Stealing God (15 page)

‘Was, is, what's the difference?'

‘All the difference in the world, I should have thought. Please, Inspector, sit down.' Ricci sat down, his anger had run out of steam and reason was seeping back. This woman had clout, she would make a bad enemy.

‘When this investigation is over, whatever the outcome, particular thanks will be expressed to the minister for his co-operation in setting up this inquiry. He in turn will express his thanks to whoever in the police assisted him. For obvious reasons, you will be the one whom they will be told led the inquiry. Officially, Mr Costello's role will be entirely subordinate to your own.'

Reason was fully back in the driving seat.

‘What if you need to discredit the findings? Who gets to do that?'

‘That will be your affair to manage as you see fit. You will need to arrange it so that Mr Costello's involvement, though a minor one compared to your own, was sufficient to severely prejudice the outcome. You will also need to explain how and why you became suspicious of him. But all that can be arranged if it becomes necessary. I'm sure you will deal with it perfectly well, if it has to be done at all.'

Jimmy sat there listening as they talked about him. It was funny, he didn't mind, he didn't mind what Ricci knew or what he thought. It was all true and as bad as it sounded. It was because it was true that it didn't matter. Jimmy put away all that she had said about him. It was as it was. Now he knew why he was here. He would do what he had to do as best he could, not because it was what anybody wanted, but because a good and possibly holy old man deserved the truth about his death to be known. That at least was something good and honest he could do. All the rest could wait.

Ricci was all reasonableness now.

‘OK, if it's all unofficial anyway which of us actually leads doesn't matter one way or the other.'

‘How sensible of you. Now, are there any more questions?'

It was time for Jimmy to be a detective, and a bloody good one. So, he got to business.

‘If Archbishop Cheng was murdered it was done by people who were certain they could get away with it. There's no direct evidence, no motive, nothing. If they exist they're invisible.'

‘I would have thought that narrowed the field considerably.'

Ricci cut in.

‘Not at all. One invisible man is no easier to see than a crowd of invisible men.'

Jimmy liked it.

‘He's right. So what we need is a way in. Something that we can see, something that is Cheng related.'

McBride sat back.

‘You have looked into his life, his background, as fully as you can?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you have studied all the available evidence of his death?'

‘Which is just the autopsy report and some paperwork, none of which gets us anywhere.'

‘Which is not just the autopsy report and the paperwork.'

‘What else is there?'

‘His funeral. Did you look into his funeral?'

No, they hadn't looked into his funeral. The body had been flown back to China as soon as the autopsy had been completed and there was no way that they could follow it even if they'd wanted to.

‘If we had looked into the funeral what would we have seen?'

‘Hardly anything, Inspector. You would have seen almost nothing.'

‘If there was nothing to see how can …'

‘Wait a minute.'

‘Yes, Mr Costello?'

‘It was a small affair?'

‘Almost non-existent. Immediate family from Macau and two officials from Beijing.'

‘From Beijing?'

‘Yes Inspector, two officials from Beijing.'

‘And it took place where?'

‘Not in his cathedral. It took place in a small parish church belonging to the Official Catholic Church. One priest from the Official Church presided then the archbishop's body was taken to his cathedral where he was quietly buried. No one, not even family, were present at the interment.'

If she was taking them somewhere, why pussyfoot around, why not just say what she wanted them to know?

‘Make your point, Professor. I've told you, I don't want to be pissed about any more.'

If the words and the way they were said bothered her she didn't show it.

‘He came to Rome as a recognised figure in the Chinese media, a glowing symbol of their new openness and tolerance. He was buried in a silence that was almost deafening. There was no media coverage of any sort, not a word about his death, other than that he had died.'

‘So what does that mean?'

‘Ah, now that question I cannot answer.'

‘Can't or won't?'

‘Can't, and before you speak again, Mr Costello, I assure you that I am not in any way “pissing you about”. I cannot tell you why Archbishop Cheng's funeral was such a low-key affair,' she made the point by pausing, ‘but was nonetheless attended by two senior officials from Beijing.'

