'My men are conducting a thorough search of the scene …'Zen went on.
Caputo made writing motions on the palm of his left hand.
'… and taking detailed statements from witnesses.'
'What leads are you working on?' demanded the Questore.
'What leads are we working on?'
'Must you repeat everything I say? Yes, leads! Theories, ideas, hypotheses. Something which might begin to explain this incident and which I can communicate to the Prefect for subsequent transmission to Rome.'
Caputo stood on the other side of the desk, his arm thrust forward, holding up three fingers.
'We are working on three main theories at the moment/ Zen replied evenly. 'The first is that the perpetrator…'
He glanced at Caputo, who was waddling bow-legged around the room with his hands clutched like claws beside his hips.
'… was a cowboy/ concluded Zen.
'AwhatT Caputo shook his head furiously. Zen covered the mouthpiece of the phone.
'An AmericanV hissed Caputo.
'… that he was an American/ Zen told the Questore.
'But the United States naval authorities have explicitly denied that he was one of their men!'
'Exactly!' retorted Zen. 'According to this theory, the suspect was an undercover CIA agent who had been entrusted with the mission of murdering one of the Greek sailors, the son of an influential Communist politician.'
He looked triumphantly at Caputo, who gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up.
'And the second theory?' pursued the Questore after a pause which suggested that he was taking notes.
'The second…'
Caputo had transformed himself into a smaller, slighter, quicker individual moving around the room with exaggerated naturalness, glancing furtively from side to side, his hands occasionally darting out to one side or the other as though of their own accord.
'… is that the man was a common pickpocket/ Zen went on, 'who had infiltrated himself into the port area disguised as an American sailor. He approached the Greek sailors, intending to make a touch, and when they started roughing him up under the mistaken impression that he actually was an American, he reverted to type and pulled a knife.' 'I don't like that one so much/ the Questore replied neutrally. 'Reflects badly on the city. What about the third theory?'
'The third?' replied Zen. 'Ah, you're going to love the third.'
He gazed helplessly at Caputo, who was prancing gaily about, his hands indicating the contours of a generous bosom and rearranging the folds of an invisible skirt.
'According to this theory, the man was in fact a woman/ Zen informed his superior.
'A woman?'
'A prostitute. We try to keep them out of the port area, of course, but…'
'Surely to God you can at least ascertain the sex of the individual in your custody?' demanded the Questore icily.
'His sex? Yes, of course.'
Caputo quickly sketched an enormous male organ in the air, 'He's a man. No question about that.'
'But you just told me that you were working on the theory that he was a prostitute!'
Zen hesitated a moment.
'Exactly, a transvestite prostitute.'
'But he was dressed as a manY 'Outwardly, yes. But he was wearing female undergarments.'
The Questore was briefly silent.
'In other words…?'
'In other words, he was a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man.'
'But that's absurd!'
'Oh, there's a demand for that sort of thing/ Zen replied in a worldly tone. 'But unfortunately on this occasion he had mistaken his clientele. They started beating him up, and he drew his knife in self-defence. But be that as it may, all the indications are that this was merely a banal crime of mistaken identity. I'll have a full report on your desk within twelve hours…'
Seeing Caputo signalling frantically, Zen broke off.
Caputo held up the first two fingers of his left hand and whirled the right round and round.
'… or twenty-four at the very most/ Zen concluded.
'I shall pass on what you have told me to the relevant parties/ said the Questore curtly. 'But I must remind you that if a satisfactory solution has not emerged within the period you mention, it is you and not I who will be held responsible. I am not prepared to cover for you on this case, and I regret that my department is too overstretched to permit me to dispatch one of our operatives to put your house in order for you. So I trust that you will give this matter your fullest and most urgent attention.'
'You may depend on it, sir.'
He hung up and turned to Giovan Battista Caputo.
'That's all right, then/ he remarked, stretching luxuriously.
'You've got till tomorrow to stitch something together.'
Caputo's face fell.
'What about you, chief? Don't you even want to interview the suspect?'
'Impossible, I'm afraid/ Zen replied, reaching for his coat. 'I have a prior engagement which I just can't get out of. Which reminds me, do you have any contacts at the opera? A friend of mine mentioned that she'd like to go, and I said I'd take her. Then I phone the box office and they tell me the whole run's been sold out for a month.'
Caputo grunted sympathetically.
I'll see what I can do.'
Amico Don Alfonso 'But are you sure it'll work?'
'When it comes to love, no one can be sure of anything.'
A short silence.
'Two weeks isn't much time.'
'The shorter, the better. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. If they were gone for a month, the lads might start to grow sentimental.'
A longer silence. It wasn't really silence, of course, not even this far up the Vomero, on one of the steep, stepped alleys inaccessible to the most daring or desperate of Neapolitan drivers. From the streets below, on the foothills sloping down to the bay, rose a muffled cacophony of car horns, all at slightly different pitches, a rhythmic urban symphony in some indecipherable time signature. Punctuating this medley, nearer at hand, came the gruff staccato barking of the shaggy, semi-feral dog kept chained up on the flat roof surrounding the cupola of Santa Maria del Petraio, presumably to ward off burglars.
And, overlaying all, the cries of a gang of boys playing football on the steps below, a fast and demanding game whose main challenge was to prevent the ball going missing in one of the inaccessible walled gardens all around, or plunging precipitously down the entire length of the salita, 287 steps to the point where it crossed the broad curve of paved street looping up the hillside.
Most dramatic were the intermittent appearances of aircraft on their final approach to Capodichino, monstrously large, deafening and unpredictable apparitions, seemingly near enough to touch. And yet, despite everything, the terrace where they were sitting seemed an oasis of calm and stillness, a secluded refuge miraculously isolated from the stress and stridency of the city all around.
Calling it a terrace was a bit of an exaggeration, too. In reality it was merely a section of flat tarred roof extending around two sides of a partial one-storey extension added illegally twenty years earlier to allow the original building to be converted into two apartments. The extension housed the kitchen and bathroom, while the bedroom and sitting room were on the floor below. There was a small eating area adjoining the kitchen, but now the summer had arrived Aurelio Zen preferred to take his meals outside, at an old marble-topped table in the shade
