The Archbishop - more commonly known as The Bear among his secular associates - greeted him in his spacious modern office above the banking hall. The two men settled themselves on a black leather sofa and an usher brought them coffees laced with a little black Sambuca.
“I have been hearing rumours about the Pope's health,” Angeli said after the small matter of the three billion lire had been attended to.
“The old goat will outlive us all.”
“You believe that?”
The Bear placed his cigar on the edge of the heavy onyx ashtray. “I believe that talk of a new Pope always makes me nervous.”
“Should we be nervous? Il Papa has made a number of appointments to the College of Cardinals over the last few years. Surely he has stacked the deck?”
“That is true, but no one in the Church appreciates change. That is why I needed to see you.”
“You said it was urgent.”
“We have a problem right here in the Apostolic Palace. A certain priest, a countryman of yours. His name is Paolo Salvatore.”
“I have never heard of him.”
“He is private secretary to Cardinal Comacho. Somehow he has obtained a copy of an unofficial report passed to the Secretary of State by a senior official in the Credito Cattolica Privata. It was very properly suppressed by Comacho but now this priest has taken it upon himself to pass a copy to the Holy Father - in person.”
“I am sure there is a small parish in Patagonia that urgently requires pastoral care only he can provide.”
“Unfortunately Archbishop Comacho still wishes to protect him. I cannot even be sure he himself did not encourage the priest to do what he did. He suffers from a surfeit of zeal from time to time.”
“How does this affect me?”
“As it stands it would be of no great cause for alarm, nothing I cannot deal with. But this damned priest has taken the matter further and given a copy of the report to a journalist.”
“How did you find out about this?”
“I have many friends in Rome. This particular journalist is one of them. Do not concern yourself, the story will not be published, none of our clients will be compromised. But who knows who else this meddlesome priest may choose to talk to? He is clearly a troublemaker and we all know what we think of those. I am surprised that God has not yet seen fit to call him to Heaven. I am sure his talents would be better appreciated in a place that does not have to deal with fiscal realities.”
Angeli nodded. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I will take care of it.”
Chapter 92
Bloomsbury, London
THE CITY WAS blanketed by grey overcast. The taxi cabs had their headlights on; table lamps glowed in the windows of the Regency buildings around the square; cold drizzle drifted down through the halos of the street lamps.
The hotel was two streets from the British Museum. It appeared nondescript from the street, only the brass nameplate on the white portico distinguishing it from the exclusive offices around it. Diana stood outside, collecting her thoughts and summoning her courage. Then she steeled herself and went up the steps.
The foyer had been refurbished in period with gold leaf moulding, gilt mirrors and limed oak panels. There was an antique reception desk to the left. On the other side was a small salon with a Chippendale fireplace and Queen Anne chairs, soft lit by the Lalique sconces on the walls.
She asked the reception clerk to tell him she had arrived and then sat down to wait in the parlour, perched nervously on the edge of one of the chairs. A few minutes later she heard someone come into the room and she looked up.
“Eva,” Reuben said.
***
He was wearing a grey Ermegildo Zegna woollen suit and a Sulka tie. But his physical appearance did not match his impressive clothes. His face was gaunt and he had not shaved. He held out his hand. It was shaking. She took it in both of hers. It felt deathly cold.
“Please,” he said, 'sit down.” He settled himself in one of the wing chairs beside her.
They both started to speak at once.
Reuben smiled. “No, you first.”
“I came to apologise.”
“No, I am the one who should apologise. It was a great shock for you. I'm ... I'm just so - relieved - that you've come. I was afraid you might not.”
There was a silence. They stared at each other.
“You called me Eva.”
“The birthmark on your cheek. I remember it. Simone did not have it.”
“We were identical twins?”
“I don’t think so. You were only babies when I lost you. But she was always more ... robust.”
“There are so many things I want to ask you.”
“Of course. First, I shall see if they will make us a cup of tea. It's the English thing to do. I would ask for coffee but I don't trust the way they make it. You have to be a Latin to know how to make coffee.” He grinned. “Hot-blooded, like us.”
***
She made him tell her everything. She wanted to know what her mother was like, where he had met her, where they had lived in Buenos Aires. He told her about Simone and the mysterious bond that had developed between them in the desperate days after their birth.
He held back nothing. “I told your parents that the night the police came I was away on business in Montevideo. That was not true. I was with another woman. Your mother ... knew ... and she rang me to warn me. Instead of going home I went to the Mexican embassy and asked for asylum. There. Now you know. Your father is a coward.” He looked her in the eye as he said it, daring her to hate him. He expected her contempt and saw only sorrow. “If it's any consolation,” he added, 'my life since then has been a misery.”
“Oh, Reuben.”
“I abandoned you. I abandoned you and your sister and your mother.”
“But it wouldn't have made any difference.” She reached across the table and touched his hand. “There was nothing you could have done to stop what happened anyway.”
