The Church of Lost Souls 22

On the way to the phone box I wondered if it might be better that I go to the police station and present myself in person. If Ms Allegri was there I could talk to her.

Because Sofia and Paolo had been the ones who’d taken the bones to the hospital I didn’t have a clue what to expect. All I knew was that I had nothing to do with the unseemly affair.

If I’d thought about the situation more carefully I’d probably have been more prudent to go and see if Sofia was at the pensione but I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted to get it over and done with. If she’d been there she’d have probably wanted to join me, knowing how she loved all the intrigue, but the sorry fact was I didn’t want to bump into the two idiots, not just yet, the pensione being in the same area as the joke shop where I assumed they’d be playing silly buggers.

So off I went to the police station. The officer at the desk asked what I was there for and I told him I didn’t speak much Italian so he got on the phone for an English speaker.

‘Ms Allegri, si possible,’ I asked.

He put down the phone and said she wouldn’t be long.

When she came up to me a few minutes later she had a very serious look on her face.

‘I’m glad you came, James. There are things we need to discuss. Come with me, please,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ I said.

We went back to the same room as before. She held out a hand for me to take a seat before sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

She confirmed that the bones retrieved from the oven by Sofia and Paolo had been those of a child and that examinations were taking place in an attempt to discover who they belonged to. I asked if a child had been reported missing but she shook her head.

‘Anyway, the chances of identifying the person from the bones is negligible and not one hospital had reported the death of a child over the last few days,’ she said.

I thought momentarily about the Pezzentelle devotees who’d tried to identify the bones and skulls of the lost souls found at the Fontanelle cemetery in the 19^th century.

Wanting to get my account of how I came about the bones, Ms Allegri asked me to describe exactly what happened with particular reference to the man in the white coat.

I talked for what must have been five minutes as she scribbled notes onto paper. At the end I felt satisfied that my account was accurate and concise.

‘James, there have been some serious allegations made against you,’ she said.

‘What? That’s ridiculous,’ I said.

‘You say that the man in the white coat was in the taverna with you on the day before the opening, that he came three times, once to build a fire, once to put the bones into the oven and then again to check on them.’

‘Yes, he must have been there with me for a total of say two hours.’

‘And you say he had a large bag full of joints of meats and that his coat was covered in blood on the second and third occasions.’

‘Yes.’

There was a silence.

‘James,’ she said solemnly, ‘no one else at the campsite saw this man on that day. We’ve asked most of the people there now and none reported a man in a white coat with blood on it.’

‘That’s impossible,’ I said. ‘What did the owner say? He was the one that got him in!’

Ms Allegri looked up at me from her notes. ‘The owner says that you’re making this man up. He denied any knowledge of anyone in a white coat or asking anyone to bless his oven with joints of meat.’

‘That’s outrageous,’ I balked.

‘None of the staff or the guests saw this man, James,’ she said.

‘What about the painter?’ I blurted. ‘What did he say?’

‘The painter wasn’t there when you say the man was, but he did say that you intentionally did a bad job on Jesus and that you were difficult to work with.’

‘A bad job on Jesus? Difficult to work with? If it hadn’t have been for that man blasting the oven before the cement had set Jesus would have been fine.’

‘But he wasn’t fine, was he?’

‘No, he wasn’t.’

‘Guests say that a poster of Jesus that you put up there to hide what was underneath went up in flames.’

‘I didn’t put that poster up.’

‘The owner said you did, because you were ashamed of your work.’

‘That’s crazy. If it wasn’t for him and his bone blessing I’d have done Jesus fine. You must have seen the cartoon characters? They were all fine.’

Again Ms Allegri straightened her posture. ‘The owner says that you now want to replace Jesus with the devil. Is this true and if so why is that?’

‘No, it’s not true. He was the one who told me to paint the devil in place of Jesus,’ I said. ‘It was only this morning he asked me to do it.’

‘Did you agree to do it?’

After a brief moment of indecision, I spoke up. ‘Well, yes, I did at the time but I’ve since decided against it.’

‘Why the change of mind?’

