Zen introduced himself as Luigi Borsellino and outlined the cover story which he had prepared.
‘The case is still sub judice, but without going into details I can tell you that it concerns a drug-smuggling ring which has been bringing in heroin in consignments of tinned tuna from Thailand destined for the Vatican supermarket. Such goods are exempt from inspection by our customs officials, of course. The box containing the hot tuna is then moved across the unguarded frontier into Italy for distribution.’
Bevilacqua raised his eyebrows and whistled. Zen nodded.
‘The problem is that the resulting scandal would be so damaging for the Vatican that unless we go to them with a watertight case they might try and hush it up. What we’re doing at the moment is assembling a jigsaw of apparently unrelated pieces, one of which consists of some papers which we believe may be concealed in the Archives. But since we’re not liaising officially with the Vatican, we have no way of getting at them. That’s why your assistance would be invaluable — if you would be prepared to collaborate.’
He needn’t have worried. Tullio Bevilacqua was one of those men who are fascinated by police work. He clearly felt thrilled and privileged at the idea of becoming a part of this investigation, even on the basis of such a flimsy briefing. Zen had been prepared for awkward questions and hard bargaining, but Tullio had no more intention of quibbling about the details than a small boy who has been invited on to the footplate by the engine driver will stop to ask where the train is going.
‘We believe that the papers have been concealed in or near the document filed under this reference,’ Zen explained.
He passed Bevilacqua a card on which he had written the sequence of numbers and letters which Giovanni Grimaldi had noted in his diary.
‘Do we know what it looks like?’ asked the new recruit.
What a thrill that ‘we’ gave him!
‘It’s probably a number of typed pages, possibly with a printed heading of some sort to make it look official. In any case, it should stand out like a sore thumb in the middle of all those mediaeval manuscripts. Don’t worry about the contents. The information we need will be coded. Just get us the document and we’ll take care of the rest.’
Zen hoped that Grimaldi would have had the sense to remove any reference to Ruspanti on the cover of the transcript, and that the document itself would conform to the standard practice, identifying the telephone numbers involved rather than the speakers’ names. At any rate, Tullio Bevilacqua gave every impression of having been convinced by the story Zen had told him, and promised to do what he could to help. He gave Zen his home phone number and told him to ring between seven and eight that evening.
At the intersection just beyond offices of the assessorato alla cultura, four sets of converging facades combined to produce a perspective of vertiginous symmetry. Zen stood motionless at the kerb, gazing at the seemingly endless vistas on every side. In the even pearly light, the outlines of the buildings appeared to blur and merge into the expanse of the sky. It was impossible to say how much time passed before the metallic grey Lancia Thema screeched to a halt beside him.
‘Hop in,’ said Gilberto Nieddu.
The Sardinian had changed out of the jeans and poloneck he had been wearing earlier that morning into a sleek suit with matching tie and display handkerchief.
‘You look like a pimp at a wedding,’ Zen told him sourly as they swept off along the broad central boulevard running the length of EUR.
‘I’ve got an important lunch coming up,’ explained Nieddu. ‘It’s all very well for you, Aurelio. You can wear any old tat. In business, if you want to be rich and successful you have to look like you already are.’
Zen flushed indignantly. His suits came from an elderly tailor in Venice who had once supplied his father. They might not be in the latest style, but they were sober, durable, well-cut and of excellent cloth. To hear them denigrated was like hearing someone speak ill of a friend.
‘You sound like that jerk I saw on television yesterday,’ he retorted. ‘He claims that you are what you wear.’
‘Falco?’ exclaimed Nieddu. ‘He’s a genius.’
‘What!’
‘Well he’s done all right for himself, hasn’t he? Which reminds me, have you got the cash?’
‘Of course I’ve got it.’
The envelope containing the five fifty-thousand-lire notes was safely lodged in his jacket pocket. At this rate he was going to be broke by the New Year. They left the confines of EUR and drove along a road whose original vocation as a winding country lane was still perceptible despite the encroaching sprawl of concrete towers and jerry-built shacks which continually spilt across it. Nieddu punched the buttons of the radio without finding anything which satisfied him.
‘Want to hear a joke?’ he said. ‘This priest is playing bowls with the village drunk. Every time the drunk misses his shot, he yells, “Jesus wept!” “Don’t take Our Lord’s name in vain,” the priest tells him. Next shot, the drunk is wide again. “Jesus wept!” “If you blaspheme like that, God will strike you dead,” warns the priest. They play again, again the drunk misses. “Jesus wept!” Sure enough, a black thundercloud covers the sky, a bolt of lightning sizzles down and strikes dead… the priest. And from the heavens comes a tremendous cry, “ Jesus wept! ”’
Nieddu turned off on to a dirt track running through an enclave of shacks and shanties to the right of the tarred road. The Lancia bumped over dried mud ruts and a collapsed culvert. Three toddlers standing on a rusty pick-up perched on concrete blocks watched solemnly as they passed by. Just before the track turned left to rejoin the road, Nieddu stopped the car.
Like its neighbours, the house at the corner had apparently been cobbled together out of materials scavenged from other jobs. The walls were formed from breezeblocks, roof tiles, bricks of varying shape and shade, and sections of concrete and tile piping, all stuck together with plenty of rough thick cement. The property seemed to have grown organically, like a souk, further sections being added as and when required. Some of these were roofed with tiles, others with corrugated iron or asbestos sheeting, one with a sagging tarpaulin. There were few windows, and one of these, its wooden frame painted a lurid shade of puce, was nailed to the outside of the wall, presumably for decorative effect. The house was surrounded by a large expanse of bare earth, every growing thing having been consumed by the pigs and goats which roamed the property freely except for a small fenced-off area of kitchen garden. The entire lot was surrounded by a mesh fence against which two savage-looking mongrels were hurling themselves, their fangs bared at the intruders.
Nieddu locked the car, having first set and tested an alarm which briefly silenced the dogs. As he and Zen walked up to the gate they renewed their aggressive clamour, only to be stilled again, this time by a voice from inside the house. The front door opened and a shapeless, ageless creature appeared on the step. It was wearing a long robe of bright yellow silk, a crimson sash and a tiara set with green, blue and red stones.
Gilberto Nieddu raised his right hand in a gesture of salutation.
‘Peace be with you, signora!’
‘And with you.’
The voice was loud, coarse, hopelessly at odds with the archaic formulas of greeting.
‘We would fain speak with him that abideth here, yea, even with Mago,’ intoned Gilberto in a fruity tone, before adding prosaically, ‘I phoned earlier this morning.’
The figure screamed incomprehensible abuse at the dogs, who looked as though they might burst into tears at any moment, and slunk off to the rear of the property. Gilberto opened the gate and led the way across the yard to the door where the robed figure stood to one side, gesturing to them to enter.
The interior of the house was cool and dark and smelt strongly of animal odours. They walked along a passage which twisted and turned past a succession of open doorways. In one room a young man stripped to his underpants lay asleep on an unmade bed, in another an elderly man pored over a newspaper with a magnifying glass, in a third two teenagers wearing crinkly black acrylic shell suits with bold coloured panels sat watching a television set on top of which a cockerel perched, watching them in turn.
The next doorway was covered by a heavy velvet curtain.
‘Make ready your offering,’ hissed their guide.
Nieddu nudged Zen, who produced the envelope containing a quarter of a million lire. A plump hand appeared, its slug-like fingers bedecked with an assortment of jewelled rings, and the envelope vanished into the
