Gospel Truths

by J. G. Sandom

  “Yes, sir.” Inspector Lyman looked beyond the window. He had never even known where the Falklands were before Peter had enlisted. He had only known the name from reading it on those little plastic tags clipped to the lamb his butcher sold in Golders Green. One of Jackie’s cousins had once visited the South Atlantic islands. She had even sent some picture postcards back, but Lyman could not remember if they were still down in the cellar, in that box, or if his ex-wife had removed them with the rest of her belongings.

  Jackie had gone back to Winchester after the divorce. The Falklands war was all but forgotten. Now everyone obsessed about Iraq. And all that remained of Peter was his little mongrel, George, who had found his roundabout way back to Lyman. Jackie hadn’t wanted him. He shed too much. He ruined her clothes. He too was now superfluous.

  “On the other hand,” the chief superintendent added, chopping a hand through the air, “if the personal life of one of my men interferes with his work, then I am forced to take a position. And believe you me, when I take a position, I do so with vigor. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lyman said.

  “I took a risk with you, Lyman. I did your uncle a favor. A lot of people thought that I was being bloody silly, taking in a country constable, despite your success with that so-called College Killer. What am I meant to tell them now?”

  “That they were right, perhaps.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Lyman. Buck up. Pull yourself together.”

  Lyman realized with a start that the chief superintendent was a desperate man. He scowled behind his desk, meshing his narrow fingers like a pair of combs, then pulling them apart. If Cocksedge fell, it would be from greater heights, and this is what concerned him.

  The City of London Police were traditionally an indigenous brood. Cocksedge had been somewhat daring in his hiring of Lyman, although it had really been the public and the press who had authorized the move. For Lyman had once enjoyed a fortnight in the sun, after the daring capture of a history teacher who had systematically dismembered several young boys at a prestigious public school in Hampshire. The “Case of the College Killer,” as the Daily Mail had called it, had thrown the young inspector live into the hungry crowd. With his newfound notoriety and Jackie’s passion for the city, he had moved to London, forever silencing the editorials and all the righteous politicians who had growled, “Why aren’t there any Nigel Lymans solving crimes here in London?” He had come and been forgotten, his flirtation with the people but a summer romance after all. “I’m sorry, sir,” Lyman answered finally. “Of course you can’t say that.”

  The chief superintendent settled back in his chair, a faint smile pulling at his lips. “Now, about this Crosley matter,” he added softly. “Why don’t you tell me, in your own words, exactly what happened, so that we can settle this thing once and for all. Sit down. Take your time.”

  Lyman pulled a chair up beside the desk. “Thank you, sir,” he said. He reached into his jacket and removed a pack of Players cigarettes. “May I?” The chief superintendent nodded. Lyman packed a cigarette with care.

  “It wasn’t just an ordinary case,” he said, striking a match and lighting up. “That’s why we were armed, according to the directive.” A blue sigh of smoke rolled across the desk. “First there was that blond girl with the gardening trowel in her chest. And then all those others.”

  Cocksedge grunted an acknowledgment.

  Lyman told him of the investigation. His voice was calm, devoid of emphasis.

  “We thought it was Spendlove all along—Crosley especially. There was something about him neither of us felt quite right about.”

  He took a long drag off his cigarette, remembering. “We went to pick him up on Friday morning.”

  “Who’s we? Be specific, man.”

  “Constable Crosley and I, Detective Sergeant Thompson, and Constable John Sykes. Thompson and Sykes stayed downstairs, watching the window, while Crosley and I went upstairs. At first everything went smoothly.

  Spendlove appeared as if he’d been expecting us. We showed him the warrant and he just fell apart, crying and pulling at his hair. He looked spent.”

  “Why wasn’t he handcuffed?”

  “We were about to when he bolted for the door. Crosley ran after him.”

  “What did you do?”

  “First I shouted down to Sykes and told him what had happened. Then I followed Geoffrey—Constable Crosley, I mean. He had tackled Spendlove on the landing. It was then I saw the knife. Spendlove must have hidden it in his jacket. I was too far away to help, so I drew my gun and shouted out the warning.”

  Lyman paused. He took a final puff from his cigarette and snapped the burning head off in the ashtray on the desk.

