Death of a Chancellor (34 page)

Lady Lucy Powerscourt leaned forward and began a conversation with the two choirboys she had spoken to before. She was just about to invite them to tea when a loud voice interrupted her.

‘Lady Powerscourt,’ said Wyndham. ‘Perhaps we could have a word after everybody has left.’ The voice, Lady Lucy thought, was harsh, the tone rather menacing. Surely you
could talk to one of these dear little boys, who always looked so frightened, without the intervention of higher authority?

‘Forgive me, Lady Powerscourt,’ said the choirmaster when they were the only two people left in St Nicholas’ Church. ‘I have seen you on previous occasions trying to
converse with the junior members of my choir. It is strictly forbidden.’

It sounds as if he is German, Lady Lucy thought, memories of the word
verboten
coming into her mind from German lessons with her governess. ‘And why is that, pray?’ she said.
‘I do not mean them any harm. I was only going to invite them to tea.’

‘At this time, Lady Powerscourt, the choir have a great deal of work to do. Not only are they working on the
Messiah.
They are also learning a lot of new music for the thousandth
anniversary of the cathedral. They must not be disturbed in any way.’

‘I would not wish to interfere with their progress,’ said Lady Lucy, wondering why the man had laid such emphasis on the new music for the thousandth anniversary. Maybe she should
tell Francis about it.

‘If you interfere any further, or try to talk to any of the boys again, I shall have no alternative, Lady Powerscourt.’

‘No alternative to what?’ said Lady Lucy, thinking the whole conversation was rather incredible.

‘I shall have no alternative,’ said choirmaster Wyndham severely, ‘but to expel you from the choir.’

With that he stalked out of the church. Lady Lucy had never been expelled from anything in her entire life. She did not propose to start now.

The plaster primroses commemorating Rosebery’s family name were in full bloom outside his front door in Berkeley Square. Leith the butler, famed throughout
Rosebery’s acquaintance for his encyclopedic knowledge of the train timetables of Britain and Europe, opened the door and showed Powerscourt into the library. Rosebery and Powerscourt had
been friends since their schooldays and Rosebery had been an invaluable ally in many of Powerscourt’s previous cases.

‘Come in, Francis, take a seat. I shall be with you in a second.’

Rosebery was finishing a letter at the great desk by the window that looked out into the square. ‘I’m trying to buy a library from a fellow down in Hampshire,’ he said, adding
an ornate signature to the bottom of his letter. ‘He has an invaluable collection of documents and books relating to the Civil War. The only problem is that he thinks they are worth a lot
more than I do.’

Powerscourt saw that portraits of the Rosebery children had replaced the racehorses on either side of the black marble fireplace. Maybe the horses were out of favour.

‘Now then . . .’ Rosebery seated himself opposite his friend. ‘Thank you for your letter. I think I can help with one or two things. This disagreeable business of exhuming a
body down in Compton. I take it you now have the relevant papers from the police? You do? Then I shall have it for you tomorrow.’

Powerscourt handed over a couple of letters that had been waiting for him in Markham Square.

‘I mentioned it to Schomberg McDonnell the other day,’ said Rosebery, sounding rather pleased with his ability to manipulate the system. Schomberg McDonnell was the Prime
Minister’s Private Secretary. ‘He said that after your invaluable service to the Crown in South Africa, an exhumation order was but a small thing to ask. He will obtain the necessary
signatures.’

Powerscourt wondered if he could avoid the exhumation, the body brought from the grave in the middle of the night, the crowbars opening the coffin before its time, the medical people poring over
the cadaver. He wondered if there was another way.

‘I am most impressed, Rosebery,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘I have two questions for you. Have you ever heard of an organization called Civitas Dei?’

Rosebery looked at his friend very carefully. ‘You are moving in deep and dangerous waters, Francis. Yes, I have heard of it, when I was Foreign Secretary, I believe. There was a briefing
paper on the organization from some of our people in Rome. They suspected that they acted as outriders, the auxiliaries, the unofficial wing, if you like, of the Jesuits and the College of
Propaganda in the Vatican. Their function was to perform in the dark what the Church could not countenance in the daylight. If anything was discovered about their activities, it could, of course,
be denied.’

