‘She can stay with me. I’m going back today anyway.’
Zen grasped her arm.
‘You’re leaving?’
She shrugged dismissively.
‘Why not? There doesn’t seem much point in staying here, does there? I did what I came to do, or rather failed to do it. It was a silly idea anyway. It’s time to put it behind me and get on with my life.’
Now she was avoiding his eyes, looking studiously out of the window at the passers-by in the piazza. Zen took a deep breath.
‘About that blood test…’
Carla laughed briefly.
‘Oh, that! Send me the results when you get them. It’ll take months, probably. Anyway, it’s of no importance.’
Zen removed his hand from her arm.
‘Of no importance? But I thought…’
‘What did you think?’
‘I thought…’ He paused lamely. ‘I thought it was.’
‘I used to think so, too, but I’ve changed my mind. Now it just seems absurd. I mean, here am I, spending a fortune staying for a week at a hotel in a dreary provincial town, and all for what? Because my mother told me a story about having slept with some policeman the year before I was born!’
She sniffed scornfully.
‘I wasn’t going to tell you this, but when I started looking into this business, I kept running into the names of men my mother had slept with in the years before I was born — and after, for that matter. Not that I blame her for that! God knows, she had little enough else in the way of pleasure. But the chances of you being my real father, Dottor Zen, are frankly next to nothing. She couldn’t even get the story straight herself towards the end. Half the time it was you, and half the time it was Paolo or Piero or Pietro. But I had no way of tracing them, so when you showed up here…’
She took a two-thousand lire note out of her purse and dropped it on the bar.
‘Send this Lisa to the hotel. I’ll be glad to take care of her for you. Consider it a way of apologizing for the distress I’ve caused you. And don’t worry, I won’t bother you again.’
With a vague, mislaid smile, she turned and walked out.
‘Carla! Wait!’
He caught up with her in the piazza.
‘Listen, I…’
‘Look, dottore, I don’t want to seem rude, but will you please leave me alone? Every time I see you, I’m reminded of what a fool I’ve made of myself. In a few hours I’ll be gone, and I promise that you’ll never hear from me again. All right?’
‘No! No, it’s not all right!’
She looked at him with astonishment.
‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded angrily.
They were speaking so animatedly that a small crowd had formed around them, but Zen had eyes for no one but Carla Arduini.
‘You didn’t make a fool of yourself,’ he said.
She smiled scornfully.
‘Very kind, I’m sure. I happen to disagree.’
‘Those tests you mentioned? They’re already complete.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Lucchese’s brother runs the clinic where they’re done. He put our samples to the top of the pile and faxed the results through this morning. I’ve seen them, Carla. I’ll show them to you if you want, not that they’ll make any sense to you, or to me for that matter. But the prince explained them all to me, and the result is perfectly clear.’
They stared at each other with silent intensity.
‘Well?’ Carla burst out at last.
‘I’m afraid it may be bad news. But there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Tell me!’
Zen sighed and looked away.
‘The tests prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are indeed my daughter.’
Carla Arduini took a step back.
‘You’re joking.’
‘Do you think I would joke about something as important as this?’
He shook his head sadly.
‘You’re stuck with me, Carla. I may not be much of a father, but you’ll have to make the best of it, because I’m the only one you’ll ever have.’
There was a seemingly endless silence. Then Carla Arduini rushed at Zen and flung her arms around his neck.
‘Daddy!’
‘It wasn’t in vain!’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Everything your mother went through, everything you’ve been through. None of it was in vain.’
She broke the embrace and stepped back, biting her lip.
‘I’d given up hope.’
‘So had I.’
A ripple of polite applause recalled them to the realities of the situation. The assembled onlookers beamed their good wishes and congratulations, then tactfully dispersed.
‘Now then!’ said Zen decisively. ‘I’ve still got work to do, but I think this calls for a glass of spumante, don’t you?’
‘It won’t work,’ said Tullio Legna, chopping his right hand through the air as though to finish off this sickly idea once and for all.
Zen shrugged.
‘It might. And if it doesn’t, we still have the evidence to fall back on. But that will take longer. I think we should go in for the kill.’
‘You really believe the evidence will stand up?’
‘Why not? Minot may be an odd type in many ways, but he’s not stupid. He knows we can prove or disprove his assertions, and he knows we will. He has nothing to gain by lying, and everything to lose.’
The Alba police chief raised his eyebrows and emitted an expressive sigh.
‘He’s not the only one, dottore!’
Zen frowned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nanni Morino gave me an account of the methods you’ve been using so far,’ Legna continued in a bureaucratic tone. ‘I must say that I find them highly irregular, to say the least. I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, Dottor Zen. Maybe your approach is standard procedure at Criminalpol. I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that you’ve been interviewing individuals without a lawyer present, telling each a different story, and then doing a deal with one of them in exchange for a piece of supposed evidence whose value and authenticity we have had no chance to evaluate. And now you tell me that you’re going to invent a pack of lies and use them to get a confession out of someone who wasn’t even a suspect until now!’
‘He wasn’t, was he? Which is somewhat surprising, given the fact that he had both a strong motive and a perfect opportunity.’
‘I wasn’t aware of that!’ Tullio Legna insisted with undisguised anger.
‘Maybe that’s why I’m handling this case and not you, Dottor Legna,’ remarked Zen sweetly.
He turned to Dario.
‘Go and find Morino, then bring the Faigano brothers up here.’
