She gazed around the little place, which was not unfriendly, merely suspicious of strangers. The walls seemed to be entirely devoted to Fiorentina, the local football team. There were violet banners, photographs of players and managers, some signed, going back decades, and several flags bearing the city’s coat of arms, the red giglio lily. The colours were so bright and vivid they reminded her of the figures in the other frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel, those dedicated to the story of Saint Peter. The scarlet spears of the ornamental lily were an emblem Machiavelli and Cellini would have recognized.
‘The mayor,’ the Grassi woman murmured. ‘And Fratelli comes with you?’
‘No. I think he has work of his own.’
‘What work? He’s supposed to rest.’
The ferocity of the woman’s reply shook her.
‘I don’t know,’ Julia said. ‘He’s my landlord. I barely met him until yesterday. He asked me to look at some vandalism in the chapel—’
‘The best detective Florence ever had,’ her husband chipped in, braving a caustic look from the woman at the till. ‘If anyone could get to the bottom of that outrage—’
‘Fratelli’s on sick leave,’ his wife broke in. ‘He’s not allowed to work and he knows it. If he—’
‘The best detective in Florence,’ the man added under his breath.
‘What’s wrong with Pino?’ Julia asked outright.
‘Ask him,’ Signora Grassi suggested.
‘I did. He said…’ She made the twirling finger at her ear, just as Fratelli had done. ‘He told me he was mad. As a mole.’
‘As a mole?’ the man demanded.
‘That’s what he said.’
‘I’ve never heard such nonsense. A mole? What talk is this? Pino’s a decent man. A cheery man for the most part, especially given that life’s not been kind in many respects. His wife—’
‘Beppe!’ the Grassi woman roared. ‘There’s beer out back to be moved.’
‘I’d like another cappuccino, please,’ Julia interrupted, smiling at him.
Beppe took her empty cup, placed it in the sink and went back to the shiny Gaggia.
‘Fratelli is one of the sanest men I know,’ he said, fixing his wife with a rebellious stare. ‘Though what my wife tells you is the truth. You should ask him these questions yourself. This is Pino’s business, not ours. Not unless he asks it. In Florence we do not gossip.’
‘With strangers,’ the woman added.
‘And if he won’t tell me?’
The man frowned, puzzled. He handed over a fresh cappuccino, one she didn’t really want. ‘Then you won’t know, will you?’ he said.
Fratelli had a nine-thirty appointment with his consultant, not far from his old office in the street known as the Borgo Ognissanti. This was the other side of the river from Oltrarno, an area beyond the usual tourist crowds. So he loved the place, after a fashion.
In Ambra Neri’s consultation room, he was more than a little surprised to see Father Bruno Lazzaro, smug in his black priest’s robes, beaming beatifically like a saint in waiting.
Lazzaro was a fixture in Oltrarno. He’d joined Carmine from the neighbourhood seminary in the Piazza di Cestello around the time the adolescent Fratelli was rebelling against his Catholic upbringing. The arguments that minor fury prompted brought about the only serious disagreement Fratelli had ever had with his mother; one that was mended, with many tears, when she told him the truth about his birth and race.
The young Pino revealed none of this to the priest and simply argued his own case for atheism, doggedly, with great conviction. It was an infuriating exercise. Lazzaro was a priest of the old school, one who smiled constantly, listened with great care, nodding sagely at each point made. Then closed, as he always would, with the simple question: but if there’s no God, what can possibly explain Florence?
How could such geniuses as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Botticelli and Brunelleschi be fooled into devoting their lives to works of art glorying a deity who did not exist? Was an Oltrarno teenager wiser than them?
After which he would smile more gracefully and await an answer. He was a very handsome man, with a clean-shaven face, perfect white teeth, peaceful blue eyes, a full head of light brown hair. There were those who said he administered to some of the women of the parish privately, in ways of which the Pope might not approve. Fratelli knew little of this and cared less, reminding himself that there were plenty in the Vatican for whom such behaviour appeared no sin at all.
But he had no good answer to Lazzaro’s perpetual question — if Michelangelo believed in the existence of an unseen deity, what did the scepticism of an ordinary mortal matter? Which was why the infuriating man found such pleasure in asking it.
And now, more than thirty years later, he sat in the office of Ambra Neri wearing that same, smug smile.
Fratelli found it impossible not to reward his charming consultant with a scowl for such treachery. He’d known this woman for a good decade, long before her interest in him became professional. She was beautiful, sympathetic, pragmatic and — to him — unimaginative in her outlook towards the mysterious and the unknown. He would, he knew from experience, be wasting his breath if he spoke of his ideas about the Brancacci incident, something she would regard as idle speculation, an extravagance deserving of condemnation. Though, given Lazzaro’s presence…
‘I thought this was a private consultation,’ Fratelli said, trying not to sound too surly.
‘It is. But we must take your behaviour into account, Pino. How do you feel?’
‘I feel fine!’ Fratelli protested. ‘How do I look?’
‘You look well. I’m pleased. You’re a very good patient.’
‘Oh for pity’s sake. How am I supposed to feel? I wake, I read, I talk to anyone who’ll talk to me. Then I sleep. What else is a man supposed to do?’
She smiled at him.
‘And, while I wish no disrespect, why is Father Lazzaro here?’
‘You’re one of my parishioners,’ the priest said with a generous wave of his hand. ‘Whether you like it or not. You were baptized in my church. You’re a part of us. We care for you. Given the spiritual trial ahead we want you to know we welcome you back, with open arms.’
‘What I want,’ Fratelli retorted, ‘is my job. Ambra. Fix it, please.’
‘You know I can’t do that. I’m a doctor, not an officer of the Carabinieri.’
‘The minor incident in the chapel yesterday,’ Lazzaro went on. ‘Your response was quite out of proportion. This is evidence of the stress you feel. Ambra here agrees with me. We need to bring you into our pastoral care and—’
‘The incident in the Brancacci’s just the kind of thing for my talents. Not too onerous. Not so taxing. Nor, in terms of the Carabinieri, too important, I imagine.’
A copy of the morning paper, La Nazione, lay on the desk in front of them. The attack on the frescoes headed the front page. Fratelli had read the story already, frustrated by the lacunae in the narrative, the lack of meaningful detail; even — and this seemed odd — any photos of the actual damage. The attack was being treated as if it were one more act of vandalism, akin to a hoodlum spraying graffiti on the walls of the Pitti Palace. There was no attempt to understand the context, and for him context was everything.
‘What an obscene act,’ Ambra Neri said, trying to cool things a little. ‘Why on earth would anyone break into a beautiful place like that and do such a thing?’
‘Give me the chance,’ Fratelli declared, ‘and I’ll tell you.’
‘It’s a matter for the officers next door,’ Lazzaro broke in, his voice no longer so warm and cheerful. ‘I would prefer you leave it that way. We’ve much work to do in the Brancacci. You had no right to be there yesterday.’