‘What? I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t need to. You just need to do what we ask.’
Five days later, the man who had organized and paid for the apparently pointless burglary in the Vatican left Italy in his chauffeur-driven car. Hidden in a secret pocket in one of his sets of matching suitcases were the two original manuscripts, handwritten by Petrarch and Tasso, which he would store securely in his extensive collection of ancient relics as soon as he got back home.
In the meantime, from what he’d been able to gather from the newspaper reports in Italy, Vatican officials appeared quite satisfied that the first-class forgeries he’d commissioned the previous year were actually the real thing, dumped by amateur burglars who got cold feet. All in all, and despite the somewhat unexpected greed of the two burglars he’d employed, it had been one of his most successful collecting expeditions.
2
Adolfo Gianni was dying, and he knew it.
The doctor’s diagnosis of terminal cancer of the lungs had not been entirely unexpected. He’d been coughing for years, and recently his chronic shortage of breath had got significantly worse. He’d put it down to old age, to the body simply getting less able to cope with the rigours of day-to-day life, but when he’d noticed blood on his handkerchief after one particularly violent bout of coughing, he’d guessed the worst.
He remembered the consultation a few days later very clearly. When he’d heard the diagnosis, he’d immediately remarked to the doctor that it was extremely unfair.
‘I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life,’ Gianni had said, his voice resigned and flat, ‘or even associated with people who enjoy an addiction to tobacco.’
‘That’s probably the commonest cause of lung cancer,’ the doctor had replied, ‘but there could be a number of other reasons for the disease taking hold. Several chemicals and foods have been identified as possible carcinogens, and some recent research has even suggested that burnt diesel fuel could also be a cause. And Rome traffic has always been heavy. Your illness may simply be a product of your environment, nothing more.’
‘What about treatment?’ Gianni had asked.
The suddenly grave expression on the doctor’s face would, the old cleric knew, remain etched on his memory until the very end, which he guessed would be rather sooner than he had hoped.
‘I am terribly sorry to have to tell you that there really is almost nothing we can do for you. You are not in the best of health generally, quite apart from the cancer, and at your age I don’t believe that an operation would be possible or advisable. And,’ the doctor had continued, ‘even if such a surgical procedure could be performed, I have little hope that doing so would achieve very much. As far as I can tell, the cancer is simply too far advanced for that. We can, of course, control the pain you will soon start to experience but, to be perfectly frank with you, that is about all we can do.’
For a few moments Gianni hadn’t responded, his brain reluctantly processing the quietly clinical death sentence that had just been pronounced. And then he had asked the inevitable question.
‘How long have I got left?’
Again the doctor’s face had clouded.
‘I can only give you my best guess. Perhaps six months, perhaps less. Perhaps a lot less. It will all depend upon how aggressive the cancer is, on how quickly it invades all the tissues of your lungs. The truth is that I really don’t know, and I’m certain that no doctor would be able to give you a definitive answer. But at least I’m sure that you will have ample time to make your peace with God.’
Gianni had smiled slightly at that.
‘I made my peace with God a very long time ago,’ he had replied, ‘though I still have one more task I must complete before the end.’
Actually, the doctor had been somewhat optimistic. Within six weeks Gianni had been forced to take to his bed in his tiny room in the Vatican City, a bed that he knew he would never again leave.
And now, as he slipped in and out of consciousness while the opiates did their work and eased the burning in his chest, reducing it to a dull but persistent ache, he guessed that the end was near. But he still had one more duty to discharge before he finally stood before his maker.
Adolfo Gianni waved away the nun who had been adjusting the flow of painkilling drugs through the intravenous line attached to his left arm, and gestured feebly to the other man, a slim and dark-haired young priest wearing rimless spectacles, who was standing uncomfortably against the wall of the room, mounting the death watch.
‘Yes, Father,’ the man murmured, stepping forward immediately and looking down at the frail, thin-faced man, his head outlined by a virtual halo of white hair, who lay on the bed, his body markedly and almost daily diminished by the disease which was steadily killing him. ‘Do you wish me to administer the Viaticum now?’
Despite the pain in his chest, a clutching tightness that made breathing difficult and any kind of strenuous movement completely impossible, Gianni summoned a weak smile from somewhere.
‘Not quite yet, Francis. I can delay the last rites for a little while longer, I believe. No, I must see Father Morini.’
3
Until his terminal illness had forced him to cease work within the Vatican, Adolfo Gianni had been the Prefect in charge of the Secret Archives, and of the staff of priests appointed to work there. The archives weren’t a collection of dusty books and manuscripts ranged on shelves in a darkened room, but were bright and busy most of the time, people coming and going throughout the hours of daylight, and often late into the evening as well.
When it became clear that Father Gianni would not be able to continue with his work, another very senior cleric, Father Antonio Morini, had been appointed in his place, and had been spending most of his time in the archive ever since, improving his knowledge of the way the system worked and familiarizing himself with his new employment. Francis Gregory knew exactly where he would find his new superior.
He knocked twice on the Prefect’s door, waited a few seconds, then opened it and stepped into the office.
The man sitting behind the desk was heavily built, his broad shoulders straining at the fabric of his habit, with a ruddy, round face, topped by a thatch of greying hair. He looked more like a farmer than a senior Vatican official.
Morini looked up as the young man entered his office and gave him a slight sad smile.
‘Has he finally slipped away?’ he asked.
Gregory shook his head.
‘Not yet, Father, but I think the end is very near. I offered him the Viaticum, but he declined, at least for the moment. Instead, he asked me — in fact, he told me — to summon you to his bedside.’
‘Perhaps he wants me to personally administer the last rites to him?’ Morini wondered.
Again Gregory shook his head.
‘Possibly, but I think it’s something else, something that he wants to talk to you about.’
Morini nodded, glanced at the papers covering the desk in front of him, and then stood up.
‘I could do without the interruption, but of course in these sad circumstances I will speak with Father Gianni if that is his wish.’