The Vatican Rip (15 page)

Finally I could stand it no longer and strolled in. The second I was inside the doors I slid along the left side of the nave towards the north transept. There were steps up at the chancel, which baffled me for a horrible second. Luckily there was the priest’s door on my left, leading outside as I had guessed into that crummy little priest’s garden you can see from across the river, with the world’s worst statue of Christ looking utterly lost. Emerging, I felt exposed, really prominent. The lights of all Rome were visible, the Palatine and the Capitolino looming over there in the gloom and the great floodlit avenue of the Marcello Theatre sweeping down to the water. Rome was about its busy nocturnal business – and I was about mine.

Doubling back sounds easy. On the side of an ancient church, with inhabited multistoreyed dwellings stuck on the side, it’s not so easy as all that. I guessed the bastard would wait outside in the Piazza. Short of swimming in the river there was no way out. I clambered over the wall to the church stonework and groped upwards. There was some guttering, but I’d never wanted Protestant Gothic so badly in my life – the easiest churches to rob by a mile, incidentally. I swung on the crumbling stuff for five interminable yards before managing to clutch hold of a luscious slab of stonework and pull myself onto the ledges. After that it was less of a problem, but you can’t help blaspheming a bit at the thoughtlessness of some ancient architects.

There’s an archway to the left of the square, where lovers can stroll down and inspect the travertine marble of which the island’s ‘ship’ prow is made. Nobody there on a chilly night with a watermist helping the honest dogooders of this world, people like me. I dropped off the arch like a thunderclap and stood shaking in case he’d heard, but no. He was still there when I peered round. Smoking, every so often looking at the San Bartolomeo to see I’d not emerged. I was out, and he still thought I was in. The distance to the two cars on the uphill side of the Piazza was only about thirty or forty yards. I waited until he’d just glanced round, then slipped silently along the wall into the shelter of the Renault.

My polythene bag was easy to twist into a string. I pushed it between the rubber join of the driver’s side window. Make sure it’s doubled as you do it, then push in a bit more, and drop the loop over the button lock. A simple pull, and the door’s unlocked. Why they make them so easy to burgle I don’t know.

I eeled in. My keys and bendable comb were good enough to unlock the steering. Another minute. Gingerly, I raised my head. He was still there, silhouetted against the reflections from the water. He turned again to glance at San Bartolomeo, looked at a watch – doubtless the sort which gives the winter equinoxes and tidal times in Kyoto – and I undid the handbrake.

There’s something horrible in setting forward to kill. I honestly meant only to scare him, show Arcellano I was no pushover. Something like that. But once I got the car rolling silently down the Piazza’s slope I swear something –
somebody
, maybe, for all I know – took over. Perhaps Marcello, to be fanciful about the whole business. The wheel seemed to settle in a position, hard over. It was still unlocked, but wouldn’t straighten up. And I tried, honest to God.

Anyhow it was too late to think any more. The car rolled down and he was in the way. Simple as that. Only when the bumper was a few feet from him did he realize something was wrong. He whipped round, mechanically throwing away his cigarette. Then his face appeared, puzzled at all this sudden motion and the mass heaving out of the dark mist. The silence was broken by a screech as the grille ground him against the parapet, sliding along the stonework and leaving a blackish stain. I can see his open mouth as reflex slammed his face down against the bonnet with a faint clang. Once the car connected my common sense evaporated and I sat in total stupefaction as the car scraped and bumped with that poor sod getting life smeared out of him against the stone. The metal screeched again. The car shuddered to a stop. I got out shakily, looked about. Not a soul in the little square. Not a sound from the church. Then I looked at him.

I made certain my polythene ‘string’ was uncoiled and dropped it into the river, of course not looking at the car. Then I carefully shut the door and walked away.

Any alibi in a storm, I always say. The German lady was in her hotel when I rang from the main railway station, just back from a play. I wasn’t exactly at my chattiest, but she didn’t seem to mind when I said I’d like to call round.

