The Devil Will Come

ONE

Rome, 2000

‘WHAT DOES K want?’ the man asked. He was seated, nervously drumming thick fingers against the wooden arms of a chair.

Although the line had gone dead, the other man still had the phone in his hand. He set it back into its cradle and waited for a city bus to pass under their open window and for its annoying rumble to fade. ‘He wants us to kill her.’

‘So we’ll kill her. We know where she lives. We know where she works.’

‘He wants us to do it tonight.’

The seated man lit a cigarette with a gold lighter. It was inscribed TO ALDO, FROM K. ‘I prefer more planning.’

‘Of course. So do I.’

‘I didn’t hear you objecting.’

‘That wasn’t one of his people. It was K!’

The seated man leaned forward in surprise and exhaled a plume of smoke which floated off and merged with the wafting diesel fumes. ‘He called you himself?’

‘Couldn’t you tell by the way I was speaking?’

The seated man drew on his cigarette so deeply that the smoke penetrated the deepest reaches of his lungs. When he breathed out he said, ‘Then tonight she dies.’

Elisabetta Celestino was shocked at her own tears. When was the last time she’d cried?

The answer came to her in a vinegary rush of memory.

Her mother’s death. At the hospital, at the wake, at the funeral and for days afterwards until she prayed for the tears to stop and they did. Even though she was a young girl at the time, she hated the wet eyes and the streaked cheeks, the awful heaving of the chest, the lack of control over her body and she vowed to banish henceforth this kind of eruption.

But now Elisabetta felt the sting of salty tears in her eyes. She was angry at herself. There was no equivalence between these long-separated events – her mother’s passing and this email she’d received from Professor De Stefano.

Still, she was determined to confront him, change his mind, turn the situation around. In the pantheon of the Università Degli Studi di Roma, De Stefano was a god and she, a lowly graduate student, was a supplicant. But since childhood she’d possessed a gritty determination, often getting her way by peppering her adversary with a fusillade of reason and then launching a few piercing missiles of intellect to win the day. Over the years many had succumbed – friends, teachers, even her genius father once or twice.

As she waited outside De Stefano’s office at the Department of Archeology and Antiquity within the heartless Fascist-style Humanities Building Elisabetta composed herself. It was already dark and unseasonably cold. The boilers weren’t putting out any perceptible heat and she kept her coat on her lap draped over her bare legs. The book-lined corridor of the department was empty, the volumes secure in locked glass-fronted cabinets. The overhead fluorescent lights cast a white stripe on the gray-tiled floor. There was only one open door. It led to the cramped office she shared with three other grad students but she didn’t want to wait there. She wanted De Stefano to see her as soon as he rounded the corner so she sat on one of the hard benches where the students waited for their professors.

He kept her waiting. He was almost never on time. Whether it was his way of demonstrating his position on the totem pole or just scatterbrained time management, she was uncertain. He was nonetheless always appropriately apologetic and when he finally did come rushing in he spouted mea culpas and unlocked his office door hurriedly.

‘Sit, sit,’ he said. ‘I was delayed. My meeting ran over, and the traffic was dreadful.’

‘I understand,’ Elisabetta said smoothly. ‘It was good of you to come back tonight to see me.’

‘Yes, of course. I know you’re upset. It’s difficult, but I think there are important lessons that in the long term will only help your career.’

De Stefano hung up his overcoat and sank into his desk chair.

She had rehearsed the speech in her mind and now the stage was hers. ‘But, Professor, here’s what I’m having great trouble with. You supported my work from the moment I showed you the first photographs of St Callixtus. You came with me to see the subsidence damage, the fallen wall, the first-century brickwork, the symbols on the plaster. You agreed with me that they were unique to the catacombs. You agreed the astrological symbology was unprecedented. You supported my research. You supported publication. You supported further excavation. What happened?’

De Stefano rubbed his bristly crew-cut. ‘Look, Elisabetta, you’ve always known the protocol. The catacombs are under the control of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology. I’m a member of the Commission. All publication drafts have to be cleared by them. Unfortunately, your paper was rejected and your request for funding to mount an excavation was also rejected. But here’s the good news. You’re broadly known now. No one criticized your scholarship. This can only work toward your benefit. All you need is patience.’

