‘Thank you.’
As they walked downstairs Zen studied his escort: hair closely cropped on a head that looked muscle-bound, ears cauliflowered, no neck to speak of, shoulders and biceps that formed one inflexible block, the ‘safe’ hands swinging massively back and forth. Chiodini would be the one they sent for when old-fashioned interrogation methods were required.
At the third-floor landing the man jerked his thumb to the right.
‘Along there, three five one,’ he called without turning or breaking his stride.
Zen just managed to stop himself intoning another ‘Thank you.’
Yes, it had all been consummately handled, no question about that. Iovino’s speech had been a brilliant set piece, systematically exploiting all the weaknesses of Zen’s position. Words are not everything, however, and the Questore had by no means neglected other possibilities of making his point, such as the contrast between the bombastic formality with which he had rolled out the red carpet and beaten the big drum and the perfunctory way he had then dismissed Zen into the ‘safe hands’ of the local third-degree specialist. The message was clear. Zen would be offered the moon and the stars, but if he wanted a coffee he’d have to go and fetch it himself.
He opened the door of the office and looked around warily. Everything seemed normal. On one wall hung the mandatory photograph of the President of the Republic, facing it on another the inevitable large calendar and a small crucifix. There was a grey metal filing cabinet in the corner, the top two drawers empty and the bottom one stuffed with plastic bags. In the centre of the office, dominating it, stood a desk of some sickly looking yellow wood which had seemingly been grown in imitation of one of the nastier synthetic materials. Like every other piece of furniture in the room this carried a tag inscribed ‘Ministry of the Interior’ and a stamped serial number. Screwed to the back of the door was a list itemizing every piece of furniture in the room, down to the metal rubbish bin, together with its serial number. It was not that the Ministry did not trust their employees. They were just tidy- minded and couldn’t sleep at night unless they were sure that everything was in its place.
Zen walked over to the window and looked out. Down below was a small car park for police vehicles. Facing him was a windowless stone wall with a heavy gate guarded by two men, one in grey uniform with a cap, the other in battledress and a flak jacket. Both carried submachine guns, as did another guard patrolling the roof of the building. So that was it: they had given him an office with no view but the prison. He smiled sourly, acknowledging the hit. Sicilians were notoriously good at this kind of thing.
And the phone? He would never forget those first months at the Ministry, sitting in a windowless office in the basement, his only link to the outside world a telephone which was not connected. The repair men were always just about to come, but somehow they never did, and for over three months that telephone had squatted on his desk like a toad, symbol of a curse that would never be lifted. And when it finally was repaired Zen knew that this was not a token of victory but of total defeat. They could let him have a phone now. It didn’t matter, because it never rang. Everyone knew about his ‘reputation’. He had broken the rules of the tribe and been tabooed.
Here in Perugia his phone worked all right, but the same logic applied. Who was he going to call? What was he going to do? Should he fight back? Call Iovino’s bluff and start throwing his weight around? The Ministry had sent him and they were bound to back him up, if only as a matter of form. With a bit of effort and energy he could soon bring the Questore and his men to heel. The problem was that he lacked the energy and was not going to make the effort. At heart he just didn’t care enough about these provincial officials and their petty pride. He didn’t even care about the case itself. Nine kidnappings out of ten were never solved anyway, and there was no reason to think that this one would be any different. In the end the family would pay up or the gang would back down. As a spectacle it was as uninspiring as an arm-wrestling contest between two strangers.
Outside the Questura he found the driver who had brought him there from Rome, a young Neapolitan named Luigi Palottino, still standing attentively beside the dark blue Alfetta. The sight of him just increased Zen’s humiliation by reminding him of the scene at his apartment that morning when he’d returned, having spent the night with Ellen, to find Maria Grazia and his mother trying to organize his packing while the driver stood looking on with a bemused expression and everyone had to shout to be heard above the cheery chatter of the television, which had apparently turned itself on so as not to be left out of things.
‘What are you doing here?’ Zen snapped at him.
‘Waiting for you, sir.’
‘For me? I’m not in the mood for company, frankly.’
‘I mean waiting for your orders, sir.’
‘My orders? All right, you might as well take me to my hotel. Then you can go.’
The Neapolitan frowned.
‘Sir?’
‘You can go back to Rome.’
‘No, sir.’
Zen looked at him with menacing attention.
‘What do you mean, “no”?’
‘My orders are to remain here in Perugia with you, sir. They’ve allocated me a bed in the barracks.’
They want to keep tabs on me, thought Zen. They don’t trust me, of course. Of course! And who could say what other orders Luigi Palottino might have been given?
Half an hour later Zen was sitting in a cafe enjoying a late lunch, when he heard his name spoken by a complete stranger. The cafe was an old-world establishment quite unlike the usual chrome-and-glass filling stations for caffeine junkies, a long, narrow burrow of a place with a bar on one side and a few seats and small tables on the other. The walls were lined with tall wooden cabinets filled with German chocolates and English jam and shelves bending dangerously under the weight of undrinkably ancient bottles of wine. There were newspapers dangling from canes and waiters in scarlet jackets who seemed to have all the time in the world, and faded pastoral frescos presided amiably from the vaulted ceiling. Zen took the only free table, which was between the coat-stand and the telephone, so that he was continually being disturbed by people wanting to get at one or the other. But he paid no particular attention to the other clients until he heard his own name being laboriously spelt out.
‘?,?,?. Yes, that’s right.’
The man was in his early sixties, short but powerfully built with an almost aggressively vigorous appearance that suggested a peasant background not many generations earlier. But this was no peasant. His clothes and grooming suggested wealth, and his manner was that of a man used to getting his own way.
‘So I’ve been told. Perhaps he hasn’t arrived yet? Ah, I see. Listen, Gianni, do me a favour, will you? When he comes back, tell him
… No, nothing. Forget it. On second thoughts I’ll call him myself later. Thanks.’
The receiver was replaced, and the man glanced down.
‘Sorry for disturbing you, eh?’
He walked slowly away, greeting various acquaintances as he went.
The elderly cashier seemed to have no idea how much anything cost, and by the time the waiter who had served Zen had told her and she had manipulated the Chinese box of little drawers to extract the right change, the man had disappeared. But as soon as Zen got outside he almost bumped into him, standing just to the left of the doorway chatting to a younger bearded man. Zen walked past them and stopped some distance away in front of a glass case displaying the front page of the local edition of the Nazione newspaper with the headlines circled in red ink.
‘TRAGEDY ON THE PERUGIA-TERNI: ATROCIOUS DEATH OF YOUNG COUPLE UNDER A TRUCK.’ He could see the two men quite clearly, reflected on the glass surface in front of him, the younger protesting in a querulous whine, ‘I still don’t see why I should be expected to deal with it.’ ‘BUSES IN PERUGIA: EVERYTHING TO CHANGE – NEW ROUTES, NEW TIMETABLES.’ ‘It’s agreed, then?’ exclaimed the older man. ‘But not Daniele, eh? God knows what he’s capable of!’ ‘FOOTBALL: PERUGIA TO BUY ANOTHER FOREIGNER?’ Zen scanned the newspaper for some reference to his arrival. Rivalries within the Questura usually ensured that an event which was bound to be damaging to someone’s reputation would be reported in the local press. But of course there had been no time for that as yet.
When he next looked up he found that the two men had now separated and the older one was walking towards him.
‘Excuse me!’
The man turned, suspicious and impatient.
