The Vatican Rip

As I made to go I pretended to notice a small stand on her desk, a simple circular base with a neatly turned stem not quite ten inches tall. She kept appointment cards in the slot at its top. It still had its screw. 'Excuse me, please, signora. Do you still have the embroidery fans?'

'The what?' She saw I was holding the stand. I knew she didn't know what it was. Fabio had its partner on his desk.

'There is a crenellated embroidered fan-shaped piece of material which goes with this.'

The penny still hadn't dropped. 'It's a rare American candle screen. Ladies used them to shield their eyes from direct glare when sewing. Seeing you have the pair… Look, signora,' I suggested. 'Why don't I restore these in the workshop? I could clean them up and maybe we can find the screens. They're really very valuable…”

That was my first success, gaining access to the workshop. My second came when Adriana, passing for the umpteenth time to check I was still hard at it, actually came in and commented, 'You seem at home here.'

I was concentrating on milking the screw out. 'I am. Why is it such a shambles?'

She gazed about and did her shrug. 'The business can't run to a craftsman.'

'Because that's tragic' I indicated a small table in the corner. I'd not had time to have a look at it, but it looked a good early nineteeth-century French occasional table. Some goon had stuck its broken leg with sticking plaster. A couple of planks lay across its precious surface. 'The poor little sod,' I said. 'I'll do it for you.'

'Can you? Having them mended costs the earth.'

'I can do better. I'll make you a reproduction piece, something really splendid.'

'The true wood will be expensive.'

'I'll make it pay.' I'd nearly said worth your while. Adriana got the switch and went all prim.

'Do you have a piece in mind, Lovejoy?'

'I think so.' I had a piece in mind all right. 'A Chippendale rent table.'

She thought a second, weighing time against lire. 'All right. Go ahead. But don't botch it. It's a highly specialized—'

That word again. 'I've heard,' I said drily.

Curtly she told me to get on with my work and left me to it, not quite slamming the door.

My failure was my phone call to the Pinnacle Peak Language Academy in East Anglia.

Adriana took some persuading to let me use the blower and even had Fabio, full of sly satisfaction, to sit and time my call. Even the few browsers bulldozing their way through our porcelains could hear as Jingo Hardy came on the other end.

'Maria Peck?' he bawled. 'No, Lovejoy, old fruit. She left the day you did.'

I felt sick. “Why? Where did she go?'

'Dunno, old boy. I'll try and find out if you like.'

'Please.' I gave him the Emporium's number and explained it was in Rome. He fell about.

'Got the language bug, eh?' he chortled. Only people like Jingo chortle. I'd never heard anyone chortle before.

'Er, sure. Listen Jingo. Could you find out the address of the bloke who paid my fees?

It's rather imp—'

'Impossible, old thing. Maria did her own tuition-fee acceptances.'

That sickened me even more.

'Hey!' he exclaimed. 'Would you count Albanian loanwords in the Brindisi dialect for us, seeing you're there—?'

I cut off. I was in enough trouble without linguistics ballsing things up.

Back in the workshop I set about the candle screens again, but started thinking. Until now I'd been like a leaf in a gale, at everybody's whim. And my dithering had helped—

all right, all right: had caused—Marcello to die. And made my friends hostages to Arcellano. It was time to mend my ways and set my sights on the rip. And on killing Arcellano. The kindly affable old Lovejoy image would have to go.

'Lovejoy! Will you stop that riot?' from Fabio in his mini-office up in the showroom. 'My head!'

'Sorry, Fabio.'

I'd been whistling cheerfully. First time for days.

* * *

Watching Anna take off her make-up was one of the worst experiences I'd ever had. I mean to say, I'm normally attracted by women who wear a lot of cosmetics. The more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned, even if the headshrinkers these days are always on about how it shows you're full of primitive urges and all that. In fact I wish women would wear a lot more mascara and lipstick and jewellery. But seeing Old Anna become young again was unnerving. Fascinating, but weird.

'What's the matter with you, Lovejoy? Don't nudge.'

I must have got too near. 'Only looking.' She started to peel some crinkled plasticy stuff off her forehead with little ripping movements. It came like chewing-gum. Lovely smooth skin began to appear. I felt ill.

'Tell me about the Vatican, Anna.'

'Right. Sit and listen.' She started to tell me in an excited rush. 'Nine-tenths of Rome's tourists don't know what the Vatican actually is. That's a proven fact. Like you, dunce.

It is a private city. It has a helicopter pad, railway station, twenty-four galleries and museums, radio studios, a supermarket, bank, barracks, garages for ninety-eight cars, newspaper printers, motor workshop, a fire station, a population—everything.' Calmly she dissected an eyebrow. I hate things to do with eyes and was dreading seeing her start on those stubby eyelashes but couldn't look away.

'You're lucky, Lovejoy, in one way. Ten years ago the Vatican also had its own gendarmerie, Noble and Palatine Guards. They were disbanded. Now there's only the Swiss Guard, but there's a hundred of them and they're good.'

'Don't people just go in to the bank or the shop? Or get the train?'

Anna laughed then, really fell about. 'Cretino! Listen: the bank—called the “Institute for Pious Works”—is guarded inside and out. The railway station accepts no passenger trains, only goods. And as for the Anona supermarket, you have to be SCV.'

'Eh?'

'One of the 450 citizens of the Stato della Città del Vaticano. All except sixty are in Holy Orders—and you obviously are not, Lovejoy. There are nearly fifteen hundred Vatican employees, and nearly two thousand functionaries and diplomatic hangers-on. They can go in to shop at the Anona supermarket and the liquor store—as long as they remember to bring their ration cards and special personal passes. There was once a black market, you see?' She pulled small slivers from her mouth. Immediately her face filled out. Years dropped off her. It was miraculous. 'We Romans joke that SCV means

“Se Cristo Vedesse”! If Christ were to see…

This catalogue of security was getting me down. A bigger shock was seeing her catch at her temple and simply sweep off her wispy hair, shaking out dark lustrous waves almost to her shoulders. I hand it to her: she was a real artist. The pads and teeth caps she placed in a coloured solution. The wig was instantly brushed and hung on a wicker stand. Her eyes caught mine mischievously.

'There are four ways in, Lovejoy. The main Museum entrance, from the street. Museum guards. Then the Cancello di Sant' Anna, St Anne's gate where we met—leading into the walled-in courtyards for the barracks, the Osservatore Romano offices, the whole service area. Swiss Guards, there. Then the two entrances near the front of St Peter's itself, the Portone di Bronzo for papal audiences, also Swiss Guard. And last the Arco delle Campane.'

I knew the giant bronze door. The Arch of Bells has two flamboyantly dressed Guards with halberds. Anna caught me drawing breath.

'No, Lovejoy. There are two more Swiss Guards just inside. Marksmen with guns.' She started creaming her face, a mask of slithery white. Jesus, but Max Factor has a lot to answer for. 'You look put down.' Only her eyes and mouth were showing as she turned on me. 'Look, Lovejoy. I saw you case the Vatican. I've seen it done by experts— real experts, not a bum like you, wet behind the ears. And they all missed out.'

'What's it to you?'

She swung on me then, youthful eyes shining. 'It's never been done—that's what it is to me, Lovejoy! Never. Oh, an army or two have pillaged Rome now and then. But no one living man.'