The Confessor

pencils and paperclips, was a sleek cellular telephone. Technically, it was against the strict rules of the convent to keep such a device, but the man from the Vatican had assured her that, given the circumstances, it would not constitute a violation, moral or otherwise.
    She powered on the phone, just as he had taught her, and carefully entered the number in Rome. After a few seconds of silence, she could hear a telephone ringing. This surprised her. A moment later, when a male voice, came on the line, it surprised her even more.
    "This is Mother Vincenza--"
    "I know who this is," the man said, his tone brusque and businesslike. Then she remembered his instructions about never using names on the telephone. She felt a fool.
    "You asked me to call if anyone came to the convent to ask questions about the professor." She hesitated, waiting for him to speak, but he said nothing. "Someone came this afternoon."
    "What did he call himself?"
    "Landau," she said. ''Ehud Landau, from Tel Aviv. He said he Was the man's brother."
    "Where is he now?"
    "I don't know. Perhaps he's staying at the old hotel."
    "Can you find out?"
    "I suppose so, yes."
    "Find out--then call me back."
    The connection went dead.
    Mother Vincenza placed the telephone back in its hiding place and quietly closed the drawer.
    Gabriel decided to spend the night in Brenzone and return to Venice first thing in the morning. After leaving the convent, he walked back to the hotel and took a room. The prospect of eating supper in the dreary hotel dining room depressed him, so he walked down to the lakeshore through the chill March evening and ate fish in a cheerful restaurant filled with townspeople. The white wine was local and very cold.
    The images of the case flashed through his mind while he ate: The Odin Rune and the Three-Bladed Swastika painted on Benjamin's wall; the blood on the floor where Benjamin had died; Detective Weiss tailing him through the streets of Munich; Mother Vincenza leading him down the stairs to the dank cellar of the convent by the lake.
    Gabriel was convinced Benjamin had been killed by someone who wished to silence him. Only that would explain why his computer was missing and why his apartment contained no evidence at all that he was writing a book. If Gabriel could recreate Benjamin's
    book--or at least the subject matter--he might be able to identify who killed him and why. Unfortunately, he had next to nothing---only an elderly nun who claimed Benjamin was working on a book about Jews taking refuge in Church properties during the war. Generally speaking, it was not the type of subject matter that could get a man killed.
    He paid his check and started back to the hotel. He took his time, wandering the quiet streets of the old town, paying little attention to where he was going, following the narrow passageways wherever they happened to lead him. His thoughts mirrored his path through Brenzone. Instinctively, he approached the problem as though it were a restoration, as though Benjamin's book were a painting that had suffered such heavy losses that it was little more than a bare canvas with a few swaths of color and a fragment of an underdrawing. If Benjamin were an Old Master painter, Gabriel would study all his similar works. He would analyze his technique and his influences at the time the work was painted. In short, he would absorb every possible detail about the artist, no matter how seemingly mundane, before setting to work on the canvas.
    Thus far Gabriel had very little on which to base his restoration, but now, as he wandered the streets of Brenzone, he became aware of another salient detail.
    For the second time in two days, he was being followed.
    He turned a corner and walked past a row of shuttered shops. Glancing once over his shoulder, he spotted a man rounding the corner after him. He performed the same maneuver, and once again spotted his pursuer, a mere shadow in the darkened streets, thin and stooped, agile as an alley cat.
    Gabriel slipped into the darkened foyer of a small apartment house and listened as the footfalls grew fainter, then ceased altogether.
    A moment later, he stepped back into the street and started back toward the hotel. His shadow was gone.
    When Gabriel returned to the hotel, the concierge named Giancomo was still on duty behind his dais. He slid the key across the counter as though it were a priceless relic and asked about Gabriel's meal.
    "It was wonderful, thank you."
    "Perhaps tomorrow