The Dark Angel: The Sunday Times Bestseller (The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries Book 10) by Elly Griffiths

Author:Elly Griffiths [Griffiths, Elly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2018-02-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Angelo is pleased to escape to the university. One of the problems about living with his mother is that she keeps talking, and this morning it seemed as if she would never stop. He knows she’s upset about Don Tomaso and, of course, he sympathises, but even before he’d had his breakfast coffee, he’d had the whole of their childhood, how handsome the young Tomaso had been, what a surprise when he’d become a priest, how much Papa had loved him, what a good man, a living saint. Angelo had been forced to invent a meeting to get away from her. Well, now he’s here he might as well look at some of the filming from yesterday. Daniella has sent the files through.

He’s borrowing this room at the University of Casserta from Graziano. It’s better than nothing but he misses his office in Rome, the shelves with all his books and awards, the sofa where he sometimes catches an hour of sleep and once seduced a visiting medievalist from Florence. He thinks of Ruth and their night together at the conference. He’d thought then what an interesting woman she was. She wasn’t beautiful by any means, but there was something about her, an intelligence, a refusal to compromise, that he’d found very attractive. She’d been surprisingly passionate too. He wonders if there’s any chance of a rematch. She’s obviously not with the father of her daughter and, from what Shona said to Graziano, it seems as if there’s some mystery there. Angelo ponders the possibility, drinking his third espresso and waiting for the files to upload.

He’s mildly annoyed to be disturbed by a knock on the door. It’s Roberto, a nice boy, not as bright as Marta, but uncomplicated, eager to please. Angelo composes his face into welcoming lines.

‘Professore,’ Roberto dives in, obviously greatly exercised about something, ‘we’ve found some bones.’

‘Bones? Where?’ He hopes they haven’t been digging at the Roman site without his permission.

‘At the church. The graveyard. We went there this morning to lay flowers for Don Tomaso and Marta wanted . . .’

Angelo can guess where this is going. Marta hadn’t been able to resist looking at the newly exposed earth in the graveyard. Well, he would have been the same at her age.

‘We saw some bones and we thought they were modern.’

‘What made you think that?’

‘There was a skull and we could see a filling . . .’

Angelo thinks. No one has been buried in the graveyard at Castello degli Angeli for over a hundred years. They use the cemetery in Arpino now, and even there, bodies are routinely dug up after eight years and their bones put in the ossuary. This body must have been buried illegally. He also thinks that if Marta and Roberto have uncovered a skull, they must have been doing more than a bit of casual digging.

‘The thing is . . .’ Roberto is obviously uncomfortable.

‘What?’ says Angelo, his mind still on the churchyard.

‘Marta thinks it’s her great-grandfather.’

*

There’s still a

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