‘Then it is only we three. The doctor who treated me in Baghdad was killed in a bombing shortly after he examined me, and the Holy Father is dead.’
‘What about the clinic in Geneva?’
‘I was only booked in for a preliminary consultation under an assumed name. I never went. Nobody there would have any idea the prospective patient was me.’
Lomeli sat back in his chair and contemplated the unthinkable. But then, was it not written in Matthew, Chapter 10, Verse 16: Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. . . ? ‘I’d say there’s a reasonable chance that we can keep it secret in the short term. O’Malley can be promoted to archbishop and sent away somewhere – he won’t talk; I can deal with him. But in the long term, Your Holiness, the truth will emerge, we may be sure of it. I recall there was a visa application for your stay in Switzerland, giving the address of the clinic – that might be discovered one day. You will get old, and require medical treatment – you may have to be examined then. Perhaps you will have a heart attack. And eventually you will die, and your body will be embalmed. . .’
They sat in silence. Benítez said, ‘Of course, we are forgetting: there is one other who knows this secret.’
Lomeli looked at him in alarm. ‘Who?’
‘God.’
It was nearly five when the two emerged. Afterwards, the Vatican press office let it be known that Pope Innocent XIV had refused to receive the traditional pledges of obedience while seated in the papal throne but instead had greeted the cardinal-electors individually, standing before the altar. He embraced them all warmly, but especially those who had at one time dreamed of being in his place: Bellini, Tedesco, Adeyemi, Tremblay. For each he had a word of comfort and admiration; to each he pledged his support. By this demonstration of love and forgiveness he made it plain to every man in the Sistine Chapel that there were to be no recriminations – that no one would be dismissed and that the Church would face the perilous days and years ahead in a spirit of unity. There was a communal sense of relief. Even Tedesco grudgingly acknowledged it. The Holy Spirit had done its work. They had picked the right man.
In the vestibule, Lomeli watched O’Malley cram the paper sacks of ballot papers and all the notes and records of the Conclave into the round stove and set fire to them. The secrets burnt easily. Then into the square stove he released a canister of potassium chlorate, lactose and pine resin. Lomeli let his eyes travel slowly up the length of the flue to the point where it exited through the glassless window and into the darkened heavens. He could not make out the chimney or the white smoke, only the pale reflection of the searchlight in the shadows of the ceiling, followed a moment later by the distant roar of hundreds of thousands of voices raised in hope and acclamation.
Acknowledgements
At the outset of my research I asked the Vatican for permission to visit the locations used during a Conclave that are permanently closed to the public. I am grateful to Monsignor Guillermo Karcher of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff for arranging my visit, and to Signora Gabrielle Lalatta for her expert guidance. I also interviewed a number of prominent Catholics, including a cardinal who participated in a Conclave; however, our conversations were off the record, and therefore I can only thank them generally rather than specifically. I hope they are not too appalled by the result.
I have drawn on the work of many reporters and authors. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the following: John L. Allen, All the Pope’s Men; Conclave; John Cornwell, A Thief in the Night: The Death of Pope John Paul I; The Pope in Winter: The Dark Face of John Paul II’s Papacy; Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII: Pope of the Century; The Year of Three Popes; Richard Holloway, Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt; Austen Ivereigh, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope; Pope John XXIII, Journal of a Soul; Sally Ninham, Ten African Cardinals; Gianluigi Nuzzi, Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis’s Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican; Ratzinger Was Afraid: The secret documents, the money and the scandals that overwhelmed the Pope; Gerald O’Collins SJ, On the Left Bank of the Tiber; Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, An English Spring; John-Peter Pham, Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession; Marco Politi, Pope Francis Among the Wolves: The Inside Story of a Revolution; John Thavis, The Vatican Diaries.
I also wish to thank, once again, my editors in London and New York, Jocasta Hamilton and Sonny Mehta, for their consistently wise advice and enthusiasm; Joy Terekiev and Cristiana Moroni of Mondadori in Milan, who helped facilitate my visit to the Vatican; and, as ever, my German translator, Wolfgang Müller, who exercised his usual sharp eye for errors.
Finally, my love and gratitude to my family – my children Holly, Charlie (to whom this book is dedicated), Matilda and Sam, and above all to my wife Gilclass="underline" first reader, as always. Semper fidelis.
About the Author
Robert Harris is the author of ten bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy – Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator – Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, and An Officer and A Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Several of his books have been filmed, most recently The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.
