ranging from corruption to association with the Mafia. Result, no one dares to do a friend a favour any more. Nothing would please me more than to see this country turn into a paradise of moral probity, but how the hell are we supposed to get by in the meantime?’
Zen nodded. This was a conversation he had been having at least once a day for several months. By now he had the lines off by heart.
‘It’s just like in Russia,’ he declared. ‘The old system may have been terrible, but at least it functioned.’
‘My brother-in-law’s just moved into a new house near Rovigo,’ Valentini continued. ‘The telephone people tell him he’ll have to wait six weeks to get a phone installed, so he gets on to the engineer and offers him a bustarella, you know. Nothing exorbitant, just the odd fifty thousand or so to move up to the top of the list.’
‘The normal thing,’ murmured Zen.
‘The normal thing. You know what the guy tells him? “No way, dottore, ” he says. “It’s more than my job’s worth.” Can you believe it? “It’s more than my job’s worth.”’
‘Disgusting.’
‘How the hell are you supposed to get anything done with that sort of attitude? It’s enough to make you sick.’
He tossed his cigarette into the canal, where a seagull made a half-hearted pass at it before landing on the gunwale of the outermost police launch.
Back in their office, a man stood framed in the sunlight streaming in through the window. He turned as Zen and Valentini entered.
‘Aldo?’
He came forward, frowning at Zen.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked suspiciously.
Valentini introduced them.
‘Aurelio Zen, Enzo Gavagnin. Enzo’s head of the Drugs Squad.’
Enzo Gavagnin had a large womanish face and the stocky, muscular body of a gondolier. He inspected Zen coolly.
‘New posting?’
Zen shook his head.
‘I’m with the Ministry,’ he said. ‘On temporary assignment.’
Enzo Gavagnin glanced at Valentini.
‘An emissary from Rome, eh?’ he murmured in a manner both humorous and pointed. ‘I hope you haven’t been giving away any of our secrets, Aldo.’
‘I didn’t know we had any,’ Valentini replied lightly. ‘Anyway, anyone who comes all this way to take the Ada Zulian case off my hands is a friend as far as I’m concerned.’
Gavagnin laughed loudly.
‘Fair enough! Anyway, the reason I came was about that breaking-and-entering on Burano.’
‘The Sfriso business?’
‘If you want to reduce your work-load still further then you’re in luck, because I’ve discovered that there’s an angle which ties it in to a case we’ve been working on for some time…’
Valentini looked doubtful.
‘I don’t know, Enzo. If I shed two cases the same morning, people might start to ask questions.’
Gavagnin took Valentini’s arm and led him away.
‘It’s just because of the possible conflict of interest. Naturally we don’t want our on-going investigation compromised, so it’s better all round if…’
The pair disappeared behind the glass panelling around Valentini’s desk, becoming fuzzy, unfocused images of their former selves. Zen went into his own cubicle and dug the phone book out of the desk drawer. He looked up Paulon, M and dialled the number.
‘Well?’
The reply was abrupt to the point of rudeness.
‘Marco?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Aurelio.’
There was a brief pause.
‘Aurelio! How’s it going? I was reading about you in the paper just a while ago. That business in St Peter’s. I used to go fishing with him, I thought, and here he is consorting with Archbishops and the like! Gave me quite a thrill. Are you here in town?’
‘Yes. Can we meet?’
‘Of course!’
‘I need some advice, maybe some help.’
‘Well I’m out delivering all morning, but… Do you know the osteria on the San Girolamo canal, just opposite the church?’
Enzo Gavagnin backed out of Valentini’s cubicle, having concluded his business. He glanced shrewdly at Zen as he passed by.
‘What’s it called?’ asked Zen.
‘Damned if I know, tell you the truth! I’ve been going there after lunch every weekday for the last twenty years, but I’ve never bothered to ask about the name. Everyone calls it “The Hole in the Wall”. It’s got red paint on the windows. Opposite the church. What’s it about, anyway?’
‘I’ll explain later. Thanks, Marco.’
He stood up, buttoning his coat. The preliminaries were complete. It was time to go and pretend to do his job.
Her first thought, when the bell rings, is that it is just another trick, another in the succession of cruel practical jokes which seem designed to test her endurance, her fragile sanity. No one calls at Palazzo Zulian these days, except when her nephews drive over from Verona every weekend, as regular as the tides. But this is Tuesday, and Nanni and Vincenzo will be at work doing whatever it is they do…
The bell rings again, dispelling the lingering possibility that the whole thing had taken place in her mind. What happens twice is real, thinks Ada, sidling across the hallway to the room on the other side, overlooking the alley. An angled mirror fixed to a support just outside the window gives a view of the door, so that you can see who is calling without them seeing you, and decide whether to receive them. But immediately Ada whips her head back, for there in the glass is another face, looking straight back at her.
‘ Contessa! ’
A strange voice. Not one of her tormentors, or a new one at least. She risks another look. The gaunt figure in a black hat and overcoat is still there, staring straight up at the tell-tale. It’s no use hiding. If she can see him, he can see her. Stands to reason, Ada Zulian tells herself, reluctantly turning back towards the door and walking downstairs.
The stranger is tall and thin, with a hatchet face and clear grey eyes. His expression is stern, almost saturnine, yet his manner is courteous and respectful. He speaks the dialect with ease and precision, in the true Cannaregio accent — the purest in the city, Ada has always held. He hands her a plastic-covered card with writing and a photograph of himself. She frowns at the name typed in capital letters.
‘Zen?’ she says slowly.
She inspects him again, more critically this time.
‘That’s right, contessa,’ the man nods. ‘Angelo’s boy.’
Ada sniffs loudly.
‘Giustiniana’s, you mean. Your father had only one thing to do with it, excuse me. Fancy going off to Russia and getting himself killed like that, leaving his wife here all alone! At least my Silvestro fell defending our territories in Dalmatia. What has Russia to do with us, for heaven’s sake? Come in, come in, I’m feeling cold just thinking about it.’
While Ada locks and bolts the door again, her visitor stands looking about him in the bleary, uncertain light of the andron. The plaster feels clammy and cold and gives slightly to the touch like a laden sponge. A mysterious smile appears on the man’s face as he absorbs the dank odours and the watery echoes seeping in from the canal at
