Past Lives

Nineteen

‘Is it ready?’ asked Ignatius.

Macandrew said not.

‘What’s the hold up?’

‘It’s not pure,’ said Simone. ‘We’ve hit a problem with a contaminating substance: we can’t seem to get rid of it.’ She held up a chromatogram that she’d faked up, using filter paper and black ink, and pointed to one of the blots on it.

‘This means nothing to me,’ said Ignatius, waving it away. Stroud just shrugged. Ignatius looked at Macandrew and Simone in turn as if trying to decide whether or not to believe them. ‘What difference would this substance make?’

‘If it’s toxic,’ said Simone, ‘it might kill anyone injected with it.’

‘You said, “if”.’ Ignatius turned to Stroud. ‘Well, Doctor, does that mean there’s an equal chance it might not be?’

Stroud stalled, uncomfortable with his lack of knowledge. ‘If the identity of the substance is not known, there’s no way of telling without trying it.’

‘I thought I’d try passing it through an acid cleaning column to see if we can get rid of it,’ said Simone.

‘How long would that take?’

‘Two, maybe three days.’

‘What do you think, Doctor?’

‘It might work,’ said Stroud. ‘I really don’t have a feel for this sort of thing. It’s outside my area.’

‘Ah yes,’ murmured Ignatius, ‘the age of the specialist.’ After a few moments of silent consideration he said to Simone, ‘You can have until tomorrow. You can work through the night. After that, we will test the compound, pure or not.’

Simone tried protesting but to no avail.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Ignatius.

When they were alone again, Macandrew sighed and rested his forehead on the back of the door. ‘So now we know. Tomorrow they’ll find out we’ve been conning them. The protease is nothing more than salt water.’

‘We were deluding ourselves to ever think that we were going to escape before they got a chance to test the stuff,’ said Simone. ‘It just isn’t going to happen.’

‘At least we’ll have a clear conscience,’ said Macandrew. ‘No one is going to die because of anything we did.’

‘I don’t think I’m big enough to take comfort from that,’ said Simone. ‘Sorry but I’m scared. I am so scared.’

Macandrew wrapped his arms around her. ‘It’s not over yet,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s do something positive. What d’you say we dispense the saline into vials and get rid of absolutely everything else; pour all the chemicals away and make it as difficult as possible for them to try on their own?’

Simone considered for a moment and then picked up a reagent bottle to empty its contents down the sink with symbolic slowness. ‘Agreed,’ she said.

The desperate nature of their position was eclipsed for the next few minutes by their gesture of defiance as they started flushing all the chemicals down the lab sink. Macandrew was just about to start disposing of a bottle of hydrochloric acid when he stopped. He turned and looked at the barred window, as if trying to work out something.

‘What is it?’ asked Simone.

‘The acid,’ said Macandrew. ‘We could use it on the window bars.’

Simone looked dubious. ‘I don’t think there’s enough time left for it to eat through the metal — even if there were, we couldn’t climb down the wall. It’s a sheer drop and we’re at least ten metres above the ground.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about climbing down,’ said Macandrew. ‘The lane can’t be more than ten feet wide. I think I could make a jump for the building across the way.’

Simone looked out and then down. She shuddered and said, ‘It would be a standing jump; no run-up. She made a rocking gesture with her hand to signify things could go either way. It would be a terrible risk.’

‘I think we’ve just moved into terrible risk territory,’ said Macandrew. ‘I’m going to try the acid anyway. We’ve got twelve hours at least. Let’s see how far that gets us.’

Simone smiled and gave him a brief hug.

Macandrew fitted a rubber suction bulb to a pipette and gently withdrew the stopper from the acid bottle. A gentle curl of smoke rose from the neck and made him recoil slightly as the acrid fumes reached his nostrils. He filled the pipette slowly and gently discharged it round the base of each of the four window bars in turn.

‘They’ll smell the acid,’ warned Simone.

‘You told them we were going to use an acid cleaning column,’ countered Macandrew. ‘We can set up a dummy column and keep the acid bottle beside it.’

Simone smiled at Macandrew’s resourcefulness and then said, ‘I think you’re crazy but I suppose you’re right. It’s best to be doing something and right now anything’s worth a try. You carry on with the bars; I’ll see to the column.’

‘Good girl.’

When he had seen to it that each bar had a little puddle of acid round its base, Macandrew set about obscuring this by lining up bottles and lab equipment on the bench in front of them. He stepped back in order to appraise his work before making some minor adjustments to make things look more natural. His efforts were put to the test an hour later when food was brought in. The fat man wrinkled his nose at the fumes but Simone put on a show of pipetting acid into the separating column on the bench and he left without comment.

