the other small red cars that have been reported in the area. With the old method it would take you hours looking through files, but with the computer you just push a button and it tells you right away. And the same for all the large red cars, or the red foreign cars of any size, or the small sports cars of any colour…’
Zen passed one hand across his forehead. There were clearly various possibilities which the Chinese hadn’t thought of. For example, the mice stop gnawing, scamper down your arm, cock their legs and piss in your face.
‘Listen, you don’t mean to tell me that everyone around here gets their reports in this form. I simply don’t believe it.’
‘Of course they do! Isn’t it the same in Rome?’
Zen looked away. Of course it was the same in Rome. It would be the same everywhere, that was how the system worked. What Geraci still didn’t know was that Zen had no recent operational experience in Rome or anywhere else.
‘Mind you, some of the older officers get us to do a back-up report in the old way,’ Chiodini told him.
‘But it’s strictly unofficial,’ Geraci added hurriedly. ‘Can’t be logged or filed.’
Zen was leafing through the folder. He seemed not to have heard.
‘Did you speak to this witness?’
The inspector took the file and glanced at the entry pointed out by Zen’s broad flat finger.
‘No, that was Lucaroni.’
‘But it’s marked G.’
‘That’s right. G stands for Lucaroni.’
‘Really? I suppose you’re L?’
Geraci frowned.
‘L? No, L is already in use by the system. For example here in the same entry it says L23, right? That means an unidentified foreign car.’
‘Where is Lucaroni?’
Geraci seemed to hesitate for a moment.
‘Upstairs,’ said Chiodini.
That meant either the senior command structure or the Political Branch, whose rooms are situated on the top floor of every Questura. The fact that the same word is used for either reflects the general feeling that the distinction between them is fairly hazy.
‘Tell him I want to see him as soon as he gets back.’
He closed the door behind him. So they were getting a computer, were they? Soon the intolerable mysteries of Mediterranean life would be swept away by the electronic wonders of real time and random access for all. And just to make sure that everything was fair and above-board, the computer, like the facilities for tapping phones, would be located at the law courts, safely out of the hands of the police. ‘They’re doing to small-time corruption what the multinational corporations are doing to small-time business,’ a cynical Sardinian friend had once remarked apropos of the latest initiative to clean up the police. ‘It’s not going to stop the abuse of power, it’s just going to restrict it to the highest level. Anyone can afford to buy you or me, Aurelio, but only the big boys can manipulate judges.’
Zen glanced at the wall, where the calendar now looked oddly unbalanced. Yes, it might be time to phone Gilberto. He couldn’t leave the crucifix in the luggage locker for ever.
Lucaroni appeared about ten minutes later, all apologies for the delay.
‘I was just having a word with Personnel,’ he explained. ‘My sister’s getting married next week and I wanted to know whether there’d be any chance of a spot of leave.’
Zen passed him a page of the report.
‘Tell me about this woman who claims to have seen a large blue car near the scene of the crime.’
‘Well, there’s just what it says here,’ the inspector replied, scanning the page. ‘It was a large blue foreign saloon, she said, driven by someone with fair hair, going along the…’
‘Tell me about the woman.’
‘The driver? But we don’t…’
‘No, the woman you spoke to.’
Lucaroni made a conspicuous effort to remember.
‘Well, she was oldish. lives with her in-laws in one of those new houses along the road.’
‘How did she see the car?’
‘She was out gathering salad leaves for the evening meal. There’s very little traffic on that road and she knows most of the people, so when she saw this strange car she noticed it.’
‘She called it a “strange” car?’
‘Yes.’
‘So how did the idea that it was foreign come up?’
‘I asked her about the make and she said she didn’t know. I asked if it was foreign and she said that it was.’
Zen nodded. The old woman wouldn’t have known a Rolls-Royce from a Renault. ‘Foreign’ just meant that the car was a large luxury saloon of a kind she’d never seen before.
‘And there was only one person in it?’
‘So she said. A woman with blonde hair.’
Zen took the report back again.
‘It says “fair hair” here.’
‘Well, you can’t put blonde, can you?’ Lucaroni pointed out. ‘The computer won’t accept it. Hair is either fair or yellow.’
Zen nodded.
‘Oh, there’s one other thing.’
He pointed to the wall.
‘You remember the crucifix that used to be there? You don’t happen to know where it came from, do you?’
Lucaroni’s tongue emerged to dampen his lips. He shook his head.
‘I had a visitor in here the other day, you see. There was an accident and the thing ended up in pieces. Most unfortunate.’
‘In pieces?’ Lucaroni whispered.
Zen nodded.
‘Luckily my visitor was a Communist, so he’s not superstitious about these things. I’d be happy to pay for a new one, but I have no idea where to go. Do you think you could get me one? I’d really appreciate it.’
There was a long silence.
‘Well…’ Lucaroni began.
Zen tapped his chest with one finger.
‘But I want one that is the same. You understand? Exactly identical in every respect.’
Their glances met and held.
‘Identical,’ breathed the inspector.
‘Absolutely. I was very fond of that crucifix. It had a certain something about it, know what I mean?’
Lucaroni’s mouth was now completely out of control. His tongue shot out continually, dumping saliva on his lips, which barely had time to spread it around their shiny surfaces before the next load arrived. Zen hastened to dismiss him before he self-destructed.
A glance at the map revealed that there was a short cut down to the Miletti villa, so instead of summoning Palottino he decided to walk. What he was thinking of doing was risky enough as it was. The less official he could make it the better.
The short cut turned out to be a lane which started abruptly at the bottom of a flight of steps opposite the Questura and ran straight down the hillside like a ruled line. It must have been one of the old medieval roads into the city, now closed to traffic by the concrete retaining wall of the ring boulevard. To either side old farmhouses and new villas stood in uneasy proximity. Beyond them, a narrow fold in the hillside was being filled with rubbish to provide space for a car park. Down below, lost in the mist, he could just make out the holm-oaks and cypresses
