Vendetta

He turned away.

'Exactly!' Fabri called after him. 'There's nothing more to be said!'

When Zen reached the line of screens that closed off his desk he glanced back. The group of officials had broken up into smaller clusters, chatting together in low voices. Vincenzo Fabri was talking at full speed in an undertone, gesticulating dramatically, demanding the undivided attention he felt was his by right. But some of his listeners were gazing down at the floor in a way which suggested that they were not totally convinced by Fabri's protestations. They accepted that Zen was an unscrupulous grafter on the make. The difference was that they now suspected that Fabri was one too, and that the reason for his bitterness was not moral indignation but the fact that his rival was more successful.

Giorgio De Angelis, keeping a foot in both camps as usual, patted Fabri on the shoulder in a slightly patronizing way before walking over to join Zen.

'Congratulations. It was about time something like that happened to Vincenzo.'

A wan smile brightened Zen's face.

'So tell me all about it!' De Angelis continued. 'How on earth did you manage to do it?'

Zen's smile died. Of all his colleagues, De Angelis was the one with whom he had the closest relationship, yet the Calabrian clearly took it for granted that Zen had 'fixed' the Burolo case. Well, if no one was going to believe him anyway, he might as well take the credit for his supposed villainy!

He turned his smile on again.

'The funny thing is, I hadn't been going to use the woman at all originally. The person I had in mind was Furio Padedda. He seemed the perfect candidate from everyone's point of view.'

'But Padedda was involved too, wasn't he?' said De Angelis.

Zen shook his head. No one seemed to be able to get the story straight, no doubt because the only thing that really concerned them was the headline news which the media, carefully orchestrated by Palazzo Sisti, had been trumpeting all week: that the case against Renato Favelloni had collapsed.

'Padedda and the Melega family were planning to kidnap Burolo, successfully this time, and extort a huge sum of money from the family. They might well have killed him too, after they got paid, but that was all in the future. On the night of the murders, Padedda was attending a meeting of the gang up in the mountains. But I certainly could have used him, if all else had failed. He even had a convenient wound on his arm. His blood group is different from that of the stains at the villa, but we could have got round that somehow.'

One by one, the other officials had approached to hear Zen's story. It was a situation new to him, and one he found rather embarrassing. Unlike Fabri, he had never enjoyed being the centre of attention. But things had changed. If Fabri could no longer count on star billing, neither could Zen avoid the fame – or rather notoriety – which had been thrust upon him.

'But in the event I didn't need Padedda. As soon as I'd visited the scene I knew how I was going to work it. As you probably know, Burolo's villa was originally a farm house. The farms in that area were all built over caves giving access to an underground stream where they got their water. When I inspected the cellar of the Villa Burolo I noticed that the air was very fresh. The caretaker explained that it was naturally ventilated, and pointed out an opening at floor level. Since we were underground, I realized right away that the air could only have come from the cave system.'

The assembled officials nodded admiringly.

'No one else had thought of this as a way around the famous problem of access, for the simple reason that the vent was too small to admit a normal adult. But that was precisely what attracted me to the idea. There were already indications suggesting that the killer might have been exceptionally small. The upward angle of fire, for one thing, and the fact that on the video Burolo and even Vianello's wife, who was tiny herself, look down at the person confronting them. Then there was the ghost that child claimed to have seen one night, a woman who looked like a little old witch. As soon as this woman Elia hobbled up to me in the village, asking for money, I put two and two together and made five.'

This elicited a ripple of appreciative laughter.

'But mightn't she have done it?' asked Carlo Romizi earnestly. 'I mean I saw this thing on the television which seemed to be suggesting that…'

Zen gestured impatiently.

'Of course she might! She wouldn't have been much use to me otherwise, would she?'

'No, I mean really.'

Zen frowned. 'Oh, you mean really!'

He turned to the others. 'Quick, someone! Get on the phone to Palazzo Sisti. They'll have your mug all over the morning papers, Carlo. 'Italian Believes Favelloni Innocent. After months of research, Palazzo Sisti announced last night that they had located someone who believes in the innocence of Renato Favelloni. 'It's true that he's an Umbrian,' admitted a spokesman for l'onorevole, 'but we feel this may be the beginning of a significant swing in public opinion'.' '

Zen stood back, letting the waves of laughter wash over him. I could grow to like this, he thought, the good- humoured, easy-going chaffing, the mutual admiration of male society. Fatherless from early childhood, with no one to teach him the unwritten rules, he had always found it difficult to play the game with the necessary confidence and naturalness. But perhaps it wasn't too late even now.

'What I still don't understand is how you managed to tie it up so neatly at the end,' Travaglini commented.

'There was nothing to it really,' Zen replied modestly.

'There were various ways I could have worked it, but when Spadola showed up in the village it seemed a good idea to kill two jailbirds with one stone, so to speak. I couldn't predict exactly what would happen if I brought him and Elia together, but there seemed a good chance that one or both might not survive. Which suited me down to the ground, of course. The last thing I wanted was the magistrates getting a chance to interrogate her.'

'Have they found her body yet?' someone asked.

Zen shook his head.

'The cave system is very extensive and has never been mapped. As you can imagine, the locals don't have much time for speleology. They used the cave mouths for storage and shelter but no one apart from Elia had bothered to explore any further. The Carabinieri flew in a special team trained in pot-holing…'

'Complete with designer wet-suits by Armani,' De Angelis put in.

Everyone laughed. The glamorous image of their paramilitary rivals was always a sore point with the police.

'By Wednesday, two of the Carabinieri had managed to get lost themselves,' Zen resumed, 'and the others were busy looking for them. All they found of the woman were a few blood stains matching those at the villa, and a collection of odds and ends she'd apparently stolen, things of no value.'

Travaglini offered Zen a cigarette which he felt constrained to accept, even though it wasn't a brand he favoured. Such are the burdens of popularity, he reflected.

'What are you doing about a motive?'

'No problem. One of the villagers, a man called Turiddu, claimed that his family had owned the farm house which Burolo bought. At the time I thought he was bragging, but it turned out to be true. The Carabinieri also confirmed that Elia was Turiddu's sister, and that she'd been found locked in a cellar. The story is that when she was fifteen she fell in love with someone her father disapproved of. The man suggested that he get her pregnant to force her father to consent to their marriage. Simpleminded Elia agreed. Once he'd had her a few times, the young man changed his mind about marriage, of course.

Although she wasn't pregnant, Elia told her father what had happened, hoping he would force the man to keep his word. Unfortunately her lover got wind of this and ran off to a branch of the family in Turin.

'Since he was out of reach, Elia's father took revenge on his daughter instead, locking her up in the cellar and telling everyone that she had gone away to stay with relatives on the mainland. She spent the next thirteen years there, in total darkness and solitude, sleeping on the bare floor in her own filth. Twice a day her mother brought her some food, but she never spoke to her or touched her again. Turiddu told us that he was forbidden to mention her existence, even within the family. This naturally made him even more curious about this strange sister of his, who had committed this terrible nameless sin. He started sneaking down to the cellar when his parents were out, to gawp at her. And then one day, to his astonishment, he found she wasn't there.