‘I just didn’t want to do it. I want to give the owner some money as recompense so he can find someone else to do Jesus or the devil or whatever it is he wants.’

Ms Allegri didn’t give much away but it seemed that she was on the side of everyone else she’d spoken to at the campsite. I could hardly blame her.

‘Have you spoken to Sofia and Paolo?’ I asked. ‘They were the ones who took the bones to the hospital.’

‘Yes I have,’ she replied. ‘What they said corroborates your story, if I may call it that, but even still they never saw the man in the white coat.’

‘I was the only person working at the taverna on Thursday afternoon. Anyway, why would they have seen him if he just came and went?’

Ms Allegri shrugged her shoulders.

‘So they told you that I told them about the bones in the oven after I’d finished work at the taverna on Thursday night and that we went back there later in the evening to inspect them but we couldn’t make them out for sure?’ I asked.

‘Yes, they did.’

‘So why would I lie to them about the man and why would I tell them about the bones in the oven if’

‘If what, James?’

‘You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?’

‘You have to admit. It does seem strange that no one other than you saw this man.’

I sighed through my nose. ‘And the owner says he never had anything to do with a man in a white coat blessing his oven?’

Ms Allegri shook her head gravely.

‘Then he’s your man,’ I said, ‘I guarantee it. Either that or the man in the white coat acted alone and somehow remained unnoticed by everyone apart from me as he dragged a bag of meat through the campsite. How is that possible?’

‘I’ll need your passport, James, and your new address,’ she said.

‘Oh that’s great. Am I a suspect in this now? Are you suggesting I cut up a boy and burnt his legs and arms in a bloody pizza oven?’

‘How do you know it’s a boy?’ she asked.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, a boy, a girl. I don’t know who it was because I don’t have anything to do with it.’

She said that without the head of the child it was unlikely that the person would ever be identified, in which case there would be no evidence to prosecute. However, it would be a different matter if it was found.

I slumped into my seat, desperately trying to make sense of what she was saying. Knowing she was looking directly at me and imagining that she saw me as the killer I couldn’t meet her eye.

I asked if I could return the next day with my address, which I didn’t know, and passport, which I didn’t have on me, but she insisted on coming back to the flat with me.

It was strange walking with her. I wasn’t cuffed but I felt like I was. Because she was in uniform and at such close proximity to me, people must have assumed I was either an undercover or a criminal. It felt like a walk of shame in the place I’d just started to call home.

I fished my keys out and we went up to find Arturo in the kitchen, busily packing away food that he’d brought for me at Maria’s request.

Ms Allegri and Arturo talked jovially together so I excused myself to get the passport. On returning I asked Arturo what the address was and Ms Allegri said she’d already noted it.

As I gave her the passport she flicked it open to my photograph and nodded.

‘Thank you,’ she said, making out to leave, ‘and call if you need to speak to me.’ Arturo asked her what was going on but she declined to comment.

As the front door closed Arturo gave me a cursory glance and then carried on unpacking things from bags into the cupboards and fridge.

What could I tell him? He didn’t speak any English and if I’d tried to explain it would have got messy.

When he’d finished in the kitchen he came into the living room, where I was sitting traumatized.

‘Maria,’ he said, ‘she call you on phone, OK?’ He pointed to the phone on the coffee table and then left, slamming the door.

My head ached as I sat on the sofa wondering what to do next. Nothing came to mind. If I went to see if Sofia was around, how would she view me if she’d spoken to Ms Allegri? Just the thought of it put me off. If I went to see joke shop Maria she could have hooked me up with Paolo but then what would he think of me? If no one else had seen the mysterious man in the white coat, how could I resent them for questioning my account? I too would have been very curious.

The owner of the campsite must have known about the man in the white coat. I was sure we’d talked about him but my mind was quickly turning to mush as I tried to recount events from the past few days.

About an hour after Arturo left the phone rang. It was Maria. She couldn’t make it over as she’d hoped. I tried to explain what had happened but she had no time to talk. She hoped that I liked the food Arturo had brought and would call again tomorrow morning.

‘What time?’ I asked, but she’d hung up.