The Venice Conspiracy (29 page)

CHAPTER 57

Present Day
Carabinieri HQ

‘There’s no trace of Shaman.’ Valentina sounds worried. ‘I’ve called his hotel - they say he left soon after I phoned him last night and he hasn’t been seen since.’

‘When did you call him?’ Vito glances to the clock on his wall.

‘About nine-thirty - we were still here, working late.’

Vito turns to Rocco. ‘Pull his cellphone records and see if he called anyone after that time.’ He glances towards Valentina. ‘Best have someone check restaurants, bars and hospitals to see if he got drunk, hurt or sick. Give his description to the foot and boat patrols.’

‘Lieutenant Totti is already working his phone records,’ says Valentina. ‘She was happy to help out.’

‘Fine,’ says Vito distantly. Suddenly the unthinkable has occurred to him. ‘We need to get forensics round to Tom’s hotel room. See if they can find some hair on his pillows, towels, robes, anything like that.’

The remark shocks Valentina. ‘DNA? You want his DNA?’

Vito frowns. He knows she likes the ex-priest, maybe even sees him as a substitute for her cousin. ‘Just a precaution, Valentina. Best to do the legwork now.’

The penny drops. ‘The blood at the basilica yesterday - you think it was his.’

Vito plays it down. ‘I don’t think anything of the sort. I just want to be prepared.’

‘It could be,’ says Rocco. ‘Satanists would get pretty excited by smearing a priest’s blood in St Mark’s.’

Valentina shoots him a withering look. She’s still not forgiven him for letting her take the rap over the missed fingerprints at the hippy mansion, and his latest crack isn’t winning her over. ‘When I last spoke to Tom he started to tell me something about a serial killer in California who used his victims’ blood to write messages in churches. He was going to come in and tell us about it today.’

‘Charles Manson?’ queries Vito.

She shakes her head. ‘No, no. It was someone I’d never heard of . . . Yale? Or was it Cale? A name like that.’ She scratches her head while dredging her memory. ‘Bale! That’s it, I’m sure it was Bale - Lars Bale. Tom said he’d met him more than a decade ago at San Quentin.’

The major looks to Rocco. ‘Call the FBI, have them go through VICAP and send us anything that might be useful. Ring LAPD and see what they know about Bale. Find out where he is now, and the whereabouts of any known associates.’

Valentina waits for him to catch his breath. ‘Tom said Bale had a teardrop tattooed under his left eye. It reminded him of the one Mera Teale has.’

‘Mario Fabianelli’s PA?’ Vito remembers her arms looking like a comic-book spread. ‘She’s American too.’

‘Si.’

Rocco nods. ‘Yeah, I know: check her too.’

‘Mera Teale is not very old,’ Valentina adds reflectively. ‘Mid-twenties, no more. If she were connected to Bale ten or twelve years ago, then she would have been very young, maybe even pre-teen.’

‘I don’t care,’ says Vito. ‘They’re connected by these tattoos, and maybe much more. Let’s dig and dig.’

On a flipchart in the corner of his room is a red felt-tip drawing of the rectangular symbol found in the basilica. Vito’s eyes are not so much focused on the shape as the number six hanging from the bottom of it. As Valentina said yesterday, numbers are for counting, so chances are the blood message is a countdown.

But to what?

And what units is the writer working in? Six months - six weeks - six days - six hours?

He has to work this out, and work it out quickly.

The one thing he’s sure of is that someone’s life depends on it.

CAPITOLO LIV

1778
Sestiere di Dorsoduro, Venezia

Ermanno, Efran, Tanina and Tommaso watch their breath freeze in front of their faces in the thin night air as they wait for a carriage. Tommaso looks particularly cold, though Tanina suspects he’s shaking as much through fear as the chill of the evening. She’s relieved her friend is coming with them. Though she wishes Lydia wouldn’t treat their predicament with the casual air of adventure she personally would have reserved for a short holiday in Rome.

The meal of soup, fresh fish and lamb has buoyed their spirits, and the rich red and white wines have dulled the aching anxiety in their heads.

The carriage Lydia ordered arrives and takes them quickly to a mooring at L’Accademia. The building, completed only a few years earlier, stands softly illuminated, and shadowy shapes can be seen floating among the fine art.

The streets are crammed with crocodiles of courtesans, flirting and mingling with masked party-goers. Efran rubs his hands together and blows out. ‘God, it’s cold. I can’t wait for spring to come.’

