The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,13
had prayed over his broken body.
“How long has this been going on?” asked Gabriel.
“I’ve always loved that song,” replied Donati archly.
“Answer the question.”
“Nothing is going on. But I’ve been having dinner with her on a regular basis for a year or so.”
“Or so?”
“Maybe it’s more like two years.”
“I assume you two don’t dine in public.”
“No,” answered Donati. “Only in Veronica’s home.”
Gabriel and Chiara had attended a party there once. It was an art-and-antiquity-filled palazzo near the Villa Borghese. “How often?” he asked.
“Barring a work emergency, every Thursday evening.”
“The first rule of illicit behavior is to avoid a pattern.”
“There is nothing illicit about Veronica and me having dinner together. The discipline of celibacy does not forbid all contact with women. I simply can’t marry her or—”
“Are you allowed to be in love with her?”
“Strictly speaking, yes.”
Gabriel stared at Donati with reproach. “Why willingly place yourself in such close proximity to temptation?”
“Veronica says I do it for the same reason I used to climb mountains, to see whether I can maintain my footing. To see whether God will reach down and catch me if I fall.”
“I assume she’s discreet.”
“Have you ever met anyone more discreet than Veronica Marchese?”
“And what about your colleagues at the Vatican?” asked Gabriel. “Did anyone know?”
“It is a small place filled with sexually repressed men who love nothing more than to exchange a good piece of gossip.”
“Which is why you find it suspicious that a man with a failing heart died on the one night of the week you weren’t in the Apostolic Palace.”
Donati said nothing.
“Surely there’s more than that.”
“Yes,” said Donati as he plucked another leaf from the artichoke. “Much more.”
7
RISTORANTE PIPERNO, ROME
THERE WAS, FOR A START, the phone call from Cardinal Albanese. It arrived nearly two hours after the camerlengo said he had found the Holy Father dead in the private chapel. Albanese claimed to have called Donati several times without receiving an answer. Donati had checked his phone. There were no missed calls.
“Sounds like an open-and-shut case. Next?”
The condition of the papal study, answered Donati. Shutters and curtains closed. A half-drunk cup of tea on the desk. One item missing.
“What was it?”
“A letter. A personal letter. Not official.”
“Lucchesi was the recipient?”
“The author.”
“And the contents of the letter?”
“His Holiness refused to tell me.”
Gabriel was not sure the archbishop was being entirely truthful. “I assume the letter was written in longhand?”
“The Vicar of Christ doesn’t use a word processor.”
“To whom was it addressed?”
“An old friend.”
Donati then described the scene he encountered when Cardinal Albanese led him into the papal bedroom. Gabriel pictured the tableau as though it were rendered in oil on canvas by the hand of Caravaggio. The body of a dead pontiff stretched upon the bed, watched over by a trio of senior prelates. At the right side of the canvas, scarcely visible in the shadows, were three trusted laymen: the pope’s personal physician, the chief of the Vatican’s small police force, and the commandant of the Pontifical Swiss Guard. Gabriel had never met Dr. Gallo, but he knew Lorenzo Vitale, and liked him. Alois Metzler was another story.
Gabriel’s private Caravaggio dissolved, as though washed away by solvent. Donati was recounting Albanese’s explanation of having found, and then moved, the corpse.
“Frankly, it’s the one part of his story that’s plausible. My master was quite diminutive, and Albanese has the body of an ox.” Donati was silent for a moment. “Of course, there is at least one other explanation.”
“What’s that?”
“That His Holiness never made it to the chapel. That he died at his desk in the study while drinking his tea. It was gone when I came out of the bedroom. The tea, that is. Someone removed the cup and saucer while I was praying over Lucchesi’s body.”
“I don’t suppose it underwent a postmortem examination.”
“The Vicar of Christ—”
“Was it embalmed?”
“I’m afraid so. Wojtyla’s body turned quite gray while it was on display in the basilica. And then there was Pius XII.” Donati winced. “A disaster, that. Albanese said he didn’t want to take any chances. Or perhaps he was just covering his tracks. After all, if a body is embalmed, it would make it much harder to find any trace of poison.”
“You really need to stop watching those forensic shows on television, Luigi.”
“I don’t own a television.”
Gabriel allowed a moment to pass. “As I recall, there are no security cameras in the loggia outside the private apartments.”
“If there were cameras, the apartments wouldn’t be private, would they?”