Unholy Ghost

Book 0: The Road to Redemption

by James Green

Genres: Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Thrillers; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

'Fixer' for the Vatican Jimmy Costello always liked Paris, but never got the chance to spend much time there.  Now his boss in Rome wants him to go back.  It?s a simple job: find the missing owner of a piece of valuable property.  But Jimmy?s not the only one looking. What is he looking for and who else wants it so badly? No one seems to have the answers. This time Jimmy is on his own.

Release date: July 17, 2017

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 235

Sample

Chapter One

‘Good heavens, Mr Costello, there is absolutely nothing life-threatening about what I’m asking you to do.’

Jimmy gave her what his mum would have called an “old-fashioned” look.

‘No, there never is, is there?’

Professor McBride didn’t answer. Jimmy didn’t expect her to. On her last non-life-threatening outing he’d got a knife in his side. But his real reason for kicking was the way she had summoned him, like some bloody junior office clerk. ‘Come to my office’: no ‘please’, no explanation, just the command to be there.

‘You are, of course, at liberty to refuse, although I have to say …’

‘No you don’t. You don’t have to say anything.’

They sat in silence. The office was at the top of a tall block in a modern business suburb and through the windows Jimmy could see the sun shining on the distant blue hills of Frascati. It was a lovely view made all the lovelier by the glory of the April day. After a moment Jimmy pulled his mind back from the glories of nature. Yes, he could refuse. But if he did, what else was there? This woman was all he had, without her his life had no point, made no sense. She had given him some sort of life back, so he put away his petulance and gave in.

‘What is it I’m supposed to do?’

‘Simply what I said. Find a missing person.’

‘What missing person?’

‘I don’t know.’

He threw up a hand in frustration.

‘You see! There you go again. You give me a hurry-up call because you say there’s a job. I come running and you tell me that I’m to look for a missing person, but you don’t know who it is. What is it about you? Why can’t you be straight? Why can’t you just tell me …’

Professor McBride’s voice was sharp. Jimmy almost expected her to lean forward and rap her knuckles on the desk.

‘Mr Costello, I’ve heard all that before. You don’t trust me, you think me, in your own words, a devious bastard. Very well, I agree you may have grounds for thinking as you do …’

Jimmy sat in silence as she went on. It didn’t matter what she said. Whatever it was, she was right, she was always right, so he sat and listened and, when she was ready, she began to explain what it was he was going to do for her, the job that absolutely couldn’t be life-threatening.

Next day, early, he packed a cheap black holdall with essentials and left his apartment. He lived in an ultra-respectable district not far from the Vatican, on the top floor of a four-storey building which looked just like all the other four-storey buildings that lined either side of the street except that beside his main entrance there was a small restaurant, the Café Mozart. He went in and bought his breakfast; a coffee. Then he walked to Lepanto where he caught the Metro. He was going to Fiumicino airport and a taxi was out of the question during the Roman rush-hour. It wouldn’t be quicker to walk, but it would be close. At the airport he boarded a scheduled flight to Paris and by lunch-time he was sitting in a bar overlooking the Seine.

It was April in Paris. People wrote songs about it, got romantic about it, came here just to be part of it. Except that today the rain was running down the café window distorting the view so that the buildings on the far bank were almost indistinguishable from the dark sky above them. Outside the bar cars and pedestrians alike passed in little more than a blur. The wind strengthened and threw even more hard rain against the big window, and what little was visible momentarily dissolved. It was as if some sort of animal was trying to get in. It was Paris in the spring.

Jimmy looked down at the cup of coffee on the table and thought about his meeting with Professor MacBride the previous day in Rome. Too bloody true he had grounds, she was a devious bastard, and the more she said nothing should go wrong the more he’d felt sure something not only could but would go wrong. But he’d still got on the plane. He picked up the cup but the coffee was almost cold, he’d nursed it for too long. He looked at his watch. There was still an hour to kill before the meeting she’d arranged. He looked at the window again. The view, what there was of it, had returned. It was no day to be out strolling on the boulevards. It was a day to stay inside where it was dry and warm, but inside a bar with the rain hammering at the windows wasn’t his idea of discovering Paris. He might be anywhere, Rome, Copenhagen, Lübeck, even London.

Funny, he thought, when I’ve passed through Paris before, when there was no time to see the place, the sun always shone and it all looked terrific. I was sorry I couldn’t stay and look around. Now here I am and it’s no better than a wet Sunday in Kilburn. And he let his mind drift back to London, to Kilburn and his childhood. But his memory, as it does with everyone, played him false. It told him that when he was a child playing with his friends in the narrow terraced backstreets the sun had always shone and the days had always been warm and bright. There had been no cold, wet days, not until he’d grown up, when suddenly the warmth and sunshine somehow got switched off at the plug and a cold greyness had begun to seep inexorably into his soul.

