by James Green
Professor McBride held out the inspector’s warrant card holder.
‘Do you want me to wait, inspector?’
‘Thank you, Professor, but that will not be necessary. The matter is purely routine, one or two questions, nothing of importance. I would not want to waste your valuable time.’
‘Very well. Goodbye.’
The inspector went to the door and held it open.
The rector picked up the bag from the desk and left.
After the door had closed the inspector went and sat in the rector’s chair. It was funny, thought Jimmy, as he sat down on the hard chair, the number of people he had known who believed authority lay in locating your bum in the right chair.
‘I suppose you would have known I was a policeman as soon as you saw me, Mr Costello? After all, you were one yourself for many years in London before you decided to give it all up and come here to be a priest.’
His English was excellent and the amount of Italian accent he allowed to remain was just right to go with his appearance and his charm. But Jimmy didn’t believe in fairies any more than he believed in charming police inspectors no matter how Italian they sounded, so he made another mental note. If this smarmy bugger needed handling he would almost certainly have to be handled very carefully.
‘I didn’t take much notice of you but since you ask, no, I wouldn’t have taken you for a policeman. You look too expensive.’
He got the false, charming smile again.
‘First, Signor Costello …’ there was the briefest of pause but Jimmy left it at Signor Costello. He didn’t want this guy calling him Jimmy and thinking they could get friendly. He’d made sure they started off on the wrong foot and that’s where he wanted it to stay. ‘I must confirm certain details. You were a policeman in London, yes?’
Jimmy waited long enough for the policemen to be about to ask his question again and then suddenly answered.
‘Don’t I get to be told what this is all about?’ Jimmy looked at the eyes, they registered something – annoyance. That was good.
‘Certainly, Mr Costello, as soon as I know the information I have about you is accurate I will explain everything. I assure you it is nothing that you need to worry about.’
No, thought Jimmy, of course it isn’t. Why would being pulled in and questioned by a detective inspector worry anybody?
‘You were a policeman in London?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your department and rank?’
‘CID, a sergeant.’
‘You took early retirement?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why was that?’
Jimmy paused, the question wasn’t routine so the answer had to be right.
‘It was offered to me.’
‘Why was it offered?’
‘My superiors thought it best.’
‘And why was that?’
‘Ask them, it was their decision. I didn’t say I agreed with them.’
‘Would you have agreed with them?’
‘They never asked.’
‘But if they had?’
‘They didn’t.’
The policeman stopped for a moment.
‘Is there something about your retirement you are unwilling to tell me, Signor Costello? I assure you these questions are purely routine.’
‘Of course they are if you say they are. Look, I retired, what else is there to tell? Don’t policemen ever retire in Italy?’
‘Why are you being so unhelpful, Signor Costello? I merely wish to confirm the information I have been given about you. Your reasons for retirement were not at all problematic, were they?’
‘I don’t know.’
The inspector registered mock surprise.
‘You don’t know! How can you say you don’t know?’
‘I just open my mouth and let the words come out.’
That got a response, the temperature of the inspector’s voice dropped a couple of degrees.
‘You know very well what I mean, Mr Costello.’
Signor when he’s OK, Mister when he’s pissed off. A small thing but every little helped in this kind of game.
‘If I were to speculate out loud about me being problematic I would need to know who felt it was worthwhile to poke their nose into my past, what they were interested in, and why they looked in the first place. If I knew that I might be able to work out whether why I retired would be in any way problematic. For them, that is, it wasn’t a problem for me and still isn’t.’ Jimmy waited, but the inspector didn’t seem to have anything to say to he went on. ‘Of course even if I knew the who, what, and why it doesn’t mean I would tell them what they wanted to know, or tell anybody they sent sniffing around to get the information even if he was a police inspector.’
He’d finished what he wanted to say, so far as he could, so he waited.
The inspector abandoned the chair and went and stood by the window with his back to Jimmy. The sun was trying its best to shine through but it was always going to be a losing the battle. The policeman took out his sunglasses anyway and put them on. Maybe they helped him to stare at the grime. Or maybe they helped him think. Then he took them off, put them away, and came back to the desk and sat down.
‘All right, let’s say your retirement is your own affair.’
Jimmy managed his own smile; the Italian accent had completely gone.
‘The accent comes and goes, does it? When the rector was here you definitely sounded Italian even if you were speaking English.’
The inspector’s smile didn’t reappear. That was a good sign, that was progress.
‘I was born in Glasgow. I lived there until I was twelve, then my family moved to Rome. At university here I studied Modern English Literature and I did a year at Leicester University as part of the Erasmus exchange scheme. The accent is just for window dressing when I think the occasion benefits from it. It helps put people at their ease if they’re being questioned in English by an Italian copper. That OK, Jimmy?’ He gave the name a real Glasgow twang. ‘That answer your question?’ Jimmy didn’t say anything. He hadn’t really asked a question. ‘Look, I don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot and for some reason it seems you do. So how would it be if we stop pissing around and I tell you what this is all about?’
