A Season for the Dead (30 page)

It was wrong. It was impossible. “But why? Because he was fired from his job?”

“Are you serious? Sara Farnese was the old man’s woman. She slept with these people—Vaccarini, Valena, the others, because Denney told her to. It was her attempt to get him safe passage out of that papal prison of his. She slept with Rinaldi. He tried to fix the judicial commission. Vaccarini the same. She slept with Valena. Four months ago he came out on that show of his arguing for wider diplomatic immunity in the Vatican on the grounds—get this—that the Church needs protecting in a godless world. You think maybe Sara Farnese performed a few favors on the fat fucker afterward? The Englishman . . . I don’t know. Maybe he was trying to swing something for Denney with the EU.”

Nic remembered her insistent denial of just a single accusation. The Englishman was her lover, he realized. A liar and adulterer. But Fairchild was unlike the rest. That much, Nic Costa now believed, was true.

“Maybe he was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

Falcone nodded, surprised that Costa agreed with him so readily. “It doesn’t matter anymore. If Denney runs, they’re both out in the open, father and son. Maybe I’ll let the Cardinal get on the plane, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. If he makes it to America, we extradite him anyway.” He shook his head, as if the game were already won. “And Gino Fosse, he stays here. He’s ours the moment he steps out into the sun and if he so much as sneezes, I’ll shoot the bastard myself.”

Falcone waited for Costa’s reaction, then said, “You’re quiet. Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve got her all wrong? That she didn’t know Michael Denney? That can’t be true?”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

There was a pained grimace on the inspector’s tanned face. “Say that again. You should watch the eight o’clock news. Take a break. Buy yourself a coffee and enjoy the fun. You have to stage these things with the media. You don’t give them it all in one chunk or it just goes to waste. Come eight they’ll have another little item to add to the public’s knowledge about His Eminence Cardinal Denney.”

The triumph in his voice was muted. Nic heard a despairing note of bitterness behind it. Leo Falcone felt the loss of Rossi and Cattaneo, more deeply than Costa would have expected. “What else?”

Falcone reached for his briefcase and took out an envelope. He opened it and thrust the contents onto Costa’s knee. It was a black and white photograph of dubious quality, taken from some distance judging by the flatness and the grain of the picture. A telephoto lens from slightly above the subject, perhaps, shot through a window. It showed Denney in a grand apartment, the one, Costa guessed, he used to occupy by right, before they threw him into the rat hole where he sweated now.

Denney stood with his back half turned to the camera. He wore a white shirt and dark trousers. His gray hair was neatly groomed. Sara Farnese faced the lens, smiling, a wonderful, open smile, full of love, an expression he’d seen for himself the previous night. Her arms were around Denney. She was coming forward as if to kiss his cheek or his neck. She held him, tightly, in a way which brooked no mistake. It was impossible to fake. This was the two of them engaged in a loving, close embrace. A prelude to what? Costa looked again and knew. Denney’s right hand was already reaching for the curtain at the apartment window. In a few seconds the two of them would be snatched from sight.

The photo had the same grainy quality as the ones in Fosse’s flat. It wasn’t hard to guess where it came from.

“Where are the rest of the pictures?” he asked Falcone.

“That’s all I have. Look for yourself. He’s getting himself a little privacy. This is the Vatican, after all. What do you want? To see them in bed?”

Something still nagged at him. “Where did it come from?”

Falcone scowled again and looked at his watch. “You’ve figured that out, surely?”

He had. He just didn’t want to admit it. “Fosse took it. Just like he took the others. He kept the ones of Sara, of the other women, for his own purposes. He was really there to provide backup. To make sure that if they didn’t bend from the favor, they’d bend from a little blackmail.”

“Precisely,” Falcone said, pleased with Costa’s analysis. “Fosse drove for Denney. He was the chauffeur on these little nighttime escapades. For the Farnese woman. For the more conventional hookers Denney used too. He hung around peeking through the curtains with his lens while they got on with their work.” He paused for effect. “They knew what was going on.
She
knew.”

Costa thought of her face in the pictures in the Clivus Scauri. The way she was looking toward the lens. Falcone was right but Teresa Lupo had seen this first: Sara was party to the trick.

“She knew,” he agreed. “And Denney thought this was all his doing. He never realized Fosse was working on the side for someone else. Maybe giving them the same information. Spying on Denney as well.”

He looked Falcone in the eye. “Who was that? Who’s pulling the strings? Hanrahan?”

