The Vatican Rip

'I never thought of it.'

He leant forward, shaking his head.

'Lovejoy. I swear to you. I do not intend to destroy you, or any plans you might have.

And whatever you say will go no further. But I must know. Do you understand?'

I was getting sick of people uttering threats at me and then demanding if I understood.

They'd all been at it today and it was getting on my wick.

'No, I don't understand.'

'You were merely one of the crowd,' he said gently. 'At first, that is. Until now. When you and Adriana…' He paused to make certain it sank in. 'Naturally my wish for Adriana is that she enjoys a stable relationship. I condone it. And, until now, that which has existed between Adriana and Piero Peci has been eminently suitable. I am naturally very concerned when Adriana shows signs of changing her arrangements.'

I was lost. It was all too liberated for me to take in at one go. 'You mean I'm sacked?

Or I'm not to see Adriana?'

'Not at all. Some relationship, of the kind Piero has previously provided, is essential. All I want to know is what your game is.'

I drew breath. He didn't mind Adriana having another bloke, even if it was in the plural, and all he wanted was for me to be frank about my presence in Rome? I began to get a headache.

'It's…' I hung my head, as if in shame. What the hell could I tell him? Tinker always says you should get your lies in first. Second and you're sunk. I started to talk, praying something would come. 'It's… somebody I've met.'

'Adriana?'

'No.' That road might be even more dangerous. 'I admit I have some motive for staying…' Anna! Anna! I burbled, 'I… I want to stay for a while, at least until I've worked things out. She… she isn't free. She has obligations. I'm not at liberty…'

'Somebody else? Not Adriana?' There was a dry rasp. I looked up. The blighter was laughing, heaving up and down in his chair. 'So. It isn't really Adriana at all? By acquiescing to Adriana you were merely demonstrating unfailing obedience to your employer?'

'Well, if you put it like that…'

He took off his specs and wiped his eyes. I didn't think it was all that funny but he was rolling in the aisles.

'I'm sorry, Lovejoy,' he said, wiping his eyes with his glasses lifted on to his forehead.

'Very remiss of me. But if you only understood the context…'

'Is that all?' I rose, trying for a bit of dignity. It can be useful in the right place.

'My abject apologies, signor,' he said, still falling about. He came with me to the door.

'But Adriana playing second fiddle to some other woman is delicious.'

I went frosty. 'Can I go now?'

'The car will be at the entrance for you. Don't be too offended, Lovejoy. Let's say it's our little secret, shall we?'

'Look, signor.' I had to get one thing straight. 'What if the signora says I'm to dine with her again, and…?'

'Be her guest, Lovejoy.' He smiled and patted my arm.

'After all, everybody's different. And you are merely… what's the expression?…

scratching bread, same as the rest. Isn't that so?'

'Yes,' I said, wondering where I'd heard those words spoken recently.

It was returning in the Rolls, wondering about the rum world we live in, when I remembered where I'd heard those words before recently. And who spoke them.

It was me, to Piero. Word for word. My headache got worse. Well, whatever they were all up to, Piero, Adriana, the signor, and Fabio, the rip had to go ahead.

I made the driver drop me near the Emporium, seeing it was getting on for four o'clock.

The three cafeteria tables were delivered on time, to my satisfaction. I'd told Adriana two, and instead had ordered three. I was very, very pleased, because two from three leaves one. Smiling at last, I covered them with a sheet of plastic and walked home to see Anna.

CHAPTER 20

In the heat of the day the Colosseum induces a curiously offensive languor, inducing scores of cats to live there. God knows where the Italians get all their moggies, but it's by the gross. I'd never seen so many. Anna came with me, still in her old gear and occasionally conning a few lire from stray tourists. And she was in a bitter mood. 'You tell me what magnificent photos I took,' she complained, 'then waste our rest time wandering about these old stones.' And her photographs really were great, every nook from every angle. Real skill. I like talent like that.

But you really need to get the feel of the place you might die in, I always say, and you can't get that from photographs.

There was hardly anybody in, just us and a straggle of Scandinavians. Anna kept asking me why we were looking at the same recess over and over again. Finally she got on my nerves and I told her to shut it. That did it. Nothing's quieter than a bird in sulk.

The recess was the stonemason's place. Presumably the animals for Rome's great circuses had been fed into the great arena through this kind of entrance. What I liked about it was that it stood just below a great mason's hoist, complete with block and tackle, and with an almost-completed block of stone in the centre of the sandy flooring.

Obviously, from the tools and the stone chips, scattered around, the workers were still at it. Before long they would be ready to haul the missing stone into place.

But what I really liked most was that the recess was at least forty-odd feet deep, and had smooth walls impossible to climb.

'Why are you smiling, Enrico?'

'Don't call me Enrico.' I asked her, 'What would happen if somebody were to get himself trapped in that recess?'

'He'd have to stay till people lifted him out. But nobody could get trapped down there.'

'Why not?'

'Don't you see?' Scornfully she pointed across to the opposite wall below us. 'He could just walk out, couldn't he? That great stone's missing. Cretino!'

I shaded my eyes at the great beam overhead. 'But if that unfinished stone were to fall into that hole…?'

'Then he'd be trapped!' She took my arm. I was still gaping skywards. 'Enrico? I don't like you when you're like this.'

'You don't like me anyway,' I reminded her acidly. I'd slept in the same room for what felt like a lifetime, and we were as chaste as Abelard and Heloise— different reasons, of course.

'It'd be an open-air prison.' I realized I was smiling at thoughts of Arcellano.

'Enrico.' Her eyes looked at me, enormous with a deep beauty. “What has this place to do with the rip?'

'Don't call me Enrico.' I was feeling a lot more confident as we left. The arena was after all just one great maze made up of those stone blocks. If anything went wrong I'd be off like a scared rabbit, being the fastest coward ever recorded. And in my time I've been chased by experts. Yes, I was pleased—fool that I was. Nothing could go wrong.

So I thought.

During the rest of our spare time I either pored over the photographs, went over Anna's Vatican Museum measurements, or intently read the pharmacopoeia. In this last Anna had excelled herself, having an epileptiform seizure in the huge bookshop on the corner of the Leone IV and nicking the pharmacopoeia while people ran about for water. She kept asking what I wanted it for but I shoved her away and said it was rude to read over other people's shoulders.

'I've indigestion,' I told her snappishly.

'You eat like a horse when that cow of a signora feeds with you at those expensive restaurants!'

'She hardly eats anything,' I corrected.

'Only people! In her grand villa!'

Which told me a lot. For one, Anna obviously didn't trust me. For another, she had some means of knowing where we dined each evening, and about my visit to Adriana's villa.

Now we'd done the Colosseum I needed a little money and a chance to finish in the workshop. Then it would only be a question of checking the van. But first we had to welcome the great man himself.