Unholy Ghost Read online

  ‘You should lie down. You’re still not strong. I’ll go if you like.’

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘The aim is to get out of bed as soon as possible. People die in bed. Normal people that is, not however people who get close to you. People who are unfortunate enough to meet you seem to increase their chances of a violent death by a considerable margin.’

  ‘It was a misjudgement, I admit that. It had all the hallmarks of a set up and it was. How was I to know he only wanted me turned over? People were already dead when I got involved and you, as near as dammit, were one of them.’

  ‘But why go back to Paris in the first place?’

  ‘Because you sent me. You told me to carry on, to keep going.’

  Jimmy could see his answer made no sense to her.

  ‘As I said, I was in hospital. From the time of the shooting until several days later I have no clear memories of anything and even when I became conscious of my surroundings. I have no memory of us talking. I had no visitors or phone calls. How could I have told you anything? Did I appear to you in a vision?’

  Jimmy ignored the sarcasm.

  ‘The doctor said I had to see you, you said my name. You were hooked up to all sorts of things. It was touch and go whether you’d make it. The doctor said you were fighting the medication, that he needed you to settle and rest. You’d been asking for me and the doctor reckoned you’d calm down if we spoke so he arranged for it. You told me to keep going. That’s all you said. You were in a bad way and what it cost you to tell me was, well, it could have killed you making the effort so I guessed it was bloody important, worth dying for, so I carried on. I went to Paris and did what I did.’

  ‘And now I know what it was you did.’

  ‘I did my best, but I was running last from the word go. The thing had gone too far for me to get anywhere, but I tried.’

  ‘Mr Costello, you were an excellent detective. I think you are still an excellent detective despite the evidence of your recent actions. But you are no medical diagnostician. Did it not occur to you to consult with anyone, with any medical person, on how reliable whatever it was I said to you would be?’ Jimmy shook his head. No, he’d not thought of that. Right now he wished he had. ‘I was, as you say, in a bad way. If what I have been told is correct I was barely alive and very nearly dead. I was shot full of drugs and when I felt anything it was pain. If I did what you say I did wouldn’t you think it might have been influenced by my condition?’ Yes, Jimmy could see that now. ‘Why would any rational person put any reliance on what I said never mind act on it to the point of murder and general mayhem across two countries?’

  ‘I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight. The bastards had gunned you and the chances of you making it weren’t good. I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to get the bastards.’

  ‘I see. All this was about you, about you being upset that I had been shot, is that it?’

  No, that wasn’t it. But Jimmy was beginning to see it was a big a part of it.

  ‘I tried to get your woman in for the claim. I knew that was what you wanted so I tried to make it happen. I may have started out because I was mad but once I got going it was all about doing what you wanted and all I knew was that you wanted Veronique Colman to cop the estate.’

  ‘You knew what I wanted?’

  ‘I thought so, part of it.’ She looked at him. ‘A bit of it.’ She still looked at him. ‘Well, you never tell me what it is you really want. You point me at something and set me going. You’d pointed me at this thing in Paris and so I kept going. What else was I supposed to do? You weren’t there to say anything, you were in intensive care, you couldn’t tell me what you wanted so I had to do the best I could.’

  ‘And what was it that you think I wanted?’

  ‘To make sure that whatever came out of the Arctic got to the right people.’

  ‘The Arctic?’

  ‘Yes, it’s all about getting stuff out of the Arctic, isn’t it?’

  She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Jimmy began to get the feeling it wasn’t all about the Arctic, not for her anyway. She opened her eyes.

  ‘And the right people would be?’

  ‘Well, not whoever tried to kill you. And not the Yanks, you were setting up a claim against theirs. Look, I don’t know who you wanted to win. All I knew was that you wanted the estate. When the Commander turned up I figured he might help. Then he got shot so I tried to get Joubert back on the case so he could put Veronique into the frame and that’s when I got the shit kicked out if me in a Paris cell and bounced out of the country. With France and Germany closed to me it was all over so I came back to Rome and waited until you were well enough to see me. That’s it. That’s all of it.’

  She thought it over.

  ‘Did you work all that out by yourself?’

  ‘Yes, once I’d been told what it was really all about. You told me it was all about Nazi loot, remember? Once I knew that was a load of balls one thing followed on from another. I just didn’t make it to the finish, that’s all.’

  ‘No, Mr Costello, you didn’t make it to the finish. In fact you were in the wrong race.’

  There it was, he’d been wrong all along. Shit.

  ‘Not about the Arctic then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So who’ll get the island, the Americans, the bad guys? Who?’

