The Nosferatu Scroll

18

It was late afternoon, and once again the Island of the Dead was shrouded in shadows as the sun sank slowly towards the western horizon.

‘Let’s start with your vandalized graves, Chris,’ Angela suggested as they walked away from the vaporetto stop. ‘What do the newspapers say about them?’

Bronson shrugged. ‘Like most newspaper stories, they’re heavy on sensation and light on details. According to the best report, two graves were interfered with on one night, and they were very close to each other, down at the southern end of the cemetery.’

‘So let’s make a start there, then.’

They walked between the ranks of tombs down to the south of the island, looking at the names on the graves as they passed them. Bronson spotted an area where most of the tombs appeared somewhat older than the majority.

‘This report also says that one of the graves was over four hundred years old,’ he said. ‘Those graves over there look pretty old to me.’

Despite the enormous number of tombs, it didn’t take them that long to find the first of the two graves the newspaper claimed had been attacked by vandals. It was a similar structure to the one Angela had taken to calling the ‘vampire’s grave’ – another stone box topped with a flat stone slab that bore the name and dates of the deceased entombed within.

‘Here it is,’ Bronson said. ‘That’s the name that they give in the paper.’

For a few moments they both stared at the structure in front of them.

‘I don’t know about you, Chris,’ Angela said, ‘but I don’t see much evidence of damage. In fact, it looks untouched.’

‘You’re right.’ Then Bronson noticed something, and pointed at the base of the slab covering the top of the grave. ‘I think somebody lifted off that slab,’ he said. ‘Look, the cement holding it in place is fresh. You can see that clean line running all the way around it.’

Once he’d pointed it out, the new cement was very obvious. And when they found the second tomb, it was precisely the same story, except that on this grave the slab had obviously cracked when it had been levered off, and the repair work on the damaged slab also included a couple of metal pins to hold the two sections of it together.

‘Well,’ Bronson said, ‘I think it’s obvious that we’re not looking at the work of your average vandal here. Both of these graves were opened by people who were clearly searching for something, and I’ll bet that if we located all the other tombs that have been attacked, we’d find the same thing. The other point that strikes me is that both of these graves date from the early nineteenth century, so they’re about the same age as your vampire’s tomb.’

‘Which does make you wonder what, exactly, they were looking for,’ Angela said. ‘There’s not likely to be a hell of a lot left inside a two-hundred-year-old tomb, unless the grave was sealed completely, or they used a lead coffin. Do you want to try to find any of the other graves mentioned in the newspaper stories, or are you satisfied with what you’ve seen here?’

‘No, I’m happy that we know what happened, even if we don’t know why. These graves were opened by people who were looking for something specific. Let’s try to find the twin angels tomb you’re interested in.’

‘The book describes it as the “tomb of the twin angels”, so presumably we’re looking for a grave that’s marked by a couple of carved stone angels,’ Angela said, looking around at the mass of tombs that surrounded them. ‘The problem is that the two most common symbols on all these graves are the crucifix and angels, single or multiple. I suppose we just have to hope that there’s something very obvious about the one we’re looking for.’

‘And if we find it?’ Bronson asked. ‘Are you planning another session of grave robbing?’

‘I’d just like to find the tomb to prove that my translation of the Latin is accurate. I mean, this is just an intellectual exercise, not a treasure hunt or anything like that.’

‘Why don’t we split up? That way we can cover more ground. Just make sure we don’t get too far apart. We don’t want to have to spend hours tramping around here looking for each other.’

‘It’s not that big a place, Chris,’ Angela pointed out. ‘And what we’re looking for is quite specific. Because of the date of the diary, the tomb has to be dated no later than about eighteen hundred, maybe eighteen ten, and because the diary uses the expression “twin angels” every time the topic is mentioned, I think the carving will be of two identical angel figures, not just two different stone angels on the same grave.’

‘OK,’ Bronson said, and turned to his right. ‘I’ll head over this way.’

For the next hour or so, they both looked at a wide variety of graves, all of which exhibited some of the characteristics they were searching for. In all, they found over a dozen tombs that were about the right date, and which were decorated with the stone figures of angels.

But it wasn’t until they looked in a section of the graveyard that appeared to be the most neglected, that Angela thought they might have found the one referred to in the diary.

In one corner of this area she spotted a sarcophagus-type tomb. Unlike most of the others they’d looked at, which had carved stone figures surmounting them, either as part of a heavily ornamented top slab or as a separate piece of monumental stone, this grave had a fairly plain slab covering the top of the sarcophagus, and there was no immediate sign of any angelic carvings. But then she looked at the foot and saw an incised carving that depicted two angels side by side, their limbs entwined, one virtually a mirror image of the other.

