Magnificat (43 page)

Bouleau got up from his chair and indicated the door. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you what we have, including the handwriting samples we have obtained to date.” He went ahead of them down the narrow hall. “We’ve been told to handle this very discreetly. It’s bad enough that we haven’t been able to make an arrest, but under the circumstances, our authority—” He flung up his right hand. “The Vatican is its own country. Interpol can operate there, but only on tolerance.”

“Which isn’t easily given,” said Sigura. He nodded to a young Inspector going down the hall in the opposite direction. “Nevertheless, it can be embarrassing to have the Indian government demanding the murderer be caught.”

“They’re doing their job,” said Bouleau with resignation. He stopped at a large, metal-banded door. “The records are in here.” He punched in his code for access. “Computer terminals have passwords; some of them have several passwords. If you want to use one, ask me before you try.” With that he went through into the enormous room where the Milan division of Interpol’s files were kept.

“Quite an installation,” said Sigura with the first sign of real approval. “We’re trying to get a larger capacity computer for our Rome offices. Something on this scale would be very good.” He and Hafen followed Bouleau down the ranks of computer terminals toward the serried ranks of file cabinets.

“We’ve been asking for more links to other agency computers,” said Bouleau, pleased that they could indulge in a little shop talk.

“That sounds sensible,” said Hafen. “We’ve been expanding our links. The Scandinavian Security Agency has agreed to go on-line with us. So has the FBI.”

“And the CIA?” asked Bouleau with a bitter smile.

“Of course not,” said Hafen. “But we expected that when we asked.” He stood when Bouleau held up his hand.

“This is what we’ve got,” he said as he unlocked one of the long file cabinet drawers. “If you need copies, we’ll obtain the necessary clearances.”

Sigura shook his head. “If the handwriting is the same, we shouldn’t need copies unless we go to court.”

“That’s not something I’m looking forward to,” said Bouleau. “A court appearance in a case like this.…”

“Would the appearance be at the Vatican?” asked Sigura. “Or would it be in Rome?”

Bouleau shook his head. “I don’t think about it. We’ll have to determine that if we ever have a trial.” He pulled out three folders and put them on the nearest table. “Here. These were the first.”

The two Eurocops bent over the table and drew out the first letter.

“Same sort of paper,” said Hafen as he drew his file out of his case again. He laid one of the letters from his file next to the first letter in the Interpol files.

To the Interpol investigators assigned to the murder of Jivin, Cardinal Tayibha:

I have been part of the Vatican staff for a period of years and I must inform you that in the capacity of my office I have been able to observe many factors involved in the death of the Cardinal. For the peace of my soul, I must tell you of what I have seen.

Prior to serving the tea that poisoned the Cardinal, I noticed the Chinese woman handling the pot and cups. It is my conviction that she was putting the poison into the pot herself, and that the death of the Cardinal was deliberate murder intended to make it appear that she was the target of the crime.

I beg you to question this woman. She is guilty. I stake my eternal salvation on it.

I cannot sign my name. I fear for my life if I do.

“They grow more insistent,” said Bouleau. “This is mild.”

“What did you do when you received it?” asked Hafen.

“Put it with some of the other accusatory letters. I’ll be pleased to let you see some of the others, if you want to compare them. We’d already run fingerprint and DNA tests on the teapot and cups, and it is true that Pope An handled them, but so did several other people.” Bouleau sighed. “Then we received a second letter, in the same hand, being more specific in his accusations.”

“You believe that a man wrote this?” asked Sigura, perusing the letter.

“It seems likely,” said Bouleau. “Our handwriting experts have said that the handwriting is probably a man’s. At the Vatican, if the writer actually has a position of the level he implies, then it is very likely—”

“A man,” finished Hafen. “Yes, that’s what our experts have said, as well.” He frowned. “Our letter looks as if it were written faster.”

