Another of the landmarks punctuating Zen’s prevailing mental fog had been the arrival of the documents relating to the complaint which Ada Zulian had made about her near-neighbour at the time, Andrea Dolfin. They were brought – with a speed and efficiency belying the warnings Zen had received – by a uniformed messenger attached to the Central Archives of the Province of Venice, recently re-sited in a custom-built concrete bunker beneath the car park on the artificial island of the Tronchetto.
The move from the Archives’ former premises in a palazzo facing the Rialto had led to considerable disruption and, it was rumoured, the loss of several thousand documents. This still left a few million to shelve and classify, however, but by good luck the items which Zen had requested the previous day were evidently lodged in one of the sections that was up and running. Zen lit one of his despised domestic cigarettes and settled down to study the sheets of stiff parchment-like paper covered in heavy typewriting. The document, dated May 1946, consisted of the denuncia made to the authorities by Contessa Ada Zulian, resident in the eponymous palace, concerning the alleged activities of Andrea Dolfin, resident in Calle del Forno, followed by a report into the investigation subsequently carried out by a commissario di polizia.
The draft of Ada Zulian’s statement ran to almost fifteen pages. Reading through them, Zen could not help smiling faintly at the increasing frustration of the police officer who had interviewed her, evident even in the bureaucratic language employed. ‘The deponent was asked to address herself to the substance of the complaint …’ ‘A number of allegations concerning other residents of the Cannaregio district, being extraneous to the matter in hand, have been omitted …’ ‘The deponent was yet again urged to express herself with greater brevity and concision …’
There was nothing humorous about what the contessa had to say, however. Stripped of her characteristic longueurs and digressions, the essence of her accusation was that the said Andrea Dolfin had three years earlier kidnapped and murdered Rosa Coin, daughter of Daniele Coin, formerly resident in Campo di Ghetto Nuovo.
Although Ada’s charges were unsubstantiated by any evidence, they were sufficiently grave to force the police to launch an investigation. The conclusions of the resulting report hinged on two key documents. The first was a photocopy of an extract from German records listing those Venetian Jews deported in 1943. The names of all seven members of the Coin family appeared, but the entry for Rosa Coin had been crossed out and the comment ‘Found hanged’ added in the margin.
This initially appeared to support Ada’s allegations. Andrea Dolfin had been for a time a prominent member of the Fascist administration in Venice, and although he had lost his official status when Mussolini was overthrown, he remained a trusted figure enjoying good relations with the occupying German authorities. Given this fact, and the lack of any other evidence as to how Rosa Coin had met her death, Andrea Dolfin was regarded as a suspect by the police and was questioned on a number of occasions, but without result.
The investigation was dramatically terminated by the arrival of a letter from the supposed victim herself. So far from having died in 1943, it appeared that Rosa Coin was living in Palestine, the sole survivor of her family. A former neighbour in the Ghetto had written to her, revealing Ada Zulian’s allegations, which Rosa proceeded to refute point by point. Her letter made it clear that she was not only alive, but that she owed her survival to none other than Andrea Dolfin, who had used his privileged position to shelter her during the final months of the war. Once Rosa’s identity had been confirmed by the British authorities in Palestine, the case was immediately dropped.
Zen was reading the final lines of the report, which noted that Contessa Ada Zulian had been diagnosed as suffering from ‘hysteria and delusional melancholia’ since the disappearance of her daughter in mysterious circumstances, when the phone rang.
‘Yes!’ he barked gruffly.
‘Hello, sweetie.’
A smile spread slowly across Zen’s face.
‘Well, hello there,’ he breathed.
They shared an intimate moment of silence.
‘How are things?’ Cristiana asked at length.
‘Things are fine. Things are great. Never have they been better.’
‘Good.’
‘How about your things?’
‘They’re not complaining either.’
Another long supple silence.
‘When can we …?’ Zen began, but Cristiana had started talking at the same moment.
‘… make it tonight, unfortunately.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t think I wouldn’t love to, but I have to turn up with you-know-who for this press gala at the Danieli.’
The quality of the silence which ensued was rather different.
‘I thought you were separated,’ Zen said at last.
‘Not publicly. Can you can imagine what the media would make of a story like that, especially just before the elections? Nando’s made plenty of enemies who would just love to get their hands on some juicy scandal.’
‘Why should you care?’
‘For one thing, because I don’t care to have my name dragged through the gutter. And for another, because I want to keep on the right side of Nando.’
‘I see,’ said Zen icily.
‘No, you don’t. You don’t need to. But I’ve got to be realistic. Nando’s already a very powerful man, and the way things are looking he stands a good chance of being elected mayor next month. There’s nothing to be gained by making a sworn enemy of someone in that sort of position. They can do too much harm. By going along with public appearances when he asks me, I keep some leverage.’
She laughed deliberately, to lighten the mood.
‘I don’t want to end up like your ancestors, you know.’
‘What?’
‘Renier Zen and … what was the other one? You said last night they had a habit of winning all the battles but losing the war.’
‘Oh. Yes. But listen …’
‘Just a moment!’
There was a noise in the background and Cristiana greeted someone who had come into the agency.
