With the exception of Byron Willis – who was married and had two young children and still worked as many hours as Harry did and maybe more – he had no genuine friends, no soul mates of any kind. His life moved too quickly for those kinds of relationships to develop. Women were no different. He was part of Hollywood 's inner circle, and beautiful women were everywhere. He used them and they used him; it was all part of the game. A private screening, dinner afterward, sex, and then back to business; meetings, negotiations, telephones, maybe seeing no one at all socially for weeks at a time. His longest affair had been with an actress and lasted little more than six months. He'd been too busy, too preoccupied. And until now it had seemed all right.

Turning from the desk, Harry went to the window and looked out. The last time he'd looked, the city had been a dazzle of early-evening sun. Now it was night, and Rome sparkled. Below him, the Spanish Steps and the Piazza di Spagna beyond teemed with people – a mass congregation of coming and going and just being, with little collections of uniformed police here and there making sure none of it got out of hand.

Farther away he could see a convergence of narrow streets and alleyways, above which the orange-and-cream-colored tile rooftops of apartments, shops, and small hotels fingered out in ancient orderly blocks until they reached the black band of the Tiber. Across it was the lighted dome of St Peter's, that part of Rome where he'd been earlier in the day. Beneath it sprawled Jacov Farel's domain, the Vatican itself. Residence of the pope. Seat of authority for the world's nine hundred and fifty million Roman Catholics. And the place where Danny had spent the final years of his life.

How could Harry know what those years had been like? Had they been enriching or merely academic? Why had Danny gone from the marines to the priesthood? It was something he had never understood. Not surprising, because at the time they were barely talking, so how could he have asked at all without sounding judgmental? But looking out now at the lighted dome of St Peter's, he had to wonder if it was something there, inside the Vatican, that had driven Danny to call him, and afterward sent him to his death.