‘There’s a war coming, an acceleration of reincarnated people finding each other. Things will come to a head soon.’

  ‘And this war will be fought against … who?’

  I glanced at Gloria and Bonza before studying our new friend. ‘An angel.’

  His eyes widened.

  I continued, ‘If mankind builds a bridge and it’s dangerous, that angel will knock it down – to teach us a lesson. If mankind builds a poorly-design aircraft, that angel will crash it while full of people, often, till we build a better one.

  ‘If a leader can start a war, he’ll be nudged to do so, till we alter the rules and stop our leaders starting wars. That which can be broken should be broken – is his credo, to make us stronger in the long run. And … he’s been supporting Harry Stanulou.’

  The old man’s mouth opened.

  I added, ‘The angels are not what you expect, they’re a bunch of disgruntled health and safety inspectors it seems, some of them kind towards us, most of them indifferent towards us. I have the direct assistance of two of them, the others … they don’t care apparently.’

  The old man nodded. ‘There is some sense in these … health and safety officers, yes, I can see that, since we learn by our mistakes. Yet Harry Stanulou is not a bridge nor an aeroplane.’ He waited.

  ‘We are to be tested, in many ways apparently, and we’re to show how we react to that testing.’

  ‘Car bombs killing priests?’

  ‘The angles say … that there are no rules against how many of us die, there are rules about how many of us are saved. It’s a cold and emotionless calculation.’

  ‘And this war…’

  ‘Will be us humans pushing back against the angels, and doing things for ourselves. You can take part if you wish, or carry on fixing what’s in front of you.’

  ‘I’m old, so I don’t know what I can do to help you.’

  ‘Drink the special spring water and you’ll be less old, it was designed for us and it’ll help you greatly.’

  ‘Oh. Well I’ll try some then.’

  ‘Drink a lot,’ Gloria encouraged him. ‘You’ll age backwards ten years.’

  ‘That would still not make me much of a fighter.’

  ‘We win by thinking … more than doing,’ I told him.

  ‘I would have liked to see The Ark.’

  ‘I can arrange that. It was behind two inches of glass, but when I approached it the glass turned to sand. Then I placed my hands on it and it glowed, energy passed to me.’

  ‘So it was not just myth after all.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s comforting to know, for a man’s faith to be backed-up by solid evidence, because we all have a doubt, especially when seeing the scandal in the church. And reading the details of the words of James was very comforting. But tell me, was Jesus married to Mary?’

  ‘Yes, and … she helped him with his speeches.’

  ‘As any wife would, yes.’ He studied me. ‘Was Jesus the son of God?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But God was present?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The message…’

  ‘Came through Mary.’

  ‘Yet you have not made that public…’

  ‘Millions of people have faith, and it aids them, and … I don’t want to alter that, not now, not today.’

  ‘God favoured the left hand not the right hand. It’s a small distinction.’

  I nodded at him. ‘Do you recall anything about Corsica, family lines, Broderic and treasure?’

  ‘Some, yes, I can assist you with that. I recall burying church records, but I don’t recall why.’

  ‘Could you find the location?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then drink the water, get well, and join my team if you wish to do so, but we’ll keep your secret if you want to do your own thing.’

  ‘The miracle baby…’

  ‘Is Katerina Mary of Arras.’

  He nodded. ‘I met her several times.’

  ‘And you probably will again.’

  He again nodded. ‘I will do what you ask of me with what strength I have left, and the years I have left.’

  I sent for Armani and introduced Father Paul Joseph of Calais, France, and they walked off chatting.

  ‘Those church records…’ Gloria began.

  ‘Maybe a clue, the family deaths and births and marriages on the island.’

  ‘I … may have children listed,’ she suggested with a forlorn expression and a small false smile.

  We exchanged a long and saddened look, her false smile lost.

  ‘Anything left to find there?’ Bonza asked, interrupting us.

  ‘Probably,’ I told them.

