Alfie crosses his two fingers to form a crucifix. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’
They both laugh. ‘Of course the sight of a triangle makes me instantly think of a pentagram, but I guess that’s because of our religious training.’
‘ Pentagrammon, pentagrammos,’ says Alfie, showing off his Greek, ‘Five-lined, five-sided. You can trace those damned things back to Mesopotamian writings three thousand years before the good Lord first wriggled his toes into a pair of sandals.’
‘Pythagoreans called the pentagram Hygieia, after their goddess of health.’
Alfie’s not to be outdone, ‘Aah, but medieval neo-Pythagoreans – whom you could argue were not Pythagoreans at all – claimed the pentagram represented the five classical elements.’ He draws out the points in the air, ‘Four of these represent fire, water, wind and earth and the fifth is the supernatural, the spirit.’
Tom’s had enough of the intellectual jousting. ‘Look, does any of this make sense to you? Can you see the wood for the trees, because I sure as hell can’t.’
Alfie fondly rotates the small espresso cup in his hands. ‘Not really. Symbols always mean secrets. Secrets often mean cults. Cults usually attract crazies.’
Tom doesn’t see where he’s going. ‘So?’
‘You know how coffee drinkers congregate in cafes like this when they want their fix of the really hard stuff, the excellent stuff?’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, it would follow that cults and those who believe that symbols have everyday powers will also gravitate to their own centres in order to experience rituals of excellence.’
‘Temples, you mean?’
‘Exactly. And in Rome, that may even include old temples that have been pulled down.’
‘Triangular pendant wearers worship at the temple of triangular pendants. I guess I find the place under T in the phone book.’
Alfie laughs. ‘T for temple or T for triangle?’
‘This is madness.’ Tom begins to peel the label off a bottle of water on the table. ‘We have to remember that the poor woman at the heart of all this is mentally ill. She has a severe form of multiple personality disorder and doesn’t even know her own name or whether she’s married or has kids.’
Alfie takes the bottle off him and gives him the look a mother might give a naughty child. ‘Maybe your poor woman isn’t totally mad. It’s possible that she’s using her alters to leave clues, to cry out for help. Perhaps she hopes someone like you – or your future wife – will decode them and help her.’
Tom scowls at him. ‘I was going to ask you to have dinner with us; now I think it’s too dangerous to have you around.’
‘ Mea culpa.’
Tom thinks things over. What Alfie is saying makes sense. If Suzanna’s caught up in a cult, she’ll be terrified of talking about it, maybe even uncertain she should betray it. The historic alter personalities and the strange clues all point to a desperate cry for help. He finally takes a slug of the wonderfully bitter espresso. ‘You said temples.’
Alfie nods.
‘I guess there are dozens in Rome. Is there anything like a triangular temple?’
‘I know Rome well, but not that well.’ Alfie slides down from his stool and steps towards the bar. ‘Josep, can we use your computer a minute?’ He nods to a new Apple iPad kept under the owner’s admiring supervision on a counter near the till.
It’s Josep’s pride and joy.
‘ Si, but Father, you be careful, yes?’ He hands it over like he’s being forced to pass a newborn child to a drunken rugby player.
Alfie cradles it and smiles. ‘I’ll treat it like it was your soul.’
Tom’s no technophile, but even he can’t help but be seduced by the iPad’s sleek design. ‘That really is cool. I’ve heard about these but never seen one.’
‘Well, now you get to see – and to touch.’ Alfie shuffles his stool around so they can both access the tablet as he opens up its Safari browser. He taps in the keywords: Temple. Triangle. Rome.
And wishes he hadn’t.
Up come useless links to Temple University in Philadelphia, the Chattanooga Triangle and an obscure inventor called Leonard Temple Thorne.
The next page is more valuable. It references the use of triangles in the history of Rome and Greece.
‘Dive in a bit and let’s have a look,’ suggests Tom.
Alfie clicks open page after page. There are passages detailing the use of the symbol all the way back to the Bronze Age.
They get sidetracked by articles on Euclidean geometry, and then they chase the use of the symbol through palaces and sacred caves in Crete and mountain sanctuaries and tombs in archaic Greece.
‘Let’s narrow it down,’ suggests Alfie, his tone giving away the fact that he can’t take much more browsing. ‘I’ll just type in “Temples in Rome” and see what we get.’
Two million entries – that’s what they get.
Tom sits back in amazement.
‘Wuuu! Talk about needles and haystacks. I thought you were narrowing things down.’
‘Me too.’ Alfie clicks open a Wikipedia link. Up pops an alphabetical guide to temples, cult centres and pagan structures across the Eternal City. ‘So, what have we got here?’ The temple links are displayed according to area and also according to each person or deity they’re dedicated to.
‘There seem to be seven areas.’ Tom runs his finger across the iPad. ‘Campus Martius – the Field of Mars – the Capitoline Hill, the Palatine, Forum Boarium, Roman Forum, Imperial Fora and the Fora Venalia.’
‘Yikes,’ is the best Alfie can manage.
‘And then there are these five other categories.’ Tom glides his finger over the super-smooth screen. ‘The Temples of Cybele, Elagabalium, Marcus Aurelius, Minerva Medica and Virtus.’
‘Double yikes.’
Bright sun is now pouring through the window of the bar. The two friends can feel it on their faces. The warmth makes Tom yawn and reminds him of the sleep deficit he’s run up. Settlement time is coming up fast. ‘I’m wiped out. I’m going to get the bill.’ He eases himself off the chair and goes to pay Josep. ‘Will you write down the sites for me, Alfie, so I can give them to Valentina?’
‘Sure.’ Alfie jots them down on a white paper napkin, then follows Tom to the bar, iPad held carefully in both hands. He goes behind the counter and puts it back on charge. Josep’s hawk eyes watch his every move.
They say goodbye with much handshaking and back-slapping and slip into the bright, late morning sunlight.
Neither of them notices the man across the road.
The one who’s been watching them for the last two hours.
42
The local cops and mortuary staff call her Nonna.
Professoressa Filomena Schiavone is actually a grandmother, so she doesn’t at all mind the nickname.
But it hasn’t always been like that.
There was a time when the medical examiner worried almost obsessively about growing old.
Turning thirty was a trauma. The first grey hair had come and agonisingly signalled the end of her girlish world.
Forty was horrendous. A time when everyone was getting divorced or realising their marriages would end childless. It was the first time in her life she’d felt remotely uncertain about the future.
Fifty was catastrophic.
It was an age she lied about. A milestone she denied having reached for as long as believably possible. And
