Minot fought to contain his exultant emotion.
‘So you agree?’
‘Agree to what?’
Minot regarded him fixedly.
‘I give you conclusive evidence of the killer’s identity. In return, you drop all charges and release me unconditionally.’
Zen snorted.
‘It’ll take more than a stray button to get anyone convicted, Minot. And to get you released.’
‘There is more.’
‘What?’
Minot smiled conspiratorially.
‘Ah, well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? And I can’t very well do that until I know that you’re going to keep your end of the bargain.’
The plain-clothed cop shifted awkwardly in his chair.
‘Listen, capo,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you should be…’
‘That’ll do, Morino.’
Zen turned to Minot.
‘All right, so what do you propose? You can’t expect an unconditional discharge until I can evaluate what you’re offering in return, and you’re apparently not prepared to reveal that until I’ve handed over the papers, signed and sealed. In short, you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you.’
Minot nodded slyly.
‘So we need to find a third party. That’s what we do in the truffle business when we’re dealing with some outsider, use a go-between we can both trust.’
‘You mean a lawyer?’
Minot laughed.
‘Someone we could trust, I said!’
‘Do you know someone?’
‘Plenty of people, dottore, but you don’t know them. So let’s look at it the other way round. Can you think of someone round here that you trust? The chances are that I’ll know them, too, and perhaps we can do business.’
Zen considered a minute.
‘I suppose there’s Lucchese…’
Minot glanced at him in surprise.
‘You know him? Perfect.’
‘This is highly irregular, capo!’ protested Morino.
‘Shut up,’ Zen told him, lifting the phone. ‘And strike all references to a deal from the record. Hello? Ah, good morning, principe. This is Aurelio Zen.’
Minot did not bother to listen to the ensuing one-sided conversation, preoccupied as he was with reviewing his own position. As always, he had acted instinctively. That was his great strength. Plans that were not made could not be exposed later. It was just a question of checking that his spontaneous words and actions were consistent with the apparent facts of the case. He did, and they were.
‘… take receipt of the item and of the papers which I will give you,’ Zen was saying into the phone. ‘I will then examine the former and, if satisfied, authorize you to release the latter to the said third party. Agreed? Very good.’
He hung up and looked at Minot.
‘Lucchese agrees. Where is the evidence in question?’
‘At my house. I’ll go and pick it up, then bring the evidence back to the Palazzo Lucchese in person.’
‘Don’t trust him, capo!’ Morino burst out. ‘I’ll take a couple of men and go over the place with a fine-tooth comb. Whatever’s there, we’ll find it!’
Knowing what was at stake, it took Minot all his nerve to smile disdainfully.
‘I could have it on me right now and you’d never find it,’ he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
Zen shot him a keen look.
‘It’s small enough to conceal, then?’
Minot smiled.
‘You could hide it under one finger. Or on it, for that matter.’
‘A ring?’ snapped Zen. ‘Without continuity of evidence, that’s no more use than your famous button!’
Minot stood up and stretched lazily.
‘What have you got to lose, dottore? If you don’t like the product, you don’t have to go through with the deal. But you will, I promise you that. Just get the papers for my release written up. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.’
As ten o’clock sounded, at various intervals and pitches from bell towers all over town, Aurelio Zen mounted the steps of the Palazzo Lucchese and pushed the recessed brass bell beside the door on the first floor. He rang five times, ever more lengthily, then sat down on one of the shallow stone steps leading up to the next floor and lit a cigarette.
The bells ceased and silence fell. Somewhere inside the building, Zen could now make out a brittle tinkling sound he associated with adjacent wine-glasses in the sink of his apartment back in Rome when the neighbouring refrigerator rattled into action. At length another sound intervened: a dull, regular clumping, as if someone were pounding with a hammer. It was coming, he realized, from the steps below. A few moments later an elderly woman emerged, formidably breathless, on the landing. She turned on Zen a face so creased and contoured that it could have been classified as an historic site, produced a large key from her dauntingly capacious handbag and set about unlocking the front door.
‘Good morning,’ said Zen.
Much to his surprise, the crone responded with a complacent smile. Dear God, he thought, she used to be a beauty.
‘I’m here to see Prince Lucchese,’ he continued, standing up. ‘My name’s Aurelio Zen. He’s expecting me.’
The woman sighed and made a compendious gesture suggesting that the prince was a busy man, even slightly eccentric in his way, and not to be held to prior appointments or arrangements; that she herself had been battling with this situation for longer than she cared to remember; and that if Zen had just arrived, he should join the queue.
‘Wait here,’ she told him. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The door closed behind her. Zen resumed his seat and smoked quietly for some time. Eventually the door opened again and a withered hand waved impatiently.
‘The prince will see you now.’
Inside, the sense of spacious gloom and dilapidated gentility was unchanged, like a museum exhibit preserved under a bell jar. The old woman indicated a door to the left at the end of the hall.
‘In there.’
It was yet a different room from his previous visits, as though the prince had decided to give Zen a gradual guided tour of the palace. This one was a sort of antechamber, as long and narrow as a corridor, but with a hexagonal bay at the far end. The walls were bare, the ceiling high. A small teak table, an embroidered sofa and a darkened cane chair were the only furnishings. Lucchese was sitting in the latter, resplendently casual in the now- familiar silk dressing-gown.
‘Ah, there you are!’ exclaimed Lucchese in a tone of irritation. ‘I almost changed my mind about this business after speaking to you. My upbringing does not permit me to display spontaneous emotion, but when you rang earlier, I was working on the allemande from Bach’s D major partita. Do you know Wanda Landowska’s famous mot on the subject? She’d had an argument with another musician over stylistic issues. “Very well,” was her parting shot, “you play Bach your way and I’ll play him his way!” This morning, for the first time, I felt I was playing Bach his way, and then the phone rings…’
A gesture.
