Now and Then, Amen

by Jon Cleary

  “No, Your Grace, it was no accident. Someone tried to kill me again. With a knife this time.”

  Hourigan looked at Lindwall as if he expected the latter to explain. The little man just shrugged and Hourigan turned back to Malone. “So you’ve come to say goodbye.”

  It was a statement, not a question. Malone said, “Not quite. I’ve been putting pressure on the Monsignor here . . .”

  The Archbishop looked at the Monsignor again. “How did you get into this, Guy?”

  “Kerry, I don’t have any conflict with the police. Inspector Malone asked me some questions and I answered them.”

  “Questions such as what?”

  “Did the Curia know what you are doing in Nicaragua, do they know you’ve been there—”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I did, of course,” said Malone.

  “Go on, Guy. What did you tell him about the Curia?”

  “Kerry—”

  Lindwall had sat down; he didn’t like being overshadowed by two tall men. He had adopted the same tactic in the Sudan; the six-feet-six Denka tribesmen had spent more time on their haunches, listening to him, than at any other time in tribal history. Malone and Hourigan remained standing for a moment, then the Archbishop sat down and gestured for Malone to do the same.

  “Kerry—” The Monsignor might have been talking to a novice seminarian. “If certain cardinals got to hear what you’ve been up to . . . You have your rivals, you know that as well as I do. His Holiness listens to them more than he does to you—”

  “He knows my dedication to what we’re trying to do.”

  “We all know it, Kerry, none of us better than I. But buying rifles and machine-guns?”

  Hourigan looked angrily at Malone. “You told him everything?”

  “Everything,” said Malone. “Just like in the confessional.”

  The Archbishop’s lip curled. “Go on, Guy.”

  “What he told me won’t go outside this room. Except—”

  “Except what?”

  “Kerry, if what you have done ever got out, if L’Unita ever got hold of it and spread it across their front page, all our good work would be undone.”

  “You’re wrong!” The Archbishop hit his desk with his fist. “With the Holy Father behind me—”

  “How do you know he would be? He’s trying to build bridges.”

  “He’s as anti-Communist as I am!”

  “I haven’t heard of him using Peter’s Pence to buy rifles and machine-guns. Be sensible, Kerry—just take a cool look at the bomb you’re putting together. Being over-zealous has helped the Church in the past—”

  “I’m not some wild fanatic!” But he looked it at the moment, sitting tensed in his chair, his eyes hard and bright.

  “No,” said Lindwall, half-conciliatorily, half-sarcastically. “It’s always the other chaps who are the fanatics.”

  Malone sat watching the small battle between the two clerics. There was long-standing antagonism between the two. There was the resentment of the old man, who had paid his dues in the field, towards the younger man who had come to Rome on a much easier, more comfortable road. Equally, there was the impatience of the crusader with a tired old man who wanted to show tolerance towards the enemy. There was no real hatred, just a clash of temperament. Which, as he knew, could produce just as long and fierce a battle. He didn’t, however, want this one to go on: Guy Lindwall deserved better than that.

  “Don’t blame the Monsignor for any of this,” he said. “I bailed him up against a wall. I said if he wouldn’t talk to you, try and persuade you to come home with me, I’d go straight to the Curia cardinals myself.”

  “They’d never let you in the door,” said Hourigan scornfully.

  “They would if General della Porta pushed me in.”

  “Is he on your side, too?”

  “Everyone’s on my side.” There were no titles of rank between them now: they were man to man. “I’m not bluffing any more. I’ll go to the cardinals and lay the whole lot on the table for them. They may tell me to go to hell, but none of it will do you much good. I think you’d be out of this Department before you could say Hail Mary . . . They’d find some backwater for you . . .”

  “I can recommend the southern Sudan,” said Lindwall with an impish grin and some malice. “Or Ethiopia. No comfort there, but it’s full of Communists. Your map shows that.”

  He nodded at the map of the world on the wall behind the Archbishop. Great patches of it were coloured red. It reminded Malone of old school maps he had seen, before all the colour ran out of the British Empire. Now there was a new empire, one that had to be conquered by any means: rifles, machine-guns, possibly even prayer.