  The chief superintendent swiveled in his chair. “Go on,” he said.

  “Then they both got up. Spendlove was on the far side of the landing, with Crosley caught between us. That’s when Spendlove stabbed him.”

  “Is that all? Wasn’t Crosley armed? The suspect was clearly dangerous.”

  Lyman nodded. “Yes, he was armed,” he answered dreamily. “I had my weapon trained on Spendlove. I remember that. I was just about to squeeze the trigger when Sergeant Thompson fired. People had already started looking out their doors. It was a bit of a riot after that, sir, I’m afraid.”

  “I see,” Cocksedge said. “I understand.” He nodded firmly. “You never had a clear shot, is that it? You couldn’t pick him off while they were struggling.”

  Lyman nodded. “Yes, that was it. I couldn’t really see. He was a good lad, Crosley. Too young to die like that.”

  “Of course he was,” Cocksedge answered angrily. “But he knew what his job was. He knew the risks. Don’t go blaming yourself now.” The chief superintendent shook his head. “He was about your son’s age, wasn’t he? Yes, I thought so. It wasn’t your fault, Lyman. It was just bad luck. The question is, of course, what now?”

  “Sir? A review, I suppose.”

  “Do you? Well, don’t suppose. Let me do the supposing. That’s my job. I don’t think we need a review. It seems pretty clear to me. Crosley didn’t use his gun, did he? That mistake cost him his life.” Cocksedge reached unceremoniously across his desk and pushed a button on the intercom. “Where’s Randall, Mrs. Clanger?”

  “Out here, sir,” crackled the reply.

  “Well, send him in. I haven’t got all day.”

  The chief superintendent stared at Lyman with a flat, mishandled smile. Lyman felt he should respond, but he wasn’t sure what to say. He had expected a dismissal, or a suspension at the very least. Now Cocksedge did not even want to open a review.

  Lyman heard the door behind him open, and then the almost soundless, precious patter of familiar footsteps. It was the Lemur, Superintendent Terry Randall. Lyman stood.

  Superintendent Randall was a tiny compact man with curly light brown hair and a pronounced jaw. It was this almost simian aspect of his countenance that had earned him his nickname; that and his quick ascent of the police department’s hierarchy. Just as the lemur had survived the age of dinosaurs, so Randall had succeeded where his senior but ungainly competition had succumbed.

  “Right,” Cocksedge added, waving Randall to the side. “I think the best thing in a case like this is to push on. There’ll be some ugly talk for a while. That’s only natural. But I’m sure you’ll manage. Won’t he, Terry?”

  The Lemur nodded. “Yes, sir. Like riding a horse.”

  “Exactly,” Cocksedge said. “You have to get back on and forge ahead. All this mooning about will only serve to raise more questions.”

  “And nobody wants that,” the Lemur said. “Do they, Lyman?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Then we’re all agreed,” Cocksedge said. “The first thing to do is put you on another case. You were on that Pontevecchio suicide last year, weren’t you? That Italian banker who hanged himself off Blackfriars Bridge.”

  “Not exactly, sir. I heard that I might b
e assigned, but the inquest was closed by the time the official word came through.”

  “Of course. Well, some silly judge has reopened the case and he’s given us another inning. Apparently he thinks the inquest was closed too soon. Terry has the details. He’ll give you the files. And you might want to have a chat with Hadley too, if you can pry him loose from his damn garden. Hadley was the one in charge. Did a fine job, if you ask me. But of course, no one does.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lyman began to move back toward the door.

  “By the way,” Cocksedge added. “You speak Italian, don’t you?”

  Lyman looked surprised. “No, sir. Some French. My mother was from Brittany.”

  “Quite. I knew it was a Romance. Well, brush up on your damned Italian. You may need it. That’ll be all.”

  The Lemur opened the door and Lyman started out, his head in a spin. He barely saw the sour face Mrs. Clanger made as he walked by. The lift arrived and he stepped in like a sleepwalker, the Lemur pulling up the rear.

  “Saved again, eh, Nigel?” the Lemur said.

  “Don’t tell me I have you to thank.”

