The Seville Communion

VI

Lorenzo Quart's Tie

All the women in the world are in you. Joseph Conrad, The Golden Arrow

Lorenzo Quart had only one tie. It was navy blue silk, and he'd bought it at a shirt maker's on the Via Condotti a hundred and fifty paces from where he lived. He always bought the same kind: a very traditional cut, slightly narrower than was fashionable. When it became worn or dirty, he bought another, identical, to replace it. He rarely wore the tie – no more than a couple of times a year. Mostly he wore black shirts with a Roman collar that he ironed himself with the precision of a veteran soldier preparing for inspection by superiors obsessed with regulations. Quart's life revolved around regulations; he had adhered to them rigorously ever since he could remember – long before he was ordained a priest, face down on cold flagstones with his arms out. At the seminary, from the very start, he accepted Church discipline as an efficient way of organising his life. In return he was given security, a future, and a cause to devote his talents to. Unlike his fellow students, he had never sold his soul to a patron or powerful friend, neither then or since. He believed – and this was perhaps his only point of naivety – that following the rules would gain him the respect of others. Many of his superiors were indeed impressed by the young priest's intelligence and discipline and helped him in his career. He spent six years at the seminary, two at the university studying philosophy, theology, and the history of the Church, and was then awarded a scholarship to Rome for a Ph.D. in canon law. There, the professors at the Gregorian University put his name forward to the Pontifical Academy for Ecclesiastics and Noblemen, where Quart studied diplomacy and relations between Church and State. After that, the Vatican Secretariat assigned him to a couple of European nunciatures, until Monsignor Spada formally recruited him into the Institute for External Affairs. Quart was just twenty-nine. It was then that he went to Enzo Rinaldi and paid 115,000 lire for his first tie.

That was ten years ago, and he still had trouble tying the knot. He knew how to do it in theory, but, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and looking at the white shirt collar and the blue silk tie in his hands, he felt vulnerable. He felt particularly vulnerable to be without his Roman collar and black shirt for a dinner with Macarena Bruner. Like a Knight Templar setting aside his armour to go and parley with the Mamelukes beneath the walls of Tyre. The thought made him smile uneasily as he glanced at his watch. There was just enough time to dress and walk to the restaurant. He'd found it on the map, in the Plaza de Santa Cruz, a stone's throw from the ancient Arab wall. The connotations of which the modern Knight Templar found rather disturbing.

Lorenzo Quart was as punctual as the robot-like Swiss Guard at the Vatican. He always worked out his schedule by dividing the hours precisely and making efficient use of every second. He had enough time to deal with the tie, so he made himself do the knot calmly, adjusting it carefully. He liked to move slowly, because his self-control was a source of pride. In his dealings with the world he was constantly striving to avoid a hurried gesture, an inappropriate word, an impatient move that might break the serenity of the regulations. Even when he broke rules that were not his own – something that Spada, with his gift for euphemism, called "walking along the outer edge of the law" – the appearance of morality was safe with him. In his case the old curial saying, Tutti i preti sono falsi, wasn't accurate. He was quite indifferent as to whether or not all priests were frauds; he would be an honourable Knight Templar.

Maybe that was why, after regarding himself for a moment in the mirror, he removed the tie and white shirt and put on a black shirt with a round collar. As he buttoned the shirt, his fingers brushed the scar beneath his left clavicle, a memento of the American soldier who struck him with the butt of his rifle during the invasion of Panama. It was the only scar Quart had acquired in the line of duty; the red badge of courage, Spada called it wryly. His Grace and the pusillanimous head-hunters in the Curia were impressed. Quart himself would have preferred for the lunatic with the Kevlar helmet, M-16, and badge that said J. KOWALSKY on his bulletproof vest – "Another Pole," Spada said later caustically – to have taken Quart's Vatican diplomatic passport more seriously when it was brandished under his nose at the nunciature, the day that Quart negotiated General Noriega's surrender.

Apart from the broken-shoulder incident, the operation in Panama had proceeded flawlessly, and the IEA considered it a classic of diplomacy in a crisis. Following a hazardous flight from Costa Rica, Quart landed in Panama a few hours after the American invasion and Noriega's admission to the Vatican diplomatic legation. Officially, his task was to assist the nuncio, but really he would be monitoring the negotiations and keeping the IEA directly informed. He had come to relieve Monsignor Hector Bonino, an Argentine-Italian who had no diplomatic experience. The secretary of state didn't trust Bonino to handle a matter like this. It was indeed an unusual situation. The Americans, behind wire fences and tank traps, had installed powerful loudspeakers blasting out rock music twenty-four hours a day to psychologically weaken the nuncio and his refugees. Inside the building, spread throughout the offices and corridors, an assortment of people sat waiting: a Nicaraguan, head of Noriega's counterintelligence; five Basque separatists; a Cuban economic adviser who kept threatening to commit suicide if he wasn't returned safe and sound to Havana; an agent for CESID, the Spanish central' intelligence agency, who went in and out of the building as he pleased to play chess with the nuncio and keep Madrid informed; three Colombian drug traffickers; and General Noriega, Pineapple Face himself, on whose head the Americans had put a price. In return for asylum, Monsignor Bonino required that his guests attend Mass daily; and it was moving to see them wishing each other peace – Noriega all prayers and chest beating – under the watchful eye of the nuncio, with Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA blaring outside. On the crucial night of the siege, when Delta commandos with their noses painted black tried to storm the nunciature, Quart maintained telephone contact with the archbishops of New York and Chicago until President Bush agreed to call off the raid. At last Pineapple Face gave himself up without laying down too many conditions, the Nicaraguan and the Basque separatists were discreetly transported out of Panama, and the drug traffickers ran – to reappear later in Medellin. Only the Cuban, who came out last, had problems. The Marines found him in the trunk of an old Chevrolet Impala that Quart had rented. The CESID agent had agreed to drive the man out of the nunciature, just for the hell of it, risking his career. The agreement negotiated for the Cuban's release was kept secret, so Marine Kowalsky knew nothing about it, nor was he particularly concerned about the subtleties of diplomacy. So Quart, despite his collar and Vatican passport, ended up with a broken shoulder when he attempted to mediate. As for the Cuban, a nervous type by the name of Gir6n, he spent a month in a Miami jail. And not only did he break his promise to commit suicide, but on his release he obtained political asylum in the United States after giving an interview to Reader's Digest entitled "I Too Was Fooled by Castro".

