Dead Lagoon - 4

by Michael Dibdin

  His visit to Andrea Dolfin the night before had merely served to confirm his sense that everything was slipping away from him. The old man’s parting words had echoed his own realisation that the fate of Rosetta Zulian, like that of Ivan Durridge, and for that matter his own father, would quite likely never be known. The few facts he had gleaned stood out like objects scattered at random in a dark room, illuminated by a beam of light whose brilliance only serves to emphasize the impenetrable obscurity all around.

  Anxious to dispel this paralysing sense of hopelessness, Zen dressed rapidly and set out for the Questura on foot without even pausing to broach the packet of coffee he had bought the day before. The day was established by now, but the light was still mean and grudging. The keen wind which had seen off the last of the fog blew the pigeons down the streets towards him like flying débris from an explosion.

  When Zen reached his office, having stopped off in a bar to get his caffeine count up to par, he discovered that the province’s maritime registration office had faxed over the details he had requested. The list was not extensive. Ivan Durridge’s boat had been the broad-beamed topa, once a common sight on the lagoon but now largely superseded by more utilitarian models. Since the 1st of November of the previous year, only three such vessels had been registered. Of these, one was still powered only by the original lugsail and could thus be discounted. The remaining two had both been equipped with diesel engines, one a Volvo, the other a Fiat.

  Zen consulted his watch. By now it was after seven, and Marco Paulon would have made an early start to catch the tide. He looked up his number and dialled. The phone was answered by Signora Paulon, who informed Zen curtly that her husband could be reached on his mobile phone. Zen thanked her and dialled the number she supplied. A brief series of electronic beeps were followed by a gruff shout above the noise of a labouring marine engine.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Good morning, Marco.’

  ‘Aurelio?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On the way to San Lazzaro with a load of paper for the Armenians’ printing press. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I hear that that fisherman from Burano you were telling me about was found drowned.’

  ‘Poor bastard. After whatever happened to him on Sant’Ariano, his brain must have snapped. Christ protect us all from such a fate.’

  ‘A word of advice, Marco. How do I trace the serial number of the engine of a missing boat?’

  For a while there was only the gurgling throb of Marco Paulon’s boat bucking out across the lagoon.

  ‘Probably the easiest way is to trace the boatyard which sold or serviced it,’ Marco replied at length.‘They’ll be bound to have those details on record.’

  ‘Of course. Thanks, Marco.’

  ‘Any time. Hey, what about coming to dinner one of these days? Fabia’s telephone manner may stink, but she’s also a lousy cook. On the other hand, how good do you need to be to cook fish?’

  ‘Good enough to buy it fresh and not mess it about too much.’

  ‘Give me a call when you’re free. How about Sunday?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘We’ll be expecting you.’

  Zen dug out the office copy of the Venice Yellow Pages and looked up boatyards. Then he started a series of phone calls, identical in form and content.

  ‘Good morning, this is the Questura of Venice. Can you tell me if you sold or serviced a converted topa belonging to Ivan Durridge, spelt D-U-R-R-I-D-G-E? You’re sure? Thank you. Goodbye.’

  There were about thirty-five yards altogether, and Zen had recited his formula over twenty times before he struck lucky. It seemed that Durridge had had his boat overhauled every year by a small family firm on the Giudecca from whom he had bought it in the first place. They evidently remembered him with affection.

  ‘Of course, the American. So kind! So friendly! He always brought a present for my little boy when he went away. We were shocked by what happened. What an appalling tragedy! Is there any fresh news?’

  Zen said enough to impress on the boatyard owner the importance of the information he sought and then popped the question.

  ‘The serial number? Yes, of course, I’ll have it in the books somewhere. It was a Volvo, I remember that. Hold on just a minute.’

