God's Spy (2 page)

0 little novelist’ was his nickname for her when they were alone – a mocking allusion to the abundant imagination that Dicanti poured into her profiles.

Paola was desperately hoping her work would begin to bear fruit, just so she could flaunt the results in the bastard’s face. She had made the mistake of sleeping with him one night in a moment of weakness. Working until late each night, her guard down, her heart overwhelmed by an emptiness she could not name . . . and then the time-honoured regrets the morning after. Especially when she reminded herself that Troi was married and nearly twice her age. He’d been a gentleman – hadn’t gone on about it and was careful to keep his distance; but he never let Paola forget it either, hinting at what had happened with comments that were somewhere between sexist and charming. God, how she hated the man.

But now finally, for the first time since her promotion, she had a case she could tackle from the outset, one in which she wouldn’t have to work with shoddy evidence gathered by dim-witted agents. She took the call in the middle of breakfast, and immediately hurried to her room to change. She combed her long, dark hair, tied it up in a bun, put away the trousers and jersey she had been going to wear to the office, and instead took out an elegant suit with a black jacket. She was intrigued: the caller hadn’t supplied her with a single detail, except that a crime had been committed and that it fell within her area of expertise. They had summoned her to Santa Maria in Traspontina ‘with the utmost urgency’.

And that’s precisely where she was now, standing in the doorway of the church. Behind her, a surging mass of people milled about in a queue that stretched for almost two and a half miles, coming to an end just short of the Vittorio Emmanuel II Bridge. Paola looked back at the scene and it worried her. The people in the queue had spent the whole night there, but anyone who might have seen something would be far away by now. As they passed, some of the pilgrims glanced over at the discreet pair of carabinieri who were preventing the occasional group of worshippers from entering the church. The police diplomatically assured them that the building was undergoing repairs.

Paola took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. The church had one nave with five chapels on each side, and the air was filled with the musty scent of old incense. The lights were dimmed, no doubt because that was how the church would have been when the body was discovered. It was one of Troi’s mottos: ‘Let’s see it the way he did.’