As Quart came out of the lift the man waiting in the lobby stood up. Quart had never seen him before. He was about forty and rather thick around the waist. His lank, thinning hair was lacquered down, and he had a double chin that seemed an extension of his cheeks.

"The name's Bonafe," the man said. "Honorato Bonafe."

Quart thought he'd never met anyone with a more inappropriate name. This person looked anything but honourable. His cunning little eyes seemed to be calculating how much he'd get for Quart's suit and shoes if he stole them.

"Could we talk for a moment?" Bonafe's smile made him more repellent still. It was a grimace, both obsequious and malicious, like a priest of the old school trying to curry favour with a bishop. In fact, Quart thought a cassock would have suited the man much better than the crumpled beige suit and the leather bag in his hand. His hands were small and podgy, promising a limp handshake.

Quart stopped. He was prepared to listen but didn't drop his guard. He glanced over the man's head at the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes till his appointment with Macarena Bruner. Bonafe followed Quart's gaze, said again that he would take only a moment of his time, and raised his hand as if to place it on the priest's arm. Quart stared hard at the hand, stopping Bonafe dead. The hand remained in midair while Bonafe told him what he wanted in a conspiratorial tone. Quart didn't want to listen, but the name Q amp;S magazine set alarm bells ringing. "To sum up, Father, I'm at your disposal."

Quart frowned, disconcerted. He could have sworn the man had winked at him. "Thank you. But I don't see what this has to do with me."

"You don't." Bonafe nodded as if sharing a joke. "But it's all quite clear, isn't it? What you're doing in Seville."

Dear God. Just what he needed: someone like this turning up when Rome wanted the matter resolved as discreetly as possible. Quart wondered how so many people could have found out about it. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

The man looked at him with barely concealed insolence and said, "Really?"

Quart consulted his watch. He'd had enough. "Excuse me, I have an appointment." He walked away, towards the entrance. But Bonafe followed him.

"Do you mind if I walk with you? We could talk as we go." "I have nothing to say."

He left his key at Reception and went out into the street, trailed by the journalist. The dark shape of La Giralda was visible against the remaining light of the sky. At that moment the streetlights came on in the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes.

"I don't think you understand," insisted Bonafe, pulling a copy of Q amp;S from his pocket. "I work for this magazine." He held it out but put it away again when Quart ignored him. "All I want is a short, friendly chat. You tell me a couple of things, and I'll be decent. I assure you, co-operation will benefit us both." On his pink lips, the word "co-operation" acquired obscene connotations.

Quart had to make an effort to contain his revulsion. "Please go away."

"Come on. Just the time to have one drink," he said, at once rude and friendly.

They were now under a street lamp at a corner of the archbishop's

palace. Quart stopped and turned. "Listen, Buenafe"

"Bonafe"

"Bonafe or whatever your name is. What I'm doing in Seville is none of your business. And in any case, I would never dream of telling the world about it."

The journalist protested, quoting the usual journalistic cliches: freedom of information, the quest for truth, the public's right to know. "And anyway," he added after thinking a moment, "better for you lot to be in than out."

It sounded like a threat. Quart was beginning to lose patience. "Us lot?"

"You know what I mean." Again the obsequious smile. "The clergy and all that." "Ah. The clergy."

"I see we understand each other," Bonafe said, his double chin wobbling hopefully.

Quart looked at him calmly, his hands clasped behind his back. "And what exactly do you want to know?" he asked.

"Well. Let's see." Bonafe scratched his armpit beneath his jacket. "What's the view in Rome on that church, for instance. What's the position of the parish priest in terms of canon law… And whatever you can tell me about your mission here." His smile was slimy. "That shouldn't be too difficult."

"And if I refuse?"

The journalist clucked his tongue, as if to say that wouldn't do, especially as they'd been getting on so well. "I'll write the article anyway, of course. And he that is not with me, is against me." He stood on tiptoe as he spoke. "Isn't that what it says in the Gospels?"

Quart stared at him for a moment without a word. He glanced to the right and left before moving closer to the journalist, as if to speak in confidence. But there was something in his demeanour that made Bonafe step back. "I really couldn't care less what your name is," said Quart quietly. "I can't decide whether you're rude, stupid, criminal, or all three. In any case, even though I'm a priest, I have a bad temper. So if I were you, I'd get out of my sight. Now."

The street lamp cast vertical shadows on the journalist's face. No longer smiling, he gave Quart an aggrieved look. "Not very priestly," he complained, his double chin trembling. "Your attitude."

"You think?" Now it was Quart's turn to smile unpleasantly. "In that case, you'd be surprised how unpriestly I can be."

He turned his back on him and walked away, wondering what he'd have to pay for his small victory. Clearly, he had to conclude his investigation before the situation became too complicated, if it wasn't already. A journalist rooting around in church matters was the final straw. Absorbed in these thoughts, Quart crossed the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes without noticing a couple – a man and a woman – sitting on a bench. They stood up and followed him at a distance. The man was fat and wore a white suit and a panama hat; the woman was in a polka-dot dress and had a strange kiss-curl on her forehead. They walked behind Quart, arm in arm like a husband and wife enjoying the cool evening air. But when they came to the Bar La Giralda, they exchanged looks with a man in a polo-neck sweater and checked jacket in the doorway. At that moment, bells began to ring throughout Seville, startling the pigeons dozing under the eaves.