  Fifty priests later, one wanting to confess, and we called it a day and set off back, because there were things I needed to be attending elsewhere.

  Paris in the winter

  Packed up after some food, and we set off to the airport with a large escort - whilst wishing we did not need a large escort, soon in the comfy Papal Learjet and heading towards Paris, Father Emanuel to stay with Perez and Donno in Corsica, Bob to stay in the Vatican for now and protect Father Joseph and Armani.

  In Paris, we found that we also had a police escort. Whether the police here could be trusted or not was another question.

  Ross Daniels had arranged private security as well, but the two tall men had been rudely side lined by the police until we reached a posh set of glass-fronted offices used by the Kudulov Estate.

  The top two floors of the offices were smart apartments with many bedrooms, so we grabbed rooms and had a shower. Food delivery was available, so we ordered some, for us and for Ross’s two men.

  Ross Daniels himself turned up as we were eating, jacket soon off, and he was soon tucking in; he had flown up from Corsica on his way back to the States.

  ‘How’s the empire?’ I asked as we ate at a large glass table, a view of a rainy Paris offered to us, the Eiffel Tower seen through the grey mist.

  ‘Frances house is filling up quickly, we’re now moving in many Phase Two and Three people from other nursing homes on the island. These are people that are local and poor, at least not rich, and the various homes want rid of them.’

  I puzzled that. ‘The homes get paid by the state for those residents?’

  ‘Yeah, but not as much as the richer paying guests. The Prefect insists that they each take a few poor locals, or else, so we’ll grab them all.’

  I nodded at that. ‘We want people paid by the state.’

  ‘I reviewed the building work all over the island, and it’s on track - to have what we need done by summer to be ready … just about. Where Lars sits we have a dozen experts now, and they’ll coordinate it all better.’

  ‘Warehouse still struggling?’ I asked.

  ‘Hell yeah, but they can cope, just that the lazy hotels are now making full use of us. But during the summer season those hotels will make a much better margin, so we’ll get the money back that way.’

  ‘And the Prefect’s planned nursing homes?’

  ‘Ground cut on two of them, each will hold eight hundred residents, cost of forty million apiece all-in with furniture and medical kit. And we’ve isolated land for two more, all of them close to the city or a main town.’

  ‘And Henri in Phase One?’

  He smiled. ‘Has more friends now, two hundred of them, the place is looking busy, cafes busy, the doctors have something to do, a full staff to be working there as of this week.’

  ‘And sites in Italy?’

  ‘My people are looking, a report back to the consortium soon, sites around Rome and Milan to start with.’

  ‘The consortium offices are below us here?’

  ‘My Paris offices, and the suite for the new guys.’

  ‘Are the children playing nicely together?’

  He smiled. ‘Yeah, my staff in with them, huge drawings all over the place, contracts for builders. And the red tape here in France is a major pain in the ass.’

  ‘Money has been allocated?’

  ‘The government didn’t need the money yet – for us to rent the land, but we insisted we pay it upfront, and we paid the builders upfront, cranes and concrete – got a great discount, and the local papers reported it all, more local jobs as well as a trickledown effect for the Paris economy.’

  ‘Capacity of the poor site?’

  He tipped his eyebrows. ‘Twelve thousand residents. Total cost should be around three hundred and sixty million Euro plus furnishings, but the costs always rise.’

  ‘And the rich site?’

  ‘Eight thousand residents, bigger apartments, more facilities.’

  ‘The poor site, look for accommodation nearby that we can buy for our future staff but also for building staff, and any cafes that can service the builders, delivery service, a hotdog van or ten in the site itself.’

  He smiled. ‘Yeah, we can make a buck from them.’

  ‘Any news from Israel?’

  ‘They noticed your absence for sure, a few days of celebrations cut short by rioting and rockets. The treasures are all out of the ground and have been seen on the TV news in the States.’

  He took a call, and then sat back down. ‘Italians, FBI, CIA and Mossad are creating a taskforce to look at Harry Stanulou. When you stitch a bomb inside someone and get them to walk into a place … they get very, very worried.’

  ‘I can imagine, yes, that technique could be used in the White House.’

  ‘Or on a plane, so they’re more than just plain old very worried.’

  ‘Stanulou trusts no one, it’s one-way chats and money drops, so they’ll have a hard time finding him.’

  ‘You uncovered some of his people in the Vatican?’ he asked as we ate.

  ‘Yes, but it was one-way traffic, they never met him.’

  ‘Oh, the Prefect met some guy and started a feasibility study, a modest hydro-electric dam…’

  ‘Yes, guy I met at the airport. I want to fund it - free electricity for our nursing homes, as well as a new hotel with water sports next to a new lake created. Have that moved along quickly, we can use the electricity, and we can sell electricity back to the grid.’

  ‘Could sell a shit load of electricity back to the grid; below where the dam would sit is a steep decline. We could drill two small tunnels through the rocks to the water, and as well as the main turbines we would have smaller turbines, so we could have up to ten turbines making electricity.’

  I asked, ‘We could run cables to my hotel, the holiday village, Mandoch Valley, Frances House?’

  ‘Shit, yeah. We’d cut our own electric bill by ninety percent!’

  ‘And Scorfo?’

  ‘We could create a small dam above it, a few miles up into the hills.’

  ‘And the access roads for the dam?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s a good dirt track up to the river - it’s used for white-water rafting in the summer, but the main highway goes over the river further up, now a spur road being planned in a hurry.’

  ‘And the tourist potential of the lake when full?’

  ‘Huge. It’s a nice green forest area with nature walks, could be canoeing and water sports, fishing, could build a nice hotel with a fantastic view, create a sandy beach area next to the river. Small sail boats would be good up there,’ he explained.

  ‘So let’s use consortium money and build a nice holiday village, as well as private villas, create a new small village for locals, a shop and a pharmacy.’

  ‘Would be valuable real estate when the lake is full,’ he emphasised. ‘And with a good road link, quick to the city and the airport.’

  Gloria asked, ‘Do the richer old tourists want a beach holiday anyway?’

  ‘No,’ Ross replied. ‘They like the city, shops and castles and history, a quiet place to sit and read. When they go to Corsica they’re near the beach but not sat on it all day, and not in forty degree heat.’

  ‘So they’ll like a mountain retreat…’ she added.

  ‘Hell yeah, a few degrees cooler as well up there. If the hotel has a pool, a terrace with a view, rooms with a view, nature walks, it will be full.’

  ‘Sounds like we could build a nursing home there as well,’ I told him.

  ‘Land up there will be free, it’s just dust and rocks,’ Ross suggested. ‘We’d have water, electricity, and a good road link. And the residents will all have a great view.’

  I told him, ‘So let’s plan on a large nursing home up there - after they fix that road link that is.’

  He tipped his eyebrows. ‘That dirt track is no good for heavy machinery.’

  ‘Have all the surveys done soon, a map made, a plan on paper, some aerial photos. And in France, and in Britain I guess, a nursing home overlooking a lake would be good, just that the land would be expensive.’

  ‘A few places in France have canals and lakes, the land not so expensive if it’s out of town,’ he replied.

  I told him, ‘When Frances House is running smoothly, arrange a documentary. We don’t need the extra interest, but I want people in Paris to look at us as a group favourably.’

  Ross nodded. ‘People with living relatives might consider coming, but then want to see their relatives. We’d have to vet them, and warn them - that Corsica is not in France.’

  ‘Flight is not too bad from here,’ Gloria put in.

  Ross took a call and then sat back with us. ‘A French medical team has released a statement - that they cured a man of cancer using the spring water.’

  Everyone raised their heads and exchanged looks.

  I firmly told him, ‘I don’t want claims made by us till we have more data, it could be just one man.’

  ‘They have three men they say are cured or mostly cured,’ Ross informed us.

  ‘So put the price up,’ I suggested. ‘Medicinal use more than young idiots just wanting a boost.’

  Gloria asked him, ‘The residents can get it in Frances House?’

  ‘Yes, and subsidised, because we want them healthy,’ Ross replied. ‘I mean, we make more when they use medical services, but as healthy tenants they pay for entertainment not just sit and read all day.’

  When my phone trilled it was Armani. ‘Can I speak to Cardinal Roskov?’

  ‘Ha-ha. What you after?’

  ‘To inform you that the Pope has granted you the status of Honouree Cardinal, with the power to tell lower ranks what to do, access to all Catholic properties with the right to question people and investigate them.’

  ‘Oh. Well I guess that helps, as I travel around and punch priests in other countries.’

  ‘Perhaps you could avoid punching them and just have them confess.’

  ‘Be warned, that in Britain and Ireland I’ll send them to prison.’

  ‘That Irish priest will hand me a secret document that he has, produced by an internal government report in Ireland, The Matlock Report, dated 1993.’

  ‘What does it detail?’ I asked.

  ‘Abuses by priests going back sixty years, and suspected murders of children, where they’re buried...’

  ‘I want a copy, as soon as you have a copy.’

  ‘There is another report, the Driscoll Report from 1976, the same basic investigation. Both reports were kept secret and never released.’

  ‘Can’t think why.’

  ‘You’ll take action?’

  ‘I will, very loudly. Will that priest stand up in court?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then have him questioned in front of a good camera, in English, and get me the tape to use. Oh, and I want the authority – in writing – to sack and excommunicate a few bishops in Ireland.’

  ‘That we can do, but … why so loud and public?’

  ‘To stop this happening again fifty years from now. If we fix the Vatican, let’s keep it fixed, eh.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Back at the table, I told them, ‘You now refer to me as Cardinal Roskov, or Your Grace.’

  ‘You what?’ Bonza puzzled.

  ‘I’m now an honouree cardinal, with the authority to kick in church doors and deal with priests around the world.’

  ‘Should make it easier,’ Gloria noted. ‘You can investigate them and they can’t say no, Your Grace.’

  I shot her a look. ‘I think my new title will make it into a few newspapers, the first atheist playboy cardinal.’

  After we had eaten we mounted up, now 4pm, vans supplied by Ross Daniels, but the police contingent insisted that they have a man in each minibus, each bus offering tinted windows for privacy.

  Arriving at the site of the planned social nursing home complex, we stepped down into a cold wind under a grey sky, and we met the head builder and his team, as well as a few architects. They had four white cabins behind a fence, and behind them sat a massive expanse of rubble, a few small buildings still being loudly demolished.

  On the south side sat a line of houses with some shops and cafes, the north side displayed an industrial area, the west side offered a shopping complex that was now defunct and closed, and the east side displayed a school and some playing fields.

  I told the head builder, who spoke reasonable English, ‘Make sure that the ground floor windows are high and strong, a fence around the site, the building to start three metres in.’

  He nodded. ‘We see plans for England like that. Ground floor will be very secure.’

  Inside a warm hut, they showed me the provisional plans, each of eleven buildings to be four floors plus the roof gardens.

  The basic designs were as per my first nursing home in Leicester, more or less the same, but here there would be a common medical facility and morgue so that a resident would not need an ambulance for something serious; they could be treated in the small hospital on site.

  But that hospital would be spread over four floors and would offer four hundred beds; it was no small outpost.

  ‘Will the state fund the hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, most of it, and they save money. Four hundred beds here, fifty less beds in eight city hospitals – they is happy.’

  ‘Warehouse?’

  He pointed at the drawing. ‘Here. They come in at night with truck, the food goes to the cafes and nursing homes, ready by 6am.’