Martin was still sitting at the bar when Mary and Joseph walked in.

“Well, you two are back early.  Couldn’t you wake him up?  Being that boring must give you both a bit of a complex.”  He said before giggling at his own little joke, leaving Joseph in no doubt about how his friend had been spending his time since they left for the hospital.

“No, that was one thing that we couldn’t do.  Actually we believe that he is dead, but we can’t be absolutely certain … not in this village.”  Joseph replied in a quiet, subdued tone.

Martin’s jaw almost dropped off his face, “He’s what?”

“When we went into his room it was identical to what we saw in the living room at the farmhouse – a charred mess.”

“So you are not sure that he is dead?”

“We can’t prove it, not without forensic help, but we are pretty certain that he would not have survived it  … or, at least, I am certain.”

“Did you see what happened in the room?

“No … just the impact from it.”  Joseph went on to tell Martin everything that had taken place at the hospital that they were aware of.

********

“And no one came when the alarm went off?”  Martin asked in amazement as Joseph finished telling his tale.  “What about the policeman the inspector was arranging to guard him, wasn’t he there?”

“No … he wasn’t there.   I have no idea whatsoever as to where he was.  He may have been stood down.  He could have been anywhere in the hospital or the grounds.  He could have even been down with the night nurse watching the Masterchef for all we know.  With all the drugs Vittorio had been fed I don’t think he was going to jump up and sing ‘Hallelujah’ at any moment, and there were at least six different leads fitted to him to allow the nurse to monitor him from the room she was hiding in, so the policeman would well have been justified in leaving him unattended; the door was locked, so I don’t think that the policeman would expect anybody could get in, or Vittorio to get out without the monitor going off.  And even though Vittorio had been shot, I got the clear feeling that he was more of an inconvenience than a victim that needed guarding.  The police may not have thought it worthwhile placing a guard on him.  ‘After all this was the country, not the big city,’ they may have thought, ’Nobody is going to come after him.  Whoever shot him, may not have necessarily wanted him dead, just out of the way, and if he had something to tell them, then he could do it just as easy in the morning.’  Though, having said that, the night nurse referred to the room as being in the security ward.  So it’s anybody’s guess.”

“You didn’t try to force the door open, then?”

“No.  I didn’t want to wake Vittorio up if he was asleep.

“Well that’s fair enough.  Don’t want him going off the deep end at this stage, do we?”  Martin agreed.  “And the night nurse, what had she to say about events? Not very happy, I should imagine?”

“I suppose not.  The night nurse had been watching the television with earphones on when we arrived.  But we managed to gain her attention from behind the frosted glass in the reception area, so I am really surprised that the monitors didn’t alert her to the damage that was taking place to the connections; didn’t light up when things were going berserk in the room, but in my mind I have no doubt that she was not aware of any improprieties to security until the fire fighters crashed through the front door.  She almost had a heart attack when we disturbed her to find Vittorio’s room.  It’s only a small village and she indicated that he was the only patient.  The fact that there was only one nurse on duty seemed to indicate that.  There didn’t seem to be anybody else in the building … not even a security guard, and I didn’t notice an ambulance there either, come to think about it.   I wouldn’t be surprised if the ambulance driver takes the vehicle home in the evening for safe keeping.”

“She must have cottoned on in the end,” Martin objected, “You said she came out of the door and crashed into the fireman.  Surely she was heading up to see what was going on.”

“No, she was heading the wrong way.  She was heading towards the front door, not to the steps that led upstairs to the next level where Vittorio was.  I think that she was going outside to have a smoke.  Anyway, the fire alarm and the sprinklers were restricted to the upstairs ward in the far wing and probably only lasted for a few seconds – it just seemed an eternity to us.  It’s entirely possible that nobody else heard anything, bar the alarm that must have registered at the local fire brigade.  And considering the fact that there was no damage to anything but the bed and some of the medical apparatus that had been attached to Vittorio, it would be quiet possible for anybody entering the room to assume that Vittorio awoke from the drug induced sleep, panicked, ripped everything off his body, and caused the fire by his own actions.  Remember, the door is now no longer locked … it no longer exists.  They would think that he probably used the sheets to burn the door down, or they caught fire by accident and just happened to fall down against the door.  It really didn’t matter how it happened, the fact of the matter is that the door was destroyed.  Vittorio is probably classified officially as a missing patient by now.  An absconder dressed in a blue hospital gown and P.Js.  But I truly suspect, unfortunately, that he now resides within the ashes.  However, I would be surprised if the police will have the same theory about his current whereabouts as I do.  They would most likely be searching the hospital grounds for him, or even the farm.  They are not aware of the existence of the Punjaniti or the Punjani.  They are not aware of the reason for the existence of the statue.  Nor are they aware of what our conclusion to the missing villagers is, or what is still burning on the farmhouse floor, for that matter.  They are not aware of many things that we are.

