few remaining structures.
After such a double blow, the surviving citizens could have been forgiven for packing their bags and moving to a less perilous spot. Some did, but by and large the Catanesi took the view that nature had now done its worst, and that they and their children would be safe where they were. So they rebuilt, hastily and using the only material to hand: the solidified lava which had wrought such havoc in the first place.
And now they finally had a piece of good luck, because the period happened to be an excellent moment for off-the-shelf civic architecture, just as it was for the bespoke version then under construction in the capital of Piedmont, nestling beneath the Alps some eight hundred kilometres further north. The buildings which arose along the grid plan of the new city were sober and solid, of fitting proportions and decorated with grace and elegance. Even three centuries later, many of them abandoned or in disrepair and surrounded by a concrete wasteland of speculative, Mafia-funded development they retained a sense of ineradicable character and dignity, which might be destroyed but never demeaned.
Zen set down his shopping on the marble counter in the kitchen and surveyed it with a morose air. He had never had pretensions to any but the most basic culinary skills, but for reasons into which he had not enquired too deeply, he felt a need to entertain Carla at home at least once. His solution had been to approach the owner of the restaurant where he had taken Baccio Sinico for lunch and to order some of the establishment’s excellent fish soup, packed in a large glass jar which according to the label had once contained olives. A loaf of bread, some salad, and a selection of local sheep’s cheeses, together with Carla’s promised dessert, completed the menu.
His decision to ‘adopt’ this young woman who claimed to be his daughter, even though the DNA tests proved that they were not related, had been taken on the spur of the moment; a mere whim, although kindly meant. He had not thought the matter through — had not really thought at all, to be honest — and ever since had had to struggle to live up to the fantasy to which he had short-sightedly committed them both. This was not made any easier by his sense that it was all a bit of a strain for Carla, too. They were both reduced to improvising the roles which he had assigned them: the Father, the Daughter.
While he waited for Carla to arrive, he looked through the notes he had made of his lunch with Baccio Sinico, adding or deleting a phrase here and there. It had not been a convivial occasion. Not that the young Bolognese had been evasive; on the contrary, he had proved almost alarmingly forthcoming about the current state of morale — or rather the lack of it — within the Catania office of the Direzione Investigativa Anti-Mafia.
‘I almost regret the old days,’ Baccio Sinico had remarked at one point. ‘At least they fought us openly then.’
‘They?’ queried Aurelio Zen.
Sinico gave him a sharp look, as though trying to decide whether Zen was being ironical or just plain stupid.
‘Gli amid degli amici,’ he replied in a voice so low that Zen almost had to lip-read the coded phrase — ‘the friends of the friends’, meaning the Mafia’s presumed patrons and protectors in the government.
‘But those “friends” are no longer in power,’ he reminded Sinico. ‘Some of them are even under arrest or on trial.’
‘Precisely! In the old days, you knew who was who and what was what. Everyone knew where he stood, and what was at stake for both sides. Now it’s all done by indirection and inertia. The implication is that the great days are over, the Mafia is as good as beaten, and that all remains to be done is a low-level mopping-up operation without any real importance, glamour or risk. In other words, we’re being treated like traffic cops by Rome and like arrogant prima donnas by all our colleagues outside the department.’
‘The pay’s good, though!’ Zen had replied in a jocular, one-of-the-boys tone of voice suitable to the avuncular but slightly dim persona he cultivated for these professional encounters.
‘It’s not bad,’ Sinico had conceded. ‘Which is yet another reason why we’re resented and obstructed by all the other branches of the service down here. But money’s not everything. And, without undue bravado, it’s not really that I’m frightened of the risks involved. No, it’s the sense of isolation that’s getting to me. My family and friends are all back in Bologna, and here I am holed up in a fortified barracks deep in enemy territory, trying to do a job which no one seems to think needs doing any more.’
‘Have you noticed a weakening of support from the local population?’
Sinico laughed sardonically.
‘What support? There was a wave of protests and demonstrations after Falcone and Borsellino were killed, but that soon faded. In my view it was mostly window-dressing anyway. It wasn’t so much that two selfless and dedicated servants of the Italian state had been blown to bloody pulp that got to people, it was the fact that it happened here, on their doorstep. It made them look bad, and Sicilians hate that.’
He paused to toy with the largely uneaten food on his plate.
‘But we never expected much cooperation from the locals. What’s harder to take is the fact that the people at the top have started to distance themselves from us and our work. The old alliances have broken down, but new ones are in formation.’
‘With whom?’ asked Zen.
Sinico made a gesture indicating that this was an unanswerable question.
‘We don’t know yet. But the Mafia has always allied itself with the party of the centre, and they’re all in the centre nowadays, even the former Fascists. Meanwhile our work is obstructed by insinuation and neglect. “With everyone in prison except Binu,” they say…’
‘Except who?’
‘Bernardo Provenzano, also known as Binu. Toto Riina’s right-hand man, and now effectively running the Corleone clan through his wife. Communicates only by written messages, doesn’t trust the phone. On the run for the last thirty years. He’s the last of the historic capi. The rest are all under arrest or serving life sentences, and have been dispersed to remote prisons. So the back of the Mafia has been broken, we’re told. “All thanks to people like you, of course, but the moment has perhaps come to take the longer view, the broader perspective, etcetera, etcetera”’
He sighed deeply and shook his head.
‘It’s depressing, particularly when you know what’s really going on.’
‘And what is going on?’ asked Zen.
Sinico looked up at him.
‘Dottore, the drug trade channelled through the port of Catania alone generates hundreds of millions of US dollars every year. There’s also a lucrative export market in firearms and military supplies, to say nothing of the usual construction scams, prostitution and protection rackets. Meanwhile, the youth unemployment rate is running at fifty per cent. There are seventy thousand people in this city with no visible means of support. Do you think the Mafia is going to have any trouble finding new recruits?’
‘But if the bosses are all in jail…’
‘Then new bosses will emerge. Someone said that only two things are certain, death and taxes. The Mafia combines both. It’s not going to go away. But whereas we knew who the old capi were, even if we couldn’t lay hands on them, we have virtually no idea at all who’s in charge now. Not only that, but the structure of power is shifting. The Corleonesi are more or less finished, having wiped out all their rivals. But other clans have emerged, two of the most powerful based in Belmonte Mezzagno and Caccamo.’
‘Where?’
‘Exactly Villages up in the mountains behind Palermo. No one’s ever heard of them except the DIA. Ragusa is also emerging as a major centre. In Catania and Messina, you have shifting alliances. The Limina family is on the way out, although they don’t seem to realize it yet. And as if all this weren’t enough, there are reliable rumours that alliances are being formed with the Calabrian n’drangheta, who are the real top dogs now, to say nothing of the start-up Albanian mobs in Puglia, some of which have opened branch offices right here in Sicily. In short, it’s an unbelievably complex and obscure situation, far more so than ever before. But no one wants to know. People here used to say, “What Mafia? There’s no such thing!” The only difference now is that they add “any longer”. Well, I’ve just about had enough, and I’m not the only one, believe me.’
Zen did believe him, but could hardly afford to say so. His remit was to report on the operations of the Catania DIA, not connive at its dissolution.
‘But surely you must have had some successes recently?’ he said encouragingly. ‘That case of the body on the train, for example.’
