presumably his secretary in Milan — the officious woman Ciliani had spoken to — had not been informed of this, and was still trying to complete the earlier arrangement.
‘Fine!’ said Ciliani. ‘I’ll give Milan a call and explain that your departure was unavoidably delayed due to medical complications, but you have since made a swift and complete recovery and will be with them tomorrow. Speaking of which, it’s tough about Carlo, eh?’
‘What?’
‘Romizi, Carlo Romizi.’
‘Oh, you mean his stroke? Yes, it’s…’
‘Haven’t you heard the news?’
‘What news?’
Ciliani stuck his finger in his ear and extracted a gob of wax which he scrutinized as though deciding whether to eat it.
‘He went last night.’
‘Went? Went where?’
Ciliani looked at him queerly.
‘Died.’
‘No!’
Such was the emotion in Zen’s voice that Ciliani lowered his voice and said apologetically, ‘Excuse me, dottore, I didn’t know you were close.’
We are now, thought Zen. Trembling with shock, he left Ciliani and joined the human tide which was beginning to flow in the opposite direction, as those dedicated members of staff who had reported for duty on time rewarded their efficiency by popping out for a coffee and a bite to eat at one of the numerous bars which spring up in the vicinity of any government building like brothels near a port. Zen scandalized the barman by ordering a caffe corretto, espresso laced with grappa, a perfectly acceptable early-morning drink in the Veneto but unheard of in Rome.
He stood sipping the heady mixture and gazing sightlessly at the season’s fixture list for the Lazio football club. From time to time he took a stealthy peek at the idea which had leapt like a ghoul from the grave when Ciliani gave him the news of Carlo Romizi’s death. It didn’t go away. On the contrary, every time he glanced at it — surreptitiously, like a child in bed at the menacing shadows on the ceiling — it looked more substantial, more certain.
The pay-phone in the bar was one of the old models that only accepted tokens. Zen bought two thousand lire’s worth from the cashier and ensconced himself in the narrow passage between the toilet and a broken ice- cream freezer. A selection of coverless, broken-spined telephone directories sprawled on top of the freezer. Zen looked up the number of the San Giovanni hospital. The first four times he dialled, it was engaged, and when he finally did get through the number rang for almost five minutes and was then answered by a receptionist who had taken charm lessons from a pit bull terrier. But she was no match for a man with twenty-five years’ experience as a professional bully, and Zen was speedily put through to the doctor he had spoken to the week before.
All went well until Zen mentioned Romizi’s name, when the doctor suddenly lost his tone of polite detachment.
‘Listen, I’ve had enough of this! Understand? Enough!’
‘But I…’
‘She’s put you up to this, hasn’t she?’
‘I’m simply…’
‘I refuse to be harried and persecuted in this fashion! If it continues, I shall take legal advice. The woman is mad!’
‘Please understand that…’
‘In a case of this kind prognosis is always speculative, for the very good reason that a complete analysis is only possible post-mortem. I naturally sympathize with the widow’s grief, but to imply that the negligence of I or my staff in any way contributed to her husband’s death is slanderous nonsense. There were no unusual developments in the case, the outcome was perfectly consistent with the previous case-history. If Signora Romizi proceeds with this campaign of harassment, she will find herself facing charges of criminal libel. Good day!’
There were two columns of Romizis in the phone book, so Zen got the number from the Ministry switchboard. Carlo’s sister Francesca answered. Having conveyed his condolences, Zen asked if it would be possible to speak to Signora Romizi.
‘Anna’s just gone to sleep.’
‘It must have been a terrible shock for her.’
‘We’ve both found it very hard. They’d warned us that Carlo might not recover, but you never really think it will happen. He had seemed better in the last few…’
Her voice broke.
‘I’m sorry to distress you further,’ Zen said. ‘It’s just that I heard from someone at work that Signora Romizi felt that the hospital hadn’t done everything they might to save Carlo.’
There was no reply.
‘I was wondering if I could do anything to help.’
‘It’s kind of you.’ Francesca’s voice was bleak. ‘The problem is that Anna is finding it hard to accept what has happened, so she’s taking it out on the people there. And of course there’s plenty to complain about. Carlo had a bed in a corridor, along with about thirty other patients, some of them gravely ill. There are vermin, cockroaches and ants everywhere. The kitchen staff walked out last week after some junkie’s relatives held them up at gun point, and the patients might have starved if the relatives hadn’t got together and provided sandwiches and rolls. That’s on top of taking all the sheets home to wash, of course. Meanwhile when the politicians get ill, they go to the Villa Stuart clinic and get looked after by German nuns!’
‘If it’s not too painful, could you tell me what actually happened?’
Francesca sighed.
‘We had been taking it in turns to sit up with Carlo round the clock, so that there would always be a familiar face there at his bedside if he regained consciousness. Last night it was Anna’s turn to stay up. She says she dozed off in her chair and some time in the middle of the night a noise woke her. She sat up to find a doctor standing by the bed, someone she had never seen before. He seemed to be adjusting the controls of the life-support apparatus. When Anna asked him what he was doing, he left without…’
Francesca Romizi’s quiet voice vanished as though the barman pointing his remote control unit at Zen had changed the channel of his life. From the huge television set mounted on a shelf at the entrance to the passage, the commentary and crowd noises of a football match which had taken place in Milan the previous evening boomed out to engulf the bar.
‘Can you speak up?’ Zen urged the receiver.
‘… grew light… cold and pale… nurse was… told her…’
High on the wall above the telephone was a black fuse-box. Standing on tiptoe, Zen reached for the mains cut-out. As abruptly as it had started, the clamour of the television ceased again, to be replaced by the groans of the staff and clientele.
‘Not again!’
‘This is the tenth time this month!’
‘I’m not paying my electricity bill! They can do what they like, send me to prison, anything! I’m not paying!’
‘The government should step in!’
‘Rubbish! The abuse of political patronage is the reason we don’t have a viable infrastructure in the first place.’
Zen covered one ear with his hand and pressed the other to the receiver.
‘I’m sorry, I missed that.’
‘I said, Anna thinks that the doctor who tampered with the electronic equipment was some intern, not properly trained. She’s threatening to sue the hospital for negligence.’
Zen struggled to keep his voice steady.
‘Have you any evidence?’