“Or the writer is growing more nervous,” said Sigura, straightening up. “As you can see”—he held out the letter they had received—“the man is threatening to take his accusations to the press if we do nothing.”

Bouleau nodded. “That was what our most recent letter said, as well.” He leaned back against the table. “There have been enough ludicrous speculations in the press. If this writer starts adding his voice to the rest.…” He looked away.

“Is there any progress on finding the writer?” asked Sigura, picking up another of the letters at random.

“We’re comparing samples,” said Bouleau. “That’s about all we can do directly. Vatican Security isn’t willing to let us undertake the kind of investigation we’d like. They’re cooperating, but.…”

“We have similar experiences with them,” said Hafen. He put their letter away once more. “We have samples of handwriting of many of the Vatican staff on file,” he said, a question hidden in his statement.

“How complete is it?” asked Bouleau with careful interest.

“We have most of the officials there, and a large number of the regular staff.” Hafen hesitated. “We also have samples of the handwriting of seventy-one of the Cardinals.”

Bouleau pushed off the table. “You’re not suggesting that the letter writer might be one of the Cardinals.”

“It’s a possibility,” said Hafen. “If you are to do a serious investigation, then you must recognize that some of the Cardinals have the strongest reasons for wanting to implicate the Pope.”

Bouleau felt that the room had suddenly grown much warmer. “Surely none of them would be so irresponsible—” He stopped.

“Exactly,” said Sigura. “None of us wants to think that men in their position could possibly do this. But the history of the Papacy is full of treachery and violence. We all know that many of the Cardinals dislike this Chinese woman, and of their number, a few are bound to be trying to discredit her. The Protestants aren’t the only ones who would gain if she were disgraced.” He tapped one of the letters on the table. “If you want us to provide you copies of the handwriting?”

“You haven’t made the comparisons yet?” asked Bouleau, suddenly fearing that he might be required to take responsibility for what the Eurocops had discovered and not wanted to reveal themselves.

“We’ve eliminated about two thousand staff members,” said Hafen. “That leaves us with the higher-ranking officials.”

“And the Cardinals,” said Bouleau. The back of his neck was soaking.

“Seventy-one of them.” Sigura put his hand flat on the table next to the most recent letter. “We’re wasting time, covering the same ground twice when it isn’t necessary at all.”

Bouleau stared at the letter. “Pope An makes tea for herself several times a day. Everyone in the Vatican must know that by now. She serves tea to her guests.”

“It’s a Chinese custom,” said Sigura.

“To say that she handled the cups and the pot means nothing,” said Bouleau. “But if the press should believe this letter writer and decide that the Pope was poisoning her own tea—”

Hafen made a discreet cough. “None of us wants to accuse a Prince of the Church of such a crime. But neither do we want the Pope accused of the act.”

Bouleau capitulated. “Send over your samples. If we match any of the handwriting, your agency and mine can announce it together.”

“Perhaps,” said Sigura, “if there is a match, we ought to discuss it with Vatican Security before we say anything to the press.”

“Yes,” said Bouleau gratefully. “That would be best.”

Chapter 23

“Why is it,” asked Cardinal Mendosa as he strolled up to Martin Bell in the Piazza Venezia, “that every time you contact me, you won’t allow me to include our mutual friend Vitale in our conversations?”

Bell hesitated, his smile slipping a bit at the corners. “I wasn’t aware that you wanted him to.…” He left this hanging.

“That I wanted him to know that his Hungarian-American colleague is working with the KGB? And that I am sending regular reports to Dmitri Karodin?” asked Cardinal Mendosa sharply, watching for Bell’s reaction.

“Yes,” said Bell with as much self-containment as he could muster.

Cardinal Mendosa nodded. “You’re afraid that his famed liberality doesn’t extend that far.” He shoved his hand into his pocket where he had put his lapel pin. “I suppose you’re right. Hell, I’m dead sure you’re right. But I would like it if there were someone—other than you, yourself, Professor Bell—who knew. This isn’t the kind of thing I tell my Confessor, not these days. It’d be on the mid-evening news if I did.” He let Bell set the pace as they went east along the Via Battisti toward the Via Nazionale.

