They passed die Casde of Sant'Angelo, and the Fiat moved along the Lungotevere towards the Ponte Umberto I. Quart glanced at the dun-coloured walls which he felt symbolised the worldly side of the Church he served. He pictured Clement VII gathering up his cassock, running to take refuge there while Charles V's soldiers plundered Rome. Memento mori. Remember you must die.
"What about the archbishop of Seville? I'm surprised he's not involved."
The director of the IEA was looking at the grey waters of the Tiber through the rain-spattered window. "He's an interested party, so they don't trust him here. Our good Monsignor Corvo is trying to do some speculating of his own. His concern is, of course, only for the material benefit of Our Holy Mother the Church. Meanwhile, Our Lady of the Tears is falling to bits and nobody's repairing her. It seems she's worth more demolished than standing."
"Does the church have a priest?"
At this the archbishop sighed. "Yes, astonishingly. There's a fairly elderly priest in charge there. Apparendy he's a difficult character and, according to our information, all his appeals have been ignored by our good friend
Corvo. Any suspicions about Vespers must point to him or his assistant, a young priest who's about to be transferred to another diocese." Spada smiled reluctantly. "It wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that one of the two priests or both were responsible for this rather original method of reaching the Holy Father."
"It must be them."
"Maybe. But it has to be proved."
"And if I get proof?"
The director of the IEA frowned and lowered his voice. "Then they will bitterly regret their inopportune interest in computers." "What about the two who died?"
"That's the awkward part. Without it, this would have been just one more conflict over a plot of land involving speculators and a great deal of money. The church would simply have been pulled down when it became too dilapidated and the money from the sale of the land used for the greater glory of God. But these deaths complicate matters." Spada's eyes, streaked with brown, gazed distractedly out of the window. The Fiat was now caught in traffic leading up to the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. "Within a very short time two people involved with Our Lady of the Tears have died. One of them was a municipal architect carrying out a survey of the building for the purpose of declaring it a ruin and ordering it to be vacated. The other was a priest, Archbishop Corvo's secretary. He was there, apparently, putting pressure on the parish priest on behalf of His Grace the Archbishop."
"I don't believe it."
The Mastiff turned to look at Quart. "Well, you'd better start believing it. As from today you're dealing with it."
They were stuck in a huge and noisy traffic jam. The archbishop craned his neck and glanced up at the sky. "Let's get out and walk. There's plenty of time. I'll buy you a drink in that cafe you like so much."
"The Greco? That would suit me, Monsignor. But your tailor awaits. Cavalleggeri himself. Not even the Holy Father would dare keep him waiting."
The prelate, already getting out of the car, laughed huskily. "That's one of my rare privileges, Father Quart. After all, not even the Holy Father knows some of the things I know about Cavalleggeri."
Lorenzo Quart was very fond of old cafes. Almost twelve years earlier, when he'd just arrived in Rome to study at the Gregorian University, he'd been immediately captivated by the Caffe Greco with its imperturbable waiters and two-hundred-year history as a port of call for travellers such as Byron and Stendhal. Now he lived just around the corner, in a top-floor apartment rented by the IEA at 119 Via del Babuino. From the small terrace he had a good view of the church of Trinita dei Monti and the azaleas in bloom on the Spanish Steps. The Greco was his favourite place to read. He'd go and sit there at quiet times of the day, beneath the bust of Victor Emmanuel II, at a table said to have been Giacomo Casanova's and Louis of Bavaria's.
"How did Monsignor Corvo take his secretary's death?"
Spada was peering at his vermouth. There weren't many people in the cafe: a couple of regulars reading the paper at tables at the back, a smartly dressed woman with Armani and Valentino shopping bags talking into a mobile, and some English tourists taking photos of each other at the bar. The woman with the phone seemed to make the archbishop uncomfortable. He glanced disapprovingly at her before answering Quart.
"He took it badly. Very badly, in fact. He swore to raze the church to the ground."
Quart shook his head. "That sounds extreme. A building doesn't have a will. And certainly not to cause harm."
"I hope not." The Mastiff looked serious. "Better for everyone that way."
"You don't think Monsignor Corvo's simply looking for an excuse to demolish the church and have done with it?"
"It's definitely an excuse. But there's something else. The archbishop has a personal grudge against that church, or against its priest. Or both."