The bearded man took out a mobile phone, punched in a number and began speaking rapidly in a guttural dialect. When he was finished he barked some orders.
The man with the duffel bag put it down on the carpet, unzipped it and took out two more collapsed bags from inside.
‘All of you are coming with us,’ the bearded man said.
‘Where?’ Elisabetta demanded.
‘If you don’t resist, you won’t be hurt. That is the important fact.’
The other man unzipped a smaller bag and removed a metal bottle and some wads of gauze.
Micaela sniffed and stiffened. ‘Jesus, it’s ether! There’s no fucking way I’m going to let them etherize me.’
‘My God,’ Tremblay croaked. ‘Please, just take me. Let the women go.’
The bearded man addressed Elisabetta in a casual tone. ‘They want you, but they say, “Okay, take them too.” If they resist they won’t care so much if we leave them here with bullets in them.’
‘Listen to me, Micaela,’ Elisabetta said gravely. ‘Let them do it. Don’t put up a fight. God will protect you.’ Then she added ‘I will protect you.’
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, watching her sister’s wild eyes as a brute pressed a reeking cloth over her mouth and nose, watching Micaela writhe and kick. But something was keeping Elisabetta’s mind lucid and working and while the men were focused on their awful work she snatched something off the end table and hid it in a pocket within her habit.
Micaela went limp and the gauze was removed from her face.
Father Tremblay began to pray in rapid-fire French. He sounded very young and looked very scared as the square of gauze was pressed onto his face.
When his body went slack Elisabetta smelled fresh ether and she too began to pray. As the fabric got closer to her nose the caustic stench made her gag.
She tried not to struggle but her body wouldn’t let herself go down without a fight. But the struggle was brief and soon it was over.
Zazo was trying to fulfill his promise to get good and drunk. But he was behind schedule, only a couple of beers into the scheme. He should have been on duty. It was the night before the Conclave and he knew that his men were busting their balls and that Lorenzo was running around like a madman to keep the wheels on his over- burdened cart.
Getting plastered somehow didn’t seem right.
The TV was on – some inane quiz show which he wasn’t watching. It was just noise.
His mobile rang.
‘Where are you?’ It was his father. He sounded stressed.
‘I’m home. What’s the matter?’
‘Did Elisabetta or Micaela call you?’
‘No, why?’
‘Arturo came over before I got home. The apartment door was unlocked. They weren’t there.’
Zazo was already standing, putting on his jacket. ‘I’ll be right there.’
There wasn’t enough air. Elisabetta’s mouth was uncovered but she was in some dark constricted space that didn’t allow her to shift her position. Her knees were drawn up uncomfortably to her chest. Then she realized that her wrists were bound in front of her. She lifted her hands to explore what was constraining her and felt the roughness of nylon mesh. Reaching up she felt her veil in place. It wasn’t helping her breathing.
There were vibrations coursing through her back and the sounds of tires on a rain-soaked highway.
She whispered ‘Micaela!’ and when there was no response she raised her voice and tried again.
Over the road noise she heard a soft and groggy ‘Elisabetta!’
‘Micaela, are you okay?’
Micaela’s voice grew a little stronger. ‘What happened to us? Where are we?’
Elisabetta’s fear was tempered by her sister’s presence. ‘I think I’m in a carry-bag.’
‘Me too. I can’t move.’
‘I think we’re in a car or a truck.’ Then she remembered something. ‘Father Tremblay?’ she called. ‘Father, are you there?’
There was no response.
‘I don’t know if they took him,’ Micaela said. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Who are they?’
Elisabetta knew the answer but hesitated to say it for fear of completely unnerving her sister – and herself. But she couldn’t hold it in. ‘The Lemures.’
*
Zazo almost lost it when Inspector Leone said, ‘Look, calm down, Celestino. You’ve been drinking. I can smell it on your breath.’
‘I had a couple of beers. What does that have to do with the disappearance of my sisters?’
Leone wouldn’t let go. ‘The Conclave starts tomorrow and you’re having beers? Don’t you guys have work to do?’
Zazo took a deep, self-controlling breath. ‘I’m on leave.’
Leone smirked. ‘Really. Why am I not shocked?’
If Zazo threw a punch he knew he’d be in handcuffs and the Polizia’s attention would be on him, not on his sisters. His father seemed to sense the hazard and put his hand on Zazo’s shoulder.
Zazo said slowly and carefully, ‘Let’s talk about my sisters, not me – okay, Inspector?’
‘Sure. Let’s talk about them. You haul me and my men out here and what do we find?’ Leone waved his arm around the sitting room. ‘Nothing! There’s no sign of forced entry, no sign of burglary, no sign of a struggle or violence. Me, I see a couple of ladies who went out for the night and forgot to lock the door behind them. And it’s still early, only 10:15. The night’s still young!’
‘You’re talking about a nun, for Christ’s sake!’ Zazo screamed. ‘She doesn’t go out on the town!’
‘I hear she’s on leave too.’
Carlo took over for his sputtering son. ‘Inspector, please. Since the attack on her she’s been very cautious. Except for Mass she’s hardly gone out. She and Micaela would never have left here without telling us or leaving a message. And why isn’t Micaela answering her phone?’
Leone raised his eyebrows as a signal to the two officers who were with him. ‘Look, there’s nothing we can do right now. In the morning, if they haven’t crept back into their beds, give me a call and we’ll treat them as missing persons.’
Soon, father and son were alone.
Zazo rubbed wearily at his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘I’ll call Arturo again to make sure they didn’t go to Micaela’s hospital or her apartment.’
Carlo looked around the room distractedly, then banged out the pellet from his pipe bowl on an ashtray. As he was filling a fresh bowl he asked, ‘Then what?’
‘Then you’re going to call every hospital casualty ward in Rome while I knock on every door in the apartment building to see if any of the neighbors heard or saw anything.’
‘And then what?’
Zazo had sounded like he expected they’d come up empty. ‘Then we wait. And pray.’
Blessedly, Elisabetta fell asleep for a time. She awoke abruptly to an awareness of a lack of motion. The air inside the bag was so depleted that she thought she would lose consciousness again. There were voices in that foreign language and the sound of a door unlatching. Then she was in motion again, but this time sliding and jerking and bouncing up and down.
‘Micaela?’
There was no response.
‘Micaela!’
Elisabetta bounced around for a minute, maybe two, suffering breathlessness and agitation, calling her sister’s name in vain. Then the bouncing stopped and she was on a hard surface again. There was a long, slow
