Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  What Averne’s fierce attack did do, however, was to make it appear that he and David were in different camps. In fact David had simply put both sides of the argument fairly to the board but, by opposing the advance to the Israelis so strongly, Averne made it seem as if David was equally strongly in favour. So, when it came to a vote at the end of the discussion, and the board decided that it would not advance any money at all to the Israeli government, the impression to everyone present was that, for the first time, David Colwyn had lost a vote to Sam Averne.

  The Israeli at the embassy was phlegmatic when David called him to tell him the bad news. ‘Well, Mr Colwyn, we shall have to do what we can to make sure the sale goes off well. All I can say is that by this decision you people have made my job harder. A lot harder.’

  *

  The black car moved at walking pace along the Crumlin Road. A thin grey drizzle was falling. The flowers were the only spot of colour: they nearly submerged the car, there were so many of them. Only the driver had any idea of the intensity of the fire at Foley’s. The remains of Donny Kelleher, the new night watchman who had burned to death, weighed but a few pounds, there was so little of them left. The coffin behind was mainly for show, for it was largely empty. A grisly thought. The driver could feel the difference in the way the hearse steered.

  Behind the car several hundred mourners stretched back, their numbers swollen by the sense of outrage sparked the night before by a report in the Belfast Telegraph. The article had stated that Kelleher’s death had not been accidental. According to a confidential report prepared by the fire brigade the fire at Foley’s had been arson. Worse, again according to the Telegraph, it was rumoured that the fire had been started by Protestant rivals of Foley’s in the construction business. They hadn’t meant to kill Kelleher, it was said, because they didn’t know he was there. But he was dead all the same. Catholic firms in Ulster had been having it good lately, thanks to the low interest loans they enjoyed as a result of the St Patrick’s Fund money, and the Protestant firms were obviously hurting.

  The driver turned the wheel and the car swung into St Brendan’s cemetery. Kelleher’s widow and relatives had only learned about the arson theory the day before, so there had been no chance to change the church which was obviously now going to be far too small for the crowd that had turned out. In no time it was full, with a hundred more outside.

  The service was short and the sermon was not especially fiery or sentimental, at least not by Belfast standards. Nor was the priest particularly political. Afterwards, however, when the coffin was carried outside to the grave, the mourners noticed three men in long raincoats and dark glasses slip through the mass of people and position themselves on either side of the slit in the earth. Kelleher’s widow, a small dark woman with a pinched, angry mouth, stood at one end of the grave flanked by her grown-up children. As the coffin was lowered into the ground and the priest’s voice was the only sound, each of the men in raincoats donned a black beret. The coffin reached the bottom and was laid gently on the soil. From under their coats the three men took pistols. Kelleher, in view of recent events, was to be awarded a military funeral, IRA-style.

  The low murmur of the priest’s voice was still the only sound. Moments later he finished and stepped back and raised his head. He may not have been political but he was Irish and knew what was coming.

  The three pistols were raised and aimed solemnly to the sky. The angry widow swelled with bitter pride as three shots rang out in unison three times across the graves of the churchyard and echoed off the walls of the council houses nearby.

  ‘Mary, mother of Jesus,’ whispered the driver, who was standing by the hearse, sharing a cigarette with one of the men who would cover over the grave when everyone had left. ‘There’s going to be trouble now.’

  *

  ‘This is Maioli binding, Dad.’

  David leaned over the cabinet in the British Museum. ‘What on earth does Maioli mean?’

  ‘It’s the Latin version for Mathieu. Thomas Mathieu was secretary to Catherine de’ Medici in the sixteenth century. He had a great library and his books are famous for their bindings. They had speckled gold dots all over them. See?’

  David was impressed with Ned’s knowledge.

  The boy pulled his father across the room. ‘Now this is a fanfare binding, dad. The gold is tooled in designs based on the figure “8”, with a space left blank in the middle for the family’s coat of arms. These are slightly later.’

  ‘I don’t like those as much.’

  ‘No, nor me.’

