The Seville Communion

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  Quart looked at him with exasperation. "What can I say? It's the most credible version. It'll be harder to assert your innocence if you tell them you locked the church knowing there was a dead man inside."

  Father Ferro remained impassive, as if it had nothing to do with him. Quart went on to remind him that the days were long gone when the authorities accepted the word of a priest as gospel. Particularly when corpses turned up in his church. But the old man paid no attention, glancing at Macarena or staring silently at the black river.

  "Tell me. What would suit Rome?" Father Ferro said at last.

  This was the last thing Quart expected to hear. He became impatient. "Forget Rome. You're not that important. There will be a scandal anyway. Imagine, a priest accused of murder, and in his own church."

  Father Ferro scratched his chin. He seemed almost amused. "Good," he said at last. "Then what has happened suits everyone. You get rid of the church," he said to Gavira, "and you and Rome" - to Quart - "get rid of me."

  Macarena stood up. "Please don't say that, Don Priamo," she said. "There are people who need that church, and who need you. I need you. And so does the duchess." She stared defiantly at her husband. "And tomorrow's Thursday."

  For a moment Father Ferro's face softened. "I know," he replied. "But things are out of my hands now. Tell me one thing, Father Quart. Do you believe I'm innocent?"

  "I do," said Macarena, almost pleading. But the old priest's eyes remained fixed on Quart.

  "I don't know," Quart said. "I really don't. But that doesn't matter. You're a fellow priest. It's my duty to help you as much as I can."

  Father Ferro gave Quart a strange look, a look he had never given him before. For once, there was no hardness in his eyes. Gratitude, perhaps. The old man's chin trembled, but then he blinked, clenched his teeth, and his face was hostile again. "You can't help me," he said.

  "No one can. I don't need alibis or proof, because when I locked the vestry door, that man was lying dead in the confessional."

  Quart closed his eyes. This left no way out. "How can you be sure?" he asked, guessing and fearing the answer.

  "Because I killed him."

  Macarena turned abruptly with a cry. Gavira lit another cigarette. Father Ferro stood up, clumsily buttoning his cassock. "You'd better turn me over to the police now," he said to Quart.

  The moon slid slowly down the Guadalquivir, meeting the reflection of the Torre del Oro in the distance. Sitting on the bank, with his feet hanging just above the water, Don Ibrahim held a handkerchief to his bleeding nose. His shirt was untucked, showing his fat belly covered with coffee stains and oil from the boat. Beside him, lying face down as if the referee had counted to ten and it no longer mattered, El Potro too stared at the black, silent waters, lost in a dream of bullrings and afternoons of glory, of applause under the spotlights in the boxing ring. He was a tired hound waiting faithfully beside his master.

  And the early risers ask you:

  Maria Paz, what are you waiting for . . .

  At the foot of the stone steps leading down to the river, La Nina dipped the hem of her dress in the water and wiped her forehead, singing softly to herself in a husky voice redolent of Manzanilla and defeat. And the lights of Triana winked from the far bank, while the breeze from Sanlucar and from the sea and - it was said - from America rippled the surface of the river, soothing the three companions:

  He once swore his love,

  but now he sings a different tune.

  Don Ibrahim put a hand to his heart and let it drop again. He'd left Don Ernesto Hemingway's watch and Garcia Marquez's cigarette lighter and his panama and the cigars all back on the Lovely. Together with the remaining shreds of his dignity and the promised four and a half million they were going to use to set up a tablao for La Nina. There had been many bad business ventures in his life, but none as disastrous as this.

  He sighed deeply and, leaning on El Potro's shoulder, got to his feet. La Nina came up the steps from the river, gracefully gathering her damp skirts. The former bogus lawyer looked affectionately at the dishevelled kiss-curl, collapsing bun, smudged mascara and withered mouth bare of lipstick. El Potro stood up too and Don Ibrahim caught a whiff of his honest male sweat. And then, invisible in the darkness, a fat round tear ran down Don Ibrahim's cheek.

