The Vatican Rip

by Jonathan Gash

  The space was the size of a large room. Masonry tools lay scattered. Chisels, hammers, mallets and set-squares, some as Valerio and I had dropped them during the dark hours. Too late to think of using those now. I made it to the coil of chain and gave it a yank to set it firm on the pulley. My throat was raw with fright. Somebody shouted again up on the terraces. I heard rather than saw Arcellano step towards the gap through which I’d come. I flicked the chain once, released it and stepped aside as the dull rumbling began.

  Arcellano came into the space. The fucking gun looked enormous.

  ‘Okay, Arcellano,’ I yelled, though he was only a few feet off. ‘I surrender! I’ll say it was me!’

  ‘Too late, Lovejoy.’ He was smiling now. ‘You’re resisting arrest, you see.’ He raised his voice and shouted, ‘The table, Maria! Just push it off that stone. It’ll smash.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked dully. He’d said Maria.

  The gun lifted. My belly squeezed. He glanced up then. Maybe it was the sudden swiftness of the rectangular shadow, maybe the rumbling of the descending block. I don’t know. It was all in an instant. But he glanced up and froze, appalled at the sight of the massive block plummeting towards him. He hesitated, started to step back.

  ‘Forwards!’ I screeched. ‘Step forwards, man!’

  He halted, then leant towards me into the space left for the great stone, his eyes on mine. It was only then that I realized I’d told him wrong. I’d said forwards when I actually meant to shout back. Either way I’d have been safe, but somehow my mind got the words wrong. It was unintentional. I swear it. Honestly, I never meant him to suffer like he did. The great stone settled into its allotted area with a faint scrape and hiss, pressing Arcellano’s broad shoulders down and crushing blood into his face, and forcing the very life out of his mouth. His eyes popped in a spurt of blood that sprayed over my face. His face puced, swelled, burst out of its expression in a splatter of blood. The gun in his hand cracked once, sending splinters round the confined area. Needles drove into my neck and thigh but what the hell.

  Maria. He’d shouted instructions to Maria. His woman, Maria. To push the table, my evidence, off the central stone and break it to smithereens. I suddenly remembered why the table was up there on the stone, and drew a great breath.

  ‘Maria!’

  The name echoed round the Colosseum. ‘Maria!’ No sound but a distant shout – man’s voice – and rapid footsteps.

  I screeched. ‘Maria! Don’t touch the table. Please! For Chrissakes, leave it—’

  Her dear voice came clear as a bell over the great arena. ‘It’s no good, Lovejoy.’ Then those terrible words I’d give anything to forget. ‘Get rid of him, darling.’ Her voice had a finality I’d hoped never to hear. ‘Do it!’

  She wasn’t talking to me. She meant this dead thing under the stone. She obviously couldn’t see – hadn’t seen – the block fall on her man Arcellano. Frantic, I drew breath to scream a warning, but she was telling her man to do it. To kill me. Me, who loved her.

  And I uttered no sound.

  I slumped to the sand. It was all happening too fast. Dully I heard footsteps, people running. I sat against the wall of the recess, staring at that horrid mess of Arcellano’s popped face squeezed bloodily from between the giant stones. His arm protruded in a great purple sausage. The other arm was nowhere to be seen. Tears streamed down my face, for what or why I don’t know to this day.

  The explosion came exactly four seconds after I heard the table crash to the ground. The whiplash crack of the hand grenade’s plug against the stonework sounded near my head. I didn’t even flinch. They always say, don’t they, that the plug of a grenade seeks out the thrower. Maria did not even have time to scream before she died.

  I don’t know how long I was there, sitting in the sand of that accidental prison. The first thing I remember is a face grinning over the edge up there against the blue sky and saying into the scream of sirens, ‘What is it? Filming?’

  It was the drunk, wakened by the war. ‘Yes,’ I told him.

  ‘Where are the cameras?’

  ‘Hidden.’

  I saw him fumble and bring out a tiny bronze disc. ‘Want to buy a genuine ancient Roman coin?’

  I squinted up against the light. The same old acid patina, two days old. ‘It’s phoney. You’ve used too much acid to get the verdigris.’

  He mumbled, nodding. ‘I told my mate that. He’s a know-all.’

  He made to withdraw. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Want to buy a genuine antique?’

  Somebody up there was yelling everybody to freeze because this was the police, that the place was surrounded. Sirens were going, car doors slamming. Now it was all done for them.

  Typical.

  Chapter 28

  No airport’s pretty.

  They gave me my green boarding-card after an hour’s wait. It’s always a relief because it means you are going to get aboard and some other poor nerk’s going to be left behind. The passengers I was with were a cheerful, talkative crowd. I sat to one side trying not to remember the inquest, the harsh post-mortem evidence given over the verdict on my lovely Maria and on Menotti, her murderous lover. In the official hearing I had been gently reproved by Cardinal Arcellano for calling Menotti ‘Arcellano’, but explained I’d known him by no other name. The Cardinal was a quiet little bloke with a mind like a computer. He’d been understanding, even compassionate, when I’d given evidence about the killer Menotti’s attempt to finish me. On the way out of the hearing I’d tried to avoid saying a farewell. He got in my way and told me he’d pray for my peace of mind. I’d said thanks and passed on by. I don’t know what people are on about half the time.

  ‘Signor Lovejoy?’ An air-terminal policeman stood there, all phoney boredom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you come this way, please.’

  ‘But my flight’s nearly called—’

  ‘Only a moment, signor.’

