The Seville Communion

XIV

Eight O'Clock Mass

There are people – amongst whom I would include myself -who detest happy endings.

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin

The policeman on duty peered curiously from behind the glass partition at Lorenzo Quart's black suit and dog collar. After a moment he left his post in front of four closed-circuit monitors trained on the exterior of police headquarters and brought the priest a cup of tea. Quart thanked him and watched his receding back with handcuffs on the belt and two bullet clips beside the holstered gun. The policeman's footsteps and then the sound of the door closing echoed in the deserted hallway. The hall was cold, white, sterile in the neon light, with a marble floor. It was three thirty in the morning by the digital clock on the wall.

He had been waiting almost two hours. After they left the Lovely, Gavira exchanged a few words with Macarena and then held out a hand to Quart, who shook it in silence. "We're not enemies, Father." He said it without smiling, looking him straight in the eye, and then turned and walked away, towards the steps leading up to the Arenal. Quart couldn't tell whether Gavira meant Father Ferro or Macarena. But the gesture had cost the banker nothing. Having diluted his responsibility for the kidnapping by his last-minute intervention, confident that neither Macarena nor Quart would cause him problems, and worried only about his assistant and the money for the handover, Gavira had had the decency not to crow over the strong position he now occupied with regard to Our Lady of the Tears. After Father Ferro's confession, the vice-chairman of the Cartujano was undoubtedly the victor that night. It was difficult to see how anyone could stand in his way now.

Macarena had seemed to be walking at the edge of a nightmare. On the deck of the Lovely, Quart saw her shoulders shake as she watched her dream collapse. She didn't say another word. They took Father Ferro to police headquarters and then Quart took her home in a taxi. He left her sitting in the courtyard by the tiled fountain, in the dark. When he said a soft goodbye, he saw that she was looking up at the pigeon loft. The rectangle of black sky looked like a backdrop painted with tiny luminous dots above the Casa del Postigo.

Quart heard a door open, and voices and footsteps at the other end of the white hall. But no one appeared, and after a moment all was silent again. He got up and paced. He stood at the glass door and smiled with forced friendliness. He went and smiled at the policeman outside, who was walking up and down in a bulletproof vest and with an automatic rifle over his shoulder. The station was in the modern part of the city. At the crossroads, deserted at that time of the night, the traffic lights changed slowly from red to green.

He tried not to think. Or rather, to think only about the technical aspects of the case. Father Ferro's new legal situation, the reports Quart would have to send to Rome first thing in the morning… He tried to keep his emotions from taking over. But his old ghosts joined the ranks of the more recent ones, and this time he could feel them drumming against his very skin.

For a long time he stared at his reflection in the dark glass of the door. The good soldier turning grey and in need of a shave. The white collar that could no longer protect him. He had come a long way, only to find himself again on the breakwater pounded by the waves, brine streaming down the cold hand to which the boy clung.

A door opened across the hall, and as Quart turned to look, he saw Simeon Navajo coming towards him, his red shirt vivid in the white, sterile hall. Quart went to meet him. The deputy superintendent was drying his hands on a paper towel. He had just come out of the toilets, and his damp hair was smoothed back into a ponytail. He had bags under his eyes and his glasses had slipped down his nose.

"That's it," he said, throwing the towel into a bin. "He's just signed his statement."

"He claims he killed Bonafe?"

"Yes." Navajo gave an apologetic shrug. These things happen, the shrug said. Neither of us is to blame. "We asked him about the other two deaths, as a formality, and he neither admitted to them nor denied them. It's a nuisance, because those cases were closed, but now we have to reopen the investigation."

He went to the door and stood watching the lights in the empty street, his hands in his pockets. "To tell you the truth," he said, "your colleague isn't very communicative. He only answered yes or no the whole time, or remained silent as the lawyer advised."

"Is that all?"

"Yes. He didn't even bat an eyelid when we confronted him with Miss… er… Sister Marsala."

Quart glanced at the door. "Is she still in there?" he asked.

"Yes. She's signing the last few forms, with that lawyer you brought. She can go home soon."

"Does she back up Don Priamo's confession?"

Navajo made a face. "On the contrary. She doesn't believe it. She says the priest doesn't have it in him to kill anybody."

"And what does he say?"

"Nothing. Just looks at her and doesn't say a word."

The door at the end of the hall opened again and Arce, the lawyer, walked out. He was a placid-looking man, in a dark suit with the gold badge of the Lawyers' Association on his lapel. He'd been handling legal matters for the Church for years and was renowned for dealing with irregular situations like this. He charged a fortune.

"How's she getting on?" asked Navajo.

"She signed her statement," said Arce. "She's asked for a few minutes alone with Father Ferro, to say goodbye. Your colleagues don't object, so I've left the two to talk for a moment. Under supervision, of course."

The deputy superintendent glanced suspiciously at Quart, then at the lawyer. "They've had over three minutes," he said. "It'd be better if you took her away now."

"Will you be putting Father Ferro in a cell?" asked Quart.

"He'll sleep in the sick bay tonight," Arce answered, with a gesture that said they could thank the deputy superintendent for this concession. "Until the judge decides tomorrow."

The door opened again, and Gris Marsala was led out by a policeman holding some typed sheets of paper. The nun looked forlorn, exhausted. She was in her usual jeans and trainers, with a denim jacket over her blue shirt. In the harsh white light she looked even more vulnerable than she had that morning.

"What did he say?" asked Quart.

She took an age to turn to the priest, as if she didn't recognise him at first. "Nothing," she replied in a flat voice. "He says he killed him, and that's all."

"And you don't believe him?"

From somewhere in the building came the muffled sound of doors opening and closing. Gris Marsala looked at Quart, infinite contempt in her blue eyes.

