“A few months after my husband’s death,” Veronica Marchese explained, “I quietly disposed of his personal collection. I gave the Etruscan pieces to my museum, which is where they belonged in the first place. Most are still in storage, but I’ve placed a few on public display. Needless to say, the placards make no mention of their provenance.”
“And the rest?”
“Your friend General Ferrari was good enough to take it off my hands. He was very discreet, which is unusual for him. The general likes good publicity.” She looked at Gabriel with genuine gratitude. “I suppose I have you to thank for that. If it hadbecome public that my husband controlled the global trade in looted antiquities, my career would have been destroyed.”
“We all have our secrets.”
“Yes,” she said distantly. “I suppose we do.”
Veronica Marchese’s other secret waited in her formal drawing room, dressed in a cassock and a simar. Music played softly in the background. It was Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio no. 1 in D Minor. The key of repressed passion.
Donati opened a bottle of prosecco and poured four glasses.
“You’re rather good at that for a priest,” said Gabriel.
“I’m an archbishop, remember?”
Donati carried one of the glasses to the brocade-covered chair in which Veronica had settled. A trained observer of human behavior, Gabriel knew an intimate gesture when he saw one. Donati was clearly comfortable in Veronica’s drawing room. Were it not for the cassock and simar, a stranger might have presumed he was the man of the palazzo.
He sat down in the chair next to her, and an awkward silence ensued. Like an uninvited dinner guest, the past had intruded. For his part, Gabriel was thinking about his last encounter with Veronica Marchese. They were in the Sistine Chapel, just the two of them, standing before Michelangelo’sLast Judgment. Veronica was describing for Gabriel the life that awaited Donati when the Ring of the Fisherman was removed from Pietro Lucchesi’s finger for the last time. A teaching position at a pontifical university, a retirement home for aging priests.So lonely. So terribly sad and lonely...It occurred to Gabriel that Veronica, widowed and available, might have other plans.
At length, she complimented Chiara on her dress and pearls. Then she asked about the children and about Venice beforelamenting the condition into which Rome, once the center of the civilized world, had fallen. These days, it was a national obsession. Eighty percent of the city’s streets were riddled with unrepaired potholes, making driving, even walking, a perilous undertaking. Children carried toilet paper in their bookbags because the school bathrooms had none. Rome’s buses ran perpetually behind schedule, if at all. An escalator at a busy subway stop had recently amputated the foot of a tourist. And then, said Veronica, there were the overflowing dumpsters and mounds of uncollected rubbish. The most popular website in the city was Roma Fa Schifo, “Rome Is Gross.”
“And who is to blame for this deplorable state of affairs? A few years ago, Rome’s chief prosecutor discovered that the Mafia had gained control of the municipal government and was steadily draining the city’s finances. A Mafia-owned company was awarded the contract to collect the garbage. The company didn’t bother to collect garbage, of course, because doing so would cost money and reduce its profit margin. The same was true of street repairs. Why bother to repair a pothole? Repairing potholes costs money.” Veronica shook her head slowly. “The Mafia is Italy’s curse.” Then, with a glance at Gabriel, she added, “Mine, too.”
“It will all be better now that Saviano is prime minister.”
Veronica made a face. “Have we learned nothing from the past?”
“Apparently not.”
She sighed. “He visited the museum not long ago. He was perfectly charming, as most demagogues are. It’s easy to see why he appeals to Italians who don’t live in palazzos near the Via Veneto.” She placed her hand briefly on Donati’s arm. “Or behind the walls of the Vatican. Saviano hated the Holy Father forhis defense of immigrants and his warnings about the dangers posed by the rise of the far right. He saw it as a direct challenge orchestrated by the Holy Father’s leftist private secretary.”
“Was it?” asked Gabriel.
Donati sipped his wine thoughtfully before answering. “The Church remained silent the last time the extreme right seized power in Italy and Germany. In fact, powerful elements within the Curia supported the rise of fascism and National Socialism. They saw Mussolini and Hitler as a bulwark against bolshevism, which was openly hostile to Catholicism. The Holy Father and I resolved that this time we would not make the same mistake.”
“And now,” said Veronica Marchese, “the Holy Father is dead, and a Swiss Guard is missing.” She looked at Gabriel. “Luigi tells me you’ve agreed to find him.”
Gabriel frowned at Donati, who was suddenly brushing lint from the front of his spotless cassock.
“Did I speak out of turn?” asked Veronica.
“No. The archbishop did.”
“Don’t be angry with him. Life in the gilded cage of the Apostolic Palace can be very isolating. The archbishop often seeks my advice on temporal matters. As you know, I’m rather well connected in Roman political and social circles. A woman in my position hears all sorts of things.”
“Such as?”
“Rumors,” she replied.
“What kind of rumors?”
“About a handsome young Swiss Guard who was spotted at a gay nightclub with a curial priest. When I told the archbishop, he warned me that unproven allegations can do irreparable harm to a person’s reputation, and advised me not to traffic in them.”
“The archbishop would know,” remarked Gabriel. “But one wonders why he didn’t mention any of this at lunch this afternoon.”
“Perhaps he didn’t think it was relevant.”
