partly with a view to positively identifying the victim. Once we learned from him what had happened, we of course took urgent steps to remove you from the vicinity as soon as possible’
'What have I got to do with it?'
'All the evidence suggests that the killing of Massimo Rutelli was a case of mistaken identity, and that you were the intended victim. The modus operandi was that of a classic professional hit. The implication is that the Mafia discovered where you were staying and made an attempt to silence you before you could testify against the Rizzo brothers in the States. Having failed, they would of course have tried again, possibly even tonight.'
The car swept through the automatic payment lane at the Pisa Centro exit and accelerated away along the dual carriageway leading to the airport. When the female agent spoke again, she sounded more conciliatory.
'Don't worry, dottore. The danger has passed. Wherever they're sending you next, you'll be well looked after.'
ISLANDA
It was when the light stopped dazzling him that Aurelio Zen realized that something odd had happened. He had ill-advisedly chosen a seat on the port side of the plane, so that the sun shone directly in on him, its low- inclined rays empowered with the brittle brilliance of February and the stultifying heat of August.
To make matters worse, it was all his own fault The place he had originally been assigned was on the cool, shady, norm-facing side of the plane, but this had not been apparent immediately after take-off, while the fat businessman in the next seat doing important things to a laptop computer had been. Spying an empty row of seats opposite, Zen had moved over, at which point the businessman promptly took possession of his original place and dumped all his voluminous gear in the place where he had been sitting, Theoretically, Zen supposed, he could call a cabin attendant and insist on being reseated in his rightful place, but it didn't seem worth the trouble. Along with everyone else, he had pulled down his blind when the cabin lights were turned off after lunch, but the insistent glow was still enough to bleach all substance from the ghostly figures cavorting about on the video screen in front of him.
Now, though, that intrusive radiance had disappeared. He raised the blind a fraction. No, the sun was no longer there. For a moment he wondered if it might have set, but the ocean vastness miles below still glittered in its reflected light. The sun must still be in the heavens, only it was now apparently aft of the plane. In which case they must be flying north. And even Zen's elementary knowledge of global geography included the information that America was not north of Europe.
He had spent the two weeks since his precipitate departure from Versilia on the small island of Gorgona, thirty-five kilometres off the Tuscan coast, which was mainly occupied by a prison camp for non-violent juvenile offenders. Following his flight in a military helicopter from Pisa, Zen had been accommodated in a spare wing of the spacious quarters reserved for the director of the camp. The latter turned out to be a tall, perpetually stooping man with a whispery voice, diffident to the point of defensiveness, who – according to some camp lore which Zen later picked up from one of the warders – had been the principal of a college in Bari until certain rumours about the sexual activities of the staff and pupils came to the attention of the authorities. 'So he got a job with the Grazia e Giustizia, and they sent him here,' the man commented with a wry grin. 'It keeps him off the street corner back on the mainland, and he certainly can't corrupt these thugs. They'll corrupt him, if anything. One of them offered me a blow job the other day for a cigarette end I was about to throw in the toilet. 'What would you do for a whole pack?' I asked him. The little bastard looked me in the eye and said, 'No disrespect, capo, but I'm not sure you could handle that level of service all by yourself. Better invite a couple of your pals along.''
Zen ate his meals in the canteen, which served excellent food based on the products of the farm where the prisoners worked during the day. He had introduced himself to the staff as an academic ornithologist pursuing research into the behaviour of various rare local breeds of gulls. As he had hoped, the possibilities for conversational tedium opened up by this supposed professional interest ensured that no one ever addressed him. The rest of his time he spent exploring the maze of paths criss-crossing the island, which thanks to its 130-year vocation as a penal colony, remained completely unspoilt. The eastern slopes of the rugged interior were covered in pine forests like those which had once lined the coast, dimly visible through the haze to the east. Elsewhere, the prickly evergreen scrub of the macchia stretched as far as the eye could see, while occasional surviving groves of imported olives, holm oaks and sweet chestnuts provided shade. The air was utterly limpid, and as subtly perfumed as honey.
His idyll was disturbed only by thoughts of Gemma, and above all by the fact that he had been forced to leave so hurriedly, and was unable to contact her to explain why. All phone calls and correspondence had been strictly banned, so as far as Gemma was concerned Zen – or rather Pier Giorgio Butani – had simply vanished from Versilia overnight, without so much as a word of farewell. Even though he told himself repeatedly that the affair could never have amounted to anything, it remained a brutal, ugly and unsatisfying conclusion which left a very bitter taste behind.
He was entering his third week of seclusion when he received a message passed on by the director, instructing him to be packed and ready to leave at nine the following morning. Promptly at five minutes to that hour, a twin-rotor military helicopter identical to the one which had brought Zen to the island touched down in the parade ground where the inmates of the prison camp had to assemble each morning for their roll call and work assignments. He trudged across the concrete towards it, lugging the bags which had been shipped over on the ferry from Livorno shortly after his arrival. The sun was bright and clear in the cloudless sky, the air sweet and fresh, and until the helicopter's arrival the silence had been absolute. Zen felt as if he were being exiled from a paradise to which he could never return.
A matter of minutes later they were back at Pisa, at the military end of the airport, away from the commercial terminal. Here Zen was led to a small fixed-wing jet aircraft with no markings. His baggage was placed in the hold while he climbed a set of fold-down steps to the interior. This consisted of a single cabin with comfortable chairs facing a low central table. Seated in one of these was the young diplomat who had visited Zen during his convalescence.
He immediately stood up, shook hands with Zen and showed him into a seat, then produced a flask of excellent coffee and two cups. A moment later the stepladder was folded up, the door closed and the engines started.
'Forgive the rudimentary cabin service,' Zen's companion said as the aircraft started to taxi. 'On the other hand, the accommodation is superior to what you're likely to have for the rest of your journey, and at least you won't have to listen to the usual sermon about what to do in the unlikely event of a landing on water. I wonder if anyone's life has ever been saved by one of those cheap life-jackets they stuff away under the seats. It seems to me that all those safety announcements do is spread an irrational fear of flying, actually one of the safest forms of transport. Imagine if every time you got into a bus or train or taxi you had to listen to a lot of euphemistic waffle about what to do if the thing crashed! No one would ever leave home.'
The aircraft veered jerkily to the right, the engines roared, and before Zen knew it they were off the ground. He watched the coastline turning into a map for several minutes, then turned back to his companion, who was filling their cups of coffee. When he looked up at Zen, his professional mask was firmly back in place.
'I trust your stay on Gorgona was tolerable?' he said.
'Very pleasant, thank you.'
'It seemed the best short-term solution, given the events in Versilia.'
He looked at Zen with a serious expression.
'You're a very lucky man. The Mafia have now tried twice to kill you, and failed both times. Very few people can say that.'
'Is it certain that I was the intended target?'
The young diplomat gestured dismissively.
'Dottore, there has never been a recorded case of a murder on the beach in that area. A few knifings late at night down at the Viareggio end, and the odd settling of accounts between drug gangs, but otherwise nothing. Then a corporate lawyer with no known enemies, seated in the place which you had occupied for several weeks, is shot through the heart at point-blank range with a silenced pistol in broad daylight by a killer who nevertheless
