The Sixth Soul by Mark Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

dictaphone from
his pocket.
    ‘Mind if I record this chat of ours?’
    Nothing. Not a flicker.
    Rosen pressed ‘record’.
    ‘Date, fourteenth of March. Time of interview, eight-fifteen. DCI David Rosen interviewing Father Sebastian, in his room, room number eleven, at St Mark’s Monastery, near Faversham
in Kent. No other witnesses present.’
    Amusement danced in the priest’s eyes.
    ‘Would you please state your name? For the tape.’
    ‘Father Sebastian.’
    ‘Father, you told me on the telephone last night that you knew the motive for the killings of four women and the abduction of Julia Caton. Is that correct?’
    ‘That is correct.’
    ‘You also told me how the killer gained access to the home of his fifth victim.’ Flint nodded at Rosen’s words. ‘That detail is known only to the police and to the
killer. Given that knowledge, and your claim to knowing the motive for the abduction and killings, then, logically, as I stated on the phone last night, this means you either know the killer or are
the killer.’
    ‘I do not know the killer. I am not the killer.’
    ‘Then how do you know the motive?’
    ‘I also told you, on the phone last night, I was once the pope’s adviser on all matters relating to the occult.’
    ‘That is indeed what you told me.’ Rosen made a mental note to check the claim.
    Silence, broken only by the drone of a tractor in the distant countryside.
    ‘How does your former occupation give you an insight into the motive for the murders? How does your expertise in the occult allow you to know how the killer got into Julia Caton’s
home?’
    A battered gathering of hardback and paperback books by the bedside.
The Holy Bible NIV
.
Malleus Maleficarum.
St Augustine’s
Confessions.
St Julian of
Norwich’s
Revelations of Divine Love. Thomas à Kempis. Songs of Innocence and Experience
by William Blake
.
    Rosen touched his throat.
    ‘Insight, Father Sebastian – what is your insight into the killer’s motive?’
    ‘These are copycat killings, I suspect. Does the name Alessio Capaneus mean anything to you?’
    ‘Should it?’
    ‘Not really. He’s a fairly obscure figure, remembered by few. It’s my belief, I’m afraid, that he’s at the root of these abductions and killings.’
    ‘Who is Alessio Capaneus?’
    ‘Was. He’s dead.’
    ‘Who was Alessio Capaneus?’
    ‘He was alive somewhere around 1265; his date of birth is not certain but he died for sure in 1291. There’s no doubt about his demise.’
    Rosen was suddenly visited by the notion that he’d seen the priest before, that he knew his face, but couldn’t fix it in a time or place.
    ‘Who was he?’
    ‘He was a necromancer, one who conjures up the dead to learn the secrets of heaven and hell. He lived in Florence.’
    ‘In the thirteenth century?’
    Because it was officially his day off, Rosen couldn’t charge the priest with wasting police time, but he couldn’t help his desperate disappointment showing in his slowly sinking
shoulders.
    ‘David, you’re looking at me as if I should be in a psychiatric unit, not a monastery.’
    ‘No, I’m . . . I’m sure I’ve seen you before.’
    Was he one of those vague rambling men who used to haunt the day room when Sarah was ill in hospital?
If so,
thought Rosen,
I must be kind to the priest, and patient, not let my
disappointment show.
    ‘I’m sorry, Father, you were saying.’
    ‘Very little is known about him. He abducted and killed six Florentine women and removed their babies from their wombs.’
    ‘That’s why you said he’d take one more woman after Julia Caton?’
    ‘Exactly. There is one telling detail: the audacious manner of abducting his fifth victim from her home by breaking into the house next door. It’s my view that Capaneus was pouring
contempt on the Florentine authorities and cranking up the terror. But so little else is known. It’s as if the human race made a decision long ago to wipe the memory of Capaneus from the