The Ancient Curse

10

FRANCESCA TOOK SOME ice cubes from the freezer and put them in a plastic bag, which she wrapped in a towel and handed to Fabrizio. He placed it on his forehead where it hurt and she started on dinner.

Francesca lived in a converted farmhouse and the big kitchen preserved all its old-fashioned charm. The stove was built into the masonry and a hearth stood at the centre of the main wall, with copper pots and pans hanging on either side of the chimney breast, as bright and shiny as if they had just been polished. The table in the middle of the room was very old and designed for a big traditional family. Francesca set it for two, placing a couple of mats, plates and cutlery at one end. The wind was picking up outside and they soon heard the tapping of rain on the porch roof and on the windowpanes.

‘We needed this water,’ said Francesca as she stirred the tomato sauce. ‘My grapevines were dying of thirst.’

‘I didn’t know you had a vineyard,’ said Fabrizio.

‘It’s my father’s actually, but I’m an only child and he’s quite elderly. He’s been retired for years and lives with my mother in Siena. I try to take care of this place as best I can, but I don’t have much time, as you know.’

Fabrizio watched her lift the pot’s lid to check the boil and measure out the spaghetti.

‘How hungry are you?’ she asked, turning.

‘Very,’ said Fabrizio. ‘All I had for lunch was a little prosciutto with some vegetables.’

‘How’s your head?’

‘Better.’

‘Good. Watch the pot while I go and change out of these dusty clothes. There’s wine in the fridge. Help yourself, and pour a glass for me too.’

She disappeared down the hall and he could hear the sound of a door opening and closing and then the shower running. Fabrizio surprised himself by imagining her nude under the pounding water and he smiled: maybe there would be something between them after all. Or maybe there already was and he hadn’t noticed. He could still taste her lips, smell the light, clean, girlish fragrance that had remained with him after their embrace in the dark. He thought of how lovely it would be to become intimate with her, in that country house that smelt of lavender, in a bed decorated with painted flowers and mother-of-pearl where her parents and grandparents had slept before her. And how lovely to wake up beside her on a sunny morning and breathe in the aroma of freshly made coffee.

He suddenly said to himself, ‘Francesca, my love,’ just to see what it would sound like when the day came for him to pronounce those words. It sounded good. He longed for the kind of simple feeling that would fill his soul, drive out the terror coiled just below the surface of his emotions, ready to spring and unleash such a crazy, irrational reaction in him.

The water was boiling. He set the bag of ice on the table and dropped the pasta in the pot just as Francesca reappeared at the door. Her hair was damp and combed straight back and she’d put on a light dress that fitted her nicely without clinging and showed her legs a little above the knee. He wanted to pay her a compliment, but he couldn’t think of anything that sounded right and so he changed the topic rather than saying something stupid.

‘What was so important that it had you driving around at night searching for me?’ he asked.

Francesca drained the pasta and was enveloped in a cloud of steam for an instant. She tossed the spaghetti with the tomato sauce, added a few basil leaves and transferred it to their plates. She put a piece of Pecorino and a grater on the table and sat down facing Fabrizio.

‘I managed to get into the director’s archives,’ she said, grating a little cheese on Fabrizio’s pasta and then on her own, ‘and I found out where the inscription that Balestra is studying comes from. A place called La Casaccia, the property of a certain Pietro Montanari.’

Fabrizio, who had been about to bring the first forkful of spaghetti to his mouth, stopped in mid-air.

‘Does that name mean something to you?’ Francesca asked.

Fabrizio put the fork in his mouth and relished the flavour of the fresh tomato and cheese. ‘Delicious,’ he said. And then, right away, ‘No, nothing at all. Why?’

‘I don’t know. You seemed surprised. Anyway, this Pietro Montanari has served time for petty theft and it was he who reported finding the inscription. The NAS has never made this public and Balestra has never announced the find, because he’s convinced there’s a fragment missing, the seventh piece, and that by keeping this quiet, it might turn up. Although nothing has come to light yet.’

‘Right. Balestra spoke to me about it that day I saw him in his office, remember?’

‘You bet. That day you told me to stay the hell away from you.’

‘People say things they don’t mean.’

‘That’s good to know. So, then, Balestra will also have told you that although they’ve explored the area nothing has emerged. No trace of a historical context, much less the missing piece.’

‘Yes, that’s what he said.’

‘And that he’s going mad because he can’t find this final fragment.’

‘I imagine he is. I’d feel the same way in his shoes.’

‘Good. So . . . I think I have a present for you.’

‘Don’t tell me . . .’

Francesca pulled a little box out of her briefcase and handed it to him.