Whatever she was pointing at, it was passing Jimmy by. But Ricci picked it up.

‘So he was more than an archbishop when he was buried. He was someone Beijing were prepared to recognise as a senior Vatican official.' He turned to Jimmy, ‘He was a cardinal. He had to be.'

‘I never said he had been made a cardinal, Inspector. That is your assumption.'

Jimmy looked at Ricci. A cardinal. Did it matter? And why was Ricci so sure?

‘What makes you think so?'

‘Because the Professor just said Beijing sent two officials, senior officials. Why two, why any at all if it was such a hole-and-corner affair, the funeral of someone the state wanted buried and forgotten?'

‘OK, why?'

‘It was a message to the Vatican, “we acknowledge his rank even though we cannot give him a public burial”.' He turned to McBride. ‘For Beijing that would be some concession, yes?'

‘If you are correct, yes it would be a very significant concession.'

‘Then he was a cardinal?'

‘I cannot tell you what I do not know, Mr Costello, and I do not know if Archbishop Cheng had been given the red hat. I could speculate as Inspector Ricci has done but I am not a detective. I deal in facts and leave speculation to others.'

‘Fine. If you can't be sure then find us someone who can.'

She thought about it for a moment.

‘Would you both step outside for a moment while I make a phone call?'

They left the office and stood outside the door in the corridor.

‘Well?'

Ricci pretended not to know what Jimmy meant.

‘Well what?'

‘You know what.'

Ricci knew.

‘Listen, you were a bent copper, you were a dangerous man, now it's caught up with you and it's being used. I don't care what sort of copper you were and I already guessed you could be a dangerous man so nothing's changed. I just hope you were as good a detective as she thinks you were.'

‘So you'll get your brownie points if we get a result?'

‘Yes. She's right, I want to go all the way and if this helps, fine. I'll follow your lead so long as your lead takes us where I want to go.'

‘And then, if she says so, you'll drop me in it?'

‘With the greatest of pleasure, Jimmy. It's where you deserve to be after all, not swanning about playing at becoming a priest or doing the Vatican's detective work.'

‘Ah, the moral high ground. I bet you spend a fortnight there each year just to remind yourself how nice the neighbours will be when you get to live there permanently.'

‘Fuck you.'

Jimmy didn't care about Ricci. But that was the point, he should care. Any normal person would care. If he wanted to be a normal person he had to try and care.

‘Look, we have to work together, we don't have to like each other but we have to get on with each other. So what say we just do this like it's a roster thing? The list's gone up and we've been put on a case together. Let's just do it.'

Ricci thought about it. It was the only sensible way, they were a team, that's all. They'd been put together to do a job and it was in his best interests to see it well done. He'd worked perfectly well often enough with men he hadn't liked. He'd even worked well with a few men he reckoned were crooked enough to hide behind a spiral staircase.

‘OK, what's done is history. We just get on with the job in hand.'

‘That was good, by the way, about him being a cardinal because of the boys from Beijing. I should have seen it.'

‘Not really, you'd already guessed it, remember? You were past it and looking for something else.'

He's right, thought Jimmy, I'd half guessed it. But did his being a cardinal make him worth killing, and if it did, why did he have to die in Rome?

TWENTY

The office door opened.

‘Come in, please.'

They all went back in and sat down. When she spoke it was very deliberately.

‘I have asked your question and I have been given a response. The Vatican can neither confirm nor deny that the late Archbishop Cheng had been given a red hat by his Holiness.'

Jimmy felt his anger rising.

‘Neither confirm nor deny. What sort of answer is that?'

Ricci, however, seemed satisfied.

‘I see.'

Jimmy didn't.

‘Well I bloody don't. I thought we were going to get answers, straight answers.'

McBride repeated it for him.

‘I have been told to say that the Vatican can neither confirm nor deny that the late Archbishop Cheng had been given the red hat by his Holiness.'

‘I heard you the first time and it still doesn't mean anything.'

