more than an outline of the organization’s history, structure and overt aims. Founded in 1070, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta was the third oldest religious Order after the Benedictines and Augustans, and the first to consist entirely of laymen. The Order was originally formed to staff and run infirmaries during the Crusades, but soon took on a military role as well. At the end of the twelfth century the Knights retreated to Rhodes, from where they conducted covert operations all over the Middle East until their expulsion by the Turks in 1522. Thereafter they led a token existence in Malta until Napoleon’s conquest of the island once again forced them into exile, this time in Rome.
The Knights had thus lost their original religious and political relevance by 1522, and the last fragment of their territorial power three centuries after that. Nevertheless, like an archaic law which has never been repealed, the Order still enjoyed the status and privileges of an independent nation state, with the power to mint coins, print stamps, license cars, operate a merchant fleet and issue passports to its diplomats and other favoured individuals. ‘Like Opus Dei [q.v.],’ Zen read, ‘the Order is exempt from the jurisdiction of local bishops, being under the direct authority of the pope, exercised through the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes. The contradiction between the obedience required by this relationship and the independence inherent in the Order’s sovereign temporal status has on occasion led to acrimonious conflicts.’
Zen scanned the rest of the report, which sketched the structure of this very exclusive organization. At least sixteen quarterings of noble blood were required for membership, except in a special category — Knights of Magisterial Grace — created to accommodate prominent but plebian Catholics. At the core of the Order were the thirty ‘professed’ knights, or Knights of Justice, who had taken a triple vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. ‘Governed by the His Most Eminent Highness the Prince and Grand Master with the help of a “general chapter” which convenes regularly, the Order donates medicine and medical equipment to needy countries and performs humanitarian work throughout the Third World…’
The text began to blur in front of Zen’s eyes. It was clear what was involved: a snobbish club designed to give the impoverished remnants of the Catholic aristocracy access to serious money, while bestowing a flattering glow of religious and historical legitimacy over the ruthlessly acquired wealth of the nouveaux riches. Under cover of the Order’s meritorious charitable work, its members could dress up in fancy red tunics, flowing capes and plumed hats and indulge themselves to their heart’s content in the spurious rituals and meaningless honours of a Ruritanian mini-state. All very silly, no doubt, but no more so than most pastimes of the very rich. What was really silly was the idea that such an organization might be capable of plotting — never mind executing — the cold-blooded murders of Ludovico Ruspanti and Giovanni Grimaldi.
The taxi drew up in the courtyard of an umbertino monstrosity on a quiet street overlooking the gardens of the Villa Borghese. The uniformed doorman surveyed Zen without notable enthusiasm, but eventually let him pass. Zen identified himself at Reception, walked across the spacious lobby and flopped down in a large armchair, wondering what he was going to say. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Antonio Simonelli had a vested interest in establishing that Ruspanti’s death was connected with the currency fraud which he had been investigating. If it wasn’t, then his entire dossier on the affair, painstakingly compiled over many months of arduous work, would become so much wastepaper. Since Ruspanti had died in St Peter’s, which was technically foreign soil, Simonelli could not pursue his suspicions officially without the cooperation of the Vatican, which was not forthcoming. Zen was therefore the magistrate’s only hope.
What Simonelli wanted from him was some inside information, some awkward fact or compromising discrepancy, which he could use to bring pressure to bear on the Vatican authorities to permit a full official investigation of Ruspanti’s death to be carried out by him in collaboration with one of the Vatican’s own magistrates. The affair would then drag on inconclusively for years, until it petered out, smothered beneath the sheer volume of contradictory and confusing evidence. That would be of no concern to Simonelli, who would meanwhile have established himself as one of the rising stars of the judiciary, a man to watch. As for Zen, he would be used and abused without respite by all sides in the affair, and would be lucky to keep his job. Unless he scotched this thing now, he would never hear the end of it.
There was a buzz of voices behind him.
‘I have nothing further to say!’
‘According to Giorgio Bocca, your philosophy encapsulates the shallow, a-historical consumerism of the nineties. Do you accept that?’
Zen turned to find a strikingly attractive man in his mid-twenties standing at bay before a pack of reporters brandishing notebooks and microphones. His sleek, feral look jibed intriguingly with his boyish fair hair and the candour of his pale blue eyes. His movements were almost feminine in their suppleness, yet the look of breathtaking insolence with which he confronted the journalists could hardly have been more macho.
‘Bocca can say what he likes. No one’s listening anyway. As for me, my clothes speak for me!’
They certainly did, a layered montage of overlapping textures and colours so cunningly contrived that one hardly noticed where one garment ended and another began. Especially in motion, the resulting flurry of activity was so distracting that you hardly noticed the man himself.
Another reporter waved a microphone in the man’s face.
‘Camilla Cederna has said, “The one thing that is clear from this book is that it was composed by a ghost- writer. Since the invented personality the author describes is equally substanceless, the whole exercise amounts to one ghost writing about another.” Any comment?’
‘If la Cederna is so out of touch with the rhythms of contemporary reality, perhaps she should restrict herself to a topic more suited to her talents, for example needlework.’
This caused some laughter.
‘Fortunately the thousands of people who read my book and wear my clothes have no such difficulties,’ the man continued. ‘They understand that what I am is what I have made myself, using nothing but my own genius. I owe nothing to anyone or to anything! I am entirely my own creation! I am Falco!’
‘Dottor Zen?’
A corpulent man had approached the chair where Zen was sitting and stood looking down at him with a complacent expression.
‘I am Antonio Simonelli.’
They’re letting all sorts in these days, thought Zen as they shook hands. With his crumpled blue suit and hearty manner, Simonelli seemed more like a provincial tradesman than a magistrate. But this might well be a deliberate ploy designed to lull Zen into a false sense of security. And indeed Simonelli at once struck a confidential note.
‘You know who that was, of course?’
The media star had swept out by now, surrounded by his entourage, and the lobby was quiet again.
‘Some designer, isn’t he? I don’t really keep up with such things.’
Simonelli subsided into a leather chair opposite, which resembled an overdone souffle.
‘Falco, he calls himself,’ Simonelli explained in his Bergamo whine, like an ill-tuned oboe d’amore. ‘He’s based in Milan, but he’s down here promoting some book he’s published, explaining his “design philosophy” if you please. Of course he would have to choose the very hotel where I always stay. It’s terrible. You can’t move for reporters.’
He signalled a waiter. Zen ordered an espresso, Simonelli a caffe Hag.
‘It’s my heart,’ he explained, unwrapping a panatella cigar with his big, blunt fingers. ‘One of my colleagues dropped dead just last month. He was fifteen years younger than me. Gave me a bit of a jolt, so I had a check-up, and it turns out I’m at risk myself.’
Zen smiled politely.
‘Anyway, I mustn’t bore you with my problems,’ the magistrate went on. ‘Except for the Ruspanti case, that is. I don’t know how much you know about the investigation I have been involved in…’
‘Only what I’ve read in the newspapers.’
‘It’s all water under the bridge now, of course,’ Simonelli sighed mournfully. ‘With my key witness dead, there’s no case to be made. This is really only a private chat, just to satisfy my curiosity. Naturally whatever is said between us two will remain strictly off the record.’
He broke off as the waiter brought their coffees. Simonelli emptied two sachets of sugar into his cup and looked across the table at Zen as he stirred.
‘So tell me, what really happened? Did he fall, or was he pushed?’
