it merely confirmed what I already knew or had guessed. And I could easily have brought it with me, had I been interested in collecting evidence. But this case is never going to come to court. Apart from anything else, the principals are all dead. Colonel Comai was almost certainly murdered by his wife, by the way. At the time of Ferrero’s death, Claudia assumed that he had been killed by accident in that plane crash. It was another fifteen years before her husband finally revealed the truth in the course of a marital row. A short time later he fell, or more likely was pushed, to his death. And his widow Claudia herself ended her life at a hotel in Lugano.’
He paused for a moment.
‘Which leaves only you, Guerrazzi.’
He went over to the wall where Passarini had left the pistol and carefully wiped the weapon clean of fingerprints on his scarf before setting it down on the floor about two metres beyond the furthest reach of the injured man.
‘You should be able to reach that in due course. It will be totally dark in here, of course, and moving will be painful. But under the circumstances you may well decide that the alternatives are even less desirable.’
Zen got out Guerrazzi’s SISMI identification and checked that the signature on the blank sheets of paper corresponded to that on the card. He then went through the rest of the other man’s belongings. The keys he retained and the knife he tossed into a corner. Lastly he removed the battery from the mobile phone and then threw them separately to different ends of the shed.
‘So you’re appointing yourself judge, jury and executioner,’ Guerrazzi commented with a certain bitter satisfaction.
‘Just the first two, colonnello, and then only after conducting a full investigation. Unlike you, who took on all three roles on nothing but the unsupported word of a vengeful husband.’
‘I was a soldier obeying the orders of my commanding officer!’
‘What you were was a fool, Guerrazzi. Take these tattoos with the face of the Gorgon, for example. Ferrero and Soldani both had them. I imagine that you and Passarini did too.’
‘It was part of the induction ceremony.’
‘To make life easy for the opposition, no doubt. No need for lengthy interrogations or the third degree. To identify you as a member, all they had to do was roll up your sleeve. And it wasn’t as if Colonel Comai didn’t know any better. He regularly used to smuggle in huge amounts of cash through Switzerland, using the casino at Campione as his clearing house. You can’t do that without powerful friends, and Comai was almost certainly paymaster to one of the real extreme right-wing conspiratorial organizations that were operating at the time. But he knew that the real thing wouldn’t be colourful enough to attract young idiots like you, so he dreamt up this fantasy secret society complete with tattoos and passwords and induction ceremonies and bonding rituals and all the rest of it. And you fell for the hoax, and on the strength of it you have committed two murders and were planning a third.’
‘It’s not true! It can’t be true!’
‘It is true, colonnello. Your entire career has been predicated on a lie. You are evidently a great admirer of military discipline and traditions. So am I, in my way, so I shall now leave you to reflect on the situation and then do as you see fit.’
Zen walked down the alley and out of the building, closing the heavy door behind him and wiping off the handle. After the damp, fetid atmosphere inside the stalla, the night air smelt wonderful.
Gabriele Passarini was waiting with his bags in the courtyard.
‘Right, let’s be off!’ said Zen briskly. ‘Got all your stuff?’
‘Everything except my bicycle.’
‘Is there anything about it to link it to you?’
‘No.’
Passarini hesitated.
‘In fact it’s a ladies’ model.’
‘Then forget it. We must leave immediately.’
‘But what about him?’
He gestured to the cowshed.
‘Oh, that’s all sorted out,’ Zen replied, picking up one of Passarini’s bags and leading the way to the gate. ‘Colonel Guerrazzi and I have come to an understanding and he’s given me full instructions. As soon as we’re clear of the area, I’ll call a number he provided and dispatch a military ambulance to come and pick him up. We couldn’t use the civilian service, of course. They’d want to know what he’d been doing here and how it happened and who we were and all the rest of it. This way, the whole incident will just be forgotten.’
They passed through the little door and Zen closed it behind them.
‘But what about me?’ Passarini whined. ‘He’ll come after me again, or send someone else.’
‘No, he won’t,’ Zen told him as he unlocked his car. ‘Part of our understanding is that he’s made a written statement on those sheets of paper you brought me. I’ll ensure that it’s forwarded to the appropriate quarters. Soon everyone will know about Operation Medusa, so your knowledge will be of no significance.’
‘But there’ll be an enquiry. I’ll have to testify in court.’
‘Your name is not mentioned in Colonel Guerrazzi’s statement. Anyway, no one’s interests would be served by holding a public enquiry. The whole thing will be brushed under the carpet as yesterday’s news. Apparently he’s planning to put out a disinformation story to account for his injuries and allow adequate time for recuperation. But the success of this plan depends absolutely on neither of us disclosing anything about what has happened. Now then, where did he leave his car?’
Passarini looked at Zen doubtfully.
‘Didn’t he tell you?’
‘We overlooked that detail.’
‘It’s in a thicket just a little way along the road. I heard him arrive.’
‘Right. There are apparently sensitive documents in the vehicle and he wants it disposed of safely. He’s given me full instructions. Can you drive with your ankle in that state?’
‘I’m not incapacitated. It’ll hurt a bit, but that kind of pain I can deal with.’
Zen started the engine and turned round.
‘Then you take this car and I’ll drive his. Stay behind me all the way to the place where he wants it dropped off, and then I’ll drive you back to Milan.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ said Passarini as they bumped down the drive leading from the cascina to the paved road. ‘I don’t understand who you are and I don’t understand what you’re doing.’
‘It’s not so much what I’m doing, it’s what I’m undoing. And you don’t need to understand. All you need do is to forget that this ever happened. If you do that, I guarantee that you will be left in peace.’
It was this last phrase that finally persuaded Gabriele. Left in peace! That was all he had ever wanted to be.
XX
Two days later, shortly after seven o’clock in the morning, Aurelio Zen stepped out of the front door of the apartment that he shared with Gemma Santini and ran lightly downstairs and out into the hazy sunlight, heading for the Piazza del’ Anfiteatro. It was a short walk to the archway into the oval space that never failed to move him at any hour of the day or night, its perfect proportions balanced by the variegated facade of medieval houses quarried out of and built on to the original Roman walls.
The only cafe open offered La Nazione, La Stampa and La Gazzetta dello Sport by way of national newspapers. Lucca was the inverse of San Giorgio di Valpolicella, a ‘white’ town in the midst of traditionally Communist Tuscany. Zen ordered a double espresso and glanced through the first two papers, but there was no reference to the matter in which he was interested. Nor had there been a word about it on the news he had listened to before leaving the apartment. It had of course occurred to him that this might well not work out. It was like patience, the only game Zen enjoyed playing, apart from professional ones. Sometimes the cards came out right, sometimes they didn’t. All you could do was to arrange them as best you could and leave the rest to
