Stealing God (11 page)

There weren't a lot of choices.

‘You're saying this is political?'

‘Why not? And if it isn't then let's make it that way.'

‘Talk sense, Jimmy, I'm not in the mood for riddles.'

‘You've already said it. It was the Chinese. Why not? They kick the shit out of Cheng for God knows how many years then suddenly rehabilitate him. Why? To show him off as their pinup of the tolerant new China, a place that's open for business. But he's still a threat, he still won't toe their line, and he still represents a challenge to their authority. So, like I say, they build him up, use him to show that they're all good guys now, even go so far as to let him come to Rome. Once he's here and the PR job is done he's dead, natural causes, very sad. The Chinese keep their good-guy image and get rid of Cheng in a way which means no one can point the finger at them. What do you think?'

Ricci thought.

‘It's not exactly a fairy tale but it's still a long way from any sort of convincing argument and it still gives us nothing.'

‘It gives us enough to do what it has to do.'

‘Which is?'

‘We go to your minister and tell him it was the Chinese, end of story, end of case. You get well again and go back to being a copper and I go back to my training. Good night, Vienna, show's over.'

‘I see. If you're right and this is as much about you as Cheng's death and they need you to stay involved they won't let you walk away any more than they let me kick you out.'

‘That's right.'

‘And if it is just Cheng's death then we've done as much as can be done, we're finished and we can walk away.'

‘Right again. One way or another …'

‘… we'll get told and be able to move on or move out.' The room door opened and a nurse came in. Ricci turned to her. ‘It's OK, nurse, I'm about to go. Just give me a few more minutes.'

‘Not long. Signor Costello is much better but he still needs his rest and strictly speaking there should be no visitors at all in this part of the hospital at this time of day.'

Ricci put on his most charming smile.

‘Gone in a couple of minutes, promise.'

It bounced off the nurse and hit the floor with a thud.

‘Two minutes. No more.'

And she went out leaving the door open.

‘No sale for your charm there.'

‘Jimmy, there's a problem.'

‘Just one?'

‘Look, maybe you're right but how do we do this? You might be able to barge in and say “It's the Chinese, end of story. Now I quit”. That's fine for you, you get to go back to being a student priest. But what about me? I go back to what? However we wrap it up if I say, “we're done now, go fuck yourself” to the minister then I'll be lucky to go back to work as a traffic cop.' He paused. ‘You can see what I mean, can't you? Your career as a copper is over, mine's just taking off. It's a big ask for me to go along with it your way, a very big ask.'

Jimmy smiled. His smile was getting better, he'd been practising it while he was stuck in hospital. Now it nearly went all across his mouth.

‘Being on the side of the angels always is a big ask, isn't it? Wasn't that something you told me?'

Ricci took the point.

‘OK, it's easy to tell someone else to do the right thing. It's not so easy to do it when you have to pay the price yourself. Maybe right and wrong never look quite so clear cut when you're at the sharp end.'

‘Don't worry, I don't need you to do much, you won't get any crap on your record. I'll see to it that you stay as neat and clean as your nice, sharp clothes.'

‘And you, will you stay clean?'

‘Me? Who the hell would notice or care if Jimmy Costello picked up another bit of crap. I stopped smelling of roses long ago when …'

‘Moses was in the fire brigade and Pontius was a pilot.'

‘Get me out of here tomorrow morning and set up a meeting for as soon as you can. Now piss off. I'm tired and the nurse says I need my rest.'

Jimmy climbed onto the bed, lay down, and closed his eyes but Ricci didn't leave.

‘About Glasgow.'

‘What about Glasgow?'

‘You're sure it's finished, my uncle will be OK?'

‘Why shouldn't he be?'

‘Because according to you someone there nearly had you killed because you went and looked into the fire. What if they decide to do the same to my uncle? Do you think they might?'

‘How the hell would I know? Your uncle's nothing to do with the case so it's nothing to me one way or the other.' Jimmy turned over. ‘Close the door on your way out.'