“It could be a problem,” said Bell, not knowing how else to comment.

“Not only could, Doctor; would.” Cardinal Mendosa glanced over his shoulder. He knew they were not followed, but he was nervous. “We’ve had enough riots already. We don’t need to give an excuse for more.” And, he added to himself, he would destroy the trust Zhuang had for him, which would be incalculably worse than having his name bandied about in the newsmedia. He made himself get to the point. “You’d better inform the puppet-master that Pope An has received another letter from Premier Zuo. I’ll send him a report, but it isn’t due for a while. It arrived yesterday, I think, possibly the day before. She gave it to Willie after she read it. He’s supposed to make a translation for me, very private.”

Startled, Martin Bell thought this over. “Is this the first time the Premier has written to her?”

“No. There have been four other letters.” The Cardinal paused to watch two harried women attempt to stop their various offspring from getting into a fight. Three of the children were determined to have at it anyway.

“How does she get them?” asked Bell. “They don’t come by courier, do they? I haven’t heard anything about the Chinese sending—”

“Probably part of the way, but not as far as Rome,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “As long as there are no diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the PRC, it isn’t easy to get through. My own guess is that Cardinal Lepescu or Cardinal Bakony brings them to her. Hungary and Romania have a few ties to China, and some hard-line old Communists left in important posts in both countries.” He thought about it for a few more steps. “Cardinal Tayibha might have given her the first one, but—”

“Yes; I suppose we can rule him out,” said Bell. He regarded Cardinal Mendosa with curiosity. “If you are so troubled by Karodin, why do you continue to send him reports?”

“You know the answer to that,” said Cardinal Mendosa at his most reasonable. “I told you: I gave him my word.”

“But surely that—” He went silent, knowing he would never understand the rangy Texan. He tried again. “Under the circumstances—”

“I knew the circumstances when I gave my word.” Then Cardinal Mendosa was quiet for several paces. “There were riots again in Belfast and Liege,” he said.

“About the Papal Bull?” Bell had not paid much attention to the news of the last two days; he was completing a monograph which took up most of his attention.

“Yes. They weren’t as bad as the ones in Mexico City and Bogota and Paris, but bad enough. Nowhere near as bad as the one in Sao Paolo last week. That’s been one of the four worst. Anyway. Several hundred arrests in Belfast, a couple of deaths, lots of people in the hospital.” He watched a taxi barrel along the street, horn blaring, bound for the train station. “Liege reports no deaths, but there were lots of broken windows and wrecked cars. The courthouse—the big one that looks like a train station—was pretty well trashed. Cardinal Sclamonde left for Liege this morning. Vatican Security advised against it, but he says they’re his people, and he’s their representative in the Church.” He smiled a little. “I’m starting to like ol’ Jules.”

“Don’t these riots bother you?” Bell asked, at last caught up in what the Cardinal from Houston was saying.

“Sure. Damn right they bother me,” Cardinal Mendosa answered at once, his tone slightly affronted. “They bother ’most all of us.”

“But you don’t suggest to the Pope that she…modify her decisions?” Bell suggested carefully.

“It’s not my place to do that,” he said at once. “It’s my job to support her.” They crossed the street at the Piazza della Repubblica to the Museo Nazionale Romano.

“A few of the Cardinals seem to have forgotten that,” Bell said.

Cardinal Mendosa did not respond at once. When he did, he had no emotion at all in his voice. “That has to be between their souls and God. In the world, we are asked to place our faith in the Pope.”

“And that’s what you’re doing,” said Bell.

“As God is my witness,” said Cardinal Mendosa simply.

A crocodile of French school-children made the two men move aside. Four teachers called out sharp instructions to their charges; one had a high, shrill voice that cut through the most blaring traffic noise.

