Stitch Up by William McIntyre

Author:William McIntyre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2019-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

23

The Ospedale Fatebenefratelli sits on an island on the River Tiber. The hospital specialises in gynaecology and obstetrics and is reached by the Ponte Fabricio, the city of Rome’s oldest bridge, built around 62bc. I’d arranged to meet Emanuela Zanetti there at three o’clock on Thursday afternoon. She was a busy woman, but could give me an hour of her time.

I caught an early flight, landing in Rome at ten thirty, and by noon had booked into a city centre hotel. There really should have been no difficulty in my making the appointment on time. The problem was that I set off way too early, and when in Rome it was hard not to sightsee: everywhere I turned there was a historic landmark of some sort.

With a couple of hours to spare, and armed with a free map of the city, I walked the short distance from the terminus to the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Its other, more common name was Our Lady of the Snows because it was the spot where miraculously snow once fell during the Italian summer. Not such a miracle in a Scottish summer. Inside, the architecture and decoration were breathtaking. Exquisite marble sculptures, oil paintings, frescos, intricate mosaics, gold-lacquered icons, and, above it all, a Masonic-like all-seeing eye set in a crimson triangle. In one of the transepts there was even a dead pope in a glass box. The place had everything. From there I made my way in a loop, down to the Coliseum, past the Circus Maximus and on to the Tiber Waterfront, with Roman villas and enclosed gardens on one side of a wide roadway, and, on the other, the river and an endless row of sycamore trees, their bark a flaky patchwork of green, white and brown.

It was a walk that brought me to the Ponte Fabricio, one hour early. So, I continued up the Aventine Hill, to take in the Dominican Church of Sabina. And I still would have made it back in plenty of time had I not stood in the queue outside the great green door to the headquarters of the Knights of Malta waiting in line to peer through the Aventine Keyhole at the perfectly framed dome of St Peter’s in the distance.

As it was, I arrived ten minutes late and met Emanuela, not inside the building as planned, but on the narrow cobbled bridge.

She seemed to recognise me. Maybe it was because I was white, sweaty and looking faintly lost. ‘Mr Munro?’ It wasn’t really a question. ‘You are late.’ Her English was excellent, her manner a trifle brusque.

Emanuela was an elderly woman. Deep wrinkles gouged furrows in her thin, suntanned face. She had on a plain, black, below-the-knee dress with a round white collar and a silver cross above the left breast. A length of black cloth, held in place by a white hairband, hung from the back of her head and draped over her grey hair onto her shoulders.

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