  “Not likely. If there’s anyone to thank, I suppose it’s the famous College Killer. Without him you’d have never made the telly.”

  “What are you driving at, Randall?”

  The Lemur leaned against the wall, his hands knotted in the pockets of his brown wool suit. “You’re a bit thick these days, aren’t you, Lyman?” he said. “That’s the odd thing about the telly. When you’ve been on once, you bloody near belong to it. But it wouldn’t do if this Crosley business got about. The whole department would go on trial—not just you. You’re a symbol, Lyman. God help us, but you are. The people picked you. And the people never make mistakes.”

  The lift opened with a creak and the Lemur started toward his office, his narrow shoulders bouncing as he walked.

  Lyman moved slowly in his wake, trying to raise some passionate conviction, some righteous indignation, but his anger languished deep inside him, countered by the fear he felt, the certainty that the Lemur’s sharp appraisal had been absolutely true. He had become a symbol. But of what? The dubious detective inspector? The coward who had failed to listen when a fellow constable but half his age had cried out for the shot, had shrieked for it? “Shoot, Nigel. Bloody shoot!” Yet what if he had missed?

  He hastened down the corridor and as he stepped into the Lemur’s tiny office, all he could think of was the ending of another poem Chief Superintendent Cocksedge often quoted. It was by Wilfred Owen, a writer Lyman favored to Sassoon, and it concerned the meeting of two foot soldiers in hell, two symbols of the First World War.

  “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

  I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned

  Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

  I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

  Let us sleep now…”

  Chapter II

  LONDON

  August 10th, 1991

  THE LEMUR’S OFFICE WAS ONLY HALF THE SIZE OF THE chief superintendent’s, yet to Lyman it appeared much larger. The walls were barren except for one small window and a dryboard made of light gray plastic on which the superintendent had imposed a cobweb of black lines, columns of names and numbers inscrutably attached to projects and assignments. A PC purred upon his desk. A telephone kept it company. There was nothing else, except for two tan imitation leather chairs, one just the slightest bit more padded than the other. The Lemur was already slipping into it.

  “What do you know about banking?” the superintendent asked.

  “I generally use postal orders myself.”

  “I don’t mean banks. I mean banking, finance.”

  Lyman did not answer. The Lemur was barking through the telephone. “Pontevecchio, yes,” he said, covering the mouthpiece and raising his eyebrows. “Yes, all of them.” He hung up.

  “Precious little, I’m afraid.”

  A moment passed and a chubby girl with an armful of files appeared at the door. The Lemur motioned her forward and she slipped them carefully onto his desk. Lyman recognized her. She was one of Dotty Taylor’s friends. He had seen them sharing lunch in the Wimpy’s down the road.

  The Lemur plucked a file of photographs from the pile on his desk, and tossed it to Lyman. “I’ll make this simple for you,” he said. “There were three central players in this clever little game.” He pointed to the foremost snapshot in the file. “That first fellow with the rope about his neck is Salvatore Pontevecchio.”

  Lyman stared down at the photograph, wondering at the way the head was squeezed off to the side. “I remember the newspaper stories.”

  “Yes, but one can’t always believe what one reads in the press.”

  In the beginning, Lyman had thought the Lemur’s little barbs were cast for his exclusive pleasure. They weren’t, of course. Randall made a religion of alienation. He did it to everyone who could not help him by the way. He always had.

  “I personally believe the blighter hanged himself,” the Lemur added with uncharacteristic candor. “In my opinion, the man was done for and he knew it. The file is comprehensive. I looked it over again this morning.

  “Suffice it to say, Salvatore Pontevecchio was the chairman of one of the largest private banks in Italy, Banco Fabiano. By using his position at Fabiano, he was able to misappropriate vast sums of money from the numerous financial institutions he controlled in Italy, and then transfer them illegally to a motley collection of paper companies in such tax havens as Luxembourg and the Bahamas. Chinese boxes, really. For added secrecy and protection he often used the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, commonly called the IOR or Vatican Bank, as a financial conduit to smuggle the cash out of the country. The Vatican is considered an independent state within Italy, you see, with its own laws and regulations.

