Flowers over the Inferno, page 27
It was in that moment that she felt a soft weight on her arms. She opened her eyes and saw the child there, wrapped in lamb fleece. She moved her hands to steady her grip on it, and for a long moment, her fingers brushed against Andreas’s. Teresa sensed a kind of wordless communication pass between them, a feeling of compassion and shared hurt that only grew when she cradled the child against her chest and realized just how difficult it must have been for him to let go. She, too, would have wanted the child to be hers; she, too, would have wanted to clutch it to her heart and fall asleep beside it every night.
She barely registered the tears that were trickling down her face as she handed the baby over to its mother.
“Feed him,” she told her.
Gloria obeyed, her face marked with tears and relief. The child suckled greedily at her breast.
Teresa looked at Andreas. She understood that he wasn’t going to hurt them, because he knew, now, that the child was where it was meant to be.
“Let’s go,” she told Gloria.
She made Gloria back away first, and didn’t move at all until she was reasonably sure Gloria had made it out of the gallery safely. Those minutes seemed to last for an eternity, and Andreas’s eyes never once stopped staring into hers.
It was difficult to walk away from him, to interrupt that moment. Teresa retreated and disappeared into the black tunnel.
“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” she muttered as she hurried past the armed officers who were hiding in the shadows, pressed against the rock walls. She was afraid. For the first time in her career, she feared for a killer.
When she emerged into the open air, she saw Gloria and Mathias embracing little Markus. Teresa looked around at all those who had gathered and couldn’t see the children’s father. So Gloria had been strong; she had kept her promise. Teresa had done the same for Mathias; she had retrieved for him a brother’s love, but she had also gifted him a renewed family. The boy looked up and saw her. Teresa would remember for the rest of her life the fond memory of that shared glance.
She turned her face to the sky and savored the gentle, soothing weight of snowflakes on her skin.
All of a sudden, she felt quite empty. Her body went limp and crumpled onto the snow. Her mind remained alert for a few moments more, long enough for her to become aware that she was lying on the ground, surrounded by the cold that had been her constant companion for the past few days, both within her, and outside. Then, there was darkness.
-76-
It was the middle of the night, yet Lucas Ebran’s mother answered the doorbell at the first ring. She looked uncomprehendingly at Massimo, then remembered the context in which she had first met him and slammed the door in his face.
“Please!” he said, trying to stop her. “It’s important.”
The windows of the house were completely black, but he knew she was still there. He looked around: the road was deserted. The man Massimo had brought with him was standing a few feet away, with his back against the wall and his head bowed almost down to his chest. He hadn’t spoken a single word since Massimo had forced him to follow him.
He knocked again.
“I’ve come to hear you out. To find out the secrets of the valley,” he said, raising his voice.
A few moments later, the lock clicked, and a pair of hostile eyes peered at him from around the edge of the door.
“What do you want?” she asked him.
“What I said: I want to know who the sinners are, and how they have sinned. Have I come to the right place?”
“Maybe,” she snapped, “but I don’t talk to people like you.”
“Aren’t we talking now?” he asked her with a half-smile.
She made as if to close the door, but Massimo was quick to block it.
“Go away!”
She flung the door open once more, but this time she was brandishing a hatchet.
Massimo immediately let go of the door.
“Hold on, hold on! I have a gift for you,” he blurted out.
The woman stared at him, more intrigued now than angry.
Massimo turned toward the man he’d brought with him, who had kept his eyes fixed on the cobblestones as if there were nothing else in the world. The woman followed Massimo’s gaze.
“Lucas!”
As soon as she’d caught sight of her son, her voice had turned sweet.
Viola was a fragile being trapped inside a gargantuan form. As she made them coffee in the kitchenette her thighs kept bumping against the furniture, knocking her off balance.
“My legs don’t work anymore, and my back’s about to give up on me, too,” she told him, noticing his expression. “This body won’t carry me for much longer.”
Massimo didn’t know what to say to that, so he decided to change the subject.
“I was surprised to find you awake at this hour,” he said as she opened a pack of cookies and placed some on a saucer between their two coffee cups. She poured the coffee and handed Massimo another cup, which served as a sugar bowl.
He thanked her.
“I was waiting for Lucas,” she said, sitting down with some difficulty. “I hadn’t seen him since he was released. He likes to disappear, to get away from the world. And from me. Everything is difficult with him.”
Massimo became conscious that he was struggling to hold her gaze. He’d watched her cuddle her son for a long time, whispering words into his ear that only the two of them could hear. He’d waited patiently for her to take him to the bathroom and wash him. He’d listened to her singing tender songs to him. Viola had taken care of the child that Lucas Ebran still partly was. She had only come back downstairs once she’d tucked him safely into bed.