  In the event it was more like five minutes. Meanwhile Zen went through the registration list again. The Volvo-engined topa was owned by one Sergio Scusat. Like all those in the city, the postal address supplied consisted of a number followed by the name of the sestiere, in this case San Polo. Zen was searching the desk drawers for a copy of the directory which converted these postal codes into street addresses when the receiver lying on the desk began to squeak. He picked it up and noted down the serial number of the motor fitted to Ivan Durridge’s boat. It was the same.

  He was just thanking the boatyard owner when Aldo Valentini walked in, yawning loudly.

  ‘Are you here already?’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought you Romans lived in lotus land.’

  Zen replaced the receiver with a bang.

  ‘Where the hell do you keep the street directory?’ he demanded.

  ‘There’s only one copy that I know of,’ Valentini replied through another mighty yawn, ‘and it’s jealously guarded by Bonifacio down in Admin. He might let you consult it if you suck his cock nicely. On the other hand you might prefer to take a walk to the bar where we went the other day. They keep a copy under the counter. Come to think of it, I’ll come with you.’

  In front of the Questura a gleaming wooden launch was drawn up, its idling engine puking out water from time to time. A self-consciously good-looking man in a tweed suit and cashmere overcoat was just stepping ashore. He nodded minimally to Aldo Valentini as he walked past.

  ‘The chief,’ muttered the Ferrarese to Zen. ‘Francesco Bruno, son of a teacher from Calabria. Currently spends most of his time sticking his bum out of the window trying to decide which way the wind is blowing. You and I may have our problems, not least trying to make ends meet on our salaries, but it’s really tough at the top these days. How are you supposed to know whose orders to ignore?’

  A black-headed gull swooped down as though to attack its reflection in the water. With a loud splash it seized a chunk of sodden bread and flew off, dropping a line of soggy bomblets along the canal.

  The Bar dei Greci was empty apart from a child sitting on a table swinging his legs as he read a comic. The barman had been replaced by a stout woman wearing a flowery pinafore. Zen asked her for the directory and looked up Sergio Scusat’s address while Valentini skimmed the local paper. The headline read POLICE QUESTION DROWNED MAN’S BROTHER.

  ‘Enzo’s gone out on a limb on this one,’ Valentini remarked as they sipped their coffee. ‘Under the new Code he’s only got till six o’clock tonight to screw something out of Filippo Sfriso to justify having held him in the first place, and by all accounts he isn’t going to get it.’

  Zen inspected the photographs of the Sfriso brothers: blurred images evidently blown up from a family snapshot or identity card mugshot.

  ‘What’s the story?’ Zen asked politely, not really wanting to know.

  ‘In my humble opinion, it’s a concatenation of absurdities,’ Valentini pronounced with a theatrical gesture.

  He paused, then repeated the phrase with evident pleasure.

  ‘A concatenation of absurdities! I spent several hours interviewing the family before Gavagnin took over. The mother kept insisting that no son of hers would take his own life, but she couldn’t suggest why anyone else would either. He was only a fisherman. Why would anyone bother killing him?’

  ‘In that case, why is Gavagnin giving the brother such a hard time?’

  Valentini shrugged.

  ‘Because that’s how he gets his kicks. But I don’t think he’ll get much change out of Filippo Sfriso. As for Enzo’s drug angle, Sfriso told me that his brother had got involved with some girl in Mestre who’s into hallucinogenics. Obvious
ly Giacomo must have taken a trip that went wrong and started seeing corpses. That’s all there is to it. What’s Enzo want to do, bust some no-hope users trying to take a break from the grim realities of life in Mestre? Christ, I’d probably use the stuff myself if I had to live there.’

  As they strolled back along the quay, Aldo Valentini repaid Zen’s courtesy by asking how the Zulian case was coming along.

  ‘Too well!’ Zen returned. ‘The way things are going, I’ll have to come up with an excuse to stay on a few more days.’

  ‘Aren’t you missing the dolce vita down south?’

  A fugitive smile appeared on Zen’s lips.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll try and muscle in on the Sfriso case,’ he murmured.

