Stealing God (6 page)

Ron wasn't really stupid, thought Jimmy; he was just a simple soul. He'd probably be a good priest because he was too thoughtless to notice what havoc a few careless words could do. He just got on with it and said whatever came into his mind.

‘It was an interesting meeting in a way. I finally found out I should try and see things differently, let myself go a bit. Let people know who I am, who I want to be.'

Danny looked at him with serious eyes.

‘Ron's right, you're more open now, more trusting. I think that must have been a big thing to take on. I hope it works for you, I really hope it does.' He took another sip of his coffee, but the unspoken doubt in Danny's words brought a period of silence. Then a fashion-plate of a man walked into the bar and came over to their table. He took off his designer sunglasses, slipped them into the top pocket of his short-sleeved shirt, and smiled. He had a nice smile. The three men looked at him but he looked only at Jimmy.

‘Hello, Jimmy. Got a minute, outside?'

There was no accent today. Jimmy paused; let Danny and Ron know this was a copper or leave it as an English bloke who wanted a word? Leave it.

‘Sure.' Jimmy stood up. ‘Be seeing you, lads.' He finished the beer in his glass and pushed the half-f bottle across to Ron. ‘There you are, Ron, a bonus for you.' He took his glass to the bar and nodded to the barman. The barman ignored the nod and gave his back the same suspicious look as Jimmy walked to the door where Adonis in a silk shirt and chinos waited. Outside the bar Ricci put on his sunglasses and they began walking.

‘Tell me something, are you protected by God Almighty or do you just make it look that way?'

‘Where are we going, to your nick?'

‘No, I'm on sick leave, remember? I'm supposed to be getting ready to be told I'm dying. I can't swan in and out of nicks. We're going somewhere to talk, a bar, not far away but not one like that dump back there. Somewhere comfortable and quiet where you're going to tell me all about yourself.'

‘Fine, if you want to be bored to death that's all right by me so long as you pick up the tab. The way you look I would guess we're going somewhere expensive.'

‘That shouldn't worry a Duns student, not a real Duns student. And that's what we're going to talk about, not Jimmy Costello the priest in training, but another Jimmy Costello, the one who peeped out at me in the rector's office. My guess is that's the one who gets himself looked after by God Almighty.' He paused and took a sideways glance at Jimmy walking beside him. ‘Or maybe it's the Prince of Darkness. Either way, we'll talk about that Jimmy Costello.'

Jimmy didn't like it. He had a strong suspicion that this was where it started to get messy. What should he do? Co-operate, try and be the new Jimmy, tell the truth and take the consequences or do what all his life had been the sensible thing and pull down the shutters? What was it Danny had said in the bar? Let the dead past bury its dead. It must be a quote. He was a clever bugger, Danny, probably read a lot. Jimmy decided not to think about it. Time enough to decide what to do when he found out what Ricci knew, what he wanted, and what he wanted it for. So they walked on, a crumpled, middle-aged man and a smart, youthful one.

Another odd couple.

EIGHT

The Campo del Fiori wasn't the Piazza Navona. There were no film stars, Serie A footballers, or big-time celebrities. It was a square almost hidden away from the main tourist routes and today it was crowded with brightly covered market stalls selling fresh produce to Roman housewives. Around the sides of the square were the sun umbrellas and awnings under which the customers of the bars and restaurants could sit at their tables and sip their cocktails. These bars and restaurants were where locals with plenty of money hung out. The matrons at market stalls haggling over vegetables and fruit were separated from this serious money by flimsy, decorative fences. This was where Roman style put on a display, but only for its own amusement. In one corner, gazing out at the scene, was a bronze statue of a man with a tonsure wearing a long cloak. Some long-ago Dominican friar who had been burned to death for the unforgivable sin of being right at the wrong time. Eventually giving him a statue on the spot where he went up in flames was the Catholic Church's way of making amends.