“I’m sorry,” was all Massimo could muster. “I’m sure it’ll all work out for the best.”
The look she gave him seemed to say that there was no point in lying: she no longer believed in anything good, anything that didn’t cause her pain.
“My son hasn’t been well since the day he had to clean up his father’s blood from this floor, Inspector. He’s sick right here,” she said, tapping her forehead, “but he’s no monster. But you treated him like one, waving your guns about when you came here looking for him.”
“It was our duty to investigate . . .”
She made a face at him that suggested she didn’t think it mattered anymore. Massimo suspected that what had upset her most was to have suffered yet another blow to her dignity.
“I’ve come to talk about something you said yesterday about the inhabitants of this valley,” he said.
“Yes, I remember. I tend to start shouting when I’m afraid. It’s a weakness.”
“I apologize if I scared you.”
She left his apology unanswered.
“You said you came here for the secrets.”
“Yes. I was surprised to hear you talk about illegitimate children. You’re all pious people in this valley, aren’t you?”
She flicked her hand in a gesture of irritation, sending all the preachers, the saints, and their ilk to hell.
“The more they show their face in church, the more they sin,” she said.
“I visited the convent in Rail,” Massimo told her. “I saw the wheel. A troubling story.”
The woman nodded.
“It’s not the worst thing about this place, you know. Our little valley has plenty of sins to hide,” she said. “They like to think people have forgotten by now, but I can’t help but laugh when I come across them on the street.”
“Come across whom?”
“The nuns.”
Massimo leaned forward.
“The nuns have a secret to hide?” he said, wanting to be sure he’d understood her.
She gave him a sly grin, the smile of someone who knew a lot more than they let on. She picked up a cookie from the plate and began to chew on it.
“Clandestine liaisons,” she said. “That’s what we’re talking about.”
Massimo’s excitement vanished. He wasn’t interested in this particular piece of information. He picked up a biscuit too, and bit into it.
Viola’s smile widened.
“Do you want to hear the story or not?” she said.
“What story?”
“The story of a child born between the walls of the convent, and who never crossed beyond those walls either. Maybe it’s just village gossip—maybe, yes—but my husband did say to me that he heard that newborn soul’s first cries loud and clear and the screams of the woman who bore it.”
-77-
Teresa opened her eyes and wondered for a moment whether it was daytime. The snow was so white that it was painful to look at. She had to blink several times before she managed to focus on her surroundings, and at that point she realized that the whiteness actually belonged to a neon-lit ceiling and a set of laminated furniture. She was lying on a bed in what appeared to be a medical clinic. There was a photograph on a desk, next to a computer, of a man she knew. Looking younger, and lean, the person in the image watched her from the summit of a mountain, his hair ruffled by the wind.
Teresa tried to sit up, but her muscles refused to cooperate. She fell wearily back onto the pillow.
“I believe you’ve had a hyperglycemic seizure,” someone announced.
Teresa turned her head. Doctor Ian was watching her from the door, smiling.
“Will I die?” she asked him gravely.
He laughed and moved closer. He held her wrist and counted her heartbeats.
“Not today,” he replied. “Your colleagues told me you are diabetic. I imagine you must have forgotten your insulin.”
Teresa closed her eyes once more. She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d injected herself.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I sorted it out. Your blood sugar levels were rather worrying. But please, lie down now. You’ve only been here fifteen minutes. I’ve sent your colleagues away. You need to rest for at least two hours.”
Teresa felt confused, but mostly foolish.
“Thank you,” she said sheepishly. “Doctor Ian?”
“Yes?”
“Did they catch him?”
She was afraid of the response but couldn’t bear not knowing.
He nodded.
“Yes. He’s unharmed,” he replied.
Teresa sighed with relief.
“And the child?”
“He’s been taken to the hospital in the city as a precaution, but he’s fine. You’re the only one who actually needed an ambulance. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Teresa stared at the ceiling. In his own way, Andreas had taken care of his child. She wondered what he must be feeling like now, surrounded by strangers, and far from his forest.
Scared. Disoriented. Desperate.
She had to go to him. She pulled the cover aside and sat upright. She didn’t have her coat and didn’t even know where her bag and her gun were. Her colleagues had probably taken her weapon for safekeeping. She got up, but a light spell of dizziness forced her to lean on the bed. Her clothes were wrinkled, and she tried to smooth them as best she could with her hands. She did the same to her hair but doubted she’d managed to make herself look presentable. She looked for a napkin in her pocket and only found a paper tissue. It was as wrinkled as she was and covered in scribbles. Teresa was shocked to realize it was her own handwriting. It was something she had noted down in those last, hectic hours and hadn’t had a chance to transcribe into her diary yet.
It bore that day’s date, and though she couldn’t recall writing it, what worried her most in that moment was not the advance of her illness, but the note she had addressed to herself on that scrap of paper.