  Hourigan sat silent and stiff-faced for a long moment; then abruptly he smiled. It was a weak, slightly puzzled smile, but it was genuine. “Why can’t you and I get on together, Guy?”

  “God knows, I’ve tried, Kerry. But I’m too old for your sort of—enthusiasm.” There was just a faint pause before the last word.

  Hourigan hadn’t missed it. “My fanaticism, you mean? I believe in what I’m doing, Guy. If I sometimes get carried away . . . The end justifies the means.” For the moment he believed what he was saying. The end, of course, was something different from what they thought. When he was Pope there would be so much he could do . . . But you never confessed your ambition to be Pope, certainly not to someone who, if he had the vote at all, would never vote for you. He looked at Malone. “I’d like to talk to my father before I make a decision. And I’ll want some sort of guarantee that if I come back to Sydney, there won’t be any publicity.”

  “I’ll do my best, but I can’t guarantee anything. Paredes and Domecq may shoot their mouths off.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Archbishop Hourigan, and his voice had a threat to it that didn’t go with his smile.

  IV

  Captain Goffi drove Malone to the airport, Monsignor Lindwall going with them. There had been a quick farewell of General della Porta in his office. “It is a pity you did not have an opportunity to see our city, Inspector. The externals of it are very attractive.”

  “I’ll try and come back, General. And stay on this side of the river.”

  “We can’t promise you Heaven on this side, but they don’t make it any easier for you over there . . .” He waved towards the tall doors and the distant dominating dome. “There was an English writer, a convert, who once wrote that anyone who could spend a year in the shadow of the Vatican walls and still retain his faith, need have no fear that the gates of Heaven would be closed against him. I hope he was right.” Then he blessed himself, smiled when he saw Malone’s blink of surprise. “I told you, I have to play both sides. Good luck, Inspector.”

  On the way out to the airport Guy Lindwall said, “I hope you can keep all this out of the newspapers.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re now on the Archbishop’s side?”

  “Not at all, old chap. I just don’t enjoy seeing the Church taking the bumps for what its zealots do. You must feel the same way about your police force. Even democracy gets a bad name when certain Americans think they are the only defenders of it.”

  Malone nodded. “How will you feel if he comes back here lily-white and takes up where he’s left off?”

  “Ah, then I think I shall play dirty,” said the one-time missionary. “I didn’t waste my time out there amongst the pagan, unsporting Denka.”

  When he got out of the car Malone shook hands with two old friends; or so it seemed they were. One had saved his life and the other had saved his morale. He felt a gratitude that he could only express with the firmness of his grip. The other men understood and their handshakes were as sincere as his.

  “Take care, Scobie,” said Goffi. “The third time you may not be so lucky.”

  Malone left them and walked across to the three-engined Dassault Falcon 900. He had hesitated when Fingal Hourigain had insisted that they return to Australia in his private aircraft—�
��It’s the only way to ensure we land there without publicity. I came over in my own plane and I’m going back that way. What’s the matter, Inspector? Are you afraid I’ll have you tossed out from thirty thousand feet?”

  “I’d take someone with me if you did.”

  Fingal had smiled. “I think you would, too. But not me, Inspector—I’d be standing well back.”

  So now Malone climbed the steps to the aircraft, stood at the top and waved to Lindwall and Goffi, then went into the forward cabin. It was the first time he had been aboard a private jet and he was impressed by the luxury and comfort of it. In the forward cabin deep lie-back chairs faced each other across console tables. In the middle section there was a similar set-up for dining. In the rear cabin there was a workstation and a lounge that could be converted into a bed. The furnishings were luxurious: Fingal Hourigan’s caravan was designed to make him feel at home even above the clouds. But then, Malone mused, he probably has options on air space all over the world.

  The two Hourigans were already aboard and so was Zara Kersey. A uniformed steward took Malone’s bag and went aft with it. Then he came back with coffee and biscuits.

  “I employ only male stewards,” said Fingal. “Women are a distraction.”