Ricci was welcomed as a valued customer when they went inside his bar. Jimmy looked around. It obviously wasn't the sort of spot that got crowded during the day so it must be more of a night-time place. Or maybe it was the sun. Drink inside on a sunny day and you missed all the action of the market, you saw no one and, more importantly, no one saw you. Ricci went to a quiet table and ordered a campari and soda. Jimmy asked for a beer.

The waiter named a few foreign brands.

‘Any beer, whatever the locals drink.'

The waiter gave him a look, the sort of look he might give to a bag-snatcher who'd come in to chance his arm. The idea of beer-drinking locals at these tables obviously wounded his deepest feelings but, for Ricci's sake, he managed to force politeness into his voice.

‘Certainly, sir.'

He left and the two men sat in silence until the drinks arrived. When they came Jimmy noticed the beer was imported, Tuborg. Ricci picked up his glass.

‘I'm going tell you a mystery story, Jimmy, then you're going make sense of it all for me. Cheers.' He took a small drink. ‘When I met you last time I didn't like you; you were not what I had been led to expect. I was told I'd meet an ex-London CID sergeant, someone who had taken early retirement due to stress. Someone who had come to Rome to train to be a priest. What I got was you, and like I said, the you I got I didn't like. I really didn't want you to work with me so I went to the minister's aide and told him you were not suitable, that you were not what I had been expecting and not what the investigation wanted or needed, that I thought you might be seriously unstable in moments of stress or pressure. I also told him I strongly suspected you were not what you seemed, that your background would almost certainly bear further looking into. Everything seemed fine. The aide agreed that this investigation was too sensitive for any chances to be taken. I could drop you and the minister would arrange that we find a new man. So I got on with things. Then, one week later, I get pulled in by the minister himself and slapped on the wrist very hard and told that you're as pure as the driven snow and that you're on this case whether I liked it or not. All that was required of me was to follow orders and do the job I had been given and under no circumstances was I ever to mention to anyone my concerns over you or your past.' He took another sip. ‘OK, so far?' Jimmy took a drink and nodded. The beer was good. ‘Now comes the interesting part. Remember I told you I did a year at Leicester University on the Erasmus programme? Well, while I was there I met a student called Billy Campbell from Glasgow, like me. It turned out that Billy had lived quite near to where I grew up. I never knew him as a kid because he wasn't a Catholic, so we went to different schools. But both coming from the same place we started to meet and talked quite a lot. He was doing Art History. He was a good artist, could have gone to art school, but he knew he wasn't good enough to be a professional so he chose university. We became real friends, in fact I went to more Art History lectures than I went to English ones. Something else we had in common was that we were both interested in going into the police when we graduated. As it turned out we both did. We've kept in touch ever since, even visited each other, and he's been as successful in the Met. as I have here. I phoned him after I'd been hauled over the coals by the minister. I didn't like what had happened. Someone wanted to put you next to me even if that was the last place I wanted you to be. Why was that? What was so special about Jimmy Costello? So I asked my mate Billy to nose about the Met. records and maybe ask around and see what he could find out about you. But I told him to keep it very off the record and very low key.' He took another tiny sip of his Campari. He liked to make a drink last, thought Jimmy. Was that being mean or being careful, or both?

‘And he found out what?'

‘Not much, nothing in fact. He told me your file was thin, too thin for a DS working north London for the years you did. He spoke to a couple of blokes who said they remembered you but that's all they'd say, they remembered you. Billy said it looked like you must have been a pretty anonymous copper who didn't do very much work.'

‘We can't all be high-flying young crime busters. Somebody has to be Mr Plod and do the routine stuff.'

‘Now that may be true, but I doubt it in your case because of two things. One, Billy said your record wasn't just thin, it had been filleted, and two, he suddenly got told he was being sent to the US. A special request had been made by a university for someone to give a short series of seminars on forgeries and frauds involving nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists. That was his speciality, modern art.'

‘So?'

‘So he lost interest in you, forgot all about you. All he could think of was that he'd been chosen to go to America and show them how good he was at his job.'

