“It’s all rather primitive, of course. But such things do actualize religion in the popular mind. And besides—” He waved at the gruesome body part. “—aren’t we all fascinated by relics, of one kind or another, by physical traces of what went before—even in our own lives? What is your quest now, if not driven by relics of your own past?”

I said, a bit ruefully, “You know, I can tell you’re a priest. When I was a kid, the parish priest spun every last sermon out of an analogy like that.”

He smiled. “Then on his and my behalf, I apologize.”

“And besides, I’m just looking for my sister. I never thought of it as a quest.”

“What else could it be?”

I glanced around the church. I felt self-conscious with the worshipers present. “You have, um, an office here?”

“No. I’m conducting a project for the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology. The Vatican, you know. I work out of an office there. Perhaps you’d be interested in seeing where I actually archaeologize. It’s not far from here.” He rubbed his hands together. “But first, lunch.”

He wouldn’t listen to my protests that I had eaten a sandwich in the hotel, and wasn’t swayed by the fact that it was already past three. He took me to a small restaurant a few minutes’ walk away from the main road, where, he said, we would find the best cucina romanesca, what the Romans themselves ate.

The waiter was round and smiling, dressed in an implausibly white shirt and bow tie. Although the cooking smells made me salivate, I knew I really wasn’t very hungry, so we both settled on soup. It was tagliolini alla baccorola, which is little tubes of pasta stuffed with bacon and cheese and drowned in a hot chicken broth. That and a few bread sticks and a glass of fruity white wine went down very well, but I knew it was going to make me sleepy later.

The real reason Claudio wanted to buy me lunch soon began to emerge: so he could mess with my head.

“So,” Claudio said around his soup, “you seek your sister. But it isn’t a quest.”

“It’s a loose end,” I said.

“But if you pull on loose ends your sweater can unravel.” He smirked at this sally. “I’m just interested in why you need to find her.”

“My father’s death. I feel as if the whole thing won’t be over until I find Rosa.”

“But what will you say to her?”

“Hell, I don’t know—”

“Will you talk about your father?”

“Probably. What else?”