When the tall priest went into La Albahaca, Don Ibrahim gave El Potro del Mantelete a coin and told him to telephone Peregil from the nearest call box and fill him in. A little less than an hour later, Pencho Gavira's henchman turned up to see how things were going. He carried a Marks amp; Spencer's plastic bag and looked tired. He found his troops strategically deployed about the Plaza de Santa Cruz outside the restaurant, a converted seventeenth-century mansion. El Potro leaned against a wall, motionless, near the exit leading to the Arab wall; La Nina Punales sat crocheting at the foot of the iron cross in the middle of the square; and Don Ibrahim's bulky shadow moved from one side of the square to another, swinging his walking stick, the ember of a Montecristo cigar visible beneath the broad brim of his pale straw hat.

"He's inside," he told Peregil. "With the lady."

He made his report, pulling his watch from his waistcoat and consulting it by the light of the street lamp. Twenty minutes earlier, he had sent La Nina into the restaurant for reconnaissance, pretending to sell flowers.. Later he himself exchanged a few words with the waiters when he went in to buy the cigar he was now smoking. The couple were sitting at a good table beneath a reasonable copy of The Topers by Velazquez. The lady had ordered scallop salad with basil and truffles, while the Reverend Father had chosen sauteed goose liver with honey vinaigrette. They were drinking uncarbonated mineral water and red wine, a Pesquera from the banks of the Duero. Don Ibrahim apologised that he hadn't been able to ascertain the vintage. But, as he told Peregil, twirling his moustache, excessive curiosity might have aroused the suspicions of the staff.

"And what are they talking about?" asked Peregil.

The former bogus lawyer shrugged. "That," he said, "is beyond the scope of my investigation."

Peregil considered the situation. Things were still under control. Don Ibrahim and his colleagues were doing well, and the cards they had given him looked good. In his world, as in almost every other, information meant money. It was a question of knowing how to get the best deal, the highest bid. Of course, he would have preferred to take all this back to his boss, Pencho Gavira, who was the principal interested party here, being both banker and husband. But the missing six million and Peregil's debt to loan shark Ruben Molina made it hard to think straight. Peregil had been sleeping badly for the last few days, and his ulcer was troubling him again. When he stood in front of the bathroom mirror this morning, constructing the complicated edifice that concealed his baldness, Peregil saw only despair in the sour face staring back at him. He was going bald, his digestion was wrecked, he owed his boss six million and almost twice that to a moneylender, and he very much suspected that his last glorious spasm with Dolores La Negra had left him with the alarming little itch in his urogenital tract. Just what he needed.

And there was worse. Peregil glanced at the rotund form of Don Ibrahim, who awaited instructions, at La Nina Punales crocheting in the lamplight, and at El Potro del Mantelete on the corner. To all the things complicating Peregil's life could be added another: the information obtained by the three partners was already circulating on the market, because Peregil needed cash urgently. Bonafe had slipped him another cheque, this time as payment for confidential information about the priest from Rome, Peregil's boss's wife (or ex-wife or whatever she was), and the business of Our Lady of the Tears. The next step was obvious: Macarena Bruner and the elegant priest would make the front page of every magazine in Seville. Their dinner at La Albahaca, rang the cash register in Peregil's brain. Bonafe paid well, but he was a dangerous and unpredictable character. Selling him one priest, or several, had its attraction. But blowing the whistle on Peregil's boss's wife for a second time was more than a little mischief – it was institutional betrayal.

He had to foresee every eventuality. Gathering information was a type of life insurance for him. With that in mind, he turned to Don Ibrahim, who stood solemnly in the shadows with his smoking cigar, walking stick over one arm, and thumbs hooked in his waistcoat, awaiting instructions. Peregil was pleased with him and his colleagues and felt a little more optimistic. He almost put his hand in his pocket to pay for the Montecristo from the restaurant, but he stopped himself in time. He shouldn't encourage their bad habits.

"Good work," he said.

Don Ibrahim didn't answer. He merely drew on his cigar and glanced at La Nina and El Potro, giving Peregil to understand that the credit was to be shared with them.

"Carry on like this," added Pencho Gavira's henchman. "I want to know everything, right down to when the priest takes a piss."

"What about the lady?"

This was touchier. Peregil chewed his lower lip anxiously. "Absolute discretion," he said at last. "I'm only interested in her business with this priest or with the older one. But I want every detail."

"What about the other business?"

"What other business?"

"You know. The other business."

Don Ibrahim looked around, embarrassed. He read the newspaper ABC every day, but he also glanced at Q amp;S from time to time. La Nina bought it along with Hola, Semana, and Diez Minutos. In the former bogus lawyer's opinion, Q amp;S was more sensationalist and tacky than the rest. The photos of Senora Bruner and the bullfighter were in very poor taste. She was from a distinguished family, and a married woman to boot.

"The priests," said Peregil. "Concentrate on the priests." Suddenly he remembered what he had in the bag: a Canon camera with a long zoom. He'd just bought it, second-hand, and he hoped that the outlay – another gash in the soft underbelly of his straitened finances -would prove worthwhile. "Are you any good with a camera?*'

Don Ibrahim looked offended. "Of course." He put his hand on his heart. "In my youth I was a photographer in Havana." He thought a moment, then added, "That's how I paid for my studies."

In the dim light of the square, Peregil could see the gold chain, with Hemingway's watch gleaming against Don Ibrahim's paunch. "Your studies?" he asked.

"That's right."

"Your law studies, I suppose."

The fraud had been exposed a few years ago in the papers, and they both knew it, as did all of Seville. But Don Ibrahim swallowed and gravely held Peregil's gaze. "Of course." He paused with dignity. "What else?"