They set about systematically disposing of all remaining chemical stocks while retaining the bottles and refilling them with varying amounts of water to suggest outwardly that nothing was amiss.

Simone held up the Burnett protocol they had been using for the synthesis of the protease and said, ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that this is the only copy?’

‘Let’s destroy it anyway,’ said Macandrew.

Simone set it alight and held it over the sink until the last charred remnants were flushed away.

At intervals throughout the night Macandrew checked on the progress of the acid on the bars and refilled the puddles around their base. At one in the morning he started to see a definite grooved tapering where black iron had changed to bright shiny metal. He took encouragement from this although, when he looked out of the window, the gap between the convent and the dark building opposite seemed to widen with each passing hour. Maybe it was a crazy idea, but it was the only one he’d had. Half an hour later, Simone, who had drifted off into a light sleep, awoke and came through to ask how things were going.

‘Getting there,’ replied Macandrew.

She sat down on the floor with her back to the wall and after a few moments Macandrew joined her. They looked up at the moon through the window bars. It was so bright that the thin clouds drifting across its face did little to dim its light.

‘It’s not exactly the time or place to say it but I’m glad I met you,’ she said.

‘For what it’s worth, I’m glad too,’ said Macandrew. He kissed her gently and put his arm round her shoulders.

‘I’m so frightened, Mac.’

‘I don’t feel so brave myself.’

‘It’s not so much dying; it’s more what they might do to us before that happens.’

‘Then we shouldn’t leave that up to them,’ said Macandrew. ‘Let’s go down fighting?’

‘You’re serious? Do you think we’ll get a chance?’

‘Of course we will.’

‘When?’

‘I think they’ll want us to be present when they try out the new “protease”,’ said Macandrew. ‘That’s when we might get an opportunity. We could pick a moment when they’re all concentrating on something else and then make our move. Parvelli’s the main threat, him and the fat man. I don’t see Ignatius being a problem...’

‘You’ve already given this some thought,’ said Simone. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘When I give the signal, I’ll go for Parvelli. You attack the fat man with everything you’ve got: try to disable him in any way you can. Kick, bite, scratch, and hit him with anything that comes to hand; do anything to keep him fully occupied while I take on Parvelli. I don’t want fatso helping him out.’

‘All right,’ said Simone in a very small voice.

‘But all that won’t be necessary,’ said Macandrew.

Simone looked up at him.

‘The acid will be through the bars by morning. I’ll make the leap, call the police and it will all be over by lunchtime.’

‘The full moon is said to affect the human brain...’ said Simone but she still managed a smile.

When morning came, the acid had eaten less than half way through the bars and there was no discernible weakness when Macandrew tried pulling at them with all the strength he could muster.

‘I should have started this sooner,’ he grunted.

‘The alley is too wide anyway, Mac. Forget it.’

Macandrew put more acid round the bars. ‘There might still be time.’

Simone smiled without conviction.

The strain on their nerves grew with each passing hour and both were close to breaking point when the door was finally unlocked in mid-afternoon and Ignatius stood there flanked by Parvelli and the fat man. ‘Is it ready?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ lied Simone.

Macandrew stood beside her, his hand resting lightly and protectively on her shoulder.

‘Bring it with you.’

Simone picked up the rack containing the vials and moved towards the door. Macandrew made to follow but Ignatius held up his hand. ‘Just the woman.’

Macandrew started to protest but Parvelli moved threateningly towards him and a knife appeared in his hand.

Simone looked round and Macandrew saw the anguish in her face. They hadn’t considered that they might be separated. Their plan was in ruins. He gave her a thin smile of encouragement but at that moment he was really thinking that he might not see her again. God knows what would happen when Ignatius discovered the vials contained nothing but saline. He considered taking on Parvelli and the fat man there and then but knew it would be little more than a hollow gesture; Parvelli already had a knife in his hand and he’d be no use at all to Simone dead. While he stayed alive, there was always a chance.

Simone was led away and Macandrew was left in suffocating silence with only his imagination for unwelcome company. He went over to the window and started pulling at the bars again in sheer frustration. He wrenched at them until his palms bled and sweat poured down his face but they still didn’t budge.

Simone was taken downstairs to a small room in the basement, where she and Macandrew had been held when they’d first arrived. To her surprise she found a young nun standing there. She was wearing the kind of open, honest smile that tended to make others feel guilty.

