I said angrily, “Okay. Maybe I’m a patronizing dope with no imagination. But I’m here, Rosa.”

She surprised me by standing up. “But we each have our own lives, George. Well, that’s that.” She began extracting money from a small billfold. “Let me treat you,” she said. “I insist.”

I stood uncertainly. I hadn’t been in control of any of this conversation, I realized, from first to last. “Is that it?”

“We must stay in touch. Isn’t email marvelous? How long are you in Rome?—”

“Rosa, for Christ’s sake.” I struggled briefly for control. “Don’t we have any more to say to each other? After all this time?”

She hesitated. “You know, some said I shouldn’t see you.”

“Some who?”

“People in the Order.”

“You told them about me?”

“We tell each other everything.”

“Why shouldn’t you have met me?”

“Because you might be a threat,” she said simply. Her gaze was fixed on me. “But now I’ve met you I’m not so sure.”

I had the impression she was recalculating.

She had felt impelled to go through with the meeting with me, to give me the minimum contact required to send me away, and keep me away. But now something—my persistence, maybe my distress—was making her rethink that plan. I know that’s a cold analysis of her thinking. But I really didn’t believe, even then, that whatever new plans she was drawing up had anything to do with compassion.

She made an abrupt about-face. “Maybe you’re right. It shouldn’t end here. As you said, you came all this way, did all that detective work, for me.” Her eyes narrowed, and I thought she was making a decision. “Tell you what. Perhaps you’d like to see where I work, and live. What do you think?” She dropped her sunglasses onto her nose, businesslike.

She was following her own peculiar agenda, I saw. I really didn’t know what she wanted of me. But it was a chance to spend a little more time with her. What else could I do but accept?

And so she took me to the Catacombs.

The entrance wasn’t far away. Aboveground there was little to see: a very small chapel, a couple of souvenir and refreshment stalls, a ticket booth, all set in a little scruffy parkland. It was lunchtime and the public areas were locked up, the ticket booth windows covered with CHIUSO notices: this was Rome, after all. But a few bewildered-looking tourists lingered by the refreshment stalls, buying overpriced hot dogs and bottled water.