The Seville Communion (41 page)

"It was very valuable," said Quart. "Fifteenth-century."

"What does it matter?" snapped the old priest. "They were willing to pay. Not a great sum, but enough for a new roof and, above all, enough to help my parishioners."

"So you did sell it?"

"Of course I did. Without a moment's hesitation. I had the roof fixed, bought medicine for the sick, repaired some of the frost-damage, and saved some livestock. I helped people to live, and to die."

Quart gestured towards the church "But now you're defending this church. A contradiction."

"Why? The artistic worth of Our Lady of the Tears matters as little to me as it does to you and the archbishop. I leave all that to Sister Marsala. My parishioners, though few in number, are more important than any painting."

"So you don't believe ..." began Quart.

"In what? In fifteenth-century altarpieces? In baroque churches? In the Supreme Watchmaker up there turning the cogs one by one?" The ember of Father Ferro's cigarette glowed more brightly as he took his last drag, then he threw it out of the window. "It doesn't matter," he said. "They believe."

"That business of the altarpiece left a black mark on your file," said Quart.

"I know." The old priest swivelled the telescope. "I had a very unpleasant meeting with my bishop. If somebody had done the same thing in Rome, I told him, it would have been a different matter. But here, we're all dancing to Saint Peter's tune. It's all tears and Quo Vadis Domine and crucify me. Meanwhile we stand outside, suppressing our conscience while the beatings go on in the hall of judgement."

"I sec you don't think much of Saint Peter either."

The old priest laughed. "No. He should have let himself be killed in Gethsemane, when he drew his sword to defend his Master."

It was Quart's turn to laugh. "If that had happened, we wouldn't have had our first pope."

"That's what you think." The old priest shook his head. "In this business there are plenty of popes. But none with balls." He looked through the eyepiece. He turned the wheels, and slowly the tube of the telescope moved up and left. "When you look at the sky," he said, "things occupy a different place in the universe. Did you know that our little Earth is only a hundred and fifty million kilometres from the Sun, whereas Pluto is almost six billion kilometres away? And that the Sun is a tiny dot compared to an average star like Arcturus? Not to mention Aldebaran, which is thirty-six million kilometres across, or Betelgeuse, which is ten times bigger than that." He moved the telescope to the right. He pointed out a star to Quart. "Look. That's Altair. At three hundred thousand kilometres per second, its light takes sixteen years to reach us. It might have exploded in the meantime, and we could be seeing light from a star that no longer exists.

Sometimes, when I look towards Rome, I feel as if I'm looking at Altair. Are you sure everything will still be there when you get back?"

At Father Ferro's invitation, Quart looked through the eyepiece. As he moved away from the brightness of the moon, between the stars appeared myriad points of light, clusters and nebulae that were red, blue, white, flickering or still. One of them gradually moved and then disappeared in the glare of another - a shooting star or maybe a man-made satellite. Quart looked for the Great Bear, following the line through Merak and Dubhe upwards, four times the distance, if he remembered correctly. There was the Pole Star, large, bright, confident.

"That's Polaris," said Father Ferro, who had followed the movement of the telescope. "The tip of the Little Bear, which always indicates the Earth's zero latitude. Always but not immutable." He told Quart to point the telescope to his left. "Five thousand years ago the Egyptians venerated another one, the Dragon, as the guardian of the north. It has a
25,800
-year cycle, of which only three thousand have passed. So in another two hundred and twenty-eight centuries the Dragon will be the pole star again." He drummed his fingers on the brass tube. "I wonder if there will be anyone on Earth then to notice."

"It gives one vertigo," said Quart, taking his eye away from the lens.