‘Is this it?’ Bronson asked, walking over in response to her wave.

‘It’s the most likely, I think. The two angels are identical, and it’s obviously a really old grave.’

Angela stepped forward and looked at the letters and numbers on the top of the slab. The stone was quite badly weathered, but most of the inscription was just about legible.

‘The date of the burial was July seventeen eighty-three,’ she said. ‘The name is a bit more difficult to read, but I think the surname is Delaca. I can’t make out the first name at all, except that it begins with the letter “N”.’

Angela took a notebook out of her handbag and recorded the information she’d found on the slab.

‘I’ll do a bit of research on the web,’ she said, ‘and maybe check one or two genealogy sites. I might be able to find out something about him or her.’ She looked closely at the tomb, at the joints between the stones, and shook her head. ‘It doesn’t look to me as if anybody’s touched this grave for decades, maybe even centuries. Perhaps the “answer” – or whatever Carmelita Paganini was referring to – isn’t actually in the grave, but visible outside it.’

‘You mean there might be something in the inscriptions themselves?’ Bronson asked.

Angela nodded, took out her digital camera and took pictures of the tomb from every angle, trying to ensure that the images showed the inscriptions and symbols carved into the stone as clearly as possible.

‘Are we finished here?’ Bronson asked finally. It was being to get chilly and he didn’t like the way the shadows were starting to lengthen between the graves.

‘Yes. Let’s go back to the hotel,’ Angela replied. ‘I’ll do a bit more work on the translation when I have time, and see if I can find out anything else about this “answer” our diarist talks about.’

‘And I suppose you can do that once we get back to England, so tomorrow we can start our holiday again?’

Angela nodded in agreement and laced her arm through his as they walked back towards the entrance to the cemetery.

They’d gone about fifty or sixty yards when Bronson suddenly stopped and looked around.

Angela looked at him enquiringly. ‘What is it?’

‘Can you smell something?’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s foul and unpleasant – and I have a horrible feeling I know what it is.’

For a second or two, Angela looked at him. ‘We are standing in the middle of a graveyard,’ she reminded him.

‘I know. But even in a cemetery you shouldn’t be able to smell a decomposing corpse. That’s why bodies are buried in coffins – to keep everything inside.’ Bronson glanced around. ‘I think it’s coming from over there,’ he said, gesturing over to the right of the path they were following.

He stepped off the path and walked slowly through the graves. ‘It’s definitely stronger over here,’ he called out.

‘I can smell it now,’ Angela confirmed, joining him.

The odour faded slightly as they passed a line of tombs, and they turned round to retrace their steps.

‘That might be it,’ Bronson suggested, pointing at an old grave. ‘You see the corner of it? A section of the slab has broken off.’

They walked over to the sarcophagus-type structure that Bronson had indicated, and with every step they took, the smell grew stronger and more offensive. Angela took a handkerchief from her bag and pressed it against her nose, but it made little difference.

The stone box that comprised the grave was about eight or nine feet long, about four feet wide and roughly the same high. The slab covering the top had obviously cracked in one corner and that section of the stone had fallen on to the ground beside the tomb. Bronson stepped closer to the opening that had been created, then retreated.

He coughed a couple of times, trying to rid his lungs of the stench of decay, then turned back to Angela.

‘I left my camera back at the hotel,’ he said. ‘Can I borrow yours?’

‘You’re going to photograph a rotting body?’ Angela looked shocked.

‘Don’t you see? This is an old grave, so the body should have decayed into nothing years and years ago. Whatever is causing that smell is very recent. We’ve got two choices. Either we slide the slab off the top of the grave, which is something I really don’t want to do, or I point your camera into the tomb through that hole in the corner and take a picture of the interior. If it’s just a cat or some animal that’s crawled in there to die, we can forget all about it. But if it’s something else, we’ll be able to tell exactly what it is from the image, and then, if we have to, we can make a call.’

‘You think there’s a fresh corpse in there, don’t you?’ Angela asked, and Bronson nodded. ‘Right, here’s my camera.’

Bronson took it from her, walked back to the tomb, aimed the lens through the hole, and pressed the shutter release. There was a sudden explosion of light as the flash was triggered. It took the camera a couple of seconds to process the image, and then a picture of the interior of the tomb appeared in full colour on the small LCD screen.

Bronson turned away from the tomb, and handed the camera back to Angela.

‘Oh my God, Chris,’ she whispered, her face turning pale.

Bronson nodded grimly, took his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled 112. They needed the emergency services, fast.