‘How do you like my little fortress? It’s mostly fake, of course, but nowadays such things have a charm of their own. No craftsman alive could do those mouldings. There’s even a romantic story behind it. Years ago, before the war with Austria, my grandfather met his future wife up here during a summer outing. There was nothing here then but the ruins of an old watchtower. Later he bought the land and had the ruins turned into this place as a present for their silver wedding anniversary. Look, this wall is original, over three metres thick! Pity you can’t see the view. The Tiber’s just down there, and on the other side the hills stretching away towards Gubbio. Better than any painting in the world in my opinion. Silvio, how are you?’
As they passed down a long hallway Zen had a confused impression of old furniture, elaborate paintwork in poor condition, of musty smells and cold, immobile air. Crepi opened one of the three sets of double doors opening off an anteroom at the end of the corridor and ushered his guests through into a large sitting room with a high frescoed ceiling. As they entered, a woman of about thirty moved quickly forward, her hand held out to Zen. She had a skiing tan and long honey-blonde hair and was wearing tawny leather slacks, a hazel-brown silk blouse and masses of gold everywhere.
‘Cinzia Miletti, dottore, pleased to meet you, so glad you could come. Wonderful, really. We’re counting on you, you know, please tell us there’s hope. I’m sure there is, I don’t know why but something tells me that father will be all right. Are you religious? I wish I was. And yet sometimes I feel I am. I don’t go to church, of course, but that’s not what religion is really about, is it? Sometimes I think I’m more religious than all the priests and nuns in Assisi. I have these tremendous feelings.’
Crepi broke in to introduce the other person in the room. Gianluigi Santucci, Cinzia’s husband, was a wiry little man in his late thirties, with carefully sculpted, thick black hair, a neat moustache and something almost canine about his sharp, wary features. Zen sensed hostility in the brief glance and minimal nod with which he acknowledged his greeting without budging from where he stood in front of the log fire. Then Cinzia swept him away again.
‘Where are you from? You’re not Roman, are you? I can’t stand Romans, arrogant, pushy people, think they still rule the world. Of course we have masses of friends in Rome. But your name, it reminds me of that book I keep meaning to read, a classic, by what’s-his-name, about the man who’s trying to give up smoking. Do you smoke? I really should stop, but I’ve been to the doctor and he told me to take pills which I simply refuse to do, it’s worse than smoking. You read these horror stories in the magazines, years later your children are born deformed, though there’s nothing wrong with my two, thank God. Have you got any children? But where are you from? No, let me guess. Sicily? Yes, you’ve got Norman blood, I can sense it. Am I right?’
‘Not quite, my dear,’ Crepi put in with heavy irony, and corrected her.
‘Venice? Well, it’s the same thing, an island.’
Just then a tall, plain woman came in from the hallway, closing the door quietly behind her. She was about forty years old, with medium-length mousy-brown hair tied up in a bun, and was dressed in a trouser-suit made from some synthetic material which reminded Zen of beach fashions at the Lido back in the fifties. It was meant to look stylish, but somehow succeeded in being both brash and drab at the same time. No one took the slightest notice of the newcomer. Gianluigi Santucci was saying something to Crepi in an intense whisper, while his wife wandered distractedly about asking everyone if they had seen her handbag and discussing how much easier life would be if handbags didn’t exist but how could you survive without them although of course her friend Stefania had given up using hers completely, just thrown it away one day, and she still managed so perhaps it was possible, with time all things were possible.
‘Are your brothers coming?’ Zen asked Silvio, who shook his head briefly.
‘Pietro’s in London. And Daniele is not interested in this sort of thing.’
But Zen remembered hearing Crepi tell Silvio that afternoon, ‘But not Daniele, eh? God knows what he’s capable of!’ So whatever sort of thing it was, the youngest Miletti was being deliberately kept out of it.
Gianluigi Santucci’s raucous voice suddenly cut loose, as if someone had flicked the volume control on a badly tuned radio.
‘Well, that’s his tough shit, in my opinion! If people arrive late they can’t expect everyone else to wait for them. It’s not as if he’s the head of the family or an honoured guest!’
