‘But what are the facts, Janusz? You’ve given me no facts. Were you present at this meeting between the two of them?’
‘No, Eminence. The Holy Father told me about it afterwards, when we had supper together.’
‘Did he tell you why he’d dismissed Cardinal Tremblay?’
‘No. He said the reasons would become clear soon enough. He was extremely agitated, though – very angry.’
Lomeli contemplated Woźniak. Might he be lying? No. He was a simple soul, plucked from a small town in Poland to be a chaplain and companion for John Paul II in his declining years. Lomeli was sure he was telling the truth. ‘Does anyone else know about this, apart from you and Cardinal Tremblay?’
‘Monsignor Morales – he was at the meeting between the Holy Father and Cardinal Tremblay.’
Lomeli knew Hector Morales, although not well. He had been one of the Pope’s private secretaries. A Uruguayan.
‘Listen, Janusz,’ he said. ‘Are you absolutely certain you’ve got this right? I can see how upset you are. But, for example, why hasn’t Monsignor Morales ever mentioned anything about it? He was there in the apartment with us on the night the Holy Father died. He could have brought it up then. Or he could have told one of the other secretaries.’
‘Eminence, you said you wanted the straight facts. These are the straight facts. I’ve been over them in my mind a thousand times. I found the Holy Father dead. I summoned the doctor. The doctor summoned Cardinal Tremblay. Those are the rules, as you know: “The first member of the Curia to be officially notified in the event of the Pope’s death is to be the Camerlengo.” Cardinal Tremblay arrived and took control of the situation. Naturally, I was hardly in a position to object, and besides, I was in a state of shock. But then, after about an hour, he drew me aside and asked me if the Holy Father had had anything particular on his mind when we had supper. That’s when I should have said something. But I was frightened, Your Eminence. I wasn’t supposed to know of these matters. So I just said that he seemed agitated, without going into any details. Afterwards, I saw the cardinal whispering in the corner with Monsignor Morales. My guess is that he was persuading him not to say anything about the meeting.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because later I did try to mention to the monsignor what the Pope had told me, and he was very firm about it. He said that there had been no dismissal, that the Holy Father had not been his normal self for several weeks, and that for the good of the Church I shouldn’t raise the subject again. So I haven’t. But it’s not right, Eminence. God tells me it’s not right.’
‘No,’ agreed Lomeli, ‘it’s not right.’ His mind was trying to work through the implications. It might easily all be nothing: Woźniak was overwrought. But then again, if they did elect Tremblay Pope, and some scandal was subsequently discovered, the consequences for the wider Church could be appalling.
There was a loud knock on the door. Lomeli called out, ‘Not now!’
The door was thrown open. O’Malley leaned into the room. All his considerable weight was balanced on his right foot, like an ice-skater; his left hand clung to the door frame. ‘Your Eminence, Archbishop, I’m very sorry to interrupt, but you are needed urgently.’
‘Dear God, what is it now?’
O’Malley glanced briefly at Woźniak. ‘I’m sorry, Eminence, I’d prefer not to say. If you could come at once, please?’
He stepped back and gestured in the direction of the lobby. Reluctantly Lomeli got to his feet. He spoke to Woźniak. ‘You’ll have to leave the matter with me. But you did the right thing.’
‘Thank you. I knew I could always come to you. Would you bless me, Eminence?’
Lomeli laid his hand on the archbishop’s head. ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.’ At the door, he turned. ‘And perhaps you would be kind enough to remember me in your prayers tonight, Janusz? I fear I may have greater need of intercession than you.’
In the last few minutes, the lobby had grown more crowded. Cardinals had begun emerging from their rooms, preparing to go to Mass in the hostel’s chapel. Tedesco was holding forth to a group at the bottom of the staircase – Lomeli saw him out of the corner of his eye as he strode alongside O’Malley towards the reception desk. A member of the Swiss Guard, his helmet under his arm, was standing at the long polished wooden counter. With him were two security men and Archbishop Mandorff. There was something ominous about the way they were staring straight ahead, not speaking, and it occurred to Lomeli with absolute certainty that a cardinal must have died.
O’Malley said, ‘I’m sorry for the mystery, Your Eminence, but I didn’t think I could say anything in front of the Archbishop.’
‘I know exactly what this is about: you’re going to tell me we’ve lost a cardinal.’
‘On the contrary, Dean, we appear to have acquired one.’ The Irishman gave a nervous giggle.
‘Is that meant to be a joke?’
‘No, Eminence.’ O’Malley became sombre. ‘I mean it literally: another cardinal has just turned up.’
‘How is that possible? Did we leave someone off the list?’
‘No, his name was never on our list. He says he was created in pectore.’
Lomeli felt as if he had walked into an invisible wall. He came briefly to a halt in the middle of the lobby. ‘He has to be an impostor, surely?’
‘That was my reaction, Eminence. But Archbishop Mandorff has spoken to him. And he thinks not.’
Lomeli hurried over to Mandorff. ‘What’s this I’m hearing?’
Behind the reception desk, a couple of nuns busied themselves at their computers, pretending not to listen.
‘His name is Vincent Benítez, Eminence. He’s the Archbishop of Baghdad.’
‘Baghdad? I wasn’t aware we had an archbishop in such a place. Is he an Iraqi?’
‘Hardly! He’s a Filipino. The Holy Father appointed him last year.’
‘Yes, now I think I do remember.’ He had a vague memory of a photograph in a magazine. A Catholic prelate standing in the burnt-out skeleton of a church. Was he really now a cardinal?
Mandorff said, ‘You of all people must have been aware of his elevation?’
‘I am not. You look surprised.’
‘Well, I assumed if he’d been made a cardinal, the Holy Father would have notified the Dean of the College.’
‘Not necessarily. If you recall, he completely revised the canon law on in pectore appointments shortly before he died.’
Lomeli tried to sound unconcerned, although in truth he felt this latest slight even more acutely than the rest. In pectore (‘in the heart’) was the ancient provision under which a Pope could create a cardinal without revealing his name, even to his closest associates: apart from the beneficiary, God alone would know. In all his years in the Curia, Lomeli had only ever heard of one case of a cardinal created in pectore, whose name was never made public, even after the Pope’s death. That had been in 2003, under the papacy of John Paul II. To this day no one knew who the man was – the assumption had always been that he was Chinese, and that he had had to remain anonymous to avoid persecution. Presumably the same considerations of safety might well apply to the Church’s senior representative in Baghdad. Was that it?
He was aware of Mandorff still staring at him. The German was perspiring freely in the heat. The chandelier gleamed on his watery bald skull. Lomeli said, ‘But I’m sure the Holy Father wouldn’t have made such a sensitive decision without at least consulting the Secretary of State. Ray, would you be so kind as to find Cardinal Bellini, and ask him to join us?’ As O’Malley left, he turned back to Mandorff. ‘And you think he’s genuinely a cardinal?’