The Vatican Rip

'Move along, please.'

'Er, sorry.' The worrying thing was Carlo had three glasses of wine, not one. The two blondes were watching him with conspicuous amusement from a table across the aisle.

Yoghurt-and-soup queens. Mercifully he was too busy stuffing his face to respond to them. I shuffled on, nervously paid up and tried to get a seat facing Carlo but a sprinting Aussie beat me to it, so I started on my sandwiches with my ears exquisitely tuned, Listening for sudden activity at Carlo's table behind me two aisles away. Old Anna came through the cafeteria, on the cadge. She plumped opposite me, doing her exhaustion bit and openly nicking one of my sandwiches. I chuckled affably to show my good-humoured acceptance of the old dear, especially when I felt my heavy briefcase slide on to my feet. Idly I checked that everybody was too preoccupied to notice, and edged it beneath my chair. Anna gave me a roguish wink and departed, chewing gummily on my sandwich. By now I trusted her enough to know my briefcase would be emblazoned by a Department of Health sticker. But that Carlo…

Ten minutes later I was beginning to wonder if I'd poisoned him all wrong. There was no sound other than the usual cafeteria din. He must have had a stomach like a dustbin liner because at least a third of the rum which I'd given him vas a mixture of jalap and colocynth, the most drastic purgatives known to the old nineteenth-century doctors—

and they were experts in drastic purgatives, if nothing else.

It happened just as I was about to chuck it in and abort the whole thing. A chair crashed over behind me. Somebody exclaimed in alarm. Casually, I glanced round in time to see Carlo streak through the doorway into the loo across the other side of the cafeteria.

The eddies created by Carlo's passage had not stilled when I moved purposefully among the tables and into the men's loo. Ominous noises came from one of the cubicles. A worried man was hastening out.

'I think somebody's ill in there,' he said. 'You think I should go for help?'

'I'm a doctor,' I said calmly in the best American accent my Italian could stand. 'Wait until I see…'

'Oooh. Lovejoy—' Carlo's voice moaned from the cubicle as I glanced in. I could have murdered the fool, giving out my name, except I was worried that maybe I had. He sounded in a terrible state.

'That must be his name,' I pronounced glibly to the man. 'Signor. I want you to stand just inside this entrance. Let nobody in. I don't like the look of him.'

'Yes, Dottore.'

'Don't you worry, Signor Lovejoy,' I called loudly to Carlo in the poisonously brisk voice.

'I'll have you safely in hospital in no time at all.'

I strode purposefully out into the cafeteria and headed round the queue of people at the paypoint. I had the full attention of the customers. A lady emerged from behind the line of servers. She wore the harrowed look of a superior longing for obscurity.

'Good day, Signora… Manageress? I'm Doctor Valentine.'

Her eyes widened. 'Is anything wrong? She'd glimpsed the sticker on my briefcase.

'Have you an office, please?'

'There's nothing wrong, is there?' she pleaded over her shoulder, leading the way behind the terrace of stainless steel and bright cookers.

'Nothing that cannot be efficiently handled, signora.' I kept my Americanese variation of Italian going. 'A man's been taken ill after eating your cream cakes—'

'They are perfectly fresh—'

'Of course. I know that.' I smiled bleakly to keep some threat in the words. She trotted ahead into a neat pastel-blue office. Her name was on the door stamped in white on brown plastic. Signora Faranada was a pretty thing, understandably distrait but the most attractive manageress I'd yet seen in the whole Vatican. If I hadn't been terrified out of my wits I'd have chatted her up. She pulled the door to. 'Signora,' I said, instantly becoming terse. 'He is very sick. It looks like Petulengro's.'

'Petulengro's? A disease?'

I reached for the telephone, laconic and casual the way doctors always are when putting the boot into suffering innocents. 'You've heard of Legionnaires'? Similar thing.'

'Legionnaires' Disease?' she moaned. 'Oh my God! But-'

'Nothing that can't be handled quietly and efficiently,' I reassured with my wintry smile.

'You're lucky. I was just calling on you—courtesy visit. I'm from Communicable Diseases, Atlanta, USA. Currently with World Health, on loan to the Rome Ministry.

Here.' I passed her the receiver as if disgusted with the slowness. 'Get me an outside line.'

She frantically spun the dial.

'The Vatican has its own children's clinic and physicians. Am I right?'

'Yes, Doctor.'

Impatiently I dialled the number as if I knew it by heart, reading it off Anna's postage stamp I had stuck to my left wrist. 'But no resident epidemiologist expert in communicable diseases, right?' I barked the question, the old lawyer's tricks of two knowns followed by an unknown, all to be answered with the same word.

She hesitated. 'I don't think so, doctor—'

I turned away impatiently. Valerio came on the other end. A sweat of relief started to trickle down my collar. 'Doctor Valentine. Get me the epidemic section—fast.'

'Epidemic!' moaned Signora Faranda.

'Hello?' I made a conciliatory gesture to the lady as I spoke commandingly into the phone. 'Hello, Aldo? Great! There's a rather problematic issue here—Vatican Museum.

Cafeteria. Looks like a case of Petulengro's… No. Only one, a man. I've got him under control in the toilets… Of course I applied emergency treatment, brought him round…

No. The place looks really superbly clean…“

'We scour and disinfect every half-day,' Signora Faranada bleated, tugging my sleeve.

'Sure, Aldo.' I laughed reassuringly, the expert all casual in the presence of somebody else's catastrophe. 'No, I agree. We can't take chances… Look, Aldo. Can I leave it to your to…? Fine… No, no sirens. Quietly does it… The least noise the better. No sense in being alarmist…“ I smiled and nodded at Signora Faranda. 'So you'll send an ambulance…? Good… No. I'm sure the manageress can handle that… Agreed?'

I slammed down the phone.

'I'll get back to take charge,' I told the lady. 'I've arranged hospital transport.' I stilled her protests with a raised hand. 'Infectious diseases are always sent to a special unit because they are, erm, infectious.' I smiled a cut-rate Arcellano smile. 'You know how patients just love to sue places these days, I don't doubt.'

'Sue?' she gasped, the poor thing.

'It won't come to that,' I said smoothly. 'I promise.'

'What must I do?'

'Do you have a rear entrance to the cafeteria, where the ambulance can pull up?' She nodded anxiously and reached towards the top filing drawer. 'The gate will need notifying,' I said, ticking off the items. 'Aldo—that's Doctor Cattin of the Public Health Divison—said St Anne's Gate. Is that acceptable?'

'Yes, yes. I'll telephone—' She clutched feverishly for the phone.

'And the table. It may be contaminated. For taking specimens, and disinfection.'

'I'll see it's brought round—'

I snapped, 'Tell everyone it's in need of repair, wobbling or something. Use your discretion.'

'Yes, yes. Discretion,' she gasped, dialling frantically.

'Get your duty security man. I'll need that terrace quietly sealed from the public. It overlooks the drive-in, correct?'

'Yes! Yesl I'll get him right away—'

'Do you have a store room?'

She was gasping. 'Yes. By the loading bay.'

'Good. And I'll seal the lavatory cubicle until it's proven clear. Don't worry.' I rounded on her like I'd seen on the movies. 'Do as I say and people'll hardly notice. You have a beautiful clean restaurant here. We don't want to attract attention—'

'Thank you, Doctor!'

She was in a worse state than I was when I left and strode commandingly through the cafeteria. I cautioned Carlo's relieved custodian to silence and thanked him for waiting.