‘But what is their purpose, Rosebery, what are they for?’ said Powerscourt, realizing that whenever anybody talked about Civitas Dei, they were grasping at shadows.

‘Nobody knows for certain,’ Rosebery replied, staring at the books on the opposite wall. ‘I don’t think they are going to nail a proclamation with ninety-five theses on
to the door of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, if you see what I mean. Their objectives are to increase the power and influence of the Catholic Church by all means at their disposal. And people say
they are none too scrupulous about the means, either. The former Ambassador to Rome, Sir Roderick Lewis, lives just round the corner from you, Francis. He would know more than I do. Or maybe not.
But I could drop him an introductory note if you think that would help your inquiries? Could you call on him tomorrow morning?’

‘That would be most kind, Rosebery. Let me now ask you my second question. I think I may need to get in touch with the Archbishop of Canterbury at very short notice. How do I do
that?’

Rosebery looked closely at his friend.

‘It’s all right, Rosebery, I’m not losing my wits. Sometimes I think the conclusions in this case may be quite incredible, but I am not yet in a position to say what they might
be. At first, you see, I thought there was just one riddle in Compton Minster. Now I think there may be two, perhaps three. And solving one may not mean that I have solved the others. They could
each be in separate boxes. But to return to my question, what is the quickest route to the Archbishop of Canterbury?’

‘His Private Secretary is a delightful young man called Lucas, Archibald Lucas. He was a scholar and fellow of Keble before taking up his new position.’ Rosebery went to his desk and
pulled out an enormous address book. ‘He’s to be found at Lambeth Palace most of the time, occasionally at Canterbury. Perhaps you’d like to take a note of the postal and the
telegraphic addresses.’

The little town of Ledbury St John was right at the outer limit of Johnny Fitzgerald’s collection of Roman Catholic churches. The church itself, dedicated to the Blessed
Virgin Mary, stood at the very edge of the place as if the local council were slightly ashamed at having to give it house room. Johnny himself, feeling rather hungry after his long ride, was
lurking at the edge of the graveyard. He could see two out of the three directions that potential worshippers might come from. A few locals passed, probably on their way to work in some of the
outlying farms. Dawn was breaking over the town, a pale light seeping in over the rooftops. At twenty past seven two figures, dressed in black, he thought, made their way in through a side door.
They seemed to have their own key, as there was a lot of rustling before the right implement was found. By twenty-five past the lights were lit inside the church, but no worshippers had yet
appeared. At seven twenty-eight Johnny slipped in through the main door and took his seat at the very rear of the church. There was only one other member of the congregation, kneeling at the front,
his face fixed on a painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary above the altar where the Blessed Sacrament was already in position.

The priest, not more than thirty years old, Johnny thought, kissed the altar. The worshipper at the front genuflected, Johnny following uncertainly behind.

‘
In nomine Patris et Filli et Spiritus Sanctl
,’ said the priest, making the sign of the Cross. In the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit.

‘
Gratia domini nostri Iesu Christi, et caritas Dei, et communicatio Sancti Spiritus sit cum omnibus vobis.
’ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Johnny Fitzgerald was staring very closely at the man celebrating Mass. He tiptoed further up the aisle to a place with a better and a closer view of the altar. The service carried on.

‘
Confiteor Deo omnipotente et vobis, fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, opere et ommissione.
’ I confess to you, Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault in thought, word and deed, in the things I have done and the things I have failed to do.’

The little congregation struck their breasts, lightly in the case of the priest, severely in the case of the lone worshipper, vigorously in the case of Johnny Fitzgerald. If only the man would
turn round once or twice so he could get a proper look at him.

‘
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
’ The fault is with me, the fault is with me, the fault is greatly with me.

Then Johnny knew. There was something in the profile of the man at the altar that made him certain. For he had seen him before. This priest celebrating Mass in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the parish of Ledbury St John was the same man who had
been conducting the service of Evensong in the Cathedral of Compton five days before.

