Conclave (7 page)

At the entrance to the meeting room, opposite the chapel, he gave his coat and scarf to Zanetti. ‘Would you mind taking these upstairs for me?’

‘Do you want me to sit in?’

‘No, I’ll deal with it.’ He put his hand on the doorknob. ‘Remind me, what time is vespers?’

‘Six thirty, Eminence.’

Lomeli opened the door. Archbishop Woźniak was standing with his back to him at the far end of the room. He appeared to be staring at the bare wall. There was a faint but unmistakable smell of alcohol. Once more Lomeli was obliged to suppress his irritation. As if he didn’t have enough to deal with!

‘Janusz?’ He advanced towards Woźniak, intending to embrace
him, but to his alarm, the former Master of the Papal Household sank to his knees and made the sign of the cross.

‘Your Eminence, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. My last confession was four weeks ago—’

Lomeli stretched out his hand. ‘Janusz, Janusz, forgive me, but I simply haven’t time to hear your confession. The doors will be closing in a few minutes and you’ll have to leave. Just sit down, please, and tell me quickly what is troubling you.’ He raised the archbishop to his feet, guided him to a chair and sat down next to him. He gave a smile of encouragement and patted the other man’s knee. ‘Go on.’

Woźniak’s pudgy face was damp with perspiration. Lomeli was close enough to see the smear of dust on his spectacles.

‘Your Eminence, I should have come to you before now. But I promised I wouldn’t say anything.’

‘I understand. Don’t worry.’ The man seemed to be sweating vodka. What was this myth that it was odourless? His hands shook. He reeked of it. ‘Now when you say you promised not to mention it – to whom did you make this promise?’

‘Cardinal Tremblay.’

‘I see.’ Lomeli drew back slightly. After a lifetime spent listening to secrets, he had developed an instinct for such matters. The vulgar always assumed it was best to try to know everything; in his experience it was often better to know as little as possible. ‘Before you go any further, Janusz, I want you to take a moment to ask God if it’s right for you to break your promise to Cardinal Tremblay.’

‘I have asked Him many times, Your Eminence, and that is why I’m here.’ Woźniak’s mouth trembled. ‘If it’s embarrassing for you, though . . .’

‘No, no, of course not. But please just give me the straight facts. We have little time.’

‘Very well.’ The Pole took a breath. ‘You remember that on the day the Holy Father died, the last person to have an official appointment with him, at four o’clock, was Cardinal Tremblay?’

‘I remember.’

‘Well, at that meeting, the Holy Father dismissed Cardinal Tremblay from all his offices in the Church.’

‘
What?
’

‘He sacked him.’

‘Why?’

‘For gross misconduct.’

Lomeli couldn’t speak at first. ‘Really, Archbishop, you could have picked a better time to come and tell me such a thing.’

Woźniak’s head drooped. ‘I know, Your Eminence, forgive me.’

‘In fact you could have come to see me at any time in the past three weeks!’

‘I don’t blame you for feeling angry, Eminence. But it wasn’t until the last day or two that I started hearing all these rumours about Cardinal Tremblay.’

‘What rumours?’

‘That he might be elected Pope.’

Lomeli paused just long enough to convey his displeasure at such frankness. ‘And you see it as your duty to prevent that?’

‘I no longer know what my duty is. I’ve prayed and prayed for guidance, and in the end it seems to me that you should have the facts, and then you can decide whether or not to tell the other cardinals.’

‘But what
are
the facts, Janusz? You’ve given me no facts. Were you present at this meeting between the two of them?’

‘No, Eminence. The Holy Father told me about it afterwards, when we had supper together.’

‘Did he tell you why he’d dismissed Cardinal Tremblay?’

‘No. He said the reasons would become clear soon enough. He was extremely agitated, though – very angry.’

Lomeli contemplated Woźniak. Might he be lying? No. He was a simple soul, plucked from a small town in Poland to be a chaplain and companion for John Paul II in his declining years. Lomeli was sure he was telling the truth. ‘Does anyone else know about this, apart from you and Cardinal Tremblay?’

‘Monsignor Morales – he was at the meeting between the Holy Father and Cardinal Tremblay.’

Lomeli knew Hector Morales, although not well. He had been one of the Pope’s private secretaries. A Uruguayan.