‘This is the original text of the inscription.’

‘Francesca, I . . . How can I . . . How did you do this? Did you get into the file?’

‘Not in a million years. The protection is uncrackable.’

‘I don’t get it . . . How did you manage?’

Francesca’s hands disappeared back into her briefcase and came up with an object not much bigger than a cigarette packet.

‘See this? It’s a digital video camera that I can operate using a remote control. Whenever Balestra goes into his office and locks himself in, saying he doesn’t want to be disturbed, it means he’s working on his inscription. I switch on the camera that I hid on a shelf of his library. It focuses on the computer screen exactly. And so I’ve filmed the whole text. What I’ve given you is a video tape, not a disk.’

‘You’re a genius,’ marvelled Fabrizio. ‘I would never have thought of this . . . Did you manage to . . .’

‘Read it? No, I can’t make head or tail of it. His transcription is still very fragmentary and very rough. There’s no way I can understand it. You’ll have to transcribe it yourself. Do you have a video recorder?’

‘Sure. I brought a VCR with me so I’d be able to watch films, but who’s had time?’

Francesca put the bowls in the sink and opened the fridge. ‘All I have in here are a couple of mozzarellas and two tomatoes.’

‘Sounds great,’ said Fabrizio.

‘What were you doing out at that place?’ asked Francesca as she put the food on the table and took a packet of crackers from the cupboard.

Fabrizio didn’t answer at first.

‘If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to,’ she said in a tone that meant exactly the opposite.

‘At this point there’s no sense keeping secrets. I met that woman.’

‘The one who’s been making the mysterious calls?’

‘The same. Someone left a sealed envelope for me at the museum. There was an address inside. I had no doubt it was her and I was right.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Disturbing.’

‘Exactly what I thought you’d say,’ said Francesca with a touch of sarcasm.

‘Well, I don’t know how to define her. She may be crazy, or a visionary, what do I know? But she insisted. She told me I had to give up my research and leave before . . .’

Francesca seemed not to notice that he hadn’t finished the sentence.

Fabrizio continued: ‘Before something happens to me.’

‘What do you think she was talking about?’

‘I didn’t ask her and I didn’t even feel like asking her, but I’m sure you can guess what I thought and what I’m still thinking now.’

‘The animal.’

‘Exactly. What else?’

‘So what’s the connection between a woman who works behind the bar of a third-class establishment and that horrible murderous creature?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if there is a connection. Maybe she just wanted me to think that there was. I can’t tell you why. Anyway, I was very deeply disturbed and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. When I got up to leave, she said goodbye as if she were talking to a dead man. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Well sure, I think so. But I wouldn’t fret over it. I’m certain she’s just some kind of a loser who’s trying to work out her frustrations by acting like a sorceress or a clairvoyant or something. You’d be surprised how many of them there are out there.’

She got up and put the plates in the sink.

‘Shall we make coffee?’ asked Fabrizio, getting up to help.

‘You plan on staying up late tonight?’

‘Yeah, I think so. I’d like to start transcribing that inscription.’

Fabrizio drank his coffee, then got up to leave. For a moment he hoped Francesca would ask him to stay, but he immediately put the thought out of his head. She was the type of girl who only comes to bed with you if she loves you and thinks you love her. No, only if she’s sure you love her. After which you start with the wedding plans. In a flash of lucidity, that all seemed incredibly premature and his enforced chastity seemed a small price to pay.

Francesca walked him to the door and threw her arms around his neck. ‘If I were following my instincts I’d ask you to stay,’ she whispered into his ear.

Fabrizio felt completely different from the way he had a moment before. ‘But you’re not going to follow your instincts, are you?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s better we don’t. We’re in the middle of a very difficult situation, and you’re not very clear about things, are you?’

Fabrizio didn’t answer.

‘Do you at least like me a little?’

Fabrizio would have preferred to be somewhere else and instead he heard the words he’d been rehearsing when she was in the shower slip out: ‘Francesca, my love . . .’ He held her close in the darkness as the rain beat down on the canopy over the front door and an intense odour of moss and wet wood flooded in from the nearby forest. He felt like he’d never want to leave her, that the smell of her hair and the taste of her lips were the only warmth and the only pleasure that life could give him.

He kissed her and ran off under the rain towards his car.

IT WAS POURING and every now and then a flash of lightning lit up the countryside like daylight. Further west, towards the sea, lightning bolts were streaking the sky, but the continuous rumble of thunder was muted by the distance. There was practically no one out at this time of night, in such weather, and Fabrizio fingered the tape he had in his pocket, thinking of the message it contained. Words from a long-ago era, words that formed a dreadful message, to judge from the director’s self-imposed isolation and the extreme reaction he’d had that day Fabrizio had told him about the Phersu.

