The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud (7 page)

He had deliberately left the man's card on the table in the interview room. He had not even touched it. Now he had to wait-wait for another year to pass.

"He left the card right where you put it-didn't even touch it." The warden had called Marco to report the status of his prisoner, as promised.

'And have you noticed anything unusual these past few days?"

"Nothing. He's the same as always. He goes to the chapel when he's out of his cell, and when he's in his cell he's staring at the ceiling. The cameras record him twenty-four hours a day. If he did anything unusual I'd call you."

"Thanks."

Marco hung up. He thought he'd struck a nerve, but he was wrong. The investigation was going nowhere.

Minerva would be arriving any minute. He'd asked her to come to Turin because he wanted the entire team on hand. Maybe if they all sat down together they'd be able to see something.

They'd stay on in Turin for two or three more days, but then they had to go back to Rome; they couldn't devote themselves exclusively to this case-that wouldn't fly with the department, much less the ministries. And the worst thing that could happen would be somebody starting to think he was obsessed. The guys upstairs were already restive-the shroud was unharmed, no damage done, nothing taken from the cathedral. There was the body of one of the perps, of course, but nobody had figured out who he was, and nobody seemed to care much either.

Sofia and Pietro walked into the office. Giuseppe had gone to the airport to pick up Minerva, and Antonino, always punctual, had been there for some time, reading files.

Sofia raised a hand in greeting.

"How're things, boss?"

"Great. The warden assures me the mute hasn't taken the bait-it's like I was never there."

"That sounds like the way he's acted since the beginning," said Pietro.

"Yeah, I guess so."

A peal of laughter and the clacking of high heels announced the arrival of Minerva. She and Giuseppe came in, laughing.

The atmosphere brightened with Minerva's arrival, as it always did. She was happily married to a software engineer who, like her, was an authentic computer genius, and she seemed to be in a perpetual good mood.

After the usual round of greetings, the meeting got under way.

"Okay," said Marco, "let's go over what we've got. And when we're done I want each and every one of you to give me your opinion. Pietro, you start."

"First, the fire. The company that's doing the work in the cathedral is named COCSA. I've interrogated everyone who's working on the electrical system-nobody knows anything, and I think they're telling the truth. Most of them are Italian, although there are a couple of immigrants: two Turks and three Albanians. Their papers are all in order, including work permits.

'According to them, they get to the cathedral every morning at eight-thirty, as the first Mass is ending. As soon as the worshippers leave, the doors are closed and there are no more services until six in the evening, when the workers go home. They take a break for lunch, from one-thirty to four. At four sharp they're back, and they get off at six.

'Although the electrical system is not all that old, they're removing it to install better lighting in some of the chapels. They're also repairing some of the walls- humidity has caused chunks of stucco to come loose and drop off. They figure that they'd have been done in two or three more weeks.

"None of them remembers anything unusual happening the day of the fire. In the area where the fire broke out, there were three men working: one of the Turks-a guy named Tariq-and two Italians. They say they can't understand how the short circuit happened. All three of them swear they left the wiring in order when they went to lunch at a little tavern near the cathedral. They have no idea how it happened."

"But it did happen," said Sofia.

Pietro glared at her and went on:

"The workers are happy with the company; they say the pay is good and the bosses treat them well. They told me that Padre Yves oversees the work in the cathedral, that he's a nice guy but he doesn't miss a thing, and that he's very clear about how he wants the work done. They see the cardinal when he officiates at the eight o'clock Mass and a couple of times when he's reviewed the work with Padre Yves."

Marco lit a cigarette, despite Minerva's reproachful look.

"But," Pietro went on, "the experts' report is conclusive. Apparently some cables that were hanging above the altar in the Virgin Chapel touched and caused a short circuit; that's where the fire started. An accident? Oversight? Neglect? Hard to say. The workers swear they left the cables apart, in perfect condition, but we have to ask ourselves whether that's true or just self-justification. I interviewed Padre Yves. He assured me the workers have always seemed very professional, but he's convinced that somebody fucked up. Not a direct quotation, by the way."

"Who was in the cathedral at the time of the fire?" asked Marco.