Crepi explained to the others that they had been discussing whether or not to wait any longer for Ubaldo Valesio.
‘What’s the point in waiting?’ Cinzia’s husband demanded. ‘These lawyers are always stuffing themselves, anyway. Lawyers and priests, they’re the worst!’
‘Yes, let’s get on with it!’ Silvio agreed. Judging by his tone, he meant ‘Let’s get it over with’.
Crepi turned to Zen.
‘Dottore, you’re the neutral party here,’ he said with exaggerated heartiness. ‘What do you say?’
Fortunately Cinzia saved him.
‘Oh, I’m sure the Commissioner feels just the same as the rest of us!’ she cried. ‘Let’s eat, for heaven’s sake! I’m starving, and you know Lulu’s digestion is always a problem. Standing around waiting just gets the juices going, you know, eating into the stomach lining. Horrible, disgusting. But he bears it like a lamb, don’t you, Lulu?’
The dining room was cold and smelt damp. It was lit by a large number of naked bulbs stuck in a chandelier whose supporting chain ran up several metres to an anchorage planted with surreal effect in the midst of the elaborate frescos which covered the ceiling. Zen had plenty of time to study these buxom nymphs and shepherds disporting themselves in a variety of more or less suggestive poses as the meal proceeded at a funereal pace, presided over by an elderly retainer whose hands shook so alarmingly that it seemed just a matter of time before a load of food ended up in someone’s lap.
The tagliatelle was home-made, the meat well grilled on a wood fire, Crepi’s wine honest and his bottle- green oil magnificent, but the dinner was a disaster. Ubaldo Valesio did not arrive, and without him, by tacit consent, the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti could not be mentioned. With this tremendous presence unacknowledged there was nothing to do but be relentlessly bright and superficial. Cinzia Miletti thus came into her own, dominating the table with a breathless display of frenetic verbiage which might almost have been mistaken for high spirits. Antonio Crepi punctuated her monologues with a succession of rather ponderous anecdotes about the history and traditions of Umbria in general and Perugia in particular, narrated in the emphatic declamatory style of university professors of the pre-1968 era.
Silvio sat eating his way steadily through his food with an expression midway between a squint and a scowl, as though he were looking at something repulsive through the wrong end of a telescope. Gianluigi Santucci contributed little beyond occasional explosive comments that were the verbal equivalent of the loud growls and rumbles emanating from his stomach. The woman in the grotesque trouser-suit, who was apparently Silvio’s secretary, said not one word throughout, merely smiling ingratiatingly at everyone and no one, like a kindly nun watching children at play. As for Zen, he studied the ceiling and thanked God that time passed relatively quickly at his age. He could still remember half-hours from his childhood which seemed to have escaped the regulation of the clock altogether and to last for ever, until for no good reason they were over. Crepi’s dinner party made the most of every one of its one hundred and thirteen minutes, but shortly after half past ten its time was up and they all filed back into the other room.
But despite the slightly more relaxed atmosphere, the situation remained blocked. There was continued speculation about what could have happened to Valesio, whose thoughtlessness in not ringing to apologize and explain was agreed to be typical. The origins of the problem were traced back to his mother, a Swede who had fallen in love first with Perugia and then with a Perugian, and who as a foreigner could not be expected to know how to bring up her son properly. But Zen was beginning to suspect that Crepi had been outmanoeuvred, that Valesio was staying away deliberately under orders from the Milettis in order to prevent any discussion of the kidnapping. So why didn’t they all go, for God’s sake? The farce had been played out to the bitter end and there was nothing to stop them making a graceful exit. The fact remained that no one appeared to have the slightest intention of doing anything of the kind.
At last the sound of a motor was heard outside, and everyone perked up.
‘Ah, finally!’ cried Cinzia. ‘He’s impossible, you know, really impossible, and yet such a nice person really. My mother always told me whatever I did never to marry a lawyer. He’ll be late for his own funeral, she used to say, and I must say Gianluigi for all his faults is always on time.’
This paragon of punctuality exchanged a glance with Silvio.
‘That’s a motorcycle engine,’ he remarked.