  Aldo Valentini stared at him blankly a moment before bursting into laughter.

  ‘You and your Roman humour!’ he cried. ‘You nearly took me in for a moment there!

  Back at the Questura, the two men shook hands and went their separate ways, Valentini to open a file on a case involving the hijacking of a barge conveying two removal lorries loaded with the entire possessions of a Dutch millionaire, Zen to engage one of the police launches with a view to calling on Sergio Scusat.

  As though to give the lie to the sneering comments he had made earlier to Marco Paulon, the helmsman turned out to be an excellent and experienced seaman. Mino Martufò was from Palermo, and he had spent most of his time in boats from his earliest childhood. He handled the launch with a nonchalant panache which left Zen hovering between exhilaration and apprehensions as they went careening round corners and under bridges, siren blaring and lamp flashing, totally ignoring the posted speed limits and leaving all other traffic wallowing queasily in their wake. But all to no avail: Sergio Scusat was not at home. His sister, who was looking after the children, told Zen that her brother might be found at a construction site on the Sacca San Biagio, one of three small islands at the western tip of the Giudecca.

  The launch roared off again through the back canals of Dorsoduro, narrowly avoiding a collision with a taxi full of fat men with video cameras and skinny women in furs, past tiny intricate palaces and vast abandoned churches, under bridges so low they had to duck and through gaps so narrow they touched the fenders of the moored boats. Then at last, with a dramatic suddenness that took Zen’s breath away, they emerged into the Giudecca channel, the deepest and broadest of all the waterways within the city.

  The wind seemed much stronger here, chopping up the water into short, hard waves which shattered under the hull of the launch. The car ferry to Alexandria was steaming slowly down the channel, and Martufò sent the launch veering dangerously close under the towering bows of the huge vessel, keeling over with the force of the turn, the gunwales sunk in the surging torrent of white water. Then they were across the channel and into the sheltered canals separating the Giudecca from the sacce.

  These small islands were some of the last areas in the city to be built on, remaining undeveloped until the 1960s. Zen could remember rowing across to them when they were still a green oasis of allotments and meadows. Now Sacca Fisola was covered in streets and squares, shops, schools, playgrounds and six-storey apartment blocks. Except for the eerie absence of traffic, it was all exactly identical to suburbs of the same period in any mainland city. But here there were no cars, no lorries, no motorbikes or scooters. The children played in the street, just as children everywhere had done a century earlier, but in a street flanked by the sort of brutalist architecture associated with chaotic parking, constant horns, revving two-strokes and blaring car radios. Here, the only sound was the lapping of the water at the shore. The overall effect was extremely unsettling, as though the whole thing were a hoax of some kind.

  The construction site where Sergio Scusat was working was on a small islet to the south of the Sacca Fisola, with a fine view of the garbage incinerator which occupied the eastmost island. Scusat was the foreman of a team of labourers repairing an apartment block. Access was by a concrete jetty jutting out into the water. As the tide was still high, they were able to come alongside. Zen stepped ashore and walked over to the other side of the jetty, where a broad-beamed boat with a curving prow was tied up. He climbed down into the stern and opened the engine housing.

  ‘Where’s the serial number on these things?’

  Mino Martufò joined him and pointed to a series of numbers etched into a small plaque to the left of the block letters reading VOLVO.

  ‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’

  The shout came from the scaffolding on the apartment block. Two men were slapping mortar on a section of external walling. A third stood staring down at the jetty.

  ‘Scusat?’ Zen called back.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Police!’

  The man slipped down through the scaffolding as nimbly as a monkey and walked over to where Zen was standing.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he demanded.

  Sergio Scusat was a short, wiry man, his sallow face covered as though in make-up powder by plaster dust. His paper hat, folded from a newspaper page, had a party air at odds with his morose expression.

  ‘Is this your boat?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘How did you acquire her?’

  Scusat looked at Zen and blinked.

  ‘I bought her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just before Christmas. I answered an advertisement in the Nuova Venezia.’

