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demeanour behind her, and Brennan looked for all the world like a
happy, happy man. Things looked promising for me as well. Isabella
came up to me, two glasses spilling over in her hands, gave one to me,
and pulled me onto the makeshift dance floor by the balcony doors.
 Com è bello, eh Lina? she called out to a friend.
 È carino, si. Come un angelo! Lina agreed. If I heard one more
person in my life say I looked angelic, I was going to grow a Mephisto-
phelean goatee. But I d do that later. In the meantime, if Isabella liked
the look of me, who was I to complain?
The party went on till the small hours of the morning. My last
sighting of Burke was him reclining on a sofa with Susanna kneeling
beside him, taking sips of a golden liquid and transfusing it directly
from her mouth into his. When I blearily asked him whether we had
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any duties scheduled in the city in the morning, all he said, in a lan-
guid voice I barely recognized, was  Let Rome in Tiber melt.
I woke up alone in Isabella s room when the sun rose, and went out
to find her. She was in the kitchen making coffee. There was nobody
else in the apartment, and I didn t ask where my travelling companion
had gone. If Mark Antony had melted into the arms of Cleopatra, it
was none of my affair.
He did not turn up that afternoon for our planned excursion to the
Vatican s Gregorian Etruscan Museum, so I made the short walk alone
from our hotel in the Via Tunisi across the Viale Vaticano to the
museums. I went inside and admired the gleaming treasures within. It
wasn t long before I spotted a piece of jewellery that was exotic and yet
familiar. Familiar from Zamira Lule Halili s description. It was a
bright gold necklace with a round medallion and what looked like
gold vessels  Zamira had suggested vials of poison  one on either
side of the medallion. They hung from tubes of gold that were
arranged in a semicircle as if they were tied around a woman s neck on
a piece of string.
The information card told me this piece was from the Etruscan
period, anywhere from three to seven hundred years before the birth
of Christ. The Etruscans were described as brilliant goldsmiths,
admired particularly for their elaborate technique of granulation: the
side-by-side application of tiny beads of gold. This piece was acquired
somehow by a Roman noblewoman. She gave it to her bishop along
with all her other earthly wealth when she converted to Christianity.
The woman was martyred for her faith; her jewels and other posses-
sions were handed down through the centuries until they became part
of the Vatican treasure trove. No one could say how much something
like this was worth because its history rendered it priceless. I had no
idea whether I was looking at the genuine article or a brilliant fake.
But the write-up said the Etruscans work had never been equalled;
close examination by an expert would quickly tell the tale.
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Isabella had invited me to spend New Year s Eve at the trattoria and
promised to save me a table on a night when many Romans partake
of gargantuan servings of food and drink. There was still no sign of
Burke, so I got scrubbed and spiffed up and went by myself. Lo and
behold, Isa s sister, Susanna, was nowhere to be seen; it seemed she had
taken a couple of days off. I ate too much, drank too much, played
my blues harp, sang till my voice was gone, and joined in with the
Roman revellers at the other tables. Isabella and I celebrated the arrival
of 1992 together in a small, cramped room upstairs, to the sound of
fireworks going off all over the city. We returned to the festivities and
partied till it was time for me to roll back to the hotel.
Burke did not make an appearance on New Year s Day. There was
no answer when I knocked on his hotel room door in the afternoon,
but I noticed that the Non Disturbare sign never left the doorknob.
Room service trays were stacked outside the door, piled with dinner
plates and wine bottles. I did a bit more sightseeing in the city. I stood
where Antony had stood when he cut such a bella figura at the Forum
before losing himself in the sensuous East. I visited the Mausoleum of
Augustus and his Altar of Peace, with its bas reliefs of Augustus,
Agrippa, Tiberius, and the wives and children of the famous and infa-
mous of ancient Rome.
I tracked down Kitty Curran and took her out for a ravishing, and
ravishingly expensive, three-hour New Year s dinner at Les Etoiles, the
rooftop restaurant of the Atlante Star Hotel. She didn t ask where
Brennan was, which must have made her the most discreet person in
Vatican City. The view of St. Peter s dome at night was magnificent,
though Kitty made a crack about never getting away from the office.
Like so many Irish, she was a born storyteller, and she kept me mes-
merized with her tales of the Vatican and the wider world.
I asked her if she had ever met Reinhold Schellenberg.  I met him
years ago, on more than one occasion, but we never had a conversa-
tion. I can t say I knew him. I wish to God I could help you solve this.
 Me, too. If the Vatican control freak you mentioned, Savo, isn t
satisfied with the progress of the investigation he may swoop down on
us yet. And Brennan won t be fit company if his reaction the other day
is any indication!
 Oh, Brennan will be crabbed indeed if he has Gino Savo breathing
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down his neck! The funny part is that, in some ways, they are two of a
kind. Both very intelligent, good at what they do, men of the world.
Brennan didn t come to Holy Orders a blushing virgin. Neither did
Gino. He was married. His wife and daughter died. I don t know what
happened. But Gino entered the seminary after that.
 And he s an ill-tempered, domineering despot who  
 I wouldn t go so far as to say that, Monty! I don t think Gino ever
intends to throw a tantrum; he just can t help himself at times. He had
a bit of a nervous breakdown at one point, so people make allowances [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]