The Venice Conspiracy (40 page)

‘And no one asked what the signs actually meant because he got caught?’

‘Exactly,’ says Valentina. ‘The FBI are sending some profilers to see him.’

‘Better late than never,’ says Rocco.

Valentina glares at him. She still has a score to settle. And will. In her own time. ‘When Bale was arrested, all manner of Satanic paraphernalia was found in a squat he shared with his disciples, mainly women. There was the
Satanic Bible, the complete works of Aleister Crowley and transcripts of the Black Mass in Latin, French and English.’

‘Not your normal bedtime reading,’ quips Vito.

‘Not at all.’ Valentina passes out a stack of photographs all bearing the crest of the FBI. ‘They also discovered these—’

Vito fans them out. They’re photographs of paintings. ‘Not bad. For a crazy man, he had some talent.’ He shuffles through colour shots of modern art interspersed with charcoal sketches of what look like wizards and deserts. ‘Is this one of those old Etruscan priests we heard about, a netsvis?’ He holds up a print.

‘Maybe,’ says Valentina, ‘though I had him down as Dumbledore or that old guy out of
The Lord of the Rings
whose name I can never remember.’

‘Gandalf,’ says Vito, putting the shot down. ‘So where are you going with all this?’

‘You’re not done,’ says Valentina. ‘Go to the last three prints.’

Vito does as he’s told. The paintings are abstract, almost cubist, very crude, and nothing jumps out straight away.

Valentina smiles. ‘The other way round. Turn them the other way round and lie them side by side.’

Even before Vito does it he knows what he’s going to see.

Through the cubist angles and the fire of red and black oils, familiar figures now leap out at him.

A demon. A priest. Two lovers and their devil child.

1778

Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia

When Tommaso regains conciousness, he finds he’s not the only one to have been beaten and bound.

Tanina and Ermanno are sitting on the floor opposite him, backs against a damp brick wall, a thick black candle burning between them.

The young monk guesses they’re in an old ward of the plague hospital.

A place where thousands
drew their last breath.

Ermanno is motionless.

Dead?

Asleep?

Or just unconscious?

Tommaso is not sure which. The Jew’s face is bloody and bruised, his left eye so swollen that, if he is still alive, it’s unlikely he’ll ever be able to see through it.

Tanina looks petrified. But apart from a face streaked with dirt and tears, she appears unharmed.

Tommaso’s legs hurt, especially around the right knee. His ankles are bound and his hands, like those of the others, are tied behind his back.

Tanina notices that he’s come round. ‘Tommaso, are you all right?’

He understands he’s expected to put a brave face on things. ‘I think so. Are you?’

She nods. ‘Yes. But Ermanno keeps losing consciousness. I’m worried about him.’ Her face creases, and he can see she’s fighting back tears.

The candle on the floor almost blows out. The flame has been rocked by a breeze from a door to the left.

Tommaso doesn’t recognise the man entering the room. But Tanina does.

Lauro Gatusso is no longer wearing the smart trousers, linen shirt and embroidered coat that he wears to greet customers in his shop. He is dressed from head to toe in a black hooded robe, the Satanic vestment known as an alba.

‘Tanina! I see you are surprised.’ He spreads his arms wide, just as he used to when she was a child. ‘This is indeed going to be a day of revelations for you.’ He turns to Tommaso. ‘And for you too, Brother.’ He walks over to Tommaso and peers at him. ‘You have some nasty cuts there. If you
were
going to live, we would have to get them attended to.’

Gatusso says something else but Tommaso doesn’t hear. He’s too intent on piecing together what has happened. No doubt it’s all connected to the Etruscan artefact. He’s sure now of the innocence of Tanina and Ermanno, but Efran’s absence speaks volumes. He must have gone to the monastery on his own, without them knowing, staged the fire and theft, and then sold the artefact to Gatusso.

Loud voices outside the room.

Lydia sweeps in.

She’s wearing the same robes as Gatusso, and a look of triumphalism. She walks over to Tanina. Two hooded
men trail behind her. They’re dragging something.

The dead body of Efran.

They drop the corpse and leave.

Tommaso feels all his solid reasoning start to crack.

