“Where do you think?”
“Father Graf?”
She nodded. She was holding her mug of coffee with both hands. A nimbus of steam swirled about her flawless face.
“What happened after I left?”
“Cardinal Albanese arrived around nine thirty.”
“The cardinal told me he didn’t arrive until ten.”
“That was hissecondvisit,” said Stefani Hoffmann. “Not the first.”
Cardinal Albanese had not told Donati about an earlier visit to theappartamento. Nor had he included it in the official Vatican time line. That single inconsistency, were it ever to become public, would be enough to plunge the Church into scandal.
“Did Albanese tell Niklaus why he was there?”
“No. But he was carrying an attaché case with the coat of arms of the Archives on the side.”
“How long did he stay?”
“Only a few minutes.”
“Did he have the attaché case when he left?”
She nodded.
“And when he came back at ten o’clock?”
“He told Niklaus that the Holy Father had invited him to pray in the private chapel.”
“Who arrived next?”
“Three cardinals. Navarro, Gaubert, and Francona.”
“The time?”
“Ten fifteen.”
“When did Dottore Gallo arrive?”
“Eleven o’clock. Colonel Metzler and a Vatican cop showed up a few minutes after that.” She lowered her voice. “Then you, Archbishop Donati. You were the last.”
“Did Niklaus know what was happening inside?”
“He had a pretty good idea, but he wasn’t certain until the ambulance attendants arrived with the gurney.”
A few minutes after they entered the apartment, she continued, Metzler came out. He confirmed the obvious. The Holy Father was dead. He warned Niklaus that he was never to speak of what he had witnessed that evening. Not to his comrades in the Guard, not to his friends and family, and certainly not to the media. Then he ordered Niklaus to remain on duty until the Holy Father’s body was removed and the apartment sealed. The camerlengo performed the ritual at half past two.
“Did Cardinal Albanese remove anything from the apartment when he left?”
“One item. He said he wanted something to help him remember the saintliness of the Holy Father. Something he had touched.”
“What was it?”
“A book.”
Donati’s heart banged against his rib cage. “What kind of book?”