Peregil said nothing and handed him the bag. After all, he thought, what would become of us if we didn't have ourselves? In life's shipwreck we cling to what we can.

"I want photos," he ordered. "Anytime that priest and the lady meet, I want a picture. Discreetly, OK? So they don't notice. You have two rolls of high-speed film in there in case there's not much light, so don't think of using a flash."

They stopped under a streetlight and Don Ibrahim peered inside the bag. "That would be difficult," he said. "There is no flash here."

Peregil, lighting a cigarette, shrugged. "Are you kidding? The cheapest was 25,000 pesetas."

La Albahaca was situated in a seventeenth-century mansion. The proprietors lived on the second floor, and three of the rooms on the ground floor were given over to the restaurant. Although the place was full, the head waiter – Macarena Bruner addressed him as Diego – had reserved for them a table next to the large fireplace in the best room, by a leaded window looking out on the Plaza de Santa Cruz. They made quite an entrance. She looked very beautiful in a black suit with a short skirt, escorted by the slim, dark figure of Lorenzo Quart. La Albahaca was where a certain class of Sevillian brought guests from out of town, to show them off and to be seen, and the arrival of the daughter of the duchess of El Nuevo Extremo with a priest didn't go unnoticed. Macarena exchanged a couple of greetings as she entered, and people at nearby tables were fascinated. Heads bowed, voices whispered and jewels sparkled in the candlelight. The whole of Seville will know about this tomorrow, Quart thought.

"I haven't been to Rome since my honeymoon," she was saying over her appetiser, apparently unaware of the stir they had caused. "The Pope gave us a special audience. I was in black, with a comb and mantilla. Very Spanish… Why are you looking at me like that?"

Quart slowly chewed his last piece of goose liver and put his knife and fork on his plate. Above the candle flame, Macarena Bruner's eyes followed his every movement. "You don't seem like a married woman," he said.

She laughed, and the flame enhanced the glints of honey in her eyes. "Do you think the life I lead isn't suitable for a married woman?"

He rested an elbow on the table and tilted his head a little to one side, evasively. "I don't pass judgement on that kind of thing," he said.

"But you wore your collar, instead of a tie as you promised."

They regarded each other unhurriedly. The shadow from the candle hid the lower half of her face, but Quart guessed she was smiling from the glow in her eyes.

"I make no secret of the life I lead," said Macarena. "I left the marital home. I have a boyfriend who's a bullfighter. And before him I had another boyfriend." Her pause was calculated, perfect. In spite of himself, he admired her nerve. "Does that shock you?"

Quart put his finger on the handle of his knife. It wasn't his job to be shocked by such things, he said gently. That was a matter for her confessor, Father Ferro. Priests, too, had their specialities.

"And what's yours? Scalp hunter, as the archbishop says?"

She put out her hand and moved the candle to one side. Now he could see her ample mouth with its heart-shaped upper lip. Under her jacket she wore a low-cut raw silk shirt. Her short skirt was edged with lace. She wore black tights and pumps, also black. The outfit showed off legs that were too long and too shapely for the peace of mind of any priest, including Quart. Although he had more experience of the world than most priests. Not that that guaranteed anything.

"We were talking about you," he said, enjoying the strange instinct that made him stand crabwise, like a dueller.

Macarena Bruner now looked disingenuous. "Me? What else do you want to know?" she asked. "I'm one metre seventy-four centimetres tall, I'm thirty-five but don't look it, I have a university degree, I belong to the Sisters of the Virgin of El Rocio, and at the Seville feria I never go in for flounces, I wear a short dress and Cordobes hat." She stopped, as if trying to remember if there was anything else. She fingered the gold bracelet on her left wrist. "When I got married, my mother ceded the dukedom of Azahara to me, a title I don't use. When she dies, I'll inherit another thirty or so titles, twelve grandee-ships, the Casa del Postigo with some furniture and paintings, and just enough money to keep me in the manner to which I am accustomed. I'm in charge of preserving what remains and sorting out the family archives. I'm now working on a book about the dukes of El Nuevo Extremo under the Hapsburgs… I don't need to tell you the rest." She drank some of her wine. "You can read about it in any gossip magazine."

"The gossip doesn't seem to bother you."

She held her wine glass. "That's true," she said. "It doesn't. Shall I

confide in you?" ' '

Quart shook his head. "Maybe you shouldn't." He was being honest. He felt relaxed but also expectant, amused, strangely lucid. He put it down to the wine, although he'd had little. "I don't even know why you invited me to dinner here this evening."

Macarena Bruner took another sip of wine, slowly. "I can think of several reasons," she said at last, putting down her glass. "You're extremely courteous, for one. Nothing like some priests with their unctuous manners… In you, courtesy seems to be a way of keeping people at a distance." She glanced quickly at his face – his mouth perhaps – and then at his hands on the table. "You're also very quiet. You don't chatter people into a daze. In that respect you remind me of Don Priamo…" As the waiter cleared away the plates, she smiled at Quart. "And then your hair's grey and very short, like a soldier's, like one of my favourite characters: Sir Marhalt, the quiet knight in Steinbeck's Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights. When I read it as a young girl, I fell madly in love with Marhalt. Are those enough reasons? And anyway, as Gris said, for a priest you certainly know how to wear your clothes. You're the most interesting priest I've ever seen, if that's any use to you."

"Not much use, in my line of work."

Macarena nodded, approving of his tranquil answer. "You also remind me of the chaplain at my convent school," she went on. "You could tell for days beforehand that he was coming to say Mass, because all the nuns were in a flutter. In the end he ran off with one of them, the plumpest, who used to teach us chemistry. Did you know that nuns sometimes fall for priests? That's what happened to Gris. She was the head of a college in Santa Barbara, California, and one day she discovered to her horror that she was in love with the bishop of her diocese. He was due to visit the college, and there she was in front of the mirror, plucking her eyebrows and debating about eyeshadow… What do you think of that?"

