“It’s just not believable.”
“This is China, my sweet,” I replied quietly. “It’s a different world, with different values.”
“And you think this would all come out if we told anyone about what was in the two small boxes?”
“Yeah. So you just forget that I told you, and don’t ask anyone to tell you what was in the boxes. Christopher thinks I heard what Joseph said, but I don’t think he’s certain whether or not I understood what he said. And at no time did I get even a single glance in either of the boxes. I don’t know exactly what Terrence said to Joseph. He spoke in Latin. But I picked up a word here and there. For all I know, the boxes could have been empty and Terrence was just easing a dying man in his last minutes on earth. As far as you and I are concerned, we just don’t want to know. If Terrence tells us they were empty, then we agree. Okay? We don’t contradict him. Right?”
“Yes.” She paused, and then said: “Okay. But I’d love to see what was in them, just for a minute or so. Just imagine, a nail from the true cross! Oh, if I could only hold it in my hand for a minute, even if only for a second or two!”
“Yeah, an iron spike that was rammed straight through the palm of some poor guy’s hand. It’s probably still got dried blood and skin on it. Yuk! Who the hell cares?”
There haven’t been many times in my life when I have shocked my wife, but I think that might have been the worst of them.
We stood silently then, waiting for the van to return. I looked up at the buildings surrounding the temple; dingy apartment blocks, and not a light to be seen anywhere. An occasional vehicle would go past, none of them slowing down, none of them interested in what a few people were doing at a Buddhist temple in the early morning hours.
We rode in silence most of the way back to the seminary. Every now and then Sue would turn her head and look at the two bodies lying behind us, both of them covered with the parkas that Christopher and Terrence had been wearing. They had carried the two Jesuits, one a priest and the other an acolyte, out from the temple grounds as soon as the van had returned, and loaded them on board. Joseph had been laid across the back seat. Jackson Lee was on the floor. I would have left him in the gutter. Christopher was in the middle of the front bench seat, the copper chest on his lap, squashed between one of the monks in the driver’s seat on his left and Terrence on his right, Terrence still holding on tightly to the two small silver boxes, holding on as though his life depended on them. We were in the centre seat, closest to the bodies.
“When are we going to see what’s in the chest?” I asked. One of the Buddhist monks had quickly slammed the lid of the chest closed when the fighting had started.
“There is no urgency now, Mr Dunlop, sir,” Christopher replied.
They had what they had sought, they had the sacred relics; anything else that might be in the chest that had been taken from the church by the Boxers would only be a bonus.
“Are the relics really in those two silver boxes?” I asked, and could feel Sue stir alongside me. And when he didn’t reply, I asked: “Can we see them? Or can you tell us what they are, and put us out of our misery?” I kept a straight face and hoped he couldn’t hear the lie in my voice.
He turned towards Terrence, but received no assistance and then, after what seemed an age, replied: “The boxes contain our holy relics. They are sacred to the Jesuit Church, as they are to the whole of Christendom. They must be treated with reverence and only those ordained at the highest level may view them. I must speak first with our Holy Father in Rome before I can tell you anythin’ further.” He paused again for a few moments, and then went on. “Father Joseph spoke just before he finally went to our Lord. His words, in his pain, were unclear. His thoughts were on the journey he was about to take. The relics which Father Terrence holds in his hands bear no relation to Father Joseph’s words. Do you understand what I am sayin’, sir?”
“Yes,” I replied. “The relics are sacred and secret. We both respect that.” I looked him in the eye and added: “The words that Father Joseph might have spoken have already gone from my memory.”
“Thank you, Ben.” And with that he turned back to the front.
My words were not said just from a sense of honour or out of respect for the Church, or Father Joseph. I knew what was going to happen to those of Jackson Lee’s men who had survived the quest. And I knew that the survival of the Jesuit Church, its beliefs and its sacred relics were supreme, and that no deed would be too great nor too heinous to protect those things. History has told us what the Church and its hierarchy are capable of doing when threatened. The Church would grant forgiveness to whoever carried out any such deed, in the same way that they would grant forgiveness to Christopher for the death of Brother James, and for laying the blade of the shovel across his head three times. I didn’t want either of us to be seen as a threat. They didn’t know that I had told Sue, and I was fairly certain she wouldn’t say a word.
We were safe for the moment. Christopher had been closest to me when Joseph had said those final words. They had been slurred, confused, and maybe I hadn’t really understood. And besides, too many people knew that we had been in the seminary. There was the taxi driver who had picked us up from the hotel, and the various servants we had come across from time to time. They couldn’t swear them all to silence. We couldn’t just be allowed to disappear like Jackson Lee’s partner and his men could be made to disappear. We were foreigners, tourists. The Government had a record of our arrival in China and, more importantly, they had a record of when we were due to leave. If we hadn’t flown out by the due date they would come looking for us. If we disappeared, or if our dead bodies were found, there would be a full-scale Public Security Bureau investigation. The Church would have to assess the risk.
