The Secret Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

watch this, Bruno. I have to skin her.” He turned
back to the table and selected a knife with a thin, cruel blade.
    Again, that strange lurch in my gut, as if I had missed a
stair. “Why?”
    “So that she cannot be recognized. People may be looking
for her.”
    “You said there was no one to mourn her.” I heard the
accusation in my voice.
    “Mourn her, no. But if she was a whore in this neighborhood,
her face will be known. The remains we send to Fontanelle must not be
identifiable.”
    “It’s barbaric.”
    He made an impatient noise with his tongue. “Perhaps. But
it is also prudent. What we have done here tonight would be hard to explain to
the city authorities. I think you see that.”
    I bowed my head. “Then no one will ever be brought to
justice for her murder.”
    He laid down his knife and looked at me with an air of
incomprehension. “You think they would otherwise? A street whore?” He shook his
head. “I admire your fervor for justice on behalf of the weak. It is, after
all, part of our Christian duty,” he added, as if he had only just remembered. “But
it is not our concern here, Bruno. There will be no justice for her in this
life. Pray God grant her mercy, and retribution to those who wronged her in the
next.”
    With this, he grasped a hank of her lush hair and sliced it
through cleanly at the roots, as I turned my face away.
    * * *
    All through the long journey to the Fontanelle cavern, he
did not say a word to me, except once, to ask if I carried a dagger. When I
said yes, he gave a dry laugh. “Of course you do. This is Naples. Even novice
nuns carry a blade beneath their habits.” I wondered if he was afraid the girl’s
killer might still be lurking nearby. I tried to shut out the thought that Gennaro
knew more about the murderer than he was letting on.
    We took turns pushing the cart with the makeshift coffin,
the two of us wearing old servants’ cloaks with the hoods pulled up close
around our faces, despite the warm night, so that we would not be recognized as
friars. I could not tell if Gennaro was angry with me for questioning him, or
for my squeamishness, or if he was just tired. Reducing the girl to hunks of
bloodied meat had not been an easy task. The human body is tougher than it
looks; limbs need to be wrenched from sockets, bones sawed through, joints
separated with a hammer. Gennaro must have been exhausted, but he did it all
alone, while I sat with my back against the wall and my head in my hands,
trying to shut out the sounds. What he packed into that box, wrapped carefully
in oilcloth to stop the blood from dripping through the wood, was no longer
human. I stole glances at the casket as he led us through the twisting back
streets in the dark, his face dogged and clenched in the light of my lantern.
    A couple of times we turned a corner to find a group of
young men staggering home from the taverns, arms slung around one another’s
shoulders, half-empty bottles dangling from their hands. Each time I braced
myself, my hand twitching to my knife in case they should decide to have some
sport with us, but they looked at the cart and steered a wide berth around it,
their raucous songs faltering away to nothing as they eyed the box. No one wants
to be reminded of death in the midst of their revels. I suppose they took us
for those men who clear the beggars off the streets. At the Porto San Gennaro,
I saw the glint in the darkness of coins changing hands as the infirmarian exchanged
a few words with the guards, who seemed unsurprised to see him. One of them
nodded, before unlocking a small side gate and gesturing us through.
    The road began to slope steeply upward into the Capodimonte
hillside. With the incline and the stony track, the cart became harder to move,
as if it were resisting its destination; we had to put our backs into the work,
and within minutes I was soaked with sweat beneath my cloak. I had no idea how
far it was to Fontanelle — it was not a place I had ever