  David looked down at his son. ‘When am I going to see something you’ve made?’

  ‘Soon. But have a look over here. This is an English binding, by Edward of Halifax. See what they’ve done here . . . there are two books. One is closed properly, and all you can see at the edge of the book is a solid mass of gold leaf. Now, the next book has the leaves splayed out . . .’

  David looked and was delighted. On the leaf edges of this other book could be seen a coloured illustration that was painted as if under the gold.

  ‘Neat, eh? You can only see that illustration when the edges are splayed out. Otherwise it’s hidden. They had a passion for secrets in those days.’

  ‘They certainly did. I’ve run up against a few secrets myself, in the past few days.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘With my Leonardo research. I’ve been looking through the guild records for speziali and apothecaries in Urbino, to see if there’s any mention of Leonardo buying colours there.’

  ‘No luck?’

  ‘No. The Vatican sent me a whole microfiche of the documents but, so far, nothing. Any ideas?’

  ‘Where did Leonardo die?’

  ‘Cloux, near Amboise in France. Why?’

  ‘It’s just that when people die things get written down. You told me that. It’s after people die, you said, that the auction houses contact their heirs, to see whether anything is going to be sold off. Maybe the same happened with Leonardo. If there are any lost documents maybe they are not in Urbino or Rome, but in France.’

  ‘Hmm. Interesting but doubtful. Now, while I remember, as I’m going to be away in New York for a few weeks, I want to make it up to you when I get back. Is there anything else you’d like to do, any other exhibition you want to see, come May or June?’

  Ned was looking at another binding. ‘Well, there is one exhibition I’d like to see, but it’s in term time and it means going to Paris. On the other hand, if you’re going to Amboise, you could take me along and we could stop off on the way.’

  ‘What’s the exhibition?’

  ‘Russian icons, at the Louvre. In about a month.’

  ‘What have they got to do with gold?’

  ‘Dad! They have gold leaf halos and backgrounds with unusual patterns stamped on them. The stamps are different from anything else and I want to be able to copy them. What do you think?’

  ‘Sounds like a good trip if I need to go to Amboise, of which I am very doubtful.’

  David was wrong, however. The more he thought about Ned’s comment on Leonardo, the more it seemed to him that the fate of the great man’s papers after his death was a possible source for him to follow. From books, David discovered that the majority of Leonardo’s belongings, when he died in 1519, had passed to a friend, Francesco Melzi, who had taken them all back to his native Milan. Melzi had made an attempt to catalogue them but, when he died, his son Orazio had dumped them in an attic, regarding them as no more than trifles. Later they had been found and, through one series of adventures or another, dispersed around Europe. Much had been lost and what remained was spread between Milan, Madrid, Paris and London.

  Though there were many original writings by Leonardo in these several museums, David reckoned they must all have been gone over thoroughly by scholars already. He decided, therefore, to start at the house in which Leonardo had died. It was a museum now and there might be some clue there to guide him towards one line of i
nquiry or another. If the dates fitted and he was back from New York in time, then he and Ned could kill two birds with one stone and visit Amboise and the icon exhibition on the same trip.

  But first there was the Dead Sea Scrolls sale to get out of the way. Sam Averne had been throwing his weight around since he had won the board vote and at the final board meeting before David left for New York, he made another attack on the Israelis, asking if this was really the kind of business Hamilton’s needed. His contacts in New York had told him there might be ‘bad trouble’ and he wondered aloud whether the firm shouldn’t, even at this late date, pull out. He had also got hold of figures from inside Hamilton’s which confirmed what David had known for some time, that business in Italy was down by over twenty per cent as a knock-on effect of the Italian government’s opposition. Averne said: ‘I also hear on the grapevine that the British government is thinking of amending the law on the export of works of art. At present, as we all know, if someone wants to export a painting or a piece of sculpture, or anything else which is regarded as of national importance, it can be held up for several months, to give the nation time to raise the money to purchase the item itself. My information is that the government is thinking of extending the time-lag, to two years.’

