God's Spy (4 page)

[The conversation pauses for more than a minute.]

Dr Conroy: Take all the time you need, Victor.
No. 6: Sexual images disgust me.
Dr Conroy: Any in particular, Victor?
No. 6: All of them.
Dr Conroy: Do you know why they disturbed you?
No. 6: Because they offend God.
Dr Conroy: Nevertheless, when you observed particular images,

the apparatus registered tumescence in your masculine member. No. 6: It’s not possible.
Dr Conroy: To put it in vulgar terms, they gave you a hard-on. No. 6: Language like that is an offence to God and to your priesthood. I ought to . . .

Dr Conroy: What ought you to do, Victor?
No. 6: Nothing.
Dr Conroy: Did you just feel a violent impulse, Victor? No. 6: No, doctor.
Dr Conroy: Did you feel a violent impulse the other day? No. 6: What other day?
Dr Conroy: Sorry, forgive my lack of clarity. Would you say

that the other day, when you were beating the head of my lab technician against the control board – that you experienced a violent impulse?

No. 6: That man was tempting me. ‘And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,’ says the Lord.
Dr Conroy: Matthew, chapter five, verse twenty-nine.
No. 6: Precisely.
Dr Conroy: And what of that eye? – the agony of that eye?
No. 6: I don’t understand.
Dr Conroy: The man’s name is Robert. He has a wife and a daughter. You sent him to hospital. You broke his nose, seven teeth, and gave him severe concussion. Thank God the guards managed to subdue you in time.
No. 6: Maybe I did become a little violent.
Dr Conroy: Do you think you could become violent now, if your hands weren’t strapped to the sides of the chair?
No. 6: If you want, we could find out, doctor.
Dr Conroy: I think we‘d better stop the interview here, Victor.

Tuesday, 5 April 2005, 8.32 p.m.

The autopsy room was a chilly place, painted a jarring greyish mauve that did nothing to lighten the atmosphere. An overhead light with six bulbs hung over the autopsy table and lent the cadaver a few last moments of fame as the eyes of the four spectators stared down at him. It was their job to find out who was responsible for his untimely demise.

Pontiero clamped his hand over his mouth when the coroner lifted Cardinal Robayra’s stomach on to the tray. A putrid odour permeated the autopsy room as the examiner proceeded to cut it open with his scalpel. The smell was so strong it even overwhelmed the formaldehyde and the cocktail of chemicals used to disinfect the instruments. Dicanti asked herself why coroners always kept their instruments so clean before the first incision – it wasn’t as if the dead man was going to pick up an infection.

