He switched off the radio and blew out the candle.
‘Is it them, chief?’ asked the man to his left.
‘How the fuck do I know?’ the tall man snapped back. ‘Total silence from now on. If anyone screws this up, they’ll be on foot patrol in Palermo next week.’
‘Is that a promise?’ muttered the man with the Southern accent.
‘Shut up!’
The four sat perfectly still in the darkness, listening to the play of the water beneath them. Only after some time, and then very gradually, did another set of sounds become apparent, a different and more purposeful rhythm complicating the gentle ostinato to which they had grown so accustomed that they had almost ceased to be aware of it. The disturbance gradually approached and passed by. A moment later it ceased altogether. There was chink of metal, several thuds, a grunt. Then silence fell.
‘Let’s go!’
There was a flurry of movement in the darkness. Someone slipped outside, making the boat rock. Then they were mobile, gliding silently across the darkened water towards a wall towering over them like the face of a cliff. A distant streetlamp, hidden from where they had been moored, cast its pallid flickers on the scene. By its light they could make out Mino Martufo crouched on the foredeck, hauling in the sodden hempen rope which he had secured to a mooring post on the other bank of the canal on their arrival three hours earlier.
As the unmarked motor launch came alongside, its bow nudging the inflatable rubber dinghy tied up by the crumbling steps greasy with weed and mud, the Sicilian leapt ashore and made fast to a rusty ring-bolt in the wall. He then held the launch alongside the steps while Zen and Pia Nunziata disembarked. Bettino Todesco drew his service revolver and covered Zen as he mounted the steps and pushed open the massive water-door at the top.
‘Wait here,’ he whispered to the others.
Once inside, the darkness was complete. The few feeble glimmers which filtered in through the doorway were at once swallowed up by a resonant, cavernous reservoir of darkness. Zen stepped cautiously forward, following the wall with the tips of his fingers until he reached the stairs. He glanced back at Todesco and Nunziata, framed in the open doorway. Overcoming a strong sense of reluctance, Zen turned away and started up the stone staircase.
There was not a sound to be heard in the house. When Zen reached the hallway running the length of the first floor, he paused uncertainly. The light was better here, a dimness informed by faint reflections of a streetlight somewhere outside. He turned left and began to climb the next flight of stairs. This had been forbidden territory when he had visited the house as a child. An absolute distinction existed between the show spaces of the piano nobile and the private rooms on the floor above. The young Aurelio had had the run of the former, but the latter were taboo, and even now he had to overcome a sense of dread at venturing up the staircase mimicking the public one he had just climbed, but on a smaller, more intimate scale.
He had gone about halfway up when a sound in the yawning darkness above brought him to an abrupt halt. Sounds, rather: shifting, superimposed layers of keening edged at moments with shrill, grating shrieks. Zen felt his skin and scalp bristle all over. A shiver passed down his spine. Then a long, lingering scream split the night like lightning.
The sheer intensity of fear in it acted as a trigger, releasing Zen from his stupor and sending him dashing up the shallow steps, scrabbling for the rail to regain his balance, tumbling clumsily out on to the landing where the stairs ended. The cacophony was louder here, the strands more distinct: a continuous groaning and wailing punctuated by dull blows and panic-stricken howls of terror. Groping his way towards the source of these sounds, Zen blundered into something hard and hollow which resounded loudly from the contact.
The din inside at once faltered, then broke off altogether, dying away in a succession of grunts and heavy breathing. Then a panel opened in the darkness, a rectangle flickering and shimmering with a ghostly luminescence. Zen rushed forward and abruptly collided with a figure which appeared in the doorway. It gave a startled cry and tried to push past. When Zen held on, they both went tumbling to the floor.
A woman started screaming for help. Another figure burst out of the dimly lit room. It rushed at Zen, and a sharp blow struck his head. He twisted away, still grappling with the first assailant, and was gratified to feel the next kick cushioned by that body. He looked up at the figure standing over them, and gasped. Above him stood a skeleton, the skull grinning horribly, the bony structure glowing white in the darkness.
The sight momentarily paralysed him, and by the time he had recovered the figure with whom he had been grappling had wriggled away and sprung to its feet. It towered above him, lanky and loose-limbed in a flowing white Pierrot costume and an expressionless mask whose rounded features were as smooth as alabaster. Zen crawled backwards, trying to get to his feet, as the clown and the skeleton closed in.
A shot rang out somewhere below, incredibly loud, precise and authoritative. There was an answering scream and a series of shouts, then two more shots. Leaping nimbly over Zen, the skeleton disappeared from view. Zen twisted round just in time to see the clown’s foot lash out at him. He took the blow on his chest and hung on, wrenching the foot around, but it came off in his hand. He looked again, and found he was holding a Nike trainer.
The clown staggered away through the doorway. Zen struggled to his feet and followed, ignoring the shouts echoing up the stairwell. The door slammed shut in his face, but he barged it open again with his shoulder and stumbled into the room. He took in at a glance the elderly woman in bed, her face a mask of terror, and the figure running towards the open window on the other side of the room.
‘Police!’ he yelled. ‘Freeze!’
The clown sprang on to a dressing-table and jumped out through the window. A moment later there came a loud splash, a succession of confused voices, then an incredibly brilliant light. Zen ran over to the window and looked out. The searchlight on the forward deck of the motor launch was trained down at the canal, pinpointing the flowing white costume spreading like a stain on the water. The figure had been trying to swim away, but now it turned, blinded by the light, and caught hold of the boathook which Mino Martufo was holding out from the stern of the launch.
Zen closed the window and turned round. Ada Zulian had sat up in bed, the covers clutched around her, staring indignantly at him as though he were the intruder.
‘It’s all right, contessa, ’ Zen told her. ‘You’re safe now. We’ve got the bastards.’
He hurried to the door and downstairs, turning on the lights as he went. When he reached the portego he almost tripped over someone lying sprawled on the marble paving. He stopped, gazing in horror at the blue police uniform, the long hair, the puddle of blood all around. Pia Nunziata opened her eyes and attempted a pallid smile.
‘It isn’t as bad as it looks,’ she muttered.
Zen knelt down beside her.
‘I had no idea they’d be armed,’ he said helplessly.
‘They weren’t.’
‘But…’
‘It was Bettino.’
‘ What? ’
The policewoman’s attempted shrug turned into a wince and a groan.
‘It was an accident. He didn’t know I was following him. We heard the racket upstairs and came running. I happened to bump into him, and he must have thought…’
Zen shook his head wearily.
‘Where are you hit?’
‘My arm. The upper part, where it’s soft. It’s just a flesh wound. I don’t think there’s any danger.’
She glanced down at the fingers of her left hand, clutched tightly around the sleeve of her uniform jacket.
‘It’s starting to hurt, though.’
Zen straightened up.
‘We’ll get you to hospital right away.’
‘The worst of it is, the bastard got away.’
‘Todesco?’
