The Seventh Sacrament (54 page)

He took out an old blue beret, placed it on his head, and grinned from ear to ear.

“Arturo is a noble name for a boy, you know,” he added. “
A domani,
Emily Deacon. I shall return—with flowers—in due course.”

He bobbed his beret and was gone. In the empty room, she watched the minute hand on the clock lurch forward a cog: time passing. Lost moments, opportunities swept away on the wind, forever.

Soon there would be the sound of Nic’s footsteps. Soon there would be the touch of his hand.

She lay back on the soft white pillow and closed her eyes, listening. Outside, the children played in the street under the moonlight, voices rising shapeless towards the black starlit sky, innocent and unknowing in their search for a word, a deed, an act, a thought…anything that might give their lives form.

About the Author

A FORMER STAFF WRITER ON
The Times,
David Hewson lives in Kent, where he is at work on his next novel,
The Garden of Evil,
which Delacorte will publish in 2008.

The Seventh Sacrament
is the fifth novel in a crime series which began with the acclaimed
A Season for the Dead,
set in Rome and featuring Detective Nic Costa.

ALSO BY DAVID HEWSON

The Lizard’s Bite

The Sacred Cut

A Season for the Dead

The Villa of Mysteries

Lucifer’s Shadow

THE SEVENTH SACRAMENT

A Delacorte Press Book / August 2007

Published by
Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2007 by David Hewson

Title page photograph by
www.sxc.hu/profile/tittimi

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hewson, David.

   The seventh sacrament / David Hewson.

      p. cm.

1. Costa, Nic (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. College teachers—Fiction. 3. Archaeologists—Fiction. 4. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 5. Revenge—Fiction. 6. Police—Italy—Rome—Fiction. 7. Rome (Italy)—Fiction. I. Title.

   PR6058.E96S48 2007

   823'.914—dc22             2006034546

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-440-33708-9

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