The waiter gestured politely and seated them. Their escort took a table on the mezzanine balcony overlooking the lower room. Corinna leaned back in her chair and looked over towards the two men sitting in the corner. Seemingly satisfied, she sighed deeply and settled back in her chair.
‘Do you know them?’ asked Carla, who had been watching this pantomime attentively.
Corinna shook her head.
‘Not really. But they came by this morning to pick up a file I’d been ordered to close and return. Their names are Roberto Lessi and Alfredo Ferraro. They’re agents of the Carabinieri’s Raggruppamento Operazioni Speciali.’
‘The Special Operations Group?’ queried Carla. ‘What sort of operations?’
Corinna made a gesture which read, ‘Who knows, and anyway I doubt it.’
‘Anyway, at least they’re on our side,’ Carla exclaimed with evident relief.
Corinna looked at her with a distant smile.
‘That reminds me,’ she said. ‘I gave your father a packet to pass on to you.’
Carla frowned.
‘My father?’
‘He’s just the cut-out. I didn’t want to be seen handing it over directly. For both our sakes, yours particularly’
‘Why, what is it?’
‘Nothing that need concern you, my dear,’ Corinna replied. ‘It’s just a few papers that I need taken care of for a little while. They’re all packed up in an envelope which your father will give you on Saturday, if not before. He thinks it’s a birthday present. Just hide it away somewhere in your apartment. In due course, I’ll either tell you to destroy it or ask for it back. Is that all right?’
Carla nodded.
‘But I’m not to look inside?’
‘No, don’t do that.’
‘Like Pandora’s box.’
Corinna smiled.
‘Yes,’ she exclaimed. ‘Very much like Pandora’s box.’
‘All the good gifts of the gods turned to evil and flew out to plague the world,’ Carla continued pertly. ‘All except Hope.’
Corinna sighed as the waiter neared their table.
‘There are various versions of the legend,’ she replied. ‘According to some, not even Hope remained. It was the last to leave, though.’
She smiled across the table.
‘Shall we order?’
Zen was terrified of flying. This had always been a fact about him, like his height and other physical characteristics. He was terrified of flying, but what was terrifying him now was that he wasn’t terrified of flying, and this was all the more terrifying because everyone else on board clearly was.
Moments earlier, the pilot had instructed passengers to fasten their seatbelts in anticipation of ‘some possible turbulence ahead’. Seconds later, the Airbus A320 had thrown a spectacular grand mal epileptic fit, jerking, shuddering and leaping in an apparently uncontrollable series of spasms so violent that they sent one of the flight attendants flying into the row of seats just in front of Zen, while another sank to her knees and started crossing herself and chanting the Hail Mary in a loud voice. As for the other passengers, they screamed and closed their eyes tight, clutched one another and threw up.
Meanwhile Zen sat there calmly, scared out of his wits at the realization that he was the only person on the plane who wasn’t scared. Which was truly scary. For your eyesight to deteriorate, your hearing to fail, your hair to thin and your memory to malfunction, that was normal, to be expected. But if your fears deserted you, what was left? Take those away, and all that remained was a hollow shell.
What made things worse was the suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that his whole trip was the result of having fallen for a practical joke, one of those infantile pranks that Gilberto Nieddu loved to play on unsuspecting friends and colleagues. The Sardinian was still furious that Zen had dropped him socially after that disgraceful incident involving the stolen video-game cassette. Now he had decided to get even in a characteristically cruel, cynical and effective way.
For if it was a practical joke, then it was one that Zen could hardly have avoided falling for, particularly after that conversation with Maria Grazia. The Airbus took another groin-tingling lurch, accompanied by a loud metallic clang which elicited a renewed chorus of shrieks and prayers. ‘Maria! Maria!’ the stewardess shouted imploringly. Maria, thought Zen. Maria Grazia. How did she fit into the conspiracy? Had Gilberto paid her off to act a part? This didn’t seem likely. Zen had known the family housekeeper for almost twenty years, and he was sure she wouldn’t have been able to lie effectively to save her life.
No, there was only one possible solution. Gilberto must have convinced her too! That made sense all right. If it suited his purposes, that devious little Sardinian could talk anyone into anything, never mind someone as ingenuous and guileless as Maria Grazia. Yes, that was it. The housekeeper was simply an unwitting accomplice in Nieddu’s schemes, cunningly roped in to remove any lingering doubts from Zen’s mind and reduce him to an unthinking, panic-stricken automaton calling taxis, racing to the airport, oozing sweat and gasping for breath, and then paying a small fortune for one of the few remaining seats on the next flight to Rome.
Very well, he thought, but we’ll see who has the last laugh. You may have won this round, my friend, but the match isn’t over yet. Nieddu was a past master at this sort of thing, but Zen had a few tricks up his sleeve as well. He knew quite a bit about the Sardinian’s business practices, for a start, many of which were extremely questionable even by Italian entrepreneurial standards.
But that would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, he reflected, as the aeroplane veered into a steep descent while the crew struggled to restart the starboard engine. The cabin was loud with despairing shrieks and pleas, and the intimate odour of human excrement filled the air. Zen glanced indignantly at his neighbour, a surly businessman whose attention until now had been entirely absorbed by his laptop computer, and then edged away as far as possible in the other direction. The middle-aged woman seated on that side, her face so intensively curated that it looked like a burnished metal mask, gripped Zen’s arm tightly, leaned her head on his shoulder and began muttering fervent invocations to Santa Rita of Cascia.
The senior steward now rose shakily to his feet and started to lead the passengers in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. If he was to pay Gilberto back, thought Zen, it must be in a more personal way. And then he suddenly got it, the perfect revenge for Nieddu’s tasteless jest. It was so good, in fact, that he couldn’t resist bursting into laughter, at which point the woman beside him snatched away her arm and glared at him in horror. At the same moment the Airbus bottomed out of its vertical descent as the starboard engine kicked in, causing the steward to collapse to the floor like an unstrung puppet. A few moments later, all was perfectly still and quiet again.
Rosa Nieddu was not the typical Italian wife who didn’t much mind what her husband got up to as long as it didn’t involve any mutual acquaintances and was kept reasonably discreet. No indeed, fare finta di niente was definitely not Rosa’s style. On the contrary, she had proved herself to be intensely suspicious of what Gilberto was actually doing while he was supposedly away on business, and quite probably with good reason.
Thus far, the claims of both friendship and male solidarity had led Zen to lend Gilberto whatever assistance he could when things got tricky with Rosa. Certainly he had never before thought of deliberately making trouble for him. So it was with some satisfaction that he realized just how easy this would be. Rosa’s intrinsic jealousy was like the Sardinian underbrush in high summer: one spark was all that would be needed to create a truly spectacular conflagration.
And that initial spark wouldn’t be hard to provide. A few letters first, to prepare the ground. He would draft them and then get Carla to copy them out in a laborious, feminine hand, all curls and loops and little circles over the letter ‘i’. She could make the phone calls, too, when the time came. What fun they’d have working out the script! Is that Signora Nieddu? My name is…’ What would she be called? Something slightly old-fashioned and socially tainted, suggestive of a buxom but simple-minded country lass.
He suddenly remembered the object of the prayers which his neighbour had offered up. That would do nicely. ‘My name is Rita, signora. I’ve written to you several times. I hate to disturb you any more, and the only reason I’m