“Hanrahan’s just a servant. Like you and me. What does it matter? We’ve got what we need. At eight o’clock these go public. Match that up with the news about Fosse and I don’t see how the Vatican can continue to hold him. He’s an embarrassment. He’s a visible scab they’ll want rid of.”

Costa dropped the photograph back into the envelope.

The older man took it and said, “If you breathe a word of this to anyone before it appears I’ll have your hide. And I mean her in particular. This is all beyond you now. I don’t want any more accidents, understand? So you just talk to Rossi’s sister, then sit back, get some rest. You look like you need it.”

“Accidents?” he demanded, his voice rising, some red stub of anger beginning to fire in his head. “I lost a partner to this lunatic. I want to be there when he’s taken.”

Falcone looked offended. “Hey. Gimme a break here. I got two dead cops squatting on my conscience. I don’t want your skinny hide added to the pile.”

This was the limit, this was the moment. Costa reached into his jacket pocket and took out his police ID card.

“Fuck you,” he said, and threw the thing into Falcone’s lap, then walked out of the car, out into the heat of the morning.

53

She walked out to the gate at seven and spoke to one of the cops. It was easy to get what you wanted with a smile. The man took her money, looked a little puzzled, and drove off to the nearby nursery. It wouldn’t be open yet but he was a cop. He’d bang on the door till they came.

Then she stayed near the lane, mutely watched by the other policemen, trying not to think, trying not to expect too much from the day to come, waiting. Half an hour later the cop returned with the plants nestled in a battered cardboard box. There were three sets, each wrapped in damp newspaper. She looked at the seedlings of
cavolo nero,
little taller than an index finger. It was hard to believe they would grow through the coming harshness of winter, thriving in the cold and damp, becoming stronger each day until, in spring, they would be ready for harvest.

Sara walked back to the house and found Marco and Bea on the porch drinking coffee. He sat happily in his wheelchair, Bea at his side. Marco finally looked at peace with himself. He’d lost the impatient energy, the need to make some kind of point at every opportunity which she had noticed since the moment she stepped into the farmhouse. The internal, gnawing need to settle accounts had been resolved, for the time being at least. There had been a debt to be settled, she thought, and one he’d forgotten, which only made things worse. In a sense he looked older, wearier, more resigned. Perhaps these were steps along the way, stations of love, of insight, which needed to be passed. This was the luxury—and the agony—of a lingering death. It gave one the time to consider, to make decisions. It contained, too, sufficient space for both regret and, with a little luck, reconciliation.

Bea stood and took the box from her, smiling at the slender green forms that lay inside.

“You remembered?” Marco said, amazed.

“Of course.”

He laughed. “It was the wine. I didn’t mean you to do this. You can’t really want to get down on your hands and knees and plant these damned things. What for?”

Bea patted him on his gray head. “I thought we’d agreed. Because it’s a farm, silly man. Things should be growing here. It looks barren otherwise.”

He scanned the arid, yellow ground, then gazed at both of them. “I’m a fool, aren’t I?”

“You’re a man,” Bea replied.

“Well, at least I won’t be grubbing around planting something no one’s going to look after come the winter.”

“They’ll grow,” Bea said. “I promise.”

He harrumphed, though there was still an amused satisfaction in his eye neither of them could miss. “What’s happening to my life?” he asked, then shot Sara a glance. “You heard from Nic?”

“He left early,” she said, not committing herself. She understood they knew where she had spent the night. Her time with him, in his arms, astride him, touching his hair, feeling him inside her, all this now seemed like a dream. They had parted on bad terms. It was her fault. She knew this and she regretted hurting him. Nevertheless there were boundaries that had to be established. She wondered whether she would ever see Nic Costa again. Whether he would even want to see her. The future rose ahead like a mist, full of so many formless possibilities.

“We should watch the news,” she told them, and saw the expression cross Marco Costa’s lined face, followed the way he looked at Bea. It was something bad. It had to be.

“I did,” he said. “While you were down at the gate.”

“I need to know . . .”

“No, you don’t. Not right now. All that would mean is that we’d have to watch you go through the agonies again, Sara. This is not about you. These people aren’t your responsibility.”

“You know that?” she replied coldly.

“We know enough,” Marco answered.

“Tell me. Please.”

They glanced at each other. Bea nodded.

“He shot two cops dead last night,” Marco said grimly. “One of them was Luca Rossi, Nic’s partner.”

She closed her eyes.

