‘Yes,’ the man said, laying Signora Zen’s arm back on the sheet. ‘Engineering, too, for a while. A perfect training for my present position, when you think about it. Routine hospital maintenance.’
He laughed darkly.
‘Well, I must get back to my mop. Your mother may have spoken in French, but all languages are the same now. Talk to her. This is your last chance. Tell her everything you will regret not saying for ever if you let this opportunity slip.’
He bent over the figure lying on the bed and rapidly muttered some words in a language Zen did not understand, then turned away. The door oozed shut behind him on its pneumatic spring.
Alone with this dying stranger, Zen at first could think of nothing to say. But as time passed an odd thing happened. He found himself warming to this old woman, whoever she might be, who had rattled on to him in French. It didn’t seem to matter any longer who she was. Perhaps she was his mother. What difference did it make now? She had been somebody’s mother. Even if she wasn’t his, did that make her less admirable, less worthy of pity and love? He found himself holding her wizened hand, kissing her rugged face. Then, suddenly, the words came, a stutter at first, but soon a torrent, a shameless gush obliterating every distinction between what was sayable and unsayable.
Later he felt cold. So did she. Light crept in through the shuttered window, reducing the obscure splendours of the night to ashes. Men in white coats appeared and ushered him aside. Curtains were drawn about the bed where an old woman lay. An outsider, an intruder, Zen was hustled out into the corridors, to the brutal glare of the lights, the squeal and tap of footsteps on the polished flooring, the hum of distant machinery. He made his way to the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. The lift stopped before that and the cleaner got in, stowing his bucket, towel and mop in the corner.
They say she’s dead,’ Zen told him.
The man nodded.
‘She was dead when I left you.’
Zen looked at him incredulously.
‘But you told me to talk to her! You said it was my last chance, that I would regret it for ever if I let the opportunity slip. And now you tell me that she was dead all the time?’
The lift came to a rest. The cleaner collected his equipment and stepped out.
‘Yes, but you aren’t,’ he said as the doors closed.
Outside, the sky was falling. As yet it was just a light dust which appeared on Zen’s coat like mist. It seemed to be pink. He walked back along the bridge, pausing at the same spot as before to light a cigarette. A gentle aerosol, soft yet solid, had soaked the night, thickening it and covering every surface with a patina of reddish dust.
It was only when he saw it on his sleeve, his hands, that Zen realized that this was not just a trick of the light. The stuff was everywhere, saturating the air and coating every surface like a fine spray of wind-blown paint. He walked on across the bridge to the mainland, where a man was busily cleaning the windscreen of his car.
‘It happens every time,’ he remarked in a disgusted tone, glancing at Zen and shaking his head.
‘What?’
‘Yesterday I got the car washed and waxed, right?’ the man replied. ‘So of course today we get the pioggia di sangue.’
‘Blood rain?’ echoed Zen.
‘The sand from the Sahara! The wind picks it up and carries it along, thousands of metres high, and then at a certain point the pressure changes, the wind loses its force, and the sand rains down. And it’s always just after I get my car cleaned. It happens every time!’
With a throw-away ‘That’s life!’ gesture, the man climbed into the driver’s seat and started trying to goad the motor into action. Zen crunched off across the fine sand which squirmed and squeaked beneath his shoes.
Carla Arduini had calculated that it would take her two hours to drive to Palermo, but she hadn’t counted on a long stretch of repair work being done — or rather not being done — in the tunnels through which the A19 motorway descends into the valley of the Imera after crossing the island’s central mountain chain near Enna. Now, stuck in a tail-back which from this point on the road seemed indefinitely long, she began to worry about being on time for her appointment. She was fully aware that this was simply an acceptable cover for her real worry, which was why she had an appointment in the first place.
It was just after seven in the morning when her cellphone rang. Carla was just about to leave her apartment for her morning coffee with her father at the bar in Piazza Carlo Alberto. The phone call, at such an early hour, had to be bad news. She had two mobile phones, and this one was her work phone, supplied and paid for by her company. Therefore it was official and urgent, and Carla had a bad conscience, because the work she had been doing early that morning and the night before was certainly improper and quite possibly illegal.
In an effort to put her tentative theories about unlicensed intruders on the DIA network to the test, she had decided to try to do a little ‘pinging’ herself. Armed with the information she already had, as the licensed installer, it had taken her little time to penetrate the various firewalls surrounding the system. She had then called up the data files which had been opened by the nocturnal visitor she had provisionally named Count Dracula. She was still unsure whether the data vampire was from the Mafia, the media, or some other interested party, and it had occurred to her that some clue to this might be concealed in the material he had chosen to access.
If so, it had yet to emerge. In this case, the most recent interception, the text consisted of the transcript of an interview between a magistrate in Palermo and a pentito, one of the former members of Cosa Nostra who had agreed to collaborate with the authorities in return for them and their families being buried and rebirthed in the government’s witness protection programme, safe from the vengeance of those they had betrayed.
Sometimes, yes, but normally we just kill them. It’s quicker and cheaper. Saves a lot of effort. When you kill someone, you also send a message. Maybe even many messages.
Even contradictory messages?
Especially those. But it has to be done right. There’s an art to the thing. Because there’s no such thing as a messageless death, are you with me?
In other words, if a message doesn’t exist, someone will invent one.
Exactly. So you have to make sure that some message comes through loud and clear. Otherwise the communications can get fouled up. And when that happens…
Yes?
When the messages start going astray, there’s no rhyme or reason any more. No one knows what’s going on, so everyone’s extra edgy. Mistakes happen, and those mistakes breed others. Before you know where you are, you have another clan war on your hands.
So these executions have to be correctly performed. It’s a sort of ritual theatre, in other words, like the priest consecrating the host. What’s the matter?
Look, I’m trying to cooperate, all right? We’re different men with different objectives, but I respect you just as you respect me.
Of course.
So no more jokes about the holy mass, please.
I apologize. To go back to what we were discussing, can you give me an example of such a message?
There are so many. But I’ll mention a recent one.
Just to show that, even though for your own protection you’re in solitary confinement down at the Ucciardone prison, you’re still in touch.
Why would you take me seriously if you thought you were dealing with someone whose clock stopped when he got picked up? Anyway, the thing I’m thinking of is that body they found in a train near Catania.
The Limina case.
Only it wasn’t the Limina kid at all, is what I’ve heard.
Who, then?
Some sneak thief who was picked up operating on protected turf. He’d been warned before, but he had more balls than brains. They were going to waste him in an alley somewhere, but then someone had a brighter idea. The thief looked quite a bit like Tonino Limina. Same age, same height and build, same colour hair. The Limina clan have been making themselves a bit of a nuisance on this side of the island, so a warning seemed in order. They shut the
