Stealing God (12 page)

Jimmy wondered why there were so few accidents. One day of this madness in London and the roads would be strewn with crash-helmeted corpses. But for Rome this was pure routine.

Ricci pulled across the traffic and turned down a side street which in turn took them into a narrower street behind a big government building. On one side were the high, unlovely backs of the government offices and on the other, high blank brick walls. Warehouses, maybe, or factories, whatever they were they didn't set a high premium on light, not on this side anyway. They came to an arched entrance originally designed for coach and horses, it was still big enough for a car or small van to get in, but nothing bigger. Ricci turned in and stopped. Immediately beyond the arch was a modern barrier blocking the access to a wide, deep, cobbled yard. Once this yard had rattled to coach wheels and horses' hooves and would have had plenty of stabling adjacent to it. Today tyres made almost no noise and the stables were gone. In their place was a guardroom not dissimilar to the one behind the security fence at the Vatican. A soldier in army fatigues appeared from the low building; he had a clipboard in his hand and an automatic rifle slung round his shoulder. He came to the car. Another face watched them from the guardroom window. Ricci slid the window down, showed his ID, and gave his name. The guard took the ID, checked the photo, and checked Ricci. Then he checked his list, gave Ricci back his ID, and looked into the car at Jimmy. Ricci also looked.

‘OK, now what? Do you get us shot or what?'

‘Does he know who you're here to see?' Ricci nodded. ‘Then tell him you have an unscheduled visitor with you, give him my name, and ask him to OK it with your man inside. Tell him you apologise for not being able to give him any notice. Do it all slow and easy.'

The soldier stood impassively, he may have understood what was said but if he did he didn't register any kind of response. He just stood while Ricci spoke but a second guard came out of the hut and walked to where she had a clear field of fire at the car. Her automatic was in her hands but held, for the moment, casually. Ricci finished speaking and the guard went back into the hut. The other guard just stood in the same place but now she wasn't holding her weapon so casually and the barrel was pointing at the car. After a few minutes Clipboard came back. He spoke to Ricci who turned to Jimmy.

‘He wants to see some ID. For God's sake, say you've got some.' Jimmy put his hand slowly into his inside jacket pocket, took out his passport, and passed it to Ricci who passed it on. The guard looked inside it, looked in at Jimmy, then he handed the passport back to Ricci, and said something to the other guard who didn't respond but kept looking at the car. Ricci handed Jimmy his passport while the guard wrote something on the list on his clipboard. ‘He's adding your name. He says to get a temporary pass inside at the reception desk.'

The guard raised the barrier and they drove into a courtyard where a few cars were already parked and three bulk waste bins stood against a wall. As Jimmy got out of the car he wondered how they got emptied; the entrance would never take a refuse lorry big enough to handle them even assuming a refuse lorry could get down the narrow street as far as the entrance. The yard itself managed to retain some of the elegance of a bygone age, it was clean with three old stone troughs by the walls which had once watered horses but now acted as planters for well-tended displays. With a little imagination you could imagine carriages on the cobbles and liveried servants bustling about. But the back of the building was different. It was several storeys of grimed-over brickwork with small windows and festooned with cabling conduits. There were also several big, ugly air-conditioning boxes and plenty of black drain pipes. This was the side of the building where the waste came out and the likes of Jimmy and Ricci went in.

They walked across the cobbles; the guard who had come out of the hut watched them all the way, the muzzle of her gun tracking them until they reached a heavy, black door. They went into the building, along a dim corridor with a bare stone floor, through another door into another corridor where the floor had some hard-wearing covering and better lighting, then through yet another door into what was obviously the main reception area.

This was front-of-house where the people who mattered came and went. It was all style and elegance. The ceiling was high and elaborate. The floor was still stone, but now it was marble, inlaid with patterns. The two guards who stood not far from the entrance wore smart uniforms but both had their automatics in their hands and watched as Jimmy and Ricci were electronically swept by a civilian who had been by the door as they came in. Once they were waved on the guards lost interest. From the moment the car arrived at the barrier, and maybe before in the narrow street, they had been watched. It was the Vatican all over again but on a larger scale: everything looked Renaissance except the security which looked and felt very modern.