Was Efran innocent? Or did they kill him because he’d served his purpose?

Lydia touches her friend’s cheek. ‘Dearest Tanina, do not look so perplexed. Your worthless shop-girl life is finally about to have some meaning.’ She turns to Gatusso.

He places his hand on Tommaso’s shoulder. ‘Brother, meet your sister, Tanina. Children of a truly traitorous bitch – but also the flesh and blood of one of our most revered high priests.’

Present Day

3rd June

San Quentin, California

Three days to go.

Seventy-two hours.

Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes.

Just over a quarter of a million seconds – you count every one of them when your Execution Notice has been issued.

Lars Bale gets moved from the cell he’s known as home for more than a quarter of his life. He’s pushed unceremoniously into the execution unit lock-up, just a wince away from the stab of lethal needles.

Bale won’t miss the tiny cell. He doesn’t even mind the fact that he’s no longer allowed to paint.

His work here is over.

It is time for greater things.

His paintings have been removed, donated at his request to a Death Row charity that will sell them to raise funds to appeal for pardons. He’s even sent
a log of his works to the press and the governor, to ensure guards don’t steal the canvases and sell them to collectors. He’s about to become the most famous artist the world has ever known.

Bale takes stock of his new – and very temporary – home.

A single bunk.
Fixed to the floor
.

Mattress.
Stained
.

Pillow.
New
.

Blanket.
Rough
.

Radio.
Old
.

TV.
Small
.

Pants.
Grey
.

Underwear.
Old and grey
.

Socks.
Faded black
.

Shirts.
White
.

Slippers.
Cosy
.

And one other thing.

A guard.
Sour-faced and permanent
. There outside the bars, like a never-blinking owl, staring in, twenty-four seven. Always watching but never seeing.

If he so much as had a clue what was going on inside Bale’s head, he’d already be pressing the Panic Button.

Three days to go.

Bale sits on the hard bunk and smiles contentedly.

1778

Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia

Tanina and Tommaso can’t make sense of what Gatusso has just told them.

‘Let me explain,’ he says, ignoring the dead body of Efran in the middle of the room. ‘Your father – and his father before him – were leading members of our Satanic brotherhood. He was a trusted guardian of one of the Tablets of Atmanta.’ He grows reflective. ‘Fate had it that, because of a death in the brotherhood, your father took possession of a second tablet – a
most unusual and undesirable practice.’ He walks to Tanina and cradles her chin in the cup of his left hand. ‘Now your sweet mother comes along, and during her cleaning finds both tablets concealed in their bedroom. Women being the inquisitive creatures that they are, she wants to know more about the hidden silver, so she begins listening in to his conversations and piecing things together.’ He lets Tanina’s head drop and walks back to Tommaso. ‘So, the dear deluded woman sees this as a chance to escape the marriage in which she has apparently been unhappy, and promptly disappears with you worthless pair and our sacred tablets.’

Tommaso can’t take his eyes off Tanina. He can see only the vaguest of resemblances between them. Perhaps the eyes. Maybe they both have their mother’s eyes.

Gatusso slaps the monk’s head. ‘Tell your sister what became of you.’

Tommaso winces. ‘My mother –
our
mother – left me with the brothers at San Giorgio. She also left the tablet, which you’ve seen, and a letter.’ His words dry up. The thought of his mother’s message floods his eyes. She’d begged him not to seek out his sister, and he’d ignored her.

Gatusso strikes him again. ‘Get on with it!’

‘She told me I had a sister – an older sister – who’d also been left a tablet.’ He bows his head in shame. ‘And that I should not try to find her – that the tablets should always be kept apart.’

Tanina looks frightened. Her anxiety amuses Gatusso. ‘Poor child. You’ve never seen any tablet or letter left for you. But I have. Two decades ago one of the holy sisters came to me and sold me the silver. How Judas-like. Apparently, a masked courtesan had given the tablet to her, along with a young girl and a certain amount of lire.’ He bends and tenderly touches her cheek. ‘That child was you, my little dove. Unfortunately, your mamma turned to the wrong sister of mercy. The nun she left you with was pregnant herself, and knew the artefact could buy her a new beginning elsewhere.’ He walks away from Tanina, pacing as he enjoys the completion of the story. ‘She was right. I paid her handsomely –
very
handsomely – and I also agreed to take the child. Now why – why, oh why, would I take you in?’ He looks to Lydia with amusement.

