Conclave Read Free Page A

not his arteries. He said firmly, ‘Release the data if you must, but not the photograph. It’s too intrusive. It demeans him.’
    Bellini said, ‘I agree.’
    ‘I suppose,’ added Lomeli, ‘you’ll tell us next there will have to be an autopsy?’
    ‘Well, there are bound to be rumours if there isn’t.’
    ‘This is true,’ said Bellini. ‘Once, God explained all mysteries. Now He has been usurped by conspiracy theorists. They are the heretics of the age.’
    Adeyemi had finished reading the timeline. He took off his gold-framed glasses and sucked on the stem. ‘What was the Holy Father doing
before
seven thirty?’
    Woźniak answered. ‘He was celebrating vespers, Eminence, here in the Casa Santa Marta.’
    ‘Then we should say so. It was his last sacramental act, and implies a state of grace, especially as there was no opportunity for the viaticum.’
    ‘A good point,’ said Tremblay. ‘I’ll add it.’
    ‘And going back further – the time before vespers,’ Adeyemi persisted. ‘What was he doing then?’
    ‘Routine meetings, as far as I understand it.’ Tremblay sounded defensive. ‘I don’t have all the facts. I was concentrating on the hours immediately before his death.’
    ‘Who was the last to have a scheduled meeting with him?’
    ‘I believe, in fact, that may have been me,’ said Tremblay. ‘I saw him at four. Is that right, Janusz? Was I the last?’
    ‘You were, Eminence.’
    ‘And how was he when you spoke to him? Did he give any indication he was ill?’
    ‘No, none that I recall.’
    ‘What about later, when he had dinner with you, Archbishop?’
    Woźniak looked at Tremblay, as if seeking his permission before replying. ‘He was tired. Very, very tired. He had no appetite. His voice sounded hoarse. I should have realised—’ He stopped.
    ‘You have nothing to reproach yourself with.’ Adeyemi returned the document to Tremblay and put his glasses back on. There was a careful theatricality to his movements. He was always conscious of his dignity. A true prince of the Church. ‘Put in all of the meetings he had that day. It will show how hard he was working, right up tothe end. It will prove there was no reason for anyone to suspect he was ill.’
    ‘On the contrary,’ said Tremblay, ‘isn’t there a danger that if we release his full schedule, it will look as if we were placing a huge burden on a sick man?’
    ‘The papacy
is
a huge burden. People need to be reminded of that.’
    Tremblay frowned and said nothing. Bellini glanced at the floor. A slight but definite tension had arisen, and it took Lomeli a few moments to realise why. Reminding people of the immense burden of the papacy carried the obvious implication that it was an office best filled by a younger man – and Adeyemi, at just over sixty, was nearly a decade younger than the other two.
    Eventually Lomeli said, ‘May I suggest that we amend the document to include the Holy Father’s attendance at vespers, but otherwise issue it as it stands? And that as a precaution we also prepare a second document listing the Holy Father’s appointments for the entire day, and keep it in reserve in case it becomes necessary?’
    Adeyemi and Tremblay exchanged brief looks, then nodded, and Bellini said drily, ‘Thank God for our Dean. I can see we may have need of his diplomatic skills in the days to come.’
    *
    Later, Lomeli would look back on this as the moment when the contest for the succession began.
    All three cardinals were known to have factions of supporters inside the electoral college: Bellini, the great intellectual hope of the liberals for as long as Lomeli could remember, a former rector of the Gregorian University and former Archbishop of Milan; Tremblay,who as well as serving as Camerlengo was Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, a candidate therefore with links to the Third World, who had the advantage of seeming to be an American without the disadvantage of actually