The Villa of Mysteries (18 page)

There were lights here too. Wires ran down one side of the steps, with a switch cut into the rough wall at the base of the stairs. A bare bulb, perhaps the first of several, dangled ahead in the darkness. Nic Costa didn’t know anything about archaeology but that struck him as odd. Surely they would use portable floods? A string of bulbs seemed like normal lighting, the kind you got in a hall.

Costa checked himself. You were supposed to do these things in twos. It was possible there was someone else around. This could be a perfect place to hide, to stay out of sight until it was all over.

And then drag Suzi somewhere else. Or just leave a body on the mouldy earth.

“No time,” he said to himself. Besides, he was sick of the way they kept giving him that tired look whenever he mentioned the girl.

He took his gun out of its holster, hugged the wall, and walked down into the subterranean cavern, step by step. The temperature immediately seemed to fall a couple of degrees. The place had the dank, fungal smell of something rotten.

There wasn’t a sound. At the bottom he flipped the switch on the wall and walked through a doorway so low he had to duck to get through.

The room was brightly lit. This must, he realized, have been restored somewhat. It was impossible that original wall paintings could have remained so bright and vivid for two thousand years. Or maybe they weren’t original at all. Maybe someone painted them there recently for some reason.

Nic Costa looked at them and thought:
here lie nightmares
. And maybe that was what they really were. Some desperate effort to take this poison out of the human mind, to exorcize it by transforming the living demons inside a man’s head into images on some ancient, pagan wall.

They ran around the rectangular chamber in a series of frames, each with the same bright red background behind the detail. A figurative mosaic frieze of dolphins and sea monsters capped every scene. Painted columns divided one frame from the next. The pictures were designed, he understood, to be viewed as a series, a set of linked images which told a story. From what he recalled of Teresa’s brief lecture that morning, it had to be that of an initiation into the Dionysian mysteries.

To his right, covering the short wall by the door, was what he assumed to be the beginning of the tale. An imposing male figure, the god himself perhaps, reclined lazily on a golden throne, with a horned satyr on each side, both peering into silver water bowls. At his feet lay a young woman, her face covered by a veil, holding a phallic object topped with a pine cone: Teresa’s thyrsus. The long wall next to this contained three further frames. A naked child read out loud from a scroll. Three female dancers, hands clasped together, faces ecstatic, turned around an urn. An old crone in a dark robe, crouched on a decaying tree trunk, peered malevolently at a beautiful young woman seated in front of a mirror, toying with her hair.

The main wall opposite the entrance was occupied by a single work. The young woman was entering the presence of the god. Black slaves scourged her with whips. Satyrs played lutes in the background. There was terror on the initiate’s face. The god leered hungrily at her from his throne.

Costa turned to face the left wall. Here were more rituals: scourging, drinking, dancing, coupling. The four frames depicted an orgy but one that sat at the edge of sanity, like something from the imagination of a Roman Hieronymus Bosch. In the corners of the images there were revellers who were unconscious or vomiting. A pregnant mother suckled a child on one breast and a goat on the other. Women lay on their backs embracing horses and lions. Two girls were engaged in a bloody fight, rolling on the floor, scratching at each other’s eyes.

And in the last image an execution: one woman walked on, blind-folded, towards the god. The second was killed, her throat cut from behind by a grinning satyr who pressed his groin against her buttocks.

He turned to face the final frame, the counterpart to the first, set on the other side of the door. The god still sat on his throne but now he wore a mask, the obscene screaming mask that was the source of the tattoo he’d seen on both the dead Eleanor Jamieson and the living Suzi Julius. They were poor imitations. In the god’s face lay a blind, hungry fury that couldn’t be reduced to a scrawl on flesh.

The initiate was naked, half standing over him, face forward, as he savaged her from behind, his hand reaching round to grip her left breast hard between his fingers. Her face was partially covered with a veil. Her mouth was a wide-open screaming rictus of agony. The shape of his massive erection was visible beneath her open legs. Satyrs and hangers-on watched avidly, with wild eyes and open, hungry mouths.