Those few simple words broke him, the dam he had built over the years finally collapsed. He wept in shame and in grief, for the wife he had lost and the children he had never seen grow. He wept because he had been given so much and he had never appreciated any of it until it had been taken away. He wept most of all for the absolution she had at last given him, without question, even though he knew he did not deserve it.
When it was done he looked up and saw the registrations clerk staring at him. He didn't care anymore. His pride was forfeit a long time ago.
“Where do we go from here?”
“You already have a father,” he said. “I am just a footnote to your life.”
He felt a familiar stab of pain, and a sheen of pungent sweat erupted on his skin. She still did not know about his medical condition, the one secret best held back for now.
“Are you all right?”
“I am just tired.”
“You don’t look well.”
“This climate. I picked up some sort of virus.” His hand went instinctively to his pocket, where he kept his pills, but then he stopped himself.
“You're sure you're okay?”
“It's nothing.”
They sat and talked for almost an hour. He wanted to know about her studies, her friends at university, her plans for the future. He suggested they go out for dinner but as he got out of the chair he felt the room start to spin. He felt as if he had been immersed in cold grease.
“Oh, God. Look at you.”
“I think I need to lie down.”
“I'll have the concierge ring a doctor.”
“No! No, really, it’s not that bad. Just a chill. I have some antibiotics in my room. I'll be fine after a night's rest.”
After a few moments the spasm passed; he got up and escorted her into the foyer.
“How long will you be here?” she asked him.
“A few more days.”
“I'll call again in the morning.”
“Thank you.” He took a l
ast look at her. So beautiful, just like Gabriella. Unexpectedly she put her arms around him and held him. It was a clumsy gesture, but he knew she meant well by it. He had the desk call her a taxi and watched her from the foyer as she turned up the collar of her coat against the biting wind and stepped outside to wait.
A few moments later the cab pulled up and she was gone.
***
As the cab drove through the bitter streets she tried to imagine her mother, as he had painted her; both heroine and martyr. She searched inside herself for some scraps of rage for what was done to her. But it was impossible to conjure hate from nothing. To hate, you have first to love, and it was impossible to love a stranger.
She wondered instead about this twin she had never seen. Somewhere in the world there might be a mirror image of herself. She wondered what this Simone would be like. If they should ever meet, would they discover that they had always liked the same things, done the same things, had the same thoughts?
But there was no point thinking about that. Finding her now was against all odds; though now she knew she existed, she promised herself she would move heaven and earth to find her.
***
She rang the hotel early the next morning. But when she asked for Reuben Altman the clerk at the desk told her that he had checked out of the hotel at six o'clock to catch an early flight from Heathrow. He was sorry but he had no idea where he had gone and he had left no messages.
Chapter 93
Mar de Plata, Buenos Aires Province
THE YACHT CLUBS were clustered around the naval base to the south of the town. They were bastions of the privileged elite with private beaches, dotted with shade huts made from canvas and timber, for the exclusive use of their members.
The name above one of the huts read: “ANGELI, César L.”
He sat on a wicker chair in a pair of running shorts, his clothes neatly folded on the table beside him. He was muscular and lean for his fifty nine years, handsome, tanned and immaculately groomed. A small gold crucifix glistened in the gold and grey hairs on his chest. Several bikini-clad women, wives of officers at the nearby naval base, looked in his direction. One or two of them smiled. He ignored them.
He saw Massini loping along beach. He was scrawny, and hairy, and that frown on his face gave him the look of a harried husband. His skin had been burned mahogany by the sun, so that he could have been mistaken for a down at heel mestizo. It was only the chunks of gold on his fingers and the Oyster Perpetual on his wrist that belied the impression.
“Colonel.”
Angeli pointed languidly to one of the wicker chairs beside him.
Giorgio Massini was nothing like a harried husband. He had been trained by the Argentine Secret Service in the early seventies and had worked for the Special Action Group in the Dirty War. In the eighties he had been employed by General Garcìa Meza's military junta in Bolivia where he had worked closely with Klaus Barbie and Arce Gômez, Bolivia's chief of military intelligence, running cocaine to the United States and Europe in drugs for weapons deals. These days he was semi-retired but still took contracts from selected clients, especially those with ties to P2.
“You have a job for me?”
Angeli took a brown envelope from his shirt and handed it to Massini. “Everything is in there, photographs of the target, his address, his habits. There will be minimum security, you should have no problem.”
Massini flicked through the contents. “A priest?”
“A communist priest.”
Massini frowned. “How much?”
“The usual fee. If you accept, half will be transferred to whatever account you specify immediately. The rest when the job is completed.”
Massini looked down the beach, scratched his chest. “Look at the ass on that one over there. Wouldn't you like a piece of that?” A girl with long brown hair halfway down her back was wading into the water. She was wearing what the Argentines called a cola-less bikini, a few scraps of material that hardly covered anything. He picked up the envelope and stood up. “I'll be in touch.” He sauntered away, staring at the girls.