  ‘Someone, if there is an island.’

  ‘You don’t seem too worried.’

  ‘I’m not, not about any island or Arctic exploitation. It is true that when I ask you to carry out work for me I tell only you what I think you need to know, but it is also the case that what I tell you is always substantially the truth. What I told you was the truth, Mr Costello. I was not interested and am still not interested in who does or does not benefit from any future resources exploitation from the Arctic.’

  ‘You’re not telling me that nonsense about Nazi loot was true?’

  ‘Yes, substantially true.’

  Jimmy turned it over in his mind. It still didn’t make sense.

  ‘But what if the wrong people get the oil and stuff?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘They kill people, they’re nothing but a bunch of thugs and gangsters. They may put out like billionaire businessmen but that doesn’t change anything. They take what they want with guns. You can’t seriously expect me to believe you want them to have the oil.’

  ‘Why not? It is of no interest to me or those I represent who gets what in the way of natural resources. I cannot see any greater moral good in the resources going to people in the West rather than in the East or going anywhere else. A great deal of money will go into comparatively few pockets whichever way it flows. The oil and gas and other valuable resources will be brought out, who profits from that is a matter for politicians and business to decide. It is no concern of mine and was never supposed to be any concern of yours. That scenario existed in your head alone, Mr Costello.’

  ‘So why send me to Paris in the first place?’

  ‘To confuse and misdirect. I needed a small amount of time to present Veronique Colmar’s case to the Swiss authorities. While that was being done I wanted other interested parties to be looking elsewhere. You were my elsewhere. You were supposed to do as I asked, make your contacts, ask your questions, and, in your inimitable style, generally make your presence felt and provoke a response. The assault on M. Joubert was regrettable but I anticipated some such outcome. Once you had engaged their attention you were supposed to withdraw. By the time they had come to the conclusion that you were no sort of threat and resumed their efforts Veronique’s case would have been presented. Unfortunately my activities were not as discreet as I had anticipated and there was an overrreaction from one of the interested parties.’

  ‘They tried to kill you.’

  ‘We all make mistakes, Mr Costello. Considering what happened to Serge Carpentier you should be more alive to that than most. At lea
st I was the only direct victim of my error of judgement.’

  Jimmy’s mind circled everything he knew.

  ‘So you’re saying that, among all the rest of it, there really was Nazi loot?’

  ‘No, not loot exactly. Mme Colmar was involved exactly as I described to you. Her business associates in America used her as I said. The payments she supervised were not, however, made in loot, not artefacts anyway. They were made in untraceable liquid form, gold, precious stones, anything that could be turned into cash regardless of who won the war.’

  ‘But there had to be something in the estate that you wanted that would hurt the Church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Think, Mr Costello, think like a detective. You have all the information you need. You had it all along. If you hadn’t become obsessed with delusions of violent revenge and one-man justice like some comic-book hero and then blinded by all this stupid energy business you would have seen it.’

  Jimmy pushed to one side anything connected with fish processing islands. What was left? Mme Colmar and her ill-gotten gains. She was all there was. Whatever it was it had been under his nose all along. Mme Colmar and the work she did for the Americans with the Nazis in Paris. Mme Colmar and her American friends …

  Then he saw it. If he’d stuck to thinking like a detective sergeant instead of playing at being a bloody TV tough-guy hero he’d have seen it long ago. It was there and it was simple street stuff, detective sergeant stuff, run-of-the-mill villainy. She’d been a whore, a blackmailer, and a go-between. It was as simple as that.

  ‘She kept records. She kept records and accounts and all the proof she needed to make sure she stayed safe and she had it salted away where no one could get at it, in a Swiss bank. So long as they were safe, she was safe.’

  ‘Records, accounts, a diary, details of names, dates, transactions. Everything.’

  ‘She would. She was a blackmailer. She’d want to be sure she’d have a few powerful friends firmly by the balls if the allies came out on top, which after the D-Day landings looked likely. God, she was sitting on a gold mine.’

  ‘If she’d have chosen to use it. But she never used it, did she? It was her insurance for a trouble-free life.’

  ‘OK, she had all the protection she needed so that what she did in Paris would never catch up with her. But that’s all ancient history now. Anyone she could finger must be dead and the companies might not even exist any more, gone out of business, taken over, merged. And even if they do exist they’re not responsible now for what happened a lifetime ago. Why do you want it, this diary or records or …’ And the last piece fell into place. ‘It’s one of ours isn’t it? Some bloody high-up Catholic whose family were involved. Some Catholic family who made a fortune by screwing their own side while their own soldiers died. What is he, a cardinal?’

