modest.’
Fowler brushed the comment aside. ‘Dante, my friend, at my age one learns to enjoy the good things in life. Especially when Uncle Sam is paying. I’ve already pitched my tent in plenty of places that reek of death.’
‘I’m sure of that, padre, absolutely sure.’
‘What are you referring to? Whatever you’re insinuating, why don’t you just spit it out.’
‘I’m not insinuating anything other than that you’ve slept in worse places because of your . . . ministry.’
Dante was even more full of bile than usual, and it was Fowler’s presence that seemed to be bringing it out. Paola didn’t understand what he was up to, but she realised that it was something the two of them had to resolve alone, face to face.
‘Enough. Let’s get out of here and breathe some fresh air.’
The two men followed Dicanti back through the church. She was busy giving the nurses instructions on the removal of Pontiero’s body when one of the UACV investigators approached her and began to tell her about some evidence they had found. Paola nodded her head.
She turned to Fowler. ‘Could we concentrate, padre?’ ‘Of course.’
‘Dante?’
‘Why not?’
‘All right, so this is what we’ve found. In the rectory there was a professional make-up kit and a heap of ashes on a table, which in our opinion are the remains of a passport. He poured a fair amount of alcohol on it after he lit the fire, so there’s not much left. The UACV team has taken the ashes to see if they can find anything. The only prints found in the rectory aren’t Karosky’s, which means we’ll have to find out who they belong to. Dante, here’s your job for the afternoon. Find out who Padre Francesco was and how much time he spent here. Talk to the church’s regular parishioners.’
‘OK, I’ll immerse myself in the senior citizen set.’
‘Forget the jokes. Karosky has played a game with us, but he’ll be nervous. He’s run into the shadows, and we’ll not hear from him for a while. If in the next few hours we can manage to find out where he’s been, then perhaps we can find out where he’s headed.’
Paola secretly crossed her fingers in her coat pocket, trying to make herself believe what she was saying. The two men put on stony faces, while they too pretended that the possibility was more than just a remote dream.