  At least all three of them were safe. And this was Seville. On Sunday, Curro Romero would be fighting at La Maestranza. Triana, all lit up, spread out across the river like a refuge, guarded by the impassive bronze figure of Juan Belmonte. And there were eleven bars within three hundred metres, at the Plaza del Altozano. Somewhere a guitar strummed impatiendy, waiting for a voice to start singing. And, after all, none of it mattered that much. One day, Don Ibrahim, El Potro, La Nina, the king of Spain and the Pope in Rome would all be dead. But Seville would still be there, just as it always was, smelling of bitter oranges and jasmine in the spring. Watching the city's reflection in the river that had given and taken so much, good and bad, so many dreams and so many lives, La Nina sang:

  You stopped your horse,

  I gave you a light, and your eyes were two green stars of May for me . . .

  As if her singing was a signal, the three companions set off, side by side, without looking back. And the silent moon followed them on the waters of the river, until they disappeared into the shadows and all that remained was a very faint echo of La Nina Punales's last song.

  XIV

  Eight O'Clock Mass

  There are people - amongst whom I would include myself -who detest happy endings.

  Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin

  The policeman on duty peered curiously from behind the glass partition at Lorenzo Quart's black suit and dog collar. After a moment he left his post in front of four closed-circuit monitors trained on the exterior of police headquarters and brought the priest a cup of tea. Quart thanked him and watched his receding back with handcuffs on the belt and two bullet clips beside the holstered gun. The policeman's footsteps and then the sound of the door closing echoed in the deserted hallway. The hall was cold, white, sterile in the neon light, with a marble floor. It was three thirty in the morning by the digital clock on the wall.

  He had been waiting almost two hours. After they left the Lovely, Gavira exchanged a few words with Macarena and then held out a hand to Quart, who shook it in silence. "We're not enemies, Father." He said it without smiling, looking him straight in the eye, and then turned and walked away, towards the steps leading up to the Arenal. Quart couldn't tell whether Gavira meant Father Ferro or Macarena. But the gesture had cost the banker nothing. Having diluted his responsibility for the kidnapping by his last-minute intervention, confident that neither Macarena nor Quart would cause him problems, and worried only about his assistant and the money for the handover, Gavira had had the decency not to crow over the strong position he now occupied with regard to Our Lady of the Tears. After Father Ferro's confession, the vice-chairman of the Cartujano was undoubtedly the victor that night. It was difficult to see how anyone could stand in his way now.

  Macarena had seemed to be walking at the edge of a nightmare. On the deck of the Lovely, Quart saw her shoulders shake as she watched her dream collapse. She didn't say another word. They took Father Ferro to police headquarters and then Quart took her home in a taxi. He left her sitting in the courtyard by the tiled fountain, in the dark. When he said a soft goodbye, he saw that she was looking up at the pigeon loft. The rectangle of black sky looked like a backdrop painted with tiny luminous dots above the Casa del Postigo.

  Quart heard a door open, and voices and footsteps at the other end of the white hall. But no one appeared, and after a moment all was silent again. He got up and paced. He stood at the glass door and smiled with forced friendliness. He went and smiled at the policeman outside, who was walking up and down in a bulletproof vest and with an automatic rifle over his shoulder. The station was in the modern part of the city. At the crossroads, deserted at that time of the night, the traffic lights changed slo
wly from red to green.

  He tried not to think. Or rather, to think only about the technical aspects of the case. Father Ferro's new legal situation, the reports Quart would have to send to Rome first thing in the morning . . . He tried to keep his emotions from taking over. But his old ghosts joined the ranks of the more recent ones, and this time he could feel them drumming against his very skin.

  For a long time he stared at his reflection in the dark glass of the door. The good soldier turning grey and in need of a shave. The white collar that could no longer protect him. He had come a long way, only to find himself again on the breakwater pounded by the waves, brine streaming down the cold hand to which the boy clung.

  A door opened across the hall, and as Quart turned to look, he saw Simeon Navajo coming towards him, his red shirt vivid in the white, sterile hall. Quart went to meet him. The deputy superintendent was drying his hands on a paper towel. He had just come out of the toilets, and his damp hair was smoothed back into a ponytail. He had bags under his eyes and his glasses had slipped down his nose.

  "That's it," he said, throwing the towel into a bin. "He's just signed his statement."

  "He claims he killed Bonafé?"

  "Yes." Navajo gave an apologetic shrug. These things happen, the shrug said. Neither of us is to blame. "We asked him about the other two deaths, as a formality, and he neither admitted to them nor denied them. It's a nuisance, because those cases were closed, but now we have to reopen the investigation."

