Alexander McCall Smith - The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

William grimaced. “Just like the Pope.”

“The Pope?”

“Yes,” said William. “John Paul the First - the one who lasted thirty-three days, or whatever it was. He was entertaining some grandee of an Eastern Rite church - one of their patriarchs, or whatever - and his visitor took one sip of his coffee and keeled over.”

Angelica looked dubious. “In the Vatican?”

“In the Vatican,” said William. “And then, of course, the Pope himself succumbed later on. No autopsy. No normal procedures. Just popped into his red slippers and buried. It was very odd, if you ask me.”

Angelica smiled. “You have to be wary of these conspiracy theories,” she said. “Most untoward events have a very simple, rational explanation. The Pope's visitor probably had a heart attack - it was probably nothing to do with the coffee. And John Paul the First himself was certainly not murdered. We know that for a fact.”

William raised an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because we have our man in the Vatican,” said Angelica. “We had a very full report from him, and he indicated that all those rumours were groundless.”

William could not conceal his surprise. “You have your man in the Vatican? A spy?”

Angelica shrugged. “Of course we do. He's a highly placed cleric. A monsignor. He works in the Holy Office.”

“And he spies for you?”

Angelica held up a hand. “Steady on. I wouldn't call it spying. He reports, that's all.”

“But what possible interest do you have in Vatican affairs? They're hardly a threat to our security.”

It was Angelica's turn to raise an eyebrow. “You think not? You should study history, William. The Vatican has been meddling in the affairs of other sovereign states for centuries. They have a very clear idea of what's in their interests and how to achieve it. And why not? If you look at it from their point of view, why not attempt to ensure that things work out in the way they want? Everybody else does precisely that.”

William was at a loss as to what to say. He was astonished by the disclosure that Angelica had made, but there was something else that was also puzzling him: why was she telling him all this, and, more than that, why had she come to see him in the first place? This, he thought, was not a purely social call.

He glanced at her tea cup, which was empty. “More?”

She slid her tea cup towards him. “You may be wondering-”

He cut her short. “I certainly am.”

She watched as he poured the tea into her cup. “Well, I'd expect you to wonder why I've come to see you and also why I'm speaking about my work - which is meant to be confidential.”

He nodded. “I was.”

“You know that we've been watching you?”

William gasped. Had he been under suspicion?

Angelica was quick to reassure him. “No, we don't have anything on you. We call it a friendly watch. Perfectly friendly.”

“Then what … ?”

“We want to ask a favour,” Angelica said. “You can say no, and we'll leave it right there. But if you say yes, then … well, HMG would be terrifically grateful.” She paused, watching him closely. “What did JFK say to his people at his inauguration? 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.' He said that, didn't he?”

“I believe so,” said William. His mouth was dry, and he found himself thinking, somewhat uncomfortably, of boeuf stroganoff.

William was engaged in his curious, ultimately rather alarming conversation with Angelica, in the flat directly below his in Corduroy Mansions Caroline was making a series of telephone calls, the last of which was to her friend James.

Caroline and James had now known one another for not much more than a year, but each felt as if the other was an old friend. They had met on the first day of the course on which they were both enrolled at Sotheby's Art Institute - a one-year Master's course in art history designed specifically for those with their sights on a career in the fine art auction rooms or in a gallery. There were twenty-three people on the course that year, every one of them paying, or rather having paid on their behalf, the seventeen thousand pounds in fees that the course commanded. In Caroline's case this cost was borne by her father, a reasonably well-off land agent in Cheltenham. He had grumbled about it, but had eventually come to share his wife's view that the chances of Caroline's meeting what she described, with no trace of irony, as a nice boy were substantially increased by her being involved in the world of expensive auctions. Little did he know.

James met the fees for the course himself, dipping into a legacy left him by an aunt. The legacy was enough to pay the fees and keep him for that year and perhaps a year or two beyond. “And then it's work,” he said. “Reality catches up with one, you know - sooner or later.”

For Caroline, reality had taken the form of a job with Tim Something, the photographer. He had offered to take her on as his assistant at a salary that seemed extremely generous. She had accepted the offer, and had recently completed her first week in her new job. James who had settled for a six-week unpaid internship in one of the auction houses, was now anxiously awaiting the firm's decision on whether he would be allowed to stay on. The Old Master's department had a vacancy, but was reluctant to commit just yet. James suspected that the job was being kept in reserve for somebody else, and was feeling pessimistic.

“They'll never take me,” he had complained to Caroline. “I'm not nearly grand enough.”

Caroline had sought to reassure him. “Nonsense,” she said. “It's not like that any more. Nobody cares about things like that - not these days.”

“But they do,” protested James. “If you look at the people who work there, they're tremendously grand. They really are. They're all called Michael de Whatsit, or the Honourable This or That, and so on. I'd be the only ordinary person.”

“Rubbish,” said Caroline. “You're not ordinary. You're really unusual.”

There was an awkward silence.

“I mean, you're really extraordinary,” Caroline blurted out. “Extraordinary. That's what I mean. You're really extraordinary.”

James looked at her balefully. “Really? Why do you think I'm extraordinary?”

Caroline looked up at the ceiling. This conversation had taken place in a favourite coffee bar of theirs on Long Acre, and she knew the ceiling well, having frequently stared at it when writing - or planning to write - her final essay of the course, on Alessandro Bonvicino and the Brescia school. Now she noticed how the light coming through the window reflected off the surface of the mirror on the opposite wall, throwing hazy liquid shapes on the ceiling.

“You just are, James,” she said. “And you should be pleased. Too many people are plain ordinary. You aren't.”

“But why?” asked James again. “Why am I extraordinary?”

Caroline began to look annoyed. “It's very difficult to explain,” she said. “But since you insist, I suppose it's because you're bright. You're much brighter than most people. And you've got good aesthetic judgement - most people have appalling taste, as you well know. And you're funny. You make me laugh.”

James continued to look reproachful. “But what if I just want to be ordinary? What if I want to be … to be like other blokes?”

Caroline watched him carefully. They were on difficult ground now, and she was determined not to say anything tactless. James was not like other blokes - she knew that - but it was not a subject that she wished to explore. She was convinced that he was interested in women and had merely not fully reconciled himself to it.