Sir Roderick Lewis, former Ambassador from the Court of St James to the Court of Umberto, King of Italy, was wearing a smock and had a paintbrush in his hand when Powerscourt
was shown into his study. There were, Powerscourt discovered, a number of surprising facets to Sir Roderick’s character. The first was that he loathed Italy. And, especially, he loathed Rome.
Its inhabitants did not rate much higher in his estimation.

‘Frightful place, Powerscourt. Perfectly acceptable if you’re a tourist and only there for a couple of days. But to live there! All that terrible food! All that dreadful olive oil!
And those vulgar wines they’re so proud of that no proper Englishman would ever let into his cellar! I was never surprised the place killed Keats, you know. The bastards have even got
Shelley’s heart. Killed one of my predecessors, Lord Vivian, too. And the Romans! God only knows how they acquired an empire all that time ago, Powerscourt. Couldn’t find their way out
of a paper bag now, if you ask me. Intrigue, double dealing, treachery – diplomacy became a process of accommodation with a collection of particularly slippery eels.’

Powerscourt wondered if it was official Foreign Office policy to despatch the representatives of His Majesty to the places they loathed the most. Russia haters to St Petersburg, Ireland haters
to Dublin, Americaphobes to Washington. Perhaps he could ask Rosebery

‘What’s more,’ Sir Roderick went on, staring balefully at the watercolour of Hampton Court taking uncertain form on his easel, ‘Rosebery tells me you want to know about
Civitas Dei. Civitas Dei means the Vatican. The Vatican means the Pope. The Pope means the Curia and the self-serving collection of the sycophantic, the devious and the ambitious who make up the
Papal bureaucracy.’

With that he placed a blob of blue paint in the place where the sky should have been. It did not look right.

‘Damn!’ said Sir Roderick. ‘Look what the bloody Vatican has made me do now. I’ll have to wipe that off.’

‘What do we know about Civitas Dei?’ asked Powerscourt as the former Ambassador dabbed ineffectually at his watercolour with a piece of cloth. ‘I mean know for
certain.’

‘We know nothing for certain about them, Powerscourt. If the affairs of the Vatican are shrouded in mist, the affairs of Civitas Dei are surrounded by impenetrable fog, much worse than we
get in London.’ He tried another splash of blue right above the roof of Hampton Court. Powerscourt was sure the roof was crooked but felt it might be better not to point this out. This time
it worked. Sir Roderick’s temper improved briefly.

‘Very rich backers,’ he went on, fiddling with his brushes as he spoke. ‘Aim the improvement in fortunes if not the supremacy of the Catholic Church. Number of priests believed
to be members. Very shadowy inner group based in Rome itself.’

‘You make them sound a bit like Freemasons, Sir Roderick,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Don’t think these characters have much time for aprons and funny handshakes, if you ask me,’ Sir Roderick replied, ‘much more like the thumbscrew alternating with the
crucifix. What is amazing are the variety and the improbability of the rumours that circulate about them.’

The former Ambassador raised another brush full of blue. His hand hovered over where the river ought to be. Powerscourt hoped the Thames wasn’t going to be the same shade as the sky.

‘Rumour flows around Rome like the water supply, Powerscourt. There are pipes sunk into the ground to hasten its passage from place to place, aqueducts old and new to ferry it over the
difficult terrain. Turn on the tap, ask a Roman to speak, and out it flows, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, more often, with their useless engineers, tepid if you want to take a bath. But the
rumours flow, just like the water.’

Sir Roderick paused and raised his brush high above his canvas, as if poised to strike.

‘In the last two years, Powerscourt, we have had to listen to the following fantastic accounts of the power of the Civitas Dei. They were responsible for the recent change of government in
Brazil. Any sane person would have told you it was their disastrous economic policies that brought that about. They have recently, if we are to believe the rumours, been responsible for the
appointment of a new Minister of Finance in Madrid. Previous fellow was caught with his hand in the till. Two out of three cardinals appointed this past year are said to be leading members of the
organization. There was even a rumour that they had a great work afoot in England itself which would cause a sensation when it happened. Rumours, all rumours, not a word of truth in any of
it.’