The old priest clicked his tongue, nodding in agreement. He seemed to enjoy Quart's vertigo, like an experienced surgeon seeing medical students go white during an autopsy. "Funny, isn't it? The universe is amusing. Polaris, the star you were looking at a moment ago, is four hundred and seventy light-years away. That means we're orientating ourselves by light that comes from the beginning of the sixteenth century." He pointed at another spot. "And over there, in the Cat's Eye Nebula, concentric shells of gas are all that's left of a star that died a thousand years ago." He walked over to another window and his features were more visible in the moonlight. "What are we?" he asked. "What part do we play in this great scene spread out above our heads? What do our miserable little lives and desires mean? Your report to Rome, the church, the Holy Father, you and I, what does all this matter to those lights?" His grating laugh rang out again.

a world that guided itself by starlight five centuries old, the litde boy's shadow was cast on the wall that protected him from the bitter cold outside. His shadow moved closer to the other shadow waiting beneath bougainvilleas and orange trees, until he could breathe in her fragrance and her warmth, and her breath. But a second before he ran his fingers through her hair to escape loneliness for one night, the shadow, the boy, the man watching the naked body in the sunlight filtered through the blind, the exhausted Knight Templar, they all turned to look up at the dimly lit window of the pigeon loft, where an old priest, unsociable, sceptical and brave, deciphered the terrible secret of a cruel sky, in the company of a ghost searching the horizon for a white sail.

XII

The Wrath of God

He has disappeared before our very eyes and we have no idea how.

Gaston Leroux,
The Phantom of the Opera

Through the pipe smoke, the archbishop of Seville looked exultant. "So Rome's giving in," he said.

Quart put down his cup and wiped his mouth with a napkin embroidered by a local order of nuns. He smiled and sighed. "That's one way of looking at it, Your Grace."

Monsignor Corvo blew out another cloud of smoke. The two men sat facing each other across a coffee table. It was the archbishop's custom to have breakfast with his first visitor of the morning. The coffee and toast before them had been intended for the dean of the cathedral, but the archbishop offered it to Quart instead when Quart arrived unexpectedly to take his leave, disrupting the schedule. The archbishop hated his coffee to get cold.

"I told you, didn't I, that this business wouldn't be easy to resolve," said His Grace.

Quart leaned back in his armchair. He would have preferred to deprive the archbishop of this opportunity for sarcastic remarks and smiles wreathed in pipe smoke; but form required that he pay his respects before leaving. "I would remind Your Grace," he said, "that I didn't come here to resolve anything. I came simply to inform Rome of the situation. And that's exactly what I will do now."

Corvo was delighted. "You never learned who Vespers was," he said.

Quart glanced at his watch. "No. But Vespers is not really the problem. The hacker getting through to the Pope is a trivial matter; they'll find out who he is sooner or later. The important thing is Father Ferro and Our Lady of the Tears. With my report, whatever decision is made will be made with full knowledge of the situation."

The yellow stone in the archbishop's ring glinted as he raised his hand. "Don't give me your Jesuitical waffle, Father Quart. You've failed." The pipe smoke could not hide his glee. "Vespers has made fun of both you and Rome."

"Neither I nor Rome would have intervened," Quart said coldly, "had Your Grace nipped things in the bud. Father Ferro and Our Lady of the Tears are in your diocese. And you know the saying: straying sheep, shepherd asleep."

Corvo clenched his teeth over his pipe, indignant. "Listen, Quart," he said, his voice hard. "The only straying sheep here is you. Do you take me for a fool? I know about your little visits to the Casa del Postigo. And all the rest of it, the walks and the dinners."

His Grace, whose talents in the pulpit were well appreciated by the diocese, proceeded to vent all his scorn and spleen in a harsh homily that lasted several minutes. His main point was that the IEA agent had allowed himself to be taken in by the priest of Our Lady of the Tears and his own personal pressure group made up of nuns, aristocrats and devout old ladies. Quart had lost his sense of perspective and betrayed his mission in Seville. And the daughter of the duchess of El Nuevo Extremo - who was still, by the way, Gavira's wife - had played no small part in the seduction.

Quart listened impassively to the tirade but stiffened at this last remark. "I'd be most grateful if Your Grace would put any allegations concerning this last matter in writing."

"I will indeed." Corvo was delighted to have touched a raw nerve at last. "I'll send it to your bosses in the Vatican. To the nuncio. To all and sundry. I'll do so by letter, by telephone, by fax, and to the accompaniment of a guitar." He took the pipe from his mouth and leered. You'll lose your reputation just as I lost my secretary."

That was that. Quart folded his napkin, dropped it on the tray and stood up. "If there's nothing more, Your Grace . . ."