  “The head of the Vatican Bank at that time was—and still is, presumably through divine intervention—gentleman number two: Archbishop Kazimierz Grabowski. The banker Pontevecchio acted as economic advisor to Archbishop Grabowski. In exchange for providing the Church with financial insights and spectacular profits, Pontevecchio obtained the secrecy of the sottane nere, the black cassocks of the Vatican.”

  “A blind eye,” Lyman volunteered. He looked down at the photograph of the archbishop. Grabowski was a big man. He was standing in the street before a crowd, wearing a dark business suit and clerical collar, his arms extended as if to hold the people back, his head bowed, his eyes glaring at the camera.

  “Eventually,” the Lemur continued, “the money which Salvatore Pontevecchio had transferred illegally through the Vatican Bank made its circuitous way back to Italy. Usually it was then spent in speculation on the Milan stock market, or invested in arms and narcotics. Pontevecchio and Archbishop Grabowski both made money, at least in the beginning. It was easy for them to predict when a company’s shares were on the rise because they were the ones driving the prices up, through their shell firms overseas. Of course they had some help. To secure his position on the Banco Fabiano board, and to protect himself politically, Pontevecchio sought the assistance of the third and final player on our list: Marco Scarcella.” The Lemur glanced at his watch. “Christ,” he said. “Look at the time.”

  Lyman stared at the puffy round face of the balding gentleman in the photograph before him. Marco Scarcella wore a pair of black plastic spectacles. His eyes were small but full of life, twinkling—like the eyes they always gave to Father Christmas on those family cartoons.

  The Lemur fiddled with his papers. “Let’s see,” he said. “Marco Scarcella. Born in Pritoie, Italy. In 1936 he went to Spain as one of Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Saw some action in Albania. Then he fought against the Allies in Italy, 1943, as an SS Oberleutnant. After the war, he made his way to Argentina, where he resurfaced as a senior executive of the Perma Mattress Company. In addition to selling mattresses, Scarcella also formed a rat line for escaped Nazis and eventually became a kind of fr
eelance national security consultant.” The Lemur looked up and smiled. “Not your average Soho slasher, eh, Lyman?”

  “No, sir,” Inspector Lyman answered glumly.

  “Are you following all this? Stop me if I go too fast.”

  “I’ll manage,” Lyman said. “Marco Scarcella. Born in Pritoie, Italy. Fought in Albania. Smuggled Nazis to Argentina.”

  “Very good.” The Lemur thrust his jaw out further. “Scarcella was soon befriended by the great Juan Perón himself. The Argentine dictator was so impressed that he later granted the mattress salesman citizenship, and in the seventies made him one of the country’s official economic advisors.”

  “What were his duties?”

  “Import-export. Balance of trade. You know. Guns and butter.”

  Lyman sat up in his chair. The dull fatigue which had settled on him at the beginning of the briefing suddenly fell away. The seventies, he thought. Before the Falklands war. Guns and butter.

  The Lemur continued his narration. “Eventually Scarcella returned to Italy, buying a villa in Tuscany with his savings. According to Interpol, he appeared to have retired. But it was precisely at this time that he began to construct a political and financial organization which eventually amounted to a kind of state-within-a-state. Working under the guise of a secret Masonic Lodge, Scarcella recruited members from the Italian military and industry, journalists and politicians, anyone of power he could influence. The lodge was called the I Four, or—ironically—the IQ. It stood for Informazione Quattro.

  “Every country has its Freemasons,” Randall added with disdain. “Even this one, I’m afraid. Of course they’re usually fairly social things, business clubs with a little mumbo jumbo in between to make everyone feel like they belong to something.”

  “I had an uncle who was one.”

  “Indeed. I’m not surprised. But the I Four, Lyman, was quite unique. Although the Italian postwar constitution specifically prohibits secret societies, Scarcella took this dormant pseudo-lodge and resurrected it. According to former members, he dispensed with most of the normal, arcane rites and bestowed upon himself extraordinary powers as the lodge’s Venerable Master. Until it was exposed, Scarcella alone knew the entire membership. Very exclusive. One was asked to join. In exchange for the shortcut to money and power it provided, Scarcella demanded information—something so delicate that it would ensure the member’s loyalty, his silence.”