  Obviously a slight passport difficulty, easily resolved. I got my bag and followed him to the manager’s office, trying to exude a sense of confidence towards the other passengers. I even swaggered, for show.

  There were four policemen in the office, including a captain. He had his thumbs in his belt.

  ‘You are Lovejoy?’

  ‘Yes. If it’s this passport, I can explain . . .’

  ‘You know this old lady?’

  A photo of Anna in her pickpocketing clobber. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your aunt, I believe?’

  I thought swiftly. ‘Er, not exactly. You see—’

  ‘You lodge at this address with her?’

  ‘Well, er . . .’ The signature on the form was oddly familiar. It was my handwriting. That time Anna got nicked by the Via Porto Angelica. No wonder two of these cops looked familiar. The two in the car, who’d made me sign to get Anna off the hook.

  ‘Yes or no, signor?’ That phoney boredom again. I’d rather have hate. It’s safer. ‘And this is your signature?’

  I swallowed, took a chance. ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘You went surety for this old lady?’

  ‘Not really,’ I burbled. ‘It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously—’

  ‘You signed a police form frivolously?’ The officer swelled ominously. ‘Intending to default, slip the country, leaving your aged aunt—?’

  I said desperately, ‘She’s only twenty-odd, for Christ’s sake. It’s all make-up—’

  He smiled a wintry smile. ‘She told us to expect all sorts of ludicrous explanations, signor.’ He dropped another photograph on the desk. ‘You recognize this antique shop?’

  ‘Yes. It’s . . .’ I hesitated. My job there was illegal. No work permit.

  ‘Albanese Antiques Emporium, signor?’

  ‘Yes.’ I had a headache. It worsened abruptly as he reached for the phone and dialled without looking the number up.

  The police stood about with the terrible patience of their kind. I noticed two were now between me and the door. />
  ‘Pronto, signora! Yes, we have him . . . At the airport.’ He listened attentively, full of importance. ‘Yes, signora.’ He turned, placing the receiver on his chest in token of confidentiality. ‘Signor Lovejoy. You are in default of a contract of employment with Signora Albanese, no?’

  ‘No!’ I cried desperately. My bloody flight number was being announced. ‘Listen! I never had any legal . . . er . . .’

  The captain’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise. ‘You are saying, signor?’

  ‘Erm . . .’ Adriana had me either way.

  ‘Having given surety for a vagrant,’ the captain said affably, ‘without gainful employment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’ve defaulted, signor.’ He lit a cigar onehanded. It was clearly his trick. Carlo should have seen him.

  ‘Let me speak to her.’ Furious, I snatched the receiver from him. ‘Adriana? Now you look here! This is Lovejoy—’

  ‘Hello, darling.’ She sounded quite pleasant, even chatty. ‘Speaking from police custody, I believe.’

  I deflated. ‘Er, yes. Only temporarily. Some crazy mistake. I want you to tell them that—’

  ‘That you have a job, darling, and are not a vagrant?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it!’ I cried eagerly. My flight number was blipping on the monitor screen in the corner of the room.

  ‘But, darling! There’s this slight matter of those tables, the ones you wrongfully purchased on my account.’

  I thought. ‘Is there?’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ she cooed, sweet as a dove. The police were staring patiently at the ceiling as Adriana went blithely on, ‘And I’m in such a mess here. A load of antiques being delivered tomorrow, ready for the new season. Such problems.’

  I waited, but so did she. ‘So?’ I said weakly.

  ‘Well, darling. You know how much more expert you are at this sort of thing . . .’

  I swear there were tears in my eyes as I watched that monitor screen. I tried for a last-ditch stand against the unfairness of all womankind.

  ‘Okay, then. But I want a good rate of pay.’

  ‘You’ll work for your keep, Lovejoy.’

  I yelped. ‘For nothing?’ I eyed the police, wondering if oppressed antique dealers got a discount from the judges in Rome for murdering their tyrannical employers.

  ‘You’ll receive, shall we say, payment . . . in kind, Lovejoy.’ I could tell the sadistic bitch was falling about with delight at the other end. ‘The most intimate kind, of course. In fact, I shall insist on delivering it personally. Think of yourself,’ she added sweetly, ‘as providing an essential service.’

  The captain blew smoke. He slid an employment form across the desk to me in silence.

  I read it swiftly, my face red. ‘Erm, Adriana.’

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘Listen,’ I croaked hopelessly, ‘I, er, have this police form to fill in.’

  ‘Do it, dearest. I’ll come for you directly.’

  ‘Erm, there’s this space. Nature of occupation. I can’t write—’

  ‘Hired consort?’ She was rolling in the aisles, though her voice was sugar.

  ‘What shall I put?’

  There was a pause, then a smile crept back into her voice, and she said, ‘I know, Lovejoy. Apprentice.’

  I thought, I’ll kill her, but said, ‘I can’t put that. They’ll assume—’

  ‘– The truth, Lovejoy?’

  The phone went dead, purring anonymity. I looked at the receiver for a long minute before replacing it carefully on its rest. The tannoy announced my Alitalia flight, final call.

  ‘Your elderly aunt is waiting for you outside, signor,’ the police captain said. He too was carefully out of smiles. I glanced about, frantic.

  The four cops inhaled, ready for the dust-up. Brokenly I thought of Adriana streaking out to collect me, of Anna prowling outside the door. The trouble with women is they win so bloody often.

  The captain demanded, ‘I take it you are staying a while, signor?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’ Bitterly I pulled the form towards me and wrote Apprentice in the space provided. I said, ‘I may not survive, but I’ll definitely be staying.’