“Take it, Father,” he says.
Simon recoils.
There is no trace of humanity in the gendarme chief’s eyes. “Take it,” he repeats.
“No.”
“Open it.”
“I won’t touch that thing again.”
“Then give me its combination.”
Numbly Simon says, “One, sixteen, eighteen.”
The same combination as the vault in Ugo’s apartment. The verse from Matthew that establishes the papacy.
Falcone dials in the digits. Before pulling the clasp, he glances back at Simon. There’s something between them that I don’t understand.
“Your brother took you by surprise, didn’t he?” Falcone says.
Simon’s face is blank. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Falcone’s fingers pull. The lock does not open.
Simon is paralyzed. He glances at me as if Falcone and I are in collusion.
The old police chief turns the case and considers it from all angles. Then, for the first time, he turns away from Simon. He addresses John Paul.
“Holiness, one of the reasons the Swiss Guards recommended this gun case is that its combination is set by the manufacturer. It cannot be changed.” He lifts a scrap of paper in his hand. “I have just called the factory. And ‘one, sixteen, eighteen’ is not the combination.”
Consulting the scrap, he turns the dials one at a time. The lock clicks open. I feel the breath slip out of me.
“Father,” Falcone says to Simon, “I saw it in your eyes.”
Archbishop Nowak murmurs, “Saw what, Inspector? What does this mean?”
Falcone stares at the gun case as if it has beguiled him. Darkly he says, “There was gunshot residue on Doctor Nogara’s right hand.” He extends an index finger down the edge of the clamshell, making the shape of a pistol. “His shooting hand.”
The tone of his voice says everything.
The expression on Simon’s face tells me it’s true.
CHAPTER 43
“SIMON . . .” I SAY.
He doesn’t answer. He looks dimly at the gun case.
Archbishop Nowak squints at me, trying to square my confession with Falcone’s demonstration.
But I know. At last, I understand. The relief is so intense that I don’t feel, at first, the crushing sadness of how Ugo really died.
“The only person who knew the combination,” Falcone says, “was Nogara. He was the one who opened it.”
Simon says nothing. He will maintain his silence to the last.
“But he wouldn’t have had to break the window to enter his own car,” Falcone says. “So what happened, Father?”
It’s Mignatto who says, almost in a whisper, “The surveillance video.”
The two minutes between Ugo’s arrival and Simon’s. It was almost the first thing Simon said to me when I got to Castel Gandolfo.
He called me. I knew he was in trouble. I came as soon as I could.
“But why,” Falcone repeats, “did you break the window of his car?”