The Rome Prophecy

2

Paris

Tom Shaman is staring at the clear wintry night sky, playing join the dots. He wonders whether he’s spotted the Great Bear or the Little Bear. From what little he can remember of childhood astronomy, on a night as clear as this you should be able to see more than two thousand stars. Given his unique viewpoint, it might just be possible.

Tom is at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

He’s on a wind-blown workers’ platform, way above the Michelin-starred Jules Verne restaurant. The man who brought him here is Jean-Paul Marty, his best friend in France and the head of one of the many construction companies employed to do near-constant maintenance on the giant structure. Tom and JP have completely different lives but share the same basement gym and passion for boxing. They’ve even sparred together. A mistake the Frenchman won’t make again. The thirty-three-year-old American is as big as an oak and throws a punch that could derail a freight train.

JP puts his hands on the cold steel of the workers’ cradle and stares proudly out over the city of his birth. ‘I cannot believe that you spend a year in Paris and have never seen the magic of the City of Light from the Tower.’

‘ C’est la vie.’ Tom sits on the rough boards and dangles his legs over the edge. He enjoys the childish thrill of knowing there’s more than three hundred metres of air between him and the ground. ‘I guess that’s what happens when you spend half your time working as a grunt at Eurodisney and a dishwasher at Robuchon.’

JP laughs. ‘The restaurant I know about, but you were one of Mickey’s mouses? This you keep a secret.’

‘No, not at all. I was proud to be a mouse. It was how I learned my Mickey Mouse French. It was how I kept alive for the first six months.’ He ticks points off on his fingers. ‘First a garbage guy, sweeping Main Street, morning, noon and night. Then acting. I was Disney’s best-ever Goofy and I didn’t have to speak, so that was kind of perfect too. Then I worked both Planet Hollywood and the Rainforest Cafe as a kitchen porter.’

‘All of France is grateful for your cultured contribution to our society; we will miss you so much. And Robuchon?’

‘When I was moused-out, I blagged a cleaning job at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon and lived on the best leftovers in the world. Not much got tossed, I can tell you.’ Tom looks up at the final shining zenith of the tower. ‘Thanks for fixing this; it’s a good way to go out.’

JP runs a finger down the steelwork. ‘You are welcome, mon ami. It is my pleasure to show you around, but don’t tell anyone.’

‘I won’t.’

The Frenchman turns his back to the wind and tries to light a cigarette. ‘I’d get you to swear to that on the Bible, but I’m not sure such an oath counts if it comes from an expriest.’

‘It counts.’ Tom points off into the darkness and the wind flaps the sleeve of his black cotton jacket. ‘What’s that?’

His friend glances, unlit cigarette still in mouth. ‘The Champ de Mars. You know the Champ de Mars?’

‘The big park where they do the military stuff?’

JP laughs and abandons his tobacco for a moment. ‘Aah, oui, the military stuff. Tom, the Field of Mars is the largest open space in Paris and perhaps the most respected. It is almost sacred. Much food has been eaten on this land and much blood drunk by its earth. During the Revolution, the Fete de la Federation was held there, and two years after the storming of the Bastille, many people were massacred.’

Tom senses his friend’s passion. ‘I’m sorry.’

JP finally succeeds in lighting his cigarette. He takes a couple of deep draws and holds it out for Tom to see. ‘War and military stuff, as you call it, are engrained in our nation. Like my father – and his father – I smoke Gauloises. We do it because it is patriotic. Marketers will tell you Gauloises are forever linked with the French infantrymen – the poilu. Even the brand slogan is “Freedom Forever”.’

‘Good slogan, bad place to put it.’

‘ Oui.’ He blows grey smoke into the night sky. ‘My mother says if the cigarettes do not kill you then the slogan will.’