He turned down the Val d’Era road and had soon arrived at his house on the Semprini farm. The front courtyard and backyard were illuminated by the outdoor lights and the old bricks in the low walls gleamed in the rain. He stayed just long enough to safely deposit the tape Francesca had given him and to take his rifle from the rack, then he got back into the car and drove off in the opposite direction.

At that same moment, Lieutenant Reggiani was stretched out in an easy chair in his apartment, watching an Almodovar film on TV and drinking a whisky on the rocks. He was relatively relaxed, given the circumstances, and jumped when the phone on the side table rang.

It was Sergeant Massaro. ‘He got home ten minutes ago, went inside for a moment and then drove off again.’

‘You’re following him, aren’t you?’

‘He’s just half a kilometre ahead of me.’

‘Well done, Massaro. Don’t lose him. If there’s any reason for alarm, call me and call the squad car.’ He looked at his watch. ‘But where’s he headed at this time of night in this storm?’

‘No idea, sir. He’s actually just turned right towards La Casaccia, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Right. I think I know what he’s thinking, then. Anyway, you stay on him, understand?’

‘Roger that, sir,’ said Massaro, switching off the speaker-phone in his Fiat Uno.

Fabrizio pulled off the side of the road, got out his topographical map, examined it under the dashboard lights and then picked up his binoculars. He pointed them in the direction of the open countryside to his right. La Casaccia, about 300 metres away, was an old country estate connected to the local road by a lane full of potholes that had filled with water during the storm. At the end of this path was a courtyard surrounded by the main house, which was old and dilapidated, another building, where the tenant farmer must have lived, a shed with a collapsing roof and a stable with a hayloft, also in a state of disrepair. The overwhelming impression was of neglect and disuse, and the houses would have appeared uninhabited had it not been for a couple of lit bulbs dangling on the outside walls and for the light filtering out from a window on the ground floor of the tenant’s house. Fabrizio was close enough to see the inside of the room and the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a man of about fifty inside, sitting at a table with a plastic tablecloth, a flask of wine and a half-empty glass in front of him.

Fabrizio heard a dog barking and the sound of a chain running back and forth over a wire strung between the two buildings. A car was driving up and the dog was letting his master know. Who could it be so late at night in such an isolated place?

The vehicle looked like an old van. It stopped in the middle of the courtyard and a woman got out. At first, Fabrizio could not make out her features, but then the door opened and lit up her face. It was the woman from behind the bar at the Le Macine tavern!

Fabrizio realized immediately that a lot of his questions were about to be answered but unless he got closer he would miss whatever happened. He searched through his pockets and backpack for something he could pacify the dog with, but found nothing, not even a crust of bread. He aimed his binoculars and found himself witnessing – although he could not hear a word – an argument that soon degenerated into a violent quarrel. The woman stormed out, slamming the door behind her, got back into her van and drove off.

Strangely, during the whole time that the woman was inside, maybe ten minutes or so, the dog had never stopped barking. On the contrary, his yapping had become so fierce and insistent that Fabrizio could hear him distinctly, even at this distance. The dog continued to bark for a couple of minutes after the vehicle had disappeared, then stopped. Fabrizio could hear the chain sliding back and forth for a while, then nothing.

He decided to pluck up his courage and approach the man inside the house. He started up the car and drove it down the little lane with only his parking lights on. He stopped at the edge of the courtyard and got out as the dog started barking again and running up and down the muddy yard. Almost immediately the door opened and the man appeared as a dark shadow in the doorway.

‘Are you back?’ he shouted. ‘Get out, I told you! Get the hell out of here!’

‘My name is Fabrizio Castellani,’ was his answer. ‘You don’t know me, but—’

He was not given the opportunity to finish.

‘Get out!’ repeated the man, and this time it was clear that the order was directed at him.

‘I’m not a thief or a prankster,’ started up Fabrizio again, ‘and I need to talk to you, Mr . . . Montanari.’

‘I know full well who you are,’ responded the man. ‘You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Get out. Leave here. Get as far away as you can, if you don’t want to come to a nasty end. A horrible end.’

Fabrizio felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Hearing the same threat twice in the same day from two people, under such disturbing circumstances . . . that phrase suddenly struck home with all its ominous implications. He felt alone and defenceless, the potential victim of a mess of his own making. He struggled to control himself and, after a moment of hesitation, took a few steps forward. The chained dog instantly charged at him, barking furiously, but when it was almost upon him, it stopped in its tracks and began to yelp as though it recognized him. Fabrizio, prey to so many conflicting emotions, managed nonetheless to stay calm and not take to his heels.