As it turned out she was one of the best alibis I’ve ever had. I got back to Anna’s at three in the morning. Anna was in her alcove with the curtains drawn back. She clicked the light on and told me to wipe that smile off my face. It was a nasty little scene, straight out of marriage. She played merry hell, wanting to know where I’d been. I said for a walk, and like a fool said down by the river not knowing that one of the riverside walks is a knocking-shop, and had to endure an hour’s unrelenting abuse while she reminded me I was in Rome to do the Vatican rip, not to whore about the city all night, which was a bit unfair seeing what I’d gone through. Her invective was a lot worse than I’ve managed to make it sound. She was a world expert. What I didn’t know was a worse eruption was impending.

I undressed as usual beneath my blanket, as usual. And as usual she didn’t rape me during the dark hours.

Next morning she’d got a paper at breakfast and looked at me in silence while I cleared a whole bag of fresh rolls. The news was of a fantastic accident which had occurred the previous night. A man innocently standing on the Tiberina had been crushed by a car. Its handbrake had unaccountably slipped.

I’d honestly have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been one of Arcellano’s goons, the one who had pressed me down in the chair when Arcellano did me over. And it honestly was an accident, almost completely one hundred per cent accidental. That’s the truth. I hadn’t realized the wheel would lock that way once I’d released the car and set it rolling. Hand on my heart.

What gave me heartburn was the headline. The newspaper described him as a Vatican guard. Museum detail.

The football magazine was engrossing, especially as it told me the date of the Vatican rip. No drawing back now.

‘I’m going to need a van, Anna. Something the size and shape of a closed ambulance.’ It had to hold two tables.

‘Ambulances have windows.’

‘Make them opaque, then. And a good engine. If it breaks down I’ve had it.’

‘Right.’ She was quite assured. ‘Can it be a copy?’

‘Yes.’ I looked speculatively at her. ‘Who can copy an ambulance for heaven’s sake?’

‘Carlo.’ I pulled a face. She said cryptically, ‘You’ve been in Rome less than a week and Carlo’s in hospital, a Vatican Museum guard is probably dead by now, and you’ve lost a friend.’

She waited but I said nothing. ‘Who was he, Lovejoy?’

A bloke I met, er, accidentally. He has – had – a wife and two kiddies.’

‘Are you in love with her?’

It was an unlikely question. I was coming to the notion that Old Anna was infinitely preferable. ‘Never even met her.’

‘How was he lost?’

‘Killed. In the Colosseum.’

Her eyes wrinkled as she thought. ‘Funny I didn’t hear. It wasn’t even in the papers.’

We stared at each other for quite some time.

‘How odd,’ I said at last. And it was.

The workshop was in some sort of order now. You can’t start anything worthwhile till you get a place straight. The shelving was mended and in position. I’d gone at the toolracks baldheaded. The electric hand drill was on the blink, so I’d knocked up an old-fashioned foottreadle spindle out of a bicycle wheel from somebody’s dustbin. The one-third horsepower single-phase motor on the wood-turning lathe was crudded up to extinction. I had it off and sawed into the bench to get a footpowered band through. Adriana graciously allowed Piero, my silent watcher, to collect a derelict Singer sewing-machine from a junk dealer.

I slogged a whole day, tidying and sorting. Somebody ambitious had once bought in a few lengths of various woods including walnut, small pieces only, but at least a start. Nowadays, when an old walnut tree is worth twice the value of the house in whose garden it grows, any piece is worth a fortune. Adriana and Piero came to look at the workshop when I’d rigged up the last toolrack.

Adriana exclaimed. ‘You’ve created so much space, Lovejoy!’

‘It was there all the time, signora.’

‘Isn’t this marvellous, Piero?’

‘Not as marvellous as all that,’ I corrected. ‘Think of upstairs. Your showroom should be extended. Why not a winch?’

Adriana glanced quickly at Piero. ‘Upstairs?’ I looked at them, suddenly more alert. You can’t help wondering, can you?

‘The lifting problem,’ Piero snapped, which is all very well if you’re willing to be snapped at. I wasn’t.

‘There is no lifting problem, Piero. I could build a winch for practically nothing.’

A winch was part of the rip, so to me there was no question. Piero glared, nearly as determined as me. ‘You keep out of this, Lovejoy.’

‘I’ll have to think about it, Lovejoy.’ Adriana’s tone was finality itself.

I watched them return to the showroom. What the hell was upstairs?