'Apparently," Pietro answered, "just the porter, an older guy, about sixty-five. People are in the offices until two, when they go to lunch. They come back around four-thirty. The fire started around three, so the porter was the only one there. He was in shock. When I interrogated him he broke down crying; he was scared, you could tell. His name is Francesco Turgut-an Italian citizen, father Turkish, mother Italian. Born and raised in Turin. His father worked at Fiat, and his mother was the daughter of the porter in the cathedral and helped him clean it. The Church maintains a house for the porter that actually shares a wall with the cathedral, and when Turgut's mother and father married, they moved in with the mother's parents, into the porter's residence. Francesco was born there; the cathedral is his home, and he says he feels guilty for not having been able to prevent the fire."

"Did he hear anything?" Minerva asked.

"No, he was watching TV and was half asleep. He gets up early to open the cathedral and the office annex. He says he jumped up when somebody rang the buzzer at the door. A man passing by in the piazza alerted him to the smoke. He ran in and discovered the fire and immediately set off the alarm and called the firemen. Since then he's been beside himself-all he does is cry. He says he walked through the cathedral before closing it up, and nobody was there. Part of his work is precisely that-seeing that nobody remains inside. He swears that when he turned off the lights, the cathedral was empty."

"So what do you think?" Marco asked him. "Was it set intentionally, or do you think it was caused by neglect or some sort of accident?"

Pietro hesitated. "If we hadn't found the body, I'd say it was an accident. But we've got the body of a man we don't know anything about, except that he's missing a tongue, just like the other guy. What was he doing there?

"Plus," Pietro went on, "somebody, in fact, broke in. The side door to the offices was forced. You can get from there to the cathedral. There are marks on the doorjamb. Whoever it was knew how to get in and how to get inside the cathedral. Since he did it without attracting the porter's attention, we assume he did it pretty quietly and when he knew there'd be nobody there."

"We're sure," Giuseppe put in, "that the thief, or thieves, knew somebody who works in the cathedral or has some relationship to it. Somebody who told them that that day, at that hour, there wouldn't be anybody around."

"Why are we sure of that?" Minerva asked.

"Because in this fire," Giuseppe said, "as in the purported robbery attempt two years ago, as in the fire in '97, as in all the other 'accidents,' the thieves knew there was no one inside. There's just one entrance besides the main entrance that's open to the public-the entrance to the offices. The others are permanendy boarded over. And it's always been that side door that's been forced. The door is reinforced, but that's no problem for professionals. We think there were other men with our dead guy and they got away. Raiding a cathedral is not something one man does alone. According to the records, all these incidents have taken place when work is being done on the church. Whoever these guys are, they seem to take advantage of repairs to get people in there when no one else is around, maybe short-circuit some wiring or flood the place or otherwise create chaos. But this time, like all the times before, they didn't take anything. Which is why we keep asking ourselves-what were they looking for?"

"The shroud," said Marco. "But why? To destroy it? To steal it? I don't know. I wonder whether forcing the door isn't a red herring, something they do to throw us off. It's too obvious… I don't know… Minerva, what've you got?"

"I can tell you that one of the controlling shareholders of the company in charge of the work, COCSA, is Umberto D'Alaqua. I've mentioned this to Sofia and sent you some of it by e-mail. This is a solid company that works for the Church, not just in Turin but all over Italy. D'Alaqua is a man the Vatican knows well and thinks highly of. He works with them as a consultant on some of the Vatican's big-and I mean big-investments, and he's made the Church large loans for operations where the Vatican wants to keep its presence quiet. He is trusted at the highest levels and he's also taken part in delicate diplomatic missions for the Church. His businesses range from construction to steel, including oil exploration, etc., etc. He owns a big block of COCSA.

'And he's an interesting man. Single, attractive, fifty-seven years old, serious. Never makes any show of the money or power he has. He's never seen at jet-set parties, never been known to have a girlfriend."

"Gay?" Sofia asked.