‘Because –
clever
Gatusso – you had read the letter.’ Lydia waves it in her friend’s face. ‘And you knew her mamma had left another baby and another tablet. It was inevitable that one day the missing brother would seek out the missing sister.’ Lydia looks to Tommaso. ‘I did so enjoy our little chat at my house – so sweet of you to confide in me.’

The young priest feels an alien surge of anger within him. To think he’d
been taken in by all Lydia’s talk about sending out servants to search the convents.

Gatusso claps.
‘Bravissimo!
’ He turns back to Tommaso. ‘So, here we all are. It took a little longer than I expected. But here we are, nonetheless. You’d be surprised how many monasteries there are in this part of the world, and how difficult it is to get monks to talk.’ He laughs. ‘Of course, vows of silence don’t make them natural storytellers! No matter – we are all united, and the three tablets are back in our possession.’ He moves close to Tommaso. Bends so their eyes are on the same level. ‘Yes, Brother, I said
three
. For in addition to the one I took from your sister and the one we stole from the abbey, my own family has guarded the other for centuries.’ He reaches into a pocket inside his cloak and produces the first tablet – polished silver, inscribed with the horned demon. Gatusso holds it lovingly, the dull grey glow reflecting in his pupils. ‘Now, our lord – the one
true
lord – can be properly honoured. Bringing these tablets together – consecrating them in a ceremony of blood and sacrifice – gives us enormous powers. Powers for our deeds to go unchecked. And
you
– you and your sister over there –
you
will be our blood and our sacrifice.’

Present Day

Carabinieri HQ

Alfredo Giordano looks nothing like Vito expected. He’d imagined a small monk-like man, perhaps with a balding head and a learned face interrupted by wire-framed glasses. Alfredo is a good six-footer, as broad as a rugby player, with a full head of sandy-coloured hair.

It takes Alfie more than an hour to explain his repeated searches in the secret archives on behalf of Tom. ‘I didn’t have time to tell you on the phone, but the stories of the Tablets of Atmanta span centuries. The Catholic Church has linked them with some of the worst losses of life the world has ever known.’ He sips on an espresso Valentina has brought him. ‘They were said to have first been used to cause an underground mine explosion
in Atmanta that wiped out noblemen from all over Italy – the world’s first recorded case of mass murder. Then they were linked to many events: the eruption of Vesuvius in
AD
79, China’s deadliest ever earthquake in the mid 1500s, the sinking of the
Titanic
, floods in Holland that killed more than a hundred thousand people, cyclones in Pakistan, the Chernobyl meltdown in Russia, the 9/11 attack, and even the latest tsunami in Asia.’

‘In fact, almost everything that is monumentally bad,’ concludes Vito.

Alfie nods. ‘It is convenient to blame the tablets. Evil is everywhere, the tablets have just come to symbolise it.’

‘You call them the
tablets
,’ notes Valentina, ‘not the
Gates of Hell
, or whatever. Why’s that?’

‘They didn’t get their alternative names until much later in their existence, probably in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, so it’s factually more appropriate to call them the Tablets of Atmanta.’

‘Father, do you think Satanists would kill for possession of them?’

Alfie answers instantly. ‘Major, there are sections of the Church that would kill for them.’

‘We’ve had
several
deaths here,’ confides Valentina, glancing at Vito to make sure it’s okay to continue, ‘including that of a fifteen-year-old girl. Her liver was cut out. Can you see that being linked in any way to the artefact?’

Alfie looks pensive. ‘Perhaps. Tetia, the wife of Teucer, was only a teenager, probably around fifteen – when she gave birth to their baby. This is the child Satanists believe is the son of Lucifer. Sacrificing a girl of about the same age would have a ritualistic significance.’

‘And the liver?’ presses Vito.

‘Tetia was said to have cut the liver from the man who raped her, so cutting out the liver of someone they’ve selected to symbolically represent Tetia would, in the mind of Satanists, restore a spiritual balance and signify just revenge.’