Stealing God

by James Green

  ‘So Cheng was already a cardinal when he came to Rome, but he may not have known it?’

  ‘No, he would have known. He would have been told as soon as his position in China began to be regularised, as soon as there was no danger to him or his people. The Chinese government, however, would almost certainly not have known. It was a move in the game that Rome was saving.’

  ‘Why?’

  The little priest shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know, I watch China not the Vatican.’

  ‘But others in the Vatican would definitely have known?’

  ‘Oh yes, there would have had to be others, to arrange for Archbishop Cheng to be told but in such a way that the Chinese government would not get to know.’

  ‘So it was still secret?’

  ‘Secret, yes, but no longer known only known to the pope.’

  Ricci nodded.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And although Archbishop Cheng was sent by the Chinese he was not really here on their behalf. He was sent as a sign to show Rome that Beijing was prepared to trust him. If Rome chose to use him as a contact in some way, the Chinese were showing they were open to negotiations. When he arrived in Rome he was seen by the pope. What they talked about is known only to them.’

  ‘And the Chinese, if in some way they could have found out he was a cardinal, might they have wanted him dead and wanted it to happen in Rome, not China?’

  ‘No, they very much wanted him alive and I would think it mattered little to them whether he was an archbishop or a cardinal. If they cared at all they would probably have favoured it.’

  ‘So why the ultra low-key funeral?’

  ‘They didn’t want anyone else to know that they hadn’t known. It was a matter of face-saving, both domestic and international. They had begun to build up Archbishop Cheng as some sort of symbol of the new China, a China that encouraged individuals with talent and flair. A China that was safe to invest in and work with. But they didn’t want anyone thinking that the new China had gone soft or sloppy. The Vatican would have told the Chinese on Cardinal Cheng’s death of his elevation. That would have been necessary for his funeral.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A cardinal is always buried with his coat of arms and red hat on the coffin.’

  ‘And the Chinese were told that?’

  ‘Almost certainly. That the man in question had died and was no longer a part of their complicated manoeuvres was neither here nor there. The Vatican had made a move they hadn’t seen or countered and that was unacceptable to Beijing. They had to respond so they arranged the funeral in the way they did. The form it took was a rebuke to Rome but the attendance of two senior officials acknowledged the status of the man. Faced with a difficult problem they simply decided to bury it.’

  The grin was back and Ricci realised Fr Phan had made a joke.

  ‘Buried it, yes, I see.’

  The priest grinned and nodded.

  ‘A little joke, inappropriate perhaps. We are talking about the death of one who might have been a great man, but who was undoubtedly a holy one. But I allow myself a little fun from time to time,’ a pause and another grin, ‘between friends, you understand.’ Ricci understood all right, it was another joke. They’d only met twice and the priest had had a little bit of fun at his expense on both occasions. ‘Inspector, I have tried to tell you what you want to know. I was asked to co-operate by someone I trust. Many people seek me out and ask me things. I don’t always tell them what they want to hear. I am afraid that trust, real trust, is not a common currency among those who seek my knowledge. Alas they often think that they can use me and the information I can give them.’

  ‘Use you; how?’

  ‘The Catholic Church is frequently in a position to know far more accurately than the diplomatic or intelligence services of most Western governments what is the real situation on the ground in certain volatile or hostile parts of the world. We often have people and resources in the places where it would be very dangerous for the personnel of Western governments to go, so their intelligence or diplomatic services come to the Church and ask it to give them information or get information for them. The Catholic Church is seen as a reliable source by many Western governments and because of that I have many contacts both in China and in the Western intelligence and diplomatic services. I am always happy to be channel of information in both directions if it promotes the common good. I share my information only if I can be sure, insofar as anyone can ever be sure, that it will not be used to do harm, but to inform and thereby improve relationships. I am sometimes asked, as a favour, to find out things, or to pass on or get information. If I trust the person, I try to do as I am asked. Mine is a world of favours asked and favours given. It is all unofficial and off the record, as have been our conversations. I must hope you will do no harm with what I have given you. It seems of no particular importance to me but I have learned over many years that the value of information is not necessarily apparent to the one who provides it. Its value is known more accurately by the one who requests and receives it.’

  The old priest looked at him. There was no smile now and the twinkle had gone from his eyes. The speech was over, it was time to go. Ricci got up. He put his hand out to the old man who took it. It was like holding an incredibly delicate figurine. Was it just because he was Vietnamese or was he really as old as he looked?

  ‘Thank you, Fr Phan, you have been most helpful.’

  The priest nodded but said nothing. Ricci turned and walked away.

  So, people had known about Cheng being a cardinal before he came to Rome and becoming a cardinal in the way he did had upset the Chinese. Jimmy had guessed but others might not have needed to guess. That meant the next step was to find out who knew of Cheng’s elevation and might any of them have slipped that information to the Chinese? The list of people who knew would probably be very short. The shorter the better. At last he was beginning to get a good feeling about this inquiry, that it might actually be important, that it might get him somewhere. If the link his China watcher had given him then who knows, it might just turn out to be the Chinese after all.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Danny looked around the café. Upmarket tourists of all ages were enjoying themselves, seeing and being seen, getting a sniff of Rome’s la dolce vita.