“What about the fire brigade.  Won’t they want to know anything about what happened?  Why the alarms went off?   Where the patient was?”

“More than likely, but as far as we were concerned there was no real reason for the nurse or the firemen to assume that we knew where he was, though the nurse may have been a bit suspicious had she seen us scurrying out of the door, which is why I took the route behind the chairs so we wouldn’t be seen.  The police, however, would have been a different story seeing as how it was us that reported him as being shot in the first place, and I would be surprised if they weren’t right behind the fire brigade … especially if they had left Vittorio with protection.  So we hopped the fence as fast as we could and came straight back here.”

“What will you tell them if they come here?”

“We will just say that the door appeared to be locked, and there was no sign of the police guard we thought was supposed to be there, so we just left, intending to come back tomorrow.  We didn’t want to disturb the night nurse again, and we didn’t hear the fire brigade until we were almost back here at the hotel.  It all fits in the time zone.”

“This is getting so weird.” Mary put in. “What causes fire to break out like that?”

“Or, how can you get to be within a millimetre of being burnt to a crisp, supposedly sweating like pigs while a ball of fire rolls over you, and come out of it all clean and undamaged.”  Martin asked with a tinge of disbelief?  “I think that you did the right thing; too many unanswerable questions to answer.  I think that I would have done exactly the same.”

“Thank you, Martin, that was the way I saw it.  As to or your question, Mary, I cannot give you a guaranteed answer.  However, it is possible that one or two of the tubes that had been attached to Vittorio had been pumping something into his system which continued to flow through the tubes and into the room even after he was despatched from this world.  When we began to absorb the uncontrolled quantities it was still releasing into the air, the combination of chemicals entering our bodies may very well have caused us to hallucinate.  There may not have been as much fire as we thought we saw.  It would be very hard in those circumstances to really be sure of what was real, and what was not.  This theory can also be used for the reason for the charcoaled door we had lain under.  The gases may also have combusted with enough force to lift the door off its hinges.  My suggestion may not have happened, but it could be included in the long list of possibilities that probably exist.

However, it is also possible to attribute Vittorio’s possible disappearance into a puff of smoke by his deciding to have a smoke when there are flammable cylinders in the room and blowing himself up as a result, however, I really doubt that that would have happened.  I doubt that Vittorio smoked anyway; not judging by his actions at the farm.  Most smokers automatically go for a cigarette when they are agitated, which Vittorio certainly was when we caught up with him, and I can’t remember him scratching through his pockets in search of a cigarette when he was talking to us.

Outside of all that, the only other thing I can think of is internal combustion being the cause.

Of course, there could very well have been something else that made it happen this time.  That is if we were to believe what Vittorio told us had taken place at the farm, then perhaps the creature had something to do with whatever happened tonight, but that’s truly a matter for conjecture at the moment.

Perhaps the professor’s diary may still hold the key to the answer we seek; give us a better understanding as to what really happened at the farmhouse, but that means we need somebody to interpret it for us.  It would be better if Rosetta was here … there may have been something else in the diary that she found before she was attacked.  It’s a shame that we don’t know where we could find an Italian interpreter out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“I can read and write Italian,” Mary piped up with a huge smile on her face; happy that she had suddenly found something that might win her points with Joseph.

“You can?”  Joseph was surprised at Mary’s reply and immediately admitted a new item to the growing list of strange coincidences that was establishing itself in his mind.

“Fluently … I was first in class at my old school.”  Mary confirmed proudly, “along with French and German.