She looked to see Quart's reaction, but he remained impassive. If she was trying to shock him, she hadn't even come close. She would have been surprised to know how many loves of priests and nuns had been distorted by the IEA.

"So what did she do?" he asked.

Macarena made a sweeping gesture in the air and her bracelet glinted as it slid up her arm. At nearby tables, eyes were following her every move. "Well, she broke the mirror and with a piece of glass cut a vein. Then she went to see her mother superior and asked for a period of freedom to reflect. That was a few years ago."

The head waiter was standing by her side, expressionless, as if he hadn't heard a word. He hoped everything was to their satisfaction, and what would madam like for dinner? She ordered only a salad, and Quart didn't have a main course either, and they both declined the dessert that they were offered on the house, as the management was sorry that her ladyship and the reverend father had so little appetite. They decided to go on with the wine while the)' waited for their coffee.

"Have you known Sister Marsala long?" Quart asked.

"That sounds so strange. Sister Marsala… I've never thought of her like that."

She had almost finished her wine. Quart took the bottle and poured her another glass. His own was barely touched.

"Gris is older than I am," she said. "We bumped into each other in Seville several times a few years back. She came here quite often with her American students on summer courses in fine art… I met her when they came to do practice restoration on the summer dining room in my house. I introduced her to Father Ferro and got her accepted on the church restoration project, when relations with the archbishop were still cordial."

"Why are you so interested in that church?"

She looked at him as if he'd asked a strange question. Her family had built it. Her ancestors were buried there.

"Your husband doesn't seem to care much about it."

"Of course he doesn't. Pencho has his mind on other things."

The candlelight made the wine glow red as she lifted her glass to her lips. This time she took a long swallow, and Quart felt obliged to drink a little of his.

"And is it true," he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, "that you no longer live together although you're still married?"

She blinked. She didn't seem to have expected two questions in a row about her marriage that evening. There was amusement in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "We no longer live together. And yet neither of us has asked for a divorce, or a separation, or anything. Maybe he hopes to get me back. By marrying me, to everyone's applause, he has ensured himself a place in society."

Quart glanced round at the people at the neighbouring tables and then leaned towards her a little. "I'm sorry," he said. "Who do you mean by everyone?"

"Haven't you met my godfather? Don Octavio Machuca was a friend of my father, and he's particularly fond of my mother and me. As he says, I'm the daughter he never had. He wanted my future to be secure, so he encouraged my marriage to the brightest young talent at the Cartujano Bank – who's destined to be his successor now that he's about to retire."

"Is that why you got married? For security?"

Macarena's hair slid forward over her face, and she brushed it back. She was assessing, trying to work out how interested he really was in her.

"Well, Pencho is an attractive man. And he has a very good brain, as they say. And a virtue: he's brave. He's one of the few men I've met who's prepared to risk everything, cither for a dream or an ambition. In the case of my husband – ex-husband, or whatever you want to call him – it's ambition." She smiled slightly. "I suppose I was even in love with him when we got married."

"So what happened?"

"Nothing, really. I kept my side of the bargain, he kept his. But he made a mistake. Or several. He should have left our church alone."

"Your church?"

"Mine. Father Ferro's. The duchess's. The church of the people who attend Mass there every day."

Quart laughed. "Do you always refer to your mother as the duchess?"

"When I'm talking to other people about her, yes." She smiled, with a tenderness now that Quart hadn't seen in her before. "She likes it. She also likes geraniums, Mozart, old-fashioned priests, and Coca-Cola. Rather unusual, don't you think, for a woman of seventy who sleeps in her pearl necklace once a week and still insists on calling her chauffeur a coachman? You haven't met her yet? Come and have coffee with us tomorrow afternoon, if you like. Don Priamo visits us every afternoon to recite the rosary."

"I doubt that Father Ferro will want to see me. He doesn't like me much."

"I'll sort it out. Or my mother will. She and Don Priamo get on very well. Maybe it would be a good opportunity for you and him to have a talk, man to man… Does one say 'man to man' when talking about priests?"

Quart was thinking of something else, "As for your husband…" "You do ask a lot of questions. I suppose that's the reason you're here."

She seemed sorry that that was the reason. She was looking at his hands again, just as she had when they first met in the hotel lobby. Embarrassed, he'd removed them from the table a couple

of times. At last he decided to keep them on the tablecloth.

"What do you want to know about Pencho?" she asked. "That he was wrong to think he could buy me? That the church was why I declared war on him? That he can sometimes be an absolute bastard?"

She spoke matter- of-factly. The people at a nearby table were leaving and a few of them greeted her. They all stared at Quart, particularly the women. Blonde and tanned, the women had the air of upper-class Andalusians who hadn't known a day's hardship in their lives. Macarena responded with a nod and a smile. Quart watched her closely.

"Why don't you ask for a divorce?" he asked. "Because I'm Catholic."

He couldn't tell if she was serious or not. They said nothing for a moment, and he settled back in his chair, still watching her. In the candlelight, her skin was dark in contrast to her ivory necklace and silk shirt. Her large dark eyes looked back into his. He realised then that his soul was in peril. Had it been a share on the stockmarket, its value would have plunged.

He opened his mouth and spoke, to fill the silence. Something appropriate, no doubt, but five seconds later he forgot what it had been. Now she was saying something, and Quart thought of Spada. Prayer and cold showers, he had said to the Mastiff on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna.