"No, apparently not, but boy, does he walk the straight and narrow. It's as though he's taken a vow of chastity, although he doesn't belong to Opus Dei or any other lay order that would indicate a particularly religious bent. His hobby is archaeology-he's financed excavations in Israel, Egypt, and Turkey, and he himself has actually worked at the digs in Israel a couple of seasons."

"It doesn't sound like Signor D'Alaqua jumps out as a prime suspect," Sofia commented wryly.

"No, but he's quite a figure," Minerva insisted. "As is Professor Bolard. These guys are heavyweights. See, boss, this professor is a renowned French chemist, one of the most famous investigators associated with the shroud. He's been studying it for over thirty-five years, doing tests on it, probing every aspect imaginable. Every three or four months he comes to Turin; he's one of the main scientists the Church has entrusted with the conservation of the shroud. They don't take a step without consulting him."

"Right," added Giuseppe. "Before moving the shroud to the bank, Padre Yves spoke with Bolard, who gave very precise instructions as to how the transfer was to be done. Years ago a small room was constructed for it, literally inside the bank vault, and it was built to the specifications of Bolard and other scholars."

"Okay, well, so Bolard," Minerva continued, "is the owner of a big chemical company. He's single and rich as Croesus, just like D'Alaqua, and has never been known to have a romance either."

"So… do D'Alaqua and Bolard know each other?" Marco asked.

"Not that I've found, although I'm still working on that. Of course, there'd be nothing strange if they did-Bolard also has a passion for the ancient world, and they're both involved with the Vatican. They travel in the same circles."

"What have you found out about our Padre Yves?" Marco asked her.

"Quite a guy, this priest of ours.
Very
sharp cookie. He's French, his family belongs to the old aristocracy, lots of influence in high places. His father, no longer with us, was a diplomat and one of the bigwigs in the Foreign Ministry under de Gaulle. Yves's older brother is a delegate to the French National Assembly, not to mention that he's held several posts in the Chirac administration. His sister is a justice of the French Supreme Court, and he himself has had a meteoric career in the Church. The person who's most directly helped that career is Monsignor Aubry, the assistant to the Vatican Under-Secretary of State, but Cardinal Paul Visier, keeper of the Vatican finances, also looks with favor on our Yves-he was Yves's older brother's roommate at university. So he's gotten one promotion after another, done his time in the diplomatic service. He's held posts at the nunciatures in Brussels, Bonn, Mexico City, and Panama. He was placed as secretary to the cardinal here at Turin specifically on the recommendation of Monsignor Aubry, and it's rumored that he'll soon be made auxiliary bishop in the diocese. There's nothing special in his biography except for the fact that he's totally devoted to the priesthood, with an influential family that supports his clerical career. His academic record is not so shabby either. In addition to theology, he's studied philosophy, he has a degree in ancient languages-the dead ones, Latin, Aramaic, and so on-and he speaks a number of living languages fluently.

"The only peculiar thing about him-for a priest, anyway-is that he likes martial arts. Apparently as a child he was kind of a ninety-seven-pound weakling, so to keep him from being hammered on all the time, his father decided he needed to learn karate. He took to it, and besides having his black belt with who knows how many notches or whatever in it, he's also a master at tae kwon do, kickboxing, and aikido. The martial arts seem to be his only indulgence, but considering the other predilections one runs across in the Vatican, this one is nothing. Oh, and despite how good-looking he is-I'm judging by the photographs-he's never been known to stray from his vows of chastity, with girls
or
boys. Nothing, absolutely celibate."

"What else have we got?" Marco asked without aiming the question at anyone in particular.

"We've got squat, boss," Giuseppe said. "We're still at square one. No leads and, what's worse, no motive. We'll look into the door being forced if you think it could be a plant to throw us off, but then where the hell do they get in and out? We've gone over the cathedral with a fine-tooth comb, and I can promise you there are no secret doors or passages. The cardinal laughed when we asked him about that possibility. He assured us that the cathedral has nothing like that. And I think he's right-we've looked at the maps of the tunnels that run under big parts of the city, and in that area there aren't any. In fact, Turin makes a lot of money taking tourists into the tunnels and giving them the history of its hero, Pietro Micca, and there's no hint of anything under the cathedral."