But Jimmy decided he wasn’t ready yet for an olive branch. He wanted to be firmly in the driving seat before he …
Suddenly everything changed.
What the hell was he doing? Why was he putting a wall between himself and this man? Why was he still clinging to the old rules? This was Rome, not London. He was in the rector’s office, not some bloody Met. nick. This wasn’t trust no one, like no one, let no one get close or ever know what you’re thinking. It wasn’t be ready to kick the shit out of them before they kick the shit out of you. It had to have changed. He had to have changed. For Bernie’s sake, for the sake of his grandchildren and the few years of happiness they’d given him.
‘All right, I’m listening.’
It wasn’t easy and it hadn’t come out anywhere near friendly, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. He told himself it was different now and there was no reason to worry if the police came into his life. He told himself he should try to co-operate if he could. He was a priest in training, he should want to help. That was what he told himself.
Unfortunately, he didn’t believe himself.
FOUR
‘I’ve been asked to look into the death of a visiting archbishop who died here a couple of years ago. Originally it wasn’t regarded as suspicious. Now, well, let’s say that it’s being treated in some quarters as an open question. I’ll be working independently, not in any police capacity; anything I find, if I find anything, will be off the record.’ He paused for a second. ‘Ask away, this isn’t meant to be a monologue.’
Jimmy was angry with himself. Five years out of the job and you get sloppy. You sit at a table with people you hardly know, having a few beers, and you tell them yo
ur fucking life story. A copper you’ve never seen before, with no reason that you know of for talking to you, tells you he’s looking into the death of some archbishop and as soon as he opens his mouth there’s a question written all over your bloody face.
But then his anger switched off. What the hell? It doesn’t matter any more. The Jimmy Costello who would care was dead, he died at a London hospital bedside.
So he asked his question.
‘If it’s police business why isn’t it official?’
‘I didn’t say the police were involved. I said I’d been asked to look into it.’
Jimmy shook his head.
‘No. That one gets right past me.’
‘As far as the local police or anybody else is concerned I’m on leave pending medical reports.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t worry, what I’m supposed to be suffering from won’t be catching.’
Jimmy managed to smile back. There, being like other people wasn’t so hard; you just had to make the effort.
‘OK, you’re a policeman who, at the moment, isn’t a policeman. Either way I’m getting interviewed. So, once again, what’s it about?’
‘I don’t know much, just what I’ve been told and what I could figure out for myself. Not long ago a high-powered but unofficial request got made to a minister. The person who made the request wanted an investigation into this archbishop’s death but it had to be strictly off the record, no official police involvement, but a capable officer was to be used. I got told I should go to the ministry which I did and got handed the job.’
‘Why you?’
The inspector shrugged.
‘Someone chose me, I don’t know who and I don’t know why. All I know is that I got sent to the minister.’
‘But you’re on sick leave.’
‘Someone arranged for me to be able to drop everything by creating a medical report which says I need to be given indefinite leave because I might have something and it may be serious.’
Jimmy was impressed.
‘Not such an easy thing to arrange.’
‘No, neither is telling a minister to set up an investigation but they both got done.’
‘So the sick leave is phoney?’
‘No one said as much. I keep in shape but you never know so I get checked. After the last one the doctor was a bit cagey, tests inconclusive, further tests needed. For a while I was worried.’
‘I can see how you would be.’
‘Then I got sent to see the minister. He knew about my medical and told me I had been given indefinite leave pending the results. While I was on leave he had a job for me.’
‘Neat. Somebody took a lot of trouble to choose you.’
‘They did.’
‘Why? Why you?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m good.’
‘This is a special, a very high-up special if a minister’s involved. In my day that would mean a superintendent at the very least and probably Special Branch, not some inspector from the plod squad.’
‘Yes, that thought occurred to me as well so I asked and it was made very clear that the whole thing was off-limits within the police community. Do as you’re told and don’t ask any more questions. That came from the commissioner himself which means the original request came from a very powerful source.’
‘Like who?’
‘I couldn’t say for certain, but this is Rome: who could tell a minister to jump through a hoop, fix a medical report, and make the police top brass keep their mouths tight shut and turn a blind eye to one of their own being commandeered?’
‘It’s your town, not mine.’
‘How about the people we’re with at the moment?’
‘What people.’
‘Here.’
The penny dropped.
‘The Vatican.’
‘The very same.’
Jimmy was even more impressed. The Church, he knew, was powerful and nowhere more so than here within its own city state.
‘And the death?’
‘As far as the world is concerned Archbishop Francis Xavier Cheng died a perfectly natural death and that’s how it will stay.’
‘Even if it turns out otherwise?’
