Stealing God

by James Green

  The monsignor poured some more wine and went back to his meal. The waiter was at the table with a bottle of beer and a glass on a tray.

  ‘Sorry about the delay, sir.’ He put the glass beside Jimmy and poured some beer, then put the bottle beside the glass. ‘I took the chill off it but I’m afraid I had to use my judgement as to how you’d like it.’

  Jimmy took a taste. It was just beer.

  ‘Excellent, just right. Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir.’

  The waiter left. Jimmy took the bottle and poured some more into his glass. The monsignor was eating, waiting for Jimmy to get going again.

  ‘Doesn’t the pope have to be a cardinal?’

  ‘Technically, no, on election the pope becomes the bishop of Rome and so long as the candidate is in no way debarred from taking up that office anyone could be chosen. Technically you could be our next pope, Mr Costello.’

  ‘Me!?’

  ‘Yes, if you have been accepted for training to the priesthood I assume you are a baptised and practising Catholic. You are not married nor, I hope, in a state of mortal sin. You are eligible. If you were chosen you would be ordained priest, then consecrated bishop of Rome and then you would be pope. So could I, so could millions, but as you said, the pope is now always chosen from among the College of Cardinals.’

  ‘So Cheng would have to have been a cardinal to be pope?’

  ‘Realistically, yes.’

  The monsignor pushed away his plate and refreshed his glass of wine.

  ‘He wasn’t though, was he?’

  ‘Wasn’t he, Mr Costello?’

  ‘He was an archbishop.’

  ‘If you say so. I’m sure your information is more accurate than any I might have. I am, after all, no more than a humble Vatican functionary.’ You’re something, thought Jimmy, but whatever it is, it isn’t humble. The waiter arrived and took the monsignor’s plate. He looked at Jimmy’s untouched meal and hovered, uncertain what to do. The monsignor came to his assistance. ‘Are you finished, Mr Costello?’

  ‘No, I’ll eat in a minute.’

  ‘But your meal will be cold, sir.’

  Jimmy looked at the waiter.

  ‘Is it any good cold?’

  ‘Not really, sir.’

  ‘Maybe you could re-heat it?’

  ‘I hardly think it would be suitable re-heated, sir.’

  ‘Mr Costello.’

  The monsignor was getting annoyed. Jimmy picked up the plate and held it out to the waiter.

  ‘Have a go anyway.’

  ‘If you say so, sir.’ The waiter took the plate. ‘Will you require anything else, monsignor?’

  ‘No.’

  The waiter left.

  ‘If there is nothing further I can do for you, Mr Costello?’

  He was ready to leave.

  ‘There is.’ The monsignor stiffened and then relaxed. His face registered indifference but his eyes told another story. Jimmy poured the last of his beer into his glass. He took his time about it and about taking a sip. He wondered how many would die in the blast when this guy finally exploded if he got pushed any further. ‘If, for the sake of argument, Cheng was a cardinal, there was a conclave, and he had been elected pope, what effect might that have? How would a Chinese pope go down?’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘With anybody.’

  ‘The Church would welcome him as the new holy father with joy and celebration as they would any new pope.’

  Getting his own back, is he, thought Jimmy. We’ll see about that.

  ‘Don’t you know or won’t you say?’

  It hit home. He had been sent to co-operate, not to make a new friend nor to score points off a new enemy. His whole manner changed.

  ‘Would you have said that John Paul II, a Polish pope, had an effect, Mr Costello?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Indeed, yes. When he first became pope the Soviet Union looked as if not even a nuclear attack could destroy it. But it was utterly gone by the time he died. What he helped start in a shipyard in Gdansk couldn’t be stopped and it brought down one of the world’s two superpowers, a thing the other superpower had been trying to do without success for the second half of the twentieth century. And all without a shot being fired.’

  ‘He didn’t do it on his own.’

  ‘You could argue that he didn’t do it at all. That a desire for truth, justice, and freedom did it from within.’