‘Listen, Janusz,’ he said. ‘Are you absolutely certain you’ve got this right? I can see how upset you are. But, for example, why hasn’t Monsignor Morales ever mentioned anything about it? He was there in the apartment with us on the night the Holy Father died. He could have brought it up then. Or he could have told one of the other secretaries.’

‘Eminence, you said you wanted the straight facts. These are the straight facts. I’ve been over them in my mind a thousand times. I found the Holy Father dead. I summoned the doctor. The doctor summoned Cardinal Tremblay. Those are the rules, as you know: “The first member of the Curia to be officially notified in the event of the Pope’s death is to be the Camerlengo.” Cardinal Tremblay arrived and took control of the situation. Naturally, I was hardly in a position to object, and besides, I was in a state of shock. But then, after about an hour, he drew me aside and asked me if the Holy Father had had anything particular on his
mind when we had supper. That’s when I should have said something. But I was frightened, Your Eminence. I wasn’t supposed to know of these matters. So I just said that he seemed agitated, without going into any details. Afterwards, I saw the cardinal whispering in the corner with Monsignor Morales. My guess is that he was persuading him not to say anything about the meeting.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because later I did try to mention to the monsignor what the Pope had told me, and he was very firm about it. He said that there had been no dismissal, that the Holy Father had not been his normal self for several weeks, and that for the good of the Church I shouldn’t raise the subject again. So I haven’t. But it’s not right, Eminence. God tells me it’s not right.’

‘No,’ agreed Lomeli, ‘it’s not right.’ His mind was trying to work through the implications. It might easily all be nothing: Woźniak was overwrought. But then again, if they did elect Tremblay Pope, and some scandal was subsequently discovered, the consequences for the wider Church could be appalling.

There was a loud knock on the door. Lomeli called out, ‘Not now!’

The door was thrown open. O’Malley leaned into the room. All his considerable weight was balanced on his right foot, like an ice-skater; his left hand clung to the door frame. ‘Your Eminence, Archbishop, I’m very sorry to interrupt, but you are needed urgently.’

‘Dear God, what is it now?’

O’Malley glanced briefly at Woźniak. ‘I’m sorry, Eminence, I’d prefer not to say. If you could come at once, please?’

He stepped back and gestured in the direction of the lobby.
Reluctantly Lomeli got to his feet. He spoke to Woźniak. ‘You’ll have to leave the matter with me. But you did the right thing.’

‘Thank you. I knew I could always come to you. Would you bless me, Eminence?’

Lomeli laid his hand on the archbishop’s head. ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.’ At the door, he turned. ‘And perhaps you would be kind enough to remember me in your prayers tonight, Janusz? I fear I may have greater need of intercession than you.’

In the last few minutes, the lobby had grown more crowded. Cardinals had begun emerging from their rooms, preparing to go to Mass in the hostel’s chapel. Tedesco was holding forth to a group at the bottom of the staircase – Lomeli saw him out of the corner of his eye as he strode alongside O’Malley towards the reception desk. A member of the Swiss Guard, his helmet under his arm, was standing at the long polished wooden counter. With him were two security men and Archbishop Mandorff. There was something ominous about the way they were staring straight ahead, not speaking, and it occurred to Lomeli with absolute certainty that a cardinal must have died.

O’Malley said, ‘I’m sorry for the mystery, Your Eminence, but I didn’t think I could say anything in front of the Archbishop.’

‘I know exactly what this is about: you’re going to tell me we’ve lost a cardinal.’

‘On the contrary, Dean, we appear to have acquired one.’ The Irishman gave a nervous giggle.

‘Is that meant to be a joke?’

‘No, Eminence.’ O’Malley became sombre. ‘I mean it literally: another cardinal has just turned up.’

‘How is that possible? Did we leave someone off the list?’

‘No, his name was never on our list. He says he was created
in pectore
.’

Lomeli felt as if he had walked into an invisible wall. He came briefly to a halt in the middle of the lobby. ‘He has to be an impostor, surely?’

‘That was my reaction, Eminence. But Archbishop Mandorff has spoken to him. And he thinks not.’

Lomeli hurried over to Mandorff. ‘What’s this I’m hearing?’

Behind the reception desk, a couple of nuns busied themselves at their computers, pretending not to listen.

‘His name is Vincent Benítez, Eminence. He’s the Archbishop of Baghdad.’

‘Baghdad? I wasn’t aware we had an archbishop in such a place. Is he an Iraqi?’

