Daughter of Ashes, page 17
Massimo moved closer.
“Here among these animals?”
“They are symbols. This is an initiation ritual. Nothing is as it seems. The orthodox Christians of the Great Church could never accept it. Gnostic texts like the Pistis Sophia rested on magical elements of Egyptian derivation—not to mention that as far as the Gnostics were concerned, the perfect apostle was Mary Magdalene, the seeker, and Judas was the only one who had actually fulfilled Jesus’s wishes, helping him return to the Pleroma, the realm of divine totality. The Gnostics believed in the equality of men and women, in the futility of martyrdom, and in the reincarnation of the soul, which could thus return to complete a path left unfinished. The wrathful, selfish, vindictive god of the Old Testament was, to them, a minor deity, embedded in the material world: the creator and demiurge who barred Adam from access to knowledge and thus to transfiguration. Ultimately it is Eve and the Serpent who free Adam from deceit—and are thus redeeming figures. Eve is the vessel for Zoe—Life itself.”
Massimo peered into the universe Elena was illustrating for him, but he couldn’t quite see it yet.
She kept walking, leaning forward as she went.
“In the outermost sphere, we find the Hebdomad. The demiurge and his three hundred and sixty archons oversee a shadow world in which they hold souls captive, barring their ascent to Illumination. Their battlefields are the planetary spheres which divide the visible world from the Pleroma. Above them are five great archons tasked with blocking the way for souls. Look, you can see them right here in the third nook, residing in that celestial sphere, which Jesus, speaking to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection, described as ‘the Midst.’”
Beneath the walkway, a series of mosaics depicted a bright-red winged horse, a black donkey rearing on its hind legs, and a dark billygoat with a scepter, a horn, and a red cloak, symbolizing Jove. Several other figures were hidden underneath the foundations of the bell tower.
“Who is the donkey?”
“Typhon. He was usually depicted as having the head of a donkey, like the Egyptian god Seth.”
“Egyptian symbolism in a Christian church?”
“I told you!”
“What about those birds?”
Each archon was flanked by a pair of birds—the soul and its dark double.
“The ancient Egyptians also believed that the part of the soul known as Ba took the form of a bird. All souls must evade the tricks of the archons and of the material world if they are to continue in their ascent toward the Pleroma. This is where the fourth section begins, with the ‘sphere of fixed stars.’”
Animals again, this time perching on what looked like palm trees: a gray goat and some kind of crustacean with a torpedo fish swimming above it.
“These stand for the constellations of Capricorn and Cancer. The paralyzing power of the torpedo represents the sun’s apparent immobility during the solstice. We are now in the Treasury of Light, at the threshold of the First Mystery, the highest level of reality. This is where Jeu resides, master of the threshold, and father of the father of Christ.”
Elena slid further along the walkway, still on her knees, her body following the soaring path to initiation embedded in that stone floor.
“According to the Manichean and apocryphal gospels, the five trees correspond to the five aspects of the awakened soul, no longer subject to reincarnation. But look at this little goat, Massimo.”
He followed her gaze.
“They botched it.”
Unlike all the other figures, this one looked somewhat ungainly, ill-proportioned, and placed in an unnatural position.
“They didn’t botch it. The master craftsmen who created these treasures would never have failed so miserably. It was probably tampered with in later years. What we are looking at now is certainly not what was there originally.”
“And what would that have been?”
“The clue is in this basket of bread beside it. As part of their religious rituals, the Ophite and Naassene Gnostics worshipped the serpent, bringer of knowledge, and would have a snake curl up in a basket of consecrated bread. This contorted figure you see here is in fact a serpent: Aberamentho.”
“Abera-what?”
“Aberamentho, Lord of Amenti. As described in the ancient Egyptians’ Book of the Dead, Amenti was a place corresponding to the fifth hour of the Night, the territory Ra crossed to resurrect. Amenti was also one of the epithets of Isis, the Hidden One. Aberamentho, the constellation of the Dragon, the perfect serpent who twists around the axis of the world, is one of the incarnations of Jesus.”
It was true. The little goat’s body looked like it was twisted into a spiral. Perhaps someone really had tried to erase the original figure. Massimo couldn’t believe it.
“All these pagan images . . .”
“Magic, in fact. What we see here is a mystery cult—a Christian mystery cult of Egyptian origins.”
Elena kept moving forward until she was behind the bell tower, hovering right above the last figure.
“Here is the ram, symbol of Adamas, the original man. Also the rooster and the tortoise, animals sacred to Hermes, who later became Christ. The figures are placed within octagonal frames because the number eight is the symbol of the supercelestial region.”
They had reached the end of the path. Elena stood up.
“The initiate would need to walk over these mosaics and know how to interpret each of them correctly, so as to blossom into the light like the lotus flower from which emerged Atum Ra, father of the gods. And finally, here is the symbol you are most interested in.”
The white hare.
“The white hare appears in the cartouche of Osiris: it is the Unnefer, who triumphs over death. An epithet of the god reborn who leaps like a hare beyond death itself.”