Chapter 94
SHE HAD ARRANGED to meet her mother in Babington's Tea Rooms, by the Spanish Steps. When she arrived Francesca was already there. Shopping bags from Fratelli Rossetti and Salvatore Ferragamo were arranged by her feet. That was her life these days: shopping, coffee, the opera, health clubs.
She was staring at la passagiata, her face set in that determinedly cheerful expression Simone hated so desperately. “Caro,” she said, and got to her feet, her face immediately registering disapproval of the jeans, the daypack, the long shapeless jumper.
“Mama.” She air kissed both cheeks. Simone sat down and Francesca ordered English tea - Earl Grey - and muffins.
Francesca gave her a fierce smile. “I love it here. I like to pretend I have an assignation with Shelley.”
“Shelley died a hundred years before this place was built. And he was a poet. He could never have afforded the prices here.”
The smile disappeared from Francesca's face. She had hurt her. She couldn't help it, her mother was an irresistible goad. Simone hated this delusional world she had created, like she wasn't aware what was going on under nose.
As I have been doing myself for the last twenty years.
Perhaps that's why I hate her so much.
Francesca pursed her lips, a sulky expression, like a little girl who had been scolded by a parent. “You should dress better,” she said.
“I dress to please myself.”
“You are easily pleased.”
Simone let that one go.
The tea and cakes arrived. “Simone, what's the matter with you?”
Simone stirred milk into her tea. She hated tea. Something else she did just to please her mother. Her eyes travelled listlessly around the room; the mirror, the potted plant, the flower curtains, an old woman examining a copy of the London Times through half-moon glasses.
“Caro,” Francesca persisted. “What have we done to deserve this? What has your father ever done except been a fine father and a wonderful husband?”
Yes, he was both those things; but if the man in the leather jacket was to be believed he had been many other things as well. “Just tell me it isn't true,” Simone said.
“Of course, it isn't true. How could you even think it? You will make up with your papito. Promise me.”
Simone closed her eyes.
“Caro?”
“I promise you I'll talk to him.”
“Your father is a good man. You cannot believe these lies they tell about him?”
“I just told you, I promise you I'll talk to him.”
A hesitant smile. “He's a good man,” Francesca repeated, like a litany, 'you have to believe that.”
“Do I have to believe it - or do you?”
She got angry then and sulked. She waited for an apology from her daughter that never came. She waved to friends as they came and left, cooed at the young waiter and left an outrageous tip. But they never said another word to each other and Simone made her excuses and left first.
***
There were clouds the colour of lead over the Roman hills, and the fountain in the piazza was festooned with icicles. Reuben looked through a window, saw a fat lady wrapped in a fur coat spooning cream from a glass of hot chocolate. He shivered, his breath freezing on the air. The pain was bad today.
She came out of the apartment in a tracksuit, a towel wrapped around her neck, a woollen hat pulled low over her ears. Her cheeks and nose were ruddy with the cold. He waited, huddled in the doorway.
It was her.
He resisted the urge to rush over to her, remembered how things had gone with Eva - or Diana as she was now. Was it possible that the child he last remembered in her cot had grown into this beautiful woman? She jogged past him in the direction of the Vicolo del Piede, close enough to reach out and touch.
He had found the last member of his family.
Chapter 95<
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A WATERY SUN broke through the clouds, reflecting on the ice sheen on the dome of Sant' Agnese in Agone. Simone thrust her fists into the pocket of her jacket. Her parents' roof garden looked sad in winter; the nubs of roses in their pots, the brown stalk of a passionfruit vine. This was a different Rome up here; a jumble of domes and Renaissance tiled roofs, garden terraces and TV aerials.
There had been no answer when she buzzed the apartment and she remembered it was the maid's day off. She let herself in with her key. She had decided to talk to her father, as she had promised her mother, for her own sake as much as theirs. She had not been sleeping or eating since her encounter with the man in the leather jacket. She was losing weight.
She knew her father was lying to her, it was only a question of degree. She had always suspected there was more to his past than he had told her but she had never wanted to know too much before. He had always promised her he was never involved in the disappearances, but the way he talked about the communists, how angry he got whenever anyone mentioned South American politics, it was clear he was not the kind of man to watch from the sidelines.
She leaned over the balcony, felt the chill of the iron rail through her coat. She wanted so desperately to believe his denials.
She saw his white Mercedes pull up in the street below. Marco, her father’s driver, got out and hurried to open the doors. Damn, her father had someone with him, that Polish archbishop from the Vatican. Their laughter echoed around the cobbled courtyard and then they disappeared inside.
She hesitated, unsure what to do. When she got downstairs they were already closeted in her father's study. The door was ajar and she could hear their voices clearly.
“How is il Papa?”
“He has Parkinson's. Of course the Press Office denies it, but you only have to look at him. For an institution that is supposed to have made the truth sacred, they embarrass me.” She heard the old archbishop laugh heartily.
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