‘The boss,’ she explained in an undertone to Zen.
‘Shall I call you back?’
‘That’s all right. Now you were enquiring about seat availability over the weekend period, I believe?’
Zen grinned broadly, his fit of pique forgotten.
‘It wasn’t so much seats I was thinking of …’
‘That’s simply the formula we use at booking stage,’ Cristiana returned crisply. ‘You would of course be upgraded automatically at check-in.’
‘Sounds good. When are you free?’
‘Let me just check the computer … The earliest slot would appear to be tomorrow afternoon.’
‘What time?’
‘The flight leaves at … Ah, we can drop the charade. La signora has gone to powder her butt. Where were we?’
‘When are you free tomorrow?’
‘I’ve promised to take Mamma shopping in the morning, and we’re having people to lunch. Say between two and three?’
Zen sighed.
‘That seems like a long way off.’
‘It’s the best I can do.’
He pulled himself together.
‘Of course. I just can’t wait to see you again.’
‘Till tomorrow.’
She hung up. Zen relinquished the receiver more gradually, loath to slip back into the mental miasma he could already feel rising to claim him.
The next thing of which he was distinctly aware was the arrival of Aldo Valentini, a cigar between his lips and an air of infinite self-satisfaction on his glowing features.
‘Ah, the pleasures of food!’ the Ferrarese exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘What is sex compared to a great lunch? Am I glad Gavagnin took that Sfriso case away from me! What’s up with our Enzo anyway? I just passed him on the stairs and he looked through me as though I were a ghost.’
�
�A well-fed ghost, evidently,’ commented Zen, who had eaten nothing but a mass-produced pastry during his trip to the mainland.
‘You have no idea, Aurelio! Those lads at the Gritti really know their stuff, I can tell you.’
Zen looked suitably envious.
‘The Gritti Palace? Did you win the pools?’
Valentini smiled.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
He flopped down in a chair and put his feet up on Zen’s desk.
‘I have just seen the new, clean, honest, dynamic Italy of the nineties, Aurelio, and it works! In fact it works just like the old one.’
He puffed on his cigar a moment.
‘The only difference is that the payment’s in kind these days. The way things are, no one can afford to leave a paper trail. Even cash is getting too risky now that the banks are starting to co-operate with the judges. You can’t draw a thousand lire from your account without ending up on a database, but in a few hours the meal I just consumed will be just a glorious memory and another gob of sewage in some pozzo nero.’
‘I see. Who was your host?’
‘A local citizen who has an interest in the outcome, or the lack of it, of a case I’m presently working on.’
Zen frowned.
‘You could have been seen together.’
‘So what? In order to express the nature of his interest in greater detail, the citizen in question proposed that we meet for lunch. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Management are always going on about the need to forge closer links with the general public and thus promote a softer, more caring image of the force.’
Zen yawned.
‘I think I’d better go home and get some sleep. I’ve got to work this evening.’
‘How’s the Zulian business coming along?’ demanded Valentini, heading for his cubicle.
‘Well, I haven’t been offered any free lunches so far.’
Valentini laughed.
‘On the other hand,’ Zen continued as he headed for the door, ‘I have a feeling that things might be about to get interesting in other ways.’
*
‘Three tens.’
‘King and queen beats that.’
‘And ace wins.’
‘Shit.’
The four figures sat huddled around a low table. The flame of a wax nightlight flickered in the tangled currents of their breath, thickly visible in the unheated air. The only sounds were the flutter of the cards being shuffled and dealt, and the soft patter of wavelets against the hull. Once more the players bent forward, trying to make out what kind of hands they were holding without tilting their cards too far towards the light and the eyes of the others.
‘Chief?’
‘I’ll take two.’
‘Discard.’
‘Pass.’
‘Oh shit!’
‘There’s a lady present, Martufò.’
‘And the worst of it is she keeps winning.’
For a few minutes there was only the slap of cards on the table.
‘I’m out,’ called a man’s voice.
‘Dottore?’
‘Me too.’
‘Nunziata?’
‘Three jacks.’
‘Not again!’
‘I always said it was a mistake letting women join the force,’ commented a man with a strong Southern accent.
The speaker yawned loudly.
‘Christ, but it’s cold!’ someone else remarked.
‘Keep your voice down,’ murmured the tallest figure, opening the curtain over the cabin window a crack and looking out.
‘What time is it, anyway?’ demanded the man on his left.
‘Just gone ten,’ said a woman’s voice.
A pulsing orange light suddenly appeared in the corner of the confined space. The tall man reached over and threw a switch.
‘Yes?’
‘Contact,’ said a tinny voice.
‘How many?’
‘Two.’
‘Don’t let them spot you.’
He switched off the radio and blew out the candle.
‘Is it them, chief?’ asked the man to his left.
‘How the fuck do I know?’ the tall man snapped back. ‘Total silence from now on. If anyone screws this up, they’ll be on foot patrol in Palermo next week.’
‘Is that a promise?’ muttered the man with the Southern accent.
‘Shut up!’