She looked around, her eyes trying to pick out objects in the darkness. Two men were conversing in low tones at the rear of the church, their backs to her. A Carmelite friar, nervously praying the rosary at the foot of the baptismal font, stared at her as she surveyed the scene.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it, signorina? It dates from 66. Constructed by Peruzzi, its chapels—’
Dicanti interrupted him with a firm smile: ‘Sadly, brother, art is the last thing on my mind at the moment. I’m Inspector Dicanti. Are you the parish priest?’
‘Indeed, ispettore. And I’m also the one who discovered the body. I’m sure that’s of more interest to you. Blessed be the Lord, in days such as these . . . A saint has departed and left us with devils in his stead!’
The Carmelite looked very old. He wore tortoiseshell glasses with thick lenses, and the traditional brown habit with a large scapulary knotted at the waist. A thick white beard covered his face. He walked to and fro around the font, hunched over and limping slightly. His hands nervously thumbed his prayer beads and shook uncontrollably at odd moments.
‘Calm down, brother. What is your name?’
‘Francesco Toma, ispettore.’
‘Tell me, in your own words, what took place here today. I know you’ve probably been through all this six or seven times already, but it can’t be helped – take my word for it.’
The friar exhaled. ‘There’s not much to tell. In addition to my pastoral duties, it is also my responsibility to take care of this church. I live in a small room behind the sacristy. I got up as I do every morning at six, washed my face and put on my robes. I crossed the sacristy and entered the church through a hidden door at the foot of the main altar. I went to the chapel of Our Lady of Carmen, where I say my prayers each day. I noticed that there were candles burning in front of the chapel of Saint Thomas, yet when I turned to go back to my room, they had all gone out. That’s when I saw it. I started running towards the sacristy, terrified because I thought the killer could still be in the church. Then I called the emergency number .’
‘You didn’t touch anything in the crime scene?’
‘No, ispettore, nothing. I was frightened out of my wits, may God forgive me.’
‘And you didn’t try to help the victim?’
‘He was clearly beyond any earthly help.’
A figure moved towards them down the main aisle of the church. It was Detective Maurizio Pontiero from the UACV.
‘Dicanti, hurry up. They’re going to turn on the lights.’
‘Just a second. Take this, it’s my card. My mobile number is at the bottom. Call me any time if you remember anything else.’
‘I will. And here’s a gift for you.’ The Carmelite handed her a small, brightly coloured card.
‘Santa Maria del Carmen. Take it with you wherever you go. It will show you the way in these uncertain times.’
‘Thank you.’ Dicanti accepted the card from the old friar without giving it a second look, then slipped it into the pocket of her coat.
The inspector followed Pontiero through the church to the third chapel on the left, which was cordoned off with the UACV’s classic red-and-white crime-scene tape.
‘You were late,’ Pontiero reproached her.
‘The traffic was murder. It’s a circus out there.’
‘You should have taken Rienzo.’
Although Dicanti technically occupied a higher rung than Pontiero in the hierarchy of the Italian police, as the agent in charge of UACV field investigations he outranked any laboratory researcher, even someone like Paola, who was head of her department. Pontiero was years old, trim and hot-tempered. He had a face like a shrivelled raisin and wore a perennial frown. It was quite clear to Paola that Pontiero adored her, but he took care not to let it show.
Dicanti was about to cross the police line but Pontiero’s arm shot out to stop her. ‘Hang on a second, Paola. You won’t ever have seen anything like this before. It’s completely sickening, I swear.’ His voice was trembling.
‘I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it, Pontiero. But thanks.’
She walked into the chapel. An investigator from the UACV had arrived before her and was taking photographs. At the rear of the chapel, against the wall, was a small altar adorned with a painting of Saint Thomas at the moment he pressed his fingers into Jesus’ wounds. The body lay beneath it.
‘Holy Mother of God!’
‘I warned you.’
It was a spectacle straight out of Dante. The dead man was leaning against the altar and his eyes had been torn out, leaving two gaping wounds the colour of dried blood in their place. The mouth was wide open in a horrendous, grotesque grimace, and from it hung a greyish-brown object. In a sudden flash from the camera, Dicanti saw the worst: the victim’s hands had been severed and were resting one on top of the other on a strip of white linen next to his body. The hands had been cleaned of any blood and one of them was adorned with an unusually large ring.
The dead man wore the black robes with red sash and piping of the cardinals.
Paola’s eyes widened. ‘Pontiero, please tell me it’s not a cardinal.’
‘We don’t know yet, Dicanti. We’re investigating who it might be, though there’s not much left of the face. We held things up for you so you could take a look at the place and see it the way the killer did.’
‘Where’s the rest of the Crime Scene Analysis team?’
The analysis team were the UACV’s big shots. All of them were highly skilled pathologists, specialising in the recovery of fingerprints, hairs and anything else a criminal might leave at the scene. They worked according to the rule that in every crime there is an exchange: the killer takes something and he leaves something behind.
‘They’re on their way. Their van is stuck in traffic on Cavour.’
‘They should have gone by Rienzo.’ The photographer put in his two cents.
‘No one asked for your opinion,’ Dicanti snapped back.
He left the chapel muttering unpleasant things about Paola under his breath.
‘You’ve got to get that temper of yours under control.’
‘Why in God’s name didn’t you call me earlier, Pontiero?’ Dicanti asked, completely ignoring the detective’s remark. ‘This case is serious. Whoever did it is really sick in the head.’
‘Is that your professional opinion, Dottoressa?’ Carlo Troi strolled into the chapel, directing one of his mocking glances her way. He was enamoured of surprise entrances like that. Paola now realised that he must have been one of the two men talking at the back of the church when she came in; she blamed herself for letting him catch her unprepared. The other man wasn’t far behind, but he didn’t utter a word, nor did he enter the chapel.
‘No. My professional opinion will be on your desk as soon as it’s ready. I simply put forward the observation that, whatever else we might say, the man who committed this crime clearly has a few screws loose.’
Troi was about to say something, but at that moment the lights of the church came on; and then all of them saw something that they had previously missed: written on the floor of the church, close to the body of the dead man, were letters of no great size that spelled out:

EGO TE ABSOLVO

‘Looks like blood,’ Pontiero said, voicing what everyone else was thinking.
A mobile phone began to ring out the first chords of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. The three of them looked at Troi’s companion as he took the phone out of his coat pocket and answered the call. He barely said a word, just a few ‘Ahas’ and ‘Hmms’.
After he hung up, he looked at Troi and nodded. ‘It’s as we feared,‘ the UACV’s director said. ‘Dicanti, Pontiero, needless to say, this is a very delicate case. The body we have here is that of the Argentine Cardinal, Emilio Robayra. The assassination of a cardinal in Rome is, in itself, an unspeakable tragedy, but it is even more vexing at the present moment. The victim was one of a hundred and fifteen men who in the next few days will participate in the Conclave to choose the next Supreme Pontiff. Consequently, the situation is extraordinarily delicate. This crime cannot reach the ears of the press for any reason whatsoever. Imagine the headlines: “Serial Killer Stalks the Papal Election”. I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘Just a minute, you said a serial killer? Is there something we don’t know?’
Troi cleared his throat and looked at the mysterious person who had come in with him. ‘Paola Dicanti, Maurizio Pontiero, let me introduce you to Camilo Cirin, Inspector General of the Corpo di Vigilanza of Vatican City.’
Cirin nodded as he stepped closer. When he finally spoke, it seemed an effort, as if he strongly disliked having to use words at all: ‘We believe this man is the second victim.’

August 1994
‘Come in, Father Karosky, come in. Take your clothes off behind the screen, if you would be so kind.’

The priest started to remove his cassock. The technician continued to talk to him from the other side of the white screen.
‘No need to worry about the test, father. It’s all completely standard, OK? Standard procedure.’ The technician laughed under his breath. ‘Maybe you’ve heard the other residents talking about it, but the lion isn’t as fierce as they make him out to be, as my grandmother used to say. How long have you been with us?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘Time enough to be acquainted with the test, yes indeed. Played any tennis yet?’
‘I don’t like tennis. Shall I come out now?’
‘No, father, put the green gown on so you don’t catch cold.’ The doctor laughed again.
Karosky walked out from behind the screen wearing an oversized green shirt.
‘Walk over to the examining bench and lie down. That’s right. Hang on, let me adjust the back for you. You have to be able to see the image on the television screen. Is that OK?’
‘Perfect.’
‘Great. I just have to make some adjustments to the machine, and then we can get started. What we have here is a fine television, wouldn’t you say? A Thirty-two-inch screen. If I had something like this at home my other half would show me a little more respect, don’t you think?’ Once again, the technician laughed at his own joke.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Ha. Of course not, father. That witch wouldn’t even respect Jesus Christ himself if he popped out of a packet of crackers and slapped her on her flabby arse.’
‘You shouldn’t take God’s name in vain, my son.’
‘Right you are, father. OK, everything is ready. You’ve never had a penile plethysmograph before, is that correct?’
‘No.’
‘Of course you haven’t. Did they explain to you what the test consists of?’
‘In general terms.’
‘OK, now I’m going to put my hands under your gown so I can attach two electrodes to your penis. Is that all right? This will help us to measure your level of sexual response to various stimuli. Good, all done.’
‘You have cold hands.’
‘Yes, it is a little chilly in here, isn’t it? Are you comfortable?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Then let’s begin.’
One image after another began to appear on the screen: the Eiffel Tower. Dawn. Mist in the mountains. Chocolate ice cream. Heterosexual coitus. A forest. Trees. A woman performing oral sex on a man. Tulips in Holland. Homosexual intercourse. Las Meninas by Velázquez. Sunset on Mount Kilimanjaro. Two men engaging in oral sex. Snow on the rooftops of a Swiss village. A young boy performing oral sex on an older man, the child’s sad eyes looking straight into the camera as he sucks on the adult’s member.
Karosky stood up, his eyes full of rage.
‘Father, you can’t get up. We’re not finished yet—’
The priest grabbed the man by the neck, and smashed his head against the instrument board again and again, until blood began to spill over the various buttons, soaking the doctor’s white lab coat and Karosky’s gown, bathing the whole world in blood.
‘Do not commit impure acts like this ever again, do you understand me? Do you hear me, you dirty little piece of shit?’

Via della Conciliazione,
Tuesday, 5 April 2005, 11.59 a.m.

The silence following Camilo Cirin’s words became even more pronounced when the bells in nearby Saint Peter’s Square began ringing the angelus.