Ermanno slaps his shoulder. ‘Let’s hope we all live to see it.’

Lydia is some distance in front of them, a long way down a pontoon bridge, heading towards a boat moored near racks of gondolas.

Tommaso stays close to Tanina. He still feels distrustful of the men, and wonders whether he should just slip away, find his boat and, under the cover of darkness, set off for a new life somewhere.

Ermanno catches them up and takes Tanina’s arm. ‘You told me Lydia said we would be safe at her house? If so, why are we running like dogs?’

She’s annoyed by his comments. ‘You are so unreasonable! Lydia has taken enormous risks on our behalf. It is not fair to expect her to harbour us.’ She leans closer to him, so Tommaso does not hear: ‘This is all your fault. We are paying the price of your obsession with that stupid silver tablet.’

Ermanno thinks about lecturing her on how valuable it could be, how it could have helped secure their futures, but decides that will only inflame matters.

They reach the boat and Lydia stretches out her hand for Tanina. ‘Be careful getting down, there is quite a gap here.’

Tommaso notices there are two oarsmen - fore and aft. A little unnecessary, but no doubt that’s the sort of thing privileged women like Lydia are accustomed to. In keeping with Carnevale
,
they are cloaked and wearing full masks. Tommaso imagines that, given the cutting wind across the lagoon, they will soon be grateful for the cover.

No one really speaks as they head out into the blackness of the lagoon. Tanina squeezes as close to Ermanno as she possibly can to keep warm and Lydia unashamedly does the same with Efran. Tommaso wonders about her morals. Life seems simply a game to her - an opportunity to seek out new pleasures and liaisons.

Was his mother the same?

The thought shocks him.

He supposes she must have been. An unmarried courtesan who took whatever comforts she could, whenever she could, with whomever she could.

Small lamps on navigation posts help Tommaso recognise the route the boat is taking. Eastwards out of the Canal Grande, across the choppy confluence of Canale della Giudecca and Canale di San Marco, then south down the Canale della Grazie, skirting the west side of Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore. Bitter-sweet memories of morning mass, Martins and Lauds come flooding back to him. He feels guilty as he looks away from the basilica and the monastery, the places where he spent much of his life - places he can never again set foot.

A mile further south they come to the point where Tommaso, one misty morning, saw a strange man dumping sacks overboard. Both Tanina and Lydia are visibly chilled now, their teeth chattering, the men next to them rubbing their shoulders to try to spark some warmth.

The moon is smoked by slivers of grey cloud. Black fingers of wintered trees stretch skyward from what he guesses must be an island not far away.

The place the strange man came from?

The boat noses its way towards land. A rugged shore seldom spoken of.

Lazzaretto Vecchio -

- Plague Island.

CHAPTER 58

Present Day
Carabinieri HQ

Lieutenant Francesca Totti finally hits pay dirt while going through Tom Shaman’s cellphone records. Most of the calls are to numbers she already knows - Vito and Valentina’s extensions at Carabinieri headquarters - but one other person on Tom’s list proves so important she keeps him hanging on while she dials in the major on a conference extension.

Vito creaks back in his office chair and puts it on speakerphone while Valentina and Rocco hurriedly gather around his cluttered desk so they can listen.

Francesca does the introductions, ‘Major, this is Alfredo Giordano, he’s a senior librarian at the Vatican’s Holy See. Father Giordano, Major Vito Carvalho and my colleagues lieutenants Valentina Morassi and Rocco Baldoni are now also on the call.’

Alfie clears his throat and sounds slightly nervous. ‘Hello. I guess I should repeat some of the things I just told Lieutenant Totti.’ He coughs again and gets his nerves under control. ‘I, err . . . I’ve known Father Shaman - Tom, I mean, it’s hard not to still think of him as a priest - for about ten years. Tom is a good man, a very good man and a personal friend. When he told me about your case, only little parts of it, I felt that I had to help.’

‘How exactly were you helping him, Father?’ asks Vito.

‘Tom asked me to search the Vatican Library for information on the Tablets of Atmanta. You know about the artefact? Did he mention this to you?’

Vito looks to Valentina, who seems surprised and shakes her head. ‘No,’ says Vito, ‘he didn’t. What is it?’

‘Three silver tablets that date back to Etruscan times. If you put all three together they form an incredibly valuable piece of art that is about the size of a sheet of A4 paper.’