  He went to the door and stood watching the lights in the empty street, his hands in his pockets. "To tell you the truth," he said, "your colleague isn't very communicative. He only answered yes or no the whole time, or remained silent as the lawyer advised."

  "Is that all?"

  "Yes. He didn't even bat an eyelid when we confronted him with Miss . . . er . . . Sister Marsala."

  Quart glanced at the door. "Is she still in there?" he asked.

  "Yes. She's signing the last few forms, with that lawyer you brought. She can go home soon."

  "Does she back up Don Priamo's confession?"

  Navajo made a face. "On the contrary. She doesn't believe it. She says the priest doesn't have it in him to kill anybody."

  "And what does he say?"

  "Nothing. Just looks at her and doesn't say a word."

  The door at the end of the hall opened again and Arce, the lawyer, walked out. He was a placid-looking man, in a dark suit with the gold badge of the Lawyers' Association on his lapel. He'd been handling legal matters for the Church for years and was renowned for dealing with irregular situations like this. He charged a fortune.

  "How's she getting on?" asked Navajo.

  "She signed her statement," said Arce. "She's asked for a few minutes alone with Father Ferro, to say goodbye. Your colleagues don't object, so I've left the two to talk for a moment. Under supervision, of course."

  The deputy superintendent glanced suspiciously at Quart, then at the lawyer. "They've had over three minutes," he said. "It'd be better if you took her away now."

  "Will you be putting Father Ferro in a cell?" asked Quart.

  "He'll sleep in the sick bay tonight," Arce answered, with a gesture that said they could thank the deputy superintendent for this concession. "Until the judge decides tomorrow."

  The door opened again, and Gris Marsala was led out by a policeman holding some typed sheets of paper. The nun looked forlorn, exhausted. She was in her usual jeans and trainers, with a denim jacket over her blue shirt. In the harsh white light she looked even more vulnerable than she had that morning.

  "What did he say?" asked Quart.

  She took an age to turn to the priest, as if she didn't recognise him at first. "Nothing," she replied in a flat voice. "He says he killed him, and that's all."

  "And you don't believe him?"

  From somewhere in the building came the muffled sound of doors opening and closing. Gris Marsala looked at Quart, infinite contempt in her blue eyes.

  After the lawyer and the nun left by taxi, Navajo seemed to relax. "I hate those guys," he confided to Quart. "With all their habeas corpus tricks. I can't stand them, Father, and this one of yours has more tricks up his sleeve than a magician." Once Navajo had got this off his chest, he ran an eye over the papers his colleague had handed to him and then passed them to the priest. "Here's a copy of the statement. This is slightly irregular, so please don't tell anyone. But you and I . . ." Navajo smiled. "Well. I wish I could have been more help in all this."

  Quart looked at him gratefully. "You have helped."

  "I don't mean that. I mean a priest arrested for murder . . ." Navajo fiddled with his ponytail, embarrassed. "You understand. It doesn't make one feel very proud of one's job."

  Quart glanced over the photocopied sheets, all written in officialese. Don Priamo Ferro Ordas, from Tormos in the province of Huesca, appears in Seville on such-and-such a date. At the bottom of the last sheet was the priest's signature, a clumsy scrawl. "Tell me how he did it," said Quart.

  Navajo pointed at the papers. "Everything he told us is there. And we've guessed the rest from the questions he refused to answer. Bonafé was in the church around eight or eight thirty. He probably came in through the vestry door. Father Ferro went into the church to make his rounds before locking up, and there was Bonafé."

  "He was trying to blackmail everybody," said Quart.

  "Maybe that was it. Whether Bonafé had an appointment or it was just chance, the parish priest says he killed him, and that's that. He gave no details, only said that afterwards he locked the vestry door, leaving Bonafé inside."

  "Inside the confessional?"

  Navajo shook his head. "He won't say. But my people pieced together what happened. Bonafé must have been up on the scaffolding in front of the high altar, by the carving of the Virgin. Father Ferro must have gone up there too." Navajo accompanied his account with the usual hand motions. "They argued, struggled, or something. Bonafé fell, or was pushed, from five metres up. He got the wound to his hand when he tried to grab the scaffolding. On the ground, badly hurt but still alive, he dragged himself a few metres and got as far as the confessional. He collapsed inside and died."

