Private Rome

Chapter 88

The cab driver barely glanced back as he drove us into the center of Rome. Justine held my hand. We didn’t speak. I didn’t want to risk drawing the driver’s attention, and besides there wasn’t really anything to say. I was about to do something very dangerous, something that could put my liberty and possibly my life at risk. But I needed to get to the truth and was prepared to take a risk to do it. Whoever was behind this had tried to kill me and harm my colleagues. It had moved beyond proving Matteo’s guilt or innocence and was now deeply personal.

We crossed the river and arrived at Isola Tiberina and Fatebenefratelli Hospital shortly after 3 a.m. We got out of the cab and Justine paid the driver.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

I nodded. We crossed the driveway in front of the old building and went in through the main entrance.

The hospital was busy, which wasn’t surprising considering how much drinking had been going on in Rome that night. Most of the people crowding the waiting area and corridors that ran off it were young men in Roma kits. A combustible mix of post-match euphoria and too much alcohol had resulted in their hospital visits.

The crowds were useful to us though. We moved through the building unnoticed by the overworked staff, climbing the stairs to the third floor where Matteo’s room was located. When we emerged into an empty corridor, I heard voices in indistinct conversation and, from another direction, footsteps.

“Same plan?” Justine asked.

I nodded. While we’d waited for the cab, we’d hatched a plan to distract the cops posted outside Matteo’s room, but it would require great acting on her part to pull it off. I did not doubt her ability to deliver.

We entered the ward, and I waited by the nurses’ station while Justine went around the corner to get rid of the cops. There was no one else in sight and muted echoes of events taking place elsewhere made the atmosphere even more eerie. Hospitals were daunting and strange enough during the day, but at night they became positively spooky.

Justine came round the corner and waved me forward.

I frowned. This wasn’t part of our plan, but she was insistent. When I joined her, I saw why.

There was a solitary cop outside Matteo’s room, and he was fast asleep. Pietro, the wiry bodyguard from Primo Security, sat opposite. He nodded at us as we approached.

“No partner?” I asked quietly.

Pietro shook his head and raised his index finger, indicating a single officer was on duty.

I nodded my thanks. Justine and I moved on cautiously. When we reached Matteo’s room, I opened the door and we crept inside.

He was asleep but stirred as I approached his bed. Justine kept watch through the glazed panel in the door.

“Jack,” Matteo whispered.

His voice sounded a little stronger than it had during our last encounter, but he still looked weak and pale. Dark shadows ringed his eyes.

“I saw the news. I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” I asked. “Lying to me?”

He didn’t look shocked, just disappointed. I couldn’t tell whether it was with me or himself.

“Why don’t you save us both some time and tell me what you’ve been hiding?” I said.

“I can’t,” he said. “For the sake of a soul.”

“Whose soul?” I asked.

I glanced at Justine and saw she shared my concern: was this man mentally competent? Had his injuries affected him psychologically? Had he really tried to take his own life?

“Brambilla’s,” Matteo replied.

Justine and I shared another glance, both of us perplexed.

“What do you mean, Brambilla’s soul?” she asked.

“The gravest sin,” Matteo replied, his eyes glistening.

“You mean suicide?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You think Father Brambilla took his own life?” Justine asked.

“When he came to the party, agitated and wanting to talk,” Matteo replied, “I took him somewhere we could speak in private. After we went into the room, he knocked me unconscious. When I came to, he was dead. I must have picked up the gun instinctively when I came round and found him dead.”

“And you didn’t tell us because you thought you could save his soul with a lie?” I asked.

“Who would pray for such a man?” Matteo asked. “He would not receive a Christian burial.”

This adherence to dogma was part of the reason I’d lost my faith. A soul in such torment was surely more worthy of absolution than a murderer, and yet someone who had knowingly taken another person’s life could confess and seek forgiveness while someone who took their own could not. Dogma warped the faithfuls’ perspective to such an extent that someone devout and faithful, like Matteo, trained in a seminary, believed he was protecting Brambilla’s eternal soul by concealing his suicide. Faith had twisted reason. Here was Matteo trying to save the soul of someone who had caused him nothing but trouble, because he believed that telling a lie could prevent the man’s eternal damnation.

“How do you know it was Brambilla who knocked you out?” I asked.

Matteo looked puzzled. “Who else could it have been? We were the only ones in the room.”

I glanced at Justine, who clearly shared my frustration.

“You should have told us,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Matteo responded, tears falling from his eyes. “I was trying to do the right thing for my friend. He does not deserve purgatory.”

“No one does,” I told him. “Especially not a good priest like Father Brambilla.”