  ‘Aided and abetted by rampant poverty and corruption, also from within.’

  ‘Mr Costello, I am a busy man. If you really wish to discuss the fall of the Soviet Union, could you do it some other time with some other person?

  ‘It would matter, you think, a Chinese pope?’

  ‘I think it would matter very much indeed and I think the prospect of Cardinal,’ he paused, ‘of Archbishop Cheng as bishop of Rome would be something that might be opposed vigorously in certain quarters, most vigorously indeed.’

  ‘Stop at nothing sort of thing?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Jimmy had heard all he wanted to for the moment. He needed to go and think things over.

  ‘OK, I’m finished, you can go. I’ll hang on and see what the ­– what was it called?’

  The monsignor was getting up. He was being dismissed by a crumpled, unimportant little peasant of a man. But he didn’t mind, he would offer it up as a penance for the sinfulness of mankind.

  ‘Saltimbocca, Mr Costello. I hope you find it still edible, but I doubt it. Good day.’

  He left. He forgot to say his grace after meals, thought Jimmy, as the monsignor made his way between the tables, nodding a couple of times to important-looking diners. I hope he remembers it when he next goes to Confession. The waiter was back at the table.

  ‘Do you want your meal now, sir?’

  ‘Did he pay the bill?’

  The waiter looked after the monsignor who was disappearing through the doorway into the street.

  ‘The monsignor has an account.’

  ‘I see, he runs a tab.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘A tab, an account.’

  The waiter smiled. He liked to pick up new English words.

  ‘A tab, yes, sir.’

  ‘Is it a modest tab?’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘A modest tab. He says he likes to live modestly. He says to live modestly is to live well.’

  The waiter smiled again.

  ‘Yes, sir, I would say the monsignor lives well.’ The smile almost became a grin, but not quite. He was talking about a good customer. ‘Do you want your meal now, sir?’

  ‘No, it won’t be any good warmed up, will it? Do you do any pasta?’

  ‘Of course, sir. If you want pasta we can give you whatever you wish.’

  ‘Spaghetti.’

  ‘And how would you like it, sir?’

  ‘Just as it comes. Ask the cook to use his judgement.’

  The waiter smiled.

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  He left. Jimmy reached out to the ice bucket. The bottle was about a third full. What sort of priest has a tab at a place like this and when he orders a bottle of wine leaves nearly half of it? He looked at the label, it said Pecorino and gave the year but otherwise it was meaningless. How much was inexpensive, he wondered. He poured some into his unused glass. It was wine, just white wine.

  He turned his mind back to what the monsignor had told him. Three cardinals dead unexpectedly, all influential if a conclave was held and a possible favourite to win dies under questionable circumstances. But if Cheng’s death was part of something it meant it was two years into whatever was going on.

  ‘Your spaghetti, sir.’

  The waiter put the plate on the table. It was just spaghetti with a simple tomato sauce.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Another beer, sir? I have one ready with the chill taken off, just in case.’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  Jimmy began his meal, it was goo
d, just how he liked it. The waiter arrived with the beer.

  ‘You can take the wine away; it’s finished with.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘Is it any good?’

  ‘All our wines are good, sir.’

  ‘Is it cheap?’

  ‘We don’t stock cheap wines, sir, but if you mean is it one of our less expensive wines, then yes, it is modestly priced compared to many of our others.’

  ‘How much?’

  It didn’t sound modestly priced to Jimmy. It sounded damned expensive.

  Jimmy went back to eating and thinking. One hundred cardinals locked in one place with no outside contact and no way in. If someone wanted to fix the election they had to be got at before they came to Rome or got at once they were assembled and neither way made any sense. Before they came to Rome they were scattered across the world: any attempt to nobble them would be too obvious. Once they were together no one could get at them except someone on the inside. Which only took him back to getting at them before the conclave. He paused in his eating.

