'Swiss.'
The low growl sounded out again. Inside the hut, its weight of emotion seemed even greater, an expression of grief and loss that was almost unbearable.
'What was that noise?' Zen asked.
The man continued to eye him with open hostility, as though trying to stare him out.
'A lion,' he said at last.
'Ah, a lion.'
Zen's tone remained politely conversational, as though lions were an amenity without which no home was complete.
'Where in Switzerland?' the man demanded.
He was wearing jeans and a blue tee-shirt. A large hunting knife in a leather sheath was attached to his belt.
His bare arms were hairy and muscular. A long white scar ran in a straight line from just below his right elbow to the wrist.
'From Zurich,' Zen replied.
'You want to buy the house?'
'Not personally. I am here on behalf of a client.'
The words of the young man at Palazzo Sisti echoed in his mind. 'You will visit the scene of the crime, interview witnesses, interrogate suspects. In the course of your investigations you will discover concrete evidence demolishing Furio Padedda's alibi and linking him to the murder of Oscar Burolo.
All this will take no more than a few days at the most.'
Something inconceivably huge and fast passed overhead, blocking out the light for an instant like a rapid eclipse of the sun. An instant later there was an earthshattering noise, as if a tall stone column had collapsed on top of the hut. Even after the moment had passed, the rumbles and echoes continued to reverberate in the walls and ground for several seconds.
The lion-keeper was on his knees at the far end of the hut, bent over the heap on the ground. Zen started towards him, his shoes rustling on the straw underfoot.
'Stay there!' the man shouted.
Zen stopped. He looked around the hot, still, fetid gloom of the hut. Two pitchforks, some large plastic buckets, a shovel and lengths of rope and chain were strewn about the floor in disorder. A coiled whip and a pump-action shotgun hung from nails hammered into the roof supports.
'What was that?' Zen called.
The man got to his feet.
'The air force. They come here to practise flying low over the mountains. When Signor Burolo was…'
He broke off.
'Yes?' Zen prompted.
'They didn't bother us then.'
I bet they didn't, thought Zen. A few phone calls and a hefty contribution to the officers' mess fund would have seen to that.
The low melancholy growl was repeated once more, a feeble echo of the jet's brief uproar, like a child feebly imitating a word it does not understand.
It does not sound happy, the lion,' Zen observed.
'It is dying.'
'Of what?'
'Of old age.'
'The planes disturb it'
'Strangers too.'
The man's tone was uncompromising. Zen pointed to the scar on his forearm.
'But it is still dangerous, I see.'
The man brushed past him towards the door.
'A very neat job, though,' Zen commented, following him out. 'More like a knife or a bullet than claws.'
'You know a lot about lions?' the keeper demanded sarcastically, as they emerged into the brilliant sunlight and pure air.
'Only what I read in the papers.'
The man walked over to the smaller hut and brought out a plastic bucket filled with a bloody mixture of hearts, lungs and intestines.
'I notice that you keep a shotgun in there,' Zen pursued, 'so I assume there is reason for fear.'
The man regarded him with blank eyes.
'There is always reason for fear when you are dealing with creatures to whom killing comes naturally.'
Seeing him standing there in open defiance, the bucket of guts in his hand, ready to feed the great beasts that he alor.e could manage, it was easy to see Furio Padedda's attraction for a certain type of woman. It was to these concrete huts that Rita Burolo had come to disport herself with the lion-keeper, unaware that their antics were being recorded by the infra-red video equipment her husband had rigged up under the roof.
How had Oscar felt, viewing those tapes which -according to gloating sources in the investigating magistrate's office – made hard-core porno videos look tame by comparison? Had his motive for making them been simple voyeurism, or was he intending to blackmail his wife? Was she independently wealthy? Had he hoped in this way h~ stave off bankruptcy until his threats forced 1'onorevole to intervene in his favour? Supposing he had mentioned the existence of the tapes to her, and she had passed on the information to her lover. To a proud and fiery Sardinian, the fact that his amorous exploits had been recorded for posterity might well have seemed a sufficient justification for murder. Or rather, Zen realized, as he sat moodily sipping his vernaccia, it could easily be made to appear that it had. Which was all that concerned him, after all.
The bar had emptied appreciably as the men drifted home to eat the meals their wives and mothers had shopped for that morning. Zen stared blearily at his watch, eventually deciphering the time as twenty to nine. He pushed his chair back, rose unsteadily and walked over to the counter, where the burly proprietor was rinsing glasses.
'When can I get something to eat?'
Reto Gurtner would have phrased the question more politely, but he had stayed behind at the table.
'Tomorrow,' the proprietor replied without looking up from his work.
'How do you mean, tomorrow?'
'The restaurant's only open for Sunday lunch out of season.'
'You didn't tell me that!'
'You didn't ask.'
Zen turned away with a muttered obscenity.
'There's a pizzeria down the street,' the proprietor added grudgingly.
Zen barged through the glass doors of the hotel. The piazza was deserted and silent. As he passed the Mercedes, Zen patted it like a faithful, friendly pet, a reassuring presence in this alien place. A roll of thunder sounded out, closer yet still quiet, a massively restrained gesture.
In the corner of the piazza stood the village's only public hone pox a high-tech glass booth perched there as if it hag jusf landed from outer space. Zen eyed it wistfully, but tge risk was just too great. Tania would have had time to think things over by now. Supposing she was off hand or indifferent, a cold compensation for her excessive warmth the day before? He would have to deal witg ppat eventually, of course, but not now, not here, with all the other problems he had.
The village was as still and dead as a ghost town. Zen shambled along, looking for the pizzeria. All of a sudden pe stopped in his tracks, then whirled around wildly, scanning the empty street behind him. No one. What had it been? A noise? Or just drunken fancy? 'They must have stumbled on something they weren't supposed to see,' the Carabiniere had said of the murdered couple in the camper. 'It can happen to anyone, round here. All you need is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
As the alcoholic mists in Zen's mind cleared for a moment, he had an image of a child scurrying along an alleyway running parallel to the main street, appearing at intervals in the dark passages with steps leading up. A