"Nothing more." The archbishop looked at him mockingly. "My son." He remained seated, regarding his own hand, wondering whether to deal a final blow and require that Quart kiss his ring. But at that moment the telephone rang, so he simply dismissed the priest with a wave and went to answer it.

Quart buttoned his jacket and went out into the corridor. His steps echoed beneath the painted ceiling of the Gallery of the Prelates, and then on the marble steps of the main staircase. Through the windows he could see the courtyard where the prison La Parra once stood, in which the bishops of Seville placed unruly priests. A few centuries earlier, Quart thought, Father Ferro, and maybe Quart himself, would have ended up in there, while Monsignor Corvo sent his version of events to Rome by the slowest means possible. Quart was on the bottom flight of steps, reflecting on the advantages of modern technology, when he heard someone call his name. He stopped and turned. It was the archbishop himself, and no longer looking so pleased.

"If you could come back up, Father Quart. There's something we need to discuss."

Quart retraced his steps, intrigued. As he mounted the steps, he noticed that His Grace was extremely pale. "You can't leave," Monsignor Corvo said when Quart came level with him. "There's been another unfortunate incident at the church."

He made his way past the cement mixer and two police cars. Our Lady of the Tears was thronging with policemen. He counted at least twelve - one at the door, the others inside taking photographs, lifting fingerprints, and searching the floor, pews and scaffolding for clues. The church echoed with their whispered conversations.

Gris Marsala sat alone on the steps of the high altar. Quart walked towards her up the central aisle. Simeon Navajo came to meet him halfway. As usual, the deputy superintendent had his hair in a ponytail and was wearing his round glasses and a loud shirt. The leather bag -with the
.357
magnum inside, Quart assumed - was slung over his shoulder. It struck Quart that Navajo looked very out of place in the church. They shook hands. Navajo was pleased to see him.

"This makes three, Padre," he said jovially. He leaned casually against a pew, and Quart, peering past him, saw a pair of feet sticking out of the confessional.

He approached without a word, closely followed by Navajo. The door of the confessional was open. Quart thought the position of the feet strange. He could sec crumpled beige trouser legs. The rest of the body was covered by a piece of blue canvas, although a yellowish, waxen hand was visible, palm up. A wound ran from wrist to index ringer.

"Strange place to die, isn't it?" the policeman remarked. "Who is it?" asked Quart hoarsely.

The question was unnecessary. He recognised the shoes, the beige trousers, the small flabby hand.

Navajo stroked his moustache. "The man's name is Honorato Bonafé. He's a journalist. Was. He was well known around Seville."

Quart nodded.

"You knew him, didn't you? I thought so. People tell me he's been rooting around here these last few days. Do you want to take a look at him, Padre?"

Navajo reached into the confessional, his ponytail shaking like the tail of a diligent squirrel. He lifted the canvas that covered the body. Bonafé was very still and very yellow, slumped on a corner of the wooden seat inside the confessional, his chin sunk into thick folds. There was a big bruise on the left side of his face, and his eyes were closed. He looked peaceful, or possibly tired. Blood had run from his nose and mouth, spreading out over his neck and shirt. It was dried.

"The forensic pathologist has just looked him over," Navajo said, pointing to a young man who was sitting in a pew making notes. "He says he died from massive internal injuries. A blow, maybe, or a fall. What we don't know is how he ended up in the confessional."

Out of duty, overcoming the revulsion he felt for the man while he was alive, Quart muttered a brief prayer and made the sign of the Cross.

Navajo watched with interest. "I wouldn't bother if I were you, Padre. He's been dead quite a while. So wherever he was going" -with his hands he imitated two flapping wings - "he'll be there by now."

"What was the time of death?"

"We don't know yet. But at a guess, our expert says twelve or fourteen hours ago."

A couple of policemen up on the scaffolding by the Virgin were having an animated conversation, and their voices rang in the vault.

Navajo told them to keep it down. They obeyed, embarrassed. Quart saw that Gris Marsala was still on the altar steps. She was watching him. For the first time, she appeared fragile. As Navajo covered Bonafé again, he told Quart that the nun had found the body early that morning. "I'd like to talk to her," said Quart.