“Wait here.”  Joseph got up and quickly made his way to Rosetta’s room.

********

When he arrived at Rosetta’s room Joseph knocked softly on the door, but getting no reply he knocked a bit louder and this resulted in the door being opened several inches and the nurse peering into the hallway from behind a small chain.

“Oh, good evening, Mister Jacobson.  One moment, please.”  A smile lit up on the nurse’s face as she closed the door and began the process of unlocking the security locks and opening the door.

“How is she tonight?”  Joseph asked as he entered the room.

“She hasn’t moved since I arrived, the poor dear.”  Nurse Watkins, one of several nurses that the doctor had arranged to be on hand for Rosetta on a twenty-four seven rotation at the hotel, replied,   “The doctor says that she may just suddenly wake up of her own accord, but of course it can’t be guaranteed.  Will you be staying long?  Would you like a coffee or a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you.  I have just come to collect something.”

Joseph excused himself and went into the bedroom to collect the diary and immediately noticed that at least one window was open.  He went over and closed them, ensuring that they were locked shut, then moved back to the doorway where he could see the nurse sitting in a chair near the entrance to the room reading a book.

“Has the air conditioning been playing up?”  He asked casually.

“No, not as far as I know … why do you ask?”

“It’s just that the window was open just now.”

“My goodness … was it really?   That’s funny.  It was shut the last time that I was in there … I am sure it was.”

“How long ago was that?”

Looking at her watch she replied, “About an hour ago.  Just after the doctor left.  Between you and me, I have to keep an eye on him at times.  He’s a stickler for fresh air and he sometimes opens the windows when he visits, but I remember what you told me about always keeping it locked, so I usually go and check on it as soon as he’s gone.  I wouldn’t be game enough to tell him that he shouldn’t open them, though.  I go off duty shortly, but I will make certain that the nurse coming on will know what you expect.”

Joseph smiled.  “Thank you.  I appreciate that.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she said returning his smile. “I do hope she recovers soon.  She is so beautiful.  She looks just like Sleeping Beauty awaiting the prince’s kiss.  It seems such a shame to see her confined to that bed.”

“Yes, it certainly is that.”  Joseph agreed, then turned and headed back towards the bedroom, this time flicking on the light switch as he entered.  Before he had done so, the room had only been illuminated by the bright light coming through the singularly drawn curtain from the car park’s security lights at the back of the building which was how he had noticed the open window in the first pace.  Now the room was ablaze with light and Joseph allowed his eyes to gaze sadly into Rosetta’s beautiful face.  Rosetta seemed so peaceful in her sleep; a sleep that he knew would have been tainted with grief had she known about the loss of her uncle.  He reached down with one arm and placed his hand between the sheet and the mattress as he retrieved the hidden diary, then leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips.  “Goodnight, sweet Princess.  I look forward to your reawakening under your own steam.”

As he pulled back to leave, Joseph caught a minute flash from something on the bed just under Rosetta’s neck.  Curious as to why anything was there at all, he reached down and gently removed the object and could hardly believe his eyes – he was holding a ruby, and for a moment it sent a strange tingling sensation down his arms and back.  To find this so soon after finding what appeared to be a ruby’s carcass in a pile of ashes in Vittorio’s room at the hospital unsettled him somewhat.  There were becoming far too many coincidences over the past forty eight hours as far as he was concerned.  Joseph felt that it seemed an odd thing to find considering the circumstances, but finally decided it may have been clenched in her hand when they had put her to bed; her hand had been clenched tight shut, her arm bent, and had rested firmly on the pillow.  But her hand may very well have relaxed later, and that could have been when it rolled down under her neck without anybody noticing it.  Or perhaps it had been already hidden under the pillow and had moved under her neck when people were leaning on the bed as they got her settled in.  In the end Joseph had no real idea how it got there, but in his mind and heart he thought that it shouldn’t be left there.

  ‘No sense in leaving an open invitation to temptation,” he mused as he placed it into his pocket, “I will look after it until I can place it back into her hands.’

Joseph gently stroked Rosetta’s hair, then turned and left the bedroom.

“Take good care of her,” he called as he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

“I will,” the nurse called out.

As Joseph headed down the hallway he could hear the locks being bolted in place and he smiled.