Ricci led the way to a small desk where again he showed his ID and got checked off on a list. He clipped his pass to his jacket top pocket and began the business of getting a temporary pass for Jimmy. A phone call was made, the passport brought out again and taken away. There was the inevitable wait but finally Jimmy got his passport back, a pass was issued, and they crossed the hall to the lifts.

Their man was on the third floor which made him important. His office was high enough to be out of the noise of the street but not so high that the rooms had become small. They walked down a thickly carpeted corridor and stopped at a door. Ricci knocked and they waited.

‘Knock again.'

‘He heard. He'll tell us to come in when he's ready. He's probably pissed off for having to OK you without notice and then having to wait while we got your pass.'

After a short while a voice called them in.

It was a spacious, baroque room with large windows letting in plenty of light. From the ceiling there hung two elaborate chandeliers surrounded by roundels of delicate plasterwork. The rest of the ceiling was covered with a painting of well-fed, naked young ladies who were about to get up to naughty things with some small men who had pointed ears, pointed beards, and goats' legs. The whole thing was framed at the walls by fancy, gilded plasterwork. In each corner of the plaster decoration were four, chubby, naked cherubs looking down and smiling broadly as if thoroughly amused by what was going on below. Things changed abruptly below the gilding. The walls were painted in a neutral colour and devoid of any decoration, no patterns, no pictures, no mirrors, only one severely elegant wall clock with a barely audible tick. The floor was also neutral, covered with a light-coloured carpet, the sort you put down if it wasn't going to get trodden on by feet that saw a lot of street work. The few pieces of furniture were ultra-modern chic with two smallish abstract bronzes on chrome stands to add a dash of contemporary culture. It was all as if someone had wanted to make the strongest possible contrast with the ceiling which spoke of pleasure and dalliance during a time when office chic hadn't existed and what interested artists was never abstract.

Jimmy liked it all. It appealed, especially the centre-piece, a large desk with thick, chrome legs and a black, leather-covered top. It was all vaguely ridiculous and the cherubs, he felt, still saw the funny side. The man behind the desk obviously didn't. Either he was chewing a wasp or he was angry and about to let them know it.

He rapped out something in Italian. Inspector Ricci's voice was apologetic, almost humble.

‘Signor Costello speaks very poor Italian.'

The minister's aide looked at Jimmy. The wasp gave him trouble again. He should stop chewing it, thought Jimmy.

‘Sit down.'

There were no chairs at the desk, only two either side of an incongruous, delicate wooden table that had a crystal vase of fresh flowers on it. They dutifully collected their chairs, put them in front of the desk, and sat down.

The cut of the aide's dark suit did its best to hide his chubbiness and was so expensive it almost succeeded. He had a fullish face and curly, fair hair. Jimmy pigeonholed him at once, real plaster-gilding material, pure Cinquecento, a bad-tempered cherub in a sharp suit, as vaguely ridiculous as the office which he fitted to perfection.

‘Perhaps you can explain, Inspector, why Mister Costello has to be present and without any notice?'

It was Jimmy who answered.

‘Because as far as I'm concerned the investigation is over.' The aide slowly turned his disapproving gaze. ‘Inspector Ricci doesn't agree. I phoned him this morning and told him to pick me up and bring me so that I could tell you personally. Inspector Ricci made it clear that my coming unannounced was highly irregular and I almost certainly wouldn't be admitted, but I insisted and threatened to withdraw completely from the investigation unless he brought me. So here I am.'

The aide looked back to Ricci.

