Although Isabella had only been living in the Convento di Nostra Cara Regina Maria for a few months, she loved the sense of permanence that made this gorgeous abbey such a special place.
That was what set it apart and made it so different from her first convent, a small institution in Calabria. She had lived there for twelve years and had been absolutely convinced that she would grow old and die there – just like her much older sisters. But her fellow nuns had taken Isabella's wish literally and had indeed died one after the other over the years until Isabella was one of the few sisters remaining. Unfortunately, no more novices arrived, the convent was eventually dissolved by the Vatican, and Isabella found her new home in Santa Caterina.
God had always been close to her: she had felt his presence from a young age. But it was only when she joined the order of the Comunità delle suore di Nostra Cara Regina Maria that she found her true home. Life in the abbey gave her an opportunity for a completely different, higher level of communion with both God and with herself. Before, the only time she had found the silence she so longed for was during her morning runs. But in the convent it was everywhere, as it had been during her time as a novice in Calabria.
She had always had her own vision of God, her own specific idea of how one had to approach Him in order to get close to Him.
In the convent, she saw how faith worked differently for everyone. She watched her sisters and learned from them about how to approach God – as perhaps they also learned from her.
As important as the close community was to her, the sacred place was just as essential for her inner life. The stability of a house of God. There was something almost mythical about living in a convent, shaping it as sisters had done for centuries before her in the same way. In Calabria she had been one with the convent, and she remembered feeling impatient to feel the same way in Santa Caterina and share that same feeling with the sisters there.
She did not like all the sisters equally, but she loved them all the same – without exception and without prejudice.
She hadn't known Sister Raffaella long enough to really be able to say how deeply she felt about her. She liked her, had come to appreciate her as a pleasant person she liked to be around.
Did she feel sadness for Raffaella's abrupt passing? Undoubtedly. But as a believer, she knew that she had gone somewhere good. Nevertheless, the loss of a sister would leave a painful, gaping hole in their little community of believers. She had prayed for her together with the others as they said the Liturgy of the Hours. She had meditated on her death in church, in the gardens, or alone in her cell – after all, some things could only be worked out between oneself and God: in particular, the nagging thought that Raffaella had not died of natural causes. In spite of the evidence he had seen, the young Carabiniere Matteo Silvestri had remained sceptical. He hadn't said anything outright, but she had seen it in his eyes.
And his scepticism had made her question herself, too. Could it be that she was imagining things? Was she drawing the wrong
conclusions? She was a nun, not Sherlock Holmes. But all the same, she knew that if she wanted to answer these questions, she needed to take the investigation into her own hands. And what could be a more logical first step than to go and take a look through Raffaella's belongings?
It hadn't been an easy decision, and Isabella had wrestled with it. A nun's cell is utterly private and may only be entered by others in exceptional circumstances. A cell is, first and foremost, a personal place for one's encounters with God. And like all the other sisters, Isabella had respected that fact. Until now.
Guilty conscience or no: Raffaella was dead, and where she had gone, earthly needs didn't matter anymore. She surely had no need for privacy now. Besides, Isabella had good reason to be snooping around. If her fears were justified, Raffaella would have wanted her to be doing just that. Why else would she have traced a final clue with her finger in the dust at the moment of her death? She found it incredible that Matteo was so reluctant to draw the obvious conclusion.
But visiting Sister Raffaella's cell was no easy matter. She had to wait for the right moment, unless she wanted to get in trouble with the Abbess.
Life in Convento di Nostra Cara Regina Maria followed a strict routine, a regular daily round of precisely defined meal, work and prayer times.
The abbey came to life at the crack of dawn, well before the first crow of the Leghorn cock, even before the sun stretched tentative, groping rays down from the picture-perfect rolling hills and onto the convent's roof.
Likewise, the convent fell silent well before nightfall. By eight o'clock at the latest, all the nuns had retired to their cells to pray.
Isabella waited until nine, just to be sure, and then quiet as a mouse she stole out down the pleasantly cool corridor to Raffaella's chamber. Her heart beat hard and fast in her chest as she placed her hand on the cold brass doorhandle. The door was unlocked, but she had to pull it open very slowly, lifting the latch so that it did not creak too loudly. The walls of the convent might have been thick, but they still had ears.