Tom smiles and looks out over the twinkling lights of the city below. His thoughts drift to his flight tomorrow, his meeting with Valentina and the circumstances that first brought them together. Painful memories surface of how he left his job as a priest in Los Angeles. A very public end to his vocation. His name plastered across every newspaper and news channel in the country. Every person in his parish pointing him out on the sidewalk. Venice seemed the perfect place to run to. A picture postcard of a city to hide in. Somewhere time seemed to have stood still.

Only it hadn’t.

Journalists and news crews turned out to be every bit as cruel there as they had been in America. Tom’s dark secret didn’t stay secret for very long. He’d misjudged Valentina at first and she’d probably done the same with him. Only over the course of the case that they worked together did they find common respect and affection, and by then Tom wrongly thought his future lay with someone else. It all seems so long ago now. Like another lifetime.

JP lowers himself on to the boards alongside his friend and catches his eye. ‘You seem so very far away. Somewhere wonderful?’

‘Just thinking of the past. Moments like this make you reminisce.’

‘Aah, that is not good. Not tonight. Tonight is about making memories, not recalling them. When you are old and your bones will not let you climb the Eiffel Tower, then you have time to remember.’

Tom gets to his feet. ‘You have a point.’ He peers out over the safety barrier and waves into the distance. ‘Goodbye, Paris.’

‘Aah, non.’ Jean-Paul throws his arms wide. ‘We do not say goodbye, you know this; we say au revoir, it is less permanent.’

Tom turns his back on the city and faces his friend. ‘I know, but I really think this may be more of a goodbye than an au revoir. I don’t think I’m going to be coming back from Rome.’

‘You have the wanderlust again?’

He nods. ‘A little.’

‘Or is it more a womanlust than wanderlust?’ JP studies Tom’s eyes, ‘Are you planning to make a home in her bed?’

He laughs. ‘I’m planning no such thing.’

‘But it is possible, yes?’

‘Jean-Paul, as a Frenchman, you know that when it comes to matters of the heart, anything is possible, but-’

‘ So,’ he jumps in again, ‘maybe you do have a little plan, yes?’

‘Maybe I have a little plan, no. Listen, Valentina and I go back a long way. We met in Venice soon after I left the priesthood in Los Angeles. She was a lieutenant in the Carabinieri and-’

‘And she was the first love of your life. The first one to introduce you to the magical intimacy of womanhood?’

Tom frowns. ‘No! No, she was not. And no, we were not intimate in any way. Valentina was-’

‘But you would like to have been.’ He leans close to his friend’s face, a sparkle in his eyes, ‘This Valentina, I sense she is a Roman beauty who has stolen your heart, and now, like a brave Gaul, you will swim oceans and climb mountains to be with her again.’

‘What a hopeless Casanova you are.’ Tom shakes his head in amusement. ‘Are you in the least bit interested in the true version, or do you just want to make up your own romantic fantasy?’

‘ Oui. I am very interested. Though I am not sure the truth will be as satisfying as the fantasy.’

‘I’m sure it won’t be. Valentina is a friend. A good friend. We’ve kept in touch – phone calls, email, that kind of thing. She’s just been promoted in the Carabinieri, so I’m going over to celebrate with her.’

‘I understand.’ JP fights back a grin. ‘An Italian woman invites you to stay with her and celebrate. This is as good as a proposal of marriage.’

‘Only if you’re a crazy Frenchman.’

‘To that I plead guilty.’ He flicks the last of his cigarette into the black abyss and watches it fall like a firefly. ‘You didn’t say how you met her.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘Come, it is a long way down, you can tell me as we go.’ JP leads the way to the lift. ‘A woman in uniform! Just the thought of it is exquisite.’

Tom hits the call button and hears great winding engines clunk and whirr below them. ‘She locked me in one of her cells and interviewed me in connection with a murder.’

He frowns. ‘A murder? I cannot see anyone imagining you to be a murderer. Though you fight well enough – for an American.’

‘She had good cause, Jean-Paul. I’d just told her how I’d killed two men in LA. And she had every reason to think I’d killed again.’