Shit. Forget it, what’s done is done, it can’t be mended or changed. It’s finished and gone. What was it Danny said? Let the dead past bury its dead. His mind went back to a dirty, side-street bar in Rome and a big West Indian who hated coffee, wouldn’t drink alcohol, and had a laugh like a bass drum.

Jimmy smiled to himself. Good bloke, Danny, but too clever for his own good. Even so he wasn’t wrong, leave the dead alone and maybe they’ll leave you alone. He got up from his table, went to the bar, paid, and left the café.

He pulled his collar up as far as it would go, pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his light raincoat, waited at the kerb then crossed the road and walked alongside the wall below which was the embankment and then the wide, muddy Seine. He was headed for the bridge which would take him over the river onto the Isle de la Cité. He didn’t want to be out in the rain so he was heading for somewhere inside that couldn’t be anywhere but Paris. He walked on quickly hunched up against the rain, a stocky, crumpled, middle-aged man with short, grizzled hair. He might not like the weather, but it fitted him. A cold, grey day for a cold, grey man.

Chapter Two

Once over the bridge he kept going down a straight, tree-lined road. The small spring leaves seemed to be able to defy the gloom of the day and almost shine as their branches swayed, but maybe it was just the rain easing and the clouds lightening. After a short while the road opened out on the left side onto a big square. Jimmy turned. There were plenty of people here who had braved the weather because beyond the busy square rose up the massive, marvellous front of Notre Dame Cathedral, the place where Jimmy had been heading. Jimmy wasn’t surprised the square was so busy, after all, if you’ve travelled all the way from the US or China or Japan you didn’t let a little bit of rain stop you. He passed through the tourists who, under umbrellas, in waterproofs and hats, or just getting wet, were laughing, talking, looking, snapping themselves and each other on their cameras and smart phones. They were doing what all visitors did in Paris on wet days, ignoring the rain and enjoying themselves.

Jimmy made his way towards the small entrance in one of the great doors at the foot of the cathedral’s glorious façade. He went in, dipped his finger into the holy water stoop, and blessed himself. The soaring space of the interior was filled with the busy hum of voices, lines of tourists were being led through the aisles and people stood in groups, or in twos and threes, or by themselves, gazing at the glory that surrounded them and flash lights gave sudden, brief bursts of bright light. Only a very thin scattering of people knelt in the pews and up the main aisle the great main altar stood aloof, silent and empty. To most of the visitors this wasn’t a church, a place of prayer and worship. It was high culture, serious history, a building of almost miraculous beauty the like of which, somehow, we couldn’t manage to make any more.

Jimmy looked around and walked to a statue in a quiet corner. It was a woman, a nun. He didn’t know who she was nor did he particularly care. He needed someone to pass on a message. It didn’t matter who the messenger was so long as it was a saint, someone who was already on that other inside, the one he’d been told about as a child and now found it so hard to believe in. He slipped some coins into the black box below the tray of burning candles, picked up a new one, lit it, and placed it in a holder among the others. Then he took a step back and looked up at the statue.

‘Saint whoever you are, I want you to pray that …’ But the next bit was always difficult but finally he managed a few words. ‘… ask God not to let me slip away. Tell him I don’t want to just slip away. Ask him to keep me, keep me …’ But the words petered out. It never got any easier. He knew it never would. Maybe that was because he wanted to believe, wanted it so badly to be true, and wanting it so much he could never be sure that if he believed it would be no more than self-delusion. He shook his head. If that was how it was then he would never get there. How had Bernie managed it? How had her faith been so simple and so strong, even to the end?

He crossed himself, turned and walked away from the plaster image. It wasn’t much of a message and he wasn’t sure it would get through, or that anyone was there if it did. But he still tried, tried to hold on for the sake of Bernie, because Bernie had stuck with him and looked after him while he … but again the words petered. Let the dead past bury its dead. It was over, gone, couldn’t be changed or mended, so let it go.

Outside the rain had stopped. The umbrellas were coming down. The clouds had noticeably thinned, the gloom of the dark clouds had lifted, bringing a hope of the sun breaking through. Maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Jimmy turned down the collar of his coat and walked away, heading for the nearest Metro to go see and talk to another nun, a real one this time, not a plaster image.

