Prologue.

It was a chilly November evening and Faith Langdon was stood on the veranda outside her bedroom at her father's Victorian house in Cambridge, MA. She had a shawl wrapped around her pyjama's and was gazing up to the heavens. The beauty of the universe never ceased to amaze her and she knew that if she had stayed in Rome she would have taken up Astrophysics and work at CERN like her mother. But, the universe had other plans.
Nine years ago, Faith's mother, Vittoria Vetra, had been brutally murdered in her lab in Rome, Italy. She was killed because of what her work was trying to establish. It upset a lot of prominent church members but was important to the progress of science and human understanding of matter and creation. Faith was just nine years old when the Polizia Provinciale came to her school and told her that her mother had been found dead. Ever since then, Faith had lived with her father, Professor Robert Langdon, in his house on the outskirts of Cambridge.

"Faith?" came her father's voice from somewhere inside the house. "Faith, are you out here?" Faith turned around. The imposing figure of her father stood in the doorway. Robert Langdon was a well-built man for someone his age. He was 6ft tall, slender, with longish brown hair. He always wore a tweed jacket but underneath that would vary. Tonight, he had a dark sweatshirt and t-shirt on. He wore jeans and some 'Star Wars' socks. On his wrist was his Mickey Mouse watch. She smiled as he walked towards her.

"What you doing out here Faith?" he asked, in his sultry deep voice that had his female colleagues swooning whenever he spoke.

"Just looking at the stars. Thinking about things." She replied, her cool, smooth British accent contrasting against his hard American one.

Robert smiled at his daughter. "Come inside." He said, pulling her arm. Faith followed him in. She went and sat on her bed, pulled out the photo of her mum from under her pillow, and smiled. Her mother was such a beautiful woman. She had long flowing black hair and brown eyes that sparkled. The photo she had was one of the few that she had of her mother and father together. It looked like Robert had just told a joke and Vittoria was laughing, her eyes dancing. Robert was laughing too. Such a warm smile he had.

"What you got there?" asked Robert. Faith looked up. Her father was standing at the edge of the bed, holding two cups of tea.

"Just a photo." She replied, taking one of the cups.

"Can I see?" he asked. Faith nodded and handed him the photo. He laughed. "I had no idea that Vittoria had kept this!"

"When's it from?" Faith asked. "Mum gave it to me when I started asking about you. I must have been 5 or 6 but she didn't tell me when it was taken."

"Let me see…." Robert pondered. He had an eidetic memory so he didn't forget anything. "This was taken shortly after we had met the new Pope. We had just been through hell and back and I was teasing her about her work with Tuna fish and we laughed and couldn't stop."

"What happened between you guys?"

"We just sorta flickered out. Neither of us were looking for anything serious but then it turned serious when I got a phone call to tell me I was going to be a father."

"Do you miss her?" Faith asked, looking him dead in the eye.

Robert thought for a minute. "I miss her now, more than I did when she was alive. Do you?"

Faith nodded, "Everyday. It's like there's a part of me missing."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Robert asked, "Tell the story, get it out there?"

"What is there to talk about really? I told you the story when I was 9, what happened and how I felt. I speak to Father Mark every week about it because as a lot of people have tried to tell me, I'll get over it but…."

"You never get over losing a parent." Robert finished, taking his daughter's free hand and looking at her with kindness and understanding. He was struck to see his child's raw emotion come to the surface. They rarely talked about Vittoria's death because it was a tricky subject and one that was too painful even for him. But he understood the pain and the hurt that Faith felt.

"Faith, I lost my dad when I was 12 years old. Two years after you came to America, I helped my old friend Peter, he was the man who raised me. I know what you feel Faith. I know the pain and the hurt and the confusion, even to this day. I never really knew my dad, he was always busy with someone else but you never get over losing a parent, especially at such a young age."

Faith looked at her dad, amazed. She had never heard him speak about this to anyone, not even her. It gave her a new sense of respect for the man she was sat with now.

"It helps to talk, Faith, that's one thing I've learnt after all these years." He paused to look at her again. "It's been nine years, now. I think we should talk about this."

Faith knew deep down that her dad was right. She took a deep breath and began…