God's Dog (3 page)

While he was writing, a postcard had slipped out of the exercise-book; an old postcard, of the kind now found only on junk-stalls. Slightly faded, with wavy edges and a blue postmark. Salazar found himself peering at the little town of Veere, in Zeeland, at the little harbour, in whose still waters the imposing outline of the Grote Kerk was reflected. It looked like an overturned ship, covered with seaweed and shells. He lifted the postcard to his lips, reread the few words with a smile and slipped it back between the blank pages.

At that same moment, in a garage in Malagrotta, a man and a woman were getting out of a white van.

‘From tomorrow onwards I'll be at Monte Spaccato. You'll have to deal with the explosives on your own,' said the woman, opening the van door.

‘We and the others will see to that. We've already made arrangements with Mirko. On Tuesday we're seeing the Russians. We'll be making two trips. They want to give us the components in two installments; for reasons of security, they say. They're cautious people, but that's no bad thing. Clearly, they know what they're doing. The service area just before Civitavecchia, as usual. We'll put everything together here in the basement. When will you have finished at San Filippo Neri?' the man asked. He had turned off the engine. The light from the dashboard lit up his bearded face.

‘It depends on how things go. Usually I need three or four days. I'll be doing the next one too, at the Gemelli. Then we'll have to stop and lie low for a bit. Until things calm down.'

‘So, if all goes well, for quite some time!' said the man with a nervous grin, locking the door of the van.

‘If all goes well…' the woman murmured into the darkness.

Neither the black jacket, worn over a collarless grey shirt, nor the silver crucifix, sported in the buttonhole, could fool the sister on the palliative care ward. Despite his dress, she knew immediately that he was not one of those pilgrim priests who did good works for the Church in order to pay for their stay in Rome. But she proceeded as though she suspected nothing, checking the registration number he gave her on the computer. Then she nodded, and opened the door to the office. Dawn was just breaking. The neon lights in the corridors of San Filippo Neri were beginning to go out.

‘Sister, how many patients have you got on this ward?'

‘Twenty-seven. All stable. Nine unconscious.'

‘Atheists?'

‘Four. All open and above board. All paying the official atheism tax.'

‘And the others?'

‘Twenty Catholics. Three Muslims.'

‘Do they receive visits from an imam?'

‘Every Friday.'

‘What time do you celebrate lauds for the Catholics?'

‘At seven every morning.'

‘Do their relatives attend regularly?'

‘All except for three. But the chaplain is authorised to act as proxy; and they pay the fine.'

‘Are their ecclesial documents up-to-date?'

‘We check them every time they come. All relatives have attended the requisite number of masses. But there have been lapses in the past, and they have been noted down.'

‘Thank you. Tomorrow I'll need a list of the names and addresses of all the patients and their civil status. I'll leave it here with you; but it must always be available.'

‘Very good.'

‘Are we still in time for lauds?'

‘The chaplain is waiting for me. Come this way.'

Salazar followed the sister through the glazed door. Several empty camp beds stood in the corridor, over whose light brown linoleum a cleaning woman was wearily pushing a mop. The smell of the detergent mingled with the scent of coffee and cut flowers; some rooms were full of them. As he entered the large room, Salazar was instantly struck by the winking of bubbles in innumerable drips, the only things in that whole space that moved at all. Heavy white globs, they rose to the surface, then sank down again, unceasing in their regularity. The beds were arranged in two rows in front of an improvised altar, rigged up on a piece of furniture originally from a chemist's shop. Several stretcher-bearers had just brought in the most recent arrivals, and were now quietly leaving. The relatives remained, like so many unmoving sentinels. Filtering in through the curtains, the daylight could not contend with the soft, tenacious shadow. Some patients were groaning, dark hands moving spasmodically over the dense white of the sheets. But the chaplain soon drowned the sound out with his prayers.

‘Lord of all mercy, may your victims' prayers come unto you; show them the light which frees man from all pain! You are the life eternal, you are the way, the truth.'