  ‘But –’ the Earl of Afton tried to interrupt but Averne stormed on.

  ‘I know. They may not get it through parliament. But if they do it will have a very depressing effect on the auction market here. Foreign buyers may simply not bother to bid for items if they know that anything worthwhile is going to be held up for so long. The government may be considering this measure as a way of preventing the sale of the Royal collection, but they must be aware that it will have a wider impact. Hamilton’s won’t be very popular – with anyone.’

  ‘But it’s against their own interests to hit the auction business. We are a source of foreign currency.’ Afton spoke at last.

  ‘True. But the Prime Minister bears grudges. He’s getting at the Queen through us.’

  It was the first time David felt that the Earl’s support for him had begun to falter. If the government did bring in the measure Averne described – and he, David, had heard nothing of it – then the situation was certainly serious. But damn Averne all the same.

  The Earl spoke again. ‘Sam, I don’t see that we can withdraw from the Dead Sea Scroll sale. It might look like anti-Semitic discrimination on our part and that I won’t have. Nor, as I have said on countless occasions, can we withdraw from the Queen’s sale. It would be professional suicide. We have to bear in mind the deep affection in which the Queen is held in this country. The Prime Minister represents one point of view, and he has more sanctions at his disposal than anyone else, but masses of people up and down the country vastly prefer Her Majesty to Her Majesty’s government. If it were to get out that we had backed down for political or nakedly commercial reasons, we could suffer badly, very badly indeed. Nor should we forget that David’s approach has earned the company enormous sums in commission. We have had the best year we have ever had.’

  It was a long speech for the Earl and he sipped some water. ‘On the other hand, we don’t want to provoke the Prime Minister needlessly. For me, that means we should see these sales through and then call it a day. Should any other major institution approach us about selling off its art for charitable purposes, we should, I think, decline gracefully. I didn’t agree with Sam before but I think I do now: it’s time to lower our profile.’

  There was no vote that day. The upshot was that the two major sales were going ahead. The lead David had given was being followed. At the same time, David was under no illusions. Averne, all of a sudden, was making the running. It was no secret he wanted David’s job and, equally important, wanted to remove the nerve centre of Hamilton’s to New York. The worst of it was, David could do little to stop Averne at the moment – he had to devote all his energies to New York. If that failed his position in the company could be in serious jeopardy. How quickly circumstances change, he thought. Only a few weeks ago he had received a papal honour for his success in organizing major auctions – now this.

  It was a comfort to have Bess to talk to on such occasions, even if she was a thousand miles away. When he called her this time, however, to tell her about Averne’s latest onslaught and to work out when they would meet up in America, he sensed she was itchy, impatient.

  ‘Bess! You’re not listening to me. Here I am, crying on your shoulder, telling you my troubles and your mind’s somewhere else. Don’t!’

  She snorted. ‘It’s not that. I do sympathize. I guess you feel about this Averne character like I feel about Massoni. It’s . . . it’s just that I think my good news outweighs your bad news and I can’t wait to tell you . . . Oh David! The Holy Office have approved your case! You’ll be hearing officially in a day or two. Isn’t it marvellous? Now only Thomas has to say yes and we can get married!’

  PART THREE

  Chapter Eleven

  The little girl, all in yellow, waited alone at the foot of the aeroplane steps. In her hands she clutched a bunch of flowers that matched her dress. Nervously, she turned and looked round for her mother, who was part of the reception committee standing on the concrete apron behind her. But her mother motioned for her daughter to turn back and stand up straight. This was an honour that would come only once in a young girl’s life.

  The engines of the plane had stopped before the staircase had been rolled into position. Now the door at the top of the steps was opened and, after a short delay, Thomas appeared. He waved to the welcoming crowd and descended the steps to the little girl. This had been Bess’s idea. For this, Thomas’s first visit to his native America as Pope, so many people had wanted to welcome him – the mayor of Fort Wingate, his home town, the local cardinal, the local Oklahoma senators, the apostolic delegate in Washington – that it had been decided none of them would. Instead, what better symbol of the country than an ordinary person, an unknown, and a child as well?

