Diego Marani - God's Dog

From the basement in which he now found himself, Salazar could see a dense grove of pine trees, a strip of sand and the iron gateway to a villa. All he knew of his whereabouts was that he was on the coast. A patch of sky, overcast but bright, a quiet road, a lot of dust. Salazar didn’t know what day it was, but from his calculations it should be Easter Saturday. The only noise filtering in from the outside was the chirping of sparrows. Suddenly, he was deafened by the sound of a plane landing; the runway must be extremely close. It was probably early morning, because there was a smell of fresh bread in the air. He looked down at himself and saw that he was wearing a track suit and trainers. All there was in the room was the camp-bed on which he had been lying, and a bottle of water, on the floor. Beyond the wall he could hear the cackle of a radio. Suddenly the door opened and four people came in, the bogus Chiara Bonardi and three others with stockings over their faces. They pushed him into the next room and sat him down at a table; one of the three stood opposite him with a pen and paper, the others took up positions behind him. Salazar looked around him as best he could, trying not to move his head. He was in the living room of a holiday home, but the furnishings seemed past their prime: he noted the faded nautical motifs on the wallpaper, some blue pottery covered with dust, a large fish-shaped vase with a chipped rim. There was a divan beneath the tall window and a small bamboo table between two non-matching chairs. The wrought-iron table at which he was seated had a glass top covered with an old discoloured sheet. There were patches of mould on the brick floor. Four rucksacks were piled up against the wall near the door.

‘Don’t strain yourself, there’s nothing to see!’ said the man opposite him. The other two were peering out through the blinds. A car drove up, and the driver switched off the engine. They nodded, as though to confirm that everything was under control.

The woman went round to the other side of the table. ‘Now you must tell us everything, inspector. That was our agreement!’ she said in a rasping tone, looking distinctly nervous by now.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Salazar. He was in no position to foil their plans; all he could do was string them along, but his subterfuge had to be carefully considered, bearing in mind what he had read on the phone belonging to the hit-man who’d been sent to kill him. The members of the brigade almost certainly knew something already. It should be enough to tweak the truth a little in order to seem credible and lead them into making some mistake.

‘Where are the marksmen? We’ve located four positionings around the portico, but we know there are others.’

‘Yes, there are two others, one on the Leonine Walls and one on the roof of the Galleria Aurora.’ It wasn’t true, but it was plausible.

‘Any others?’

‘They usually post them between the statues on the façade of the basilica.’ This was invention pure and simple.

‘What about plainclothes men, how many will there be? How will we recognise them?’

‘I don’t know how many there’ll be, but you can recognise them by the yellow buttons on the collars of their shirts.’ That, at least, was true. But Salazar knew that during an event as momentous as the canonisation of a pope, nothing and no one would be recognisable. The police would mingle with the pilgrims, the friars, the nuns and even the sick in search of a miracle.

‘What about the podium. Do you know when it will be ready?’

‘No, but usually everything is in place before the maximum security measures come into force. The workmen have to be out of the area so that the papal guard can make their inspections. Not even the pope can enter it without their authorisation. So I presume that the podium will be completely finished by the evening of the day before the ceremony.’ At least that made good sense, even if it was not very informative.

‘And who keeps watch over the place during the night?’

‘I don’t know about such details. All I know is that the night patrol comes on at midnight, when the Swiss Guards finish their shift.’ From his time at police school, Salazar knew that the six o’clock changing of the guard in Saint Peter’s Square was just a show put on for tourists; the real change took place at midnight. But the real guards were not those who relieved one another outside the basilica; there were many others in readiness behind the wall of the colonnade.

‘What about the telecameras? Where will they be?’ That was something else he could tell them. Those telecameras were indestructible. Perhaps if they realised what they were up against they might lose heart and give up the whole endeavour.

‘Under the colonnade, every ten metres. Four on the façade of the basilica and one at the top of the obelisk.’

The man who was questioning him looked away for a moment. The others were discussing something in low voices over a map they had spread out at the other end of the table. Chiara Bonardi was shaking her head, indicating a point on it with her finger. Salazar took advantage of the moment to take a closer look at the man’s face behind the stocking mask. He saw a beard, but that was all he could make out; the stocking distorted his other features.

‘What time does the papal procession arrive?’ the man persisted, seeing himself being looked at. Salazar had a perfect memory of the pope’s prospective movements; that was what he had paid most attention to when he’d studied the cadet’s mobile phone. Then he remembered the leaflets and posters he’d seen in Saint Peter’s Square, and came out with something he hoped was plausible.

‘There isn’t going to be a procession. On such occasions the pope comes out of the basilica on foot. He has to be on the podium by eleven, so I imagine he will be going down the flight of stairs around ten forty-five. He’s usually accompanied by the papal prefect, the secretary of state, the chief of the papal police, the heads of the congregations and the commander-in-chief of Propaganda Fide. But they don’t go up on to the altar; they stay down on the lower part of the podium; and they will already be in their places when the pope arrives. The only person who is always with him is the deacon.’

‘Where will Benedict XVI’s sarcophagus be placed?’ There had been nothing about this on the cadet’s phonecard, so Salazar had to improvise. Even though he had been just a boy when Karol Wojtyla had been canonised, he remembered the event, which he had watched on television.

‘It will be borne on to the podium and placed in front of the altar, probably leaving the basilica at the same time as the pope.’ That was fairly plausible. The man who was questioning him was taking notes, tapping his biro nervously over the paper. The others were now folding up the map and putting on their rucksacks.

‘This had better all be true, inspector, or we’ll be taking you back to the hospital! And your mates will see to it that you meet your maker!’ Salazar nodded, giving him a defiant look.

‘Now we’re going to have to blindfold you and take you to another hiding place.’

‘Can I refuse?’

‘I don’t think so. It won’t be for long, forty-eight hours at most.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if you killed me straight away.’

‘We won’t be doing that; you’re of no interest to us.’

Salazar was put into the back of a van with his hands tied behind his back and a towel around his head. The driver set off at some speed, but had to brake continually to negotiate sharp curves. Short climbs, followed by short descents, suggested that the van was going over bridges; sometimes it jolted along what might have been a gravelled surface. There was a smell of dust. He was taken out of the van in an underground car park and taken to another basement, in part of an old garage; there was a smell of petrol, and old tyres. A room with the camp-bed that had come with them in the van; two small windows with frosted glass, and bars. A metal door led into a lavatory; there were oil stains on the floor, and piles of sawdust. One of the men freed his hands, but tied his feet together with a bicycle chain. Before going out, the woman put a bag on the floor. ‘Something to eat and drink,’ she said, darting him a sympathetic glance. He made a move to go towards her, but the bicycle chain prevented him.