The Devil Will Come

‘Listen to me,’ Nero said. ‘The Christian cult grows stronger by the day. They challenge my authority. Their leaders, like this scabby dog who calls himself Peter the Apostle, slip in and out of my city without so much as a lashing. If we allow them to escape our wrath we’ll live to regret it, mark my words. Pontius Pilate had the right idea when he crucified that hideous little man Jesus of Nazareth. Pilate knew this cult was going to cause us trouble and interfere with our interests.’

‘Pilate cut off the cult’s head and twelve more heads grew in its place – Jesus’s filthy apostles,’ Tigellinus said.

‘We need to be smarter than Pilate and eradicate all of them!’ Balbilus stated. ‘Our Emperor tells me that he has conjured a way to use the power of the Roman mob to kill them off once and for all and make ourselves ever richer in the process. My job, as Imperial astrologer, will be to tell him the best date. And you, Tigellinus, your job will be to implement it.’

Nero rose and started to make his way out of the courtyard. ‘What this city of ours needs,’ he said, looking back over his shoulder, ‘is a very large, very hot fire.’

SIXTEEN

ON HER WAY back home from the police station, Elisabetta had the taxi drop her off at the Basilica Santa Maria in Trastevere. Her session with Inspector Leone had been difficult and she was exhausted by the mental challenge of giving him enough to be truthful without violating her Church confidentiality.

The basilica was quiet and peaceful with only a few tourists wandering through, snapping pictures and seeking out the church’s treasured relics – the head of Saint Apollonia and a portion of the Holy Sponge. Elisabetta bowed at the altar, crossed herself and took her usual position directly under the painting on the wooden ceiling, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin by Domenichino. The only others in the pews were a handful of older local women who always seemed to be there.

Elisabetta lost herself completely in prayer. The dry coolness and low light which had preserved the church’s antiquities so well for centuries had a similar effect preserving her sanity. When she had said the last of her amens, she looked around and was surprised to see that there were many more people in the pews. She felt calmer and refreshed. She checked her watch. An hour had slipped by. Back at the school the girls would be finding their desks for geometry.

She rose and tried to keep herself in a state of prayerfulness but it was impossible to control the thoughts moving through her mind.

Vani’s hideous back.

The skeletons.

De Stefano’s bloody head.

Marco’s body laid out in his dress uniform.

And as Elisabetta felt the tears coming the comforting image of Lorenzo’s open, friendly face drifted in. Instead of crying she smiled, but when she realized what her mind was doing she shook her head hard, as if doing so would dislodge his image.

Better to look for her mockingbird mosaic high up in the apse, she thought, and that was what she did.

Elisabetta walked back to her father’s apartment, stopping only at the greengrocer and the butcher. It was Carlo’s day off and she intended to make him a nice supper.

As soon as she let herself in, she heard him calling from the sitting room and fast-walking toward the hall. ‘Where have you been?’ he said irritably. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

He looked uncomfortable.

‘“We”?’ she asked. ‘Who’s “we”? What’s the matter?’

‘Christ, Elisabetta, you didn’t tell me you were having visitors. They came all the way from England!’

She closed her eyes in embarrassment. ‘My God! I totally forgot! With everything that’s happened …’

Carlo gave her a quick, reassuring hug. ‘It’s okay: you’re here, you’re safe. You had a rough night. I gave them a glass of wine, told them every story I know about Cambridge. Everything’s fine. Give me the bags. Go see your guests.’

Evan Harris looked precisely like his photograph. He was slight, bland in appearance, lean but not athletic. His sandy hair, combed to one side over a rounded forehead, made him appear younger than he probably was but Elisabetta thought he must be approaching fifty. He hadn’t come alone. A woman was with him, expensively dressed, proper in posture, perfectly coiffed and smelling of good perfume. Her unlined Botox-pricked face and her figurine smile made it hard for Elisabetta to judge her age.

Harris and the woman both stood, blinking their confusion in harmony.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ Elisabetta said. ‘I’m Elisabetta Celestino. I think my father didn’t tell you I’m a nun. For that matter, I’m afraid I neglected to mention it too.’

‘I’m so pleased to meet you,’ Harris said graciously. ‘And I must apologize for the fact that I neglected to tell you I was bringing a colleague. May I introduce Stephanie Meyer, a very distinguished member of Cambridge University’s governing body, the Regent House. She is also a generous donor to the University.’

‘I’m delighted to make your acquaintance,’ Meyer said with the careful elocution of the British upper class. ‘Your father is absolutely charming. I told him I would suggest to the Chairman of our Mathematics Department that he be invited to give a talk on his Goldberg Conjecture.’

‘Goldbach,’ Elisabetta said, gently correcting her. ‘I hope he didn’t force a lecture on you.’ Suddenly she remembered that he’d been working on her tattoo puzzle. The last time she’d checked, his jottings had been all over the sitting room. There was a messy stack of lined yellow papers covered by some journals on the sideboard. Fortunately, he’d tidied up to some extent.

‘Not at all,’ Meyer said. ‘I hope he cracks it. And I hope his department will treat him with the respect he so clearly deserves.’

‘Is there anything he didn’t tell you?’ Elisabetta said, shaking her head.

‘Only, apparently, that you were a nun,’ Harris said, smiling.

‘So please, sit,’ Elisabetta said. ‘What can I bring you?’

‘Only the book,’ Harris said. ‘We’re very keen to see it.’

It was in her old bedroom, on her small student desk. She took it out of its envelope, brought it back and put it in Harris’s outstretched hands. She watched the anticipation on his face, like that of a child receiving his first Christmas present. His hands were trembling.

‘One should use gloves,’ he mumbled absently. He rested it on his pinstriped trousers and slowly opened the mottled leather cover of the quarto to reveal the front plate. ‘Ah, look at this,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Look at this.’

‘Is it authentic?’ Meyer asked him.

‘There’s not a shred of doubt,’ Harris said. ‘B text, 1620.’ He carefully turned several pages. ‘The cover’s a little shabby but the book is in remarkably good condition. No water damage. No mold. No tears that I can see. It’s a remarkable copy of a remarkable book.’

He passed it to Meyer who searched her purse for a pair of reading glasses and perused it for herself.

‘And you said you obtained it in Germany,’ Harris said. ‘In Ulm.’

Elisabetta nodded.

‘Can you divulge any details?’ he asked. ‘Provenance is always of interest in these kinds of circumstances.’

‘It was given to me by a baker,’ Elisabetta said.

‘A baker, you say!’ Harris exclaimed. ‘What was a baker doing with an extraordinary treasure like this?’

‘She was the landlord of a tenant who passed away without next of kin. It belonged to him. He’d been a professor at the University at Ulm.’

Meyer looked as though she was attempting to arch a brow but the Botox was defeating her. ‘And do you know where he obtained it?’

‘The only information I have is that he received it as a gift,’ Elisabetta said.