Day Of Confession

94

The grotto. Same time.

Roscani stood on the landing, looking into the motorboat. A man and woman lay dead inside it. The woman had been lucky he hadn't used the razor – the way he'd done it on the man with her, the way he'd done it on Edward Mooi, whose nearly headless body had been found floating in the i

Edward Mooi.

'Dammit!' he said out loud. 'Dammit to hell!' He should have known he was the one who had hidden the priest. Should have gone back and pressured him the moment he'd found the engines on the outboard were still warm. But he hadn't, because the call had come about the dead men in the lake and he'd gone there instead.

Turning from the landing, letting the tech people work, he walked back down the grotto's main corridor past the ancient stone benches toward the room at the end where the priest had been kept, where Scala and Castelletti were now and where the body of a carabiniere had been brought from the maze of back passageways – another of the ice picker's victims, the ice picker who they now knew was blond and had scratches down his cheek.

'Biondo,' the dying carabiniere had managed, his eyes glazed over, one hand grasping Scala's, his other clawing feebly at his own cheek.

''Graffiato,' he'd coughed, his fingers still pulling at his cheek. Graffiato.

'Biondo. Graffiato.'

Blond. And strong. And quick. And, they surmised, the skin on his face scratched as well, most likely by the fingernails of the murdered woman, under which fragments of skin had been found. Fragments that would be sent to the lab for DNA analysis. New technology, Roscani thought. But useful only when they had a suspect, when they could take a blood sample and see if they had a match.

Entering the room, Roscani moved past Scala, and Castelletti went again into the room where the nun's personal belongings had been found.

Nursing sister Elena Voso, age twenty-seven, a member of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart; home convent, the Hospital of St Bernardine in the Tuscan city of Siena.

Walking back to the main tu

It was a question Barbu himself would never answer. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were now investigating his apparent suicide on a mountain trail overlooking Lake Louise in Banff. Death by shotgun in the mouth. Except that Roscani knew it was no suicide, but murder, done, he was certain, by a colleague of the blond ice picker, who knew where Barbu was and how to find him and had killed him either in retaliation for helping Father Daniel escape or in an effort to find out where he was. Perhaps it was even the same colleague who killed Harry Addison's boss in California. If so, the conspiracy was much broader and far-reaching than it first seemed.

In the distance, Roscani could hear the echo of the search dogs and their handlers leading the carabinieri teams probing the maze of tu

Taking a half-eaten chocolate biscuit from his pocket, the Italian unwrapped the foil and bit into it, looking up as he did.

High above, a helicopter unit was coordinating Gruppo Cardinale teams on the ground combing the cliffs above the grotto. A clear set of footprints had been found outside the elevator shaft. And there were tire tracks of a vehicle driven in, parked, and then driven away. Whether any of it would lead them to the blond man or the fugitives it was too early to tell.

Whatever had happened, or would happen, one thing alone had become chillingly clear – Roscani was no longer dealing simply with a fugitive priest and his brother, but with people internationally co

95

Da

Immediately Harry looked around. Where was Elena? He looked back to find Da

'Da

Da

'I'm your brother, Harry.'

Finally, hesitantly, Da

'We are in a cave in the north of Italy.'

Da

'Do you know where the sister is – the nun who is taking care of you. Where is she?'

For several seconds there was no reaction at all. Then slowly, deliberately, Da

Harry followed the movement across the cave to a bright, sunlit opening near the back. Leaving Da

'Sorry,' Harry said, then turned and went back inside.

A moment later and fully dressed, Elena followed him in, thoroughly embarrassed, trying to explain.

'I apologize, Mr Addison. My clothing was still wet. I dried it out there on the rocks, as I did your jacket and your brother's gown. He was sleeping when I… was… not dressed…'

'I understand…' Harry found a way to smile, and it put her at ease.

'You came with the truck?'

'Yes.'

'Harry-?' Da

It was Harry, he was sure. Elena was with him, and that helped because she had been with him for a long time. And she made him feel anchored to some kind of reality. Still, he felt weak. Thinking itself – where they were, how Harry came to be there – was a supreme effort. Then the vision of Harry taking his hand and helping him out of the water came back vividly. So, too, did the moment when they looked at each other and realized that after so much time they were together again.

'I…' Da

'It's okay, Da

'It's not unexpected, Mr Addison,' Elena said deliberately, her eyes going to Da

'How far is the truck, Mr Addison?' She was suddenly concerned with time, with the lengthening shadows outside the cave. 'How far do we have to go to reach it?'

Harry hesitated, then looked to Da