I was fairly certain that we were safe, for the time being, but only for as long as we professed our ignorance. And then again, perhaps I was being more paranoid than the circumstances warranted. These people were priests, men of God, put on earth to do the will of their God. And then I thought back again to stories of the Inquisition, when they had virtually stopped at nothing to further the aims of their Church.
Eleven
The chest wasn’t opened again until the following day. During the hours that had passed since we had dug it up, the priests would have had the opportunity to go through the contents and remove anything which they thought was theirs. But I felt certain that they would not. They had the sacred relics, or the boxes said to contain them, and it was those which had driven them. And I had seen how full the chest was and would know if anything of substance had been removed, or if the contents had been disturbed.
We sat in the study where Joseph had brought us on that first day after we had crept out of the hotel. So much had happened since then, but it had only been a matter of a few short days. The chest was on a low table that had been brought in for that purpose. There were only the five of us, Fathers Angelo, Christopher and Terrence, and Sue and me. The Bishop was noticeable by his absence. I had thought he would be there at the opening, but he was obviously still distancing himself from the matter.
We waited for the Buddhist monks to arrive.
“Have there been any problems with the police?” Sue asked, breaking the silence.
“No,” Father Angelo replied. “And we are assured by our brother monks that there will be none.”
Christopher fixed his eyes on mine; silently reminding me of the conversation that we’d had at the temple, and of the words that had not been spoken as we had returned to the seminary. It was best not to know what had happened to the rest of the gang, and even better if we never thought about it, but I knew it would never go away.
“That’s good,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, and the room went quiet again.
I didn’t ask about Joseph and his funeral. If we were permitted to attend, then we would be invited, but I didn’t think it would happen. Sue reached across and took my hand in hers, and I could feel the trem
bling running through her fingers. The chest had taken up most of my thoughts, and hers, for the best part of six months. Would it hold the riches that I had dreamed of? Would the priests, and the monks for that matter, stick to their part of the bargain and pay us the proportions of the value that had been agreed? If they didn’t, well, we still had the cross and the two Buddhist gold pieces back in Brisbane. They could always fight us for them, but a court case would cost them as much as it would cost us and the publicity could make the killing of the two Jesuits, one a priest and the other an acolyte, public knowledge. The Church wouldn’t want that, and neither would the Buddhist monks. But maybe I was worrying about nothing. After all, the signed agreement had still been in our room when we had returned, and surely this was a sign of their good faith.
“Have you searched Brother James’ room?” I asked.
“Yes,” Father Angelo replied.
“Did you find the two pieces of jade that we sold to him?”
“Yes,” and he pointed to a small cardboard box sitting next the chest that I hadn’t noticed, my attention being fixed entirely on the dirt-encrusted dull copper box which held our future, and our fate. “There are three pieces,” he continued.
“Three pieces?” I asked. He nodded. “But we only sold two of the pieces to him.” And then I remembered. “Oh yes,” I said. “The other one will be the one we sold to John Jenkinson-Smythe. It looks as though Jackson Lee, or Brother James, did arrange for it to be stolen from him after all.”
“Where do you think he got the money to pay for them?” Sue asked Angelo. “And how was he going to pay for the gold piece that we had on the internet? He paid us three thousand dollars for the jade pieces and was offering another five thousand for the one gold piece. That’s a lot of money for a Jesuit priest to have, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I butted in. “And he would’ve needed a few thousand more to pay for the guys he had helping him, as well as for the thief who broke into Jenkinson-Smythe’s house in England.”
“He probably got some from his partner,” Sue said.
“His partner?” I replied.
“Yes, the man he shot before he shot Father Joseph.”
I had forgotten about him. He seemed to have been merely something incidental, merely a conversation on the telephone. He had not been carrying a weapon at the temple and the only words he had spoken had been those directed to Jackson Lee in the moments before he had been killed. “Yes,” I asked Angelo. “Do you think he got money from that guy, or do you think there really was someone in Hong Kong?”
“I suppose we shall never know, but I do not think there was anyone else. Brother James certainly needed that man as a go-between. If it had been Brother James speaking to you on the telephone the other day, we would have recognised his voice in an instant. He was probably Brother James’ link to the criminal element as well. As Brother James said at the time, that man had been necessary, but no longer required.”
“Ah, the evil which dwells within men,” Christopher said, interrupting the flow of Father Angelo’s words.
“About a year ago,” Father Angelo continued a moment later, “Brother James came into a small inheritance from his mother. We have already made some enquiries and it would appear as though this inheritance was somewhat larger than he had disclosed to the Church. We have found a bank pass-book with some funds still remaining. There have been a number of substantial withdrawals over the past three months, but there have also been some deposits, cash deposits. They may have come from the man that Brother James shot. We shall probably never know, although we shall make enquiries.”
