The Dante Conspiracy

CHAPTER 10



Just over an hour after they’d got back to the station, Silvio Perini tossed the piece of paper he been working on onto the desk in front of him with an exclamation of disgust.

‘Not making any sense?’ Lombardi asked.

‘You could say that,’ Perini muttered.

‘I just did, actually. Do you want me to take a look?’

‘You might as well, I suppose. It’s pretty obvious that Guitoni was right. Whoever wrote that is using a code, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That bit about the Greek animal, for example. I think if you asked most people to name a typical Greek animal, they’d either say a goat or a donkey, and for the life of me I can’t see what relevance either creature would have to either Dante or Florence. Or to the poem either. And that seems to be one of the easier references to understand. There are other lines there that make absolutely no sense, or at least they don’t to me.’

Lombardi scanned the verses printed on the sheet, and the various pencilled notations his superior had made alongside them.

‘Guitoni was right about something else as well,’ he said. ‘These lines don’t follow the numerical pattern of the original poem, so I think it’s pretty certain they weren’t written by Dante, despite what Bertorelli thought. Maybe he was prepared to gloss over the problems just to make his case. Scientists aren’t always the most ethical of people when it comes to research. Anyway, I can see lines here with ten syllables, and another couple with a dozen or more. And the rhyming is off, as well.’

‘I’m impressed. You were actually listening to what Guitoni said?’

‘Against my better judgement, yes, I was, just in case he came up with any startling bits of information that might have helped us close this case. He didn’t, unless I missed something, but I did make a few mental notes about Dante. His unusual verse structure was one of them, not least because it seemed so contrived.’

He fell silent for a minute or so.

‘Let’s forget about this for the moment,’ he suggested, ‘and just look at what we’ve got from a crime point of view, because that might help. We’ve got an academic authority on Dante kidnapped, tortured and then killed, most likely by two men, and all the indications are that it was because of something he knew, or at least something that his kidnappers thought he knew, which isn’t exactly the same thing. So they were trying to get a piece of information out of him. Then we have another two men – or possibly the same two men – breaking in to Dante’s cenotaph, and the only motive that makes any sense is that they were looking for something in there.’

‘We know all that,’ Perini objected.

‘Yes, but I was just wondering if trying to analyse these verses with that in mind would produce a result. I mean, you’ve been trying to work out what they say, to crack the code, as it were, so you can understand what the writer was trying to convey. Suppose you assume that the lines refer to some important relic that dates from the time of Dante, and just try to identify what it could be and ignore everything else?’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Perini said, holding out his hand. ‘Let me have it back.’

‘There’s something else I don’t really understand,’ Lombardi said, passing back the sheet of paper. ‘According to Guitoni, when Dante was sent to Rome, his political opponents seized all the assets he had in Florence , so he couldn’t have paid the fine the city fathers imposed on him, even if he had wanted to. And we know he never came back to Florence for the rest of his life, so presumably he had no money, and therefore no legacy he could leave, nothing of much value, I mean. So if we are right and these verses refer to some relic, presumably it was something he took with him to Rome, or obtained in Ravenna, or maybe even an object he acquired while he was at the Vatican. Could we be looking at some kind of lost treasure? Or a stolen relic?’

Perini shook his head.

‘He may have had his assets confiscated, but from what I’ve read about Dante he was a long way from being destitute. Don’t forget, he’d been involved in diplomacy between Florence and the Vatican and had been asked by the Pope to stay in Rome while all the other legates were dismissed, which suggests he was one of the most senior and important people involved. And even after he was driven into exile, he was still communicating with kings and emperors throughout Europe. In fact, the whole reason he ended his days in Ravenna was because a prince had invited him to stay there and, presumably, had provided him with accommodation and perhaps even funded him as well. So it is at least possible that whatever we’re looking for could be some kind of legacy from Dante, some valuable he owned, rather than a relic in the normal sense of the word. But there is another question we need to think about as well.’

Lombardi just looked at him, then shook his head.

‘Normally, Silvio, I know where you’re going with this kind of argument, but right now I don’t. What other question are you talking about?’

‘Both you and Guitoni seem quite convinced that these mysterious extra – or replacement, I suppose – verses were not written by Dante, and the implication is that they might even have been written after his death. In which case, it’s not one question, in fact, but three. First, who wrote the verses and, second, why did they write them? And, most importantly, what were they trying to say?’