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The nuns’ dormitories were located in the cellars of the convent of Rail. The cells predated the first blueprints of the building and had been carved into the limestone back in Roman times. The Celts had repurposed them as crypts, and now they housed the nuns from sunset until just before dawn.
Massimo descended the steps that led to those ancient catacombs, preparing to finally solve the mystery of child Omega.
The abbess had agreed to escort him there only after much insistence on his part. When he’d shown up at the convent again, Massimo had uttered just two words, and those two words had been enough to frighten Sister Agata, and wipe away the smile with which she’d greeted him. Like an incantation, they had granted Massimo passage.
Lucas Ebran’s mother had told him a story that, thirty years ago, had been the whispered talk of Rail: the story of a nun too pretty and too young to go unnoticed. The villagers had followed her every movement, and watched her belly grow larger and larger beneath her Benedictine habit.
Earlier, Sister Agata had denied there had ever been any kind of scandal connected to the convent. But she’d also said that she hadn’t been around for that long. Massimo had pounced on that small detail—perhaps her attempt at distancing herself from some kind of past crime—and persevered until she’d agreed to help him.
She had finally capitulated when he’d reminded her that he’d come for the soul of a nameless child, twenty-five years after his death. Perhaps they owed it to him to reveal the truth of what had happened.
Massimo followed Sister Agata through to the end of a long tunnel carved into stone and lined on one side with cells. The doors that led to each room were low; the occupants of the cells would have had to stoop down to go through. Each door had a peephole, covered in thick mesh, through which one could look inside. All the cells were dark, except for the last one.
The abbess gestured toward the illuminated square.
“She’s expecting you,” she told him. “I’ll wait for you back at the entrance.”
“Thank you.”
Slowly, Massimo walked toward the door. Something about that place demanded respect and silence, but he knew that what he was about to say would bring turmoil to the convent, uncovering a secret that its inhabitants had long believed forgotten.
A nun was looking at him from behind the grille. Her name was Marja Restochova: the two words that had so disturbed the abbess.
When he’d discovered that she was still in the convent, Massimo had been left speechless. He couldn’t see the nun’s features clearly, but her face still held the visible traces of a past beauty. Her skin, almost transparent, looked like velvet, and gleamed in the quivering candlelight.
Massimo wasn’t sure what words to start with, but she was the one to break the silence first.
“So you know my name,” she said.
“I know your name, Sister, and a story that I hope you might be able to confirm.”
“Ah, yes. That story. It happened so long ago, and yet there are still those who claim to know the truth of it.”
“Tell me your side, then.”
“They were all lies, Inspector. Now please leave me alone.”
Massimo heard something shake in her voice. At first, he assumed it was frustration, but then he recognized it for what it really was: fear.
“I’m here to find out about a child,” he explained. “A child who was born inside these walls, and then disappeared.”
Marja did not respond.
“What are you afraid of, after all this time?” he asked her. “People’s judgment? Shame?”
“It was a lie!”
“Your lie, perhaps. And you felt so guilty that you decided all those years ago to renounce the world and take a vow of enclosure!”
“You should leave. You will not get the answers you’re looking for here.”
“Maybe you’re right, but there are other ways. DNA testing, for example.”
She hesitated, then, and suddenly seemed more wary.
“What do you mean?”
Massimo leaned toward the grille.
“We’ve found the remains of a child who died twenty-five years ago. I think it’s your son.”
The woman opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.
“You gave birth to him, and then you abandoned him. I need to know who helped you.”
“How did he die?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“He was killed by the person who raised him.”
Marja lowered her head and closed her eyes. Tears began to fall from between her lashes. Massimo realized that up until that moment, she had convinced herself her son had been living a full and happy life far from her.
“I was scared,” she confessed. “But I didn’t do anything wrong. I left him in better hands than mine, someone who could give him a family that would love him.”
“Was he sent to an orphanage?”
“No.”
“Who was it, then?”
“The same person who helped him into the world.”
Massimo grabbed hold of the grille, bringing his face close to hers, unmoved by her silent weeping.
“I need a name,” he said.
Marja sighed and whispered the name into his ear, as if she were still afraid, after all that time, to say it out loud.
Massimo looked at her, horrified. He knew that man. But the discovery led him to make one final connection: that man had the same blue eyes—only older now—as the man in the blurry photo Massimo had found in the file of an old unsolved case from across the border.
-79-
Teresa couldn’t recall assigning Marini that task. She couldn’t remember a single thing about their conversation on the subject, and yet it seemed that a few hours ago, she had ordered him to visit the convent in Rail. The only clue she had was a hurried scribble on a piece of tissue paper she hadn’t yet transcribed to her diary. At the end of the note, she’d written the following words: “refer to diary.”