She leaned back in her chair and felt her cheeks flushing with anger. ‘Why was it rejected? You haven’t told me why.’

‘I talked to Archbishop Luongo just this afternoon and asked him the same question. He told me the view was that the paper was too speculative and preliminary, that any public disclosure of the findings should await further study and contextual analysis.’

‘Isn’t that an argument for extending the gallery further to the west? I’m convinced, as you are, that the cave-in exposed an early Imperial columbarium. The symbology is singular and indicates a previously unknown sect. I can make tremendous progress with a modest grant.’

‘To the Commission, it’s out of the question. They won’t support a trench beyond the known limits of the catacomb. They’re concerned about larger issues of architectural stability. An excavation could trigger further cave-ins and have a domino effect that could lead back into the heart of St Callixtus. The decision went all the way up to Cardinal Giaccone.’

‘I can do it safely! I’ve consulted with engineers. And besides, it’s pre-Christian! It shouldn’t even be the Vatican’s call.’

‘You’re the last person to be naive about this,’ De Stefano clucked. ‘You know that the entire complex is under the Commission’s jurisdiction.’

‘But, Professor, you’re on the Commission. Where was your voice?’

‘Ah, but I had to recuse myself because I was an author on the paper. I had no voice.’

Elisabetta shook her head sadly. ‘Then that’s it? No chance of appeal?’

De Stefano’s response was to splay his palms regretfully.

‘This was going to be my thesis. Now what? I stopped all my other work and immersed myself in Roman astrology. I’ve devoted over a year to this. The answers to my questions are on the other side of one plaster wall.’

De Stefano took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling himself for something more. When it came out it shocked her. ‘There’s another thing I need to tell you, Elisabetta. I know you’ll find this somewhat destabilizing and I do apologize, but I’m going to be leaving Sapienza, effective immediately. I’ve been offered a rare position at the Commission, the first non-clergy Vice-President in its history. For me, it’s a dream job and, frankly, I’ve had it up to here with all the bull I have to endure at the university. I’ll talk to Professor Rinaldi. I think he’ll make a good adviser. I know he’s got a full plate but I’ll persuade him to take you on. You’ll be fine.’

Elisabetta looked at his guilt-ridden face and decided there was nothing more to say besides a whispered, ‘Jesus Christ.’

An hour later she was still at her desk, hands resting in her lap. She was staring out the black window onto the empty parking lot behind the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, her back to the door.

They crept up in their crepe-soled shoes and came into the office unseen.

They held their breath lest she should hear air escaping from their noses.

One of them reached out.

Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder.

Elisabetta let out a short scream.

‘Hey, beautiful! Did we scare you?’

She wheeled her chair around and didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry at the sight of the two uniformed policemen. ‘Marco! You pig!’

He wasn’t a pig, of course – he was tall and handsome, her Marco.

‘Don’t be mad at me. It was Zazo’s idea.’

Zazo jumped up and down like a little kid, giddy at his success, his leather holster slapping against his thigh. Since she was a toddler he’d delighted in scaring his sister and making her howl. Always scheming, always a prankster, always the motormouth, his boyhood nickname, Zazo – ‘Be quiet, shut up’ – had stuck fast.

‘Thank you, Zazo,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I needed that tonight.’

‘It didn’t go well?’ Marco asked.

‘Disaster,’ Elisabetta muttered. ‘A complete disaster.’

‘You can tell me about it over dinner,’ Marco said.

‘You’re off work?’

‘He is,’ Zazo said. ‘I’m pulling overtime. I don’t have a girlfriend to feed me.’

‘I’d pity her if you did,’ Elisabetta said.

Outside, they braced themselves against the cutting wind. Marco buttoned his civilian greatcoat, concealing his starched blue shirt and white pistol belt. When he was off duty he didn’t want to look like a cop, especially on a university campus. Zazo didn’t care. Their sister Micaela liked to say that he loved being in the Polizia so much that he probably wore his uniform to bed.

Outside, everything moved and flapped in the wind except the immense bronze statue of Minerva, virgin goddess of wisdom, who loomed over her moonlit reflecting pool.

Zazo’s squad car was pulled up to the steps. ‘I can give you a ride.’ He got behind the wheel.

‘We’ll walk,’ Elisabetta said. ‘I want the air.’

