‘So I’ve heard.’
FABRIZIO went out to the street and waited for the workers to pull the truck round to the front, then he got in next to the driver. They were at the dig in less than half an hour and the cop on duty was more than happy to go back to headquarters to write up his report.
Fabrizio decided on a frontal excavation: that is, from the tomb’s main entrance. As soon as he had established the position of the facade, he began removing the earth that had accumulated over centuries as the hill behind the tomb eroded. He suspected that this might not be the only tomb in the area. Maybe Ronchetti and his buddies had chanced upon a new suburban necropolis outside the city of Velathri, the ancient Volterra. Exploring the area would take months, if not years.
They spent all morning and part of the afternoon clearing the front of the tomb. The structure was carved directly into the tufa and imitated the facade of a house, featuring a double door with big sculpted ring-shaped handles and a triangular pediment with the symbol of the new moon, or so it seemed to Fabrizio. But there was no suggestion, not a clue, as to who the bodies inside the burial cell might have been.
What also seemed quite strange was the lack of debris or objects of any sort at the ground level; there were no signs of human activity outside the chamber. The Etruscans were known to have visited their tombs frequently, holding any number of religious and memorial ceremonies there, and the first things you always found on a dig were the remains of rituals and sacrifices offered in honour of the dead.
It was already starting to get dark when he had finished clearing the area in front of the door and had taken all his measurements. Not a single object had come up anywhere at the ground level next to the tomb, not even when they were removing the sedimentary deposits. Fabrizio took a deep breath and stood there for a few minutes in silence, a trowel in his hand, facing that closed door, while a host of thoughts flitted through his mind, none of them pleasant. It was a relief to hear the voice of Francesca, who had just arrived.
‘Nice. Now all you have to do is open it.’
‘Right. Tomorrow, if everything goes as planned.’
A Finanza squad car drove up with a couple of men ready to stand guard.
‘Are you hungry?’ asked Francesca.
‘Very. All I had for lunch was a sandwich and a glass of water.’
‘Let’s go, then. I know a nice place that’s not too noisy. We’ll take my car and I can drive you home after dinner.’
Fabrizio got in and was about to close the door, but then he stopped suddenly as if having second thoughts. He went over to where the policemen were standing. Both were kids of no more than twenty-five, one from the north, the other from the deep south.
‘Listen, guys, don’t take this lightly. This place gives me the creeps. Not because of them, poor souls,’ he said, pointing towards the tomb, ‘they won’t bother you. I’m worried about that thing that killed Ronchetti. It’s still on the loose, as far as I know.’
The two young men gestured at their machine guns and the 9-calibre Berettas resting in their holsters. ‘We’re locked and loaded, boss. Nothing’s going to happen here.’
Each lit up a cigarette and, when Fabrizio turned back, before the first bend in the road, to take a look, the embers glowed like the eyes of an animal lurking in the dark.
3
THE RESTAURANT was inside a farmhouse that had been converted into a bed and breakfast along one of the country lanes that branched off from the regional road to Pisa. The fare was rustic and very tasty, promised Francesca: local crostini, ribollita soup, salami made with wild boar and a mean Fiorentina T-bone on request.
As they were turning off the asphalt road, Francesca and Fabrizio were surprised by an Alfa Romeo carabiniere squad car darting by at top speed, its siren screaming.
‘Did you see that!’ said Fabrizio. ‘What is going on here? I thought I was going to end up in some sleepy little backwoods town…’
Francesca parked her Suzuki under an oak tree, then walked with Fabrizio into the restaurant and chose a table before answering, ‘Yeah, well, this place usually is a little dead. But now we’ve got a corpse to show for it. And maybe it won’t be the last…’
‘Let’s sit down and have them bring us some wine.’
‘Poor guy. Everyone knew him. Ronchetti, I mean. Here everyone knows who the tomb robbers are. Sometimes they’ve been at it for generations. Some of them get so caught up in what they’re doing that they even go back to school to brush up on their history!’
Fabrizio seemed amused and Francesca continued: ‘In general, they think of themselves as being better at their jobs and more efficient than we are at the NAS. From a certain point of view, they’re right. Since they’re not bound by scientific methods, they can get straight to work and dig out everything they need in a couple of minutes. Seriously, they are far superior to us in one thing: how well they know the territory. They’re familiar with every centimetre of the land. They leave no stone unturned, literally. Some of them even believe they’re the reincarnation of someone from Etruscan times. But I’m sure you’ve heard all this before…’
‘No, not at all. You know, I’ve only worked at a university. Our excavations are always organized well ahead of time and are usually uneventful. You NAS people are always on the front lines. I imagine that your work must occasionally even be risky.’
‘Well, it can be, although it looks like this time our rivals were the ones who met up with something really terrifying. Let’s not talk about that now, though. Tell me how you’re getting on with the Rovaio tomb.’
‘There’s not much to say. You saw yourself that I’ve cleared the facade. But I found nothing in the sedimentary layer. Just earth. And nothing at the ground level either.’
‘Either they were cleanliness fanatics or no one ever came by…’
‘That’s what has me wondering. You know, cemetery sites always show signs of being well visited. Flattened areas where people have beaten a track, little objects that people lose over time and that get crushed beneath their feet. I saw absolutely none of that there. I’m sure about the layer. I got to the base of the monument, so there’s no doubt about that. So how could that be?’
The waiter brought the wine and a plate of salami. Francesca put a slice into her mouth, savouring the strong flavour of the boar meat.
‘It’s too soon to say,’ she said, ‘but you’re right. The path leading to a tomb is always well worn, and that’s noticeable. That’s where you tend to find things. So these people never had a living soul come by with an offering or a prayer, as we’d say today. Did you see any marks on the stone?’
‘The only marking seems to be the sphere of the new moon.’
‘The dark moon, then.’
‘So something’s not right, you’re saying.’
‘Listen, it’s no use guessing. Tomorrow you’ll open the tomb and you’ll see what you find. I’m really sorry I won’t be able to be there. At least, not before noon.’
‘Do you want me to wait? I can finish the site survey, clean up a little…’
‘No, it’s already clean enough as it is. No, you go on with your work. You must be eager to get back to your research at the museum.’
Fabrizio tried to shift the discussion around to more personal things, but Francesca was politely defensive and kept her distance, deftly steering him back to neutral topics. He felt discouraged and lonely, not seeing the point in continuing with such superficialities.
‘I was really scared last night,’ he said suddenly.
‘That’s right, you said you’d heard something.’
‘A scream or a howl. I really can’t describe it. It was atrocious. It didn’t sound human, that’s for sure. And it made my hair stand on end.’
‘And you think it’s connected to whatever killed Ronchetti.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I stopped at the place where it happened before coming to meet you. There’s not a sign on the ground. The
