it to me in the rear end. He didn’t let me turn around. And he put something in me. Something hot that hurt.
Fanabarzra: Did these punishments happen frequently?
No. 6: Every Tuesday. When Mother wasn’t around. Sometimes, when he was finished, he just lay there, sleeping on top of me, as if he was dead. At times he couldn’t punish me so he hit me instead.
Fanabarzra: How did he hit you?
No. 6: He spanked me until he was tired. Sometimes after he hit me he could punish me and sometimes not.
Fanabarzra: And your brothers, Victor? Did your father punish them?
No. 6: I think he punished Beria. Never Emil; Emil was the good one. That’s why he died.
Fanabarzra: Only the good people die, Victor?
No. 6: Only the good. Bad people never do.
Palazzo del Governatorato
Vatican City
Wednesday, 6 April 2005, 10.34 a.m.
Pacing back and forth on the rug in the hallway with short, nervous steps, Paola waited for Dante. The day had begun badly. She’d barely slept a wink, and when she’d arrived at her office she’d run smack into a pile of insufferable paperwork and admin. The man in charge of civil defence, Guido Bertolano, was throwing a fit over the increasingly enormous number of pilgrims who were inundating the city. By now the sports stadiums, universities, and any municipal institutions with space to spare were full to the rafters. People were sleeping in the streets, in doorways, the town squares, even the vestibules of ATMs. Dicanti had got in touch with Bertolano to ask him for help in the search for a suspect, and he’d almost laughed in her face.
‘My dear ispettore, even if your suspect were Osama himself, there’s very little we could do. It’s going to have to wait until after this whole madhouse has died down.’
‘I don’t know if you are aware that—’
‘Ispettore – you said your name was Dicanti, right? Air Force One is parked at Fiumicino. There isn’t a single five-star hotel that doesn’t have at least one monarch ensconced in its presidential suite. Can you imagine what sort of nightmare it is to protect these people? There are reports of possible terrorist attacks and fake bomb threats every fifteen minutes. I’m in contact with the carabinieri in towns from over a two-hundred-kilometre radius. Believe me, your problem has to wait. So please stop tying up my line,’ he said, hanging up without another word.
Go to hell! Why didn’t anyone take her seriously? This case was an absolute killer. The silence it dictated, inherent in the nature of the beast, only contributed to the clash between what she was trying to do and the indifference she met with. She’d wasted a long time on the phone without finding out anything. Between the various calls she’d asked Pontiero to go to talk to the old Carmelite at Santa Maria in Traspontina while she headed off for her meeting with Cardinal Samalo, the Pope’s chamberlain, or il camerlengo, as he was known in Italian. So there she was, at the doors to the camerlengo’s office, pacing like a tiger, with a belly full of black coffee.
Fowler, meanwhile, relaxed on an ornate bench of dark-red wood. He was reading his breviary. ‘It’s at moments like this that I regret having given up smoking.’
‘A bit nervous yourself?’
‘No, but you’re making it hard not to follow in your footsteps.’
Paola took the priest’s hint, stopped walking in circles and sat down next to him. She pretended to read Dante’s report on the first murder, all the time thinking about the strange look that the superintendent had given Fowler when she’d introduced them at UACV headquarters that morning. Dante had taken Paola aside and said tersely, ‘Don’t trust him.’ She was worried, intrigued. She decided that the first chance she got, she would ask Dante exactly what he’d meant.
She turned her attention back to the report. A complete disaster. It was clear that Dante didn’t take assignments like this very often, which was lucky for him. They would
Fanabarzra: Did these punishments happen frequently?
No. 6: Every Tuesday. When Mother wasn’t around. Sometimes, when he was finished, he just lay there, sleeping on top of me, as if he was dead. At times he couldn’t punish me so he hit me instead.
Fanabarzra: How did he hit you?
No. 6: He spanked me until he was tired. Sometimes after he hit me he could punish me and sometimes not.
Fanabarzra: And your brothers, Victor? Did your father punish them?
No. 6: I think he punished Beria. Never Emil; Emil was the good one. That’s why he died.
Fanabarzra: Only the good people die, Victor?
No. 6: Only the good. Bad people never do.
Palazzo del Governatorato
Vatican City
Wednesday, 6 April 2005, 10.34 a.m.
Pacing back and forth on the rug in the hallway with short, nervous steps, Paola waited for Dante. The day had begun badly. She’d barely slept a wink, and when she’d arrived at her office she’d run smack into a pile of insufferable paperwork and admin. The man in charge of civil defence, Guido Bertolano, was throwing a fit over the increasingly enormous number of pilgrims who were inundating the city. By now the sports stadiums, universities, and any municipal institutions with space to spare were full to the rafters. People were sleeping in the streets, in doorways, the town squares, even the vestibules of ATMs. Dicanti had got in touch with Bertolano to ask him for help in the search for a suspect, and he’d almost laughed in her face.
‘My dear ispettore, even if your suspect were Osama himself, there’s very little we could do. It’s going to have to wait until after this whole madhouse has died down.’
‘I don’t know if you are aware that—’
‘Ispettore – you said your name was Dicanti, right? Air Force One is parked at Fiumicino. There isn’t a single five-star hotel that doesn’t have at least one monarch ensconced in its presidential suite. Can you imagine what sort of nightmare it is to protect these people? There are reports of possible terrorist attacks and fake bomb threats every fifteen minutes. I’m in contact with the carabinieri in towns from over a two-hundred-kilometre radius. Believe me, your problem has to wait. So please stop tying up my line,’ he said, hanging up without another word.
Go to hell! Why didn’t anyone take her seriously? This case was an absolute killer. The silence it dictated, inherent in the nature of the beast, only contributed to the clash between what she was trying to do and the indifference she met with. She’d wasted a long time on the phone without finding out anything. Between the various calls she’d asked Pontiero to go to talk to the old Carmelite at Santa Maria in Traspontina while she headed off for her meeting with Cardinal Samalo, the Pope’s chamberlain, or il camerlengo, as he was known in Italian. So there she was, at the doors to the camerlengo’s office, pacing like a tiger, with a belly full of black coffee.
Fowler, meanwhile, relaxed on an ornate bench of dark-red wood. He was reading his breviary. ‘It’s at moments like this that I regret having given up smoking.’
‘A bit nervous yourself?’
‘No, but you’re making it hard not to follow in your footsteps.’
Paola took the priest’s hint, stopped walking in circles and sat down next to him. She pretended to read Dante’s report on the first murder, all the time thinking about the strange look that the superintendent had given Fowler when she’d introduced them at UACV headquarters that morning. Dante had taken Paola aside and said tersely, ‘Don’t trust him.’ She was worried, intrigued. She decided that the first chance she got, she would ask Dante exactly what he’d meant.
She turned her attention back to the report. A complete disaster. It was clear that Dante didn’t take assignments like this very often, which was lucky for him. They would
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