‘Professor, wake up,’ Detective Russo growled before administering a hard slap across Harker’s face. ‘Are you with me?’ His hand was already poised for another firm blow when Harker’s eyes flickered open and he grabbed hold of Russo’s forearm.
‘Enough with the slapping.’ he demanded weakly and, as his blurred vison became more focused, he began to look around him to get his bearings. He had been pulled out of the fountain and was now propped awkwardly up against its stone rim. ‘What happened?’
‘You got punched out by that guy,’ Russo said indignantly, pointing over to a beefy-looking fellow wearing a NYU sweatshirt, who now raised his hands up apologetically.
‘My mistake,’ The man said in a heavy Floridian accent.
Harker gave an understanding wave and then suddenly everything came back to him. ‘The one in the hood?’
‘Don’t worry, he’s in custody. He ran straight into a couple of patrolmen at the top of the street,’ Russo informed him with a satisfied smile. ‘And he would have got away too, but the fool panicked and pulled a knife.’
‘What happened then?’
‘One of the officers wasn’t as lucky as me,’ Russo replied, pulling down his collar to reveal a thin welt cut running around his neck where the garrotte had dug in. ‘He took a stab wound to the chest but he should make it.’
‘Jesus,’ Harker exclaimed, studying Russo’s injury, ‘you OK?
‘Fine, it didn’t go deep enough but it would have if you’d not appeared when you did.’
The detective pushed his collar back up, and then hauled Harker to his feet, water running off his clothes and splattering onto the street as he did so. ‘That man over there who punched you out, he thought he was stopping a rapist. Not a bad tactic, so shame it didn’t work.’
‘It was all I could think of,’ Harker replied, now brushing down his sodden garments and becoming ever more aware of the large crowd surrounding them with interest. ‘Where is he?’
‘In the back of a police van over there.’ Russo pointed over to a white transit van parked at the side of the road, the word ‘Polizia’ painted across its side. ‘I thought you might want to have a word with him before he’s taken to a holding cell, but we need to be quick. Attempted murder of a police officer is a serious offence, whichever way you cut it.’
Russo began pushing his way through the curious crowd and towards the van, with Harker, dripping wet, close by his side. ‘You put up one hell of a fight. He could have drowned you.’
‘Maybe.’ The remark had Harker already shaking his head. ‘I was about to pass out when he just let go. I think something must have scared him off’
This received a knowing look from Russo. ‘That would have been our helpful tourist. Lucky for you I reached you when I did, because he was about to punch the hell out of you.’
Harker could feel his ribs ache with every step, and he rubbed his chest where the big man had pummelled him. ‘Yeah, really lucky,’ he replied with an air of sarcasm.
Russo managed a vague smile. ‘Bruises will heal, Professor, but I myself am going to have a permanent scar.’ He pointed to his neckline. ‘Now, why don’t we both say hello to the man of the moment?’
Russo grasped the police van’s back door and flipped it open so, for the first time, Harker got a good look at the man who had nearly drowned him.
He could not have been more than eighteen, with short mousy hair and a pathetic attempt at a beard which could only be described as ‘bum fluff’. The offender looked anything but concerned about his predicament, offering them both a glare before returning to his navel gazing, while Russo and Harker joined him inside the tight confines of the vehicle. The teenager’s hands were handcuffed to the seats on either side of him and, apart from a bruise developing on his left cheek, probably courtesy of the arresting officer, he looked none the worse for wear.
Harker took the seat opposite him, as Russo closed the door behind them and then sat down alongside. The only light now came from the rear doors, two porthole windows.
‘Before we really start I need to get something out of the way,’ Russo declared forcefully and, without warning, administered a heavy punch to the boy’s already bruised cheek, sending him reeling sideways against the neighbouring seat.
‘There’s no need for that,’ Harker protested, placing his arm defensively in front of the handcuffed youth.
‘This little shit just stabbed a fellow police officer, so he’s lucky I don’t break his kneecaps.’
Russo’s reaction was understandable but Harker wasn’t about to let this go any further. He shifted his position and leant forwards so that he was partially positioned between the two men.