“Then he killed someone else,” Marco continued. “Arturo Valena, the man from the TV. They’re saying . . .” He hesitated. “They’re saying all sorts of things, to tell you the truth. They’re saying this priest they’re looking for is the son of that cardinal the papers are writing about.”

“I need to see this . . .”

His hand went out and held her as she passed him. Marco was still strong. This surprised her.

“No,” he insisted. “It’s just there to drive you crazy.
There is nothing you can do.
Are you hearing me? Leave this to Nic and the rest of them. It’s their job. Not yours.”

“I have to know.”

His old face examined hers. He was a clever man. Nic must have found out at an early age what she knew now: It was impossible to keep a secret from him when those sharp, intelligent eyes turned on you.

“No, you don’t,” Marco said. She knew what he left unsaid:
You don’t need to hear because you know already.
It was, she admitted to herself, this that interested her: finding out how much they had discovered, using that information for her own ends.

Marco picked up one of the sets of plants and examined it, touching the stalk, feeling the tender young leaves in his fingers.

“These are good,” he said, looking at her. “They’re a little late but never mind. It’s just a matter of care and attention. Don’t plant them together too tightly. You’ll need to water them in well. Sara . . .”

She did what he wanted. She looked into his face.

“The tools are in the outhouse over there. You should dress down a little, both of you. I want this done with care. When you’re finished, then we let the rest of the world in here again. But not before, please.”

He knew everything, or thought he did. She could see this in his face.

“And when Nic calls? When he comes around?” she asked, aware that she was already thinking about how soon she could get away and make the phone call.

“I think Nic will be pretty busy today, to be honest with you.”

“And when he isn’t?”

Marco had the answer already:
You won’t be here.
She would never have to face the possibility.

“The ground needs a little preparation,” he said. “I’ll teach you how.”

54

Michael Denney sat at the low coffee table in the little apartment, opposite Hanrahan, trying not to look at the TV. The picture of Sara, her bare-sleeved, comforting arms around him, filled the screen. It seemed even more fascinating for the news programs than the images of Arturo Valena’s body being taken from the church off the Via Corso. What irked Denney most was that he couldn’t recall the moment. He’d seen so little of Sara recently. He missed the time they spent together. It infuriated him that someone could have spied on them and not left sufficient clues for him to place the occasion.

“Who the hell took it, Brendan? You?”

The Irishman’s lugubrious features met his angry gaze. “Chickens come home to roost. You sent Fosse out to take those bedroom snaps for you. Don’t blame me if he didn’t know when to stop.”

“I thought Fosse was working for me.”

Hanrahan sighed and said nothing. Denney thought hard. He hadn’t seen her like this in more than a month. That meant they had decided to throw him to the wolves long before he had tried, and failed, to resurrect the bank.

“You’re an ungrateful man, Michael,” Hanrahan said. “I’ve watched your back in this place too long. I’ve risked my own reputation, perhaps more than that. And what do I get in return? Your misguided anger. Your lack of trust.”

“I’m sorry.” Perhaps he had offended Hanrahan. Or maybe it was just part of a broader, more subtle act than Denney had appreciated. “I’m not myself right now. It’s just the thought of Fosse spying on us like that. Did they really think I deserved that?”

Hanrahan stabbed at the TV. “
Deserve?
Michael, I told you so many times she would be your nemesis. And there she is. Plastered all over the place. In every newspaper too. A cardinal of the Church and the woman they’ve been painting as some loose whore all week. What do you expect?”

“A little understanding,” Denney said quietly. There was no point in telling this icy Irishman about the need for love. It was inexplicable, incapable of being reduced to plain and logical analysis. Hanrahan didn’t believe in mysteries. He wanted only hard, unbending facts around him. He never noticed, never felt, the holes these hard, inhuman certainties made in a man’s life.

“Don’t blame anyone else now,” Hanrahan warned him. “No one made you start seeing her. No one else forced you to use Gino Fosse as a bagman on these night errands of yours. This is your doing. Not mine nor anyone else’s. If you must indulge in these black secrets—bribery, blackmail, for God’s sake—don’t go blaming others when they creep out into the light of day.”

“And you think I don’t know that?”

Hanrahan grimaced. Denney looked at his gray, emotionless face and knew there was more to come.

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re a man prone to whimsies, Michael. It’s odd, given the job you used to do. I would have expected a more practical nature.”

“Like yours,” Denney said, without thinking.

“I like to think of myself as a reasonable man. One who helps keep the wheels turning.”