“So the Gnostics believed that Jesus was in fact Osiris?”
“It’s not always easy to keep track of who was who over the course of several millennia.”
“You said something about Isis, earlier. You called her ‘the hidden one.’”
“The Amenti, yes.”
“It must be a coincidence.”
“What do you mean?”
Massimo smiled, feeling a little foolish.
“It’s just that I’ve come across Isis before, in another investigation. Why hidden, though?”
“The persecution of pagans began around the year 100, and quickly intensified. The Romans tried to eradicate the cult of Isis. She was too popular, and her priests too powerful. Her statues were thrown into the river Tiber, her priests were butchered. Her devotees began calling her by other goddesses’ names, such as Ceres, just so they could keep worshipping her.”
Massimo couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the hare’s missing tiles.
“It’s almost as if Giacomo knew,” he muttered. “Everything you’ve told me leads back to this symbol. It seems unlikely the killer would have chosen it at random.”
Elena made him turn around.
“There must be a reason he chose the hare, the most hidden of all the figures here. You should ask him.”
“He would never tell me.”
“Then you must insist. He’s the only one who knows the answer.”
“And what about the letter Tau?”
“Where’s the Tau?”
“The tiles he removed and replaced with the bones spell Tau on the hare’s snout, just like the one on the ram.”
“The letter on the ram’s brow is not a Tau. It is thought to be the Hebrew letter Kaph, as in the word Keter, meaning crown. The crowned, victorious Christ. That would certainly fit with the narrative unfolding in these octagonal frames. It might also be a reference to the Greek word kyriakos, meaning ‘of the Lord.’”
“So you’re telling me the symbol on the ram is not a Tau.”
“It’s not a Tau.”
“That’s what we thought it was, and so we assumed the letter the bones on the hare spelled out must also be a Tau.”
Elena studied it for a moment. “I’m pretty sure that’s just an ordinary T.”
They looked at each other.
“An ordinary T?”
“Oh.”
27
Today
MASSIMO HAD DROPPED OFF Elena at home and headed straight back out to the prison. He had decided to do what neither Teresa Battaglia nor police protocol would have allowed: meet with Giacomo Mainardi alone. He had decided to risk it all.
The killer agreed to see him. He wanted to play, and had evidently already foreseen this meeting.
Massimo found him in his makeshift workshop. Mainardi had covered his mosaic with a white cloth, perhaps a bedsheet. He was waiting for Massimo with his hands tucked between his knees, his wrists tied down with cable ties.
“Good morning, Inspector,” he said, head bowed.
“I’m tired of this sadistic game of yours, Mainardi.”
“It saddens me to hear you say that.”
“I don’t give a damn how you feel.”
“Now you’re just being mean. Where’s Teresa?”
“Superintendent Battaglia’s whereabouts are none of your business.”
“She is exhausted.”
“Stop talking about her as if she were your friend!”
“She is.”
“No. She’s a police superintendent, and you’ve confessed to multiple murders. You’ll never be on equal terms, let alone friends.”
The killer’s eyes flashed toward him. Massimo felt a shiver, as if the contact had been physical, as if Giacomo had touched him with those fingers coated in marble dust.
“Maybe we were on equal terms, once upon a time. Maybe we still are. How would you know? You and your expensive suits. You’re definitely not affording those on your ridiculous inspector’s salary. It must be daddy’s money. Ah, yes, I can see from your face that I’ve hit the mark. There’s something unresolved simmering inside of you. I can feel it pushing. Sooner or later it’ll have to come out, won’t it?”
Massimo realized in that moment that the thing Teresa Battaglia had feared had already come to pass: Giacomo had taken an interest in him, in his emotional landscape, and with a few glances and well-placed remarks, he had already taken the measure of him—understood him, even. Now he knew exactly how to twist the knife. Giacomo was manipulating him, but it was too late to take cover. The answer Massimo was looking for was right here, where everything could come crashing down on his head.
“Why the basilica? Why the hare? Why the T? Does it stand for Teresa?”
“You’re the detective who knows how to find all the answers. Or aren’t you?”
“Does the T stand for Teresa? Yes or no?” Massimo shouted.
Giacomo lifted his hand, bringing thumb and index finger close.
“You’ve only got this far to go, Inspector. A small but crucial piece to put back in its place. Once you’ve done that, maybe then you’ll understand.”
Massimo placed his hands on the cloth that covered the mosaic. He felt the freshly laid tiles slipping beneath his palms. He wanted the monster to snap, to lunge toward him. Then he would have an excuse to punch him, as he’d dreamed of doing since the moment he’d walked into the room.
“Do it, Giacomo.”
The killer’s eyes blazed, but instead of exploding into a rage, he burst out laughing.
“You don’t even know. She didn’t tell you!”
“What didn’t she tell me?”
Giacomo was crying with laughter now.
“Talk!”