‘Do you speak English?’ Harker asked, but the boy gave no reaction. Then ‘Parli italiano?’
The teenager glanced briefly at Russo, then he returned to face Harker and offered a slow nod. ‘Who are you?’ Harker asked, using his best Roman inflection.
The prisoner remained silent for a few moments, then he uttered with a quiet, ‘It doesn’t matter who I am.’
‘Considering you just tried to drown me, I’d say it does.’
The boy smiled at that remark before he slumped back into his seat. ‘If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead just like that.’ He held up his hands as far as his restraints would allow and snapped a thumb and finger together in a show of defiance.
Behind him Russo reached over and, before Harker could stop him, the detective gave the youth a hard smack across the cheek. ‘And I could kill you even easier than that.’
Harker was about protest once more but the slap – or the threat of continuing punishment – appeared to settle the younger man.
‘I am your wake-up call. I am the gun at the starting line.’
He spoke the words quietly, attempting to sound tougher than he really felt as do many teenagers, but Harker detected a sincerity in his response. There was no attitude in his tone per se but rather the suggestion that, whatever the boy was alluding to, he believed it wholeheartedly.
‘What’s your association with Father Davies?’ Harker asked next, deliberately sounding more aggressive as Russo stared menacingly over his shoulder.
‘He was on a journey,’ the youngster replied with a wry smile. ‘As am I… and, now, as are you.’
Harker sat back against the interior wall of the van and scrutinised the lad in front of him. Given his apparent youth, he was most definitely above his years in terms of maturity, for there was a confidence in his eyes and his demeanour had strength not built on testosterone but rather experience, and so Harker decided to treat this cryptic answer with the seriousness he felt it deserved.
‘Do you know where Father Davies is now?’ Harker asked, even though he well knew that at this moment the priest was probably lying in a refrigeration locker at the city morgue.
‘Yes, he took a wrong turn and the path laid down for us has no room for detours.’
‘And what path is that?’
‘The only path that matters,’ the boy offered sternly. ‘That which leads to the kingdom.’
‘And which kingdom would that be?’ Harker replied, becoming impatient with this evasive back-and-forth.
‘That is for you yourself to decide… and I hope you make the right choice.’
Russo was now visibly chomping at the bit. ‘Enough with the bullshit, kid. I took philosophy 101, too. What goes up must come down. That which lives must eventually die. Stop talking crap and get to the point.’
He began to lean closer to the youth belligerently, and Harker gave him a restraining nudge. ‘Are you referring to one of the two kingdoms?’ he guessed.
The boy offered no response but instead turned his eyes to the floor of the van as Harker continued.
‘The kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of Hell.’
‘You have no idea, do you?’ The boy continued staring downwards. ‘Just plucking at straws, trying to make connections that exist only in your mind.’ He let out a deep laugh and shook his head condescendingly. ‘His domain has been here since the dawn of time, but only now does he choose to visit it.’
The cryptic line of thought now began to make some sense to Harker, if only in a theological sense, and he immediately attempted to play into the boy’s whimsical fantasies. ‘You’re talking about the arrival of the Antichrist, aren’t you, and his kingdom is earth?’
The boy looked up with incredulity in his eyes and he let out a dismissive chuckle. ‘His arrival occurred a long time ago, Professor, and I don’t think you’re going to make it.’
This mention of Harker’s academic title and the puzzling nonsense Russo was hearing was as much as the detective could take as he pushed Harker aside and grabbed the boy by the lapels of his hoody. ‘Enough of this movie talk, you little bastard. I want to know why Father Davies keeps a rotting animal head in his house, and I want to know what you were doing there. Not many teenage boys carry a garrotte on them and somehow you know he’s a professor.’ Russo gave a quick nod in Harker’s direction. ‘So you were waiting for us… why?’
‘A test,’ the boy replied in a nonchalant manner. ‘A test you two idiots failed.’
This insult was the final straw for Russo and he was already raising his fist in the air, ready to strike, when the van doors swung open to reveal a man wearing the familiar black uniform and red-striped trousers of a Carabinieri officer’s uniform. ‘That’s enough Detective. I allowed you a few minutes but I have orders to take him into custody,’ the policeman stated firmly, ‘and the less bruises found on him the better.’