There was a time they had been together for a conference in Dubai. A financier had provided company for them both. It was a ritual, a gift it would have been impolite to refuse. He’d watched Hanrahan with the woman. She was beautiful, a tall Cypriot girl with perfect English and a ready smile. It was the only occasion on which he had seen the Irishman uncomfortable, incapable of controlling the world around him. Hanrahan had left before the dinner was finished.

“And never being touched by anything, eh, Brendan? Living on your own. Running other people’s lives. You’re not like me. You could get married. You could do what you like. Instead you just scheme and scheme. For me. For anyone that pays. I gave you good money to fix things. You were supposed to help me put the Banca Lombardia back on track.”

Hanrahan scowled. “I can’t raise the dead. That idea didn’t stand a hope in hell from the moment you first suggested it.”

“And you never thought of saying so.”

“I’m a servant. Have you forgotten?”

“One who doesn’t know who his master is.”

“Oh, but I always remember that. You were the one who forgot. You were the one who overstepped the mark. Because you just couldn’t resist, could you? It flattered your fulsome ego, dining with all these politicians. Having these women at your beck and call. You lost sight of yourself and drowned in your own arrogance. Don’t take your own faults out on others.”

Denney nodded. There was truth in Hanrahan’s words.

“But at least I’ve
lived,
Brendan. I’m not convinced you can say the same. Do you really believe the world begins and ends at your fingertips, man? Or are you just frightened of it all? Scared to death that a little love might steal away your powers? That you might be like Samson and wake up one morning to find your hair on your pillow. And suddenly you’re just the same as the rest of us: weak and dependent on others. Is that what scares you? That you might lose your strength and someone will come looking for revenge? Because if it is I must tell you what you are. An emotional coward. A man who fears what’s inside himself and takes that fear out on the world.”

Hatred flamed in Hanrahan’s eyes. Denney knew he had hit the spot. It gave him no comfort.

“To be honest,” Hanrahan said very carefully, “none of this matters anymore, Michael.”

“It matters, Brendan. Tell me now. Do you think we’ll be judged one day? All of us? Or is that just one more piece of whimsy?”

“I think there’s plenty who would like to judge you now.”

“And who are they? I’ve wasted my time in this dump, fearing them. Fearing you. What can they do except steal away what little of my miserable life’s left?”

Hanrahan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wouldn’t value that too lightly, Michael. Think of what happened to Valena and the rest.”

Denney looked around the apartment. It seemed smaller, more dismal than ever. How had he allowed himself to be talked into being some voluntary kind of captive here?

“Terrible ends,” he agreed. “But you know the problem with spending your days afraid of dying? What you really end up fearing is life itself. You wind up hoping no one knocks on the door, no one comes close. You die anyway. It’s just that you don’t notice it happened a long time before you stopped breathing.”

Hanrahan closed his eyes as if he weren’t listening.

“Tell me, Brendan,” Denney said. “Do you believe in anything?”

“I believe in keeping our little piece of the world in order. Protecting it from those who’d destroy it.”

“Isn’t that what Pontius Pilate said?”

“You’re talking like a churchman, Michael. That’s something you’re not.”

“Say it, then,” Denney spat back. “Let’s hear what you came here for. Because it wasn’t to pass the time.”

“You’re out,” Hanrahan said flatly. “Today. By noon, it must be, or they’ll send someone in and throw you onto the pavement, I swear it. I’ve argued till I’m blue in the face but it’s no good. It’s these pictures. The proof that Gino Fosse is your boy. The woman. They’re scared there’s more to come, Michael. And let’s face it”—Hanrahan’s emotionless face fixed on him—“there is.”

Denney felt trapped in the small, airless room, felt as if his head might explode. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I’ve known a lot about you for a long time, Michael. It wasn’t that hard. You cover your footsteps well, but you’re still an amateur. Now it’s beyond my powers. When they turn and say, ‘Is this all?’ I won’t lie for you anymore. That time’s past.”

“So who’s casting the first stone, then? Just for interest’s sake. I’d like the names. I’d love to know how many people in this place would survive having someone spying on them night and day, seeing everything they do.”

Hanrahan pulled a half-smoked cigar from his jacket pocket and lit it. The vile smoke filled the room.

