Guilio doesn’t look up.
He can hear Tom but his words are muffled clouds blown around by a hurricane of emotion.
Already he’s starting to blame himself.
He promised Anna he would look after her, wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He told her not to be afraid, that he would always be there for her.
But he hadn’t been.
He’d failed her.
No two ways about it. When she needed him most, he’d been somewhere else.
He let her down and now she’s dead.
Tom moves away a few paces. Guilio has literally been struck down with grief and he understands that he needs space.
He has to come to terms with the initial shock.
Tom has stood many times with the loved ones of those who have just died, and he knows that acceptance of their death comes in waves. Slow waves. Only today, there’s no time for slow. Every second that Guilio spends crying and grieving brings Valentina closer to death.
Yet he has to be patient.
If Guilio shuts down, he’s lost.
He has no idea where the opening to the so-called womb is, or where to go even if he manages to get inside.
And he has no weapons.
Until now, he hasn’t even thought about such a thing.
He touches his pocket and feels the cell phone. The Carabinieri will have traced it by now; they’ll have a lock on it, he’s sure of that.
But will they arrive in time?
Too early would be disastrous.
Too late could be fatal.
Guilio stands up.
He turns.
His face is heavy with despair and loss.
Tom can tell he’s close to losing him. ‘Anna believed in God. I know she did, and you certainly know she did.’ He walks slowly forward and tries to bridge the chasm rapidly opening between them. ‘She is at peace now. She’s no longer frightened and can no longer be hurt by these people.’
‘She’s dead.’ Guilio’s face contorts. ‘Dead! You can’t get more hurt than that.’
‘I know. And these people must be held accountable for that. You can help make them accountable.’
Guilio stares blankly across the fields.
Tom hasn’t reached him. The gap is too big. He puts his hand on Guilio’s arm and is relieved that this time it’s not brushed away. ‘You can’t save Anna, but you can save someone who cared for her. Someone who wanted her to be looked after and who risked her life not just to help her but to catch the people who had hurt her.’
Guilio understands what Tom is saying.
He also knows he’s being manipulated.
But he can’t simply walk away, even though that’s what he wants to do. He can’t run to the loneliest spot on the earth and cry his lungs out like he needs to do.
Something won’t let him.
He tried to protect Anna because it was the right thing. And he knows that walking away from Tom and the woman he loves would be wrong.
‘I’ll help you.’ He nods several times, more as though he’s confirming things to himself than to Tom. ‘I’ll help you, even if it’s the last thing I do.’
118
A shaft of honey-coloured sunlight forces its way through a crack in the dark, thunderous sky.
Guilio walks towards a lightning-blasted apple tree and swings on a thick dead branch until it splinters away.
Once he’s broken it off, he rubs the splintered end on the field wall until it sharpens into a spike.
He walks back to Tom and throws the stake into the ground just in front of him. He slips off his newly bought rucksack, puts his hands around the back of his neck and unclasps a rope necklace from beneath his shirt.
Tom recognises the black triangular stone dangling from it.
It’s identical to the one Anna had.
The same as the shape drawn on the confessional wall at the Sacro Cuore del Suffragio.
Guilio digs into his pocket and produces a spool of what seems to be fishing line. He ties it to the clasp on the necklace and then moves to the right-hand corner of the field.
Tom follows him, bemused and fascinated.
‘You can help,’ Guilio announces as he squats. ‘Hold this for a moment.’
Tom takes the spool.
Guilio places the longest edge of the scalene pendant on the ground, with the shortest edge to his left.
‘Give me the spool for a second.’
‘Sure.’ Tom hands it down.
Guilio makes sure the rope and the line attached run as precisely as possible along the upward slope of the triangle.
He stretches out a third of a metre of line and then stands up and presses it into the ground.
He checks the angle again, adjusts it a fraction and then turns to Tom. ‘Take this end and walk in a straight line until I shout stop.’
Tom wants to ask a dozen questions, starting with why, but he doesn’t.
As he walks, Guilio shouts for him to move a little to the left or a little to the right.
‘Okay! Stop!’ Guilio slowly moves towards him, checking the lie of the line as he goes.
‘This isn’t the middle of the field,’ says Tom. ‘I’m no expert but I can tell it’s not the centre.’
‘That’s fine. I don’t want it perfectly in the centre. That’s the whole point.’
As Tom takes up his position, Guilio retrieves his pendant and fishing line and swings the new rucksack over his shoulder again.
Next, he traipses to the left-hand corner of the field and repeats the entire process, with the shortest side of the triangle now on his right.
He ties it down and walks slowly. Makes sure the line is meticulously straight until he reaches a point just past where Tom is standing.
‘Here!’ he says triumphantly as the lines cross.
‘Really,’ says Tom with more than a touch of sarcasm. ‘And what exactly is here?’
‘Be patient.’
Guilio drops to the ground. He puts his ear to the turf and systematically slaps all around the spot.
He pauses, undoes the pull-cord on the neck of the rucksack, searches inside and pulls out a gleaming garden trowel.
Tom watches as he digs, but still can’t see evidence of anything except scuffed-up grass and soil.
Guilio’s working up a sweat.
He digs and scrapes one way, turns and digs the other.
Soil stacks up around him like he’s a human mole.
He stands and scrapes the trowel in a circle, stopping every now and again to shift stubborn stones and thick lumps of clay.
He gets down on his knees again and dips his hand into the thin circular trench, which is less than a metre in diameter.