‘There will never be any official police involvement. I will keep no records and there will no follow-up whatever I turn up. Just my report to the minister. There it ends.’
‘I see. It’s very high-level and ultra hush-hush, so you naturally arrange to come here and spill the whole thing to a complete outsider, me.’ The inspector smiled but didn’t say anything. Jimmy envied him his smile, it really worked. He also envied him this case. He was out of it, being a copper was behind him, finished, but that didn’t stop his professional interest from being roused. He was interested, that was all, just interested. It didn’t have to go anywhere. ‘OK, I don’t understand but at this point I guess that’s how you mean it to be, so keep going. For the time being I’m still listening.’
‘Archbishop Cheng was seventy-three years old and of the last thirty years twenty-two had been spent in one Chinese prison or another. He was released five years ago and placed under house arrest for one year after which he was allowed to resume his ministry. Just over two years ago he was given permission to come to Rome to see the pope. He had been here about three weeks when he became ill and died. It was unexpected but a seventy-year-old man who’s been in Chinese prisons for most of the last thirty years and still works a fourteen-hour day might be expected to have a pretty tenuous grip on life.’
‘So why wait two years and then decide the death needs looking into?’
The inspector shrugged.
‘Who can say? The Vatican does things in its own way and its own time. Maybe they know something now they didn’t know then.’
‘There was an autopsy?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did it turn up anything?’
‘Yes and no. In the normal course of events the autopsy would have been routine. Death was caused by asphyxia, suffocation brought on by respiratory depression. His breathing failed. He was a tired, frail old man and that sort of thing happens to tired, frail old men so you’d expect a quick autopsy to confirm natural causes, end of story. But it was anything but quick or routine, it was unusually thorough.’
‘Because?’
‘My guess is the Chinese. They would want to know exactly what had been the cause of death. The autopsy showed that he’d been badly knocked around over the years but they’d looked after him during his year’s house arrest, made sure he got back to being as physically OK as was possible after what he’d been through. For whatever inscrutable reason it seems they wanted him fit and back at work. Maybe they were beginning to trust him, perhaps even getting ready to work with him in some way. Whatever their motives, they’d got as far as letting him come to Rome and for the Chinese that’s trusting a Catholic archbishop a lot.’
‘You make it sound like you’re an expert on China?’
‘Not me, I got it all from someone who’s a serious China watcher. He says maybe Cheng was a try-out as a secure, unofficial contact between Beijing, the underground Catholic Church in China, and the Vatican. Cheng had never been a member of the government-approved Church and his time in prison proved his loyalty to the pope. He would have been ideal for some sort of go-between role.’
The more Jimmy listened the more he felt himself being drawn in. He told himself it wasn’t what he wanted, not what he’d come to Rome to do, but a lifetime’s work wasn’t so easily set aside. Part of him wanted to get up and walk out, to leave, to say it was none of his business and he wasn’t interested. But his legs didn’t move. He’d left it too late, he’d listened and he was interested. It was in his head now so he set his mind to work. It was unofficial which was bad and it was high level which made it worse. Unofficial meant the rules didn’t apply. With the rules you got some sort of protection and although rules could get broken they couldn’t be totally ignored. And anything involving the real high-ups meant the people pu
lling the strings and giving the orders were fireproof. It was always the foot soldiers, the expendable ones, the inspectors and sergeants who got their balls crushed and then got screwed and mostly they never got to know the real truth about whatever it was they were getting screwed for. That part of his mind which had wanted him to leave was almost shouting at him – have nothing to do with it, it’s none of your business, all you’ll do is get fucked. For God’s sake get up and walk away while you can. You’re not a copper now, you’re a priest in training, you want to put all that behind you, you came here to change, to be someone people can turn to for help. Someone who knows good from evil and does the right thing and does it willingly. All true of course and it all made sense. But another part of his mind said, for God’s sake you want this, this is what you do, what you’re good at, not pissing about pretending to be a priest. That will never happen and you know it. Stop sniffing at the fucking thing and get on with it.
FIVE
‘Did the autopsy turn up anything?’
‘They found a trace of some sort of opioid.’
The inspector pulled out a small notebook which he flicked open.
‘The nearest they could get was buprenorphine, an opioid analgesic which can bring on respiratory depression. No good to kill anyone who was fit and healthy, to do that the dose would have to be massive.’
‘But a frail old man?’
The inspector nodded.
‘If you had it in a form you could administer without the victim knowing, in a drink or in his food. It’s not conclusive. The trace was faint and he may well have been given morphine-related drugs for pain before coming to Rome. Like I said, the autopsy showed he’d been gone over more than a few times in prison. He would almost certainly have had enough residual pain to need some sort of medication. That could account for the trace.’
‘Is there anything else, anything new that’s turned up?’
‘Not that I’ve been told about.’
‘So, you’ve got an outside possibility of cause of death and that’s all you’ve got.’