‘Hey, Pontiero, do you know why the dead baby crossed the road?’
‘Yeah, Doc. Because he was stapled to the chicken. You’ve told me that one at least six or seven times. Know any others?’
The coroner was humming quietly as he went about making his incisions. He was a good singer, with a hoarse, smoky voice that reminded Paola of Louis Armstrong, above all because he was humming ‘What a Wonderful World’. He only interrupted his humming to torment Pontiero.
‘The real joke is watching you struggle not to puke, Pontiero. Now that really is funny. This guy got what was coming to him.’
Paola and Dante glanced at each other over the cardinal’s dead body. The coroner, a recalcitrant Communist, was an old hand at his job but sometimes he showed a certain lack of respect for the dead. He seemed to find Robayra’s demise terribly funny – something Dicanti didn’t find the least bit amusing.
‘Doctor, could you limit yourself to an analysis of the body and just leave it at that? Both our guest, Superintendent Dante, and I find your attempts at humour both offensive and out of place.’
The coroner threw a glance in Dicanti’s direction, then continued examining the contents of Robayra’s stomach. He gave up the satirical jabs but gritted his teeth and cursed everyone in the room as far back as the third generation. Paola ignored him because she was more concerned about the look on Pontiero’s face, which was a shade somewhere between white and green.
‘Maurizio, I don’t know why you torture yourself like this. You’ve never been able to stand the sight of blood.’
‘Damn it, if this sanctimonious little shit can take it, then so can I.’
‘You’d be surprised to know how many autopsies I’ve attended, my delicate colleague,’ Dante replied.
‘Really? Well, there’s at least one more waiting for you, though I think I’m going to enjoy it more than you.’
For Christ’s sake, here they go again, thought Paola, attempting to mediate between the two. They had carried on like this all day. Dante and Pontiero had felt a mutual repulsion from the moment they met, but, to be fair to Pontiero, anything in trousers that came within ten feet of Dicanti always wound up on the wrong side of him. She knew he treated her like a daughter but he took it too far sometimes. Fabio Dante was frivolous and he certainly wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but he didn’t deserve the venom her co-worker was lavishing on him. What she couldn’t work out was how a man like Dante had come to occupy such a lofty position in the Vigilanza. His constant jokes and biting comments all stood in sharp contrast to the closely guarded, shadowy figure of Inspector General Cirin.
‘Perhaps my distinguished visitors would be so kind as to lend their attention to the autopsy they’ve come here to watch.’
The coroner’s rough voice dragged Dicanti back to reality. ‘Go ahead, please.’ She shot a cold look at the two policemen to get them to stop arguing.
‘OK, the victim hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and everything indicates that he ate very early, because I’m only finding a few scraps.’
‘So maybe he skipped a meal, or he fell into the killer’s clutches before lunch.’
‘I doubt he would miss a meal . . . He ate well, as you can see. Alive, he would have weighed a little over fourteen stone, and he was six foot tall.’
‘Which tells us the killer was physically fit. Robayra was hardly as light as a feather,’ Dante interjected.
‘And it’s a hundred and thirty feet from the church’s doorway to the chapel,’ said Paola. ‘Someone must have seen the killer bringing the body into the church. Pontiero, do me a favour. Send four men you trust to the area. Tell them to go in plain clothes, but take their badges. Don’t tell them what happened. Say there was a robbery at the church, and you want them to find out if anyone saw anything during the night.’
‘Asking any of the pilgrims would be a waste of time.’
‘So don’t do it. Talk to the people who live nearby, especially the elderly. They get by on very little sleep.’
Pontiero nodded and hurried out of the autopsy room, visibly pleased at not having to stay on.
Paola watched him leave and when the doors had slammed shut behind him she looked straight at Dante. ‘What exactly is going on with you, Mr Vatican? Pontiero is a good man; he just can’t stomach the sight of blood. I’m asking you to stop all this inane verbal jousting.’
‘You said it. So there’s more than one big mouth in the morgue.’ The coroner was laughing to himself.
‘Stick to your work, doctor. We need to get on. Do I make myself clear, Dante?’
‘Calm down’ – Dante raised his hands in self-defence. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. If tomorrow I had to go into a burning building with a pistol in my hand, shoulder to shoulder with Pontiero, don’t think for one moment I wouldn’t do it.’
‘So why do you keep picking on him then?’ Paola was utterly dismayed.
‘Because it amuses me. And I’m convinced that he enjoys being angry with me, too. Why don’t you ask him?’
Paola shook her head, muttering unflattering phrases about men under her breath. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we? Dottore, do you know the time and cause of death?’
The coroner scanned his notes. ‘I should remind you that this is just a preliminary report, but I’m fairly sure. The cardinal died around nine o’clock yesterday evening, Monday. The margin of error is one hour. His throat was slashed. The cut was made from behind, by someone I believe to have been around the same height. I can’t tell you anything about the weapon, except that it was at least six inches long, had a straight edge and was very sharp. It could have been a razor – the kind barbers use; I don’t know.’
‘What about his wounds?’ said Dante.
‘The extraction of the eyes took place ante-mortem, as did the mutilation of the tongue.’
‘He pulled out his tongue? Christ almighty.’ Dante was disgusted.