  It was like some bloody stupid Agatha Christie thing. The pope will be found dead in the Vatican Library with all the doors and windows locked from the inside and a knife of oriental design stuck in his back. Then all the suspects, the cardinals, will be gathered in one room while I stand in front of them, tear off my whiskers, and say, it is I, Hawkshaw, the great detective, and I now know which one of you is the murderer.

  Jimmy went on with his spaghetti. No, they didn’t want Agatha bloody Christie on this or any sort of detective. What they wanted was a magician, because if it was about fixing a papal conclave it was going to be one hell of a trick.

  Absolutely one hell of a trick.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Danny didn’t look happy and when he spoke he didn’t sound happy.

  ‘I don’t like this, Jimmy. I don’t like what you’ve told me and I don’t see what I can do now that you have told me.’

  Jimmy signalled to the waitress. She came to the table.

  ‘Same again?’

  She was a chirpy South African.

  ‘Just a beer, thanks, no coffee.’

  She went away.

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘It gets worse.’

  ‘I bet it does. How could it get any better?’

  ‘I’ll tell you if you want.’

  Danny held up his hand.

  ‘Too much, you’ve already told me too much, don’t tell me any more. A Chinese archbishop who may have been murdered here in Rome, old friends in London who ordered a factory in Glasgow firebombed, an investigation that’s unofficial but high-level, and a rector who did everything but kidnap you. Not to mention whoever put you into hospital.’

  ‘That doesn’t count. That was just a message from an old acquaintance.’

  ‘Oh fine, then I can see how that wouldn’t count. What I don’t see is why you told me about it all in the first place.’

  ‘So you could watch my back. That doesn’t seem a lot to me.’

  ‘Watch your back how, watch for what?’

  ‘Whatever comes.’

  ‘I’m retired, Jimmy.’ The waitress arrived, put the beer on the table, and left. ‘If only half of what you’ve told me is true then it’s way out of my league. This isn’t any kind of police work that I was ever involved with.’

  ‘Just look out for me. If you see me getting into trouble call a policeman.’

  ‘How can you get in any more trouble than you’re in already?’

  ‘I’ll wear a pink carnation behind my right ear. Just keep an eye on me, and if you think I’m …’

  Jimmy wasn’t sure how to put it.

  ‘If I think you’re what?’

  ‘If I seem to be losing the plot.’

  ‘And how would I know? You left me behind on this from the start, as soon as you told me.’

  ‘No, not that. If I seem to be cracking up. It might happen. Like you said, this is out of the frame for anything you or I ever did. I might screw up or it might screw me up. Just keep an eye on me.’

  Danny fiddled with his empty coffee cup.

  ‘I can do that, I suppose,’ then he pushed the cup away, ‘but that’s all I can do. Don’t expect me to pile in if this blows up in your face.’

  ‘But you can call a copper if you think I need one.’

  Danny nodded.

  ‘If I can find one. You know what they say about coppers when you need one. And make it a sunflower behind your ear, that way I’ll be sure to spot it.’

  Jimmy laughed.

  ‘Sure, a sunflower it will be.’

  Danny’s voice changed, the laughter replaced by concern.

  ‘Listen, I have to say this. That plot you thought you might lose? Well, what if you’ve already lost it? All that you’ve told me, well, it’s not exactly normal is it, even for police work. Maybe you should see someone, a doctor, have yourself checked over.’

  ‘I’m not long out of hospital. There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about your body. Look, Jimmy, I don’t think you need anyone watching your back and I don’t think it’s a policeman I should get for you. I think you may need to talk to someone.’

  ‘I’m talking to you.’

  ‘Not me, someone who can help you with what’s going on in your head.’

  ‘Help me how?’

  ‘You lost your wife, that must have been bad. You try to get over it, you think you have and decide to become a priest. You come to Rome. You’re among strangers. You decide to keep yourself to yourself, a loner, a man on the outside who doesn’t mix. Then you suddenly disappear and when you come back you get put in hospital.’

  ‘So? I explained all that.’

