Shout in the Dark (33 page)

The two journalists, Bruno and Riccardo,
made him feel uneasy. Their working relationship seemed to go
considerably deeper than two men helping each other with a
newspaper story. He pulled on his jeans and noticed just how flat
his stomach was. The daily workouts in the seminary gym for three
years had got him into good trim. Just as well, if there was to be
a fight.

Laura!

Laura was the answer. How stupid he'd been
not to have tried to contact her again last night. Laura was the
one person he could count on to give good advice.

When he tried Laura's phone it was
answered by a recorded message. Possibly she was still in bed. He
poured a second glass of orange juice -- a rare lapse into
self-indulgence -- and wondered whether to phone Father Josef this
early.

At seven-thirty the machine was still
answering Laura's telephone.

"
Laura, Laura, where are you?"

She might have gone round to Riccardo's
for the night. For company or for safety. Well, it was no business
of his. He tried to push the thought of Laura and Riccardo in bed
together from his mind.

A
scream in the large hallway startled him. From the landing
outside his apartment door he had a clear view over the ornate iron
banister rail that ran down to the entrance hall in a sweeping
circle. A woman was screaming on one of the landings. Residents
from each apartment flung their doors open and hurried out to
discover the source of the piercing sound.

He recognized the woman responsible for
all the noise as Lina, the
donna di servizio
, the cleaner who came twice a week and had once
caused such mayhem with the study papers that his friends barred
her from the student apartment. He ran down. The source of the
screams seemed to lie in the first floor apartment, the home of
Signora Silvini.

"
She was such a good woman," Lina was sobbing. "She kept
herself to herself and was so particular about not letting
strangers in."

Marco pushed his way past the wailing
cleaner. His services as a priest seemed likely to be needed. But
the body was very much alive, sitting in a chair with blood and
bruising covering her face.

"
A doctor," Marco shouted at Lina. "Have you sent for a
doctor?"

"
Si, si
,
the doctor is coming."

Signora Silvini seemed to be more
frightened than injured. When she saw Marco she tried to get up.
"Father Marco, he was trying to get upstairs to find
you."

"
Who was?"

"
A German I think. A lout, a
zoticone
. A nasty young man with his hair shaved off. He
came last night and said he must talk to you. I would not let him
in." Signora Silvini was proud of her duties as
custode
. It was almost impossible to come and go
without her knowing. Everyone said it was her way of keeping in
touch with the affairs of the residents.

The
donna di servizio
pushed Marco to one side, demonstrating
considerable strength in her stout arms, and announced firmly, "The
doctor, he is coming soon, Signora Silvini. You must keep
still."

Neighbors crowded round the doorway,
though none seemed inclined to enter the apartment. "When did he do
this to you, signora?" Marco tried to keep a safe distance between
himself and the arms of the muscular Lina. "You haven't been like
this all night have you?"

"
No, Father Marco. The young German went away last night,
when the
carabinieri
officer called to see his fancy woman in the house
opposite. He came back this morning very early. I thought it was
the
postino
." She
began to cry again. The defensive
donna
moved to stand between Marco and her employer.

"
And where is he now?" Marco asked.

Signora Silvini let out another deep sob,
almost a laugh. "He told me to show him your room. He said that he
would kill me if I refused." Signora Silvini sobbed, putting her
hands to her face but gasping at the pain as she touched the
bruised and raw skin. "You can be sure I didn't tell him. He was an
evil bastard, Father Marco. An evil bastard."

Lina came forward to intervene but Signora
Silvini waved her away. "I keep a small pistol by my door," she
said quietly. "My father brought it back from the war. It doesn't
work, but the
zoticone
didn't
know that. He ran away like a frightened cat when I managed to get
hold of it."

Marco stood aside as the inquisitive
neighbors stopped talking long enough to usher the doctor into the
room. They seemed pleased that there was some action at last. The
neighbors moved to let Marco leave, before closing back around the
doorway to continue their noisy chatter.

The situation had become serious. Until
now the neo-Nazis were little more than an intriguing diversion,
but in reality they had brought violence and a threat of death.
Father Josef had warned that the investigation could prove
dangerous. He must take a chance and have a long heart-to-heart
with the ex-Nazi priest. He phoned the building in the Piazza di
Santa Maria Maggiore.

Father Josef ordered him to speak to no
one, not even the
carabinieri
, and
come straight over with the report. Marco put the telephone down
and packed a bag with spare clothing and a few personal
possessions. He'd be foolish to remain in the apartment for another
night.

The best way to the bus stop would be past
the shops. He did not intend to meet the large skinhead in some
lonely
vicolo
. Keeping
an eye open for a tail was easy enough. Remembering a scene from a
thriller he'd watched on television only last month with his
seminary flat-mates, he dodged into the local food store and out
through the rear entrance to the street market.

By the time he jumped on the bus for the
Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore, he knew that only an expert team of
shadows would still be with him. Even so, he snatched the
opportunity to change buses at the next stop and was relieved to
see that no one else left his bus when he did.

Chapter
28

Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore

"
WOULD YOU LIKE a coffee?" Father Josef seemed to be
delaying Marco his opportunity to tell his story.

Marco nodded. "As strong as you can make
it. I'm sorry to be direct, but you have to tell me exactly what's
going on." He watched the black coffee being poured into the small
white cup with great precision by steady hands.