“I had a teacher like that once,” said Cardinal Mendosa quietly as the children made their way to the entrance of the Museo. “Sister James. She could have etched glass calling roll.”

Now that they were stopped, Bell pulled Cardinal Mendosa aside, nearer the building. “About these letters. What do you want me to tell…our friend?”

“Friend, is it?” said Cardinal Mendosa with cynicism that startled Bell. “He ought to know about the letters.”

“Do you know what they contain?” said Bell, wanting to know more.

“I know that two of the last letters included Premier Zuo’s comments on the reaction of Catholics all over the world to Pope An’s election, broadly suggesting that if it should become too difficult or if she decided to give it up, it would be possible for her to come home. There were also a few recommendations of things she ought to be doing in the Church that would benefit both the Church and China.” He looked down at the pointed toes of his boots. “So far she hasn’t answered any of them.”

“Ah,” said Martin Bell. He went on uncertainly. “And has she done any of those things Zuo recommended?”

“Not in the way he did. A few of the things she has considered are not only consistent with what Jesus taught, they’re in accord with Communist precepts. Zuo did say something about the rules of the Church regarding property and…plunder being out-moded.” Cardinal Mendosa looked away, toward Santa Maria degli Angeli. “Not that some of the changes she might make wouldn’t look pretty much like to Communism to the more conservative Catholics, given the current state of world politics.”

“Then you expect something?” asked Bell, hearing a change in Cardinal Mendosa’s voice that piqued his interest.

“Oh, I expect something. I don’t know what it is. But if Pope An wants to guide the Church by what Our Lord taught, there’s going to be a lot of singed feathers in the world.” He shook his head once.

Bell waited, and when Cardinal Mendosa said nothing more, he inquired, “Is there anything you’d like me to say to?…”

“Whatever you think he ought to know. I don’t want him saying that I haven’t held up my part of this damned bargain. I told you what’s going on, and you can take it from there. You’re the expert.” He made a swift, apologetic gesture for the contempt he had shown. “It’s not you, Bell. I’m not…I hate doing this. No offence to you, Professor, but I despise what I’m doing.”

“It’s the hazard of the work, Eminence,” said Bell, hitching up his shoulder. “You learn to live with it.”

“Do you?” said Cardinal Mendosa.

* * *

Dame Leonie was astonished to see that Sir Arthur had bleached his hair so that it was almost white. She indicated the leather-covered sofa in front of the marble cocktail table, while trying to think of something to say to her husband now that she had remarked on his hair.

“It hides the grey, and it makes my tan look darker,” said Arthur, sitting down and draping his arms across the back cushions. He was dressed in white, a loose, expensive white linen suit with a shirt of mustard-yellow silk, and his pocket handkerchief was a square of olive-and-magenta. His loafers were camel-colored leather. “At my age, it’s wiser.”

She was rarely at a loss for words, but now Leonie could think of nothing to say. She picked up a small hand-bell and rang for her housekeeper. “What can I offer you in the way of refreshment, Arthur? It’s a little early for supper, but Italian high tea?”

Luisa Fuomo answered the summons, her brisk stride faltering once as she recognized the caller; her curiosity kept her moving. No one in Dame Leonie’s household had ever seen her husband except in the obligatory photograph on her desk. “What is it, Madame?”

“My guest…my husband would like.…” She looked at Arthur, expecting a hint. “What would you like?”

“Gin with something in it. Not vermouth. Perhaps a few sandwiches to soak it up. As you say, Italian high tea. I haven’t had anything to eat since eight this morning.” He waved Luisa away, paying the woman no attention. He smiled with a full display of teeth. “If that doesn’t ruin all your evening plans, Leonie.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said, trying to remain calm. She knew these polite, acidic moods of Arthur’s and did not relish dealing with another one.

“I mean, with the Vatican demanding your services and all, you might not be able to make time for a mere husband.” Again the flash of teeth. “Especially this husband.”