  ‘A message from an old acquaintance? Some explanation. You tell me a story about a murdered archbishop and a conspiracy to get you here run by none other than your own college rector. Mysterious fires in Glasgow and policemen suddenly getting sent to the US.’

  ‘Fire and policeman, both singular. It was only one fire and one policeman.’

  ‘This isn’t a joke. Even if it was only one policeman or one fire it’s already too much. Archbishop Cheng died, yes, but my guess is it was just an old man dying after a hard life. I know that you really are a Duns student and you really do have a rector, and that’s all I know for sure. Everything else is just stuff you told me.’

  ‘I got put in hospital. That was real enough. You tried to visit me there, remember?’

  ‘OK, but it had all the marks of a mugging. Why shouldn’t it be just what it looked like? The hospital bit is true but I think the rest of it is all in your head. No inspector, no fire, no conspiracy. I think you were about ready for a breakdown and when you got mugged that, on top of everything else, well, it sort of …’

  ‘Pushed me over the edge? You think I’m nuts?’

  ‘I think it’s like a film that’s going on inside your head. To you it all seems real but you’re the only one who can see it. I think you need help.’

  Jimmy wished Danny was right, that it was all going on in his head and the right kind of help would make it all go away. As it was, there was a chance someone might have murdered four cardinals. That had to mean something. But then there was McBride and what she’s said about his mental state. Now it seemed she wasn’t the only one. He was here with Danny and had told him everything because he’d believed what she’d said, that he might go nuts, and permanently this time. But what if she was wrong and Danny was right, it wasn’t going to happen. It already had. Schizophrenics believed the voices they heard were real. To them they were real. He’d interviewed one once after he’d committed a violent assault and the memory of that interview brought a chill to his heart.

  The ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ suddenly began in Jimmy’s pocket. He pulled out the phone and answered it.

  ‘It’s still Ride of the bloody Valkyries, you said you’d fix that.’ He listened for a moment. ‘Right. I’m in a bar, La
Tosca in the Piazza Colonna on the Corso. In a few minutes then.’ Jimmy put the phone away. His mind had cleared. He was back in the land of the living. This was no film inside his head. ‘That was my imaginary inspector. He’s coming to pick me up and he can back up everything I’ve told you.’ Jimmy finished off his beer. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have dragged you into this but I didn’t think I could do it without someone to talk to and I chose you. Sorry.’

  Danny smiled a big smile.

  ‘For God’s sake, what’s to be sorry for? I just got through telling you that I thought you were having a major breakdown, suffering from chronic hallucinations, that you were a mental basket case. You don’t think I wanted it to be that way, do you? But if even a small part of what you’ve told me is true then you are in deep shit, man. It’s going to chew you up and it won’t spit you out, not alive anyway.’

  ‘So now you’re an expert on Vatican politics? I hope you’re better at it than you were at making your psychiatric diagnosis.’

  Jimmy was grinning, but Danny wasn’t.

  ‘I don’t have to be any sort of expert to know that if some stray bystander gets sucked in by that sort of machinery they don’t get left to walk away and tell the tale when it’s over.’

  In the distance a police siren began to be heard.

  ‘If it’s Ricci he must be in a hurry.’

  ‘You’re going to carry on with this?’

  ‘I don’t think I get a choice.’

  ‘Well leave me out of it. I still have a choice and if you want to meet make it somewhere other than this place?’

  ‘Why? I like this place, I think we fit in.’

  ‘We fit in like nuns at a strip joint.’

  ‘Well I like it, we’re not locals. We live in Rome but we don’t belong. Why shouldn’t we fit in with the tourists?’

  ‘We’re supposed to be here to study. We’re not tourists, we’re students.’

  ‘For God’s sake look at us, two men old enough to be grandads, and you think we should fit in as students? We’re freaks, something the tourists ought to have a good look at alongside the Forum and St Peter’s and all the other stuff. Fools for God, that’s what we are, a little Roman peep-show.’