  “Thank you,” said Zara Kersey.

  “You too,” said Fingal. “But you’re smart and that makes up for it.”

  “I don’t think I’ll last this journey,” said Zara to Malone. “I think I’ll be getting off somewhere about half-way.”

  Archbishop Hourigan had remained silent, greeting Malone only with a nod. Malone sat down opposite him, the console table separating them. Fingal and Zara were on the other side of the aisle and Malone was aware that both of them were watching him.

  “I think we’d better declare a truce till we get home,” he said.

  Kerry Hourigan looked stonily at him. “You’re interrupting my work.”

  “You interrupted mine, when I had to chase you here to Rome. I’m only doing my job. I’m not going to get any promotion out of this. I stand a good chance of things going the other way for me.”

  “I can promise that,” said Fingal from the other side of the aisle.

  Malone buckled his seat-belt, sat back as the plane taxied out on to the runway. He looked at Zara and smiled wearily. “It’s going to be a long twenty-four hours.”

  “I hope the movie is a good one,” she said. “What’s on?”

  “The Untouchables,” said Fingal. “I didn’t choose it. It’s about a cop who’s a pain in the arse.”

  “My autobiography,” said Malone and felt a glimmer of relief when he saw the glimmer of a smile on the Archbishop’s lips.

  They flew by way of Dubai and Singapore, stopping at each landing for only two hours while the aircraft was refuelled. At Dubai and Singapore men came to the airport to confer with Fingal. He made no mention to Zara and Malone of who the men were, but Kerry, who by now appeared to be his old confident self, explained: “My father never loses an opportunity to do business. He would consider it a waste of time to pass through these places and not make money.”

  “I might have guessed he wasn’t just picking up duty-free grog,” said Malone.

  He was no longer amazed by human behaviour; but he had not become impervious to it. Hate and anger, jealousy and revenge, all those he could understand, though at times it was difficult to forgive the results of those emotions. Greed was the hardest instinct to swallow: it was not his meal at all. He wondered what the Archbishop thought of his father’s greed, but did not ask. The truce was fragile, but he wanted it to last till they reached Sydney. Truces are often no more than a blind for the worst of intentions, but they are the best currency for buying time.

  At Singapore he went to one of the duty-free stores and bought perfume. As he walked back to board the plane Zara joined him.

  “I thought you didn’t like shopping?”

  “It’s perfume for the wife. Arpège.”

  “Is that her favourite?”

  “I don’t think so. But she wouldn’t have liked it if I’d brought back that one of yours. I saw it in the store—Poison.” He pronounced it English style. “I didn’t get anything for the kids. I didn’t know what to buy them. I’m a dead loss as a father.”

  “I doubt that, Scobie.”

  When they got back on board the plane he was moving up and down it, inspecting it again, when he saw Kerry Hourigan looking at him with amusement. He said, “If it’s not a rude question, how much does a plane like this cost?”

  “It is a rude question, but I suppose you’re used to asking them.”

  “We’re taught to ask them. Just like lawyers,” he said, smiling at Zara, certain now that she was as much his ally as an adviser to the Hourigans.

  “Eighteen million dollars,” said the Archbishop. “US dollars, that is. Are you shocked?”

  “Stunned, I think would be closer. It’s a lot of cash for convenience.” It was—what? Thirty times more than he would have earned by the time he retired? He would sit down on the way home and work it out. Whatever he earned, no one could say it had bought him convenience.

  “It’s also for security, Inspector. My father is worth enough to be the target of kidnappers. How would you feel as an ordinary passenger on Qantas if some terrorist, or even ordinary gangsters, took over the plane and held my father to ransom? This isn’t just an indulgence, though I suppose that’s how it looks. In any event, it’s his own money, not his shareholders’. That’s more than can be said for a lot of other barons.”

  And what happens to all the money, and to this aircraft, when your old man dies and it all comes to you and your sister? But that, of course, would have been a really rude question.

  Then Fingal came back on board showing, as much as he ever could, some pleasure. “I’ve just given some Chinese a lesson in patience. We’ve been two years on that deal, trying to out-sit each other. I lasted longer than they did. How much patience do you have, Inspector.”