‘Leave it, Jimmy.'

There was a command in Ricci's voice, so Jimmy left it. He didn't like it but he left it.

Ricci got up.

‘Is there anything else about Archbishop Cheng you can tell us?'

She turned the question over in her mind. The truth was always tricky. Anything else about Archbishop Cheng or the case? Hmm.

‘Nothing that I can think of.'

‘In that case we'll be going. Goodbye, Professor, and thank you.'

Jimmy got up. He didn't know what was going on but obviously Ricci did.

‘Goodbye, Inspector, goodbye, Mr Costello. Just tell the minister's aide to let me know if you need my help again.'

Professor McBride didn't get up, she just watched them go to the door. Ricci went out but Jimmy paused.

‘You'll sort out leave of absence for me?'

‘It's already done, Mr Costello.' Jimmy nodded, of course it was. ‘But we should discuss the arrangements. They are reasonably straightforward but you should be fully aware of what they involve. Could you come to my office tomorrow at ten?'

‘Sure.'

He left and closed the door. When he caught Ricci up in the corridor he asked his question.

‘What did it mean, the “neither confirm nor deny” stuff? How does that help?'

‘Because it means he was a cardinal. It's Vaticanese. It's their way of saying yes when they can't say yes.'

‘I see, so all we've got that's new is his being a cardinal?'

‘There's nothing else unless you're prepared to go to China and start digging, literally as well as metaphorically.'

They took the lift down, handed back their passes, and went back to the car where the guards checked them out. Soon they were back in the Roman traffic where Ricci picked it up again.

‘So now we know he was a cardinal. I don't see how that gets us anywhere.'

Jimmy was looking out of the window watching Roman drivers trying to kill each other. He turned and answered absently.

‘If it was murder it tells us it wasn't the Chinese. Why give him such a big build him up then kill him and why kill him in Rome and if it was them why the senior officials at the funeral? It's all too elaborate, too much trouble, and it makes no sense.'

Jimmy turned back to watching the traffic and thought about it. Cheng as a cardinal was the only new thing they had, but he didn't like it. Murder for him had always been simple, either an act of impulse or follow the trail until you found out who benefited most, which usually meant follow the money. But if this was murder it wasn't an impulse killing, it was a planned, and it probably wasn't going to be about money. He tried to see some way in which the cardinal thing could get them started and go somewhere.

Ricci did some horn pumping as a white van cut him up then got back to the subject in hand.

‘It's all we've got so let's fill in what we can and see if anything comes out of it.'

‘Like what?'

‘Well he must have got his red hat here in Rome before he died. That means only Cheng and the pope knew he was a cardinal. No one else, except maybe just a few top bods in the Vatican.'

‘And?'

‘And if no one knew about it how can it be part of the reason he died, unless you're prepared to put the pope in the frame? Unless …' Ricci left it hanging. But Jimmy wanted it. Anything was better than nothing.

‘Unless what?'

‘No, it's nothing, it can't be.'

‘Try me, we're not exactly dripping with places to go on this.'

‘Well, you figured it out first, Jimmy.'

‘Me?'

‘Yes, remember, you said first a secret bishop, then a secret archbishop, so what else might have happened that nobody knew about? Well, now we know. He
was
a secret cardinal.'

‘But if no one knew.'

‘You guessed. Why shouldn't somebody else guess? Why couldn't someone else work out it would happen.'

‘What? They killed him because he might be a cardinal?'

Said out loud like that Ricci remembered why he hadn't wanted to say it. He now wished he hadn't.

‘I told you it was nothing. It can't be.'

They drove on.

Jimmy looked out of the window. This was all new waters for him, a million miles away from anything he'd ever done before, but he'd still have to use the old methods since they were the only ones he had. So he began. Use your experience, Jimmy. Do the same things, follow the same routines, ask the same questions. Forget it's the Vatican, forget it's Rome, forget it's political. Just ask the same questions. Was this an isolated killing, was it just Cheng? It's not a normal killing, so is it related to anything? Have there been others like it?