The Fallen Angel (45 page)

‘Not from the back of my Vespa. And then Baffetto. Pizza.’

‘Pizza?’

‘The best there is, or so they say.’

She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, slowly, gently, amused by the clumsiness of his response.

‘You’re worse at this than I am,’ she told him. ‘Why is that?’

‘Lack of practice,’ Costa replied with a shrug. He dangled the helmet once more. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Not yet.’

She jumped off the wall and strode to the church, the bouquet in her hand. Costa followed, watched in silence as she bowed and made the sign of the cross. Agata Graziano walked to the altar
where Beatrice Cenci’s shattered corpse had once been interred and gently placed his roses, lilies and gardenias alongside the mass of colourful blooms laid there earlier.

Then she knelt in silence, her hands in prayer. He watched, unable to respond, to think, to envisage any way to touch this part of her.

In a minute or two they were outside again, struggling to put on their helmets, laughing, happy, carefree, if only for a little while.

The Vespa started first time. He knew this little machine now. Slowly they rode to the summit of the Gianicolo hill then wound their way down to the city below.

Most of this story is invention. But not Beatrice Cenci, who was executed in Rome on 11 September 1599, by the Ponte Sant’Angelo, in front of a distraught crowd of
citizens praying for her reprieve. Visitors to Rome can follow the Cenci trail outlined by Mina Gabriel, from the portrait by Guido Reni in the Barberini, to the bridge, her supposed resting place
of Montorio, and the artefacts, including the executioner’s sword which is said to have taken her life, in the Museo Criminologico in the Via del Gonfalone. The Beatrice legend is still a
matter of some debate among those who follow such stories. Many believe the Shelley version, which portrays her as a young innocent fighting for her own rights and dignity. Others tend to side with
the the real-life nineteenth-century historian Antonio Bertoletti who discovered that, whatever the provocation, the girl was not as young or as blameless as many have since assumed. Nevertheless
her death is still marked in Rome by a small number of faithful followers, who do indeed hold a mass in the Cenci church near the former family palace.

I’ve taken the liberty of including three actual restaurants in the Roman ghetto in these pages – Sora Margherita, Al Pompiere and Da Baffetto – for no other reason than
personal pleasure. They are among my favourites in the city. The story of St Peter and his conflict with the magician Simon Magus is, as the narrative says, taken from the apocryphal Acts of Peter.
The church of Santa Francesca Romana is real, and a delightful diversion near the Roman Forum. The supposed marks left by Peter’s knees when he brought the magician crashing to earth can be
found in the wall at the right of the nave, protected by an iron grating.

Galileo’s murmured words to the Inquisition – ‘and yet it moves’ – are equally apocryphal, though believed by many. The Brotherhood of the Owls and the Palazzetto
Santacroce are entirely fictional and bear no relation to the real-life Accademia dei Lincei – the Academy of the Lynx-Eyed – which was formed to support Galileo’s pursuit of
science in 1603. The organization was suppressed by Mussolini but resurrected after the Second World War and now proudly styles itself as the oldest scientific organization in the world.

David Hewson

Also by David Hewson

Nic Costa series

A SEASON FOR THE DEAD

THE VILLA OF MYSTERIES

THE SACRED CUT

THE LIZARD’S BITE

THE SEVENTH SACRAMENT

THE GARDEN OF EVIL

DANTE’S NUMBERS

THE BLUE DEMON

Other titles

THE PROMISED LAND

THE CEMETERY OF SECRETS
(previously published as
Lucifer’s Shadow
)

DEATH IN SEVILLE
(previously published as
Semana Santa
)

First published 2011 by Macmillan

This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-230-75864-3 PDF
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Copyright © David Hewson 2011

The right of David Hewson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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