After the lawyer and the nun left by taxi, Navajo seemed to relax. "I hate those guys," he confided to Quart. "With all their habeas corpus tricks. I can't stand them, Father, and this one of yours has more tricks up his sleeve than a magician." Once Navajo had got this off his chest, he ran an eye over the papers his colleague had handed to him and then passed them to the priest. "Here's a copy of the statement. This is slightly irregular, so please don't tell anyone. But you and I…" Navajo smiled. "Well. I wish I could have been more help in all this."

Quart looked at him gratefully. "You have helped."

"I don't mean that. I mean a priest arrested for murder…" Navajo fiddled with his ponytail, embarrassed. "You understand. It doesn't make one feel very proud of one's job."

Quart glanced over the photocopied sheets, all written in officialese. Don Priamo Ferro Ordas, from Tormos in the province of Huesca, appears in Seville on such-and-such a date. At the bottom of the last sheet was the priest's signature, a clumsy scrawl. "Tell me how he did it," said Quart.

Navajo pointed at the papers. "Everything he told us is there. And we've guessed the rest from the questions he refused to answer. Bonafe was in the church around eight or eight thirty. He probably came in through the vestry door. Father Ferro went into the church to make his rounds before locking up, and there was Bonafe."

"He was trying to blackmail everybody," said Quart.

"Maybe that was it. Whether Bonafe had an appointment or it was just chance, the parish priest says he killed him, and that's that. He gave no details, only said that afterwards he locked the vestry door, leaving Bonafe inside."

"Inside the confessional?"

Navajo shook his head. "He won't say. But my people pieced together what happened. Bonafe must have been up on the scaffolding in front of the high altar, by the carving of the Virgin. Father Ferro must have gone up there too." Navajo accompanied his account with the usual hand motions. "They argued, struggled, or something. Bonafe fell, or was pushed, from five metres up. He got the wound to his hand when he tried to grab the scaffolding. On the ground, badly hurt but still alive, he dragged himself a few metres and got as far as the confessional. He collapsed inside and died."

The fingers representing Bonafe now lay motionless, on the palm of the other hand, which was the confessional. Quart could picture the scene easily, but the story didn't make sense. He said that to Navajo.

The deputy superintendent returned Quart's gaze without blinking. "I don't agree," he said at last. "As a priest, you would like there to be another explanation. The moral aspect is distasteful to you, I can understand that. But look at it from my point of view." He removed his glasses and held them up to the light. "I'm a policeman, and I have very few doubts: I have a forensic report and a man, even if he's a priest, in full possession of his mental faculties, who confesses to the murder. As we say here: if it's white and in a bottle, it's got to be milk. Skimmed or full cream, however you like it, but it's still milk."

"Fine. You know he did it. But I need to know how and why."

"Well, Father, that's your business. But maybe I can give you a few more details. Bonafe was up on the scaffolding when Father Ferro came upon him." He put on his glasses and took a little plastic bag from his pocket. "Well, look what we found on the corpse."

"It looks like a pearl."

"It is a pearl," said Navajo. "One of the twenty set into the Virgin's face, crown and mantle. And it was in Bonafe's jacket pocket." Quart stared at the little plastic bag, at a loss. "And?" "It's a fake. As are the other nineteen."

In his office, surrounded by empty desks, the deputy superintendent gave Quart the remaining information. He poured the priest a coffee and got himself a bottle of beer. It had taken all afternoon and part of the evening for the necessary tests to be completed, but it was definite that somebody had replaced all the pearls on the carving with fakes. Navajo let Quart read the reports and faxes on the matter. His friend, Chief Inspector Feijoo, had worked till late in Madrid trying to trace the pearls. All the clues pointed to Francisco Montegrifo, the Madrid art dealer who had been Father Ferro's contact for the illegal sale of the altarpiece from Cillas ten years earlier. It was Montegrifo who had put Captain Xaloc's pearls on the market. The description matched that of a set of pearls found in the hands of a fence, a Catalan jeweller who was also a police informer. Montegrifo's role couldn't be proved, but there was evidence. The date the informer gave for the transaction coincided with the resumption of renovation work on the church. Builders' merchants contacted by Navajo's men confirmed that the cost of the goods supplied exceeded the parish priest's salary and the contents of the church collection box.

"So we have a motive," concluded Navajo. "Bonafe's on the trail. He turns up at the church and confirms that the pearls are fake. He tries to blackmail Father Ferro, or maybe the old priest doesn't even give him time." The policeman enacted the scene with his hands. "Maybe he catches him in the middle of what he's doing and kills him. He locks the vestry door and spends a couple of hours at the Casa del Postigo, thinking. Then he disappears for a couple of days." Navajo looked at Quart, as if encouraging him to fill the gaps in his account. Disappointed when Quart said nothing, he continued reluctantly, "Father Ferro won't tell us anything about his disappearance. Strange, don't you think? And you haven't helped much in that area, Padre, if you'll allow me to say so." He took another bottle of beer and a ham sandwich from the small refrigerator behind him and started to eat.

"I'd rather say nothing than lie to you," said Quart. "By talking I'd compromise people who have nothing to do with this. Maybe later, when the whole thing's over… But you have my word as a priest: none of it directly affects the case."

Navajo bit into his sandwich, took a swig of beer, and regarded Quart thoughtfully. "A secret from confession, right?" "You could call it that."