"There are things I'd like to explain to you," she said. "But I don't know how…" She stared past him. He nodded, not quite sure why. The main thing was to pay attention to her words again. "In life, you pay very dearly for certain luxuries, and now it's Pencho's turn to pay. He's the type who asks for the bill without flinching, rapping on the bar with his knuckles for service. He's so macho," she said sardonically. "But he's having a hard time now. He may not show it, but I know, and he knows that I know. Seville is like a village; we love gossip. Every whisper, every smile behind his back is a blow to his pride." She gestured round the restaurant. "Imagine what they'll say now they know I'm having dinner with you."

"Was that what you wanted?" Quart was in control of himself again. "To show me off like a trophy?"

She looked at him wearily, knowingly. "Perhaps," she said. "Women are so much more complicated. Men are so straightforward in their lies, so childish in their contradictions… So consistent in their vileness." The head waiter brought the coffee; with milk for her, black for him. Macarena added one lump of sugar and smiled thoughtfully. "You can be sure that Pencho will know all about this tomorrow morning. God, some things have to be paid for very slowly." She sipped her coffee and looked at Quart. "Maybe I shouldn't have said 'God'. It sounded like an oath. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain after all."

Quart placed his spoon carefully on his saucer. "I sometimes do it too," he said.

"It's strange." She leaned forward on her elbows, and her silk shirt brushed the edge of the table. Quart could sense what was inside: heavy, brown, soft. He needed more than a cold shower. "I've known Don Priamo for ten years, since he first came to the parish, but I can't imagine a priest's life from the inside. I'd never thought about it until now, looking at you." She gazed again at his hands and then up at his dog collar. "How do priests manage with the three vows?"

If ever there had been an untimely question. He stared at his wine glass and summoned all his composure. "Each of us gets by as he can," he replied. "Some think of it as negotiated obedience, shared chastity, and liquid poverty." He raised his glass as if to make a toast, but put it down untouched and sipped his coffee instead. Macarena laughed. Her laugh was so open and contagious that Quart almost laughed too.

"And you?" she asked, still smiling. "Do you observe your vows?"

"I tend to." He put down his cup, wiped his mouth, folded his napkin carefully and placed it on the table. "I make sure I think through the implications, but I always follow the rules. Some things don't function without obedience, and the firm I work for is one of them."

"Do you mean Don Priamo?"

Quart arched his eyebrows with calculated indifference. He hadn't been alluding to anyone in particular, he said. But yes, now that she mentioned it, Father Ferro wasn't exactly an exemplary priest. He did his own thing, to put it charitably. Deadly sin number one.

"You don't know anything about his life, so you can't judge him."

"I'm not judging. I just want to understand."

"No you don't," she insisted. "For most of his life he was the parish priest in a tiny village up in the Pyrenees. It was cut off by snow for weeks at a time, and sometimes he had to trudge eight or ten kilometres to give a dying man extreme unction. His parishioners were all old and died off one by one. He buried them with his own hands, until there was nobody left. The experience gave him a certain view on life and death, and on the role you priests have in the world. To him, this church is terribly important. He believes it's needed, and that every church closed or lost is a piece of heaven that- disappears. Nobody takes any notice, but instead of giving in, he fights. He says he lost enough battles up there, in the mountains."

That was all very well, said Quart. Very moving. He'd even seen a couple of films like that. But Father Ferro was still subject to Church discipline. We priests, he said, can't go through life proclaiming independent republics where we please. Not with things as they are now.

She shook her head. "You don't know him well enough."

"He won't let me get to know him."

"We'll fix that tomorrow. I promise." She pointed. "You obviously meant what you said about liquid poverty. You've barely touched your wine. But you don't look so poor in other respects. You dress well. I know expensive clothes when I see them, even on a priest."

"It's because of my work. I have to deal with people. And have dinner with attractive duchesses in Seville." They looked into each other's eyes, and neither of them smiled this time. "This is my uniform."

There was a brief silence.

"Do you have a cassock?" she asked.

"Of course. But I don't often wear it."

The waiter brought the bill. Macarcna wouldn't let Quart pay. She invited him, she said firmly. So he just watched while she took out a gold American Express card. She always let her husband pay the bills, she said mischievously when the waiter had gone. It worked out cheaper than alimony.

"We haven't discussed the last of your three vows," she said then. "Do you also practise shared celibacy?"

"I'm afraid I'm celibate, period."

She nodded slowly and looked round the restaurant before turning to him again. She stared at him, assessing him. "Don't tell me you've never been with a woman."

There are some questions that can't be answered at eleven at night in a restaurant in Seville, by candlelight. But she didn't seem to expect an answer. She carefully took a pack of cigarettes from her bag, put one in her mouth, and then, with a brazenness both calculated and natural, she took a plastic lighter from beneath her bra strap. Quart watched her light the cigarette, forcing himself to think of nothing. Only later did he allow himself to wonder what the hell he was getting himself into.

In a closed world governed by the concept of sin, where contact with women was forbidden, the only even unofficially accepted solution to sex was masturbation or a clandestine liaison later atoned for through the sacrament of penance. For Quart, life as a diplomat and his work for the Institute of External Affairs facilitated what Spada – always good at euphemism – referred to as tactical alibis. But in fact, as a result of his education in Rome and his work over the past ten years, Quart's attitude to sex had become different from that of other priests, who were dominated by the sordid gossip of the seminary and the ways of the Church. The general good of the Church, considered as an end in itself, sometimes justified certain sins; so the success of a handsome nunciature secretary with the wives of ministers, financiers and ambassadors, women who yielded readily to the temptation to adopt an interesting young priest, opened many doors that were barred to older, more leathery monsignors or eminences. Spada called it the Stendhal Syndrome, after two of that writer's characters, Fabrice del Dongo and Julien Sorel. When Quart joined the IEA, Spada recommended that he read the novels. For the Mastiff, culture wasn't at odds with duty. It was left to the moral discretion and intelligence of each priest, God's soldier on a battlefield where the only weapons were prayer and common sense. Risks accompanied the advantages gained from confidences given at receptions, or during private conversations or confession. Women came to priests, seeking a substitute for unavailable men or indifferent husbands. And nothing was more troubling to Old Adam, who lurked beneath most cassocks, than the innocence of a young girl or the pleas of a frustrated woman. Ultimately, the unofficial permission of superiors was more or less assured – the Church of Peter in its wisdom had thus survived for centuries – as long as there was no scandal and results were achieved.

