He sat by the window and examined the postcard in his hand. A ship docked in the port of Havana in 1897. A captain called Manuel Xaloc and someone called Carlota who had loved him and prayed for him at Our Lady of the Tears. Did the message on the back of the postcard have any special meaning, or was it the picture of the church that was significant? Suddenly he remembered the Gideon bible. Had the postcard been placed inside at random or was it marking a specific page? He cursed himself for not having noticed. He went over to the bedside table and saw that by chance he'd left the book open face down. It was open at pages 168 and 169 John 2. There was nothing underlined but he quickly found the relevant lines. It was too obvious.
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
Quart glanced from the bible to the postcard. He thought of Monsignor Spada and His Eminence Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz they wouldn't be very happy about this turn of events. He wasn't that happy about it himself. Somebody was playing disturbing games, breaking into papal computer systems and people's hotel rooms. Quart thought of all the people he had met, and wondered if the
person he was looking for was one of them. Dear God. He could feel his exasperation mounting, and he threw the book and postcard on to the bed. This was all he needed: a ghost playing hide-and-seek.
Quart came out of the lift on the ground floor. He walked past the display case full of fans and along the corridor round the lobby. He looked slightly out of place in his dark suit. The Dona Maria was a four-star hotel, a beautiful building in the Calle Don Remondo, a stone's throw from Santa Cruz. The interior decorator had got slighdy carried away with the Andalusian folk motifs, bullfighters and pictures of dancers with mantillas and hair combs. At the door a tired-looking young woman tour guide, holding up a small Dutch flag, herded a brightly dressed group equipped with cameras. As he handed in his key at the reception desk, Quart read her name on the little plastic badge she wore: V. Oudkerk. He smiled sympathetically. The young woman smiled back resignedly and walked off at the head of the group. "There's a lady waiting for you, Father Quart. She's just arrived.'' Quart looked at the receptionist in surprise, then turned round. A woman, tanned, with black hair reaching to below her shoulders, sat on one of the sofas in the lobby. She wore sunglasses, jeans, moccasins, a pale-blue shirt and a brown jacket. She was very beautiful. She stood up as Quart came towards her and he noticed her ivory necklace pale against her tanned skin and her gold bracelet and the leather handbag beside her. She held
out a slender, elegant and perfectly manicured hand. "Hello. I'm Macarena Bruner."
He'd recognised her a few seconds before, from the photographs in the magazine. He couldn't help staring at her mouth. It was large and well defined, lips slightly parted with very white teeth showing. Her upper lip was heart-shaped. She wore pale-pink, almost colourless lipstick.
"Well," she said, surprised, keeping her sunglasses on, "you really are very good-looking."
"So are you," answered Quart calmly.
She was only slightly shorter than he, and he was nearly one metre eighty-five. Beneath her jacket he could make out a generous, attractive figure. Uneasy, he looked away and checked his watch. She was staring at him thoughtfully.
"I'd like to talk to you," she said at last.
"Of course. You've done me a favour. I was thinking of coming to see you." Quart looked round. "How did you know where I was staying?"
uMy friend Gris Marsala told me."
"I didn't know you were friends."
She smiled and he saw her white teeth again. They echoed the ivory necklace against her caramel skin. She was sure of herself, because of her social standing and because of her beauty. But Quart could tell that she, like Gris Marsala, found his severe black suit and dog collar intimidating. They had that effect on women, whether beautiful or not.
"Could we talk now?"
"Of course."
They sat facing each other, she with legs crossed on the sofa where she'd waited; he in the armchair next to it. "I know why you're here in Seville."
"I hope you're not expecting me to be surprised," Quart said with a smile, resigned. "My visit seems to be public knowledge." "Gris said I should come to see you."
He looked at her with renewed interest. He wondered what her eyes were like behind her dark glasses. "That's strange. Your friend wasn't very helpful yesterday."
Macarena Bruner's hair slid over her shoulders, half-covering her face, and she pushed it back. It was very thick and black, Quart noticed. An Andalusian beauty like those painted by Romero de Torres. Or maybe Carmen of the Tobacco Factory, as described by Merimee. Any man, whether painter, Frenchman or bullfighter, could have lost his head over that woman. A priest could too.