Another bite. "I have no choice but to believe you, Padre. Anyway, I've received instructions from my superiors and, I quote, I'm to proceed with the utmost tact in this affair." He smiled, his mouth full. "Although once the case is resolved, on the surface, I intend to look deeper into it, even if only in a personal capacity. I'm a devilishly curious policeman, if you'll permit the expression." For a moment he became serious. "And I don't like people pulling my leg." He screwed his sandwich wrapper into a ball and threw it in the bin. "I haven't forgotten that I owe you." He raised a finger suddenly: he'd just remembered something. "Oh, by the way. A man was just admitted to the Reina Sofia Hospital in a pretty serious condition. He was found under Triana Bridge a little while ago." Navajo peered at Quart closely. "A small-time private investigator. They say he works for Pencho Gavira, Macarena Bruner's husband. Rather a lot of coincidences for one night, don't you think? I assume you know nothing about this either."

Quart held Navajo's gaze. "No."

Navajo picked his teeth with a fingernail. "I thought not," he said. "The guy's a mess: both arms and his jaw broken. It took him half an hour to get out a couple of words. And when he did, all he said was that he'd fallen down the stairs."

Since Quart was the only Church representative available, Navajo gave him some official documents along with the keys to the church and to the priest's quarters. He also made him sign a brief declaration to the effect that Father Ferro had handed himself in voluntarily.

"You're the one cleric who showed his face. The archbishop telephoned this afternoon, but only to wash his hands of the whole thing." The policeman frowned. "Ah. And to ask us to keep the reporters out of it." He threw his empty beer bottle into the bin, yawned theatrically, and glanced at his watch, a hint that he wanted to go home.

Quart asked to see the parish priest. Navajo, after a moment's thought, said he saw no reason why not if Father Ferro agreed. He went to arrange it, leaving the fake pearl in its little plastic bag on the table.

Quart stared at the pearl, imagining it in Bonafe's pocket. It was large, with some of the sheen scraped off where it had been set into the carving. For the murderer, whoever the murderer was – Father Ferro, the church itself, or any of the people involved with it – the pearl, once out of its setting, had become a deadly object. Unwittingly, Bonafe had been treading at the edge of a secret that went beyond the scope of the police investigation. Do not profane my Father's house. Do not threaten those who seek sanctuary there. Conventional morals offered a poor vantage point for considering these events. One had to go beyond them, to cross that boundary to reach the inhospitable paths that the small, hard parish priest had trodden for years, bearing on his weary shoulders the weight of a cruel sky. Willing to provide peace, shelter, compassion; to forgive sins; and even – as on that night – to take the blame for them.

It wasn't such a mystery after all. Quart smiled sadly, staring at the fake pearl from Our Lady of the Tears. Things fell into place: the pearl, the church, the city itself, the particular point in time and space.

"Whenever you like, Father," announced Navajo, peering round the door.

It didn't matter who pushed Honorato Bonafe off the scaffolding. Quart reached out and touched the plastic bag containing the pearl. Contemplating Our Lady's fake tear, the soldier lost on the hills of Hattin recognised the hoarse voice and clash of steel of a brother waging his own personal battle in the same corner of the board. The man had no friends left to give him a hero's burial in a crypt among recumbent statues of knights in gauntlets with a lion at their feet. The sun was high in the sky, and at the foot of the hills the corpses of men and horses lay spread out at the mercy of jackals and vultures. So, dragging his sword, sweating beneath his chain mail, the tired warrior got to his feet and followed Simeon Navajo down the long white corridor. At the end, in a small room with a guard at the door, Father Ferro sat on a chair, in grey trousers and a white shirt, without his cassock. They hadn't handcuffed him, but he looked very small and defenceless. His black eyes, red-rimmed, stared impassively as Quart entered. With the guard and deputy superintendent watching, stunned, from the door, Quart went and kneeled before the old priest. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

For an instant, the old priest looked in astonishment at the man kneeling before him. Then he slowly raised his hand and made the sign of the Cross over Quart's head. The old man's humid eyes shone, and his chin and lips trembled as he pronounced, soundlessly, the ancient formula offering solace and hope. On hearing it, all the Knight Templar's ghosts and dead comrades smiled at last, relieved.

He crossed the deserted square and walked along the avenue towards San Telmo Bridge, in the absolute solitude and silence of dawn. He saw a free taxi but didn't stop; he needed to walk. As he drew closer to the Guadalquivir, the air seemed damp, and he felt cold for the first time since his arrival in Seville. He turned up his jacket collar. By the bridge, unlit at that hour, the Almohad Tower melted into the darkness.

He crossed the bridge. The fountain at the Puerta de Jerez wasn't on as he passed the brick-and-tile facade of the Alfonso XIII Hotel. He walked along the wall of the Reales Alcazares. Near La Juderia he breathed in the fragrance of orange trees and damp earth and then turned down the narrow streets of Santa Cruz, the sound of his footsteps preceding him. He didn't know how long he'd been walking, but he felt he'd travelled a great distance, outside time, as if in a dream. Suddenly he was in the middle of a small square with houses painted red-ochre and white, a square with railings, pots of geraniums, and tiled benches that showed scenes from Don Quixote. And at one end, clad in scaffolding, with a dilapidated bell-tower, and guarded by a headless Virgin, stood the church of Our Lady of the Tears: three centuries old and full of memories of the people who had found refuge there.

He sat on a bench and looked at the church for a long time. Nearby, bells rang out; the swifts and pigeons took wing and then settled back on the eaves. The moon had disappeared, but the stars were still visible, twinkling icily. At daybreak it grew colder, and the priest's muscles and back began to ache. At peace now, he watched the light grow in the east. The nearby clock struck again, and once more the birds rose. The pink glow pushing night towards the other side of the city, the clear outline of the belfry, the roof, the eaves around the square – all signalled the arrival of day. Cocks crowed, because Seville was the kind of city where cocks still crowed at dawn. Quart got up, as if waking from a long dream.

