‘It’s quite extraordinary! The garlic and wine treatment usually works in a few days, but this is like a miracle. It’s as if I was never ill in the first place. Even after this stupid accident, I feel better than I have for ages!’
‘ Bella, no? ’ Legna replied, catching Zen’s eyes on a well-endowed woman walking towards them. ‘Yes, they have that effect too.’
‘What do?’ asked Zen, turning round to check out the back view.
‘ Tuberi di Afrodite, as we call them here. I take it you enjoyed the lunch I had sent up yesterday?’
‘It was delicious.’
‘But it’s not just a matter of gastronomic pleasure! I made sure they doubled the usual ration of truffles to increase the therapeutic effect. Some people here will tell you there’s nothing but death that they can’t cure.’
He turned left into the carriage entrance of an ancient three-storey palazzo, its sober facade relieved by ornate wrought-iron balconies and an elaborate plaster cornice. After a brief colloquy with the porter, they were admitted to Doctor Lucchese’s apartment on the first floor. The room into which they were ushered gave no hint that medical consultations might take place there. Lined with books, maps and prints, comfortably furnished with leather armchairs, antique tables and writing desks, it looked more like a scholar’s sanctum than a doctor’s consulting room.
Nor did the physician’s appearance inspire confidence. Gaunt, with a shock of long grey hair streaked with silver, wearing a silk dressing-gown and smoking a cigar, he replaced the battered book he had been reading on a table and greeted his guests with a vaguely reluctant, world-weary urbanity which did not seem to augur well for his medical skills.
‘Michele Gazzano,’ he said to Zen, indicating the book, once introductions had been made. ‘From Alba, eighteenth century. I’ve just been leafing through his chapter on blood feuds in Sardinia. He spent fifteen years there as a judge. We Piedmontese ruled the place then, of course. If we can believe what he says, very little has changed in two hundred years. Should we find that depressing or encouraging?’
Zen shrugged.
‘Both, perhaps.’
Lucchese eyed him keenly.
‘You know Sardinia?’
‘Not as well as your author, no doubt. But we — the Italians, that is — still do rule the place. A few years ago I was sent there to investigate the Burolo murder. You may remember it.’
Doctor Lucchese shook his head.
‘I find it hard to take anything that’s happened since I was born very seriously,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you?’
With an energy which suggested that he had been fretting on the sidelines, Tullio Legna intervened with an account of the various misfortunes which had befallen Dottor Zen since his arrival.
‘He caught the cold in Rome,’ he concluded, ‘and as soon as I got some trifola into his system, it acknowledged defeat and decamped. But now we have this new problem.’
Lucchese removed the plaster and inspected the injury.
‘Almost identical to the blow that felled Aldo Vincenzo,’ he murmured. ‘Were you also attacked?’
‘No, I did it myself.’
Once again, the doctor turned his disconcertingly undeceived gaze on Zen.
‘I see. Well, we’d better patch you up. Come with me, please.’
The room into which Zen was ushered was a bleak tiled chamber at the rear of the premises. Apparently a converted bathroom, it was small, chilly and none too clean. Lucchese rummaged round in various cupboards, quizzing himself aloud as to whether various necessary supplies existed, or would be usable if they did.
Matters improved once Lucchese got to work. First he injected a local anaesthetic, so painlessly that Zen didn’t even realize what had happened until the doctor started to scrub out the wound. Then came the stitches, six in all. Zen felt nothing but an odd sensation that an extra muscle had been inserted into his face and was now twitching experimentally.
‘How did this happen?’ asked Lucchese casually.
Zen ill-advisedly shook his head, and immediately winced.
‘I don’t know. I remember tossing and turning in bed, dreaming vividly. The next thing I knew, I felt a sharp blow to my forehead. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. When I turned on the light, I found myself in the bathroom, covered in blood.’
Lucchese tugged at the final stitch.
‘What did you mean about the Vincenzo business?’ asked Zen. ‘I thought he was stabbed to death.’
‘That happened subsequently. The first blow was to the temple, with something edged but not sharp. Probably a spade of some kind, since there were also traces of dirt.’
He gave a final wrench and snipped the thread.
‘There you are! Bathe it periodically with a pad of gauze soaked in dilute hydrogen peroxide, then come back in a few days and I’ll remove the stitches.’
‘For someone who doesn’t take any interest in recent news, you seem to know a lot about the Vincenzo case,’ Zen observed ironically, as he replaced his jacket.
‘The doctor who examined the corpse is a fellow member of the Chess Club of Alba. No one’s actually played chess there for over a century, of course, but we still show up once a week to smoke and chat, the handful of us who are left. Every so often we make a token effort to elect some new members, but whenever someone is proposed, one of us always seems to feel that he wouldn’t quite fit in.’
Lucchese placed the instruments he had used in the sink and peeled off his rubber gloves.
‘How much do I owe you?’ asked Zen.
‘I’m not finished yet. Suturing that cut is something that any competent intern could do. Healing your spirit will be more difficult.’
Zen glanced at him sharply.
‘I’ll settle for the first, thank you. How much?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I insist!’
Lucchese turned to him and smiled wanly.
‘I’m afraid you can’t force me to accept your money, even if doing so might make you feel better about evading the real issue.’
‘I’m not evading anything!’
‘There’s no need to shout, dottore. I am simply pointing out that the reason you required medical attention this morning is almost certainly because you experienced an episode of somnambulism, vulgarly termed sleepwalking.’
Zen gestured irritably.
‘That’s ridiculous! I’ve never done anything like that.’
‘You will yet do many things you’ve never done before, the last being to die,’ Lucchese replied. ‘On the basis of what you’ve told me, I can see no other explanation. But I quite understand your reluctance to accept it. Somnabulism is a profoundly disturbing phenomenon, bridging as it does two worlds which sanity and civilization require us to keep separate. As a policeman, you might like to regard it as a form of dreaming which leaves footprints in the soil — or, in your case, bloodstains in the sink. It is invariably the result of some profound psychic trauma, this being the injury which I loosely termed spiritual. Whenever you wish to discuss it with me, I am at your disposal.’
He opened the door for Zen.
‘And then, and only then, will I present my bill.’
Back in the living quarters of the house, Tullio Legna was deep in conversation with a young woman whom Zen assumed must be Lucchese’s daughter. The two policemen took their leave and walked down the echoing exterior steps to the courtyard.
‘So what’s this “new development” you mentioned on the phone?’ demanded Zen gruffly. He was still disconcerted by his exchange with Lucchese, as though the doctor had scored a point over him in some way.
Tullio Legna smiled broadly.
‘Well, dottore, despite this little mishap, it seems that you’re in luck!’