Valentina finds herself sketching an oblong identical to the rectangular symbol they’ve been finding in Venice.

‘On their own,’ continues Alfredo, ‘each tablet depicts a separate scene, supposedly the vision of a young Etruscan priest. When the tablets are joined together, they make one big scene, originally called the
Gates of Destiny
, though over the years it has also come to be known within the Catholic Church as the Gates of Hell.’

Francesca Totti prompts him: ‘Father, please tell my colleagues what you told me about the importance of the tablets.’

‘
Si
,
si.
’ Alfie’s voice becomes lower and more confidential. ‘The tablets show many snakes - six hundred and sixty-six, to be precise - crawling over each other to form the bars of the gates. There is also an image of a very powerful god guarding them. That deity was not part of the recognised Etruscan pantheon, and this is the only artefact depicting him. I have found documents in the secret archives of the Holy See confirming that this is now recognised by the Catholic Church to be the first recorded image of Satan.’

No one around Vito’s desk says anything - they’re all trying to imagine exactly what the face and body of the demon look like.

‘I’m not sure you quite understand the significance of this,’ Alfie’s tone grows even more serious. ‘This drawing of Satan
predates
any made of Christ. Catholicism wasn’t even a concept back in those days.’

‘Exactly which days are
those
days?’ asks Vito. ‘When are we talking about?’

‘Six hundred years before Christ was born,’ says Alfie. ‘The year 666 BC, to be precise. The Church believes the Tablets of Atmanta are essentially the birth certificate of Satan, a registration of the day he first came to earth in human form, and the reason
why
the number 666 has become so powerful and symbolically evil.’

CHAPTER 59

Venice

Tom would like to try to escape, put up a fight, but he’s been shot so full of sedatives that it’s impossible for him to even move.

His skin feels strangely numb, almost as though it’s humming, a sensation that makes him guess he’s been spiked with something like Propofol or Diprivan.

He’s made enough care visits to hospital wards and palliative clinics to understand he’s going to be physically useless for some time. Weak as a kitten. Maybe even unconscious at times. He’ll also be vulnerable to hypnotism and possibly suffer hallucinations.

He uses what senses he still has to work out where he is. There’s no freshness to the air. If he can pick up anything, it’s a musty feel. His eyes are still burning from the pepper spray and he can’t see. There’s some form of bandage over them, but he can tell they haven’t cleaned his eyelids properly and the pepper has soaked painfully through the pores.

Someone knocks against him, or at least against the stretcher or bed that he’s lying on.

He can hear mumblings a few feet away and knows it will now only be seconds before he slips into a world of sleep.

A blessing.

Given the agenda of whoever has kidnapped him, sleep seems a merciful manner of restraint.

Unless.

In the remaining seconds of consciousness, Tom’s mind spins out a thousand reasons why someone would want to sedate him.

To prevent him escaping.

To ensure he doesn’t make noises or attack them.

To abuse him.

To kill him.

Sacrifice him.

Perhaps whoever has abducted him is planning to cut out his liver and pin it to some famous Venetian altar.

Thoughts to drive you crazy. Thank God for the sedative.

Tom considers all the options, as calmly as a kid with a box of chocolates, torn between picking a nougat or caramel cream.

The voices around him grow fuzzy. He can no longer discern male from female, let alone figure out who’s in charge and what they might have in mind.

Blackness reaches out and pulls him into its sticky depths. Tom’s last fleeting hope is that it’s not going to be for ever. They still need him alive. For now.

CHAPTER 60

The Vatican, Rome

With every passing minute, Alfredo Giordano grows increasingly nervous about talking on the phone to the Carabinieri. Bent over the receiver, in an office closed for renovation, he speaks in a hushed and fearful voice.

Valentina and Rocco scribble notes while Vito continues to ask questions. ‘Are there any special markings or symbols on the tablets, Father?’

Alfie answers with one eye permanently on the closed door, stopping whenever he hears a noise outside - feet in the corridor; footsteps coming his way; a door opening and banging shut. Each time he falls silent until he feels safe to continue. ‘There are many interpretations - some Vatican scholars see the drawings as representative of priests who turn away from the church because of their own doubts. Satanists see them as signifying the fall of Catholicism . . .’