“Pope An hasn’t requested my presence until tomorrow,” said Dame Leonie, sitting very straight in her favorite art nouveau chair.

“At which time you’ll do what for her?” asked Sir Arthur nastily.

Dame Leonie folded her hands in lap. “I suppose you know that as well as the rest of the world. No one has kept it secret. I will advise her about questions on international matters. That is what I’ve been appointed to do.” She knew better than to argue with him; that was what Arthur wanted her to do.

“Very fortunate position for you, dear wife. But we’re told that fortune favors them who favor themselves. I suppose it was something you arranged as part of getting her out of the People’s Republic.” His implication was deliberately nasty.

With an effort of will, Leonie did not rise to the bait. “I was as surprised as anyone when Pope An sent for me. I had done what I supposed my duty was when I was asked to assist in the negotiations for her…visa.”

“How noble of you,” approved Sir Arthur in such a way that Dame Leonie wished she could throw something at him. “But I find it a little unconvincing. You can’t seriously mean that you neglected such an opportunity when it was presented to you. A diplomatic post new in the world, unique, and you are asked to fill it, with all the formidable statesmen available to the Church? I’m not quite so naive as all that, my dear. Surely there were others, more qualified than you, to assist the…ah…Pope.”

This time Leonie’s temper flashed. “Not many who speak Chinese, English, Italian, French, and Russian, know China and have direct personal contact with Pope An,” she countered. She bit back her diplomatic credentials; that would be playing Arthur’s game.

Arthur went on as if she had not spoken. “And I suppose no one objects to your being Anglican instead of Roman?” His expression was sweet; a casual observer might assume he was making polite conversation.

Leonie knew better. “I don’t have to account to you, not for this, not for anything.”

“Of course you do. I’m your husband.” The gloss of his smile faded a little. “Which is one of the reasons I thought it best that you and I have a discussion.” He swung one leg over the other. “Before things go too far. I’ve been hearing a few disturbing rumors in the last few weeks. It’s all part of that priests-marrying Bull of hers, I suppose. But I am concerned, my dear.”

She forced her hands not to close into fists. “About what, Arthur?”

“Why, this…speculation that she might be intending to permit divorces for Catholics. Not annulments, but actual divorces.” He snorted. “Like Protestants and all the others.”

“I’m not privy to Her Holiness’ decisions,” said Leonie, suddenly very nervous.

“Not even speaking Chinese and all that?” Arthur marveled. “To hear the news, one would think that she couldn’t make a move without you or that Foot fellow, or that ridiculous Texan holding her hand.”

“You know better than to rely on the news,” said Leonie, doing her best to maintain her composure. This was becoming more of a trial than she had thought possible. After all these months, how could Arthur demand so much of her, and make her feel she owed him anything?

“In certain situations, that’s true.” He stared at her. “But divorce. That’s something I have to be wary of.”

“You might be wary of annulment, Arthur, and that’s already permitted,” said Leonie, more sharply than she wanted. “The Church would grant one in our case, don’t you agree?”

“It’s possible, I’ll give you that. If you had been unaware of my…preferences, and had complained shortly after we married, perhaps. And had you been willing to sacrifice your career to the embarrassment that would result. But we’ve been married how long now? Fifteen, sixteen years? More? Something like that. Anyway, my dear, speaking up now, in your current circumstances here in Rome, when you have been willing to go along with me for so long—that smacks of opportunism, and I don’t suppose the government would like it very much if one of His Majesty’s ambassadors were to create the sort of public outcry that—”

“Arthur,” said Leonie, maintaining the same utter correctness that she strove for when caught up in international negotiations, “you came to my house. I have invited you in as a guest. Please let’s leave it on that footing, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m not your guest, I’m your husband,” he reminded her, delighted at her behavior.

“You don’t live here. Ergo, you are my guest,” she said firmly. “And Luisa will be bringing in your refreshments. I don’t think you want her to overhear your remarks, do you?”