this great Catholic tomb hewn for the living.
But Delaunay’s room was panelled in wood and enjoyed plush upholstery. There were paintings on his walls far too handsomely framed to be mere reproductions. There was a rich smell of leather from the bindings of the many books on his shelves. There was a laptop computer at the centre of his desk and he had a laser printer and a hands-free phone there, too. But the impression was still overwhelmingly of the past. Images of Christ crucified and dying under his crown of thorns had once been common throughout the Christian world. In the early twenty-first century, that was no longer the case. But there were several such stark reminders of God’s sacrifice of his son for mankind in Delaunay’s place of work and, Suzanne supposed, his place of prayer and contemplation. Altogether, it looked like a chamber from a more august and pious time.
He thanked the pale novice who had brought her there and then shook her formally by the hand. He was, as Martin had said, enormous. Her hand was completely enveloped in the grip of his, and his arms inside his soutane were as broad and dense-looking as those of a shot-putter or a power-lifter. He had not acquired muscles like these in the gym. She was certain of that. He was one of those men born strong, his future muscular power determined even as he grew from something tiny in his mother’s womb. The word for what he possessed physically was almost archaic, Suzanne thought. But it was accurate. And it was ‘might’. Monsignor Delaunay was mighty. His handshake, though, was gentle. And in his demeanour he seemed almost abashed.
There was a leather sofa at the opposite end of his room from where his desk was placed, and it was to this that he guided her. He took her coat and hung it on a corner stand. He gestured for her to sit. But he did not sit himself. He offered to have tea or coffee fetched, but she declined both. He offered water and, when she nodded acceptance, poured her a glass from a carafe on a small circular table. Then he stood before her with his hands clasped behind his back. She sipped from her glass. The water was very cold. She wondered was it drawn from a well – they might have their own. It had not come from a bottle left to stagnate for a month under fluorescents.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘When I tell you what I have to tell you, you’ll agree it was the very least I could do.’
She sipped water, wondering how bad this could be. She had left her cigarettes in the glove compartment of the car. Then again, you weren’t allowed to smoke in church. And she was unacquainted with the protocol. Everything here might be a church, the way that embassies shared the status of sovereign states.
‘May I call you Suzanne?’
‘Of course you may, Monsignor Delaunay. I’d like you to. And I’d like you to tell me the truth about the man who masqueraded as Peitersen.’
‘He is one of us, Suzanne.’
‘A representative of the Catholic Church?’
‘A priest.’
‘He did not seem very much like a priest.’
‘Nor was he meant to.’
‘For example, he really does know about boats.’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘I might take that cup of coffee off you.’
‘You must feel free to smoke.’
‘Damn. I mean, darn. I left them in the car.’
Delaunay smiled. ‘It may shock you to learn that there are priests who indulge that vice, Suzanne. What I mean is, I can probably cadge you a pack of Marlboro Lights.’
Peitersen, whose real name was Sean McIntyre, was a Boston Irishman who never knowingly entertained a religious thought until he was forty-five years old. His family business was building fishing boats. The business went back five generations. He broke with tradition and began building racing yachts after racing them himself as a teenager and realising that his own makeshift improvements to the basic design made any yacht he raced both significantly faster and easier to handle, too.
McIntyre Marine prospered. Sean celebrated two decades of business success by buying a cruiser as a fortieth birthday present for himself. When the cruiser foundered a week later on a reef off the Bahamas, Sean’s wife and fourteen-year-old son were aboard and Sean, piloting, had drunk the best part of a pint of white rum. His wife and boy drowned. Sean was picked up alive. He’d been in the water eighteen hours and was delirious but, by that time, sober. He began his training for the priesthood a month later.
‘Why did he pretend to be Peitersen?’ Suzanne said.
‘Because we told him he should,’ Delaunay said, who was still meeting her eyes, she thought, only from supreme effort of will.
‘Because we told him he should. As penance.’
‘I think you had better explain, Monsignor.’
Delaunay was at the window. Its shape was arched and its glass heavily leaded. It did not let in much light. It was one of a row of four that embellished the exterior wall of the chamber. Even collectively they did not admit much light. But then the weather outside was foul. Though the windows were all tightly closed against it, Suzanne could hear the rain hurled against the panes.
‘Early in the winter of 1918 an infantry captain called Harry Spalding looted something very valuable from Rouen cathedral. We know this because one of the men charged to protect this object survived the raid.’
‘What did he take?’
‘Something brought out of Palestine in the First Crusade. An item taken to France lest it be sold by Rome for influence with kings during the great Papal Schism. This artefact is among the most important relics in the entire history of the Church. And Spalding was successful in stealing it.’
‘For profit?’
‘For power. For the power its desecration would give him with the great adversary we have faced since the Fall. That was why he stole it.’
‘And you thought McIntyre, masquerading as Peitersen, might find it aboard the
Delaunay smiled. ‘You’re very bright, Suzanne.’
‘No, I’m not. Because actually, I’m very confused. If it was that valuable to you, Cardoza Associates would have won their pissing contest at Bullen and Clore with Magnus Stannard.’
Delaunay turned to the window and the rain.
‘I’m sorry, Monsignor. I’m sorry for the profanity.’
He spoke with his back to her. His voice was grave. ‘We did win the pissing contest. With respect to Magnus Stannard, the Vatican has very deep pockets. But the auctioneer was incompetent, or he was drunk. And the gavel came down early.’
‘Who are Martens and Degrue?’
‘You’ve heard of the Jericho Club?’
‘Recently, yes.’
‘They are the continuation of the Jericho Club by other means. Or, perhaps more accurately, under another name, because the means remain the same.’
‘Why are you choosing to tell me all this now?’
He turned back to her. ‘None of this was known to me until a few days ago. None of it. Martin told me about Peitersen over lunch on the day that I blessed the
‘Weren’t you sworn to secrecy?’ Suzanne had considered that the sort of question she would never have asked without her tongue firmly in her cheek. She had been wrong.
‘I was pledged to silence on the subject. I have chosen to break that pledge.’
‘Why?’
‘Father McIntyre did not find what he was looking for aboard Harry Spalding’s boat. He is convinced it is not there. But Martens and Degrue may think it is. These people are not beyond an act of piracy.’
Suzanne thought about what she was hearing. ‘When you blessed the boat, Monsignor, did you think it