‘Show them the light!' chorused the shadowy figures in sepulchral unison. Salazar immediately sensed a jarring note, a lying note, among those voices. Lauds was a group prayer for which the patients in every ward in the hospital were brought together once a day. Visiting relatives were expected to join in. For the terminally ill it was an opportunity to take a reckoning, to see just how nearly their fellow-sufferers were approaching death. Only those who had received extreme unction were spared the lauds. But, for fear of reprisals, many relatives did not even dare ask for it. At the end of the rite the stretcher-bearers pushed the beds back into the rooms from which they had come, and suffering could carry on unimpeded.

The Medical Guarantor of Faith was a bony, shambling man with long, vein-threaded hands. He sported an eye-catching white goatee which he moved like a horn as he thrust his chin continually forwards. His heavy, wrinkled lids gave his small eyes the look of those of an aging mastiff. He wore an expensive-looking tie tucked into his surgeon's white coat, and showy cuff links of gold and mother-of-pearl in the sleeves of the shirt he wore beneath it.

‘Welcome to our institution, inspector!' he said, ushering Salazar into the bare room, which looked more like a mortuary than an office. The furniture was that of a consulting room. Steel and plastic, also pale brown in colour, like the lino. The glass doors to the two little cupboards to either side of the desk were engraved with Hippocrates' serpent. A huge black wooden crucifix hung on the end wall. Salazar sat down in one of the two small armchairs flanking a small glass table on which stood a relief model of the hospital. The doctor sat down in the other, opening his white coat to reveal a grey double-breasted jacket.

‘Your superiors have informed me of your mission. Obviously, you can count on my total collaboration. We cannot be everywhere at once, inspector! And I know that the angels of death have infiltrated this hospital, as they have so many others. We are for ever vigilant, but that is not enough. Two years ago we arrested several abortionists who were making contact with their clients in our clinic. We reported the suspects and asked the police to carry out surprise inspections of our doctors' premises and equipment. But more than that we cannot do!'

Salazar looked around him. He noted the tidy desk, its glass top immaculate; a photograph of a seaside villa in a silver frame, the doctor's shoes, their soles still completely unmarked by use, the expensive fountain pen in the pocket of his white coat. He sensed that the man was a typical high-ranking civil servant, cut out for receptions and gala evenings rather than for detective work.

‘I quite understand, doctor. I'm here to give you a hand in just such matters. Tell me more about how the palliative care unit functions.'

‘The patients in that unit, as you know, have meagre chances of recovery. Their survival is in the hands of God in all His infinite mercy. So the only treatment they receive is the therapy of prayer, as indeed do all patients struck down by fatal illnesses before their cases become terminal.'

‘So, even before they come into the palliative care unit, you are already able to tell which patients have no faith in such therapy.'

‘Unfortunately, euthanasiasts cannot be identified at this early stage. When a patient realises that he has been stricken by a fatal illness, his natural reaction is to rebel against his fate. Prayer therapy serves to help him to resign himself and we have scientific proof that it can perform miracles, if scrupulously carried out. In this field, papal medicine is progressing by leaps and bounds. As you will know, a miracle occurs over three stages: predisposition, acceptance and accomplishment. Many of our patients get as far as acceptance, which is when clear signs of recovery appear. But lack of faith prevents them from entering the accomplishment phase. Of course, in such cases the collective prayers of other patients for those of their companions who have reached the state of acceptance would be extremely helpful; but human pettiness knows no bounds. One sick man does not willingly pray to save another. Governed by selfishness, he prays with a lie in his heart; God senses as much and lets them both decline. And this is just punishment for one who refuses to love his neighbour as himself. But, as I have said, we are studying the phenomenon of the miracle, and we are now in a position to give it something of a helping hand. We have discovered that intense prayer is at its most effective when the phase of predisposition is drawing to a close. The most recent research into the miracles performed by our saints is telling us that there is a hierarchy of grace. In other words, specific cures require the intercession of specific saints. It is no use doing what we Italians so often do, namely turn to those divine figures whom we love the most, for instance the Virgin Mary, regarding them as more influential. For centuries now the Church has been conducting a series of finely tuned experiments proving that divine figures too much called upon tend to withdraw, to become more elusive. This is quite understandable: too much divine intervention would upset the balance between the prospect of salvation and the credibility of the Last Judgement. In a word, God cannot save us until the time is ripe. That is why turning to the saints, particularly in their areas of expertise, may be more effective. Furthermore, here we come upon yet another example of the wisdom of the Church, which has always pointed to the saints as examples of thorough-going humanity achieved through faith. This line of research is also leading to a heightened understanding of any one saint's specific powers. To give a concrete example: nothing is more effective for the curing of a tumour on the breast than praying to Saint Agatha.'