Ricci left, closing the door quietly behind him and walked on through the hospital. He would set up a meeting with the minister's aide, but from now on he would trust Jimmy about as much as he trusted the aide, which was only as far as he had to. By the time he was out of the hospital and walking to his car he had made a decision. He had been right the first time. He didn't like Jimmy Costello after all.

SIXTEEN

When Jimmy came to Rome he'd rented his furnished apartment from a couple who were making an extended visit to their son in South America. It was in an expensive residential district north-east of the Vatican and had been furnished with plenty of nice things; naturally the couple had worried about getting the right kind of tenant. For them an English ex-policeman in Rome training for the priesthood had been the answer to a prayer. It was too big really for just one person but Jimmy liked the convenience of the location, being able to walk into central Rome. For longer journeys Lepanto Metro station was only five minutes' walk and St Gioacchino's Church was nearby so if he wanted to go to morning Mass it wasn't a problem. He went most mornings, except when he, Danny, and Ron went together to eleven o'clock Mass at Chiesa Nuova before going to the bar for a drink. All in all he didn't mind what it was costing him, he could afford to pay for comfort, convenience, and privacy.

He sat in the kitchen sipping his coffee. He was tired after the journey from the hospital which reminded him that he was recuperating from a bad beating and wasn't ready yet to go ballroom dancing. There was a buzz from the street door. He went to the intercom. It was Danny.

‘Come up. Top floor, the door will be open.' There was no “glad to see you” in Jimmy's invitation. Nobody had visited him in hospital except Ricci. It wasn't that he'd wanted visitors, if he'd been asked he would have told the nurses to turn away any that came. But that wasn't the point. Nobody had come to be turned away, not Danny not Ron, not anybody.

Danny appeared at the door and Jimmy took him into the living room where he motioned to an easy chair and they sat down.

‘What's been going on, Jimmy?'

‘I was in hospital, that's what's been going on. If you'd bothered to ask you'd have known.'

Danny laughed his deep laugh.

‘Oh, I asked. When you suddenly dropped out of sight I asked. You'd been given permission to make a short trip back to the UK on urgent family business, which sounds a bit thin seeing as how you told us not so long ago that you'd got no family in the UK. Then I ask again, are you back yet? They tell me you're back but you got mugged and put into hospital. Ron and I came to see you but we got told you weren't having any visitors for as long as you were in there. No one. Why were you so off-limits? Was the mugging so bad?'

Keeping everyone away must have been Ricci's idea, though God knows why he did it.

‘They did a fair job.'

‘I tried to come and visit a couple of times but the answer was still no one allowed.'

‘I didn't know that. I just thought I didn't have any visitors.'

‘I phoned every morning, all I could get was, Mr Costello is as well as could be expected. Then today they said you'd been discharged so I came round here. Look, I don't want to know why someone was keeping you under wraps, if that's what it was, that's your affair. I just want to know if you're OK.'

‘Thanks, Danny. I'm OK. A bit fragile still, but like a bloke said, I'm a tough old bird and I've been knocked around before. I'll be fine. How are things going with you?'

‘Not so well.' You could tell by the way he said it that it was going to be something serious. Danny paused before going on, getting himself ready. ‘I'm giving up at the end of this term. I tried but it's just not for me. I wanted to tell you before anyone else because,' he paused again, looking for the right words, ‘because I think we might have become friends. Because I think there's something I recognise in you that I know is in me.'

‘About being a copper?'

‘No, something about living with who we are, about accepting the person we find we've become. I think we're both looking for something. Not a new start, there's never a completely new start. The past doesn't let you go that easily. But trying to change, trying to make sure the future is different. I thought becoming a priest might be a part of building a future I could be happy to live with. Maybe you did as well. In my case I was wrong.'

‘Do you want to talk about it?'

‘No. It won't help to drag it out and show it about.' He laughed. ‘It's no big deal. I'll survive. I'll go back to Jamaica and get myself a place. I'll get by on my pension and savings and go back to being just another old sinner. One more bad Catholic in need of God's love and mercy.'