At the entrance he took out the key and turned it in the lock. The door creaked as it opened. Sufficient light filtered through the windows for him to see his way between the pews facing the altar, which was still in shadow. At the altar, a candle burned. He stood in the middle of the church, looking at the confessional with its door open, at the scaffolding against the walls, at the worn flagstones and the black mouth of the crypt where Carlota Bruner's remains lay. He kneeled in one of the pews and waited until day had fully dawned. He didn't pray – he didn't know who to pray to – and the accustomed rituals of his old discipline didn't seem appropriate. So he simply waited, his mind empty, comforted by the silent reassurance of the old walls. In the growing light he could make out a bearded prophet, an angel's wings, a cloud or a ghostly figure on the smoke-blackened ceiling. The sun arrived at last, filtering through the window with the lead outline of Christ, and the altarpiece to the glory of God was lit up, all baroque gilding and pale columns. The Holy Mother crushed a serpent's head with her foot, and that, thought Quart, was all that mattered. He went and rang the bell. He sat on the floor beneath the thick rope for a quarter of an hour and then rang the bell again. There was another quarter of an hour to go before eight o'clock Mass.

He switched on the altarpiece light and lit the six candles, three on either side of the altar. He set out the books and the cruets, then went to the vestry and washed his face and hands. He opened the cupboard and drawers, took out the liturgical objects and chose the appropriate vestments. When everything was ready, he put them on in the order and manner that no cleric taught in a seminary ever forgets. He began with the amice, the strip of white cloth still worn only by very traditional or old priests like Father Ferro. Following the ritual, he kissed the Cross at its centre before putting the amice over his shoulders and tying the ribbons behind his back. There were three albs – two of them were too short for him, so he chose the third, probably the one used by Father Lobato. He then took the wide band of white silk known as the stole and, having kissed the Cross at its centre, put it on over the amice. At last he took the old white silk chasuble, with faded gold embroidery, and slipped it over his head. When he was dressed, he stood motionless, his hands resting on the sideboard, staring at the dented old crucifix between the two heavy candelabra. Despite not having slept, he felt clear-headed and peaceful, just as he had when he sat on the bench out in the square. Following the ritual, performed in the same way by others for almost two thousand years, diminished his sense of solitude. It didn't matter that the temple was damaged, that the belfry was covered with scaffolding, that the paintings on the ceiling were faded. Or that on the wall, Mary bowed her head before an angel in a painting full of cracks and stains and darkened varnish. Or that at the end of Father Ferro's old telescope, millions of light-years away, the cold stars mocked it all.

Maybe Heinrich Heine was right and the universe was nothing but the dream of a drunken God who had fallen asleep on a star. But the secret was well guarded. Father Ferro was prepared to go to prison for it, and neither Quart nor anyone else had the right to reveal it to the good people now waiting in the church. Sounds – a cough, footsteps, a pew creaking as somebody knelt – reached him through the vestry door, beside the confessional where Honorato Bonafe died for touching Tanit's veil.

He looked at his watch. It was time.

XV Vespers

Using his real name would have contravened the Code.

Clough and Mungo, Approaching Zero

Two days after returning to Rome and presenting his report on Our Lady of the Tears, Quart received a visit from Monsignor Paolo Spada at his apartment on the Via del Babuino. It was raining, just as it had been three weeks before, when Quart was ordered to Seville. When the doorbell rang, Quart was at an open window that looked on to the terrace; he was watching the rain fall on the roofs, the ochre walls of the houses, the grey sheen of the paving stones and the steps of the Piazza di Spagna.

Spada stood in the doorway, solid and square in a dripping black raincoat, shaking the rain from his bristly head. "I was passing," he said, "and I thought maybe you could give me a cup of coffee." Without waiting for an answer, he hung his raincoat on a hook, went through to the austere sitting room, and sat in an armchair by the windows. He sat there in silence, staring at the rain, until Quart returned from the kitchen carrying a coffee pot and cups on a tray.

"The Holy Father received your report."

Quart nodded, helping himself to sugar, and then stood while he stirred his coffee. His sleeves were rolled up above the elbow, and his collar was unbuttoned.

The Mastiff peered over his cup, inclining his heavy gladiator's head. "He also received," he said, "a report from the archbishop of Seville in which your name is mentioned."

The rain intensified, and the splashing on the terrace drew the two men's attention for a moment. Quart placed his cup on the tray and smiled, a sad, distant smile. "I'm sorry if I've caused you problems,

Monsignor." Disciplined and respectful, as usual. Though he was in his own apartment, he remained standing, almost lining up his thumbs with his trouser seams.

The director of the IEA gave him an affectionate look and then shrugged. "You haven't caused me any problems," he said gently. "On the contrary: you completed your report in record time, carried out a difficult assignment, and made the appropriate decisions with regard to Father Ferro's surrender to the police and his legal defence." He paused, considering his own huge hands. "Everything would have been perfect if you had limited yourself to that."

Quart smiled sadly again. "But I didn't."

The archbishop, his eyes streaked with brown, watched his agent for some time. "No. In the end you decided to take sides," he said with a frown. "To get involved, I suppose that's the word. And you did so at the least appropriate time and in the least appropriate way."

"It didn't seem so to me, Monsignor," said Quart.

The archbishop bowed his head benevolently. "Of course. I know. But it did seem so to the IEA." He put his cup on the tray and looked at Quart curiously. "Your orders were to remain impartial."

"I knew it was futile," said Quart. "A symbolic gesture, nothing more." He was lost in thought for a moment. "But there are times when a gesture seems important."

