"Yes. Gris Marsala. She's a nun. American, been in Seville for years. An expert – so they say – in restoring religious buildings. Haven't you met her yet?"

Quart, distracted by the sound of pieces of the puzzle clicking into place, paid little attention to the prelate's words. So that was it, he thought. The jarring note. "I met her yesterday. I didn't realise she was a nun."

"Well, she is." Corvo's tone was grim. "She, Father Oscar and Macarena Bruner are Father Ferro's allies. She's here in Seville in a private capacity. She has a dispensation from her order, so she's not under my jurisdiction. I don't have the authority to order her to leave Our Lady of the Tears. Anyway, I can't go persecuting priests and nuns."

He exhaled smoke like a squid hiding behind a cloud of ink. He looked again at Quart's Mont Blanc. "Let me summon the parish priest now," he said. "I called him here for a meeting this morning, but I wanted to talk to you privately first. I think it's time to see what's what, don't you? Let the opposing sides confront each other."

The archbishop glanced at the bell on his desk, next to a well-thumbed copy of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.

"One last point, Quart. I don't like you, but you're a career priest, and you know as well as I that even in this profession there are plenty of mediocrities. Father Ferro is one of them." He took his pipe out of his mouth and gestured at the bound volumes lining his study walls. "All the thinking of the Church – from Saint Augustine to Saint Thomas, and the encyclicals of all the pontiffs – is here within these four walls, and I'm its temporal administrator. I have to deal with stocks and shares while maintaining a vow of poverty, make pacts with enemies and sometimes condemn friends… Every morning I sit at this desk and, with God's help, I manage priests of all kinds: intelligent, stupid, fanatical, honest, wicked; political priests, priests opposed to celibacy, saints and sinners.