A Season for the Dead by David Hewson Page B

Denney’s in some kind of purdah now they know what’s been going on. Maybe not. Either way for us it’s irrelevant. He daren’t set foot outside the Vatican. He knows we’d arrest him on the spot. He knows some of his shady friends might want a word too. They’re too picky about their own in there to hang him out to dry. But my guess is he’s not a happy little priest. This was a guy who used to hang out with presidents. The way things are going now he’s just going to wind up a sad old man stuck in a nice comfy prison for the rest of his life. Unless he gets a fit of conscience, of course, and decides to tell us everything. Which I find somewhat unlikely, to be frank.”
    Costa was adamant. “We have to check it out.”
    The big man wagged a finger at him. “No! Didn’t you hear Falcone clearly enough? I shouldn’t even have told you any of this. You are not going back to that place. Understand?”
    “You said it was gossip. I found out someplace else.”
    “What about the painting?” Rossi asked, trying to change the subject.
    “Still want to see it?”
    “My glass is empty. You’re starting to scare the shit out of me. You bet I want to see it.”
    Costa led him out of the bar, across the busy main road into the warren of streets that stretched between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. Rossi followed as the kid ducked into a nondescript church in one of the side roads.
    “Who’d put a masterpiece in a dump like this?” Rossi demanded in the gloomy interior. “I’ve seen better churches in Naples.”
    “This is San Luigi dei Francesi, big man. Here you’ve got two of the greatest works Caravaggio ever painted, exactly where he meant them to be, where he put them on the walls himself.”
    “I get to see both?” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.
    “One at a time,” Costa said, and walked forward to deposit some coins in the light meter. A set of bulbs came alive. Rossi blinked at the huge canvas in front of him. Most of it was set in shade: a group of men in medieval dress at a table, counting money. Three of them had turned to look at a pair of figures standing at the right of the scene. From behind came a shaft of revealing light. It burned brightly on the puzzled faces as they sat there, half-cowed, watching the newcomers.
    “The Vocation of St. Matthew,”
Costa said. “He’s the one in the middle, pointing to himself, as if to say, ‘Who? Me?’ ”
    “And the guys on the right?”
    “Jesus, with his hand outstretched, indicating to Matthew he’s been chosen as an apostle. And by his side Peter, who symbolizes the Church which will come to be built on Matthew’s gospel.”
    “So what’s this got to do with me losing it in an accident? That
was
your point, wasn’t it?”
    Costa nodded. The big man wasn’t slow. “Look at the costumes. The men around the table are in what was, when it was painted, contemporary dress. Jesus and Peter look as if they’ve walked straight out of a biblical scene. Caravaggio was commissioned to record a specific scene but what he did was make a broader point. This is about a moment of revelation, a moment when, in Matthew’s case, he realizes there’s more to life than counting money on a table.”
    “You sound like a priest,” Rossi grumbled.
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
    “And this,” Rossi nodded at the painting, “is where you get your kicks?”
    “I wouldn’t put it that way.” Costa thought about it. “It’s about looking for some meaning, looking for a reason to be alive. Not just working your way through the day and being glad you got to the other end.”
    “That’s fine as far as I’m concerned.”
    “Sure,” Costa replied. “Until you see something that says otherwise. And then you wind up working with me.”
    Rossi sighed. He got the message. There was, Costa knew, no need to belabor it.
    “So you’re a Catholic? In spite of everything they say about your old man?”
    “No. Not at all. I just like to look for