  The fingers representing Bonafé now lay motionless, on the palm of the other hand, which was the confessional. Quart could picture the scene easily, but the story didn't make sense. He said that to Navajo.

  The deputy superintendent returned Quart's gaze without blinking. "I don't agree," he said at last. "As a priest, you would like there to be another explanation. The moral aspect is distasteful to you, I can understand that. But look at it from my point of view." He removed his glasses and held them up to the light. "I'm a policeman, and I have very few doubts: I have a forensic report and a man, even if he's a priest, in full possession of his mental faculties, who confesses to the murder. As we say here: if it's white and in a bottle, it's got to be milk. Skimmed or full cream, however you like it, but it's still milk."

  "Fine. You know he did it. But I need to know how and why."

  "Well, Father, that's your business. But maybe I can give you a few more details. Bonafé was up on the scaffolding when Father Ferro came upon him." He put on his glasses and took a little plastic bag from his pocket. "Well, look what we found on the corpse."

  "It looks like a pearl."

  "It is a pearl," said Navajo. "One of the twenty set into the Virgin's face, crown and mantle. And it was in Bonafé's jacket pocket." Quart stared at the little plastic bag, at a loss. "And?" "It's a fake. As are the other nineteen."

  * * *

  In his office, surrounded by empty desks, the deputy superintendent gave Quart the remaining information. He poured the priest a coffee and got himself a bottle of beer. It had taken all afternoon and part of the evening for the necessary tests to be completed, but it was definite that somebody had replaced all the pearls on the carving with fakes. Navajo let Quart read the reports and faxes on the matter. His friend, Chief Inspector Feijoo, had worked ti
ll late in Madrid trying to trace the pearls. All the clues pointed to Francisco Montegrifo, the Madrid art dealer who had been Father Ferro's contact for the illegal sale of the altarpiece from Cillas ten years earlier. It was Montegrifo who had put Captain Xaloc's pearls on the market. The description matched that of a set of pearls found in the hands of a fence, a Catalan jeweller who was also a police informer. Montegrifo's role couldn't be proved, but there was evidence. The date the informer gave for the transaction coincided with the resumption of renovation work on the church. Builders' merchants contacted by Navajo's men confirmed that the cost of the goods supplied exceeded the parish priest's salary and the contents of the church collection box.

  "So we have a motive," concluded Navajo. "Bonafé's on the trail. He turns up at the church and confirms that the pearls are fake. He tries to blackmail Father Ferro, or maybe the old priest doesn't even give him time." The policeman enacted the scene with his hands. "Maybe he catches him in the middle of what he's doing and kills him. He locks the vestry door and spends a couple of hours at the Casa del Postigo, thinking. Then he disappears for a couple of days." Navajo looked at Quart, as if encouraging him to fill the gaps in his account. Disappointed when Quart said nothing, he continued reluctantly, "Father Ferro won't tell us anything about his disappearance. Strange, don't you think? And you haven't helped much in that area, Padre, if you'll allow me to say so." He took another bottle of beer and a ham sandwich from the small refrigerator behind him and started to eat.

  "I'd rather say nothing than lie to you," said Quart. "By talking I'd compromise people who have nothing to do with this. Maybe later, when the whole thing's over . . . But you have my word as a priest: none of it directly affects the case."

  Navajo bit into his sandwich, took a swig of beer, and regarded Quart thoughtfully. "A secret from confession, right?" "You could call it that."

  Another bite. "I have no choice but to believe you, Padre. Anyway, I've received instructions from my superiors and, I quote, I'm to proceed with the utmost tact in this affair." He smiled, his mouth full. "Although once the case is resolved, on the surface, I intend to look deeper into it, even if only in a personal capacity. I'm a devilishly curious policeman, if you'll permit the expression." For a moment he became serious. "And I don't like people pulling my leg." He screwed his sandwich wrapper into a ball and threw it in the bin. "I haven't forgotten that I owe you." He raised a finger suddenly: he'd just remembered something. "Oh, by the way. A man was just admitted to the Reina Sofia Hospital in a pretty serious condition. He was found under Triana Bridge a little while ago." Navajo peered at Quart closely. "A small-time private investigator. They say he works for Pencho Gavira, Macarena Bruner's husband. Rather a lot of coincidences for one night, don't you think? I assume you know nothing about this either."