That growing sense of purpose and excitement with which they had ended the morning session had evaporated. Now, as the cardinals filed up to vote, and the small area of sky visible through the high windows darkened, the silence in the Sistine became bleak and tomblike. The tolling of the bell of St Peter’s for five o’clock might have been the death knell at a funeral. We are lost sheep, Lomeli thought, and a great storm is approaching. But who will be our shepherd? He still thought the best choice was Bellini, and voted for him yet again, but without any expectation that he could win. His tallies in the four ballots so far had been eighteen, nineteen, ten and eighteen respectively: clearly something was preventing him breaking out beyond his core group of supporters. Perhaps it was because he had been Secretary of State, and was too closely associated with the late Holy Father, whose policies had both antagonised the traditionalists and disappointed the liberals.
He found his gaze returning repeatedly to Tremblay. The Canadian, who was nervously fingering his pectoral cross as the voting proceeded, managed somehow to combine a bland personality with passionate ambition – a paradox that was not uncommon in Lomeli’s experience. But maybe blandness was what was needed to maintain the unity of the Church. And was ambition necessarily such a sin? Wojtyła had been ambitious. My God, how confident he had been, right from the start! On the night of his election, when he had stepped on to the balcony to address the tens of thousands in St Peter’s Square, he had practically shouldered the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations out of the way in his eagerness to speak to the world. If it comes to a choice between Tremblay and Tedesco, Lomeli thought, I shall have to vote for Tremblay – secret report or no. He could only pray it would not happen.
The sky was entirely black by the time the last ballot was cast and the scrutineers began to count the votes. The result was another shock:
Tremblay 40
Tedesco 38
Bellini 15
Lomeli 12
Adeyemi 9
Benítez 4
As his colleagues turned to look at him, Tremblay bowed his head and placed his hands together in prayer. For once this ostentatious show of piety did not irritate Lomeli. Instead, he briefly closed his eyes and gave thanks. Thank you, O Lord, for this indication of Your will, and if Cardinal Tremblay is to be our choice, I pray that You may grant him the wisdom and strength to fulfil his mission. Amen.
It was with some relief that he stood and faced the Conclave. ‘My brothers, that concludes the fifth ballot. No candidate having achieved the necessary majority, we shall resume voting tomorrow morning. The masters of ceremonies will collect your papers. Please do not take any written notes out of the Sistine, and be careful not to discuss our deliberations until you are back inside the Casa Santa Marta. Would the Junior Cardinal-Deacon please ask for the doors to be unlocked?’
At 6.22 p.m., black smoke once again began to pour from the Sistine chimney, picked out by the searchlight mounted on the side of St Peter’s Basilica. The pundits hired by the television channels professed themselves surprised by the Conclave’s failure to agree. Most had predicted that the new Pope would have been elected by now, and the US networks were on standby to interrupt their lunchtime schedules to show the scenes in St Peter’s Square as the victor appeared on the balcony. For the first time the experts started to express doubts about the strength of Bellini’s support. If he was going to win, he ought to have done so by now. A new collective wisdom began to rise out of the debris of the old: that the Conclave was on the verge of making history. In the United Kingdom – that godless isle of apostasy, where the whole affair was being treated as a horse race – the Ladbrokes betting agency made Cardinal Adeyemi the new favourite. Tomorrow, it was commonly said, might at last see the election of the first black Pope.
As usual, Lomeli was the last cardinal to leave the chapel. He stayed behind to watch Monsignor O’Malley burn the ballots, and then together they made their way across the Sala Regia. A security man trailed them down the staircase towards the courtyard. Lomeli assumed that O’Malley, as the Secretary of the College, must know the results of the afternoon ballots, if only because it was his task to collect the cardinals’ notes in order to destroy them – and O’Malley was not the kind of man to avert his eyes from a secret. He must be aware therefore of the collapse of Adeyemi’s candidacy and of the unexpected ascendancy of Tremblay’s. But he was too discreet to raise the subject directly. Instead he said quietly, ‘Is there anything you would like me to do before tomorrow morning, Your Eminence?’
‘Such as?’
‘I was wondering if perhaps you wanted me to go back to Monsignor Morales and see if I could discover any more about this withdrawn report into Cardinal Tremblay.’
Lomeli glanced over his shoulder at the security man. ‘I don’t know what would be the point of it, Ray. If he wouldn’t say anything before the Conclave started, he’s hardly likely to do so now, particularly if he suspects Cardinal Tremblay might be about to be elected Pope. And that, of course, is exactly what he would suspect if you raised the matter for a second time.’
They emerged into the evening. The last of the minibuses had gone. Somewhere nearby a helicopter was hovering again. Lomeli beckoned at the security guard and gestured to the deserted courtyard. ‘I seem to have been left behind. Would you mind?’
‘Of course, Your Eminence.’ The man whispered into his sleeve.
Lomeli turned back to O’Malley. He felt weary and alone and was seized by an unaccustomed desire to unburden himself. ‘Sometimes one can know too much, my dear Monsignor O’Malley. I mean, who among us doesn’t have some secret of which he is ashamed? This ghastly business of shutting our eyes to sexual abuse, for example – I was in the foreign service, so was spared direct involvement myself, thank God, but I doubt I would have acted any more firmly. How many of our colleagues failed to take the complaints of the victims seriously, but simply moved the priests responsible to a different parish? It wasn’t that those who turned a blind eye were evil; it was simply that they didn’t understand the scale of the wickedness they were dealing with, and preferred a quiet life. Now we know differently.’
He was silent for a moment, thinking of Sister Shanumi and her worn little photograph of her child. ‘Or how many have had friendships that became too intimate, and led on to sin and heartbreak? Or poor silly Tutino and his wretched apartment – without a family, one can so easily become obsessed with matters of status and protocol to give one a sense of fulfilment. So tell me: am I supposed to go around like some witchfinder general, searching for my colleagues’ lapses of more than thirty years ago?’
O’Malley said, ‘I agree, Your Eminence. “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” However, I thought in the case of Cardinal Tremblay you were worried about something more recent – a meeting between the Holy Father and the cardinal that took place last month?’
‘I was. But I’m beginning to discover that the Holy Father – may he be joined for evermore to the Fellowship of Holy Pontiffs. . .’
‘Amen,’ said O’Malley, and the two prelates crossed themselves.
‘I am beginning to discover,’ continued Lomeli in a quieter voice, ‘that the Holy Father may not have been entirely himself in the last few weeks of his life. Indeed, from what Cardinal Bellini has said to me, I gather he had almost become – I speak to you in absolute confidence – slightly paranoid, or at any rate very secretive.’