‘I am not satisfied, Inspector, that you have …'

‘It was the Chinese.' The cherub's eyes snapped back to Jimmy. ‘On the basis of the evidence we have been given and as a result of our own enquiries which have been as thorough as circumstances have allowed I have come to the conclusion that either Archbishop Cheng died of natural causes aggravated by many years of systematic ill-treatment or he was murdered by an agent of the Chinese government because he represented a threat to their internal security.' Ricci looked down at the backs of his hands. They suddenly seemed to have a fascination for him. ‘There being no further information available to us I consider our investigation to be at an end. I am quite happy for Inspector Ricci to put in a dissenting report from my conclusions but my decision on this matter is final and I now consider the matter closed. I also consider that, having given my fullest cooperation, I am now free to return to my studies.'

That was that. Now it was up to the cherub.

The aide's eyes were still angry but now there was something else: doubt. He turned back to Ricci and said something in Italian. Ricci looked at Jimmy and began to speak slowly but his expression made it clear that it was Jimmy's hand and he had to play it out.

‘The minister's aide says …'

Jimmy didn't wait.

‘I didn't ask to be part of this and I understand that Inspector Ricci actively tried to have me removed but was overruled. As I said, we have done all that can be done with the information we have been given. Either you can accept my conclusions or …'

It was crunch time. Jimmy let his last word hang and looked at the aide.

‘Or?'

‘Or you arrange a direct contact between me and a representative of whoever originated this investigation and arranged for me to be involved. If I am to continue as part of all this,' Jimmy paused; he wanted to be sure he created the right effect, ‘there are certain questions I need to ask and they cannot be asked through intermediaries or functionaries.' The choice of words couldn't have had more effect. The aide looked at Jimmy with cold fury in his eyes, but before he could speak Jimmy had stood up. ‘Good, now that's done I'll go. Thank you, Inspector, for bringing me. Goodbye, Mister …?'

But the aide didn't volunteer a name. He just looked at Jimmy with a stare in which anger and loathing were nicely blended with pure amazement. A well-dressed cherub who'd bitten into a bad oyster in his favourite restaurant. Well, at least the wasp was gone.

Jimmy turned and left the office, walked back along the corridor, and went down in the lift to Reception where he handed back his pass and left the building through the main door, the one that the people who mattered used.

Outside, in the sunshine, he felt great. He hadn't felt this good for … oh, how long? Well, a very long time indeed.

He walked along the street smiling. Forgotten Games of the Past: Squashing the Snotty Bastard.

The smile became a grin. No, he hadn't felt like this since Moses was in the fire brigade and Pontius was a bloody pilot.

EIGHTEEN

They walked into the restaurant. Ricci ignored the welcome; he wasn't in a mood to be polite to waiters.

‘You did well to walk out.'

‘He took it badly, did he?'

‘What do you think? Cannot be asked through intermediaries or functionaries. For God's sake. Nobody must have talked to him like that since,' he paused trying to find the right words and failed, ‘for a very long time. You couldn't have offended him more if you'd punched him on the nose.'

‘I couldn't do that, it would spoil his face.'

Ricci gave him a sideways glance. He said odd things and did odd things. He was a difficult man pin down.

They sat down at a table and Ricci ordered two coffees. Jimmy watched the waiter go. It was the same one as before and he had given him the look again.

‘I see I'm still a bag-snatcher,'

There it was again.

‘And what the hell is that supposed to mean?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Then why say it?'

Ricci's mood didn't lighten so Jimmy looked around. It still wasn't busy.

‘Why do we have to come here? Why can't we go somewhere else, somewhere … well somewhere that's not like here.'

‘You mean somewhere cheap and dirty like your bar?'

‘I like it. At least it's not a morgue like this place.'

‘And I like it here because here it's on expenses.' Ricci decided that what was done was done, and anyway, it hadn't gone so very badly. In fact it had been quite a show. ‘I need to be a regular in a few places like this so I can blend in.'

‘So what is it you do exactly, when you're not busy dying from something terminal and running unofficial investigations for the minister?'

‘I suppose there's no harm in you knowing. I work in the …' he paused, looking for the right words; this time he found them, ‘… what might get called in London, the Glitz Squad.'