"Well, in fact, it wasn't entirely futile," said Spada. "According to my information, the nunciature in Madrid and the archbishopric of Seville have this morning received instructions to preserve Our Lady of the Tears and to appoint a new parish priest." He gave Quart an ironic and good-humoured wink. "Those final remarks of yours about a little piece of heaven disappearing, the patched skin of the drum, and all the rest of it certainly had an effect. Very moving and convincing. Had we known about your rhetorical abilities earlier, we would have made greater use of them." The Mastiff fell silent. Your turn to ask the questions, his silence implied. Make things a bit easier for me.

"That's good news, Monsignor," said Quart. "But good news can be given over the phone… What's the bad news?"

The prelate sighed. "The bad news is His Eminence Jerzy Iwaszkiewicz." He looked away and sighed again. "Our dear brother in Christ feels that he let the mouse escape, and he wants to get his own back. He's made much of the archbishop of Seville's report. According to which, you exceeded your authority. Iwaszkiewicz has also given credence to certain insinuations made by Monsignor Corvo regarding your personal conduct. The fact is, between the two of them, they're going to make things rather difficult for you." "And for you, Your Grace?"

"Oh, well." Spada raised a hand dismissively. "I'm less easy to attack, I have files and things like that. And I have the relative backing of the secretary of state. Actually they've offered to leave me in peace for a small price."

"My head."

"More or less." The archbishop stood up and paced the room. His back to Quart, he studied a small framed sketch on the wall. "It's symbolic, of course. Like your Mass last Thursday. It's unfair, I know. But life is unfair. Rome is unfair. That's how it is. Those are the rules of the game, and you've known them all along." He turned to face Quart, hands crossed behind his back. "I'll miss you, Father Quart," he said. "You're still the good soldier. I know you did the best you could. Maybe I placed too many burdens on your shoulders. I hope that the ghost of that Brazilian, Nelson Corona, will rest in peace now."

"What will they do with me?" The question was neutral, objective, with no trace of anxiety.

Spada raised his hands in disgust. "Iwaszkiewicz, always so charitable," he said, "wanted to have you sent to some obscure secretariat." He tutted. "Luckily I held a few good cards. I'm not saying I risked my neck for you, but I took the precaution of getting out your CV, and I reminded them of your excellent record, including the business in Panama and the Croat archbishop you got out of Sarajevo. So in the end Iwaszkiewicz agreed simply that you should be dismissed from the IEA." The Mastiff shrugged his square shoulders. "The Pole will be taking one of my bishops, but the game has ended in a draw."

"And what was the verdict?" asked Quart. He pictured himself far from all of this. Maybe it won't be so difficult, he thought. A bit harder and a bit colder, but it's cold inside too. For a moment he wondered if he'd have the courage to give it all up if the sentence was too harsh. To start over somewhere else, without the black suit to protect him. The problem was that, since Seville, there were fewer places to go.

"My friend Azopardi," Spada was saying, "the secretary of state, has agreed to help. He's promised to deal with your case. The idea is to find you a post as an attache to a nunciature, in Latin America if possible. After a time, if the situation becomes more favourable and I'm still at the head of the IEA, I'll request your return." He seemed relieved when he saw that Quart remained calm. "Consider it a temporary exile, or a mission that's longer than usual. To sum up, you are to disappear for a time. After all, Peter's work may be eternal, but popes and their teams come and go. Polish cardinals grow old, retire, or get cancer. You know how it is." He smiled crookedly. "And you're young."

Quart went to the window. Rain was still splashing the tiles. Below his feet, it slid in grey sheets across the roofs of the nearby houses. He breathed in the damp air. The Piazza di Spagna shone like a newly varnished oil painting. "What news is there of Father Ferro?" he asked.

The Mastiff arched an eyebrow. That's out of my hands, it meant. "According to the nunciature in Madrid," he said, "the lawyer you found him is doing a good job. They believe Father Ferro will be released on grounds of senility and lack of evidence, or, if the worst comes to the worst, he'll get a lenient sentence under Spanish law. He's getting on in years and there are lots of things that could predispose a judge in his favour. For the time being he's in the prison hospital in Seville, under fairly comfortable conditions. They may request that he's sent to a rest home for retired priests. I don't think he'll care much either way."

"No," said Quart. "I don't think he will."

Spada poured himself another coffee. "Quite a character, that old priest. Do you think he did it?" He looked at Quart, cup in hand. "We haven't heard from Vespers again. It's a pity you didn't find out who it was. If you had, I would have been able to defend you better against Iwaszkiewicz." He sipped his coffee gravely. "That would have been a tasty bone for the Pole to gnaw."

At the window, watching the rain, Quart nodded in silence, and the light made his short hair look even greyer. Drops of rain splashed on his face. "Vespers," he said.

His last evening in Seville, he went down to the lobby and found her there, just as he had the first time, sitting in the same armchair. Only a week had passed since that first day, but to Quart it seemed as if he'd been in Seville for ever. Like the huge stone nave standing a few metres away, across the square, with its pinnacles and flying buttresses. Like the disorientated pigeons crossing the area of night lit up by the spotlights. Like Santa Cruz, the river, the Almohad Tower, and La Giralda. Like Macarena Bruner, who now watched him approach. When she stood up in the middle of the empty lobby, Quart knew that her presence still moved him to his very core. Luckily, he thought as he walked towards her, she didn't love him.

"I've come to say goodbye," said Macarena. "And to thank you."

They went out into the street. It was indeed a farewell: short sentences, monosyllables, cliches, the kind of polite remarks that passed between strangers, and not a single reference to the two of them. Quart noticed the formality of her tone. She was relaxed yet avoided his eyes. For the first time, she seemed intimidated. They spoke of Father Ferro, of Quart's journey the following day. Of the Mass he had conducted at Our Lady of the Tears.

"I never imagined I'd see you there," said Macarena.

