‘If you study the answers I have given I think you will find that they are very clear, ‘Di Leonardo returned. ‘Should you have any further questions, I suggest you put them to Commissioner Zen himself.’
The Public Prosecutor pointed Zen out with one finger, and as everyone turned to look he slipped through the suddenly passive ranks to the safety of his office, closing the door firmly behind him. Immediately all hell broke loose.
‘What’s your reaction, dottore?’
‘How did it feel finding Miletti’s body?’
‘Do you accept responsibility for his death?’
‘A spokesman for the family has described your handling of the case as a quote disgraceful and disastrous example of official interventionism unquote. Would you care to comment?’
‘Isn’t it true that during the Moro affair you were transferred from the active list of the Rome Questura to a desk job in the Ministry following a disciplinary inquiry? Would you describe today’s events as a further setback to your career?’
As the lights glared, the cameras whirred and the microphones thrust and jabbed, Zen finally understood why he had been summoned to the law courts.
‘If you study the answers the Deputy Public Prosecutor has given, I think you will find that they are very clear,’ he told them. ‘I have nothing further to add.’
The reporters didn’t give up so easily, of course. But stolid stonewalling makes for poor copy and dull viewing, and eventually they let him go, although even then a few of the younger and hungrier among them followed him down the wide staircase and out into Piazza Matteotti, hoping for a belated indiscretion.
It was dusk, and the evening was as still and airless as the previous one when, impatient for news, Zen had gone out for a stroll. It was strange now, walking through the same streets, to know that by then it had already happened. But even on a cursory examination the doctor had been in no doubt.
‘Rigor mortis is complete but there’s no sign of it passing off. Body temperature almost down to the ambient level. He’s been dead at least eighteen hours, more likely twenty-four.’
Zen had hardly heard him at the time, shocked by the sight of the man he had been summoned to Perugia to save lying naked on a plastic sheet with a thermometer sticking out of his anus. Ruggiero Miletti had been killed the day before, on Monday morning, and yet the gang had waited until this morning to alert the family with a cruel message of hope! In all his experience Zen could remember nothing like it. Kidnappers could be violent, but in the easy, unashamed manner of men to whom violence was natural and legitimate. If they had killed their victim to teach the Milettis a lesson they would have said so, even bragged about it. But this crime, and above all the manner in which it was mockingly announced, had a twisted sophistication, a kink in the logic which Zen would have said was quite alien to a gang of Calabrian shepherds.
But he impatiently dismissed this line of thought. Little enough was left him now, but at least his dignity remained, though no one but himself could see it. If he were to start clutching at straws, hoping against hope for a way out, then even that would be lost.
Back in his office he reached for the phone and dialled his home number. As usual, Maria Grazia answered and then yelled to his mother to pick up the extension phone by her chair, in the deep underwater gloom of the living room. The connection was especially good, almost as if they were face to face, and Zen found himself resentful that he should be deprived of the usual screen of interference on an occasion when he could find nothing to say.
‘Happy birthday, mamma. Did you like the present?’
‘ Is this going to take long? Crissie’s having her baby and I don’t want to miss that. Wayne will be livid when he hears. And that half-brother of hers, do you know what he’s done? Sold the property over their heads! That couldn’t happen to us, could it? ’
‘No, mamma.’
‘ Why not? ’
Was she having a sly laugh at his expense, talking nonsense and then cornering him with a sudden question?
‘ Is it because you’re in the police? ’
‘Yes, that’s it, mamma. They wouldn’t dare do anything like that. You see, there are some advantages after all.’
‘ What? ’
‘To being in the police! You’re always telling me that I should have got a job on the railways. Anyway, if you’re still watching when the news comes on you might see me. I’m…’
‘ Oh, I haven’t time to watch the news. There’s the dolphins on Six right afterwards. They’ve kidnapped them, the bastards.’
‘Who, the dolphins?’
‘ Anyway, if you were on the railways we’d get free tickets wherever we wanted to go.’
‘I already get free travel, mamma.’
‘ I don’t! ’
‘But you never even leave the apartment any more!’
‘ That’s what I’m saying. If you had a nice job on the railways maybe I could get out and about a bit.’
There was a knock, the door opened and Luciano Bartocci appeared.
‘May I?’
After a moment’s hesitation Zen waved him forward.
‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ he said into the phone. ‘Happy birthday. See you soon.’
He hung up.
‘Sorry if I disturbed you,’ Bartocci went on. ‘I was just passing, and I thought I’d…’
He took off the heavy overcoat he was wearing and laid it across the top of the filing cabinet.
‘I won’t stay long.’
The smile trembling to be born at the corner of his mouth was even more active than usual.
‘The thing is, you see, I realize that I’ve been rather stupid, and rather selfish, and I’d like to apologize.’
Zen stood staring at the younger man in considerable embarrassment. He had no idea how to deal with the situation. A judge apologizing to a policeman! What were we coming to?
‘I asked you to collaborate unofficially,’ Bartocci went on. ‘That was irresponsible. You could have refused, of course, but it was a choice I shouldn’t have forced you to make.’
Zen watched the younger man circling the office, inspecting the fixtures and fittings as though they were evidence at the scene of a crime. He’s not apologizing to me, Zen realized. He’s apologizing to himself, for letting himself down.
‘My entire strategy was incorrect from the start,’ the magistrate continued. ‘It’s mere bourgeois adventurism to think that the conspiracies of powerful vested interests can be defeated by individual efforts. I should have known better. The ratking is self-regulating, as I told you before. The strength of each rat is the strength of all. Any individual initiative against them is doomed from the start. The system can only be destroyed politically, by collective action, a stronger system.’
The distant smile was in place on Zen’s lips. By a bigger and better ratking, he thought.
‘Did you actually hear the recording of the message the Milettis received this morning?’
For a moment Bartocci appeared slightly confused.
‘Hear it? Why?’
‘Is anyone sure it was really the kidnappers who phoned?’
There was silence while Bartocci thought through the implications of this remark. Then he smiled and shook his head.
‘I see what you’re getting at,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid it’s not on. You’ve been away from active duty for a while, haven’t you?’
Evidently the rumours about Zen’s past were beginning to catch up with him.
‘All interceptions are now subjected to voiceprint analysis as a matter of routine,’ the magistrate explained. ‘If the one this morning hadn’t matched the pattern I’d have been informed. No, I’m afraid we must accept that Miletti was murdered by his kidnappers.’
‘All right, perhaps they pulled the trigger. But there’s still the question of how they knew I would be there at
