Michael Dibdin - Cabal

‘As you are no doubt aware, Ruspanti was under investigation by the Italian judiciary for his part in the illegal export of currency. What you probably do not know, since the matter was sub judice, is that his part in this alleged fraud consisted of recycling large sums through his account at the Institute for the Works of Religion. In short, the Prince was accused of using the Vatican bank to break Italian law. After the scandals surrounding the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, we clearly could not be seen to be sheltering him from justice. But although we had our own reasons for allowing Ruspanti the temporary use of a grace-and-favour apartment while he sorted out his affairs, we weren’t naive enough simply to leave him to his own devices.’

Zen looked up at the crest of the hill above them, where the mighty bastion of the original fortifications was now crowned with the transmitting aerials of Vatican Radio.

‘In that case…’ he began, then broke off.

Sanchez-Valdes finished it for him.

‘In that case, we should know who killed him, just as the anonymous letter to the papers claimed. Yes, we should. The problem is that the official assigned to Ruspanti on the day he died was…’

‘Giovanni Grimaldi.’

The archbishop gestured as though to say ‘There you are!’ The alley they were following had reached a round-about from which five others led off in various directions, each with its name inscribed on a travertine slab mounted in a metal stand. Sanchez-Valdes turned left along a straight gravel path running along the foot of a section of the original Vatican walls, towering up thirty metres or more to their machicolated battlements.

‘Grimaldi was presumably debriefed before. I arrived that Friday,’ Zen commented.

Sanchez-Valdes nodded.

‘He said he had lost Ruspanti among the throng of tourists up on the dome of St Peter’s and was trying to find him again in the basilica when the body fell. At the time there seemed no reason not to believe this. The first thing which alerted our suspicions was the disappearance of the transcript which had been made of Ruspanti’s telephone conversations. Ah, there’s Luigi!’

A plump man with carefully permed silvery hair and a benign expression stood by a pine tree beside the path, watching them approach. Zen felt a surge of revulsion. He suddenly couldn’t wait to get out of this place where even the chief of police looked like a parody of a kindly, absent-minded village priest.

‘We made the inquiries you requested,’ Scarpione told Sanchez-Valdes once the introductions had been performed. ‘The supervisor responsible for the Carmelites’ holdings says that no repair work had been ordered in the house where Grimaldi lived.’

The archbishop looked at Zen.

‘Well, there’s the answer to the question you put to us last night. What is its significance?’

‘Grimaldi’s neighbour, Marco Duranti, said that someone was working there on Monday afternoon with an electric drill, supposedly repairing the drains.’

‘And someone was there again last night,’ Scarpione broke in, proud of his scoop. ‘I’ve just had a call about it from the Carabinieri. They were called out by this Duranti, but unfortunately the intruders managed to escape by using some sort of smoke bomb.’

Zen coughed loudly.

‘They probably came back to search Grimaldi’s room again.’

The archbishop frowned.

‘Again?’

‘They tried once before, after they killed him.’

Luigi Scarpione took a moment to react. Sanchez-Valdes turned to Zen, indicating the Vigilanza chief’s stunned and horrified expression as proof that the Vatican’s hands were clean of Grimaldi’s death. Zen held up his palms in token of the fact that he had never for a moment believed otherwise.

‘But the Carabinieri…’ Scarpione began.

‘The Carabinieri don’t know about Grimaldi’s involvement in the Ruspanti case,’ Zen broke in. ‘In fact they don’t even know that there is a Ruspanti case. If they did, they might have concluded that two such deaths in five days was a bit too much of a coincidence, and taken the trouble to investigate the circumstances of Grimaldi’s “accident” a little more thoroughly, as I did. In which case, they would no doubt have discovered that the workman who came to the house on Monday afternoon had drilled a hole through the wall between the bathroom and the passage outside, enabling him to connect an electric cable to the water pipes feeding the shower. A woman was round at the house on Monday morning, talking to Grimaldi, and I saw her leave on Tuesday, just after he died. She would have waited for him to go into the shower, as he did every day before starting work, and then thrown the switch. The moment Grimaldi stepped under the water he was effectively plugged into the mains. Afterwards the woman pulled the cable free and removed it, leaving an electrocuted body inside a bathroom bolted from the inside. Of course the Carabinieri thought it was an accident. What else were they supposed to think?’

Scarpione shuddered. Sanchez-Valdes patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and led the way past the helicopter landing pad from which the pope set off to his villa and swimming pool in the Alban hills, or on one of his frequent foreign trips.

‘And what about you, dottore?’ he asked Zen. ‘What do you think?’

Zen shrugged.

‘What had Grimaldi been working on this week, since Ruspanti’s death?’

‘A case involving the theft of documents from the Archives,’ said Scarpione. ‘Giovanni was patrolling the building, posing as a researcher.’

‘Not the sort of thing people would kill for?’

‘Good heavens, no! A minor trade in illegal antiquities, that’s all.’

‘In that case, my guess is that he tried to put the squeeze on the men who murdered Ruspanti. That transcript that’s gone missing probably contained some reference implicating them. Grimaldi put two and two together, stole the transcript, and offered to sell it for the right price. That would also explain why he sent the anonymous letter to the papers. He couldn’t blackmail the killers without casting enough doubt on the suicide verdict to get the case reopened.’

The three men passed through a gap in the battlemented walls, the truncated portion covered with a rich coat of ivy, and started downhill, through the formally landscaped gardens, the dome of St Peter’s rising before them in all its splendour.

‘Have you located the source of the keys which Ruspanti’s killers used?’ Zen asked casually.

Sanchez-Valdes nodded.

‘Yes indeed! Tell Dottor Zen about the progress we’ve been making this end, Luigi.’

Scarpione glanced at the archbishop.

‘All of it?’

‘All, all!’

The Vigilanza chief cleared his throat and began.

‘We thought at first it might be one of the sampietrini.’

He lowered his voice discreetly.

‘There have been complaints on several occasions from some of the younger workers about the behaviour of Antonio Cecchi, their boss.’

‘A little matter of attempted buggery, to be precise,’ Sanchez-Valdes explained cheerfully.

Scarpione coughed again.

‘Yes, well…’

‘Like many people,’ the archbishop went on, speaking to Zen, ‘Luigi makes the mistake of supposing that we priests are either ignorant of or embarrassed by the facts of life. If he had spent half as much time in a confessional as we have, he would realize that there is nothing likely to shock us very much. Carry on, Luigi!’

‘Well, anyway, in the end one of the uniformed custodians who patrol the dome during the hours of public access admitted that he had been responsible. He said he was approached by a man who represented himself as a monsignore attached to the Curia. This person claimed that a party of notables from his native town were visiting the Vatican, and said he wanted to give them a private tour of the basilica. He would be so obliged if it would be possible for him to borrow the keys for an hour or two.’