‘Hardly! He’s a Filipino. The Holy Father appointed him last year.’

‘Yes, now I think I do remember.’ He had a vague memory of a photograph in a magazine. A Catholic prelate standing in the burnt-out skeleton of a church. Was he really now a cardinal?

Mandorff said, ‘You of all people must have been aware of his elevation?’

‘I am not. You look surprised.’

‘Well, I assumed if he’d been made a cardinal, the Holy Father would have notified the Dean of the College.’

‘Not necessarily. If you recall, he completely revised the canon law on
in pectore
appointments shortly before he died.’

Lomeli tried to sound unconcerned, although in truth he felt this latest slight even more acutely than the rest.
In pectore
(‘in the heart’) was the ancient provision under which a Pope could create a
cardinal without revealing his name, even to his closest associates: apart from the beneficiary, God alone would know. In all his years in the Curia, Lomeli had only ever heard of one case of a cardinal created
in pectore
, whose name was never made public, even after the Pope’s death. That had been in 2003, under the papacy of John Paul II. To this day no one knew who the man was – the assumption had always been that he was Chinese, and that he had had to remain anonymous to avoid persecution. Presumably the same considerations of safety might well apply to the Church’s senior representative in Baghdad. Was that it?

He was aware of Mandorff still staring at him. The German was perspiring freely in the heat. The chandelier gleamed on his watery bald skull. Lomeli said, ‘But I’m sure the Holy Father wouldn’t have made such a sensitive decision without at least consulting the Secretary of State. Ray, would you be so kind as to find Cardinal Bellini, and ask him to join us?’ As O’Malley left, he turned back to Mandorff. ‘And you think he’s genuinely a cardinal?’

‘He has a letter of appointment from the late Pope addressed to the archdiocese of Baghdad, which they kept secret at the Holy Father’s request. He has a seal of office. Look for yourself.’ He showed the package of documents to Lomeli. ‘And he
is
an archbishop, fulfilling a mission in one of the most dangerous places in the world. I cannot think why he would forge his credentials, can you?’

‘I suppose not.’ The papers certainly looked authentic to Lomeli. He returned them. ‘Where is he now?’

‘I asked him to wait in the back office.’

Mandorff conducted Lomeli behind the reception desk. Through the glass wall he could see a slender figure sitting on an orange plastic chair in the corner, between a printing machine and boxes of copying paper. He was dressed in a plain black cassock. His head
was bare, no skullcap. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his rosary in his hands, looking down and apparently praying. A lock of dark hair obscured his face.

Mandorff said quietly, as if they were observing a man asleep, ‘He arrived at the entrance just as it was closing. His name wasn’t on the list, of course, and he isn’t dressed as a cardinal, so the Swiss Guard called me. I told them to bring him inside while we had him checked. I behaved correctly, I hope?’

‘Of course.’

The Filipino was fingering his rosary, entirely absorbed. Lomeli felt intrusive merely watching. Yet he found it hard to look away. He envied him. It was a long time since he had been able to muster the powers of concentration necessary to shut oneself off from the world. His own head these days was always full of noise. First Tremblay, he thought, now this. He wondered what other shocks awaited him.

Mandorff said, ‘No doubt Cardinal Bellini will be able to clear matters up.’

Lomeli looked around to see Bellini approaching with O’Malley. The former Secretary of State wore an expression of uneasy bewilderment.

Lomeli said, ‘Aldo, were you aware of this?’

‘I wasn’t aware the Holy Father had actually gone ahead and done it, no.’ He stared wonderingly through the glass at Benítez as if gazing upon some mythical creature. ‘And yet there he is . . .’

‘So the Pope mentioned it was in his mind?’

‘Yes, he raised the possibility a couple of months ago. My advice was strongly against it. Christians have endured enough suffering in that part of the world without inflaming militant Islamic opinion even further. A cardinal in Iraq! The Americans would be appalled. How could we possibly ensure his safety?’

‘That is presumably why the Holy Father wanted it kept secret.’

‘But people were bound to find out! Everything leaks eventually, especially from this place – as he knew better than anyone.’

‘Well it certainly won’t remain a secret now, whatever happens.’ Beyond the glass the Filipino silently worked his rosary beads. ‘Given that you confirm it was the Pope’s intention to make him a cardinal, it’s logical to assume his credentials are genuine. Therefore I don’t think we have any choice except to admit him.’