It seemed somehow appropriate that Ruprechtskirche on Ruprechtsplatz should be the contact point in Vienna for old comrades who were on the run from Allied justice. Ruprechtsplatz lies just south of the canal and Morzinplatz, which was where the Gestapo had had its headquarters in Vienna. Perhaps that was why the church had been chosen. There was very little else to recommend it. The church was the oldest in Vienna and somewhat dilapidated. Unusually this was not, according to a sign inside the door, the result of Allied bombing, but because of the negligent demolition of a neighboring building. Inside, it was as cold as a Polish cowshed and almost as plain. Even the Madonna looked like a milkmaid. But there is a surprise in store for anyone visiting the church. Under a side altar, preserved in a glass casket, lies the blackened skeleton of Saint Vitalis. It’s as if Snow White had waited much too long for her prince to come and rescue her from a deathlike slumber with love’s first kiss.

Father Lajolo—the Italian priest named by Father Gotovina as someone who was connected to the Comradeship—was almost as thin as Saint Vitalis, and not much better preserved. As thin as a coat hanger, he had hair like wire wool and a face like a billhook. He was quite tanned and as gap-toothed as a Ming dynasty lion. Wearing a long black cassock, he looked very Italian to me, like a face in a crowd scene in a canvas by some Florentine old master. I followed him into a side apse and, in front of an altar, I handed him a railway ticket for Pressbaum. As in Munich, with Father Gotovina, I had crossed out all of the letters on the ticket, except the ss.

“I was wondering if you could recommend a good Catholic church in Pressbaum, Father,” I said.

Seeing my ticket and hearing my carefully worded question, Father Lajolo winced a little, as if pained by this meeting and, for a moment, I thought he would answer that he knew nothing at all about Pressbaum. “It’s possible I can help, yes,” he said, in a thick Italian accent. It was almost as thick as the smell of coffee and cigarettes with which it was coated. “I don’t know. That all depends. Come with me.”

He led me into the sacristy, which was warmer than the church. Here there were a holy-water font, a freestanding gas fire, a closet for various vestments in all the latest liturgical colors, a wooden crucifix on the wall, and through an open door, a lavatory. He closed the door through which we had come and locked it. Then he went over to a small table with a kettle, some cups and saucers, and a simple gas-ring.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Please, Father.”

“Sit down, my friend.” He pointed to one of a pair of threadbare armchairs. I sat down and took out my cigarettes.