Was this the ordeal Wallis’s stepdaughter had refused? Costa wondered. Perhaps in a room very much like this? And if she hadn’t, where would she be now? Anywhere, he realized. If Teresa was right, this villa was just an outpost. Somewhere in Rome there stood the Villa of Mysteries, the heart of the cult, a hidden temple, just like this one, buried beneath the earth.

It didn’t add up. One man, surely, would not go to these strange lengths. Randolph Kirk couldn’t have been the figure racing a bike across the Campo with Suzi Julius happy on the back. That was someone young, someone she knew.

Costa tried to think practical thoughts. This wasn’t an active dig. There was no sign of recent excavation. Yet people did come here regularly. He could see the odd cigarette butt and a few sweet wrappers. The university maintained the site. They would use it for study, surely.

He walked around the corners, using the torch to illuminate the darker parts.

Something bright lurked close to the image of the god and the screaming initiate. He took a plastic envelope out of his pocket, bent down and picked it up. It was an elastic hair-band, bright red, green and yellow, Rastafarian colours, the kind a young girl would use. He searched the rest of the room as best he could. There was nothing else of obvious interest.

Then he walked back up the stairs, back to the portable office. It was getting late now. Falcone looked tired, gloomy. D’Amato stood silent by his side.

“The scene-of-crime people can take a look at the place once they’re done here,” he said after listening to Costa’s ideas. “There’s probably nothing left from sixteen years ago, Nic, if that’s what you’re thinking. Besides, Lupo already said she was probably killed somewhere in the city.”

“I know,” he answered and held up the hair-band. “But this isn’t sixteen years old.”

Rachele D’Amato peered at the plastic bag. “It’s the kind of thing a child would wear,” she said. “Did they let children in there on visits?”

He thought of the pictures on the walls. “I can’t imagine they’d allow that.”

Falcone raised a grey eyebrow. “You think so? These are liberated days. Look, it’s late. If you think there’s something to chase here, go and see the mother. On your own. We’re a little short of men. If she recognizes it, try the lab. There must be millions like it. We need to know for sure. Then get some rest. We’re all going to be working overtime tomorrow.”

“You can say that again,” D’Amato whispered.

Costa saw them exchange a glance. He wondered if something was going on between them and whether that could cloud the man’s normally excellent judgement.

Then Falcone took him to one side, peered inquisitively into his face. “How are you doing? You look dog-tired. You been drinking recently?”

“No,” Costa snapped. “Are you my boss or my keeper?”

“A little of both. For now anyway.”

Falcone’s phone rang. He listened then said, “Wait for me.”

Costa hesitated, wanting to know the news.

“We’ll follow you part of the way,” Falcone said. “That was the crew at Fiumicino. They’re about to bring up the body. It seems Crazy Teresa can’t wait to get her hands on it.”

“Can you blame her?” D’Amato wondered.

“Damned right I can,” Falcone murmured, walking away so quickly they had to struggle to keep up.

THE RAIN HAD STOPPED. The heart of Rome was growing silent. A generous moon now stared down at its own hard reflection in the black shiny waters of the Tiber. The day’s warmth had fled, a reminder that winter was relinquishing its grip with a slowly dying reluctance.

Adele Neri lay alone in the bedroom. Her husband was still up, talking long and hard to the bleak, grey men he’d invited into their lives. Their voices crept beneath the closed door, intruding into her most private thoughts. Mickey was nowhere to be seen. Nor had he called. It was unusual, but not unexpected. He’d been crazier than normal recently. Some of it was due to the dope. Some of it was down to the deals on the side, and his terror that his father would find out about them. But most of it came from this sudden and fierce fixation for his stepmother, one she had no intention of discouraging. She liked the way he thought of her and the things she could do to him drove Mickey wild. Adele had some power over Emilio, but it was muted, fixed by boundaries, and always had been. Now it was waning too. Emilio was feeling his age, realizing that change would soon be inevitable.

Mickey was different. He’d do just about anything she asked. Anything. And he was young. He didn’t thrash away for a couple of minutes then roll over and go to sleep, grunting, snoring. He gave her something back. Although, when she thought about it, Adele Neri realised those gifts no longer contained the attraction for her they once had. The physical world had limitations. With age came a realization that there were more intangible goals in life: power, control, security. The ability to shape one’s own destiny.

