called Santa Croce, is that right?’
Zen nodded.
‘That was the first sign I remember seeing.’
‘In that case, the reception committee was almost certainly composed of members of the Dominante clan, which controls the Ragusa area, or of one of the splinter groups which is trying to take it over, such as the D’Agosta family.’
Zen looked sharply at him.
‘You seem very well informed on these matters.’
‘Village gossip. What football league ratings are to other cultures, Mafia family ups and downs are to us. You also said that the pilot told you that they were doing a favour to some people here who want to talk to you. That would be Don Gaspare Limina. This is his home village, and although almost all his operations are conducted in Catania, this remains his power base and the refuge to which he retreats when things get too hot for him in the city.’
‘He’s here now?’ asked Zen.
‘He’s here now. Can you think of any reason why he should want to meet you?’
Zen lit another cigarette and sat silently for a time.
‘Even better, I can think of a reason why I want to meet him,’ he said finally.
‘Excellent. But it may be dangerous, you understand. I can set up such a meeting, but I am not in a position to guarantee your safety.’
‘I understand. I’ll take my chances.’
His host got up and poured them both another shot of whisky.
‘They may well be better than you fear,’ he said. ‘You asked me why I live here. Well, one reason is that the people of whom we’ve been speaking remind me to some extent of myself and my comrades, many years ago. Contrary to popular belief, they are not sadistic thugs with a taste for violence. They do only what they need to do. If they need you dead, then they will kill you. If not, you will be safe. I’ve been living here for over forty years, and no one has ever bothered me. I’m not worth bothering about, you see.’
He raised his glass.
‘Gesundheit.’
‘You’re German?’ asked Zen.
The other man just looked at him.
Zen gestured in a relaxed way. The whisky was starting to have its effect.
‘I did my “hardship years”, as we call them in the police, up in the Alto Adige — what you call the Sudtirol — and I learned a few words of the language.’
The other man smiled.
‘Yes, I’m German. From a city called Bremen. My name is Klaus Genzler.’
Zen bowed slightly.
‘I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality, Herr Genzler. If you hadn’t taken me in, I would have been dead by now, and all for nothing. I didn’t know where I was, you see. I had no idea who these people were. But now I do, and I look forward to meeting them.’
‘And why would that be?’
‘Because I think they killed my daughter, and I want to find out.’
‘Your daughter?’
‘Carla Arduini. She died along with a judge, Corinna Nunziatella. You may have read about it in the papers. They machine-gunned the car and then threw in a stick of plastic explosive, just outside Taormina.’
Klaus Genzler smiled reminiscently.
‘Ah, Taormina! I haven’t been there in over fifty years.’
He’s gaga, thought Zen.
‘Kesselring based his headquarters in Taormina, in the old Dominican convent. I had the good fortune to be summoned there several times. Wonderful buildings, stunning views. Did himself well, the Feldmarschall. But I don’t think the Omina clan killed your daughter.’
Or maybe he’s not.
‘You don’t?’
Genzler shook his head.
‘I remember when the news of that atrocity arrived. There was a sense of fear and confusion. People here are used to terrible things happening, but they expect Don Gaspare to know who did them and why, even if he didn’t order them himself. They’re like children. As long as Daddy seems to know what’s going on, and not be bothered by it, then the children won’t be troubled either, even though they don’t personally understand.’
He took another sip of whisky and unwrapped a short cigar.
‘But the day that news arrived, there was a sense of panic in the village. I knew at once what must have happened, and subsequent enquiries have proved me right. Not only did Don Gaspa not order that operation, but he has no idea who did.’
Genzler lit the cigar and stared at Zen.
‘Do you know what that means, in the circles in which he moves? It means that you’re finished. Taormina is part of the Liminas’ territory. If something happens on your territory which you didn’t order, and you can’t find out and punish whoever did it, then you might as well retire and open a grocery store, because no one will ever take you seriously again.’
Zen nodded quickly. A mass of thoughts were stirring in his brain like a school of porpoises creasing the surface of the sea and then vanishing. He wanted to let this process work itself out before trying to assess the consequences.
‘So you were here in the war?’ he asked Genzler.
‘I was indeed. This village was our main forward position in 1943, after the Allied invasion. Many of my friends fell here. Most were not buried.’
He took a long draw at his cigar.
‘We — the Germans — held this part of the island against the invading forces. Our Italian allies were responsible for the north side. We were up against the British, they against the Americans, who had a secret weapon called Lucky Luciano. You may have heard of him. An expatriate mafioso whom they released from prison, where he was serving a fifty-year sentence, to persuade the Italians not to resist the invasion. And it was successful. Luciano got Calogero Vizzini, the capo dei capi at the time, to guarantee Mafia support for the Allies in return for the release of all their friends from the Fascist prisons where they had been languishing since Mussolini cracked down on them. As a result, we were quickly outflanked, despite having put up a vigorous defence, and forced to withdraw to the mainland.’
He smiled bitterly at Zen.
‘The rest, as they say, is history.’
Zen finished his whisky.
‘That doesn’t explain why you’re living here.’
‘Doesn’t it? Well, that would perhaps take too long. At any rate, I was captured later, during the battle for Anzio, and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp. When I got back to Germany and learned exactly what we’d all been fighting so bravely to defend, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to live there again. I gathered up what little money I had, added a little more left me by my parents, who were killed in a bombing raid, sold what was left of our family home and moved here. In 1950, this house cost me thirty thousand lire, including legal fees. I have been living here on the remnants of my meagre fortune ever since.’
‘Doing what?’ asked Zen incredulously.
Klaus Genzler shrugged.
‘Trying to remember. Trying to forget. Trying to understand.’
He threw his cigar butt into the fireplace.
‘Now then, shall I contact our friends and tell them you’re here?’
Zen took a hundred-lire coin from his pocket and spun it up into the air. Grabbing at it clumsily, he managed only to send it flying across the floor into the vast shadows at the back of the room, where it ended up underneath an ancient leather sofa the size of a car. Both men laughed.