  ‘One is. The other is a senior politician who could, conceivably, become president.’

  ‘My God. All you wanted was to get the evidence and bury it.’

  ‘Yes. Mme Colmar made no provision for what would happen to her records after her death. She didn’t care what would happen to them. She would be dead so any damage they might do would not have concerned her.’

  ‘The sins of the fathers, is that it? Old Ma Colmar is like some sort of unholy ghost who’s waiting to come back from the grave through her estate and haunt the Catholic Church in America.’

  ‘That is one way of putting it. The men concerned are themselves innocent of any involvement but that would not stop ill-disposed people, of whom there are many, from using what Mme Colmar kept. The damage such people could do would have been considerable. However, the matter now, thankfully, will never come to light.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Veronique Colmar’s claim is progressing and she is in the care, legally as well as physically, of people who will see to it that the matter is closed. Mme Colmar’s records will never see the light of day.’

  ‘But, I thought …’

  ‘No, Mr Costello, you didn’t think, you acted in a spirit of violence and revenge. A moment ago you took the trouble to think, to think carefully like a detective, and look how long it took you to see what this was really all about. You were never important in the matter, a muddier of waters, a sideshow to slow and confuse, a pawn. Unfortunately your old self, the self you have been at pains to put away from you, is still too close to the surface. Do as you are told, Mr Costello, and behave like a detective sergeant, then what you think may be of use. Anything else is dangerous and destructive. From the very beginning Veronique Colmar’s case was in the hands of suitable people, people whom I could trust.’

  She closed her eyes. Jimmy could see she was tired now. The interview was over or very nearly over.

  ‘So what happens now?’

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘Now I rest, you may go.’

  ‘About me? What happens about me?’

  ‘I’m not sure. You were already barred from Denmark, now we can add France and Germany. You cannot safely return to the United Kingdom, your old friends there have made that abundantly clear. I’m not sure you are of any further use to me, Mr Costello. I had hoped that you might change, but I now think that might have proved a false hope. I will think about it.’

  ‘Will they kick me out of Rome, out of Italy because of this?’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘I’d have nowhere to go if they did that.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t, would you? But I’m not at all sure you have anywhere to go if you stayed. I’m not sure you have anywhere to go wherever you go.’

  Jimmy knew what she meant, he was going nowhere, but how much more damage might he do on the way. Suddenly he felt as if he were the one who had lost an arm. There was something missing in him, what was it?

  ‘Did the Comedian die?’

  ‘The Comedian?’

  ‘The Commander, the Danish bloke.’

  ‘I doubt it. If he had I would have been informed.’

  She closed her eyes again. There were no more questions and nothing more to say. He was dismissed. He got up quietly and left. The clinic was in central Rome so he walked until he came to a church. It wasn’t far, it never was in central Rome.

  He went in and found the nearest statue. It was a friar, you could tell by the long, hooded habit and the tonsure on the top of his head. Maybe it was St Francis or St Dominic, but Jimmy didn’t care who it was.

  He put some money in the box and took a candle, lit it from one already burning and put it with the rest.

  ‘It’s for Serge Carpentier. It’s something I owe him, this and a lot more, only now it looks like this might be all he’ll get. Tell him, sorry.’ But it was never that simple. ‘If you’re there, if he’s there, if any of you are still there.’

  And then he realised what was missing in him – hope.

  There was no one there. There was no St Francis or St Dominic to carry his message. There was no Bernadette, no Michael waiting for him. There was no one and nothing. When it ended it ended. There was nothing else, nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, no reason to go on. Somehow it had all slipped away from him.

  Jimmy left the church, a crumpled, middle-aged man, anonymous and alone, a man of sorrows familiar with grief. A man going nowhere, because nowhere was the only place left for him to go.

  More titles from

  The Jimmy Costello Series

  Corrupt ex-copper, and fixer for the Catholic Church, Jimmy Costello is sent to Spain to investigate when a senior cleric is accused of being part of ETA, the Basque terrorist movement.

  Unsurprisingly, perhaps, a murder occurs as soon as he gets to Santander, and it’s not the last as Jimmy encounters some unwelcome reminders of his violent London past.

  His enigmatic boss in Rome may not approve, but Jimmy, as always, decides to see things through, to the end.

  This edition is published by Accent Press

  Copyright © James Green 2014<
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  The right of James Green to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  ISBN: 9781909840744

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN

  The stories contained within this book are works of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the authors’ imaginations and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental