"Father Quart was asking for you," she said reluctantly.

Father Ferro's gaze remained fixed on the visitor. "What for?"

The envoy from Rome raised his left hand slightly in a placatory gesture. He noticed that Father Ferro was looking disapprovingly at his expensive Hamilton watch. "I'm here to compile a report on the church," he said. He was now almost certain that this first meeting was a disaster, but he decided to try a little longer. It was his job, after all. "We need to have a chat, Father."

"I have nothing to say to you."

Quart breathed in and out slowly. His worst fears had been realised, and old, unwelcome memories were returning. In his worn cassock Father Ferro embodied everything Quart hated: the poverty and stubborn wariness of the rough village priest, who was capable only of threatening with the torments of hell, or hearing confession from pious old women from whom he differed only in that he had spent a few years in a seminary and had a smattering of Latin. If Father Ferro was Vespers, he was doing a brilliant job of hiding it. This would not be an easy mission.

"I'm sorry, but I think we have much to discuss," Quart insisted, taking an envelope showing the tiara and keys of St. Peter from his jacket pocket. "I'm the special envoy from the Institute of External Affairs. You'll find my credentials in this letter from the Secretary of State."

Father Ferro took the letter and tore it up without even looking at it. The pieces fluttered to the floor.

"I don't give a damn about your credentials."

Small and defiant, he glared up at Quart. Sixty-four years old, said the report lying on Quart's desk back at the hotel. Twenty years as a country priest, ten years as a parish priest in Seville. He and the Mastiff would have made a good pair at the Colosseum in Rome. Quart could picture Father Ferro with a trident in one hand and a net over his shoulder, circling his opponent while the spectators cried out for blood. In his work, Quart had learned to tell instantly whom to be wary of. Father Ferro was the character at the end of the bar who drinks quietly while everyone else is shouting, then suddenly shatters a bottle to slit your throat. Or the soldier wading across the lake of Tenochtitlan.holding a cross above his head. Or the Crusader massacring infidels and heretics.

"And I don't know what all that business about external affairs is," the priest added, not taking his eyes off Quart. "My superior is the archbishop of Seville."

Who, very obviously, had carefully prepared the reception for this tiresome envoy from Rome. Quart remained calm. He again put his hand inside his jacket and half-pulled out another envelope, identical to the one lying in pieces at his feet.

"That's precisely the person I see next," he said.

Father Ferro nodded contemptuously. "Then go and see him," he said. "I obey the archbishop, and if he orders me to speak to you, I will. Until then, forget about me."

"I was sent specially from Rome. Somebody requested that we intervene. I assume you know about it."

"I haven't requested anything. Rome's far away, and this is my church."

"Your church."

"Yes."

Quart counted silently to five. He could feel Gris Marsala watching them expectantly.

"This is not your church, Father Ferro. It's our church," he said.

For a moment, the old priest stared in silence at the shreds of envelope on the floor. Then he turned his scarred face without looking at any precise point, and Quart saw a strange expression, between a smile and a frown.

"You're wrong there too," Father Ferro said at last, as if that settled it. Then he walked off down the nave towards the vestry.

Quart forced himself to make one last attempt at conciliation. "I'm here to help you, Father," he said to Father Ferro!s receding back. He'd made the effort, now he could let things take their course. He'd done his bit for humility and priestly solidarity. Father Ferro didn't have the monopoly on anger.

Father Ferro had paused to genuflect before the high altar, and Quart heard him laugh briefly and unpleasantly. "Help me? How could somebody like you help me?" He turned to face Quart, and his voice echoed around the nave. "I know your type… What this church needs is a different kind of help, and you haven't brought any of it in those elegant pockets of yours. So leave now. I have a baptism in twenty minutes."

Gris Marsala walked with Quart to the door. He had to summon all his self-control to conceal his dislike of the old priest. He only half-listened to her attempts to make excuses for Father Ferro. He was under a lot of pressure, she said. Politicians, bankers, the archbishop, they were all circling like vultures. If it hadn't been for Father Ferro, the church would have been demolished long ago.

"Thanks to him, they may end up pulling it down anyway. With him inside," said Quart, venting his ill-feeling.

"Please don't say that."

She was right. Once more in control, Quart reproached himself. He inhaled the scent of orange blossom as they came outside. A builder was busying himself next to the cement mixer. Quart glanced absently in his direction as they walked through the orange trees in the square.

"I don't understand his attitude," he said. "I'm on his side. The Church is on his side."

Gris Marsala looked sceptical. "And which Church might that be? The Church of Rome? Or the archbishop of Seville? Or you yourself?"

She shook her head. "No. He's right. Nobody's on his side, and he knows it."

"He seems to be trying to make things more difficult for himself."

"They're difficult enough already. He's in open opposition to the archbishop. And the mayor is threatening libel action – he thinks Father Priamo insulted him a couple of weeks ago during the homily in the Sunday service."

Quart stopped, interested. Monsignor Spada's report hadn't mentioned anything about this.

"What did he call him?"

She smiled wryly. "He said he was an unscrupulous and corrupt politician and a vile speculator." She looked at Quart to see his reaction. "If I remember correctly."

"Is that the kind of thing he usually says in his sermons?"

"Only when he gets really mad." Gris Marsala became thoughtful. "I suppose lately it's happened rather often. He talks about the merchants in the temple, that sort of thing."

"The merchants," repeated Quart.

"Yes. Among others."

"Not bad," said Quart. "It would seem our Father Ferro is an expert at making friends."

"He does have friends," she protested. She kicked a bottle top and watched it spin away. "And he has parishioners. Good people who come here to pray and who need him. You shouldn't judge him by what you've just seen."

This sudden warmth made her seem younger. Quart shook his head, embarrassed. "I'm not here to pass judgement." He turned to look at the belfry, not wanting to meet her eye. "It must be others who are doing that."

"Of course." She stopped in front of him, her hands in her pockets. He didn't like the way she was watching him. "You're the type who writes his report and then washes his hands of the whole business, aren't you? You just take people to the praetorium and all that. It's up to others to say ibi ad crucem."

"I would never have imagined you so well versed in the Gospels."

"I think there are rather too many things you can't imagine."

Embarrassed, the priest shifted from one foot to another. Then he passed a hand over his grey hair. The builder next to the cement mixer had stopped and was leaning on his shovel, watching them. He was young and wore old army-surplus clothes covered with plaster.

"All I'm trying to do," said Quart, "is make sure there's a thorough investigation."

Still facing him, Gris Marsala shook her head. "No, you're not," she said, her blue eyes piercing into his. "Father Priamo was right: you've come to make sure there's a swift execution."