The Rome Prophecy

52

Late afternoon, and a sombre Louisa Verdetti finds herself in Sylvio Valducci’s office.

He’s tired. His eyes are bloodshot and he needs to keep wiping them with a tissue. Louisa doesn’t care enough to ask if he’s all right. Besides, mentally she’s still at the graveside of her former school friend, a mother of three, who two hours ago was lowered into the earth less than six months after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

The big C. The most feared letter in the alphabet.

They caught it late – far too late – and the tumours had spread all over her body.

‘Have you seen it yet?’

Louisa looks up. ‘I’m sorry. Have I seen what?’

Valducci triumphantly slips the crayoned drawing across his desk. ‘Suzanna’s latest masterpiece. Or should I say Suzie’s.’ He looks like the cat that got the cream. ‘What do you make of it?’

Louisa frowns at it. ‘Where did this come from?’

‘I saw the patient when you were out. I just wanted to personally look in on her, and she was in the middle of drawing this.’

‘You saw her without consulting me?’

He shrugs. ‘It is my right to. I can see any patient I wish.’ He looks at her challengingly, then adds, ‘It may please you to know that she manifested many of the signs you mentioned, including violence.’

Louisa now understands the injuries to his face.

Valducci taps the paper and repeats his question. ‘What do you make of it?’

She looks at it again. ‘Anger?’ She runs a finger along the hard red and orange crayon ridges. ‘She’s pressed so hard here, you can see where the crayon’s snapped and left thick wax.’ She looks up at her boss and realises she strongly resents him interfering in what she regards as her own special case. But it’s more than that. Worse than that. She feels as though her privacy has been invaded, as though he’s violated her by intruding into the intimacy she was building with her patient. She looks down at the picture again. ‘So what did she tell you about this? What is it, a fire of some kind?’

‘Interesting, I didn’t see it as a fire.’ Valducci swivels the paper back. ‘No, she said it was Romans.’

‘Romans? It’s always Romans.’

Valducci can see that she’s distant. ‘Are you all right?’

It’s a strange question.

If a friend had asked her, she’d say no.

She’d most likely open up and discuss the hangover of grief she’s got from the funeral, but she’s not going to mention that to Valducci.

‘I’m fine. Just a little down because of the service this afternoon.’

Valducci jabs a finger in the corner of the drawing. ‘I just realised something. I thought this black mark here was some kind of star, but now you’ve suggested that this is a fire, I can more easily imagine it as a cross, a crucifix, perhaps in a Roman church or temple, with the fire all around it.’

Louisa finally shows interest.

It certainly is a fire.

There’s definitely a religious symbol in there and something else as well. A human shape. ‘Did she say who this figure is? It looks like a man lying down.’

The administrator is feeling inspired. ‘Maybe a statue on top of a tomb. Perhaps she was drawing a fire in a church where a famous saint is buried.’

Louisa remembers the prophetic nature of the story about the murder by the bridge over the Tiber. ‘Have you called the Carabinieri?’

‘No.’ He kicks himself. Had he not been bathing his stinging eyes, he probably would have done. He certainly should have done. It may even have enabled him to completely hijack her case. ‘I wanted to discuss it with you first,’ he lies.

‘I’ll call Morassi, the captain I was with last night.’ She reaches for her handbag and fishes inside for her cell phone.

‘I have an idea,’ announces Valducci, his face filled with childish enthusiasm.

Louisa hooks out her phone and plunges her hand back into the bag to find Valentina’s card. ‘What’s that?’

‘Forget the cops for now. This is strictly clinical. Doctor-patient confidentiality. If it works, it will help both Suzie and your Carabinieri friends.’