At first it seemed like Russo was about to tell the junior officer to get lost, but then his clenched fist relaxed and he turned back to face the boy who was now smiling and looking as happy as a lamb. ‘This conversation isn’t over,’ the detective hissed.
The teenager looked unfazed by this passive threat. ‘Oh, I think it is, Detective Russo.’
Russo ignored this indication of the boy’s obvious awareness of his identity and exited the van, followed by Harker.
‘Good luck, Professor,’ the boy called out and, just before the van doors were slammed shut, he shot off one last piece of advice, ‘and choose wisely.’
‘Freaky little bastard,’ Russo spat out after they had put a few metres between themselves and the vehicle. ‘You don’t buy into all that crap of his, do you?’
‘What… about the Antichrist?’
‘What else?’
‘Not really,’ Harker replied as behind them the Carabinieri officer locked the van doors and started making his way over towards them, ‘but from my experience I’ve found that keeping an open mind is crucial. The devil being in the detail and all that.’
Harker’s play on words was ignored by Russo, who instead turned his attention to the policeman.
‘I told you not to strike him,’ the officer grumbled, clearly upset at Russo’s technique of persuasion.
‘It was only a little slap.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who has to deliver him to the station and if he’s all beaten up, they’ll want an explanation.’
Russo looked unconvinced by such reasoning. ‘That boy just tried to kill one of us. Trust me, they won’t care so long as he’s alive.’
The officer nodded, agreeably, although still unhappy, then he reached into his pocket and produced a folded piece of A5 card. ‘I found this on him,’ he said and thrust it into Russo’s hand. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a prisoner to drop off.’
‘Grazie, Benito.’ Russo said, brandishing the piece of card in his hand. ‘Dinner next week with the family?’
Without a reply, Benito climbed in the driver’s side and started up the van before briefly sticking his head out the window. ‘And you’re paying,’ he declared at which he began driving off down the street, navigating through the pedestrians with sirens blaring.
‘Family?’ Harker asked as the van turned a corner and out of sight.
‘He’s my cousin,’ Russo replied. ‘Good man but he worries too much.’ Now turning his attention to the card still in his hand, he unfolded it and held it visible between them both. ‘What do have here, then?’
The card was marked on one side only and the message was handwritten with a fountain pen.
7 p.m.
Baths of Caracalla
Usual attire
‘You think that means tonight?’ Harker enquired, but already assuming the answer.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Russo replied before checking the other side in case he had missed something at first glance.
‘I know the baths mentioned. Can you take me there?’ Harker was now looking back towards Father Davies’s apartment block and trying to remember where they had parked.
‘Hold on, Professor, I think you’ve done enough investigating for now, don’t you?’
The comment had Harker looking bewildered. ‘We haven’t discovered anything so far, except that the youngster who tried to kill us both has serious mental issues, and that Father Davies’s extracurricular activities include butchery and animal sculpturing.’
‘We actually know a lot more than that. He knew that you were a professor and clearly he was expecting us.’
‘That’s true,’ Harker replied unfazed, ‘but it leaves us with more questions than answers, doesn’t it?’
‘What do you mean “us”?’ Russo’s highly authoritative tone caught Harker by surprise.
‘I thought you’d offered to help me in any way you could.’
‘That’s true, Professor, but the attempted murder of a police officer changes the landscape a bit.’
Harker rested his hands on his hips and turned away momentarily, as he got to grips with controlling the frustration attempting to claw its way out of his mouth. ‘Are you religious, Detective?’
Russo offered a dry smile, leaning in towards him surreptitiously. ‘I wouldn’t be helping out the Templars, in clear breach of my official position in the Polizia di Stato, if I wasn’t.’
‘Good, then perhaps it’s time I told you why I was asked to come here in the first place.’
Russo’s silence in response only confirmed to Harker that the detective was willing to listen and so after a slight hesitation, he began to explain. ‘OK, now bear with me, because this is all going to sound a little… strange.’