Quart's faith, on the other hand, was that of a professional soldier, and his celibacy was a question of pride – and therefore a sin rather than a virtue. But sin or not, it was a rule that governed his life. Like some of the ghosts he saw when he stared into the darkness, the Knight Templar whose sword was his only weapon beneath a godless sky needed such rules if he was to face with dignity the thunder of Saracen cavalry roaring down from the hill of Hattin.

He returned to the present with difficulty. Macarena was smoking, one elbow on the table, supporting her chin with the hand that held her cigarette. Somehow he could feel the troubling proximity of her legs. She was very close. He could have reached out and brushed her skin with his fingers. But with the same hand that tingled with the desire to touch her he took the postcard to Captain Xaloc from his jacket pocket instead and placed it on the table.

"Tell me about Carlota Bruner," he said.

Instantly the atmosphere changed. She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at him sharply. The gold flecks in her eyes were gone. "Where did you get that postcard?"

"Somebody put it in my room."

Macarena stared at the yellowed photo of the church. She shook her head. "It's mine. From Carlota's trunk. You can't possibly have it."

"Well, I do." Quart turned the postcard over. "Why isn't there a postmark?" he asked.

Her anxious eyes went from Quart to the postcard and back. He repeated the question. She nodded but didn't answer immediately.

She picked up the card and examined it. "Because it was never posted," she said. "Carlota was my great-aunt. She was in love with Manuel Xaloc, a poor sailor. Gris said she told you the story…" Macarena shook her head, as if denying something or overcome by sadness. "When Captain Xaloc emigrated to America, she wrote him a card or letter almost every week for years. But her father the duke, my great-grandfather Luis Bruner, prevented the letters from getting through. He bribed the post office employees. In six years she didn't receive a single letter, and we believe he didn't either. When Xaloc came back for her, Carlota had lost her mind. She spent days at the window, watching the river. She didn't recognise him."

Quart pointed at the card. "And what happened to the letters?"

"Nobody dared destroy them. They ended up in the trunk where all Carlota's things were stored after she died in 1910. I was fascinated by the trunk when I was a child: I'd try on the dresses, the jet necklaces…" Quart saw the beginnings of a smile on her lips, but her eyes returned to the postcard and the smile vanished. "In her youth, Carlota went with my great-grandparents to the Universal Exposition in Paris, and to the ruins of Carthage in Tunisia. She brought back old coins. There are also boat timetables and hotel brochures, old lace and muslins. A whole life. Imagine the effect it all had on me when I was ten or eleven. I read every single letter. My great-aunt seemed such a romantic character. She still fascinates me."

She was running a fingernail on the tablecloth, around the postcard. She stopped, thoughtful.

"A moving love story," she said, looking up at Quart. "And like all moving love stories it had an unhappy ending."

Quart said nothing, wanting her to go on with the story. But she was interrupted by the waiter, who brought her credit card receipt. Quart noticed her signature: nervous, full of angles as sharp as daggers. She gazed at the cigarette stub in the ashtray, lost in thought.

"There's a beautiful song," she went on after a moment, "sung by Carlos Cano, with lyrics by Antonio Burgos: 'I still remember that girl and her piano in Seville…'It makes me want to cry every time I hear it… Do you know there's a legend surrounding the story of Carlota and Manuel Xaloc?" Her smile was uncharacteristically shy and indecisive. Quart realised that she believed in the legend. "On moonlit nights, Carlota reappears at her window while her lover's ghostly schooner sails down the Guadalquivir." She leaned forward, and again Quart once again felt she was too close. "When I was little, I spent whole nights looking out for them! And once I saw them. She was a pale shadow at the window. And down on the river, in the mist, the sails of an old ship slid slowly out of sight."

Macarena fell silent and leaned back in her chair. The distance between them returned. "After Sir Marhalt," she said, "my second love was Captain Xaloc…" Her look was provocative. "Do you think it's an absurd story?"

"Not at all. Everyone has ghosts."

"And what haunts you?"

Quart smiled with a distant look in his eye. Wind and sun, and rain. The taste of salt in his mouth. Memories of a poor childhood, of knees always dirty, and him watching the sea for hours. His youth had been intellectually confined, dominated by discipline, with some happy memories of companionship and brief moments of satisfied ambition. Solitude at airports, over a book, in a hotel room. And fear and hatred in the eyes of other men: the banker Lupara, Nelson Corona, Priamo Ferro. Corpses – real and imaginary, past and future.

"Nothing special," he said coolly. "Like you, ships that set sail never to return. And a man. A Knight Templar in chain mail leaning on his sword, in a desert."

She looked at him strangely, as if seeing him for the first time. She said nothing.

"But ghosts," added Quart, "don't leave postcards in hotel rooms."

Macarena touched the card still lying on the table with the writing face up: I come here to pray for you every day… Her lips moved silently as she read the words that never reached Captain Xaloc. "I don't understand," she said finally. "The card was at my house, in the trunk with the rest of Carlota's things. Somebody must have taken it from there."

"Who?"

"I have no idea."

"How many people know about the letters?"

She thought hard. "No," she said after awhile. "It's too absurd."

