A distant sigh.
‘I’ll see what I can do, but it’s going to take some time.’
‘Time is of the essence. How long?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll drop everything else and get to work right away. Call me on my telefonino at noon and then every hour on the hour after that.’
‘We can’t discuss this stuff over a cellular link.’
‘Oh, I heard a great story the other day! There’s this guy on a train, making life hell for everyone around with an endless series of calls on his cellphone, right?’
‘Gilberto!’
‘Then this woman across from him has a seizure of some kind, and all the other passengers say, “Please, we need to call an ambulance at the next station, lend us your phone.” Only he won’t, see? Absolutely refuses to let anyone else use his cellphone. And…’
‘And in the end it turns out that it was one of those fakes. Yes, I’ve heard that story, Gilberto. Now can we get back to the point?’
‘Of course. Here’s the deal. If I come up with something, I’ll tell you so. Then you phone me about thirty minutes later on that landline number we used before, when I was having those legal problems. Do you still have it?’
‘I never throw anything away, Gilberto.’
‘Except your friends.’
‘I’m sorry about that. I probably over-reacted. I apologize.’
‘Don’t grovel, Aurelio. It’s not your style.’
The line went dead. With a yawn of immense weariness, Zen set the alarm on the clock-radio, took off his clothing and slid in between the sheets. Seconds later he was asleep.
At a quarter to twelve, he was woken peremptorily by the alarm, which sounded as though it had been triggered by a fire or a burglary rather than the clock. He took a quick shower and then dialled the twenty-one-digit number of Gilberto’s cellphone.
‘Nothing yet, but I’ve turned up some possible leads,’ was the curt reply.
Zen grunted and hung up. He felt refreshed but starving, having had nothing to eat since a ham roll on the ferry the night before. He was strongly tempted to go out and forage, but the risks of running into Roberto Lessi or one of his associates — a back-up team could well have been flown in by now — were too great, so he called the front desk. The hotel didn’t serve lunch, but the manager offered to send someone out to get Zen a snack.
This duly arrived fifteen minutes later, in the form of two pasties made with filo pastry and a filling of soft cheese or meat sauce. They were stodgy, greasy and almost completely tasteless, but they were certainly filling, in a depressing way. Zen seemed to recall that the British had owned Malta for several hundred years. The local cuisine had apparently been one of their legacies to the island’s culture.
Satiated but unsatisfied, Zen turned the television back on and watched an American thriller dubbed into Maltese. This was an interesting experience, since the rhythm and cadence of the language sounded wholly Italian, while the noise it made was one which Zen associated with the Tunisian and Libyan street traders who sold jewellery and accessories out of suitcases on the streets of Rome. To make matters worse, an entire Italian word such as grazie or signore would suddenly flash by, casting its brief, deceitful light on the prevailing obscurity.
At one o’clock, Gilberto reported no further progress. At two, ‘I think I may be starting to narrow it down, but don’t get your hopes up.’ At three, ‘Why in the name of God did I let you sucker me into this, Aurelio? I should have just let you go on not speaking to me. I should have encouraged you! Friends like you I can do without.’
And then, at four o’clock: ‘Done it.’
The next thirty minutes seemed to last several hours. Zen had been asked to show his documents at the desk, and had therefore had no possibility of registering under an alias. And there weren’t that many hotels in Valletta. If Lessi had taken the number of Zen’s taxi, established that it had not left the city, then visited each in turn asking after his good friend Aurelio Zen, he could be knocking on his door at any moment. If he had called in back-up, they could cover the whole island by evening. And if they or their patrons in Rome had persuaded the Maltese authorities to cooperate, they might already have found him and be waiting for him to emerge, so as not to cause problems at the hotel, which could damage the island’s lavishly promoted tourist image.
When Zen finally called, he was told that Gilberto hadn’t arrived yet, although they were expecting him, because the traffic in Rome was a disaster, what with all the roadworks, renovation and construction designed to equip the city for the twenty-six million pilgrims expected for the forthcoming millennial Jubilee year. Try later, he was told.
Zen hung up, yelled an obscenity and smashed his fist into the wall, leaving a dent in the flimsy plaster- board. Then he told himself not to be stupid, lit a cigarette to calm himself down, and called again.
This time, Gilberto answered.
‘You’re on, Aurelio,’ he said. ‘It’s going to cost you, though.’
‘I wasn’t planning this trip, Gilberto. I have precisely fifty-eight thousand lire on me.’
‘I don’t mean now, you polenta brain. The bill will be presented in due course after your return. I just wanted you to know that it will be in the region of five million lire.’
‘Jesus!’
‘This sort of thing doesn’t come cheap. I’ve had to grease a lot of palms and to buy a lot of silence.’
‘And then, of course, there’s your cut.’
There was a long pause.
‘I don’t think I deserve that, Aurelio.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It’s just with all this stress and strain I’m under…’
‘You’re grovelling again. Let’s get back to the point, which is that I’ve booked your flight.’
‘How did you do it?’
‘You lectured me about need-to-know. The same applies here. Briefly, a friend of a friend of a friend knows someone who has been planning just such a trip as the one you mentioned, to visit some friends of his in Sicily’
‘What a lot of friendship! I’m moved.’
‘To quote an ex-friend of mine, “Can we stop pissing around?”’
‘Sorry. To quote a true and valued and shamefully misused friend of mine, “What do I need to know?”’
‘Have you got a pen? These people are likely to be extremely nervous. The person concerned had originally been planning to leave at the weekend. For a consideration, partly in cash and partly in kind, he agreed to contact his Sicilian friends and rearrange the trip for tonight. But if you get any part of this even slightly wrong, he simply won’t show up.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘In the centre of Valletta, there’s a road called Old Bakery Street. Towards the bottom of the hill, it crosses St Christopher Street. Just after the crossing, there’s a set of steep steps leading down to the left. About half-way down there is a bar called Piju. Be there at seven o’clock this evening. Go to the barman and ask, in Italian, for a Beck’s beer. He’ll tell you that they don’t have any. You say, “Just give me a beer.” He’ll ask if you want Maltese or imported, and you reply, “Maltese is fine with me.” Got that?’
‘What happens after that?’
‘I don’t need to know, so I wasn’t told. One more thing. If these people find out that you’re a policeman, you’re dead meat. Understand?’
‘Only too well.’
‘All right, that’s it. Good luck, Aurelio. If you make it, give me a call as soon as you arrive. I’ve been missing you, you old shit. I don’t want anything to happen to you now you’ve finally got over our little misunderstanding.’
‘I’ve missed you too, Gilberto. I’ll try not to do anything stupid and I’ll call as soon as I can. Meanwhile, thanks for everything.’
It was only when he saw the tiny single-engined aeroplane that Zen realized that flying back to Sicily was going to mean…well, flying. He had been so preoccupied with other problems in the hours leading up to this moment that this basic point had completely failed to register. The moment it did, he also realized that the state of
