The Fallen Angel

FIVE

Next the Vespa went to the bridge where Beatrice died, now little more than another traffic-choked stretch of road by the Tiber. Mina pointed out what she believed to be the place: in the middle of the busy Lungotevere where pedestrians crossed to walk onto the footbridge of the Ponte Sant’Angelo. He parked the scooter outside a cafe in a little lane. They waited for the lights then walked to the cobbled stones that led across the Tiber to the vast, hulking shape which had once been the mausoleum of Hadrian. The Castel Sant’Angelo’s soft brown stone, a vast cylinder towering over the river, seemed to shimmer in the midday heat. The girl dragged him past each of the angels on the bridge, fanciful, heavenly creatures, some bearing musical instruments, some vicious devices from the stations of the cross.

This bend in the river was one of his favourite points in Rome, a place where every aspect of the city’s character, imperial, Renaissance and modern, seemed to converge. It was hard to imagine the streets thronged with crowds, silent, anticipating a hideous act to end a brief and terrible story. Yet here, by the bridge that was now a favourite place for tourists to take pictures, the city had once executed criminals with a shocking regularity.

Mina stopped him as they walked back to the scooter.

‘They say that every September the eleventh Beatrice’s ghost comes back here, carrying her head beneath her arm.’

Costa frowned. He’d heard so many such tales.

‘Romans have a fondness for the supernatural. We’re a credulous race.’

‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked outright.

‘No.’

She seemed to approve of his answer.

‘I remember talking to Daddy about it. He said, if you think of all the millions of people who’ve died there ought to be ghosts everywhere. It doesn’t make sense. We’d be surrounded by ghosts in mourning. For each other. For us. You wouldn’t be able to think for the sound of their crying.’

Mina Gabriel placed a finger on the stone base of the statue of an angel in front of them, a beautiful figure, fluid and full of movement, in its hands a cruel crown of thorns.

He followed the gaze of the statue above them. The creature’s blank eyes were set on the dome of St Peter’s, as if seeking salvation, or some semblance of reason.

A scowl crossed her innocent face as she glanced towards the great basilica too.

‘They’d kill someone just for wanting to be themselves.’

‘Did you talk to your father about Beatrice a lot?’

‘I was talking about Galileo. And all the others. Don’t you know about the Confraternita?’

She was testing him. He was sure of it.

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Another time,’ Mina replied quickly. ‘Daddy didn’t talk to me about Beatrice. What makes you think that?’

‘You said. .’

‘About ghosts. Not Beatrice. Not ever.’

There was a hiatus in the conversation. A stiffness. Something unsaid.

‘They took her body along the Via Giulia,’ she said, returning to the subject, pointing out the direction back to the street that paralleled the river. ‘Then across the Ponte Sisto.’ One more sweep of her arm to the old footbridge further along the Tiber. ‘Then through Trastevere, up that steep hill, to Montorio. Thousands of them. A long way. Hard work. They hated what that man. .’ Her eyes flashed back towards the great dome. ‘. . did to her.’

‘I believe they did,’ he agreed.