The killer brushed a finger across his eyelashes to wipe them dry. He stopped taunting him, and looked at him with compassion, as if he really could perceive Massimo’s sorrow, his fear, his despair—and make them his own. Massimo was impressed. Here was a chameleon, a perfect mimic of human emotions. Yet he was not quite human anymore—not fully so, at any rate.
“What you don’t know, Inspector, and which you would rather not hear, is that in all these years, Teresa has never abandoned me. She has never stopped coming here. What happened back then is something that binds us, and always will. If you think I’m lying, go ahead and check the visitors’ log. But if instead you’re wondering why she never told you, I’m afraid you already know the two possible answers to that: either she didn’t want you to be part of our story, or she forgot. Teresa isn’t just exhausted, is she? She’s sick.” He sounded stern now. “I offered you a chance to tell me, earlier, and you didn’t take it. And now you expect me to answer all your questions.”
How Massimo wished he could dismiss it all as lies, but he could feel the serrated edge of the truth scraping at his heart.
He had to get out of there, and so he did, followed by that pair of eyes he could still feel boring into his back even after he’d shut the door behind him. He asked the officer who was waiting in the hallway to take him to the warden’s office. What he learned there left him feeling confused.
“Has Superintendent Battaglia been visiting Mainardi recently?”
“They had monthly meetings.”
“Of what nature?”
“Personal. The first Saturday of every month.”
“Since when?”
“I’ve been the warden here for fourteen years, and as far as I can remember, they’ve always happened.”
“May I check the logs?”
They went through the records together. In the last six months, she had skipped two meetings. On one occasion, she’d come on the wrong day. That was how Giacomo had figured out what was happening to her.
There was something between those two that Massimo couldn’t quite figure out. He could just about glimpse its outline, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t just be compassion that moved her, and it couldn’t just be loneliness that made him so receptive. They actively sought each other out.
He went back to Giacomo, but he wasn’t there anymore.
A prison officer was checking the tools and ticking them off against a list.
“Where is he?”
The officer barely looked up.
“The prisoner asked to be taken back to his cell.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“You’ll need to put a new request in, but Mainardi has already said he does not wish to see anyone else today.”
“So he leaves messages now? What are we, his private secretaries? I need to talk to him now.”
The man shook his head and closed the folder he was holding.
“You know the procedure, Inspector. It’s not me you have to ask. Put your request through, and see if that madman will want to meet you again. We can’t make him.”
The officer left him alone in the room, which stank of cement and of things left half-spoken, there to torment and instigate doubt.
Had Teresa not told him the full story because she didn’t trust him, because she wasn’t interested in involving him, or because she couldn’t remember what she had been doing?
He noticed that a little cube of translucent travertine had been placed right in the middle of the white sheet.
In Mainardi’s imagination, it must be a pale imitation of human bones.
A small but crucial piece to put back in its place, he’d said. A tile.
He picked up the tile and lifted the sheet, and when he saw what Giacomo had made, he felt like he was about to die.
28
Twenty-seven years ago
ALBERT HAD PREPARED A memo for the district attorney and left photocopies on everyone’s desks except Teresa’s. She saw it by chance when she walked past the desk of a colleague who was out sick.
She picked up the report, filled with a destructive urge that miraculously remained confined to the realm of unrealized impulses. Her anger dissolved when she read it. The news was dispiriting: there were no matches with the prints that had been found on the crime scene; as for the surgical tape they’d discovered on the first victim, the clinics that used it were too many to count. It was also readily available for purchase at numerous pharmacies.
The second part of the report did not come as a surprise, as Parri had already warned her about it, but even so, seeing it spelled out like that on an official document—even one designed for internal use only—struck her like an admission of defeat.
Teresa sat down at her desk. She was tired and drained from the nausea, and all she wanted to do was close her eyes and lie down.
She chewed on yet another sweet (at this rate, it was becoming a vice), rested her head on her arms, and curled up on her chair. Just a minute’s rest, enough to give the muscles in her back and legs a chance to relax.
At the sound of the fax machine, she jumped.
I’ve been wondering: could opportunity be playing a more important role in this case than a deep-seated psychological motive?
Perhaps the killer made a compromise. They have to do that sometimes—more often than you might think. Knowing the answer to that would clarify a number of aspects.
R.
Teresa read the short message over and over again.
The question of opportunism. She hadn’t thought about it, not as much as she should have.
Why did the killer target the elderly? Were they part of a specific fantasy, with a precise symbolic value, or were they just easy prey? Perhaps this second possibility played a more significant role than Teresa had previously assumed.
She had focused her attention on the psychological motive, but maybe there were other factors guiding the killer’s hand. He’d had to adapt to circumstances, and he’d had to forgo some of the components of his ideal fantasies in order to be able to realize them.
There had to be a link between the victims, some practical point, though they had not been able to see it yet.
He had watched his victims, he had chosen them and followed them. What the police had to figure out was where it had all begun.
Teresa looked out into the hallway and flagged one of her colleagues. This time she did not ask after Albert. She was a police inspector after all. It was time to start acting like one.