Quart reached with his hand and saw Macarena shift back in her chair, almost as if in fear. He turned over the card and showed her the photograph of the church. "There's nothing absurd about it," he said. "This is the place where Carlota Bruner is buried, near Captain Xaloc's pearls. The church that your husband wants to demolish and that you're defending. It's the reason for my presence in Seville, because two people have died there." He looked up at her. "A church that, according to a mysterious computer hacker we've called Vespers, kills to defend itself."

She began to smile, but the smile faded to preoccupation. When she spoke, surprisingly, the tone was more annoyed than anxious. "Don't say that. It scares me."

Quart watched her turn the plastic lighter over in her fingers. He felt that Macarena Bruner was lying. She wasn't the kind of woman who scared easily.

Since Vespers' appearance a week ago, Father Ignacio Arregui and his team of Jesuits – all computer experts – had been watching the central Vatican system in twelve-hour shifts. It was now ten minutes to one in the morning, and Arregui went to get coffee from the vending machine in the corridor. The machine accepted his hundred-lire coin but returned only an empty cup and a little heap of sugar. The Jesuit cursed, glancing out of the window at the Belvedere Palace. He searched his pockets for more coins and made a second attempt. This time he got a coffee but no sugar. Luckily the previous cup had remained upright in the dustbin so he used the sugar from that to sweeten his drink. He went back to the computer room. "Here he is again, Father."

Coocy, the Irishman, was staring excitedly at a screen. Another young Jesuit, an Italian called Garofi, was desperately typing at a second terminal.

"Is it Vespers?" asked Father Arregui. He stared over Cooey's shoulder, fascinated by the blinking of the red and blue icons and the vertiginous speed with which the files checked by the hacker scrolled past on the screen. The hacker's movements were shown on one monitor while, on another, Father Garofi tried to track him down.

"I think so," answered the Irishman. "He knows the way and he's going really fast."

"Has he got to the SSs?"

"Some of them. But he's clever: he's not falling into them." Father Arregui took a sip of coffee. It scalded his tongue. "Damn him," he said.

The SSs – Sadducean Snares, as the team had nicknamed them -were like nets at the mouth of a river, in which hackers were snared or at least revealed information that made it possible to track them. The traps that had been laid for Vespers were sophisticated electronic labyrinths that forced an intruder to show his hand.

"He's looking for INMAVAT," said Cooey.

There was again a hint of admiration in his voice. Frowning, Father Arregui glanced at the young man. It was to be expected, he thought as drank his coffee. He couldn't help feeling professional excitement himself, when he saw a member of the computer fraternity doing his stuff so stealthily and cleanly. Even if Vespers was a criminal who was giving them all sleepless nights.

"He's in," said Cooey.

Garofi stopped typing and simply watched. INMAVAT, the restricted file for high-ranking members of the Curia, was there on screen for all to see.

"Yes, it's Vespers," said the Irishman, as if he'd recognised an old friend.

Garofi watched the cursor of the scanner connected to the police and the Vatican telephone system. "He's doing the same as before," said the Italian. "Hiding his entry point by jumping from one phone network to another."

Father Arregui's eyes were riveted to the scrolling list of eighty-four INMAVAT users. They'd spent several days installing a Sadducean Snare for anyone who tried to get into VoiA, the Holy Father's personal computer. The trap would be activated if anyone tried to get in without using the password: once the hacker was inside INMAVAT, he would unwittingly trail a hidden code after himself. When he reached VoiA, the signal would switch him to another file, VoiATS, where he couldn't cause any harm and where he'd leave his new message, thinking he was leaving it for the Pope.

The cursor blinked beside VoiA. Ten long seconds passed, during which the three Jesuits held their breath, watching the second computer screen. At last the cursor gave a double blink, and a clock appeared.

"He's getting in," said Cooey in a whisper, as if Vespers might hear.

Father Arregui bit his lower lip and undid a button on his cassock. If Vespers realised there was a trap, he might get angry. And who could tell what an angry hacker might do inside a file as delicate as INMAVAT? But the team of Vatican experts had a final trick up its sleeve: with just one keystroke, INMAVAT could be taken out of the system. The problem was that if that happened, Vespers would know they were on to him and disappear. Worse, he might return on another occasion with a new tactic. A killer virus, for instance, infecting and destroying everything it touched.

The clock disappeared, and a new window opened on the screen.

"There he goes," said Garofi.

Vespers was inside VoiA, and for one agonising moment the three Jesuits watched anxiously to see which of the two files, the real or the fake, he'd entered. Cooey read out in a tense voice as the code appeared on the screen:

"Vee-Zero-One-A-T-S."

He smiled proudly. Vespers had stepped into the Sadducean Snare. The Pope's personal computer was out of his reach. "Thank God," said Father Arregui.

He'd pulled the button off his cassock. Holding it in his hand, he leaned over to read the message:

Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all

that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations;

they set up their ensigns for signs.

But now they break down the carved work thereof at

once with axes and hammers.

They have cast fire into thy sanctuary; they have

defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy

name to the ground.

O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?

Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?

After that Vespers disappeared.

"There's no way we can follow him," said Garofi, mouse clicking hopelessly. "As he switches phone networks, he leaves behind a kind of explosive charge that erases any trace of his route. This hacker certainly knows what he's doing."

"And he knows the Psalms," said Father Cooey, switching on the printer to get a copy of the text. "It's sixty-four, isn't it?"

Father Arregui shook his head. "Seventy-four. Psalm seventy-four," he said, still staring anxiously at Garofi's screen.

"Now we know one more thing about him," said Cooey suddenly. "The man has a sense of humour."

The other two priests looked at the screen. Little spheres bounced like ping-pong balls, multiplying at every bounce. When two of them collided there was an explosion and a small mushroom cloud with the word BOOM in the middle.

Arregui was indignant. "The swine," he said. "The heretic."

He became aware that he was still holding the button from his cassock. He threw it in the bin. Still watching the screen, Fathers Cooey and Garofi chuckled quietly.