‘And all this means what?'

‘That someone made sure he stopped nosing about doing favours for an old friend.'

Jimmy shook his head.

‘No, you've got your wires crossed.'

‘I don't think so. What I do think is that I'm in trouble. You see, I didn't do as I was told and keep my nose out of your past and I think I got caught looking. So now somebody may have my balls in a vice and could be about to turn the screw and if I'm right I'm going to need help, your help.'

‘Even if you are right what makes you think I can help?'

‘Because your record had been doctored, officially doctored, a thorough job, not just a few sheets pulled. That's not something anyone low level could do or get done. Also, instead of pulling in Billy and giving him a bollocking for nosing about into Detective Sergeant James Costello, he got neatly taken out of the frame and it was done by someone who could get big favours and get them quick.' Ricci let things sink in for a minute. ‘Look, I'm good at what I do. I'm a good copper. Don't let all the trinkets and Armani crap fool you, that's just window dressing.'

‘Like the accent?'

‘Just like the accent. I've been around and I know the score, maybe I know it better than most. I think you are or were a dangerous man with people in London who still make sure you get left alone. What sort of people are they, Jimmy? Powerful enough to do a first-class cover-up job on the file, certainly, but with enough pull to get favours from across the pond? That's pretty special. Are they doing it for love, for old times' sake?'

‘Nobody loves me in London.'

‘No, that's what I thought. Then what we're left with is you paid them or they're afraid of you, of what you know or what you might do.'

Jimmy took a sip of his beer.

‘And which do you think, money or the frighteners?'

‘Why not both? You're a Duns student. Nobody would break my legs for looking into what that means so I checked and found they only take men who are financially independent now and will be for the foreseeable future. A detective sergeant's pension doesn't come close so where did all the money come from?'

‘I sold my house.'

‘Do you seriously want me to believe that out of the proceeds of a house sale you were able to buy the kind of protection you're getting and still have enough left to be self-financing for the rest of your life? I know London house prices are bloody silly but no house sale would stretch round all of that, unless you lived in Mayfair? You didn't live in Mayfair, did you, Jimmy?'

Jimmy managed a genuine smile at the idea.

‘No, not Mayfair.'

‘And even if you did, someone who pays big money to buy a clean past and your kind of protection doesn't come to Rome and sign up for the priesthood. They go and live the high-life on the Costas or wherever. What else is loot for, if not the good life? So, that leaves it with either you know enough to make some very important people feel very worried or you're such a dangerous bastard they don't want you coming after them. Maybe both. Remember, Jimmy, I'm a copper, I know that people don't have to look dangerous to be dangerous, so the quiet, scruffy look cuts nothing with me.'

Jimmy could feel the old times seeping back into his life and he didn't know how he could stop them; worse than that, he knew there was a part of him that didn't want to stop them.

‘OK, for the sake of argument, I've got friends in London. What would you want a man with friends in London to do?'

Ricci pushed his glass away and leaned closer to Jimmy.

‘If God Almighty wants to punish me then I want the Prince of Darkness looking after me. Tell me the truth the way you see it. Am I right or wrong? Am I in deep shit here, do I need your help?'

He sat back and waited.

Christ, thought Jimmy, what's going on? Why is this happening to me? I came here to bury the London copper, to do the right thing. I want to change, be the man I should be, the man Bernie and Eileen's kids deserve. And here I am being asked to help this bloke, who may very well be in the deep shit he thinks he is, and the only way to do that is to go back to what I was. That can't fucking well be right.

He made an effort. He wasn't going to slide back without a fight.

‘Look, you got a slap on the wrist, your mate got sent across to the States and I've got a thin record. It's nothing, a few coincidences.'

‘If you say so. But would you call it a coincidence that my uncle's ice-cream factory just outside Glasgow suffered a fire four days ago and he got a call telling him it wouldn't be just a fire next time.'

‘Who told you?'

‘My cousin, he phoned me. I'm the only policeman in the family. He wanted to ask me what they should do.'