The four sat perfectly still in the darkness, listening to the play of the water beneath them. Only after some time, and then very gradually, did another set of sounds become apparent, a different and more purposeful rhythm complicating the gentle ostinato to which they had grown so accustomed that they had almost ceased to be aware of it. The disturbance gradually approached and passed by. A moment later it ceased altogether. There was chink of metal, several thuds, a grunt. Then silence fell.
‘Let’s go!’
There was a flurry of movement in the darkness. Someone slipped outside, making the boat rock. Then they were mobile, gliding silently across the darkened water towards a wall towering over them like the face of a cliff. A distant streetlamp, hidden from where they had been moored, cast its pallid flickers on the scene. By its light they could make out Mino Martufò crouched on the foredeck, hauling in the sodden hempen rope which he had secured to a mooring post on the other bank of the canal on their arrival three hours earlier.
As the unmarked motor launch came alongside, its bow nudging the inflatable rubber dinghy tied up by the crumbling steps greasy with weed and mud, the Sicilian leapt ashore and made fast to a rusty ring-bolt in the wall. He then held the launch alongside the steps while Zen and Pia Nunziata disembarked. Bettino Todesco drew his service revolver and covered Zen as he mounted the steps and pushed open the massive water-door at the top.
‘Wait here,’ he whispered to the others.
Once inside, the darkness was complete. The few feeble glimmers which filtered in through the doorway were at once swallowed up by a resonant, cavernous reservoir of darkness. Zen stepped cautiously forward, following the wall with the tips of his fingers until he reached the stairs. He glanced back at Todesco and Nunziata, framed in the open doorway. Overcoming a strong sense of reluctance, Zen turned away and started up the stone staircase.
There was not a sound to be heard in the house. When Zen reached the hallway running the length of the first floor, he paused uncertainly. The light was better here, a dimness informed by faint reflections of a streetlight somewhere outside. He turned left and began to climb the next flight of stairs. This had been forbidden territory when he had visited the house as a child. An absolute distinction existed between the show spaces of the piano nobile and the private rooms on the floor above. The young Aurelio had had the run of the former, but the latter were taboo, and even now he had to overcome a sense of dread at venturing up the staircase mimicking the public one he had just climbed, but on a smaller, more intimate scale.
He had gone about halfway up when a sound in the yawning darkness above brought him to an abrupt halt. Sounds, rather: shifting, superimposed layers of keening edged at moments with shrill, grating shrieks. Zen felt his skin and scalp bristle all over. A shiver passed down his spine. Then a long, lingering scream split the night like lightning.
The sheer intensity of fear in it acted as a trigger, releasing Zen from his stupor and sending him dashing up the shallow steps, scrabbling for the rail to regain his balance, tumbling clumsily out on to the landing where the stairs ended. The cacophony was louder here, the strands more distinct: a continuous groaning and wailing punctuated by dull blows and panic-stricken howls of terror. Groping his way towards the source of these sounds, Zen blundered into something hard and hollow which resounded loudly from the contact.
The din inside at once faltered, then broke off altogether, dying away in a succession of grunts and heavy breathing. Then a panel opened in the darkness, a rectangle flickering and shimmering with a ghostly luminescence. Zen rushed forward an
d abruptly collided with a figure which appeared in the doorway. It gave a startled cry and tried to push past. When Zen held on, they both went tumbling to the floor.
A woman started screaming for help. Another figure burst out of the dimly lit room. It rushed at Zen, and a sharp blow struck his head. He twisted away, still grappling with the first assailant, and was gratified to feel the next kick cushioned by that body. He looked up at the figure standing over them, and gasped. Above him stood a skeleton, the skull grinning horribly, the bony structure glowing white in the darkness.
The sight momentarily paralysed him, and by the time he had recovered the figure with whom he had been grappling had wriggled away and sprung to its feet. It towered above him, lanky and loose-limbed in a flowing white Pierrot costume and an expressionless mask whose rounded features were as smooth as alabaster. Zen crawled backwards, trying to get to his feet, as the clown and the skeleton closed in.
A shot rang out somewhere below, incredibly loud, precise and authoritative. There was an answering scream and a series of shouts, then two more shots. Leaping nimbly over Zen, the skeleton disappeared from view. Zen twisted round just in time to see the clown’s foot lash out at him. He took the blow on his chest and hung on, wrenching the foot around, but it came off in his hand. He looked again, and found he was holding a Nike trainer.
The clown staggered away through the doorway. Zen struggled to his feet and followed, ignoring the shouts echoing up the stairwell. The door slammed shut in his face, but he barged it open again with his shoulder and stumbled into the room. He took in at a glance the elderly woman in bed, her face a mask of terror, and the figure running towards the open window on the other side of the room.
‘Police!’ he yelled. ‘Freeze!’
The clown sprang on to a dressing-table and jumped out through the window. A moment later there came a loud splash, a succession of confused voices, then an incredibly brilliant light. Zen ran over to the window and looked out. The searchlight on the forward deck of the motor launch was trained down at the canal, pinpointing the flowing white costume spreading like a stain on the water. The figure had been trying to swim away, but now it turned, blinded by the light, and caught hold of the boathook which Mino Martufò was holding out from the stern of the launch.
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