'Why ever not, dottore? You're doing business with the Italy that works! I may be shut up in this lousy, rotten, stinking hole, but I still have my contacts.'
He produced the piece of paper Zen had given the man called Mario.
'I can contact you at this number?'
'In the evening. During the day I'm at the Ministry.'
'Which department?'
'Criminalpol.'
Arcuti whistled.
'Congratulations! Well, if I have any luck I'll phone you in the morning. I won't give any name. I'll just say that I wanted to confirm our lunch date. There'll be a message for you at the bar here.'
'Thanks, Fausto. In return, I'll see what I can do to shed some light on this Parrucci business.'
'I'd appreciate it, dottore. It's not just for me, though that's not exactly the way I'd choose to go. But the girls, it's wrong for them to have to grow up like this.'
Zen walked away past the shuttered and gated market towards the bustle of activity on Via Marmorata. He was well satisfied with the way things had gone. Fausto Arcuti's lifestyle might appear unimpressive, but as a broker for favours and information he was second to none.
Moreover, Zen knew that he would want to make up for the poor figure he had cut, cowering in fear of his life in a squalid flat.
Zen's main preoccupation now was to get home with as little delay as possible. He was in luck, for no sooner had he turned on to the main traffic artery than a taxi stopped just in front of him. The family which emerged from it seemed numerous enough to fill a bus, never mind a taxi, and still the matriarch in charge kept pulling them out, like a conjuror producing rabbits from a hat. At last the supply was exhausted, however, and after an acrimonious squabble about extras, discounts and tips, they all trooped away.
In solitary splendour Zen climbed into the cab, which was as hot and smelly as a football team's changing- room, and had himself driven home.
To his relief, the red Alfa Romeo was nowhere to be seen. The lift was ready and waiting, for once, and Zen rode it up to the fourth floor. The experiences of the day had left him utterly drained.
He saw it immediately he opened the front door, a narrow black strip as thin as a razor blade and seemingly endless. It continued all the way along the hallway, gleaming where the light from the living room reflected off its surface. He bent down and picked it up. It felt cold, smooth and slippery.
He walked slowly down the hallway, gathering in the shiny strip as he went. As he passed the glass-panelled door to the living room, music welled up from the television, as though to signify his relief at finding his mother alive and well, her eyes glued to the play of light and shadow on the screen. Then he looked past her, uncomprehending, disbelieving. The gleaming strip ran riot over the entire room, heaped in coils on the sofa and chairs, running around the legs of the chairs, draped over the table. In its midst lay a small rectangular box with tape sprouting from slits in either end. Zen picked it up. 'Ministry of the Interior,' he read, 'Index No. 46yzg BUR ygg/K/gg'.
'What's the matter with you tonight?' his mother snapped. 'I asked you to bring me my camomile tea ages ago and you didn't even bother to answer.'
Zen slowly straightened up, staring at her.
'But mamma, I've only just got home.'
'Don't be ridiculous! Do you think I didn't see you? I may be old but I'm not so old I don't recognize my own son! Besides, who else would be here once Maria Grazia's gone home, eh?
A cold shiver ran through Zen's body.
'I'm sorry, mamma.'
'You didn't even have the common decency to reply when I spoke to you! You always bring me my camomile tea before Dynasty starts, you know that. But tonight you were too busy cluttering the place up with that ribbon or string or whatever it is.'
'I'll fetch it straight away,' Zen mumbled.
But he didn't do so, for at that moment he heard a sound from the hallway, and remembered that he had left the front door standing wide open.
Among the furniture stored in the hall was a wardrobe inset with long rectangular mirrors which reflected an image of the front door on to the glass panel of the livingroom door. Thus it was that even before he set foot in the hallway, Zen could see that the entrance to the apartment was now blocked by a figure thrown into silhouette by the landing light. The next moment this switched itself off, plunging everything into obscurity.
'Aurelio?' said a voice from the darkness.
Zen's breathing started again. He groped for the switch and turned on the light.
'Gilberto,' he croaked. 'Come in. Close the door.'
What is the worst, the most obscene and loathsome thing that one person can do to another? Go on, rack your brains! Let your invention run riot! (I often used to talk to myself like this as I scuttled about.) Well? Is that all? I can think of far worse things than that! I've done far worse things than that. But let's not restrict ourselves to your hand-me-down imaginations. Because whatever you or I or anyone else can think up, no matter how hideous or improbable, one thing is sure. It has happened. Not just once but time and time again.
This prison is also a torture house. No one cares what goes on here.
You know Vasco, the blacksmith? Everyone still calls him the blacksmith, though he repairs cars now. What do you think of him? A steady sort, a bit obstinate, gives himself airs? As I was passing his workshop one morning I saw him pick up his threeyear-old daughter by the hair, hold her dangling there a while, then let her fall to the floor. A moment later he was back to work, moulding some metal tubing while the child wept in a heap on the ground, her little world in pieces all around her. I wanted to comfort her, to tell her how lucky she had been. All her daddy had done was pull her hair. He could have done other things. He could have used the blowtorch on her. He could have buried her alive in the pit beneath the cars. He could have done anything.
He could have done anything.
Friday, 11.15-14.20
While the archives section presented a slightly more animated appearance during office hours than on Zen's previous visit, it could by no means have been described as a hive of activity. True, there were now about a dozen clerks on duty, but this manning level had evidently been dictated by some notional bureaucratic quota rather than the actual demands of the job, which wa:i being carried on almost entirely by one man. He had a neurotically intense expression, compulsive, jerky movements, arid the guilty air of someone concealing a shameful secret.
Unlike the others, he couldn't just sit back and read the paper or chat all morning. If there was work to be done, he just couldn't help doing it. It was this that made him a figure of fun in his colleagues' eyes. They watched him scurry about, collecting and dispatching the files which had been ordered, sorting and reshelving those which had been returned, cataloguir.g and indexing new material, typing replies to demands and queries. Their looks were derisory, openly contemptuous. They despised him for his weakness, as he did himself for that matter. Poor fellow!
What could you do with people like that? Still, he had his uses.
As on his previous visit, Zen asked to consult the file on the Vasco Spadola case. While it was being fetched, he called to the clerk who had been on duty the last time be had been there.
The man looked up from the crossword puzzle he was completing.
'You want to speak to me?' he demanded, with the incredulous tone of a surgeon interrupted while performing an open-heart operation.
Zen shook his head. 'You want to speak to me. At least, so I've been told. Something about a video tape.'
An anticipatory smile dawned on the clerk's lips.
'Ah, so it was you, was it? Yes, I remember now!'
The other clerks had all fallen silent and were watching with curiosity. Their colleague strode languidly over to the counter where Zen was standing.