Occasionally, as on the night they had walked around Santa Cruz, their steps happened to bring them into contact, and each time Quart experienced an acute, physical sense of loss. They walked now in silence, as everything between them had been said; to continue talking would have required words that neither wished to say. The light of the street lamps cast their shadows against the Arab Wall, and they stopped there, facing each other. Quart beheld her dark eyes, the ivory necklace against her tanned skin. He felt no bitterness towards her. He knew she had used him – he was as good a weapon as any, and Macarena believed she was fighting for a just cause – and he had let himself be used. His thoughts were beginning to return to some sort of order. Soon, only the emptiness of his loss would remain, duly kept in check by his pride and self-discipline. But neither the woman nor Seville would ever be erased from his memory.

He searched for a sentence, a word, at least, before Macarena disappeared from his life for ever. Something that she would remember, that wouldn't jar with the ancient wall, the iron street lamps, the illuminated tower in the background and the sky where Father Ferro's icy stars shone. But he found only a blank. A long, resigned weariness that could be expressed only by a look or a smile. So he smiled in the darkness. And now she looked him in the face, as if a word she couldn't find hung on her parted lips. Quart turned and walked away, feeling her gaze on him. He thought stupidly that if she had at that moment shouted, "I love you," he would have torn off his dog collar and gone back, taken her in his arms like an officer in an old black-and-white movie throwing away his career for a femme fatale, or like those other poor fools, Samson and Holofernes. The thought amused him. He knew – had always known – that Macarena Bruner would never say those words again to any man.

"Wait!" she said suddenly. "I want to show you something."

Quart stopped. They weren't the magic words, but they were enough for him to turn. She was still standing where he had left her, her shadow on the wall. She threw back her head, shaking back her hair in a defiant gesture directed at herself rather than at him.

"You've earned it," she said with a smile.

The Casa del Postigo was silent. The English clock in the gallery struck twelve as they crossed the courtyard with the tiled fountain, among geraniums and ferns. All the lights were out, and in the moonlight their shadows swept across the mosaics, which were glistening wet after the recent watering of the plants. In the garden, crickets chirped at the foot of the dark tower that housed the pigeon loft.

Macarena led Quart across the gallery, through a small sitting room, and then up a wooden staircase with an iron handrail. They came to the glassed-in gallery on the floor above, surrounding the patio, and proceeded to a closed door at the end of it. Before Macarena opened the door, she stopped and whispered to Quart, "Nobody must ever know about this."

She put a finger to her lips and opened the door. Strains of The Magic Flute greeted them. The first room, in darkness, was full of furniture under dustcovers. Moonlight filtered through the window.

The music came from another room. There, through an open glass sliding door, a lamp lit up a desk covered with computer equipment: two big Sony monitors, a laser printer, a modem. And, staring at the screen flashing with icons and letters, with the Romero de Torres fan and two empty bottles of Coca-Cola on top of a pile of copies of Wired magazine, absorbed in the journey that provided a nighdy escape from the house, Seville, herself, and her past, Vespers travelled silently through boundless cyberspace.

She didn't even seem surprised that they were there. She was typing carefully, her eyes glued to one of the monitors. Quart noticed how she did everything with great attention, as if afraid of pressing a wrong key and ruining something important. He looked at the screen: all the numbers and signs were meaningless to him, but the hacker seemed entirely at ease with them. She wore a dark silk robe, slippers, and, around her neck, the beautiful pearl necklace. Quart shook his head. Suddenly all the signs on the screen were replaced by new ones, and the eyes of Cruz Bruner, duchess of El Nuevo Extremo, shone brightly. "There it is," she said and began typing again. After a moment she pressed Enter and leaned back, satisfied. Her eyes, reddened by staring at the screen, gleamed with malice when at last she looked up at her daughter and the priest. "'For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night'," she said to Quart. "Isn't that right, Father? First epistle to the Thessalonians, I think. Five, two."

Her daughter placed a hand on her shoulder and looked at Quart. The old lady tilted her head to her. "If I'd known I'd be getting a visit at this time of night, I'd have done myself up," she said, touching her pearl necklace and sounding gently reproachful. "But as it's Macarena who's brought you, it's all right." She squeezed her daughter's hand. "Now you know my secret."

Quart still couldn't quite believe it. He looked at the empty Coca-Cola bottles, the piles of computer magazines – in both English and Spanish – the manuals filling the desk drawers, the boxes of diskettes. Cruz and Macarena Bruner watched him, one with amusement, the other grave. He couldn't deny the evidence of his senses: from this desk a seventy-year-old lady had given the Vatican the runaround.

"How did you do it?" he asked.

Cruz Bruner took her hand away from her daughter's and slid it over the keyboard. A piano, thought Quart. Elderly duchesses played the piano, did embroidery or gave themselves up to nostalgia; they didn't turn into computer hackers by night.

"I never would have imagined," said Quart.

"That a little old lady could be comfortable with all this?" She straightened, her expression thoughtful. "Well, I admit it's a little unusual, but there you are. One day I took a look, out of curiosity. I pressed a key and found that things happened on the screen. And that you could travel to incredible places and do things you never dreamed of doing." She smiled, and her face was suddenly younger. "It's more fun than watching Venezuelan soap operas on television."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Oh, not long. Three, four years." She turned to her daughter, trying to remember exactly. "I've always been very curious; if I see a line of print, I just have to start reading… One day Macarena bought a computer for her work. When she went out, I'd sit at it, awestruck. There was a game, a little ping-pong ball – that's how I learned my way around the keyboard. I have trouble sleeping, as you know, so I ended up spending quite a few hours at the computer. I think I became addicted."

"At her age," said Macarena affectionately.