She slipped through the narrow gap and pulled the door shut just as quietly behind her.
Even though night had not yet fully fallen and a little daylight was still filtering in through the cell's two narrow arched windows, Isabella flicked on the cell's light so she could take a good look around. At first glance, nothing unusual stood out.
The room was just as spartan as her own cell. A washbasin whose tap only ran cold. A dark wooden table with a chair, and a narrow wooden bed that was far more comfortable than it looked. Under the window ledge there was a functional cherry-wood chest of drawers.
Isabella also had a small television hanging on the wall above the bed. The remote control was on the bedside cabinet next to the bed. It sat on top of Raffaella's Bible.
Isabella looked everything over carefully. The bedside lamp, the still half-full glass of water that stood next to it.
The walls were bare. There were no pictures, just a small bronze cross hung over the doorframe.
As she investigated, she thought about her dead sister. She didn't know too much about her, but she had always got the feeling that the other sisters had liked her a great deal. Well, every now and then Raffaella had had some cross words, mostly with the bossy Sister Hildegard. But beyond that, everyone had had an affable relationship with Sister Raffaella. So how had it all ended like this?
She walked towards the dresser and looked at the porcelain figures arranged around a crocheted placemat. They were likenesses of children with outsized eyes, chubby red cheeks and exaggerated dimples. They were all brightly painted and looked out of time, and not only because of their old-fashioned clothes. Isabella counted them. There were nineteen of them. She examined the figurines more closely. One sculpture depicted two children sitting at old-fashioned school desks with writing slates set out. Another showed a ruddy-cheeked little girl in a short skirt and knee socks turning towards a bird sitting next to her on the bench. A robin.
They were nice enough to look at, but not to Isabella's taste at all.
Her eyes fell on the drawers below. She briefly wrestled with herself over whether she really dared to rifle through her dead sister's most intimate belongings. But the feeling that she was doing the right thing finally prevailed. So she pulled open drawer after drawer and rummaged around. But she found nothing but Raffaella's laundry and two bottles of abbey grappa. One was still sealed, the other three-quarters empty. On impulse, Isabella opened the opened bottle and smelled it. The strong smell of alcohol made her pull a face. She quickly put the bottle back and pushed the drawer shut again. Once again, she looked at the porcelain figurines and lifted one. It was perhaps fifteen centimetres tall, and heavier than it looked. Pondering, she turned it over and over, looking at it from all sides, for want of any other ideas about what to look for. She read the embossing under the base:
Fabbrica Mazza, Lucca
She knew the name. The Mazza ceramics factory was a regional family business. Its wares were sold at the Caterina market. Mazza was known far beyond the region for its high-quality tableware. But she hadn't known that they made figurines like these as well.
It was news to her that Sister Raffaella had collected pieces like these, but it was hardly far-fetched; she had been assigned to market duty and had probably become friends with the people who ran the ceramics stall there. She frowned. There was no accounting for taste.
She felt a certain disappointment spreading through her. She did not know what she had expected, but there was nothing in Raffaella's cell which seemed to offer even the slightest clue. How was she supposed to decipher the riddle of her death now?
Carefully, she placed the figure back in the precise spot she had lifted it from. Finding it was easy because a clean circle stood out from the layer of dust.
And right there, something else caught her eye. There was another circular print, just next to the figure. This patch was not quite clean of dust, but it was less thickly covered than the rest of the dresser top. This could only mean that a few days ago, another figurine had also stood there. So there were twenty, in fact. But where was this last one now?
She looked at the imprint closely, as if it would give up its secrets if she willed it hard enough. Naturally, it didn't. Looking at the dust, she thought of the number six painted in the sand. Her heart grew heavy. What were you trying to tell us, Raffaella?
She winced as the door creaked open behind her.
"What are you doing here?" The sharpness of the question shattered the silence. Panicked, Isabella wheeled around and gasped when she saw Sister Hildegard standing in the doorway. Her gaze was hostile and suspicious.
"Just what do you think you are you doing in Raffaella's cell?" she asked again. "I'm going to tell the Abbess!"