He turned to Pastorelli, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable.
'You were about to tell me something when Caputo walked in. Let's have it.'
'Well, sir, the thing is, I searched the building, like I told you. I didn't find the prisoner, but I did notice that his belongings had been tampered with.'
'What?'
'You remember you gave me that video cassette yesterday evening and told me to put it back with the other stuff. Well, I did as you said, but when I checked the room just now the stuff was all over the floor. All except the cassette, that is.'
Zen put his head in his hands and stared at the desk.
'How do the clients of that operation on the top floor come and go?' he demanded. 'Obviously they don't use the front entrance.'
'There's a fire escape at the side,' Caputo volunteered.
'It's nice and secluded, and we have excellent security at the door. There's never any trouble 'What about the normal entrance from the main staircase?'
'That's entirely closed to the clientele, dottore. There's no risk of anyone getting into the building that way.'
'I'm not interested in anyone getting in,' Zen snapped.
'I'm interested in someone getting out. Someone in police uniform.'
Caputo looked grim.
'I'll go and check,' he said, turning away.
'No! I need you here. You go, Pastorelli. But first, who knows that the prisoner has escaped?'
Pastorelli frowned.
'Well, Bertolini obviously. Then there's me, and you 'Besides us and Bertolini, you idiot!'
'Nobody'
'Are you sure?'
'I phoned you and Giova… Inspector Caputo. That's all.'
'OK, get going.'
With an expression of infinite relief, Pastorelli fled. Zen turned to Caputo.
'When you escorted the prisoner to my office the other day, you stopped to pick up his belongings on the way, right?'
Caputo frowned.
'How did you know?'
'Because you wouldn't have wanted to carry them all the way down to the cells and back. And because that's how the prisoner knew where they were being kept.'
Caputo gave one of his toothy grins.
'Of course. So it's important, this cassette?'
Zen gazed into the middle distance.
'Not according to my sources. But if the prisoner risked recapture in order to take it with him, it begins to look as though they must have been wrong.'
He turned to face Caputo.
'I need a doctor.'
Caputo's eyes widened.
'You feel ill?'
'Not for me, for the prisoner.'
Caputo goggled still more.
'But dottore, the prisoner is gone!'
Zen resumed his abstracted expression.
'Nevertheless, he needs to see a doctor. I'm sure you can think of someone suitable, Caputo. Un medico difiducia.
Someone you can recommend without reservation.
Understand?'
'Of course!'
'Someone who can be trusted to do whatever might prove necessary,' Zen pursued, 'even if the procedures demanded might prove to be slightly irregular. And who, above all, can be trusted to keep quiet about it.'
Caputo's predatory grin intensified.
'For the right consideration, dottore, this guy'd perform an abortion on the Virgin Mary. But don't worry about the money. He owes me a couple of favours, and that makes him nervous. He'll be glad to help.'
Zen smiled softly at Caputo.
'Have I ever told you how much I like it here?' he murmured.
Sulla strada Via Duomo, later the same evening. Running almost due north from the port, this street is dead straight and relatively broad by the standards of the city, but the traffic was as stagnant at that hour as sewage in a backed-up drain. Double rows of parked cars to either side forced the moving vehicles into two narrow lanes just wide enough for a stationary file in either direction. Meanwhile pedestrians, the diminutive lords of this petrified jungle, picked their way through the revving, honking, impotent mass as though negotiating the impressive, irrelevant ruins of a mightier but extinct civilisation.
But one car seemed to be making some headway, despite everything. It was obviously expensive, a foreign import of some sort, painted a brilliant red. But there were plenty of Volvos and BMWs and Mercedes stalled in the traffic jam, reluctantly rubbing bumpers with such undesirable company as traders' three-wheeled Ape vans, old Fiat 500s on their third 100,000 kilometres and the usual slew of beaten-up cars, buses, taxis, TIR lorries — even a refuse collection truck. What caused the crush to loosen in front of this particular vehicle was the flashing blue light attached to the roof, and the official police wand insistently waving from the driver's window.
Thus empowered, the red saloon nosed through the traffic at all of 10 mph to just south of the cathedral, where it abruptly veered left into a narrow side-street, ignoring the 'No Entry' sign. Half-way down the block it pulled up outside a seven-storey house just like all the others and sounded its horn in a series of long blasts. Windows and curtains above opened, but the driver continued to lean on his strident, demanding horn. At length a young man appeared at a window on the second-floor. He waved to the driver of the car, who signalled back. The horn fell silent.
'Who is it?' demanded the other man, seated inside the apartment before a table strewn with playing cards.
'Gesualdo. I've got to run.'
'Work?'
The first man shrugged.
'Oh, Sabati! Just as I was finally starting to win! That's a shitty excuse.'
'We just need to check someone out. Come along, if you want. Then we can come back and finish the game.'
His companion hesitated a moment.
'Whereabouts?'
Sabatino took out a printed card.
'Via Cimarosa.'
'Wow! You bastards are moving up in the world.'
They ran down the steep, narrow stairs to the street, where three vehicles now stood nose-to-nose with the red saloon blocking their passage.
'Oh, Dario!' called the driver. 'Who invited you along?'
One of the waiting cars blasted its horn insistently.
Dario stood back and stared at the offending driver with slitted eyes.
'This is a one-way street!' the man yelled. 'Clear the way immediately! You're breaking the law six times over!'
At an exaggeratedly leisurely pace, Dario strolled over to remind the instigator of this rash protest that it wouldn't make that much difference if they made it seven by rendering his car, if not his person, unserviceable
