horn.
‘Nice car, Father.’
‘It is, isn’t it. Grab the wheel,’ he said, putting his arm around Tom. For about a mile they drove up from the riverbank, Tom grinning as he piloted the big car around the potholes and puddles.
‘If you like I’ll teach you to drive. I’m generally free after Mass on a Sunday.’
‘Thanks, Father. That would be terrific,’ Tom said, his eyes shining as Father Courtney took the wheel. His excitement turned to confusion when Father Courtney took one hand off the wheel and rubbed the inside of Tom’s thigh.
‘It’s a good thing to be close to your priest, Tom. God meant it to be this way.’
Father Courtney pulled Tom’s hand across and put it down the front of his trousers. It hadn’t occurred to Tom that Father Courtney might have loosened his black priest’s belt, or the fly on his black priestly trousers. Black. Priestly black. Sinister, evil black. Father Rory Courtney had planned the whole outing meticulously, right down to the loosening of his belt. A simple manoeuvre as Tom had turned his back and clambered excitedly into the car. Father Courtney’s timing was the result of years of practice. Each time there had been complaints and each time the Vatican had hushed them up and moved their priest to prey on another unsuspecting group of children. This was Father Courtney’s third parish in three years.
Tom tried to pull his hand away but Father Courtney held it on his erection. With an expert flick of the wheel he pulled the big car over onto the side track he had reconnoitred earlier in the week and they drove back towards the river. When the track finally petered out in thick brush he turned off the engine and with both hands free he started to fondle Tom. To Tom’s horror he found himself getting an erection as well.
‘There see. Isn’t that good?’ In one movement Father Courtney slipped his own trousers down, grabbed Tom’s hand again and masturbated with it until he came with a high-pitched cry.
Stunned, Tom sat pressed up against the passenger door, putting as much of the big bench seat as possible between himself and the priest.
‘It won’t do any good to tell your mother, Tom. She would never believe you, but we can still do the driving lessons, eh?’
‘No thanks,’ Tom said sullenly. Angry. Ashamed. Confused. Betrayed. A whole mix of emotions that even his weekly bath that night could never remove.
When Tom refused Father Courtney’s invitations to pan for more gold from the river, his mother had been puzzled.
‘It will do you good, Tom. Besides he’s our priest, you should be grateful he wants to spend time with you.’
‘No thanks.’
‘But why?’
Tom wouldn’t answer. His response had been to run upstairs, slam his bedroom door shut and refuse to come out for hours. His mother had become angry, very angry. For weeks there had been a cold distance between them. Then the rumours started. Big Mitch Coburn, a fourth-generation potato farmer and elder of the Church, his complexion more florid than usual, outlined the complaints to the little gathering in his front parlour. Eleanor Schweiker listened with a growing sense of horror as realisation dawned on her.
‘Bobby Shanahan, Hughie Taylor and little Jimmy Osborne. All of them. Not eatin’, wettin’ the bed, sullen, just not themselves. The first one to suspect anything was Grandma Taylor. She came to me and to my undyin’ shame… to my undyin’ shame I told her I would have none a’ that sorta talk in ma parish.’
Mitch Coburn was normally a big jovial gentle giant. Today he looked as if he’d been run over by a Massey- Harris tractor.
‘Ahm afraid to say ah was wrong. Ah’ve been in touch with the Bishop and he’s told me on the quiet that it’s not the first time it’s happened. He’s removed Father Courtney and the Cardinal is coming down next week from Chicago to make amends.’
‘What do you mean it’s not the first time it’s happened, Mitch?’ Eleanor asked, a steely edge to her voice. ‘What sort of “amends” does this Cardinal think he can make?’ Her stomach was churning like a washing machine. ‘My Tom has never been the same since he went out with that priest and now he refuses to discuss it.’
Eleanor’s face was white, matching an anger that was directed at the only target she could find. ‘I stood up for the priest and now you’re saying this might have happened before! My son has had heaven only knows what done to him and all I can do is stick up for a Church that protects its priests and ignores my child and every other child they allow Rory Courtney and others like him to be with. Well, you and your precious Church and that priest can all burn in hell!’
