‘Paul, you can trust me. I know your secret, and the secret of the disciples of Jesus.’
‘That’s a lot of secrets.’ Paul looks Gallio over, his ragged clothes and his rough-cut beard. ‘A lot of knowledge for a vagrant, or is it a deserter?’
Cassius Gallio senses that the time is now, and this is the only chance he’ll get. John is the last disciple he can save from death, even if he wants to die.
‘I came here straight from Addis Ababa,’ Gallio says, because he hasn’t forgotten how to lie. ‘My next mission is here in Rome, but with Peter facing public execution the CCU has to be careful about making contact with a high-profile Christian like you. That’s why they sent me to talk to you. No one in Rome remembers who I am.’
Paul’s gaze doesn’t waver. He brings back the steeple, and covers his nose.
‘Valeria sent me to ask about John,’ Gallio says, ‘because we’re reasonable men, Paul, you and I.’
Cassius Gallio has speculated every day in the boats from Patras to Rome, and again last night as he slept beneath the stars at the Abbey of the Three Fountains. If there is an explanation for his second failure as a Speculator, he has decided, this is where the unravelling starts: Paul is Valeria’s puppy, he is her little dog. Always has been.
Yes. All the way back in time to Damascus. Cassius Gallio has rearranged the pieces and now the picture is clearer. After his tribunal and his exile, Valeria had been promoted to the vacant senior Speculator post in Jerusalem. As an ambitious CCU operative she’d have liked the look of Paul, a home-grown killer, and Valeria could plausibly have planned to recruit Paul, luring him away from the Jews. Damascus was the opportunity, away from Jerusalem. Gather the information, assemble the pieces. Yes.
At the public library in Venice Gallio had looked up the area weather reports, and at the relevant time in that particular year a storm had pummelled the mountain ranges north of Israel. Paul with his entourage must have suffered, possibly hit by lightning. An opening. He arrived in Damascus dazed, blinded, and his recuperation provided perfect cover for negotiations behind closed doors, in which Valeria suggested an arrangement from which both stood to benefit. They put their heads together and devised the story of the miracle revelation, a brilliant invention that led to Paul’s acceptance by Jesus sympathisers everywhere.
Baruch had been right — Paul had a secret life. If Gallio had listened to Baruch more closely, and they’d uncovered Paul’s duplicity earlier, they could have undermined the Jesus belief. Now Gallio feels humbled but determined: Baruch was right about Paul, but he didn’t go far enough. Since Andrew, Gallio had seen the truth, and though he’s daunted by his fight against the what-will-be-will-be, he can out-speculate them all. Only Cassius Gallio understands that John must be denied his glorious martyrdom.
‘Paul, you told Valeria where the CCU could find the disciples,’ Gallio says. ‘Our map on the computer with the lights. You fed us information, and without you we wouldn’t have known where to start.’
‘Ingenious.’ Paul picks up a sweet, puts it down again. He looks at his watch, shakes it, holds the face against his ear. He unstraps his watch and places it on the table. ‘Interesting theory, except I haven’t helped the CCU find John. According to you I’ve turned in the others. I know everything about the disciples, then when it comes to John I suddenly know nothing.’
Paul has his own motivation for killing the disciples, over and beyond the leather furniture and free escorted travel to Rome. The disciples of Jesus inconvenience him. They’re his competition, so the quieter the disciples the stronger the voice of Paul, and one day Jesus will be whoever and whatever Paul decides he is in his letters and lectures. Valeria has helped Paul’s reputation to build, encouraging the public disagreements between him and Peter, trying to divide the enemy. She supplied Paul with centurions to feign conversion, and safe passage on his epic pedestrian treks. She once provided armed protection when he was threatened by Jewish militants. Paul is civilisation’s man.
‘Yet Valeria can be outwitted, can’t she?’ Gallio says. ‘Whatever you do, with Valeria’s support, belief in Jesus continues to grow. The Christian faith feels as inevitable as that premeditated escape from the tomb, as Jesus at work. You’re a triple agent, Paul. Valeria thinks you’re working for her, to divide and rule the disciples. In fact you’re working for Jesus.’
Paul holds out his hands, his innocent preacher’s hands.
‘Did you come all the way here to tell me that?’
‘You push information in both directions. You told Valeria we could find Jude in Beirut, but you told Andrew where I was in Greece. It was a CCU tracer in the phone, but the information still got through to Andrew.’
Paul stands and goes to the window. He clasps his hands behind his back, appraises the road in which he lives. ‘You took a risk coming here.’
He pulls the curtains closed.
‘Open them. Closing the curtains is a giveaway. They’ll know.’
Paul brushes back the curtains, strokes the edges as if to make sure they hang straight. From the outside he’ll look distracted, one of history’s deep thinkers taking a break from the meaning of life. ‘You don’t have any evidence. This is pure speculation, and there are hundreds of ways people know things, especially these days. Jude had his name in the papers.’
‘You’re not the only person who can change allegiance, Paul. I can’t make you trust me, but you too once converted. You stoned a Jesus believer to death in the street, now you write several letters a day exalting his name. I understand what you’re doing, and I want to help. Peter is the beloved disciple, isn’t he? Jesus is coming back before Peter dies.’
Paul grimaces. ‘And how would you be able to help?’
‘Tell me where to find John. I promise I’ll kill him, because it’s what you all want. I’ll make it grim. Then the stage is set for Peter and Jesus.’
Paul gives Cassius Gallio an address that leads to a bakery off the Via Veneto called La Dolce Vita. The woman behind the counter wipes her hands on her apron between every task, possibly between every thought. The shop is empty.
Gallio has the password, also provided by Pauclass="underline" Jesus is love. At first he can’t say it, but he makes the effort. ‘Jesus is love,’ he coughs to clear his throat. ‘Sorry. Jesus is love.’
The words turn out to be sayable, but they make his tongue soft and bring tears to his eyes. The woman wipes her hands, thinks hard, approves of what she sees and hears. She pulls up the hinged counter. ‘Bottom of the stairs, turn right. We have a cold store. Knock three times.’
The light switch is a concave button that sinks into the wall and starts a timer as it pulls back out. The timer ticks like a watch on fast-forward. Gallio is halfway down the wooden staircase when the light clicks off. In the dark he retraces his steps. The second time he memorises another light switch at the foot of the stairs, pushes in the timer and makes it down before the end of the buzz.
He pushes in the second light switch, another timer buzzing in his ear, then turns right towards the cold store. He listens at the door, the timer runs out, the light goes off. He stands in the dark in the silence until he hears movement inside. He knocks three times, as instructed. No response. He raises his hand to knock again. The handle turns, the door opens inward, a bakery store bright with striplights.