“Think of someone,” he told Denney. “Then put him on your list. I tried my best, but not with much conviction, to be honest. They’re right. You’re too much of an embarrassment now. We have to wash our hands of the stain of you before it leaves a mark on the rest of us. There’ll be a private plane back to Boston. Someone can help you there if you need it. We can give you a new name. A place to live where they won’t find you, with a touch of luck. But”—he waved his hand at the world beyond the walls of the apartment—“this part of your life is past. You can’t return to Rome. You can’t be Cardinal Michael Denney anymore. If you stay in Italy, even under a false name, someone will find you. Maybe the police. Maybe some people with other ideas. Either way, you don’t want it. And we don’t want it.”

It was what he expected but still the words smarted. “So I’m reborn. I become Joe Polack and work on some factory line in Detroit. Is that it?”

Hanrahan shrugged. “If that’s what you want . . .”

Denney felt his face become suffused with red. He wished he could keep the anger away. “Damn it, Brendan.
I want what they owe me.
”

The Irishman laughed. The sound made Denney miserable; it emphasized how alone he truly was. “Everyone wants what they’re owed, Michael. That’s the problem, isn’t it? All these debts to be paid, and so many of them to people none of us would like to know.”

“You’ll take me to the airport.” He tried to make it sound like an order, not a question, but the words failed to come out right.

Hanrahan scowled, then slowly shook his head. “No. We can’t afford the publicity. In America things can be different. There we can be more subtle. But for now, we need to make it plain. At eleven, the press department plans to issue a statement. I can show you a copy if you like. It will say you’ve decided to resign your office for personal reasons and intend to take up a new life outside the Church, beyond Italy. No more than that. We will brief the press privately, of course, and set some clear water between the Vatican and yourself. That must be done. You’re a pariah. We’ll make it clear we’ve been concerned by your actions, by the rumors about your personal life, for years, but these last revelations—which were, of course, new to us—proved too much to bear. You’ll become the prodigal son, Michael, one we must send out into the world to atone for his sins. Except, naturally, you’ll never return. We’ll not meet again after today. You’re making the rest of this journey on your own.”

Denney couldn’t believe what he was hearing, couldn’t comprehend how Hanrahan took such obvious pleasure in torturing him like this. “And what am I supposed to do, exactly? Call a cab and wait for one of those crooks to join me in the back? Do I look suicidal, Brendan? I’d rather walk straight to the nearest policeman and ask him to take me in.”

Hanrahan laughed again. “And how long do you think you’d last in prison? If you got that far. Don’t be naÏve. The police can’t save you. Maybe even we can’t save you in the end. You’ve gone too far. You’ve offended too many people, given them such a wealth of ammunition to bring you down. Oh, to hell with it . . .” He scanned the apartment, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t pack much, Michael. Tell us what, if anything, you wish to keep and I’ll see it’s done. Bear in mind, though, that most of your possessions are attached to the office you held until this moment and they remain our property. Anything that is truly personal you may mark and I’ll send on later.”

“The paintings are mine.” Denney nodded at the copy of the Caravaggio.

“That I doubt. But you’re an accomplished thief. I’ll send them on. Perhaps.”

Michael Denney wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the couple at the focus of the canvas: the dying Matthew and his assassin, both bathed in the compelling light of Grace.

“Now, Michael, you won’t be thinking of yourself as the martyr in all this, surely?” Hanrahan asked lightly. “That would be a little rich.”

Denney hung his head and whispered, “Christ, Brendan, don’t enjoy it so much.”

He looked up. The Irishman’s eyes now held him in a fixed, concentrated stare, full of contempt.

“You confuse pleasure with duty, Michael. You always have. It’s the root of your problem. Don’t hate me, man. I’ve performed one last favor, for old times’ sake. Two men will meet you outside the gates at twelve. A couple of Rome cops at your discretion. They’ll take you to the airport. Off-duty, as it were.”

“Two men?” Denney asked. “Do you want me dead?”

“If I wanted that, do you think I’d have gone to all this trouble on your behalf? Not that we haven’t discussed it, you understand. There are those who thought it would have been the . . . cleanest solution.”

Michael Denney closed his eyes. He could picture them talking, in a private, secret room, somewhere in this tiny, insular state which had, in the space of thirty years, turned from a kind of heaven into a cruel, unbending prison. Perhaps they met weekly. Perhaps they had more information, more pictures, tapes. And they’d been planning, for how long? Wondering how to dispose of him, safely, cleanly, with the minimum of fuss. Wondering where they would find a trigger, the catalyst who could flush him out of his lair. Time and fate had finally provided that, but not by chance.

He pointed an accusing finger at Hanrahan. “You told him, you bastard.”

The Irishman said nothing. His eyebrows rose a fraction.