thief up in a freight car on a train bound from Palermo to Catania, with a label with ‘Limina’ scrawled on it. One message delivered and one undesirable disposed of. A perfect solution.
But the Liminas explicitly denied that the murdered man was their son. Obviously they knew that Tonino was still alive. So the message was pointless.
No message is pointless. Maybe in this case it wasn’t the young Limina. Next time, who knows?
It was as she was reading these words that the phone rang. At once she felt a panicky guilt, as when her mother had burst into the room when she was reading a letter from her current boyfriend. Desperately she groped for the keyboard, killed the document on screen and got safely out of the DIA data files. Only then did she answer the phone.
‘Signorina Arduini?’
‘Speaking.’
‘We’d like to see you today to ascertain what progress is being made with regard to the computer installation for which you’re responsible. As you probably know, the handover date has already been put back twice. Through no fault of yours, I’m sure, but we’re naturally anxious to get the system up and running as soon as possible. I’ve therefore made a booking for lunch at the Hotel Zagarella in Santa Flavia, just east of the city. We’ll expect you at one o’clock.’
The caller hung up. Carla dug out her map, but failed to find any village named Santa Flavia. And how could it be ‘just east of the city’? East of Catania, there was nothing but water. She tried ringing her father, first at the Questura, then at home, and finally on his cellphone, without success. Finally, in timid desperation, she had called Corinna Nunziatella. Rather to Carla’s surprise, the judge seemed delighted to help, and informed her that the city east of which Santa Flavia was situated was Palermo.
‘Take the Casteldaccia exit off the motorway and follow the signs,’ the magistrate told her. ‘Who are these people, anyway?’
‘He didn’t say, but it seems to be about my work.’
‘Where are you meeting?’
‘A hotel called the Zagarella.’
The only reply was a low whistle.
‘Do you know it?’ Carla asked.
There was a long silence.
‘It’s a well-known venue,’ Corinna Nunziatella finally replied. ‘For all sorts of events. Listen, cara, make it clear to the people you’re meeting that you have an appointment with me back here in Catania this evening.’
‘But I don’t.’
Corinna’s response was unusually brusque.
‘Never mind that! Make sure they know that you’ve told me you’re meeting them at the Zagarella for lunch, and that I’m expecting you back by six o’clock this evening. I’ll call you then to make sure you’re safely back.’
Carla laughed.
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘I’ll explain tomorrow,’ Corinna replied. ‘Just do what I say. Make very sure that these people know what the situation is, all right? It could be important.’
‘Very well.’
‘And listen, don’t…’
Corinna’s voice broke off.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Oh, nothing. I’m just being silly. I’ll call you this evening at six.’
At length the constipated press of traffic in which Carla’s Fiat Uno was embedded passed through the succession of tunnels where so much expensive and urgent repair work was not being done, and she completed the drive down to the north coast of the island and then westwards to her destination. The Hotel Zagarella turned out to be a modern monstrosity on what must at one time have been a stunning peninsula, with extensive views along the neighbouring bay and out to sea. Next to the hotel was yet another construction site, one of those timeless projects which look like a nuclear power station being built by two old men with buckets, spades and a rope hoist.
Of the grand villas belonging to the Palermitan nobility which had once stood here, there was almost no sign. Those that did remain were imprisoned in a perspectiveless absurdity, a concrete Gulag constructed by the ‘state within the state’, where the memory of what might have been was perhaps the bitterest punishment in this society of latter-day zeks, where even the winners were losers.
When Carla pulled up outside the hotel, a flunkey rushed over and opened the door.
‘Signorina Arduini! You’re expected inside. I’ll see to the car.’
So whoever ‘they’ were, they knew the number of her telefonino and the make and registration of her car. But the most disturbing aspect of the situation was that they were evidently making no effort to hide the fact that they knew. Carla handed over the keys and walked up the plush red-carpeted steps. At the top, another functionary opened the door for her with a respectful bow. Once inside, a small rotund man in a suit and tie came bustling over to her.
‘Welcome to the Zagarella, Signorina Arduini! I trust your journey was not too arduous. Your friends are waiting for you in a private room at the rear of the premises. If you permit, I shall be happy to accompany you there myself. This way, please!’
She had visualized the ‘private room’ as an intimate space to one side of the hotel’s dining area, sectioned off perhaps by a slatted wooden partition. It turned out to be the size of a football field. Rows of metal tables and chairs stretched away in ranks towards a series of narrow windows reaching up to the ceiling. Despite the massive concrete columns supporting the latter, everything looked cheap, vulgar and temporary.
At the middle of the room stood a table heaped with food and centred by a vase roughly the size of an average sink, from which protruded a huge bouquet of flowers. Three men were seated around the table. All three stared blatantly at Carla as she made her way across the scuffed industrial flooring towards them.
Having reached the corner of the table, Carla stopped. After a significant pause, the middle of the three men jumped to his feet as though noticing her presence for the first time. He was dressed in the standard uniform of the professional classes: tweed jacket, blue shirt and red tie beneath a yellow pullover, brown trousers and highly polished shoes.
‘Good day, signorina,’ he said coolly. ‘So glad you could join us. May I introduce my assistant Carmelo. And this is Gaetano, an esteemed colleague visiting from Rome.’
He waved alternately at the two men. Carla nodded briefly to each, then turned back to the speaker.
‘And you are?’
The man frowned.
‘But surely that was…’
He tapped his forehead lightly with the heel of one hand.
‘But I forgot, of course you didn’t get our message!’
He turned to the other two.
‘Apparently she didn’t get our message,’ he said.
The two men sat impassively, with the air of people who had better things to do.
‘My name is Vito Alagna,’ the man announced, turning back to Carla with a ceremonial bow.
‘How did you know my cellphone number?’ asked Carla, wondering at her own temerity. These people had power the way some had muscles.
‘I left a message late yesterday with the porter at the Palace of Justice. When you didn’t return it, I called again and was told you were working at home, so I called you there this morning. Please, take a seat!’
He waved towards the enormous buffet table, on which stood a huge variety of cold foods. Carla took a chair at random, the nearest one. No one at the Palazzo di Giustizia except Corinna Nunziatella knew her cellphone numbers, private or professional. She had been very careful not to give them out, to avoid endless harassment.
‘Forgive the seeming mystification,’ Vito Alagna went on. ‘It’s really quite simple and straightforward. I work for the autonomous parliament here in Palermo which oversees the internal affairs of this little island of ours. We have naturally collaborated with our colleagues in Rome on the creation and development of the various specialized