Mitch Coburn blinked at the ferocity of a mother’s anger.
‘I know, Eleanor, I know. It’s the most terrible thing. Terrible,’ was all he could say.
Tom Schweiker groaned wretchedly in his sleep at the memory of a Church offering each family fifty thousand dollars provided that everyone agreed to secrecy. The searing memory of a mother refusing to sign unless the priest was struck off and a cardinal who insisted that was the Church’s business, not hers.
He woke sweating at the memory of a little town that had been destroyed by the suicides of Bobby Shanahan and Hughie Taylor. An anger at a Church that couldn’t care less, callously protecting its image and leaving the Rory Courtneys of the world free to go to the next parish and destroy more lives, all in the name of Christ.
Lorenzo Petroni had good reason to feel satisfied. Karol Wojtyla of Poland had been elected as Pope, taking the name John Paul II. Cardinal Villot had been reappointed as Cardinal Secretary of State and Petroni had been retained as the new Pope’s Chief of Staff with control of the Vatican Bank. But there were still two loose ends. Petroni drummed his elegant fingers on his desk as he wrestled with the available solutions. The Omega Scroll had been removed to a little known part of the Secret Archives and the brief destroyed, which left the old professor from Ca’ Granda and Father Giovanni Donelli. Professor Fiorini would have to be dealt with quickly. The ‘Italian Solution’ would need to be applied. Lorenzo Petroni resolved to speak with Giorgio Felici at the earliest opportunity. Which left Donelli.
The new Pope had brought his own private secretary and Petroni had assured Pope John Paul II that Donelli would be looked after. Angered by Donelli’s calmness in a crisis and his resistance to the Vatican’s press line on the death of John Paul I, Petroni had immediately found him a mind-numbing filing job in the Vatican library in the hope he would resign. Young priests, he reflected angrily, were usually much easier to control. So far there had been no sign of resignation and Petroni had resolved to get Donelli out of the Vatican and the corridors of power at the earliest opportunity. Still considering his options, Petroni began to scan the files that were marked for the new Pope’s attention, only allowing those he was happy with to pass to the Pope – an investigation into a Sainthood… a delegation from Opus Dei
… a request from the US Ambassador to Italy for an audience with His Holiness…
The next file irritated him immediately – the university proposal. Petroni had forgotten about it, but now the doddering old cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the Clergy had dutifully provided the four names that the dead Pope John Paul I had insisted on. Petroni was about to consign it to archives when he had a second thought. He glanced at the four names – two priests and two nuns. At least they got the number right. There was less chance of a priest getting close to a nun if there were two others watching. None of the names were familiar which meant that there was less control over the program but, he mused, if Donelli were put on the program it would get him out of the Vatican.
Again he wondered how much of the brief the young priest had absorbed in the minutes he had been alone in the dead Pope’s bedroom, and he fleetingly reconsidered the ‘Italian Solution’. Donelli was too close to the dead Pope; it would be too risky. The speculation on the death of John Paul I had wound down and eliminating Donelli might open up a full-scale inquiry. Donelli had worried Petroni from the moment he’d met him. The athletic young priest appeared to have a razor-sharp intellect and an astute ability to effortlessly grasp the most complex of issues. Unable to feel a genuine liking for anyone but himself, Petroni had reverted to his standard jealous response to any rival. He had done his customary detailed research into Giovanni’s personal history which had revealed a very close family background. No doubt a major reason for Donelli’s ability to mix easily in all walks of life. An image of his own violent father flashed into his thoughts and Petroni subconsciously redirected a burning hatred towards the unsuspecting Giovanni. While this emotion ran hot he marked the young priest with a single star in his little black book. True to form, Petroni calmed his anger and realised the university proposal could work to his own benefit. Sending Giovanni back to university would give Petroni a double advantage – it would get Giovanni out of the
