"I don't know, seems like a nice kid."
"They may have sent him to handle his uncle."
"Oh, come on!" Giuseppe protested. "Isn't that a little far-fetched? Listen, I think you're right-Sofia and Marco are blowing this case all out of proportion, although Marco doesn't make mistakes often… But this shroud, it's like an obsession."
"Well, thanks for leaving me out there swinging in the breeze yesterday when I said that. Why didn't you say something then?"
"What was the point? And what are we arguing about now? We've gotta do what Marco says to do. And that's fine by me. If he's right, great, we've got our case; if not, big deal, at least we tried to find an answer to those fucking fires. Either way, we do what we're told-but we don't have to knock ourselves out, know what I mean?"
"Stiff upper lip and all that, huh? You could be English instead of Italian, my man."
"It's just that you take everything so seriously, and you're so damn touchy. If I said the sky was blue you'd argue about it."
"It's that things aren't like they used to be. The team is going to hell."
"Of course the. team is going to hell. You and Sofia tense up like two spitting cats when you're together, and you'd think you get off fighting with each other. I swear, you both look like you're ready to go for the jugular any second. Marco's right: Work and screwing don't mix. I'm being straight with you, Pietro-it's your own fault things stink right now."
"Who asked you to be straight with me?"
"Yeah, well, I've been wanting to talk to you about it, so there you go."
"So let's say it's all Sofia's and my fault. What are we supposed to do?"
"Nothing. It'll pass-and anyway, she's leaving. When the case is over she's outta here, off to greener pastures. She wants to do more than chase down cat burglars."
"She's really something…" Pietro said, a faraway look in his eyes.
"What's weird is that she'd hook up with you in the first place."
"Thanks."
"Come on! People are what they are, and they might as well accept it. You and I are cops. Neither of us is in her league, or Marco's either. He's gotten himself an education, and you can tell it. I mean, I'm happy to be what I am and to have gotten where I've gotten. Working in Art Crimes is good duty, and other cops look up to you."
"Your dedication moves me."
"Okay, I'll shut up, but I thought you and I could always be up-front with each other-tell it straight out."
"Good. You've told me. Let's drop it and get back to headquarters. We'll get Interpol to ask the Turks to send us whatever they've got on this nephew who's landed in Turin."
47
ELIANNE MARCHAIS WAS A SMALL, ELEGANT woman with that unmistakable French flair. She greeted Ana Jimenez with a mixture of resignation and curiosity.
She didn't like reporters. They simplified everything one told them so much that in the end all they printed were distortions-which was why she didn't give interviews. When people asked her opinion about something, her. response was always the same: "Read my books. Don't ask me to tell you in three words what I've needed three hundred pages to explain."
But this young woman was a special case. Spain's ambassador to UNESCO had phoned on her behalf, as had two chancellors of prestigious Spanish universities and three colleagues at the Sorbonne. Either the girl was truly important or she was a bulldog who'd stop at nothing until she got what she wanted, in this case that Marchais devote a few minutes of her time to her-because a few minutes was all the professor had patience for.
Ana had decided that with a woman like Elianne Marchais there could be no room for subterfuge. She would tell her the truth straight out, and one of two things would happen: The professor would either throw her out or help her.
It took her no more than a few minutes to explain to Professor Marchais that she wanted to write a history of the Shroud of Turin and that she needed the professor's help in order to separate the fantasy from the truth in the history of the relic.
"And why are you interested in the shroud? Are you Catholic?"
"No… I mean… I guess I am, in some sense. I was baptized, although I don't go to Mass."
"You haven't answered my question. Why are you interested in the shroud?"
"Because it's a controversial object that also seems to attract a certain degree of violence-fires, robberies in the cathedral……"
Professor Marchais raised an eyebrow. "Mademoiselle Jimenez, I'm afraid I can't help you," she said disdainfully. "My specialty is not esoteric gobbledygook."
Ana didn't move from her chair. She looked fixedly at the professor and tried another tack, resolving to proceed carefully.
"I think I may have misspoken, Professor Marchais. I'm not interested in esotericism, and if I've given that impression I apologize. What I'm trying to do is write a documented history, the furthest thing imaginable from any magical, esoteric interpretations. I'm looking for facts, facts, just facts, not speculation. Which is why I've come to you, so that you can help distinguish what's true in the interpretations of certain more or less recognized authors. You know what happened in France in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as though it were yesterday, and it's that knowledge that I need."
Professor Marchais hesitated. The explanation the young woman had given was at least a serious one.
"I don't have much time, so tell me exactly what you want to know."
Ana breathed a small sigh of relief. She knew she couldn't make another mistake or she'd be thrown out like yesterday's fish bones.
"Well, specifically, I'd like you to tell me everything you can about the shroud's appearance in France."
With a bored gesture, the professor began a detailed recitation.
"The best chronicles of the time say that in 1349, Geoffroy de Charny, seigneur of Lirey, announced that he possessed a grave cloth bearing the impression of the body of Jesus, to which his family paid great devotion. Geoffroy sent letters to the pope and the king of France, asking for authorization to build a collegiate church in which to display the shroud so that it might be worshipped by the faithful. A collegiate church-in case your Catholic upbringing didn't clarify that point-is a church very like a cathedral, with an abbot and a 'college' of priests, in this case called 'canons.' It's that college of canons from which the term derives. So, to continue: Neither the pope nor the king replied to his request, which meant the collegiate church couldn't be built. But with the complicity of the clergy of Lirey, who saw an opportunity to increase their influence and importance in the seigneury, the shroud nevertheless began to be an object of public worship."
"But where had the shroud come from?"
"In the letter de Charny wrote to the king of France, which can be found in the royal archives, he assured the king that he had kept his possession of the shroud a secret so as not to inspire disputes among various communities of Christians, since other shrouds had appeared in places as far-flung as Aix-la-Chapelle and Mainz in Germany, Jaen and Tolosa in Spain, and Rome. It was in Rome, in fact, beginning in 1350, that a shroud, believed of course to be authentic, was displayed in the Vatican basilica. Geoffrey de Charny swore to the king and the pope, on the honor of his family, that the shroud that he possessed was the true one, but what he never told either man was how it had come into his power. Was it a family inheritance? Had he bought it? He never said, and thus we simply do not know.