He was half way back along the tree-lined road when the clouds suddenly parted, the sun came out, and the dreary dampness of the streets changed magically. The drips on the leaves began to sparkle, the wet pavement glistened as the sun hit it, the dark roofs took on a wet brightness, and the window shutters and black ironwork balconies on the upper floors of the buildings on either side no longer looked grim, but now offered a happy and elaborate counterpoint to the light colouring of the Empire frontages so quintessentially Parisian. The red, wet pantiles of the roofs seemed to come to life and glow as the sun streamed into the streets. All around him the place seemed suddenly alive, full of light. What was it that name they used? La Ville Lumière. City of Light. Jimmy instinctively lost some of his crumpled look, straightened up, and walked on with a livelier step.

The Seine flowed heavily under the bridge as he crossed but even the dirty water managed a few glistening twinkles up at him as the sun caught its ripples. The clouds were clearing fast and there was the promise of a fine afternoon to make up for the foul morning.

Jimmy left the bridge and crossed the main road. The café was just down on his left. Maybe he’d come back later and sit outside in the sun, have a beer, and watch Paris go by. His whole mood lifted. He felt better. Perhaps this time it really would be something easy, something straightforward, just find a missing person. Nothing evil, nothing life threatening. Nothing that would get him or anyone else killed. He looked around and brightened. April in Paris, Paris in the spring, all as per the brochure. All very ooh, la, la. Oh yes, all very much ooh la bloody la.

Chapter Three

‘There are only three of us here now and I am the youngest at seventy-eight. Sister Alphonse has to use a wheelchair if she leaves the convent,’ there was a pause, Jimmy waited, ‘which she never does these days so it doesn’t really matter. Sister Agatha can do nothing because of the arthritis in her joints although, with difficulty, she can still manage the rosary.’ The little nun sitting opposite Jimmy suddenly looked at him aggressively. ‘Of course there is no question of her kneeling, no one could expect that.’

Jimmy felt as if he had just suggested that Sr Agatha should, at this very minute and despite her crippled joints, be on her knees somewhere, praying.

‘No. Of course not. No one could expect that.’ The little nun seemed grudgingly satisfied. Jimmy waited but she just sat. He decided to gently get things going again. ‘You speak good English.’

‘I was sent to Cameroon, the French-speaking part, but then I was moved and they all spoke English so I had to learn. I didn’t want to learn but in those days discipline was discipline. Today, of course, it is all different. If someone …’

Having got her going again Jimmy tried, again gently, to steer her back to why he was there.

‘You must be sorry the convent is closing.’

‘Yes, the convent is closing. It has been difficult. There are only three of us and I am the youngest at seventy-eight. Sister Alphonse has to use a wheelchair if she leaves the convent.’ Jimmy worried for a second that she’d got stuck in some sort of loop and would keep going back to the beginning, but she carried on. ‘But I’m not complaining, you understand.’ Jimmy nodded trying to look as if he understood. ‘We are provided with help, a young woman comes each day to see to household matters, there is another woman who cooks, and a nurse who visits regularly each week.’ The nun looked at Jimmy who tried to smile encouragingly but the nun ignored him and carried on, talking, apparently to herself, or to nobody. ‘When I joined we young nuns looked after the old ones. We were a community in those days. Now there are no young ones so Sister Alphonse sits in her chair, Sister Agatha says the rosary when she can, and I have to deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. But at least I am mobile which is a blessing,’ she lapsed into a short silence, maybe saying a prayer of thanks for the blessing of being the one who had to deal with everything, ‘although I fully expect that I will find myself similarly placed as Sr Alphonse and Sr Agatha in the not-too-distant future,’ she paused, ‘if God spares me.’

She said it as if sparing her was the sort of nasty trick she expected God to play on her. Jimmy could see why she would feel that way.

She was small, even in the voluminous black habit and the long, black veil that covered her head and shoulders. She sat facing Jimmy with her hands in her lap. They were in a cold, bare room lit only by what daylight could force its way in through two grimy, lattice-leaded windows. The walls were covered with a dull paper with no discernable pattern except for three bright rectangular patches of pale green with small, faded yellow flowers where pictures had once hung. The carpet was badly worn and wouldn’t be going anywhere when the place closed except into a skip. An empty bulb socket hung from a flex in the centre of the ceiling.

‘How long before it closes?’

‘The house is already being emptied. Most of the rooms are finished. Soon we also will have gone. The Blessed Sacrament was removed from the chapel months ago. We were promised a priest would visit but …’

Jimmy thought he detected a shrug of the shoulders but it was difficult to be sure. He waited for her to continue but her attention seemed to have wandered off. He tried to bring her back.

‘Professor McBride said you wanted someone found.’

She looked at him with puzzled frown.

‘Professor McBride?’