Simone made to hand over the vials to Ignatius but he said, ‘No, Dr Stroud is otherwise occupied at the moment: you will carry out the test, Dr Robin. Sister Noni has kindly volunteered to help us with our work. I’m sure she will feel more comfortable in the hands of a woman.’

Simone gave Ignatius a look that didn’t mask her loathing for the man but she remained silent.

‘Actually, I didn’t volunteer; Mother Superior chose me,’ said the nun with disarming honesty.

Simone smiled at the girl, suddenly very glad that she would be giving her nothing more harmful than salt water. It was impossible not to like her.

‘What would you like me to do?’

‘I need to examine you first,’ said Simone. ‘Perhaps Dom Ignatius would leave us alone?’ She desperately needed a few minutes alone with the girl.

Ignatius looked as if he was about to refuse.

‘I have to assess muscle to fat ratio on her body in order to determine dosage,’ lied Simone.

‘Two minutes.’

As soon as the door clicked shut, Simone gripped the girl by the shoulders and said, ‘Listen to me! We are both in grave danger. That man is not really a priest; he’s a criminal wanted by the police all over Europe. Is there any way we can get out of here without him knowing?’

The nun’s eyes opened like saucers. ‘I don’t understand...’

There’s no time to explain. ‘Is there a way out?’

‘I don’t think so, Madame. There is only one door and it was locked behind me.’

Simone wrung her hands in frustration. She gripped the girl again and said, ‘Then you must do exactly as I say if either of us is to leave here alive! Do you understand?’

The girl looked terrified

‘I will have to give you an injection but it’s harmless and will have no effect on you at all. Dom Ignatius will not know that. You must pretend to be sleepy and answer any questions you are asked in a sleepy voice. Do you understand?’

The girl said, ‘I think so...’

Simone wondered if she was taking in anything at all. ‘You must pretend to be someone else, a girl who lived in the past. Make up a name, any name. Do it now! Tell me!’

The girl looked about her. ‘Maria,’ she said.

‘Maria who?’

‘Maria... Portelli.’

‘Good. Keep your eyes closed and make up the answers. If things get difficult, talk rubbish. If at any time I should pinch your arm like this...’ Simone demonstrated. ‘Pretend to pass out. Do you understand?’

‘No,’ answered the nun truthfully, ‘But I trust you, Madame, I’ll do as you ask.’

‘Good girl, as soon as you’re back with the sisters you must call the police. Understood?’

Simone heard Ignatius return and pretended to be helping the nun rearrange her habit when the door opened.

‘It’s time. Let’s get started.’

‘Would you lie down here please, Sister,’ said Simone in a pleasant but deliberately formal way. Her eyes sought Noni’s as she swung her legs up on the table. All she saw there was innocence and bemusement but at least she wasn’t saying anything to Ignatius.

Simone set up the delivery apparatus and inserted a needle in Noni’s arm, apologising for the discomfort and seeking eye contact again to see whether or not she was going to play along. She noticed the girl’s skin was parchment white and unblemished. She could not have been more than eighteen years old.

Simone opened the delivery valve. ‘Just relax,’ she said quietly, ‘Let your mind go blank. Relax completely.’

To Simone’s relief the girl closed her eyes. She pretended to be making adjustments to the flow for the next minute or so before saying to Ignatius, ‘I think she’s ready.’

Ignatius, his eyes full of anticipation, stepped forward. ‘Who are you, girl?’ he asked.

‘Maria...’ replied the nun sleepily.

Simone offered up silent thanks.

‘Maria who?’

‘Maria Portelli.’

‘Where do you live, Maria?’

‘... Marsaxlokk.’

‘What do you do there, Maria?’

‘... Help my mother.’

‘What year is it?’

Silence.

‘What year is it?’ Ignatius repeated.

‘Nineteen ninety-seven...’

Ignatius looked cold and hard at Simone and then stood back from the table. Simone pinched Noni and she let her head fall to the side. ‘She’s passed out completely,’ said Simone. ‘I don’t think we got rid of all the contaminating substance. She’s going to need proper medical help. Perhaps the sisters could call...’

Ignatius ignored her. The nun’s answer had made him suspicious. He snapped open one of the vials, wet his finger and put it to his lips. Without saying anything he approached the table and slapped Noni hard across the face. The nun let out a scream and scrambled off the table to take refuge in Simone’s arms.

‘Are all the vials like this?’ snapped Ignatius.

‘Yes,’ said Simone defiantly but inside she was so afraid that she felt nauseous.