Anyhow, I began sketching rough plans for the rent table. I’d got Anna to collect the photographs so I should have more precise dimensions to go on. The amount of wood in a rent table is relatively huge. I’d already expected that, but the final estimate made me gasp.

Especially when I multiplied it by two.

Locking up that day, Piero caught me staring up at the rear of the building. The wall looked solid, and the drop was vertical.

‘It looks on, Piero,’ I offered, to break the awful silence. ‘See – take a drop from above the top window—’

‘Lovejoy,’ he interrupted, quiet and dangerous, ‘when we need extra storage space Signora Albanese will rent it. Okay?’

I shrugged. ‘Just remember I tried to save us money, that’s all.’ Let him guess.

Fabio was inside the showroom entrance, smiling and listening. He said nothing, which was another odd thing because he was practically obsessional about money. Its roof was within reach of the lower upstairs window which was near the drainpipe . . .

I got my usual paper from Adriana, with a restaurant’s name and address for that evening, and tried it on as usual, asking her for the money so I could eat where I liked. As usual she said no, but avoided looking at me. Usually she managed at least a withering glare at that point. Still, I didn’t mind watching her nosh for an hour or so, if that was the rule.

I departed, whistling.

Until then I thought I’d seen all possible kinds of cramped antique shops. But I’d never seen one with space left begging.

The problem was getting time to study the Vatican, among other things, because it was only open for a limited period each day. What with that and the Easter rush looming, Anna and I were on a tight schedule.

One thing I had to admit: as a caser Anna was brilliant. She recognized most of the guards, where they lived, their shifts, relatives. She was good at distances, too. Never guessed worse than five per cent error in every measurement – length of corridors, heights of walls, thickness of brickwork. Marvellous. More than once I foolishly found myself telling her she was great, but nipped it in the bud. A rip’s no time for friendship. Just because we were living together was no reason to become close.

I started to get up as soon as she did, and even began tidying the room up while she put on her make-up to become Old Anna. The old thing really was endearing once she reappeared, but the actual process of watching that beautiful young bird transmute inch by inch made me feel physically ill. I asked her once what had given her the idea, and got a surprise. She laughed, really laughed, for the first time.

‘An old woman isn’t an obvious predator,’ she said, smiling her head off. ‘A young one is.’

‘You don’t like me doing this, Lovejoy,’ Old Anna croaked that day, on her way out. ‘Once the rip’s done I’ll be able to stop. We’ll have our villa.’

‘Villa?’ Presumably she meant Carlo.

‘It’s what I’m saving for.’

So she still thought we were going to make a fortune from the rip. Her place was utterly frugal, and she ate only sparingly. No clothes to speak of. Never seemed to go out. She lived on a shoestring. Well, nothing wrong with optimism.

I called her back. ‘Here. Anna. One thing.’ I’d practised the casual air. ‘Am I still being followed?’

‘No,’ she said levelly, in her young voice. ‘Not since that man got injured. The night you went for a walk by the river.’

‘Thank heavens for that,’ I said with innocent relief. ‘Have a good day.’

‘
Ciao
, Enrico.’

By the end of that week I was ticking off my progress. Enough wood to make two rent tables – much of it matured, bought from various idiots who had ruined antiques by making them into something of greater apparent value. Workshop fully functional. Vatican nearly sussed out enough.

‘And I’ll need two tables.’ I’d told Anna. ‘The sort you see in cafeterias, the typical modern
tavola calda
table. Tubular steel and all that.’

She promised to take me round a couple of supply firms at the weekend to see which I liked. She counted on her fingers. ‘You need a white plastic collar, two silk ropes, a disposable razor, a pencil torch. A new tie. An ambulance. Squares of cloth. That it?’

‘Oh. And a pharmacopoeia.’

‘A
what?
’

‘A book of common drugs. But a proper one – not a granny’s home guide.’

She looked doubtful. ‘That might take a day or so, Lovejoy.’

‘I want an out-of-date one, 1930s or 1940s.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘I never have yet, love. If you can’t get one, I’ll join the library.’

That stung. It was a slur on her expertise as a thief. Her lips thinned. ‘I’ve never missed yet, Lovejoy.’

I waited till she reached the door, then said, ‘And a hand grenade.’

‘Okay.’ She didn’t even pause. The door closed with a slam. Like I said, a real pro.