‘In my opinion he did it with a pair of pliers. When he was finished, he stuffed the cavity with toilet paper to staunch the bleeding. He later removed it, but there were a few traces of cellulose left behind. Dicanti, you surprise me. This really doesn’t seem to be affecting you very much?’
‘I’ve seen worse.’
‘So, let me show you something I’m sure you’ve never seen before. I’ve never come across anything like it, and I’ve been doing this job for years. Our killer stuffed the tongue into the rectal cavity with astonishing expertise. Then he cleaned up the blood around it. I wouldn’t have caught it if I hadn’t looked inside.’
The coroner showed them photographs of the mangled tongue. ‘I’ve put it on ice and sent it to the laboratory. I’d like to see a copy of the report when it comes in,ispettore. I still don’t know how he did it.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll see to it personally,’ Dicanti assured him. ‘What about his hands?’
‘Those were cut off post-mortem. Not a clean job. There are marks showing hesitation here and here. It was either difficult for him or he was standing in an uncomfortable position.’
‘Anything under the nails?’
‘Only fresh air. The hands are impeccably clean and I suspect the killer washed them with soap – my nose detects a trace of lavender.’
Paola was thinking. ‘In your opinion how long did the killer need to inflict these wounds on his victim?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it. Let me see . . .’
The coroner brushed his hands along the corpse’s forearms, the sockets of the eyes and the mutilated mouth, thinking it over. He was still singing to himself quietly, this time something by the Moody Blues. Paola couldn’t recall the name of the tune.
‘Well, gentlemen . . . He would have needed at least half an hour to remove the hands and clean them, and something like an hour to wash the rest of the body and put the clothes back on. There’s no way we can tell exactly how long he tortured the victim, but it looks like he took his time. I’m certain he spent at least three hours on it, probably more.’
Some place quiet, hidden. Far away from prying eyes. Soundproof, because Robayra would certainly have screamed. How much shouting does a man do if somebody is pulling out his eyes and his tongue? A great deal, no doubt. They had to come up with a time frame, establish how many hours the cardinal had been in the killer’s possession, then subtract the time he had spent doing what he did to his victim. That way they could reduce the scope of the search, if they were lucky and the killer hadn’t had all the time in the world.
‘I know the boys in forensics haven’t found any fingerprints. Did you come across anything out of the ordinary before you washed the body – anything you sent to be analysed?’
‘Nothing much. A few fibres, a few traces of something that could be make-up on the shirt collar.’
‘Make-up? Interesting. From the killer?’
‘Maybe our cardinal had a few secrets, Dicanti,’ Dante said.
Paola looked at him. She was caught off guard.
The pathologist gave a cynical laugh. ‘No, that isn’t what I meant,’ Dante hurried to say. ‘I’m just saying it’s possible he took great care over his appearance. After all is said and done, he was getting on a bit.’
‘Still, it’s a detail worth noting. Any traces of make-up on his face?’
‘No, but the killer must have cleaned it, or at least wiped the blood from the eye sockets. I’ll take a closer look.’
‘Doctor, could you send a sample of the make-up to the laboratory, just in case. I want to know what brand it was, and the exact shade.’
‘That could take some time if they don’t have a database already set up, to compare with our sample.’
‘Write on the forms that they can empty an entire perfumery if they have to. It’s the type of detail that really appeals to Troi. What about blood or semen? Did we get lucky?’
‘No chance. The victim’s clothes were spotless, and there were only a few traces of blood, the same type as the victim’s, so definitely his own.’
‘Anything on the skin or in the hair? Spores – anything?’
‘I found small traces of adhesive on what was left of the wrists, which makes me suspect that the killer stripped the cardinal, bound him with duct tape before torturing him, and afterwards put his clothes back on. He washed the body, but not in a bath. See this?’ The pathologist pointed to a thin white line of dried soap on Robayra’s side. ‘He used a sponge with water and soap, but the sponge didn’t have much water in it or he wasn’t being very careful here, because he left a lot of soap on the body.’
‘What kind of soap?’
‘That’s easier to identify than the make-up, but I’m not sure that it’s very useful. It appears to be ordinary lavender.’
Paola leaned over the body and took a deep breath. Lavender it was. ‘Anything else?’
‘There’s some adhesive on his face too, but a minute quantity. That’s it. And the deceased was very shortsighted.’
‘And what does that have to do with anything?’
‘Dante, pay attention. He doesn’t have his glasses.’
‘Of course he doesn’t have his glasses. The killer tore his eyes out – what does he need his damn glasses for?’
The coroner was clearly annoyed by Dante. ‘Fine. Listen, I’m not telling you how to do your job. I’m just telling you what I see.’
‘That’s good, doctor. Call us when you have the complete report.‘ ‘Of course, ispettore.’
Dante and Paola left the coroner bent over the body, whistling his versions of the jazz classics, and stepped out to the hallway, where Pontiero was barking short, concise orders over his mobile phone.
As soon as he was finished, Dicanti spoke to both of them. ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do. Dante, you go back to the office and write out a report of everything you can remember from the scene of the crime. I’d prefer you to do it alone, which should make it easier. Include all the photos and pieces of evidence your wise and knowing leader has let you keep. And then come back to the UACV headquarters as soon as you’re done. I’m afraid this is going to be a long night.’