Ignatius brought up the back of his hand in a sweeping arc and caught Simone on the left cheek bone. The force of the blow was sufficient to throw both her and Noni across the room where they ended up in a heap on the floor. Noni was sobbing, Simone holding the side of her face and trying to clear her head.

Ignatius stood over the pair of them, his right hand nervously fingering his cheek, lips twitching. Simone could sense the anger in him. She could feel it in the air; smell it; almost touch it. She had difficulty breathing as she waited for the explosion of violence she knew must come. Noni sensed it too. She closed her eyes and started praying out loud, clinging ever more tightly to Simone.

The awful moment was interrupted when the door opened and Stroud stood there, looking absurdly pleased with himself. ‘I have the information we need,’ he announced.

A look of disbelief appeared on Ignatius’s face. ‘You found a plan of the governor’s house?’ he said, sounding incredulous.

‘No, but I came across something just as good. As you rightly said, the old cathedral was destroyed by an earthquake so there wasn’t much information about that and there was none at all about the governor’s house but, when the builders were preparing the foundations for the new cathedral, they came across an old well shaft...’

Scepticism seemed to evaporate from Ignatius. The anger that had shone in his eyes was replaced with excitement. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘And it caused big problems,’ said Stroud. ‘The workers found a skeleton lodged in the shaft and saw it as some kind of omen. They downed tools and refused to go anywhere near it. All building work came to a halt.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The architect, a man named Lorenzo Gafa, called in the Church in the shape of Bishop Palmieri to break the impasse. Palmieri declared the well to be a hallowed grave and read the burial service over it. After that, they just closed up the opening and built on top of it. The site of the shaft is marked here on Gafa’s plan of the new cathedral.’ Stroud showed Ignatius the photocopy of the plan he had made at the records office.

‘Brilliant,’ said Ignatius, who seemed to have forgotten all about the women for the moment. ‘Absolutely brilliant. And do you know what? I can tell you who the skeleton belonged to.’

Stroud looked at him in disbelief.

‘Think, man,’ whispered Ignatius. ‘James of Caesarea.’

‘My God,’ murmured Stroud. ‘That’s why he couldn’t tell us any more about his return to the house of Publius. He died there. You took him right up to the point of his death!’

‘What’s been going on here?’ asked Stroud, acknowledging for the first time that Simone and Noni, were in the room. They were still huddling together.

Ignatius didn’t reply at first: he was preoccupied with the cathedral plan, using a ruler to take measurements and making notes on a small pad. After a long pause, the question finally registered and he said, ‘They’ve been making fools of us — making salt water. The sister knows too much. Give them something to keep them quiet and lock them up in the cellars. We’ll take care of them all later.’

Night was falling and Macandrew was almost out of his mind with worry. Simone had not returned and he was being forced to consider the worst. Apart from that, the whole routine of the place seemed to have changed. Neither the fat man nor Parvelli had come to check up on him. He had listened frequently at the door for any clue as to what was going on but the place seemed as silent as the grave.

Once more he stopped pacing up and down to bang on the door and shout for attention, but to no avail. He tried pulling at the window bars yet again. If only he had a lever, he thought and not for the first time. Although the acid had eaten a fair way into the metal, direct pulling clearly wasn’t going to work just yet. He looked around yet again for something to press into use but there was nothing obvious then his gaze settled on a chest of drawers below the bench.

The drawers were each about four feet wide and six inches deep. If he could remove a drawer front... He pulled the top drawer out and dropped it on the floor to smash away its flimsy bottom and sides until all he was left with was the solid drawer front. He was left holding a perfectly serviceable four-foot lever.

He slipped it between the first and second bars on the window and applied pressure. He was almost at the limit of his strength when the window bar snapped at its acid-weakened base and he felt a surge of euphoria. He grabbed at the free end of the bar and worked it loose from its top mounting. The first bar was out. He dropped it on the floor and started with renewed vigour on the second.

The second bar yielded just as quickly but the third refused to budge for the best part of fifteen minutes. Macandrew was close to exhaustion by the time it finally yielded and joined the other two on the floor. He cursed the humidity that was making him sweat so freely and had to rest for a few minutes just to recover his breath but he could see that the window space was now big enough for him to squeeze out through.