  ‘Who was the vendor?’

  ‘A boatyard. It was all legal and above-board. She’d been out of the water for years, but they’d overhauled her and put in a reconditioned engine. She’s a good boat and the price was right. What’s all this about, anyway?’

  Zen regarded him for a moment.

  ‘Have you got any proof of sale?’

  ‘It was a cash deal. I handed over the money, they handed over the boat. What’s the problem?’

  ‘So you have no way of proving that you in fact acquired the vessel in the manner you have just described?’

  ‘Why should I need to prove it?’

  Zen glowered at him.

  ‘The boat is stolen property.’

  ‘I paid good money for that boat!’ Sergio Scusat retorted truculently. ‘There were no documents for her because she’d been laid up for so long. That was why they had to sell her cheap.’

  Zen eyed the man sceptically.

  ‘And who are “they”?’

  ‘The boatyard I bought it from! Down at Chioggia.’

  Zen eyed him.

  ‘Would the owner’s name be Giulio Bon, by any chance?’

  ‘That’s right! Why?’

  ‘Ah!’

  Zen closed his eyes for a moment, then looked back at Scusat.

  ‘I must ask you to come with me to the Questura, signore.’

  The man shot him a look of sullen fright.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’ he cried.

  ‘No doubt, but I need to take a written statement of everything you have told me before I can proceed further.’

  He pointed to the launch, gurgling quietly beside the concrete jetty.

  ‘This way, please.’

  *

  Aurelio Zen strolled slowly through the east end of the city, the maze of former slums crushed in between the Pietà canal and the high fortress walls of the Arsenale. This was a secretive and impenetrable district, of no particular interest in itself and on the way to nowhere else. In Zen’s childhood it had had a tough – even dangerous – reputation, and he had rarely ventured there. The rest of the city was etched into his mind like a map, but this one forgotten corner was a blank where he could still get lost.

  And that was the idea: a sense of physical disorientation to match the one he felt inside. His initial spasm of elation at the breakthrough in the Durridge case was now just a fading memory. That had been young love, aware only of its own delight. Now it was time to get serious, to decide whether to make something of it, to settle down and found a family, or to break
off the affair, walk away and try and forget the whole thing ever happened.

  All this dangerous excitement was the more unwelcome in that Zen had anticipated nothing of the kind. His purpose in searching for Durridge’s boat had been the search itself. He hadn’t remotely expected to find anything of interest, only to be able to lay his labours before the family like a dog panting mightily before its owner in lieu of the stick it has failed to fetch. When he’d phoned Ellen the night before, after returning from the NRV rally, he had got the impression that some such gesture in return for the fee the Durridges were paying him – not that he had seen any of it yet – was desirable if not essential.

  On the face of it, the reappearance of the missing topa was just what Zen needed to make the family feel that they were getting value for money, particularly in view of the link to Bon, one of the three men who had trespassed on Durridge’s island home a month before the American disappeared.

  But what was good news for the Durridge family was not necessarily good news for Zen himself. The material which had been made available to him through the good offices of Palazzo Sisti seemed to suggest that the Durridge case had been closed down because of its political sensitivity. If that was so, then any policeman or magistrate who sought to reopen it would be putting himself at risk to some extent. The question was how grave this risk was. Did it justify giving up the Durridges’ money? The terms of Zen’s private investigation were not only generous in themselves, but Ellen had passed on the news that the family had offered an additional lump sum of one hundred thousand dollars payable in the event of the discovery of the missing man, dead or alive, and the arrest of those responsible.

  That was more than twice Zen’s annual salary, which like that of all police officials had been frozen for the past five years as part of the government’s drive to reduce public spending in a country where each newborn baby came into the world owing over half a million lire. Nevertheless, even a year earlier Zen would have had no real doubt as to which decision to take. Money might be very desirable in all sorts of ways, but it was no substitute for life and health and nights free from gnawing anxiety and bad dreams.