Valentina and Rocco scribble notes as Alfie tells them everything he’s learned. ‘The final tablet, the one on the far right of the artefact, shows Teucer and Tetia lying dead together with a newborn baby beside them. Again, this image is open to interpretation. Death in childbirth was, of course, very common and sceptics say the scene simply reflects that fact and represents a sad ending to the story of a young family struggling in ancient times.’ More movements in the corridor make Alfie stop again. He covers the receiver so no noise spills out, and waits until the sound of people walking and closing doors recedes. ‘However, there are documents in the secret archive that describe how Satan demonically possessed the body of a man who raped Tetia, the priest’s wife. If you believe that, then the child in the last tablet is the son of Satan.’ There’s silence at the other end of the line and Alfie can tell they’re struggling to understand the full breadth of what he’s telling them. ‘The theological notion is that Satan has spread evil into the DNA of future generations of Man, infecting the gene pool in perpetuity. The Catholic Church has for centuries studied rape and some scholars strongly believed that rapists sowed the seed of Satan.’

Valentina can’t help but interrupt. ‘So female rape victims are to be branded as the mothers of Satan’s children?’ She can hardly hide her anger. ‘Father, you have no idea how a raped woman feels - and how much worse they would feel if this nonsense ever got listened to. It’s ridiculous—’

‘Valentina!’ Vito glares at her. ‘Father, please continue.’

‘Signorina, I agree,’ says Alfie. ‘I am only telling you what
some
in the Church believed. Remember there was a time when you could have been tortured to death for following any religion other than Catholicism. We are an august body,’ he adds sarcastically, ‘well used to persecuting women, preventing them taking holy orders and even falsely labelling them as witches, then drowning them to prove their innocence. ’

He lets these points of mitigation sink in. ‘So: that leaves the first tablet - the one that shows a horned demon believed to be Satan in front of the gate of serpents. This piece is said to be the most important of the trio. When it is placed in its original position on the left of the trinity, it establishes Satan - not God - as the creator of all things. Thus when we pass through the gates of this life into the next, it is Satan we will have to face. The tablets also suggest that it is Satan who created man and woman and gave everyone free will to indulge themselves - not God. The middle tablet is interpreted as recognising that some people started believing in false gods - hence the netsvis impaled upon the staff of doubts. Then the final piece shows Satan’s wrath. He was so angered that he sent his own spirit to earth to take human form and punish the priest by raping and impregnating his wife.’

Vito Carvalho blows out a long breath. It’s heavy stuff. Certainly the kind of religious psychobabble that the impressionable and evil would follow. ‘Father, do you know the whereabouts of all, or any, of the tablets?’

‘No,’ says Alfie. ‘Over the centuries, the Church has had one or more in its possession, but never all of them. According to the records I can trace - and there may be more in the archives that I have not yet found - Satanists have managed to unite all three, but not for long.’

‘And what happens when the three are united?’ asks Valentina. ‘Some kind of Satanic festival?’

Now it’s Alfie’s turn to blow out a long breath. ‘You know how the Church is always asked
why
, if there is a God, does he allow terrible things like earthquakes, floods and diseases to happen? And you know
how,
when world leaders talk of terrorists blowing up innocent civilians they always say that evil people only have to get lucky once, while we have to get lucky every day? Well, there are those in the Church who believe that when the Tablets of Atmanta, or the Gates of Hell, as they are more appropriately known, are brought together they create that window of opportunity for the devil. The combined artefact opens a space in time during which God is powerless and the darkest of all deeds cannot be stopped.’

‘A window of opportunity for the devil?’ repeats Valentina incredulously.

‘Quite.’

Vito almost daren’t ask the next question. ‘Father, we have found a symbol drawn in blood on altars in Venice.’

‘Three divisions of an oblong?’

‘Exactly.’

‘The rectangle is a symbol of the tablets, the sign of the conspirators of Satan. They have their roots in the north of Italy, back in the times of Teucer and Tetia, long before the first settlements were established in the marshes that became Venice.’

Vito, Valentina and Rocco all exchange knowing looks. ‘Beneath the last symbol there was a number,’ continues Vito. ‘Would that have a significance?’

‘A six. I presume it is a six?’

‘It is.’

The doors to the tiny office where Alfie is calling from burst open. Two Vatican guards, in full uniform, are facing him.

‘Six days,’ says Alfie, before they rip the phone from his hands. ‘You have six days before they make their last and most significant sacrifice, then the gates of hell will be unlocked and we’ll be powerless against the evil that’s let loose.’