‘In Rome, at the Collegio Principe. She sent me. You asked for someone to come.’

This time there definitely was a shrug.

‘I know nothing of any Professor or any Collegio.’ She fell silent again. Jimmy felt that at any moment he would either scream or jump up, grab her, and shake her, but then she got going again. ‘Still, if you come from Rome …’ She suddenly looked at him, studying him for a second. ‘If you’re a priest you should dress like one. I don’t like all this modern nonsense of not wearing proper habits. If you’re a priest or a …’

‘I’m not a priest, I just help out when things need to be done.’

‘Not a priest?’

‘No.’

She seemed to lose interest.

‘Oh, well, if you’re not a priest then I don’t suppose it matters how you dress.’

 Jimmy tried to get the meeting back on track.

‘I was told to come here because you wanted someone found.’

‘That is correct.’

‘Who? Who do you want found?’

The old nun looked surprised at the question.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake …’

The words crashed, unspoken, against the back of Jimmy’s teeth. He told himself that he had to stay patient and gentle, that she was a confused old nun who was being kicked out of her convent, that it wasn’t her fault. He tried, but it wasn’t easy with such a rambling old stick in the mud.

He gathered himself together and spoke slowly and clearly. She wasn’t deaf but he felt he had to do something.

‘I’m sorry, Sister, I don’t understand. I was told you would explain.’

She gave him a withering look as if he was a particularly backward child who was making no effort with what little brains he had.

‘Oh I can explain. We want you to find the owner of this house.’

He waited but nothing more came. She sat looking at him. That, apparently, was it, that was the explanation!

‘But the nuns own it, it’s a convent. Your order must own it if it’s a convent.’

The old nun raised a tiny hand and waved away his words. She’d had enough.

‘All of that side of it you must get from the lawyers. We are leaving, the convent is closed, finished. Now the building must be returned. Wait.’ She rummaged about inside her habit and finally pulled out a letter. She handed it to him. ‘The address is the firm who are handling it. Inside is my letter giving you authority to act on our behalf. The lawyers will explain everything.’ She stood up. She was only slightly taller than when she was sitting. ‘Now I must go. There are still things to do. Good day.’

The meeting was over, he’d been given his instructions and was now dismissed. Jimmy followed her back to the big main door which she pulled open. Jimmy stepped out into the bright sunlight, the door closed heavily behind him, and he heard a bolt being shot into place.

He had never liked nuns, never since he was a child at school where the headmistress had been a nun. A cruel bitch, he remembered. But he felt some sympathy for the one who had just given him the letter. Seventy-eight and being turned out of what she obviously looked on as her home. No wonder she was a grumpy, rambling dodderer. Poor old sod. Still, it was none of his business. His business lay elsewhere, with the lawyers who would explain everything.

Chapter Four

Jimmy stood for a moment and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. It was pleasant after the cold interior of the big, empty convent. He looked at the letter which was still in his hand, then put it into his pocket. The letter could wait, whatever the batty old nun wanted could wait; it was time for lunch, somewhere with Parisian atmosphere. He looked up and down the street. It was a classy part of the city, old and elegant. True, the buildings directly opposite were all offices, but discreet offices with polished brass plates and elegant, restrained lettering in the street-level windows. The sort of offices that no one ever seems to go into or come out of but nonetheless smell of money, old money and plenty of it. He looked at the window straight opposite. Galvani et cie. Notaires Avocats. Odd, thought Jimmy, that in a place so French the name he picked out was Italian. He looked up and down the street, the whole place looked quietly wealthy. That was good, he shouldn’t have any trouble finding somewhere to eat that fitted what he wanted. Paris class and style, the works. Why not? He could go to the lawyer after lunch, there was no hurry, whatever it was didn’t seem urgent or important. He could take his time and enjoy himself.

He went down the steps and joined the other sprinkling of pedestrians walking in the sunshine.

The first restaurant he came to was about four hundred metres away from the convent. It was expensive-looking in the same reserved way as the offices and very much Jimmy’s idea of what it was he wanted. He looked in through the window. It wasn’t crowded but that didn’t mean anything, from what he’d heard nobody hurried their lunch in this city, so it could still be early. He went in.

 A young woman in crisp white blouse and black skirt was standing beside a tall stand on which rested the reservations book. She looked at him as he came in. Jimmy had seen that sort of look before. He guessed he wasn’t what they were used to or wanted, but it didn’t bother him. As a detective sergeant in London he’d turned up in lots of places where people thought he didn’t belong. Here, at least, they probably wouldn’t take him into the back alley and try to kick the shit out of him.

‘Oui, M’sieur.’

‘I’m sorry . . .