  ‘Why did you drag me here? Why not meet at our usual place?’

  ‘I wanted to be somewhere different, with people who were enjoying themselves.’ At the next table a party of young Germans were laughing and talking loudly and photographing themselves and each other on their phones. ‘What’s the matter, don’t you like to see people happy?’

  The noise of the nearby laughter rose. Danny turned and the laughter died a little.

  ‘Noisy bastards.’

  ‘Take it easy. They’re just kids.’

  ‘What the hell are you up to, Jimmy? You suddenly disappear and the next thing we know someone’s put you in hospital. No one’s allowed to see you, then, when you’re out of hospital you drop out of classes. Leave of absence, we get told, Duns College business not anybody else’s. In other words, clear off. But here you are still in Rome and all well again. So what’s going on?’

  ‘Is anybody else interested in me?’

  ‘Not really. They’re all too tied up with their studies.’

  ‘Nobody that you know of been asking any questions?’

  ‘No, nobody asking except me.’

  ‘What sort of copper were you, Danny?’

  ‘Me? I was Traffic.’

  ‘Traffic.’

  ‘You sound disappointed. What sort of policeman did you want me to be?’

  ‘Oh not any particular sort, I just thought you would have been at the more serious end. I’m surprised you stuck to Traffic, that’s all.’

  ‘A good guess. I only did the last five years in Traffic, before that I was in Narcotics.’

  ‘What got you moved to Traffic?’

  ‘Two bullets, and I was damned
lucky they didn’t get me moved to the cemetery.’

  ‘It’s nasty work, narcotics.’

  ‘And dangerous, man, don’t forget the dangerous, and the one who put the bullets in me was about the same age as these noisy bastards. They’re not kids at that age any more.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. What rank were you?’

  ‘A sergeant.’

  ‘Never try for higher?’

  ‘No. I never wanted the responsibility. Maybe that’s why I’m finishing here, giving it up. Since I came I’ve begun to realise that if I became a priest how much I would have to be responsible for people, advise them, judge them. It’s not for me.’

  But Jimmy wasn’t interested in Danny’s problems today. He had other things on his mind.

  ‘Did you ever do any undercover work?’

  ‘No, just catching the bad guys and getting convictions.’

  ‘Getting convictions?’

  ‘You know how it works. You know they’re guilty, you just want to hear them say it. You do what you have to so they say it out loud. I’m a big man and not naturally violent so I got brought in sometimes. I could hurt people enough but not hurt them too much.’

  ‘Needs a nice judgement.’

  ‘If you’ve done it you’ll know. With me nobody died, nobody got put into hospital. They were bad guys and like I said, we just needed to hear them say so.’

  ‘So you got shot?’

  ‘On a routine bust, dropped my guard and took two bullets. The guy using the gun was dead before he hit the floor but by the time we’d got him I was on the floor too.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I got better and I asked to go to Traffic. I was finished in Narcotics. Getting shot had scared the shit out of me and I knew that if I had to go back I’d be looking out for myself when I should be looking out for someone else. And that’s no good, Jimmy, is it? When you go for the bad guys you do what has to be done any way it has to be done, and you commit. If you’re looking out for yourself, someone else will get hurt. So I went to Traffic and no one got hurt. I served five years to get a pension, then quit, thought about what I wanted to do, and finished up here.’

  ‘No wife?’

  ‘No, no wife. I had a partner though.’

  There was a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘A steady partner.’

  ‘So what happened there?’

  The smile widened to a grin.

  ‘When I started thinking about coming to Rome we broke up.’

  ‘I should bloody well think so. What did she say when you told her?’

  ‘Nothing. Her name was Appleton and she was white rum, and when we went to bed she was the one inside me not me inside her.’

  He laughed, so did Jimmy.

  ‘You used to hit the bottle. Oh well, lots did and they still cut it as coppers.’

  ‘But when you’re not a copper any more and don’t have to wash the day out of your mind to get to sleep, then you just become a drunk. I didn’t want to end up like that so I gave up the rum and set about thinking what I did want to be. There, now you know my life story, you inquisitive bastard, so answer my question. What the hell are you up to?’

  Jimmy had thought hard about what Professor McBride had told him and had come to a decision. She was right, he needed a friend. He might also need someone looking after his back if things went pear-shaped and at the moment Ricci was the only one doing the looking. But most of all he needed someone to be there if he began to lose it in his head. He wanted someone to be there who could stop him if he cracked up again. He didn’t want to end up banged away in some Italian psycho-bin. If Danny was up to what he wanted then he wanted him as the friend who would watch his back, the friend who would stop him falling off the edge.

  ‘It’s like this …’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The waiter who brought the drinks didn’t give Jimmy a second look this time. If a good customer like Inspector Ricci brought him then he was something horrible you couldn’t do anything about. Jimmy, he had decided, must be treated as an Act of God.

