"A church that kills to defend itself" Quart made
an effort to return to the present, to Seville; to what was rather than what might
have been. "I want to know what Father Ferro thinks this means." "I don't know what you're talking about."
"It was a sentence from the message somebody slipped into the Holy See. It refers to your church Do you think there could be an element of Providence in all this?"
"I don't have to answer that."
Quart turned to Corvo, but the archbishop refused to get involved.
"It's true," he said with a diplomatic smile, delighted by Quart's difficulties. "He wouldn't answer me either."
It was a waste of time. The IEA agent realised that he wasn't getting anywhere, but he had to follow the form. So, portentously, he asked Father Ferro if he was aware of what was at stake. The old man answered sarcastically. Impassive, Quart continued to work his way through the questionnaire: the necessity for a report, possible cause for serious disciplinary measures, etc. That Father Ferro was one year away from retirement was no guarantee that his superiors would be lenient. At the Holy See
"I don't know anything about those deaths," the old priest interrupted. He obviously couldn't care less about the Holy See. "They were accidents."
Quart leaped in. "Convenient accidents, from your point of view?"
There was a slight tone of camaraderie, a hint of "Come on, man, open up, and let's sort this out". But the old priest didn't drop his guard. "You mentioned Providence earlier," he said. "Well, why don't you ask God the question and I'll pray that you receive an answer."
Quart took a couple of slow, deep breaths before trying again. What annoyed him most was the thought that His Grace must be enjoying this, wreathed in pipe smoke in his front-row seat.
"Can you state categorically, as a priest, that there was no human intervention in the two deaths at your church?"
"Go to hell."
"I beg your pardon?"
Corvo had again jumped in his chair. Father Ferro looked at him and said, "With all due respect to Your Grace, I refuse to answer any more questions."
Quart wondered if he was joking. In their twenty-minute meeting, Father Ferro had not answered a single question. Corvo just frowned and blew out more smoke; he was only the server here. Quart stood up, and the top of Father Ferro's head reached his chest. The wiry grey hair reminded Quart of another priest. Quart had been back once only since his ordination: a brief visit to his widowed mother, another to the dark shape crouching in the church like a mollusc in its shell. Quart performed Mass there, in the church where he'd been an altar boy for so long. And in the cold, damp nave, haunted by the ghost of the lonely little boy looking out to sea in the rain, he had felt like a stranger. He'd left and never returned, and the church, and the old priest, and the little white village, and the cruel sea had gradually faded from memory; a bad dream from which he'd managed to awaken.
The embodiment of everything he hated now stood before him. He could see it in the dull, stubborn eyes boring into him. "I have one more question. Only one," he said, putting away his cards and fountain pen. "Why do you refuse to leave Our Lady of the Tears?"
Father Ferro looked him up and down. Tough as old leather. That was the best description, though Quart could think of a couple more.
"It's none of your business," the priest said. "It concerns me and my bishop."
Quart expected the answer. He gestured to indicate that the absurd meeting was at an end. To his surprise, Corvo came to his aid. "Answer Father Quart please, Don Priamo." "Father Quart would never understand." "I'm sure he'll do his best. Please try."
The old priest shook his head stubbornly, muttering that Quart had never heard the confession of a poor woman on her knees seeking consolation, the cry of a newborn child, the breath of a dying man whose sweating hand he held. So even if Father Ferro talked for hours, nobody would understand a single damned word. And Quart, despite the diplomatic passport in his pocket, the official support of the Curia, the tiara and keys of St. Peter on his papers, realised that he didn't have the slightest authority over the hostile, wretched-looking old man, the exact antithesis of what any churchman would link with the glory of God. With a sudden stab of anxiety he saw the outline of a ghost from the past: Nelson Corona. He remembered the same distancing from officialdom, the same determined expression.
The only difference was that Quart had glimpsed fear as well as determination in the Brazilian's eyes, while Father Ferro's dull gaze was as firm as a rock. Before resuming his obstinate silence, the old priest concluded by saying that his church was
a refuge. It sounded quaint, and the Vatican envoy arched an eyebrow derisively. In search of equilibrium, he tried to reawaken his old contempt for the village priest. Once again he was a dignitary confronting an underling, and the ghost of Nelson Corona faded. "That's an odd way to describe it."