"Yes." The old lady faced Quart, as if inviting him to express his disapproval. "I was so curious that I began to read everything I could find about computers. I learned English when I was a child, so I signed up for correspondence courses and subscribed to computer magazines." She gave a little laugh and covered her mouth with her hand, as if shocked at herself. "My health isn't too good, but luckily my brain's still all right. I became a bit of an expert in quite a short time. And I assure you, at my age, that's exhilarating."

"She even fell in love," said Macarena.

Mother and daughter laughed. Quart wondered if they weren't both slightly crazy; it all seemed like a big joke. Or maybe he was the one who was going mad. This city's gone to your head, he told himself. Just as well that you're leaving now, before it's too late.

"She's exaggerating," said Cruz Bruner. "I had the equipment, the software, so I started to get around. And, well, yes, I did have a virtual love affair. One night I happened to get into a hacker's computer, a young man of sixteen… You should see your face, Father. I've never seen anyone look so astonished."

"You can't expect me to find this normal."

"No, I suppose not." The old lady motioned at the modem and the pile of magazines. "Imagine," she said, "what it was for a woman of almost seventy to discover such a world. My friend called himself Mad Mike. I'll never hear Mike's voice or see his face, but he led me all over this fascinating world. There was an electronic bulletin board, and that's how I came into contact with other addicts, often boys who spent hours up in their rooms getting into other people's computers."

She sounded proud, as if talking about a highly exclusive club. Quart needed no explanations, but he must still have been looking puzzled, because Macarena smiled and told her mother to explain to him what an electronic bulletin board was.

The old lady put a hand on the keyboard. "People post messages and talk. There are chat rooms, too. After a while you reach a certain level in the hacker world. When you call the first time, they ask you for your name and telephone number. You don't give them your real name but an alias and a false number. A certain amount of paranoia is a good quality in a hacker."

"What's your alias?"

"Do you really want to know? It's against the rules, but I'll tell you, since you've got this far, thanks to Macarena." She held up her head with mock pride. "I'm Queen of the South."

Things were happening on the monitor, and the duchess broke off to press a few keys. A long text, in small type, appeared on screen. Cruz Bruner went on. "After that," she said, "I started to visit secret Websites on the Internet. I made friends there. It's great fun. You swap useful tips, tricks, games, viruses. Gradually I learned how to get into all the networks, travel abroad, hide my entry and exit points, get into protected systems. My happiest day was breaking into the Ayuntamiento and changing my tax bill."

"Which is a crime," her daughter said, scolding, and obviously not for the first time. "When I found out, I ran to city hall. Our bill was entered as having been paid until 2005! I had to tell them it was an error."

"It may be a crime," conceded the old lady, "but it doesn't seem like a crime from here. Nothing does." She smiled at Quart mischievously. "That's the wonderful thing. Now," she went on, "I keep in frequent touch with Mike as well as twenty or so other hackers. Most of them are probably under twenty. I don't know their ages,' genders, or real names, but we have terribly exciting virtual meetings in places like the Gaieties Lafayette in Paris, the Imperial War Museum, or branches of the Confederation of Russian Banks… Which, by the way, is so vulnerable that even a child could get in and alter the accounts. The Confederation tends to be used as a training route for novice hackers."

She was Vespers, there was no doubt about it. Quart could see her crouched over her computer night after night, travelling through cyberspace, meeting other solitary travellers on her journey. Unexpected meetings, exchanges of information and dreams, the excitement of violating secrets and crossing the boundary into the forbidden – a secret fraternity for whom time, space, memory, solitude, success or failure had no meaning, who had created a virtual world in which everything was possible and nothing was subject to laws. A wonderful escape route of infinite possibilities. In her own way, Cruz Bruner too was rebelling against the Seville embodied by the handsome man in the hall portrait, beside the painting of the fair young girl by Zuloaga.

"How did you get into the Vatican?"

"By chance. A contact in Rome, Deus ex Machina – I suspect he's a seminarian or a young priest – had wandered about the edges of the system, for fun. We became friends, and he gave me a couple of good pathways. That was about six or seven months ago. The situation at Our Lady of the Tears was just then becoming serious. Neither the archbishop of Seville nor the nunciature in Madrid would take any notice of Father Ferro, and it occurred to me that this would be a good way of getting Rome's attention."

"Did you tell Father Ferro?"

"No. I didn't even let my daughter know. She found out later, when the existence of Vespers – as you called him – became known." The old lady pronounced the name with obvious satisfaction. Quart would have liked to see the faces of His Eminence Jerzy Iwaszkiewicz and Monsignor Spada hearing all this. "At first, I thought I'd leave a simple message in the central Vatican system, hoping it would reach the right quarters. It was only later, when I found my way around, that I thought of getting through to the Pope's computer. By chance I came across a well-protected file called INMAVAT and I realised there was something important there. I made a couple of attempts to get in, using some tricks taught me by my hacker friends, and one night I succeeded. For a week I visited INMAVAT until I understood what it was all about. I found what I wanted, gathered my ammunition, and began my attack. You know the rest." "Who sent me the postcard?"

"Oh that. I did, of course. Since you were here, I thought you ought to see the other side of the problem. I went up to the pigeon loft and found something suitable in Carlota's trunk. It was slightly bizarre, but it had the desired effect."

Despite himself, Quart burst out laughing. "How did you get into my hotel room?"

The old lady looked shocked. "Heavens, I didn't do it myself," she said. "Can you see me tiptoeing along hotel corridors? I used a more dignified method. My maid slipped a waitress some money." She half-turned to her daughter. "When you showed Macarena the postcard, she knew immediately it was I. But she was nice enough not to tell."

Quart found confirmation in Macarena's eyes. He glanced at the computer screen. "Tell me what you're up to now."

