‘I thought I was a parishioner.’
‘The chapel is closed. Even the parishioners have no access. Not during restoration. And you bring along this foreign woman…’
‘An expert on vandalism, no less!’
‘I don’t care, Pino. What you did was wrong and must not be repeated. I’ve no desire to ban anyone from God’s house. But if you disobey the rules you shall leave me with no choice.’
‘I thought God only had ten rules, and for the life of me, Father, even as an atheist, I doubt I’ve broken one of them. Much, anyway.’
‘This is irrelevant…’ the man in black persisted.
‘May we speak alone?’ Fratelli asked, staring at the worried woman in front of him. ‘I came here for a medical appointment. Not a sermon.’
‘I’m supposed to help you,’ she said. ‘It’s not easy.’
He folded his arms and said nothing, merely gazed at the priest. Eventually Lazzaro grunted and got up. At the door he turned and said, ‘You know where I am if you need me. Any time. You only have to ask.’
When he was gone, Fratelli repeated his demand. ‘I want something to do. And by that I do not mean putting flowers on the altar.’
‘You can be very awkward at times.’ She looked at the papers on her desk. ‘If you want to go to Marrone again and ask for reinstatement, I won’t object.’
‘You could tell him it would be good for me. Help my fragile mental state.’
‘Fragile?’ she cried. ‘You’re the least fragile patient I have.’ She thought for a moment and added, ‘Because, I suspect, you don’t care much. For yourself, that is. You have friends, Pino. Many. Professionals like Father Lazzaro…’
‘A priest is a professional now?’
‘Don’t be so caustic. Think of others for once in your life.’
‘To hell with them. What about me? I feel fine. My mind is not so disordered mostly. I’m twice as bright and energetic as some of those fat slugs Marrone keeps around him…’
‘Now, now!’ She wagged a scolding finger at him. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’
‘What if I were to tell you I think this Brancacci Chapel matter is more serious than they appreciate. That I have good reason to believe it may well be the beginning of something far more threatening. Perhaps dangerous.’
‘Then I’d ask you why you thought that.’
‘Can’t say. Not yet. You think I’m crazy already. I’m not supplying more evidence to damn myself. Maybe if they let me into the case…’ He nodded at her desk and the pen and notebook there. ‘A simple, short letter. I’ll dictate. “It is my expert opinion that Maresciallo Ordinario Fratelli’s condition would be greatly ameliorated if he were given some small task to occupy his overactive mind. An insignificant case involving cerebral investigation, nothing more. No physical activity.”’ He kept his eyes on her. ‘“No call for access to firearms. A simple act of vandalism, say. Such as this incident in the Brancacci.”’
The doctor kept on smiling at him and said nothing.
‘Please,’ Fratelli added.
‘Marrone and I have discussed your condition. More than once. Lord knows you’ve begged me to talk to him often enough. The answer was always no.’
‘This,’ he pointed at the paper, ‘gives us a firm and good reason to ask again.’
‘They won’t have you back in the Carabinieri. Nothing I can do will change that, Pino.’ She looked through the window at the bright day. The Italian flag was fluttering in the breeze outside the Carabinieri station a few doors away; a red, white and green banner moving lazily with the wind. ‘Nothing out there will either. You have to learn to live with that. If you like…’
Ambra Neri reached over, picked up her pen and grabbed the prescription sheet he knew so well.
‘There are other medications we can try. Ones that may be more effective. Let’s see…’
‘No!’ Fratelli cried, and found his right fist slamming down on the desk. The gesture was too violent, his voice too loud. He was immediately ashamed of himself and apologized. She was a good, decent woman. Doing the best she could.
‘If you don’t wish… of course I respect that,’ Ambra Neri said with the matter-of-fact disdain of a consultant used to dealing with recalcitrant patients.
‘Help me get back to work. I want to think. To look beneath stones and see what lurks there. That’ — Fratelli’s mournful head rose and he gazed at the woman across the shiny, professional desk — ‘is what I do.’
‘Not any more,’ she answered. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t write to Marrone. I won’t speak to him again. What’s the point? You accept your condition so easily, so bravely. Why can you not accept the consequences?’
‘Because they’re far worse,’ Fratelli grumbled and gathered up his things. ‘Buongiorno, Ambra.’
‘Next week?’ she asked as he rose to leave. ‘We could go for a coffee. For lunch.’
‘I’m your patient now. We can’t…’ He turned and looked at her, sorry that he was the reason for the evident pain in her face. ‘Even if it was a good idea.’
‘Don’t spend too much time on your own,’ she told him. ‘Find a hobby. Volunteer for something. Be occupied. Go and talk to Lazzaro. He’s a good man. It doesn’t need to be about religion.’
‘Lazzaro believes in fairy stories.’
Her eyes were shiny — close to tears, he thought — and that only made him feel worse.
‘Lots of people do. If it helps…’
‘I’m not in the mood for a placebo, certainly not one offered by a priest.’ He blinked and stammered, ‘You make me sound like an invalid. Or a pensioner eking out his days.’
‘You’re not a well man,’ she said gently.
‘I know what I am. Thank you.’
That was a victory, he thought, watching the way she took those last few words. And now I might make a doctor cry.
Fratelli did his best to smile at her.
‘I meant that. Thank you. You’ve more important patients than this one. We should keep these meetings to a minimum. Unless there’s a point…’
He had no more words.
Outside, Fratelli wrapped himself in his coat and scarf, then walked round the corner for a coffee, choosing a bar where he knew it was unlikely he’d find anyone from the station. He didn’t want to experience their sympathy or see the way they struggled for something to say.
The same newspaper was on the bar there. He reread the story on the Brancacci Chapel again. The conviction — that this was not just wrong, but deeply wrong — had locked itself inside him now and would not leave.
‘Dammit, Walter,’ he said, as he threw back his macchiato. ‘You will see me.’
A few minutes earlier, Julia Wellbeloved had met Piero Soderini’s descendant, Sandro, an elegant and talkative man who looked in his early fifties, olive skinned with finely chiselled aristocratic features and dark hair, perhaps dyed.
The mayor of Florence sat at a desk in an elegant study on the first floor of the Palazzo Vecchio, an area cordoned off from tourists trekking towards the grand Salone dei Cinquecento. Half palace, half crenellated fortress, this curious building overlooking the Piazza della Signoria had been the town hall of Florence for more than six hundred years. Kings and princes had been welcomed here, politicians murdered, traitors defenestrated, suspects — Savonarola and the first Cosimo de’ Medici among them — held prisoner before being marched to the nearby Bargello to endure the strappado and the inquisition of the torturers. The harsh facade apart (Julia was beginning to appreciate Fratelli’s opinions on rustication), she found it difficult to associate such a vivid and violent history with the serenely beautiful interior of today.
The office Soderini occupied, behind a desk bearing a large sign that read ‘Sindaco di Firenze’, was part of the quarters once allotted to Pope Leo X, decorated for the Medici by the industrious Vasari, whose corridor she had mentioned at the outset of her conversation with Soderini, as Fratelli suggested. There were canvases on the walls and ceilings, so many she didn’t know where to look. He did, though. Straight at her, with a frankness and interest that was so open she found it hard not to laugh.