Trying to conceal his impatience, Salazar heard him out.

‘I see. So, to go back to the more concrete side of my enquiries, can you confirm that the only effective route to catching a dying man bent on euthanasia is via his family?'

‘Undoubtedly. We have also had some arrested by allowing corrupt doctors to catch them in flagrante. But the price to be paid in human lives is too high for this to be a valid strategy. To catch a euthanasiast doctor, we have to allow him to kill too many patients. And that, from the point of view of our doctrine, is a cost that is not sustainable.'

Before continuing, the doctor leant towards Salazar, covered his mouth with his hand and whispered:

‘Even if, between the two of us, in the crusade against the Cathars, Arnold of Citeaux was not altogether in the wrong when he said: “Kill the lot of them. God will recognise his own!”'

Having uttered these words, the doctor fell back into his chair with a malicious smile. Salazar looked away, lost in thought. He folded his hands and lifted them to his chin.

‘And how do you respond when you identify a terminally ill patient who is hoping to have recourse to euthanasia?'

‘The first thing we do is to get him to confess. That way, at least his soul will be saved. Then we report the members of his family, and here justice and the law intervene. As you know, the punishment may vary: from fines to expropriation of property, down to excommunication and the loss of civil rights. But this does not concern us, inspector. We are on the battlefield, counting the dead and wounded!' explained the doctor, waving his goatee.

‘Just one last thing – how do you get a euthanasiast to confess? Excuse my curiosity, but I've been living abroad for years and I no longer know how things are done in Italy. I need to know as much as possible, to understand the mentality of those I'm dealing with.' Salazar did not expect to benefit much from this conversation, but he felt something might be gained by keeping on the right side of the man.

‘Oh, I quite understand, inspector! That's what I'm here for! And you're quite right – confession is not something that can be enforced. It has to come from the heart. So we encourage it with persuasion. While he is still conscious, and not as yet too weakened by illness, we see to it that the patient has regular sessions with our psychologists, apparently “free-ranging” conversations which provide an outlet for him to express his fear, whereas for us they offer some window on to his state of mind. If these are not sufficient, we organise catechism sessions and obligatory prayer vigils for the patient and his family. It is often these which make him see the error of his ways, if not out of faith, then at least for form's sake. As you may know, the law is more lenient with the relatives of a confessed criminal.'

‘Most interesting. What you have told me has given me a better idea of how to proceed,' said Salazar, as though thinking aloud. The doctor was now gazing at him absently, as though his mind were elsewhere.

‘Inspector, do you believe in guardian angels?' he asked a little hesitantly.

Salazar paused before answering. ‘Of course I do! As number 328 of Joseph Ratzinger's catechism puts it, angels are individual beings endowed with intelligence and will,' was his prudent reply, when it finally came.

‘Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to pry, nor do I doubt your faith. I know that practical men like you have no time to linger over such subtleties. But today we papal scientists, who are used to peering into the mysteries of creation, are giving new importance to these beings which Ratzinger's catechism describes as purely spiritual beings, incorporeal, invisible and immortal. We are beginning to believe that this invisibility and incorporeality may not preclude a certain contact with the human world. Recent research in our department of parapsychology has discovered methods of making contact with guardian angels – with techniques derived from hypnotism, comparable to a mystic's ecstasy. Simply put, by means of an induced trance, the human mind can discern the wavelength on which guardian angels communicate, a bit like tuning into a radio station whose frequency is normally imperceptible to the human ear. Here, though, it is the soul which does the tuning. Such practices must be conducted with caution, however, since this same frequency is also that used by demons. But, despite the risk, it is still worth a try. Our researchers have made contact with certain wingless angels, who are the easiest to reach because they are present on earth in considerable numbers. It is in this area that we may be of some assistance to you – by seeking to make contact with the guardian angels of the terminally ill. They are certainly in a position to tell us what is going on in their proteges' hearts and minds. Obviously, we need time, and you would have to undergo specific training.' The doctor had now assumed the air of someone who is giving a diagnosis and prescribing a cure. He bit his lip, and his goatee shot forwards as he did so.