The Rome Prophecy

63

Administrator Sylvio Valducci has foreign guests arriving within the next hour. This means he’s more than happy for Louisa Verdetti to meet the Carabinieri on her own. With a little luck they’ll lock her up and throw away the key.

Even before her early-morning call to him, he’d already decided that from now on she could take all the risks with this so-called DID patient, and if things turned out all right then he’d take the credit.

His one brush with the law has given him plenty to talk about at lectures around the globe. If things go pear-shaped, then at least by distancing himself from the action, he’s renewing the possibility of sacking Verdetti.

Louisa knows all this as surely as if Valducci had said it to her face and then mailed her a summary of his words.

He’s a health-care politician. In the job purely for power and bonuses, not because it’s a vocation.

It’s only a five-minute walk from the psychiatric wing of the hospital to ICU, so Louisa arrives long before Tom and Valentina. The young Carabinieri guard who was there last night has been replaced by a surly-looking older one who goes to great lengths to check Louisa’s credentials and have her sign a log book.

It seems the patient – the newly named Anna Fratelli – has had a good night. The stitching done by the trauma team has held firm and the spell of sedation has left her patient stable, conscious and calm. According to the ward sister, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be transferred back to the psychiatric department after she’s been checked by her doctor.

Louisa has just finished being updated when Tom and Valentina fill the doorway of the sister’s office.

‘ Buongiorno. How is she?’ asks the captain.

Louisa holds up a report in her hand. ‘Good, by the sound of it.’ She nods to the sister, who is watching from her desk, and adds, ‘Let me update you outside, and then we can go and see her.’

Valentina’s pleased to be getting on with things. She feared medical complications would mean putting a hold on the interview.

Tom says hello to Louisa as they walk from the sister’s office, and then falls in line behind them.

‘She’s been moved to a room of her own,’ announces the clinician, ‘so we can talk to her in there, but I don’t want her stressed. Best to chat for a little while, give her a break and then you can talk again if it’s really necessary, okay?’

‘That’s fine,’ confirms Valentina.

‘Did you bring the photographs and diaries you spoke of last night?’

‘No. But copies are on their way over to your office. You should have them within the next couple of hours.’

The doctor enters the room first, uncertain of who she’s going to be talking to. Will it be Anna, or one of her many alters?

The patient is asleep in a bed set up at a thirty-degree angle. Her eyes are closed, but begin to flicker open as she responds to the click of the door handle and sounds of people entering her room.

The psychiatrist rolls the dice. ‘ Buongiorno, Anna. Come lei e ?’

‘ Bene.’ Her voice is weak and sleepy. She tries to gather her wits and politely sit up a little.

Louisa lifts a clipboard from the bottom rail of the bed. ‘Do you remember what happened to you yesterday? How you came to be in here?’

Anna looks down at her bandaged arm. ‘I was hiding in my apartment and I cut myself.’ She glances up at the doctor. ‘You know I do that kind of thing.’

There’s shame in her eyes.

‘It makes me feel safe. I just cut too deeply.’ She looks at Valentina and Tom, then back to the doctor. ‘Who are they?’

Louisa reassures her. ‘They’re friends. Valentina Morassi is a Carabinieri captain. You have met her before.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She doesn’t press the issue. ‘The man with her is her friend, Tom. He’s a former priest.’

He steps forward so Anna can see him clearly. ‘Hi, Anna, I’m pleased to meet you.’

She relaxes a little. ‘A priest?’

‘Yes. I was at a parish in Los Angeles for almost a decade.’

Anna looks as though she might cry. ‘I’m very frightened, Father. Do you understand?’

Tom knows better than to correct her. He takes her trembling right hand gently in his big palms and sits on the edge of the bed, facing her. ‘I think so. I saw your apartment last night and the bedroom where you were hiding.’

She grips Tom’s fingers so hard that his skin turns white. ‘Do you think she’ll know I’m talking to you?’ Anna glances nervously towards Valentina and Louisa. ‘That I’m here with all of you?’

‘Who, Anna? Who will know?’

Anna closes her eyes, dips her head and prays. ‘ En ego, o bone et dulcissime Iesu, ante conspectum tuum genibus me provolvo, ac maximo animi ardore te oro atque obtestor, ut meum in cor vividos fidei, spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum poenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere.’

Valentina leans forward and whispers in Tom’s ear. ‘What’s this prayer?’

He keeps focused on Anna’s closed eyes and whispers back. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

Anna’s voice gets louder, almost as though each sentence gives her more strength.

‘ Dum magno animi affectu et dolore tua quinque vulnera mecum ipse considero ac mente contemplor, illud prae oculis habens, quod iam in ore ponebat tuo David propheta de te, o bono Iesu: Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos: dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea. Amen.’

She takes a long breath, then opens her eyes and smiles at Tom. ‘Have you come to save me, to protect me?’

‘We all have,’ says Tom, ‘but you must tell us who we have to protect you from.’

Anna looks surprised. ‘Mother, of course. Our Holy Mother.’

Louisa calls time out. She fears the questioning will trigger the appearance of another alter. Reluctantly, Valentina agrees to adjourn to a staff room down the corridor.

She bites her tongue while the clinician has her say on how and when the interviewing can continue.

‘So what do you suggest?’ Valentina asks impatiently. ‘We leave it another day? Because that’s just not going to happen.’

‘An hour. Or two. Let her feel comfortable and stable in her own state.’