‘Suit yourself,’ her brother said. ‘See you at Papa’s on Sunday?’

‘After church,’ she said.

‘Say hello to God for me,’ Zazo said lightly. ‘I’ll be in bed. Ciao.’

Elisabetta double-looped her scarf and headed arm in arm with Marco toward her apartment on the Via Lucca. Ordinarily at nine o’clock the university area would be bustling but the precipitously falling thermometer seemed to catch people unawares and pedestrian traffic was sparse.

Elisabetta’s flat was only ten minutes away, a modest walk-up shared with an orthopedic resident who was often on duty. Marco lived with his parents. As did Zazo, who occupied his childhood room like an oversized kid. Neither of them earned enough to rent their own place, though there was always talk of sharing an apartment after their next round of promotions. Ever since Elisabetta and Marco began seeing each other, if they wanted to hang out it had to be at her place.

‘I’m sorry you had a bad day,’ he said.

‘You don’t know how bad.’

‘Whatever it is, you’ll be fine.’

She snorted at that.

‘You couldn’t change the decision?’

‘No.’

‘Want me to shoot the old goat?’

Elisabetta laughed. ‘Maybe if you just wounded him slightly.’

The traffic signal wasn’t with them but they sprinted across the broad Viale Regina Elena anyway. ‘Where’s Cristina tonight?’ Marco asked when they got to the other side.

‘At the hospital. She’s on a twenty-four-hour shift.’

‘Good. Do you want me to stay over?’

She squeezed his hand. ‘Of course I do.’

‘Do we need to buy anything?’

‘There’s enough to whip something together,’ she said. ‘Let’s just go home.’

Ahead was the student district off the Via Ippocrate. On a warm night it would have been thronging with young people smoking at cafés and browsing the small shops but tonight it was nearly deserted.

There was a short stretch of road that sometimes gave Elisabetta pause when she walked alone late at night, a poorly lit zone flanked by a graffiti-daubed concrete wall on one side and angled parking on the other. But with Marco she was fearless. Nothing bad could happen to her while he was at her side.

There was a telephone booth ahead. A tall man was standing inside. The tip of his cigarette glowed brightly with each drag.

Elisabetta heard footsteps coming fast from behind, then an odd, deep groan from Marco. She felt his hand slip from hers.

The tall man in the phone booth was approaching fast.

All of a sudden a heavy arm enveloped Elisabetta’s upper chest from behind and when she tried to turn it slid around her neck and fixed her in place. The telephone-booth man was almost upon her. He had a knife in his hand.

A shot rang out, so loud that it interrupted the dreamlike quality of the attack.

The arm let go and Elisabetta pivoted to see Marco on the sidewalk struggling to lift his service pistol for another shot. The man who had grabbed her twisted toward Marco. She could see blood oozing from the man’s shoulder onto the back of his camel-hair coat.

Wordlessly, the telephone-booth man rushed past, ignoring Elisabetta for the immediate threat. He and the wounded man fell upon Marco, their arms pounding down like pistons.

She screamed ‘No!’ and went for one of the flailing arms, trying to stop the killing, but the telephone-booth man threw her off, using his knife hand. She felt the blade slash her palm.

They resumed their butchery and this time Elisabetta grabbed blindly at the tall man’s legs, trying to pull him away from Marco’s body. Something gave, but it wasn’t him – it was his trousers, which started to slide down his waist.

He rose and swatted Elisabetta violently across the face with a forearm.

She fell to the sidewalk, aware of blood – Marco’s blood – spreading towards her. She saw the man whom Marco had shot squatting on his haunches, breathing hard under his stained coat.

There were shouts in the distance. Someone called out from a high-rise balcony half a block away.

The telephone-booth man approached and knelt deliberately beside Elisabetta. His stony face was blank. He raised his knife hand over his head.

There was another shout, closer by, someone yelling, ‘Hey!’

The man swung round toward the call.

In the seconds before he turned back to Elisabetta and crashed his fist against her chest, just before she lost consciousness, she noticed a strange, disturbing detail.

She couldn’t be sure – she would never be sure – but she thought she saw something protruding from the man’s back just above his loosened trousers.

It was something that didn’t belong there, something thick, fleshy and repulsive, rising out of a swarm of small black tattoos.