‘We made the inquiries you requested,’ Scarpione told Sanchez-Valdes once the introductions had been performed. ‘The supervisor responsible for the Carmelites’ holdings says that no repair work had been ordered in the house where Grimaldi lived.’
The archbishop looked at Zen.
‘Well, there’s the answer to the question you put to us last night. What is its significance?’
‘Grimaldi’s neighbour, Marco Duranti, said that someone was working there on Monday afternoon with an electric drill, supposedly repairing the drains.’
‘And someone was there again last night,’ Scarpione broke in, proud of his scoop. ‘I’ve just had a call about it from the Carabinieri. They were called out by this Duranti, but unfortunately the intruders managed to escape by using some sort of smoke bomb.’
Zen coughed loudly.
‘They probably came back to search Grimaldi’s room again.’
The archbishop frowned.
‘Again?’
‘They tried once before, after they killed him.’
Luigi Scarpione took a moment to react. Sanchez-Valdes turned to Zen, indicating the Vigilanza chief’s stunned and horrified expression as proof that the Vatican’s hands were clean of Grimaldi’s death. Zen held up his palms in token of the fact that he had never for a moment believed otherwise.
‘But the Carabinieri…’ Scarpione began.
‘The Carabinieri don’t know about Grimaldi’s involvement in the Ruspanti case,’ Zen broke in. ‘In fact they don’t even know that there is a Ruspanti case. If they did, they might have concluded that two such deaths in five days was a bit too much of a coincidence, and taken the trouble to investigate the circumstances of Grimaldi’s “accident” a little more thoroughly, as I did. In which case, they would no doubt have discovered that the workman who came to the house on Monday afternoon had drilled a hole through the wall between the bathroom and the passage outside, enabling him to connect an electric cable to the water pipes feeding the shower. A woman was round at the house on Monday morning, talking to Grimaldi, and I saw her leave on Tuesday, just after he died. She would have waited for him to go into the shower, as he did every day before starting work, and then thrown the switch. The moment Grimaldi stepped under the water he was effectively plugged into the mains. Afterwards the woman pulled the cable free and removed it, leaving an electrocuted body inside a bathroom bolted from the inside. Of course the Carabinieri thought it was an accident. What else were they supposed to think?’
Scarpione shuddered. Sanchez-Valdes patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and led the way past the helicopter landing pad from which the pope set off to his villa and swimming pool in the Alban hills, or on one of his frequent foreign trips.
‘And what about you, dottore?’ he asked Zen. ‘What do you think?’
Zen shrugged.
‘What had Grimaldi been working on this week, since Ruspanti’s death?’
‘A case involving the theft of documents from the Archives,’ said Scarpione. ‘Giovanni was patrolling the building, posing as a researcher.’
‘Not the sort of thing people would kill for?’
‘Good heavens, no! A minor trade in illegal antiquities, that’s all.’
‘In that case, my guess is that he tried to put the squeeze on the men who murdered Ruspanti. That transcript that’s gone missing probably contained some reference implicating them. Grimaldi put two and two together, stole the transcript, and offered to sell it for the right price. That would also explain why he sent the anonymous letter to the papers. He couldn’t blackmail the killers without casting enough doubt on the suicide verdict to get the case reopened.’
The three men passed through a gap in the battlemented walls, the truncated portion covered with a rich coat of ivy, and started downhill, through the formally landscaped gardens, the dome of St Peter’s rising before them in all its splendour.
‘Have you located the source of the keys which Ruspanti’s killers used?’ Zen asked casually.
Sanchez-Valdes nodded.
‘Yes indeed! Tell Dottor Zen about the progress we’ve been making this end, Luigi.’
Scarpione glanced at the archbishop.
‘All of it?’
‘All, all!’
The Vigilanza chief cleared his throat and began.
‘We thought at first it might be one of the sampietrini.’
He lowered his voice discreetly.
‘There have been complaints on several occasions from some of the younger workers about the behaviour of Antonio Cecchi, their boss.’
‘A little matter of attempted buggery, to be precise,’ Sanchez-Valdes explained cheerfully.
Scarpione coughed again.
‘Yes, well…’
‘Like many people,’ the archbishop went on, speaking to Zen, ‘Luigi makes the mistake of supposing that we priests are either ignorant of or embarrassed by the facts of life. If he had spent half as much time in a confessional as we have, he would realize that there is nothing likely to shock us very much. Carry on, Luigi!’
‘Well, anyway, in the end one of the uniformed custodians who patrol the dome during the hours of public access admitted that he had been responsible. He said he was approached by a man who represented himself as a monsignore attached to the Curia. This person claimed that a party of notables from his native town were visiting the Vatican, and said he wanted to give them a private tour of the basilica. He would be so obliged if it would be possible for him to borrow the keys for an hour or two.’
‘All such requests are supposed to be submitted in writing,’ Sanchez-Valdes explained, ‘but no lay worker in the Vatican is going to refuse a favour to a member of the Curia.’
Zen grunted.
‘Only in this case, he wasn’t.’
‘We have a description of the impostor,’ Scarpione assured him. ‘He was of average stature, quite young, with fair hair and fine features.’
‘Well, that rules out la Cicciolina.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Dottor Zen is being ironic,’ Sanchez-Valdes explained heavily. ‘His implication is that while the description you have given may effectively exclude the ex-porn queen and present Radical Party deputy from suspicion, it is imprecise enough to cover almost everyone else.’
‘I’m sure you did the best you could,’ Zen murmured, glancing at his watch.
They had reached a terrace overlooking a formal garden in the French style. In a cutting below, a diesel locomotive hooted and started to reverse around a freight train on the branch line linking the Vatican to the Italian state railway system.
‘We mustn’t detain you any longer, dottore,’ Sanchez-Valdes told Zen. He turned to Scarpione. ‘How can we get him out of here without attracting attention, Luigi? The last thing we want is a front-page photograph of the man from the Ministry of the Interior leaving the Vatican after high-level consultations at the Secretariat of State when he’s supposedly too ill to answer questions from the press.’
‘How did he get in?’ asked Scarpione.
‘Through the museum. But that’ll be too risky at this time of day.’
The Vigilanza man pondered for a moment.
‘I suppose I could get one of my men to smuggle him out in a delivery van or something…’
Sanchez-Valdes shook his head.
‘I don’t want to subject their loyalty to any further tests just at present,’ he remarked acidly.
He snapped his fingers.
‘I know! That train looks like it’s about to leave. Go and have a word with the crew, Luigi, and ask them to drop our visitor off at the main-line station. It’s only a short ride, and that way he’s sure to be unobserved.’
Scarpione hurried off, eager to prove that his loyalty, at any rate, was unimpeachable. As soon as he was out of earshot, Sanchez-Valdes turned to Zen.
‘Despite what our detractors say, dottore, I urge you to accept that the Vatican has no vested interest in obscurity or mystification, still less in such wickedness as these killings. Our only wish is to see the perpetrators brought to justice, and I can assure you that we will bend all our efforts to that end. On the basis of the information you have provided today, I shall make representations to the Carabinieri to reopen their investigation into Grimaldi’s death…’