The old priest replaced the heavy pot on
the ornate silver tray. "There are some who see a belief in the
devil as an outdated superstition. They obviously have not
witnessed the evil I have seen in life. Sometimes when I look
around the world I think it is easier to believe in the devil than
it is to believe in God. What do you say, Marco? If you believe in
one you have to believe in the other. We cannot expect to find
light in the world, without finding darkness in the
corners."

Marco detected a hard experience behind
Father Josef's philosophy. In Nazi Germany this man must have
encountered some appalling atrocities. "I had no dealings with the
powers of darkness -- until I met you, Father Josef."

"
I know your background, your conversion. Were not the
powers of darkness there when your Anna was killed? Believe me,
Marco, I need you in this work. If I fear evil you must fear it
too, but you must remember we have a power that is greater. The
power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The devil and his
demons flee from that power."

The coffee tasted reassuringly strong.
Father Josef seemed to be acting deliberately vaguely. "You'd
better read this." Marco pushed his report across the table. "I
went to Monte Sisto yesterday with Laura Rossetti. That's when we
found the body."

"
I saw it on the news."

"
The man was burned to death in a German station wagon.
Riccardo Fermi was there. He said if we reported it, Laura could be
in danger from local partisans. I nearly didn't do anything. I was
thinking of her safety." Here in the shelter of this huge building
in the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore his fears sounded
foolish.

Father Josef stared silently through the
large window.
"You like
Laura Rossetti?"

"
Of course!" He immediately regretted sounding so
positive.

Father Josef became silent, deep in
thought.

At last he said, "I certainly did not
expect such an immediate rapport. Dear me, you were married once. I
hope you are managing to abstain from thoughts of a sexual
relationship."

"
It's difficult," Marco admitted.

Father Josef raised a finger. "It would be
foolish to pretend these desires do not exist. It has frequently
been a battle for me too." He picked up the folder, looking
embarrassed. "Come, let me read your report."

KARL
BRETZ was getting increasingly frightened, as well as angry
with himself. Some bastard had killed Otto at Monte Sisto. Herr
Kessel had been knocked out by the news, and insisted on going out
last night to rent a car, so that they could get away from Rome
quickly if they had to.

He and Herr Kessel had produced their
driving licenses at the rental agency, where Herr Kessel put his
card on the counter -- the card for emergencies the Gypsy children
had missed. There was just enough on it to pay for a small red
Fiat, and cover the security deposit.

"
The sooner I get the replacement for my main card, the
better," Herr Kessel had muttered, just loudly enough for Karl to
hear. Karl remembered grinning to himself.

When it was nearly midnight he had driven
alone to the priest's apartment block. He'd managed to identify the
priest's window, but the
carabinieri
car turned up, making him hurry away. He seemed to be
behaving like a little school kid, frightened of everyone. He'd
never acted like this before. Had Otto Bayer's death really
affected him this much? Very early this morning he had returned to
complete the job with the priest.

He kept thinking about the old witch with
the handgun. The woman in the apartment block had been too
inquisitive. The main bell seemed to ring in her room, for it was
the old troll who had thrown open her window last night, and it was
the same old troll who had come to the door this morning. He cursed
the way the woman had withheld the information he needed. And why
was an old hag allowed to have a gun? Well, she would be too
ashamed of her damaged face to poke it out of the window again.
What a coward he'd been to have turned and run away from a woman.
What was he, Karl the
Kindergarten
kid?

Unfortunately the priest would be alerted to
his presence now, for it had definitely been Sartini calling down
from the window last night. But priests were stupid people and this
one would make an easy target. His only fear now was that Herr
Kessel would find out about his attack on the old woman.

"
Bring the car round to the front of the hotel, young man.
We're going to the Colosseum."

Herr Kessel's sudden command made him
jump. He got up slowly. "It's too early to meet your phone
contact," he protested.

"
I want to be early, Karl. And you're going up first. It
could be a trap."

BRUNO LOOKED AT his watch. It was a little
after nine and the Colosseum had only just opened to
visitors.
A rough patch
of shrubs and grass separated the Via Celio Vibenna from the
Colosseum, a huge oval nearly two hundred yards by one hundred and
fifty, its ancient walls towering over the surrounding parks and
streets. From their hiding place close to the Arch of Constantine,
he and Laura and Riccardo watched a red Fiat city car being parked
in a disabled space close to the entrance. They had been expecting
the two Germans to arrive on foot, but the young skinhead was
driving this car, with Enzo sitting tensely in the passenger
seat.

Laura was in a state of confusion. She had
clearly been sickened by the sight of Otto's charred body tied to
the warped steering wheel yesterday, and today she said she was
overwhelmed by the enormity of what they were taking on.

"
Let's stop," she begged. "Haven't we done
enough?"

Bruno also wondered whether to shout stop,
to put off the killing of this unloved member of his family.
Killing Otto Bayer had meant nothing because there was no blood tie
there. The television broadcast showing the discovery of Otto's
body in the barn would have terrified his half-brother Enzo and the
young skinhead. They'd spend the rest of lives knowing someone was
out to kill them. Always looking over their shoulders. Perhaps a
life of anxiety would be a sort of justice.

If only his half-brother had stayed as
Enzo Bastiani; if only he had not become obsessed with his German
father. But by using the name of the Sturmbannführer, Enzo had
chosen to become the new Manfred Kessel, a man without a spark of
humanity. A hated man. Eighteen years ago Enzo and this skinhead's
father had murdered Laura's father.