He steeled himself for what was to come. It was not going to be easy but there was no other option if he was to be of any help at all to Simone — assuming that he wasn’t too late already. This was something he pushed to the back of his mind as he climbed out on to the broad window ledge and looked down at the lane some thirty-five feet below, a move that caused his stomach to turn somersaults. He steadied himself and raised his eyes to concentrate on the building across the lane. The jump seemed a lot more improbable than it had when he’d first considered it. It was still possible... but only just and that was because the window ledge opposite was slightly lower than the one he was jumping from.

He focused on it before closing his eyes for a moment and going through the leap in his mind. One powerful spring and his hands would grasp the arched stone relief above the window opposite while his feet landed safely on the ledge. He would then open the window and climb inside to raise the alarm. The police would be there within minutes...

He inched forward on the window ledge until his toes — and most importantly the wound site — were clear of the edge and the balls of his feet were in the best position to provide thrust. He took a deep breath and prepared to jump. He had bent his knees and was on the very point of take-off when a wave of doubt seized him and he seemed to sense instinctively that something was wrong. He aborted the jump at the very last moment, almost overbalancing in the process but managing to rescue the situation while teetering on the very edge of disaster. There was something about the glass in the window opposite... He felt himself go weak as he saw what the problem was. The window across the way was barred only the bars were on the inside and not immediately obvious behind the dirty glass. He could just about make them out when the light hit the window at a certain angle — the angle he achieved when he bent his knees. If he had made the jump, he would have been stranded on a ledge, high above the ground, with no way into the building and no way back.

Macandrew crawled slowly inside and felt the bitter taste of failure sap his remaining energy. ‘Jesus Christ...’ he murmured. ‘What an idiot.’

When he’d stopped reliving the near disaster, he came to realise one important thing. He had made an awful lot of noise in the last hour or so but still no one had come to see what all the fuss was about. Could he be alone in this wing of the building? He looked first at the door and then at the iron window bars lying on the floor. He now had the tools he needed to break out... and he could make as much noise as he pleased.

The door was solid so there was no chance of smashing straight through it. Instead, he attacked the lock. It took some time to gouge out the area surrounding it but once he got the bar behind the mechanism, it broke away without much resistance. He could hardly believe it when he found himself standing outside in an empty corridor.

Still with an iron bar in his hand, he made his way along the passage, looking into each and every room as he went. The clinic, for whatever reason, seemed deserted. Al the rooms were empty. The main connecting door to the convent proper was still locked but the door to the back stairs was open. He made his way down to the basement and started looking in the cells along the bottom corridor. There was still no sign of life. He got the impression that Ignatius and the others had had to leave suddenly... but what had they done with Simone?

At last he found evidence of recent occupation in one of the rooms. An architectural plan, a ruler and two pens lay on a table but no people. He stood there, feeling almost ill with apprehension, when he noticed a trap door cover in the floor of this room. It had caught his attention because it was slightly raised as if it had been opened and not replaced properly.

He pulled at the iron ring and looked down into darkness. He couldn’t find a light switch but could see that there was a rough wooden ladder leading down into the blackness. There were candles back in the cells. He fetched one, lit it and sat down on the floor to swing his legs round into the opening. He descended awkwardly, feeling relieved when his feet finally made contact with the solid stone floor.

He held up the candle to illuminate what appeared to be a long, Roman-style bathhouse. Rows of sunken, square stone chambers stretched out as far as he could see along one side of the cellar, each about ten feet square and five feet deep. Each had a stone chute leading up to and disappearing into the outside wall.

His blood ran cold as he looked down into the first one and saw Simone lying there. Beside her was a young nun. Both lay perfectly still. He hurriedly propped up the candle by the side of the bath and lowered himself into it, cursing the fact that there were no steps and briefly wondering why not. He squatted down beside Simone and felt for a pulse, thanking God out loud when he found one. She was unconscious but she was alive. The nun was breathing too.

He made to lift Simone up into his arms only to discover that she and the nun were chained to a ring in the wall and a padlock was fitted to the end. There would be no way of freeing them without a key. He started back up the ladder to begin a frantic search of the room above. The lack of furnishings made searching easy but he didn’t find any key. He had to conclude that Ignatius or Stroud must have taken it with them. But where had they gone?

The only clue he had was the architectural plan on the table. It was a photocopy of a much older document. After a few moments anxious examination, he recognised it as the floor plan of a large church. Mdina Cathedral perhaps? Could that be where they’d gone? It didn’t seem to make sense but he had nothing else to go on. He saw that one area of the plan had been circled — The Chapel of the Cross. He made a mental note of this and its location before climbing back down the ladder to try and make Simone and the nun as comfortable as possible. He left them, lying side by side on the floor of the stone bath, both still deeply unconscious.