  “Not much.”

  Fingal sat down opposite this time as the plane took off. “You will never out-last me.”

  “I didn’t know the competition was between you and me.”

  “Oh, it is, Malone, it is. I’m not going to let you ruin my son’s career. You’re a Communist.”

  Malone laughed at the other man’s prejudice. “Your son accused me of that a week ago. I don’t have any politics. If it turned out Gorbachev murdered your granddaughter, I’d be down on him like a ton of bricks. The same goes for our Prime Minister. Or the President of the United States.”

  “That’s fantasy. Top men never pull the trigger.” He knew: Capone hadn’t pulled any trigger in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Of course the Big Fella had killed people himself, but those murders had been personal. Which was different and understandable.

  He sat back and stared at Malone across the cabin, the pale-blue eyes suddenly almost opaque. Malone stared back at him and all at once, with a tight feeling in his stomach, was certain he knew who had paid for the murders of Sister Mary Magdalene and Father Marquez. And for the attempted murder of himself in Rome.

  Fingal at last turned his head away and looked out of the window. He had just had another moment of self-questioning, a disturbing weakness that had begun to occur too frequently. Why so many enemies? Brigid had asked him that back—when?

  11

  I

  “WHY DO you have so many enemies, Dad?”

  Brigid had asked him the question on one of her few visits home to Sydney, back in the Sixties. She had also wanted to ask him why he had no friends, but one cruel question was enough.

  He had smiled and shaken his head, “Nobody loves a rich man, not in this country.”

  “You’re talking about the poor, the workers. Other rich men might love you.”

  The smile remained. “You don’t know the rich. You see, I’m the richest. It’s the same with a group of beautiful women. One of them’s got to be the most beautiful and
she’s the one who’ll always be the most envied.”

  It was a cynical answer, but Brigid knew she should never have expected any more from her father.

  She went back to England, where she saw the Swinging Sixties go out without any regret on her part. They would remain vivid only in the memories of those who would not go on to much better; there had been a spuriousness about those years that had never convinced Brigid they were something special. She had believed in free love and free thought long before those pursuits became wildly fashionable; miniskirts, which didn’t suit her legs, and rock music, which, like her brother, she had now grown to hate, were minor manifestations to which she turned a blind eye and a deaf ear.

  She slipped into the next decade with relief, found at last her true métier as a painter.

  Her natural irreverence, her sceptical opinion of her brother’s vocation, led her to look at religious paintings with a suddenly discovered new eye. She began to paint religious subjects as they might have been viewed by a tabloid news photographer, a biblical paparazza. They stopped short of being sacrilegious, but they raised comment. One or two of the more progressive Anglican bishops, those who didn’t believe in God, praised them; more conservative clerics, including her own brother, condemned them, though Kerry only did so privately. Museums and private collectors bought them and all at once she was no longer a part-time painter, a talented dilettante, but a working professional artist.

  Teresa was now nine years old, a replica of her mother at that age. Brigid, caught up in her painting, sent her to boarding school and the nuns took over the raising of the bright, opinionated child. Brigid, without realizing it, was creating the same situation that had separated her from her father.

  In Rome Kerry had already come to the notice of certain influential members of the Curia. He knew now that he was safe from pastoral work in Australia; his administrative brain was not going to be wasted totting up parish funds and throwing holy water on the heads of indifferent infants. He not only had an excellent administrative brain, he was financially clever, an inheritance from his father; he also had something his father did not have, a gift for public rhetoric, an ability to fire an audience or congregation. He was now attached to the Congregation of the Council, a body which administered, among other affairs, ecclesiastical properties and revenues. It had been founded by Pius IV, a sixteenth-century Medici pope who knew the value of ecclesiastical favours: he sold cardinals’ hats as if they were summer straw bonnets. He raised taxes in the Papal State by 40 per cent and let rich defendants, who should have been imprisoned, buy their freedom with exorbitant fines. Kerry, not without some irreverence of his own, thought of Pius as his father’s patron saint.