"Oh, this. You could call it a final settling of scores. Don't be alarmed. It has nothing to do with Rome this time. Something closer to home. More personal."

Quart took a look. S amp;B Confidential, he read. Summary of CB internal investigation re PT deal and others. The names of the Cartujano Bank and Pencho Gavira stood out in the text:

Some of the methods used to conceal the true situation were as follows: frenetic searching for new and expensive sources of funds; false accounting and infringement of banking regulations; and risktaking that – should the expected sale of Puerto Targa to Sun Qafer Alley (forecast to fetch some hundred and eighty million dollars) not take place – will deal a serious blow to the Cartujano Bank and cause a public scandal, considerably diminishing the Bank's high standing with its shareholders, most of whom are conservative by nature and have small shareholdings.

As for the irregularities for which the present vice-chairman is directly responsible, the investigation has uncovered a general lack of financial prudence. Considerable sums have been paid to professionals and private individuals without due documentary proof. These include cases of payments to public figures and institutions that can only be described as bribery. The investigation has also discovered…

He looked at Macarena, then at the duchess. This was a shot straight at the ex-husband's fleet. He remembered the banker the night before on the quay, and the brief sympathy established between them as they joined forces to free the old priest. "What are you intending to do with this?" he asked.

Macarena shrugged. It was Cruz Bruner who answered. "I just want to even things out a little. People have done so much for the church. You yourself gained us another week by conducting Mass yesterday. I suppose that's why Macarena thought you deserved to come here tonight."

"He won't tell anyone," said Macarena.

"Good," the duchess said. She studied her daughter, frowning, then turned again to Quart. "Although I feel the same as Father Ferro. At my age, many things no longer matter, and you fear less." She stroked the keyboard absent-mindedly. "Now, for instance, I'm about to see that justice is done. Not a very Christian action, I know, Father Quart." She sounded harder now, more determined. "After this, I imagine I'll have to go to confession. I'm about to sin against charity."

"Mother."

"Leave me alone, dear, please." She pointed at the text on the screen. "This is a report on an internal audit of the Cartujano Bank. It exposes all Pencho's machinations involving Our Lady of the Tears. Making it public would be slightly damaging to the bank and extremely damaging to my son-in-law." She smiled. "I'm not sure Octavio will ever forgive me for it."

"Will you tell him?" asked Macarena.

"Of course."

"Where did you get this report?" asked Quart.

"From my son-in-law's computer. His password wasn't hard to crack." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, because I always liked Pencho. But it's the church or him."

A light flickered on one of the devices. Cruz Bruner glanced at it, then turned to the priest with all the haughtiness of generations of dukes of El Nuevo Extremo. "It's the modem," she said, her eyes sparkling. Her smile was cruel, contemptuous. "I'm faxing the report to all the newspapers in Seville."

Standing beside her mother, her face in darkness, Macarena had stepped back and was staring into space. The English clock struck downstairs, among the dark paintings mounting guard in the shadows of the Casa del Postigo. Quart felt sure that at that moment Carlota Bruner's ghost was smiling up in the tower, while a schooner glided upriver, its white sails filled by the breeze that rose every night from the sea.

Cruz Bruner died at the beginning of winter. By then Quart had spent five months as third secretary at the apostolic nunciature in Bogota. He read about it in the international edition of ABC. The death notice gave the long list of the deceased's tides and included the request of her daughter Macarena, heir to the dukedom, that prayers be said for her soul. A couple of weeks later he received an envelope with a Seville postmark, containing only a small printed card edged with black and showing more or less the same text as the death notice. It was accompanied not by any letter but only by the postcard of Our Lady of the Tears that Carlota Bruner sent to Captain Xaloc.

In time, Quart learned about the fates of several of the players in the story. A letter from Father Oscar, having followed a circuitous route from a little village in Almeria to Rome and then on to Bogota, said that Our Lady of the Tears was still open for worship and functioning as a parish. The assistant priest added that he had radically revised his opinion of Quart.

The only news of Pencho Gavira was a brief item in the financial section of the Latin American edition of El Pais, about Octavio Machuca's retirement from the Cartujano Bank in Seville and the appointment of a new chairman of the board. Quart did not recognise the appointee's name. The article also mentioned Gavira's resignation as vice-chairman and general manager of the bank.

Quart received sporadic information about Father Ferro. The verdict was involuntary manslaughter, and Father Ferro was moved from the prison hospital to a rest home for elderly priests in the diocese of Seville. He was still there, in poor health, at the end of that winter, but according to a brief, courteous note from the director of the home, in response to Quart's enquiry, it was unlikely that the old priest would survive until spring. He spent his days in his room and had nothing to do with anyone; at night, in good weather, he went out into the garden, accompanied by a nurse, and sat in silence on a bench watching the stars.

Of the remaining characters whose paths crossed Quart's during his stay in Seville, Quart heard nothing more. They gradually faded from memory, together with the ghosts of Carlota Bruner and Captain Xaloc, who often accompanied him on his long evening walks through the colonial district of old Bogota. All but one of them disappeared. He caught only a brief glimpse of her and was never absolutely sure it was she. This happened some time later. Quart had just been transferred to another even more obscure secretariat in Cartagena and was leafing through a local paper when he saw a report on the peasant revolt in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The report described life in a small, remote village under guerrilla control. At the local school a group of children were photographed with their teacher. The picture was blurred, and even with a magnifying glass Quart couldn't be sure, but the woman looked very familiar. She was wearing jeans, and her grey hair was gathered in a short plait; her hands were resting on her pupils' shoulders, and she stared defiantly at the camera with cold blue eyes. The eyes that were the last thing Honorato Bonafe saw before he was struck down by the wrath of God.