He eyed the next brown paper folder warily; perhaps in here? Somehow he hoped not; seventy-five miscellaneous pages of Latin in varieties of bad handwriting. It could take him weeks to get through that, if he was being careful. He really should have paid more attention during his Latin lessons. How was he to know it would ever come in useful, after all? He flipped through the pages, hoping that by some miracle there would be passages in Italian to make his life easier, and groaned as he found exactly the opposite. Greek, for heaven’s sake. Ten pages in Greek. Life is very unfair, sometimes.
It was no good. He simply couldn’t do it. He stared moodily at the pages again, then shook himself. Nothing for it. He’d just have to hope that Father Charles was operational this morning. And willing to help.
The Gemelli hospital, where all the best religious illnesses are treated, was a mixture of the antiquated in architecture and the advanced in equipment. Merely because the nurses were nuns did not mean they were any less ferocious than their counterparts in more secular institutions; the sick threaten to disrupt the smooth running of the hospital, and visitors were a lower form of pond life whose mere existence was an affront to anyone seriously interested in health care. Getting in to see Father Xavier was, therefore, slightly more difficult than Flavia had anticipated; by the time she had battled her way through three floors of obstruction to Father Xavier’s floor, she was feeling both punch-drunk and irritated. At least he was finally conscious.
The last stage was easier, though not because of the nurses in charge; rather, the priest Father Jean had sent down to watch over the superior came forward and offered his protection; he held very much greater authority than a mere member of the police could ever have.
“Thank you,” Flavia said gratefully when the last nurse had pulled in her fangs and retreated.
“They are very protective, I find,” he said mildly. “And you are the third visitor today. They are concerned he may be tired out too easily.”
“Who else has been?”
“Father Paul, to see how he is doing. And another man from the police. That is why the nurses were cross, I think. They expect you to coordinate things better …”
“Somebody else from the police …? Who?”
“I don’t know. A very kind gentleman, very gentle indeed with Father Xavier.”
Flavia’s irritation was growing apace. It must have been one of Alberto’s minions—probably his sidekick called Francesco and she thought she had a clear agreement that questioning the old priest would be her job. Alberto hadn’t even wanted to send anyone. He was quite within his rights to change his mind, of course, but he could have told her in advance. That was only fair.
“Late forties, stout, balding, permanent sweat, slightly smelly?” she said, knowing that her description of her colleague would be recognized.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Not at all. He was in his thirties, I’d say. Very well-dressed, but a lot of stubble. But a very assured air about him, you know. Looked unusually chic for a policeman, in my view. But, of course, I’m not Italian myself …”
Flavia handed him a photograph of Mikis Charanis.
“Yes. That’s him.”
Flavia closed her eyes in despair as the details sank in. “When was he here?”
“About fifteen minutes ago. That’s when he left. He was only here for ten minutes.”
“And have you seen Father Xavier since?”
“No. I just sat out here …”
Flavia walked quickly to the door, brushed aside the remaining nurse guarding it and walked straight into the room, hoping desperately that her worst nightmares were not about to come true.
Father Xavier peered at her with mild interest from his bed. “Good morning, signorina,” he said, as alive and as well as could be expected in the circumstances. Certainly, he had not acquired a bullet in the brain recently. And for that, Flavia was profoundly grateful. The fact that it was mere luck, that Charanis could quite easily have killed the man had he been minded to do so, did not make her feel any better at all. Damn it, wasn’t Alberto meant to have put a man on the door?
She sat down heavily on the only chair available, and breathed deeply as she recovered herself. No point, she decided, in causing unnecessary alarm, or advertising your incompetence.
“I understand you have just had a visit from a colleague in a rival department,” she said with as much of a smile as she could manage. “I’m with the Art Squad, investigating the theft of your icon. Perhaps you could just tell me what you told him? That way I can stop bothering you.”
“By all means. All he wanted to know was what happened, and where the icon was. Which, alas, I could not tell him.”
Flavia frowned. “He asked you where it was?”
“Yes.” Father Xavier smiled. “I see you feel that is your job, not his. Not that it matters. I can’t tell either of you. I was in the church, to pray, and that was the last I remember.”
“You didn’t see your attacker?”
He shook his head. “No. He must have come up from behind.”
“And was the icon in its place? Did you notice it?” He shook his head. “I didn’t look. I’m afraid I’m not much of a help to either of you.”
“And you were in the church to pray.”
“Yes.”
“Is that usual? I mean, do you do that often?”
“I am a priest. Of course.”
“At six in the morning?”
“When I was a mere novice, signorina, we had to get up at three as well as at five. I like to continue that old way, even though I don’t think it right any more to impose it on anyone else.”
“I see. And while you were praying, did you hear anyone? See anyone? Speak to anyone?”
“No.”
“Nothing unusual at all?”
“No.”
Flavia nodded. “Father, it pains me to say so, but I’m afraid you are not only a liar, you are a bad one.”
“Your colleague did not have the effrontery to say so.”
“I’m glad to hear it. But I do, I’m afraid. You were in that church to meet Burckhardt. Even though your order had voted not to sell anything, you decided to go ahead anyway because you were desperate to raise money to cover your losses at your stockbrokers. You rang him, and agreed to meet him at six in the morning. You went to the church, took the key, and unlocked the main door so he could come in. Then you waited for him to turn up. That is perfectly clear; so much so that you needn’t even bother to confirm it. There can be no other explanation.”
She stopped and looked at him, to see whether she had hit home. His total silence convinced her she was absolutely right. It had been perfectly obvious, anyway. She let him stew for a while before continuing with a new idea that had just popped into her head.
“And to avoid trouble with your order, you tried to organize things so that it looked like a robbery. You were the person who left the anonymous tip-off saying there was going to be a theft.
“Now,” she said, before he could waste his breath with a denial, “your relations with your order are not my concern, thank goodness. I don’t have a clue whether you had the right to do it or not. And for the sake of simplicity, I might even be prepared to forget about the way you wasted our time with false reports. I could file a charge on that. But we have more important things at the moment. And I want whatever help you can offer me.”