They sat in silence.

‘Coffee?'

‘No, I hate the muck.'

‘That's right, I forgot. You say it whenever we go to the bar. Why do you drink it if you don't like it?'

‘It's a penance.' They both laughed. The seriousness had gone. Now they were just talking. ‘Each day I have to say three Hail Marys, and drink at least three filthy coffees.'

‘It must have been a real serious sin.'

‘I'm a Jamaican who hates coffee. That's not just serious, it should be mortal. But there's no mortals these days are there, Jimmy? Nobody's sin sends them to hell any more. Everything's venial now, all little sins. The days of big sins and big sinners are over. Everybody gets forgiven ever since somebody discovered that God's love is unconditional. You can't deserve it, you can't earn it, you get it whether you like it or not.'

‘Like fluoride in the water.'

Danny laughed loudly.

‘Spot on. And if God's love is unconditional his forgiveness has to be as well. So we all get forgiven whether we ask for it or not. Like fluoride in the water.' Then the laughter died away. ‘Except that it isn't like that, is it? Most people don't want to think about whether they need forgiveness because they never look at themselves too closely. If they did they might not like what they see.'

‘Listen, it was nice of you to call but I'm a bit tired.'

Danny got up.

‘Sure. I just popped round.'

Jimmy got up and put out his hand.

‘Thanks, Danny. I'm sorry you're packing it in.'

‘Look after yourself, Jimmy, and take care.'

‘I will. See you around.'

Danny left and Jimmy closed the door behind him. He went back into the living room, picked up the phone, and dialled.

‘You get that meeting with the minister's aide? Good, when is it? Pick me up. Never mind that, let me deal with it. I said I would. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Just get me there, I'll do the rest.'

Jimmy put the phone down. Two days before the meeting to rest up and get ready then it was back to work. He went into the bedroom and drew the curtains and lay down on the bed. Danny's visit had unsettled him, that was why he had bustled him out. What Danny was doing, what he had said, was too close to home. While his doubts all stayed in his head he could deal with them but Danny had laid them out for him and he could see that what was true for Danny was probably just as true for him. He lay still wondering whether, after this Cheng business was over, he'd go back to training or do like Danny and pack it in. His mind circled the question but not for long. He was tired and in a few minutes he was asleep.

SEVENTEEN

‘They won't let you in. You can't just walk into a government office and get a meeting with whoever you like.'

‘We'll see.'

Ricci had picked Jimmy up at 9.30 and was now driving through the mad Roman traffic. A passing car swerved in front of him. Ricci pumped the horn a couple of times, a reflex reaction. Everybody pumped the horn.

‘Just being with me won't get you in. Being a police inspector doesn't give me any pull. I'm not even a minor civil servant to these people.'

‘We'll see.'

Ricci drove on. If Jimmy wasn't going to tell him he wasn't going to tell him.

‘OK, have it your own way.'

‘Like you had it your way so I got no visitors?'

Ricci gave him a quick, surprised look.

‘That wasn't me, that was the hospital. At first they wouldn't even let me in to see you but when they were sure you were out of danger and going to be OK they changed their minds and made me an exception. But they were right, if they hadn't done it I would have seen to it. You'd been rambling. If you had visitors you might have said something.'

They drove on in through the busy traffic. It was the big scooters that made Roman traffic different. All the bloody scooters in the world seemed to be on these roads and on cue a powerful black one, ridden by a woman whose leather-mixture jacket and pleated skirt clashed violently with her vivid yellow crash helmet, cut up a Suzuki rider who retaliated by revving up his big bike and roaring past her, causing shock waves of braking, swerving, and hooting. A Barbie girl in a tight white top, sunglasses, and jeans, with masses of curly black hair spilling from under her helmet calmly slid her scooter into the openings the manoeuvring caused. Then everything subsided back into the normal horn-laden chaos.