Mickey wasn’t the only one she held in thrall like this either. When she thought about it, she was amazed she’d got away with her secret lovers for so long. She’d been careful, discreet, and sure to choose those who knew better than to boast. All the same Emilio Neri was a curious and vengeful man. There was a look in his eye just now that she didn’t like. He’d find out one day, and then she could only guess at what he’d do. There was, she thought, an inevitability to a life like hers: a period of infatuation, a time of spent satisfaction, then the final leg of the journey,
ennui
, sloth, disaster. Unless you planned. Unless you moved when the moment came. Emilio was getting slow and stupid. It was time, she thought, to think of the succession, before the hourglass ran dry and the empire crumbled to dust.

NIC COSTA PARKED THE CAR outside the looming bulk of the old Roman theatre, walked to the apartment and pressed the doorbell. He was still fighting to clear his head, to make some sense of what was happening. It was like untangling a skein of wool.

“Yes?” Her voice sounded anxious, expectant. He could hear the disappointment, fear perhaps, when he answered.

“It’s just a small thing,” he said quickly. “I have to check. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she murmured and let him in.

Miranda Julius was alone in the living room which was still echoing to the buzz of traffic on the Lungotevere. She was wearing loose white-cotton pyjamas and a red dressing gown. Her fair hair was still damp and dark from the shower. She appeared younger somehow. Maybe it was her eyes, which seemed wider than he recalled, and shone a bright, intense blue. The pain lent her face a delicate, stressed beauty. He couldn’t start to imagine how she felt.

She took one look at him and said, “There’s no news, is there?”

“No. Sorry.”

She sighed. It was what she expected, he thought. “Do you want a drink? Or is that out of bounds?”

She was clutching a glass of red. He remembered how many times he’d dived into that rich, fragrant lake since his father died, and the struggle required to get out and shake yourself dry. The longing never disappeared.

“Just a small one,” he said and straightaway she went into the kitchen and came out with a bottle of Barolo, a good year, an expensive one.

“This all goes tonight. I couldn’t sleep. I just keep wondering . . . Didn’t
anyone
see her?”

He’d watched women in these situations before. Sometimes they went to pieces. Sometimes they just turned inside themselves. Miranda Julius was different. She seemed determined not to let the agony of her daughter’s disappearance defeat her. He hoped this act of defiance would last.

“No,” he answered honestly. “It’s early. This isn’t good or bad. It’s just how it is. She could still just be another runaway for all we know. You’d be amazed how often that happens.”

She raised her glass. “Thanks, Nic. Thanks for trying.”

Then she poured his, clumsily. Some of the purple liquid stained his jacket.

“Sorry,” she apologized, dabbing at the fabric with a tissue. “Had a couple of glasses earlier. It helps.”

“Don’t worry.”

He tried the wine. It tasted gorgeous: rich and full of subtle delights.

Costa pulled the plastic envelope out of his pocket. “This is a very long shot but I have to ask. Do you recognize this? Did Suzi have something like it?”

She stared at the coloured hair-band. “Yes . . . yes, I think so. But they’re not exactly rare.”

“I know. Is it still here?”

He followed her to the girl’s bedroom. They sorted through the piles of clothes and the drawers. Everything was very tidy, he thought. There was a handful of bands in a bedside drawer. None in the same style.

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

“It could be anybody’s. I’ll get the lab to look. I need something of hers they can check it with. A hairbrush?”

There were two on the dressing table. She nodded. He took the biggest. It was full of stray blonde hair, soft and golden, a couple of shades lighter than her mother’s.

The blue eyes shone at him, unyielding. “Nic . . .
where
?”

“Someone was killed out near the airport this afternoon. A university professor who was working on an excavation. He could have been involved with some kind of cult. There was a villa there. It seems to have been used for some kind of ceremony, perhaps recently. We don’t know.”

“Killed?”

“We don’t know why. I doubt there’s a connection at all. There’s no evidence Suzi went there. We’ll check the hair-band, of course.”