The Ancient Curse Read Online Free PDF

this might not be the only tomb in the area. Maybe Ronchetti and his buddies had chanced upon a new suburban necropolis outside the city of Velathri, the ancient Volterra. Exploring the area would take months, if not years.
    They spent all morning and part of the afternoon clearing the front of the tomb. The structure was carved directly into the tufa and imitated the facade of a house, featuring a double door with big sculpted ring-shaped handles and a triangular pediment with the symbol of the new moon, or so it seemed to Fabrizio. But there was no suggestion, not a clue, as to who the bodies inside the burial cell might have been.
    What also seemed quite strange was the lack of debris or objects of any sort at the ground level; there were no signs of human activity outside the chamber. The Etruscans were known to have visited their tombs frequently, holding any number of religious and memorial ceremonies there, and the first things you always found on a dig were the remains of rituals and sacrifices offered in honour of the dead.
    It was already starting to get dark when he had finished clearing the area in front of the door and had taken all his measurements. Not a single object had come up anywhere at the ground level next to the tomb, not even when they were removing the sedimentary deposits. Fabrizio took a deep breath and stood there for a few minutes in silence, a trowel in his hand, facing that closed door, while a host of thoughts flitted through his mind, none of them pleasant. It was a relief to hear the voice of Francesca, who had just arrived.
    ‘Nice. Now all you have to do is open it.’
    ‘Right. Tomorrow, if everything goes as planned.’
    A Finanza squad car drove up with a couple of men ready to stand guard.
    ‘Are you hungry?’ asked Francesca.
    ‘Very. All I had for lunch was a sandwich and a glass of water.’
    ‘Let’s go, then. I know a nice place that’s not too noisy. We’ll take my car and I can drive you home after dinner.’
    Fabrizio got in and was about to close the door, but then he stopped suddenly as if having second thoughts. He went over to where the policemen were standing. Both were kids of no more than twenty-five, one from the north, the other from the deep south.
    ‘Listen, guys, don’t take this lightly. This place gives me the creeps. Not because of them, poor souls,’ he said, pointing towards the tomb, ‘they won’t bother you. I’m worried about that thing that killed Ronchetti. It’s still on the loose, as far as I know.’
    The two young men gestured at their machine guns and the 9-calibre Berettas resting in their holsters. ‘We’re locked and loaded, boss. Nothing’s going to happen here.’
    Each lit up a cigarette and, when Fabrizio turned back, before the first bend in the road, to take a look, the embers glowed like the eyes of an animal lurking in the dark.

3
     
    T HE RESTAURANT was inside a farmhouse that had been converted into a bed and breakfast along one of the country lanes that branched off from the regional road to Pisa. The fare was rustic and very tasty, promised Francesca: local crostini, ribollita soup, salami made with wild boar and a mean Fiorentina T-bone on request.
    As they were turning off the asphalt road, Francesca and Fabrizio were surprised by an Alfa Romeo carabiniere squad car darting by at top speed, its siren screaming.
    ‘Did you see that!’ said Fabrizio. ‘What is going on here? I thought I was going to end up in some sleepy little backwoods town . . .’
    Francesca parked her Suzuki under an oak tree, then walked with Fabrizio into the restaurant and chose a table before answering, ‘Yeah, well, this place usually is a little dead. But now we’ve got a corpse to show for it. And maybe it won’t be the last . . .’
    ‘Let’s sit down and have them bring us some wine.’
    ‘Poor guy. Everyone knew him. Ronchetti, I mean. Here everyone knows who the tomb robbers are. Sometimes they’ve been at it for generations.