And that was all that was said on the matter. The rules of the Jesuit Order had probably required him to pay this inheritance into the Church, and he had held some of it back, but not enough to finance his plan. I couldn’t really blame him, keeping the money, that is. I would have done the same. I was certain there would be one last withdrawal, by the Church, and the account would be closed.
It was fifteen minutes later before the monks finally arrived. There were the four who had gone with us to the temple, and the Master. I was surprised that the one who had helped plan the subterfuge at Tiananmen Square was not amongst their party. But then I recalled that he had been the only one who could speak English, and realised that he had been specifically excluded from the meeting. The Jesuits were back to protecting their secrets. They would control the meeting, and everything that was said. They would be the interpreters.
There was a short prayer in Latin made by the Jesuit Priests, all of them kneeling, and an incantation by the Buddhist Master. They were in two different languages and neither of them made any sense to me. The priests finished first and remained kneeling, in silent prayer presumably, and waited until the Master indicated that their prayer was at an end. During this time Sue and I had glanced at each other from time to time, both of us unsure of what we should do. I think Sue would have gone down on her knees if it hadn’t been for the quick shake of my head.
After what seemed an age, but which must have been no more than three or four minutes, it was time for the business part of the meeting to take place. The monks arranged themselves on the chairs that had been provided around the low table. The priests got to their feet and remained standing.
“Before we go any further,” I said, just as Father Angelo leant forward to raise the lid of the chest. “There are a couple of points I’d like to confirm, if I may.”
“Yes?” he replied, clearly not pleased at the interruption. “What points would they be, Ben?”
“Sue and I get fifteen per cent of the agreed value of any item in that chest that belonged to the Buddhist Temple and which was stolen from your church by the Boxers; and the Church pays us fifty per cent of the antique value of all regalia and any other bits and pieces, right?”
I waited while he translated most of this to the Master. The Master considered this for a moment, and for a few seconds I thought that we were going to have trouble with the Buddhists, but he simply nodded his head to Father Angelo.
“Yes,” Angelo confirmed. “It is as it was agreed. And you both, in turn, accept that the relics, and the boxes in which they are contained, are not a part of this bargain?”
I hadn’t considered the boxes. They were made of silver, bound in gold, and obviously extremely old. Even if the relics weren’t what they were alleged to be, they would still have been in the Church’s custody for hundreds if not a thousand years or more. The boxes might have been replaced from time to time, but these ones could still be several hundred years old. They certainly looked it. I’d seen antique boxes from the sixteenth and seventeenth century in museums from time to time, and these two boxes certainly looked as old as those, if not older. The boxes themselves could be worth thousands. But to start to nit-pick now might upset the whole arrangement.
“Correct,” I agreed. “The boxes and whatever is inside them belong to the Church and we have no claim to a reward for those.”
“Is there anything else?” he asked.
I noticed that the two silver boxes were glaringly absent, and realised that he hadn’t translated his statement about the relics to the Master. And then my mind turned to the wording of the agreement that we had signed. I had been a lawyer and yet I had missed it completely when I had checked the draft and then the final copy signed by the cardinals in Rome. There was no mention of the relics, nor of the boxes in which they were contained. Perhaps my mind had been concentrating only on those things for which we would receive a reward. I had been outsmarted by the Jesuits again. But, then again, not really, not in monetary terms. We had not lost out. It was the Church in Rome that had been the loser. The Church in Rome knew nothing about the relics. They were Jesuit property. They would never finish up in the Vatican vaults like so many other religious relics. These would stay hidden and venerated by the very few, by Angelo, by Terrence and by Christopher, and by those who might from time to time be admitted to the highest levels of the order, but not the
Bishop. I was certain now that the Bishop knew nothing of the relics, of the sacred spike and the three of the thirteen. Why else had he offered to give up the chest to save Joseph’s life? If he had known, there would have been no such concession offered.
“Ben?” Angelo asked again. “Is there anything else that you wish to discuss?”
I turned to Sue and gave her a questioning glance.
“There’s nothing else, Ben,” she said. “Can we please get on with it?”
I nodded.
I turned then to the chest as Angelo’s hands clasped the lip of the lid. His ancient parchment-like fingers curled around the rim. It seemed as though the whole room suddenly seem to shimmer at the periphery of my vision. The only thing in focus was the chest. Everything else was a blur. Angelo’s hands slowly raised the lid. He raised it higher and then lowered it over to the other side. I craned forward, as did everyone else in the room. The chest was almost three-quarters full. The remaining empty space would have been taken up by the two silver relic boxes, and the cross, and the gold and jade pieces that Captain Monty had removed. The top layer was of material, or which had once been material, probably religious vestments. I could see the indentations left by the two boxes that would have rested on top of this cloth. But the fabric had rotted, falling apart as Angelo lifted it out, gold and silver threads hanging from the brittle fabric. It was obvious that the priests had not gone through the box after we had brought it back to the seminary.
Dark Eye of the Jaguar Page 30