invaluable asset. No, he had to try and keep Bartocci happy. On the other hand, the inquiries he had been asked to make, although apparently innocuous, were also fraught with risk. A great family such as the Milettis is like a sleeping bear: it may look massively apathetic and unimpressionable but each hair of its pelt is wired straight into the creature’s brain, and if you twitch it the wrong way the thing will flex its tendons and turn on you, unzipping its claws. What was he to do? How was he to react? What was a safe course to take?
His immediate solution was to go boating. Not for long, of course. With all these new developments pressing in on him the last thing he could afford was an afternoon off work. But neither was there any point in trying to take action with his head in this condition. So having made his way back to the hotel he closed the shutters, took off his shoes, jacket and tie, lay down on the bed and cast off. The image of the long shallow craft gliding forward through the reeds in regular surges, propelled by the oarsman’s graceful double-handed sweeps, was a powerful agent of calm. Just ten or fifteen minutes of it now would see him right, a short trip out through the islets and mudbanks where you could let the boat drift, lean over the stern and watch the inner life of the dirty green water, the shreds of seaweed and small branches and other shapes that sometimes proved to be alive, or focus on the surface, a depthless sheet of scum on which the pearly light shimmered in continual shifting patterns, or even look up to see a huge modern building, several storeys high, going for a stroll along a neighbouring island, the superstructure of a freighter putting out to sea along the deep-water channel…
He got up and put the light on, shivering. Something was wrong. How could the room feel stuffy and cold at the same time? And it was totally silent, no distant murmur of traffic, no footsteps, no voices. Catching sight of the transistor radio, he clicked it on and fiddled with the tuning, encountering only heavy bands of static interspersed with the twittering gibberish of machines. He felt like the last person left alive.
‘… very much and you get a fabulous Radio Subasio T-shirt so keep those calls coming out there this one is for Adriana in Gubbio it’s Celentano’s latest coming to you at fifteen before four this Thursday morning courtesy of your friend Tullio who says… ’
Zen silenced the radio, walked to the window and opened the shutters. The deserted piazza glistened under the streetlights. He had slept right through the night.
Catching sight of his reflection in the window he felt a surge of self-pity and suddenly realized that he missed Ellen very badly, and that it was only at moments like this, when he surprised himself, that he could admit how much he needed her. Why couldn’t he tell her? That was what she wanted, after all, and he knew that she was right to want it. For a moment he thought of phoning her, then and there, and telling her how he felt. But it would be ridiculous, of course. He imagined the phone ringing and ringing until it prodded her unwillingly out of sleep, and her uncomprehending response. ‘For Christ’s sake, Aurelio, couldn’t this have waited? Do you know what time it is? I’ve got a sale to go to at nine, and you know how difficult it is for me to get back to sleep once I’ve been woken.’ Instead he read a paper he’d bought in Trieste and forgotten to throw away, immersing himself in a debate over the council’s delay in resurfacing the streets in an outlying zone of the city until it was time to go to work.
A crowd of people of various races, clutching passports and sheaves of official documents, were clustered around an office in the foyer of the Questura. A sheet of paper attached to the glass partition with sticky tape read ‘Foreigners’ in crude lettering. Behind the glass an official from the Political Branch scowled at a worried-looking black.
‘And I suppose it’s my fault you haven’t got it?’ he demanded.
As Zen approached his office, the inspector who had been trying to trace Ubaldo Valesio’s movements poked his head around the door of the next room.
‘Just a moment, chief!’
Lucaroni was short and rather sleazy-looking, with narrow-set eyes and a broad jaw blue with stubble. His movements were quick and furtive and he spoke in a speedy whisper, as though every word were classified information.
‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he muttered. ‘The widow. Rolled in about five minutes ago demanding to see you. We weren’t sure what to do with her.’
He looked doubtfully at Zen, who nodded.
‘Turn up anything yesterday?’
Lucaroni shook his head.
‘He phoned his office at nine to cancel all appointments. It was obviously unexpected. There were two clients waiting who had to be sent away.’
Zen looked into the inspectors’ room. Chiodini was poring over a sports paper. Geraci was staring fixedly back at Zen, as though he was trying to remember whether he’d turned the gas off before leaving home.
‘How about you two?’ Zen asked.
Geraci’s eyebrows wiggled briefly.
‘Just a lot of stuff about his house and taxes and kids.’
‘And those marks in the diary,’ Chiodini put in without looking up from his paper.
‘They’re nothing,’ Geraci commented dismissively.
‘What marks?’ asked Zen.
He was really just buying time before having to deal with Patrizia Valesio.
Chiodini took the diary from the pile of documents on his desk and showed him that the lawyer had marked several pages during the previous three months with a red asterisk, the last being two days earlier. Zen walked over to the door opening directly into his office, taking the diary with him.
‘What do you want us to do now, chief?’ Geraci asked. He sounded slightly panicky.
‘Nothing, for now.’
He should never have asked for three assistants, he realized. Now he would always have them hanging about, making him feel guilty, getting in his way. Moreover one of them was bound to be reporting back to the Questore, and since there was no way of finding out which he would have to keep them all busy if he was to do what Bartocci had asked.
The spare chair in his office was occupied by a woman of about thirty dressed in an elegant black outfit. Her face was large and round and slightly concave, with a long sharp nose.
‘You’re the man they sent up from Rome?’ she asked. ‘I am Patrizia Valesio.’
‘I’m very sorry…’
She waved dismissively.
‘Please, don’t let’s waste time.’
Zen took out a notepad and pencil and laid them on the desk.
‘Very well. What can I do for you?’
‘I’ve come to make an accusation. You may find it bizarre, even unbelievable. I simply ask you to listen, and not to judge what I say until I have finished.’
She took a deep breath.
‘My husband did not usually discuss the negotiations for Ruggiero Miletti’s release with me, but on one occasion about a month ago, while we were having dinner…’
She paused. The strain of what she was saying showed on her face. Then she finished quickly.
‘He suddenly blurted out, “Someone is going behind my back”.’
The phone started to ring.
‘Excuse me,’ Zen said, and lifted the receiver.
‘ Good morning, Commissioner. This is Antonio Crepi. I’m just phoning to make it quite clear that our discussion the other night is no longer relevant. Pietro has flown in from London and he’s assured me that as soon as the gang make contact the matter will be resolved without further delay. I don’t need to tell you to keep what I said to yourself of course.’
Of course.’
‘ Incidentally, I hear you had lunch with young Bartocci yesterday .’
Zen watched Patrizia Valesio removing an invisible hair from her coat.
‘ I don’t want to interfere, dottore, but remember what I told you about him. Luciano’s a good lad at heart, but he’s got a bee in his bonnet when it comes to the Milettis. You know how these lefties are, they read Marx and stop seeing reality. Now that’s a dangerous attitude for an investigating magistrate, in my opinion. Still more so for a policeman. See what I mean? Just a friendly word of advice, from one who knows.’
Zen put the phone down. ‘… from one who knows.’ Where had he heard that phrase before?