  ‘She’s set up a meeting with someone who can tell me about any other cardinals. How did it go with you?’

  Ricci took a sip of his campari and soda.

  ‘Good, although the guy is a bit of a bastard. He jerked me about before he unbuttoned, but he delivered in the end. Cheng was made a cardinal last time he was put in prison. He didn’t know because it was an in pectore job which means only the pope knew. He would have been told when the Chinese started putting him back on his feet but the Chinese weren’t told. The Vatican was saving that for a rainy day. When Cheng died the Chinese got told and they took it badly, hence the ultra-low-level funeral. They didn’t know and hadn’t guessed and that represented a loss of face in their political chess game with the Vatican. The Vatican had put one over on them so they decided to bury the whole thing.’

  Jimmy smiled.

  ‘They buried it. I like that, it’s funny.’

  ‘Yeah, funny.’

  ‘So, your watcher reckons that if Cheng was told when they started rehabilitating him it means somebody had to tell him which means a few people here in Rome had to know even if the Vatican was keeping it secret.’

  Ricci nodded.

  ‘That’s right, we guessed, but whoever killed him could have been told.’

  ‘What about the Chinese; what does your man say?’

  Ricci shook his head.

  ‘My man says not but the way I look at it, if they were told they might have decided to do something about it.’

  ‘Kill him? A bit extreme.’

  ‘Maybe but if this is between the Chinese and the Vatican then we’re way out of our depth as to what might or might not happen.’

  ‘True, but even so I can’t see being a secret cardinal as worth killing for.’

  ‘No, me neither, but it’s something.’

  ‘An outside possibility at best. What if he’d lived?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What did your man say about Cheng being a cardinal if he’d lived?’

  ‘That the Chinese didn’t care what he was: bishop, archbishop, cardinal, and if they were going to keep building him up then he looked better as a cardinal. The watcher says they just wanted to save face, not let anyone know they’d missed a trick. Other than that they weren’t interested.’

  ‘Sounds better than killing him.’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’ Ricci put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a mobile phone and put it on the table in front of Jimmy. ‘Take it.’

  Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘I bought another one after the mugging.’

  ‘Well now you’ve got this one as well.’

  ‘I don’t want it. I forget to take them with me or I lose them and when I’ve got one with me I forget to switch it on. I don’t like the things. They go off when you don’t want them to. Anyway I never have anyone I want to call.’

  He pushed it back to Ricci who leaned forward and pushed it towards Jimmy.

  ‘Well now you do have someone to call: me. I’m not working with a partner I can’t contact. I phoned you three times this morning, where were you?’

  ‘In the apartment.’

  ‘Well why didn’t you answer?’

  ‘I have that meeting today, lunch with someone who can tell me about dead cardinals and it wanted thinking about so I didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t know who it was. It could have been anybody.’

  ‘It was me and you have to answer the bloody thing to find out who it is. That’s what phones are for. I can’t hang about waiting until you’ve stopped thinking when we need to meet. I wasted a whole morning because I couldn’t get you.’ Jimmy looked at the mobile. Ricci was right of course, but he didn’t like the idea of someone being able to contact him whenever they liked. ‘Nobody else will call you because nobody else knows the number. If this one rings it’s me.’

  Jimmy picked it
up and looked at it.

  ‘I suppose it does everything: makes the tea, wipes my bum, gives me access to the bloody internet, and does my tax return.’

  ‘Never mind what it does, it rings and you answer it.’ Ricci took out another mobile and dialled. The one in Jimmy’s hand started to ring, the tone was a jingle version of the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. Jimmy looked at Ricci. ‘Never mind that, we can change it. That’s my number on the screen.’ He ended the call. ‘If it rings it’s me, you answer it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Mine is the only number on the log. Press call and you’ll get me. Try it.’

  Jimmy tried.

  Ricci’s phone rang. This time the tone was Verdi. Jimmy gave Ricci another look and they put the phones away.

  ‘What about the Wagner? I’m not having bloody Wagner going off where people can hear it.’

  ‘Don’t bother about that. I’ll do it before you go.’

  ‘I want it to just ring, like a proper phone, just ring.’

  Ricci sounded doubtful.

  ‘I’ll try. It’s got about fifty ring tones but I don’t think it does just a ring. Look, I’ll sort out something before you go.’

  ‘If it doesn’t just ring then no Verdi either.’

  ‘OK, I’ll sort it.’

  ‘In fact no opera of any sort.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I said I’d bloody well sort it out before you go. Now, how do we find out who knew Cheng was a cardinal?’

  Jimmy took a sip. It was a snotty bar but this beer was all right.

  ‘He has to be right, your China-watcher? You think he really knows how the cardinal thing was all done?’

  ‘If you mean, is it official, is he quoting some official record, then no, he’s guessing. But it makes sense. So how do we find out who knew?’

  ‘We don’t yet.’

  ‘Why not?’