‘I’m not afraid,’ he said in a firm voice. So firm, in fact, that he even convinced himself.

The man approached and looked him over from head to toe. He turned to the dog, which was still whimpering softly, as if waiting to be petted, and then back to the young man. He shook his head and said, ‘You’re crazy, all right . . . but, if you have to, come in.’

Fabrizio followed the man inside the house and found himself in a bare room with peeling, mouldy plaster. A light bulb hung from an enamelled iron plate in the middle of the room. On one of the walls was an image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary printed on a piece of cardboard that was curling at the edges with the damp. On the other walls were more sacred images, a little incongruous under the circumstances: St Rocco with a dog licking his wounds, and St Anthony the Abbot, with a horse, rooster and pig. Opposite the door stood a small cupboard topped by a glass case. Sitting on the cupboard top was an old phone, greasy and dirty. A table with two straw-bottomed chairs and nothing else. A strong odour of mildew saturated the room, a wretched place that reeked of abandonment.

Fabrizio’s gaze was drawn instinctively to the glass case and on the shelf directly over the telephone he noticed several fragments of archaeological objects, in particular some bucchero pottery with traces of a painted swastika motif, the same as he had found near the tomb of the Phersu.

‘You’re a tomb robber,’ said Fabrizio, looking straight into the man’s eyes with an affirmative rather than interrogative tone, and deliberately addressing him with the familiar ‘tu.

‘In a certain sense.’

‘You’re the one who found the slab with the inscription.’

‘I did.’

‘And you turned it over to the NAS. Why? For the money?’

‘It’ll make a nice nest egg.’

‘But you won’t be getting any of it until you say where the missing piece is.’

‘So they say.’

The man filled his glass and gestured at his guest to offer him some as well. Fabrizio declined politely with a shake of his head.

‘Where is it?’ he asked.

The man gulped down the wine in a single go and poured himself some more. Fabrizio was close enough to smell his sour breath.

‘You think I’d tell you?’ asked the man with a smirk. But behind his bravado, Fabrizio thought he could see a desperate need to talk to someone. To relieve himself, perhaps, of an intolerable burden.

‘Probably not,’ replied Fabrizio calmly. ‘But I can tell you that you’re the one who tipped off the police about the Phersu tomb. You were almost certainly there at the site with those poor wretches who ended up with their throats ripped out. But you slipped away before the Finanza team got there.’

The man suddenly leaned in closer. ‘Then it’s true that you’re dangerous!’ he said, gulping down more wine.

‘Who told you that? The woman from the Le Macine tavern?’

‘You know her? But how . . .’

‘Yeah, I know her. And so do you, I see.’

The man was increasingly surprised and confounded by Fabrizio’s words. He lowered his head, letting out a long breath.

‘I wish I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I’d be better off if I’d never met her.’

‘Same here. But why did she come here to see you in the middle of the night?’

The man sighed again. ‘Nightmares also come to visit in the middle of the night,’ he replied. ‘Since I found that inscription, she’s changed completely. She’s turned into another person.’

‘She’s the one who told you where the inscription was, isn’t she?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Was it her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she has kept one of the pieces after she got you to break up the slab?’

The man nodded.

‘So she instructed you to notify the National Antiquities Service.’

‘That’s my own fucking business!’ the man responded with a flash of pride. ‘They were supposed to give me a pile of money. And I was having problems making ends meet . . . I was in prison.’

‘She’s also the one who told you where you’d find the tomb.’

The man nodded, submissive again.

‘And she’ll tell you where the seventh fragment of the inscription is . . . when she decides.’

‘No. She’s already told me.’

‘Tonight?’

The man nodded again.

‘Why were you arguing?’

‘Because . . . I’ve had enough. I can’t take it any more. I won’t .

Fabrizio looked at him closely. His face was sallow, his brow damp with sweat. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. His eyes were wide and filled with fear. He was a sick man.

‘Tell me where it is,’ tried Fabrizio in a commanding tone.

But the man just shook his head convulsively, as if he were the prisoner of a force that dominated him completely.

‘Tell me!’ insisted Fabrizio, grabbing him by the shirt. ‘You absolutely must tell me! Many human lives may still be destroyed unless you do. Can’t you understand?’

The man yanked free, took a long breath and seemed to be about to say something when a long howl echoed, frighteningly close, followed by a deep snarling growl. The two men looked at each other with sudden, acute distress.

‘My God,’ said Fabrizio.