  All eyes focused on the girl now as she curtsied to Thomas and stiffly stuck up her arm holding the flowers. A hundred press cameras clicked. Thomas smiled and, while taking the flowers, kissed the top of the young girl’s head. Relieved of her honour at last, she turned and ran back to her mother. Like everyone else, Thomas laughed at this and the cameras clicked again. He turned to Bess, who was standing behind him with her own camera, to keep an unofficial record for Thomas for his private use. He passed her the flowers and gave her a broad wink. It was a good start.

  The idea of a Pope beginning his visit in smalltown America may have seemed odd at first, but Americans are both deeply democratic and sentimental, and the story of the local boy who had made it to the top in the spiritual world was as romantic as any Broadway fable. For the next few days no American could pick up a newspaper, or turn on the television, without seeing Thomas either fishing in the river he had fished in as a boy, eating candy in the candy store on Mainstreet, celebrating mass in the tiny local Catholic church, lunching at the orphanage he had been brought up in, attending a barn dance in the evening, or opening a clinic named after himself. He shook hands with just about everybody in the town and all of them were given souvenirs. As a boy Thomas had sketched the town and still had the drawing. Bess had prints made and then Thomas signed each one. They were a great success.

  By the time he arrived in Washington, Thomas was a superstar. This was America and there was no other word for him. The trip to Fort Wingate had made him much more than a world leader or a religious symbol. He was now a legend. His presence, not just on American soil, but his backtracking to his roots had brought home vividly to Americans what no amount of publicity from Rome, or political activity, or religious promulgation, could do: he was one of them. He liked fishing and baseball and candy. Jefferson was his favourite president. He had a soft spot for the Miami Dolphins. He told one reporter the things he most missed in Rome were blueberry muffins. Americans had heard often enough that any one of them could be president.
Now, seeing Thomas wade in Battle River, fishing instinctively where the best pools were, the nation realized that any American could become Pope, too. He was not God, as one humorous columnist put it, but it was a damn close thing.

  Roskill and his advisers had quickly realized how well the Holy Father’s visit was going and as a result the President had insisted on helicoptering out to Andrews Air-force base himself, to meet Thomas when he arrived in Washington. At one stage the plan had been for Roskill to receive the Pope on the White House lawn as he received many heads of state. But the Pope now called for something less routine.

  As Thomas’s green and red Alitalia jet taxied to a stop in front of him, Roskill, hatless, headed up an impressive list of dignitaries: the Secretary of State, the Washington cardinal, the Speaker of the Congress, the Chief Justice, the apostolic delegate and Oliver Fairbrother, the Democratic candidate in the forthcoming presidential election.

  The group looked orderly enough but few knew that behind the scenes there had been waged an almighty battle of protocol. Thomas and Roskill, both being heads of state, should therefore meet on an equal footing. But Roskill was also a Catholic, which made Thomas, in theory at least, the President’s senior. The President, as a dutiful Catholic, should kneel and kiss the papal ring. Roskill himself wasn’t sure what to do about this. The election campaign was almost upon them and if he did kiss the ring he would annoy all the non-Catholic voters in America, among whom there were plenty of critics on the lookout for a papist conspiracy. If he did not kiss the ring, on the other hand, he would annoy all the Catholics who had helped put him into office and whose unswerving support he needed soon in his fight to be returned for a second term.

  It was Thomas himself who suggested a solution to the President’s dilemma. As he stepped on to the ground, Thomas revived an old papal custom. He got down on his knees, leaned forward, put his hands on the tarmac in front of him and, on this, the first stage of his visit to official America, kissed the ground. In doing so he bowed before all Americans, not just the President, and an appreciative roar went up from the watching crowds. Then, after Thomas had been helped to his feet, Roskill approached and, bending but not kneeling, he kissed the ring – and a potentially awkward moment passed off without a hitch.