‘I have a major criminal inquiry running. I really can’t make progress if you keep interrupting just as she starts to tell us what or who she’s frightened of.’

‘I know. I understand your situation, but my duty is to protect her mental health.’

‘And mine is to find the person or persons who dumped a body by a river, severed some woman’s hand and is clearly scaring your patient to the point of madness.’

‘I respect that. And while I’ll work with you to help clear up your crimes, I won’t do it at the risk of making a very disturbed patient even more traumatised.’ Louisa turns to Tom. ‘What was the prayer all about? What does it mean?’

‘It’s a plea for help, made straight to Christ.’

‘Aren’t all prayers?’ queries the clinician.

‘No, not at all. Some are to God the Father, some to angels, some to the Holy Ghost. There are different prayers, for different bodies and different purposes.’

‘And this one?’

‘It’s an intense one. One said personally and directly to Jesus at desperate times. When perhaps life is in peril or a big problem is being faced. It’s really a cry for faith to be fortified, and a declaration of repentance and devotion.’ Tom repeats its words in his head, then translates the end of the prayer: ‘With deep affection and grief, I reflect upon Thy five wounds, having before my eyes that which Thy prophet David spoke about Thee, O good Jesus: They have pierced my hands and feet, they have counted all my bones. Amen.’

The two women say nothing.

To Louisa, a proud atheist, the words are meaningless, while Valentina’s police training inevitably directs her beyond the elements of devotion, supplication and sacrifice and instead focuses on the key words pierced hands, five wounds and bones.

‘Strictly speaking,’ continues Tom, thoughtfully, ‘this should be said kneeling down in front of a crucifix. The prayer begins, “Behold, O good and most sweet Jesus, I fall upon my knees before Thee…” I guess if she hadn’t been so weak after the sedation and surgery, she’d have got out of bed and knelt.’

Valentina shakes her head. ‘It’s not that. Remember her apartment? All the crucifixes were on the ceiling, not the walls.’ She realises the full implication of her own thoughts and adds speculatively, ‘I think this is something that she would recite over and over in bed. I can easily imagine her lying there every night in the dark in that freaky bible bed, looking up at the shadows of the hanging rosary beads and repeating this until she eventually falls asleep.’

Louisa’s still playing catch-up. ‘She was hoping this prayer would keep her safe throughout her sleep?’

‘She was banking on it,’ answers Tom. ‘But safe from what? The Virgin Mary? That just doesn’t make sense.’

‘In my experience, DID patients often don’t.’

‘She didn’t say Virgin Mary,’ observes Valentina. ‘She said Holy Mother. Is there a difference?’

Tom has to think. ‘Theologically – and pedantically – maybe. Mary was a virgin before she was chosen by God to carry Jesus. At this point she would not have been a mother.’

Louisa interrupts them. ‘I think you’re chasing down the wrong alleyway, or should I say church aisle.’

They look to her to elaborate.

‘I think she meant holy in a sarcastic way. As in her own mother – a mother so holy she’s always right and never does any wrong.’

Valentina sees her point. ‘Could be. You’re thinking she’s traumatised by parental abuse?’

‘It would fit the pattern for dissociative identity disorder.’

‘How?’

‘Long story. Let me try to explain. Briefly, one day Anna gets abused by her mother.’

‘Physically or sexually?’ asks Valentina.

‘Doesn’t matter. Certainly not for the sake of this example. Anyway, she’s shocked and hurt by the abuse. Mother starts to make the abuse routine; this stresses Anna, who develops a mechanism to cope with it. So next time Mother comes seeking her kicks, Anna dissociates.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She imagines that she’s somewhere else and that whatever horrible thing her mother is doing is not happening to her. It’s happening to some other kid. Someone tough enough to take it.’

Distressing as it sounds, Valentina can see the logic. ‘Go on.’

Louisa does. ‘So, when Mother turns up to routinely abuse Anna, Anna routinely sends out her alter – Anna, a stronger and more detached side of her, to cope with the abuse. The longer this goes on, the more permanent the alter-Anna, probably Little Suzie Fratelli, as we’ve come to know her, becomes.’

‘How do you explain the others?’ asks Tom. ‘Cassandra, the Roman victim; Suzanna Grecoraci, the mother of two children; and Claudia from the Sabines.’

‘Sometimes a second or third abuser – or different levels of abuse – enters the dimension, and therefore a second or third alter is needed. As layers of trauma are added, more layers of alters – protection – are necessary.’

Tom hasn’t bought totally into the theory. ‘I know child abuse is one of the horrors of our modern-day world, but isn’t it usually the father, not the mother, who’s the offender? And isn’t it highly unusual for a mother to sexually abuse her own daughter?’

Valentina interrupts. ‘Yes, but not unheard of. And remember, it can be a stepmother as much as a mother. There’s a famous case in Britain of a serial killer who abused her daughter sexually, physically and psychologically for years. She and the girl’s father even killed her sister and buried her under a patio.’ Louisa becomes practical. ‘As I said earlier, now that we have her real name, we’ll search all the local doctors’ records for any history of physical, mental or sexual abuse.’

‘We’ll do the same,’ counters Valentina. ‘We’ll trace her mother and father and search for criminal records, social reports, anything that suggests incest or sexual assault from neighbours or extended family.’

Tom says nothing. He’s lost in his thoughts. Thoughts that suggest what’s going on could be even more than child abuse.