Blood Rain - 7

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘Can you drive me somewhere else?’

  ‘I have no car.’

  ‘So what are we to do?’ demanded Zen in a tone of desperation.

  ‘First strategy, then tactics, as my commanding officer used to say. I need to know a little more about the situation. For example, you say this light aeroplane which flew you from Malta landed somewhere near a town called Santa Croce, is that right?’

  Zen nodded.

  ‘That was the first sign I remember seeing.’

  ‘In that case, the reception committee was almost certainly composed of members of the Dominante clan, which controls the Ragusa area, or of one of the splinter groups which is trying to take it over, such as the D’Agosta family.’

  Zen looked sharply at him.

  ‘You seem very well informed on these matters.’

  ‘Village gossip. What football league ratings are to other cultures, Mafia family ups and downs are to us. You also said that the pilot told you that they were doing a favour to some people here who want to talk to you. That would be Don Gaspare Limina. This is his home village, and although almost all his operations are conducted in Catania, this remains his power base and the refuge to which he retreats when things get too hot for him in the city.’

  ‘He’s here now?’ asked Zen.

  ‘He’s here now. Can you think of any reason why he should want to meet you?’

  Zen lit another cigarette and sat silently for a time.

  ‘Even better, I can think of a reason why I want to meet him,’ he said finally.

  ‘Excellent. But it may be dangerous, you understand. I can set up such a meeting, but I am not in a position to guarantee your safety.’

  ‘I understand. I’ll take my chances.’

  His host got up and poured them both another shot of whisky.

  ‘They may well be better than you fear,’ he said. ‘You asked me why I live here. Well, one reason is that the people of whom we’ve been speaking remind me to some extent of myself and my comrades, many years ago. Contrary to popular belief, they are not sadistic thugs with a taste for violence. They do only what they need to do. If they need you dead, then they will kill you. If not, you will be safe. I’ve been living here for over forty years, and no one has ever bothered me. I’m not worth bothering about, you see.’

  He raised his glass.

  ‘Gesundheit.’

  ‘You’re German?’ asked Zen.

  The other man just looked at him.

  Zen gestured in a relaxed way. The whisky was starting to have its effect.

  ‘I did my “hardship years”, as we call them in the police, up in the Alto Adige — what you call the Südtirol — and I learned a few words of the language.’

  The other man smiled.

  ‘Yes, I’m German. From a city called Bremen. My name is Klaus Genzler.’

  Zen bowed slightly.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality, Herr Genzler. If you hadn’t taken me in, I would have been dead by now, and all for nothing. I didn’t know where I was, you see. I had no idea who these people were. But now I do, and I look forward to meeting them.’

  ‘And why would that be?’

  ‘Because I think they killed my daughter, and I want to find out.’

  ‘Your daughter?’

  ‘Carla Arduini. She died along with a judge, Corinna Nunziatella. You may have read about it in the papers. They machine-gunned the car and then threw in a stick of plastic explosive, just outside Taormina.’

  Klaus Genzler smiled reminiscently.

  ‘Ah, Taormina! I haven’t been there in over fifty years.’

  He’s gaga, thought Zen.

  ‘Kesselring based his headquarters in Taormina, in the old Dominican convent. I had the good fortune to be summoned there several times. Wonderful buildings, stunning views. Did himself well, the Feldmarschall. But I don’t think the Omina clan killed your daughter.’

  Or maybe he’s not.

  ‘You don’t?’

  Genzler shook his head.

  ‘I remember when the news of that atrocity arrived. There was a sense of fear and confusion. People here are used to terrible things happening, but they expect Don Gaspare to know who did them and why, even if he didn’t order them himself. They’re like children. As long as Daddy seems to know what’s going on, and not be bothered by it, then the children won’t be troubled either, even though they don’t personally understand.’

  He took another sip of whisky and unwrapped a short cigar.

  ‘But the day that news arrived, there was a sense of panic in the village. I knew at once what must have happened, and subsequent enquiries have proved me right. Not only did Don Gaspà not order that operation, but he has no idea who did.’

  Genzler lit the cigar and stared at Zen.

  ‘Do you know what that means, in the circles in which he moves? It means that you’re finished. Taormina is part of the Liminas’ territory. If something happens on your territory which you didn’t order, and you can’t find out and punish whoever did it, then you might as well retire and open a grocery store, because no one will ever take you seriously again.’

  Zen nodded quickly. A mass of thoughts were stirring in his brain like a school of porpoises creasing the surface of the sea and then vanishing. He wanted to let this process work itself out before trying to assess the consequences.

  ‘So you were here in the war?’ he asked Genzler.

  ‘I was indeed. This village was our main forward position in 1943, after the Allied invasion. Many of my friends fell here. Most were not buried.’

  He took a long draw at his cigar.

  ‘We — the Germans — held this part of the island against the invading forces. Our Italian allies were responsible for the north side. We were up against the British, they against the Americans, who had a secret weapon called Lucky Luciano. You may have heard of him. An expatriate mafioso whom they released from prison, where he was serving a fifty-year sentence, to persuade the Italians not to resist the invasion. And it was successful. Luciano got Calogero Vizzini, the capo dei capi at the time, to guarantee Mafia support for the Allies in return for the release of all their friends from the Fascist prisons where they had been languishing since Mussolini cracked down on them. As a result, we were quickly outflanked, despite having put up a vigorous defence, and forced to withdraw to the mainland.’

  He smiled bitterly at Zen.

  ‘The rest, as they say, is history.’

  Zen finished his whisky.

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you’re living here.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? Well, that would perhaps take too long. At any rate, I was captured later, during the battle for Anzio, and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp. When I got back to Germany and learned exactly what we’d all been fighting so bravely to defend, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to live there again. I gathered up what little money I had, added a little more left me by my parents, who were killed in a bombing raid, sold what was left of our family home and moved here. In 1950, this house cost me thirty thousand lire, including legal fees. I have been living here on the remnants of my meagre fortune ever since.’

  ‘Doing what?’ asked Zen incredulously.

  Klaus Genzler shrugged.

  ‘Trying to remember. Trying to forget. Trying to understand.’

  He threw his cigar butt into the fireplace.

  ‘Now then, shall I contact our friends and tell them you’re here?’

  Zen took a hundred-lire coin from his pocket and spun it up into the air. Grabbing at it clumsily, he managed only to send it flying across the floor into the vast shadows at the back of the room, where it ended up underneath an ancient leather sofa the size of a car. Both men laughed.

  Zen shrugged wearily.

  ‘Do it,’ he said.

  The German went to the end of the room and leaned out.
Taking hold of the metal clothesline strung across the alley, he jerked it hard three times, so that it clanked in its socket at the other side. After a moment, the shutters on the house across the road opened and a man’s head appeared.

  ‘Buona sera, Pippo,’ said Genzler. ‘Yes, wasn’t it? No, no damage here. And you? The statue fell? Well, I’m sure the mayor can get a grant from his friends in the regional government to have it put back up again. He’s very good at that sort of thing. Listen, I happen to know of someone who wishes to talk to Don Gaspà, and I am informed that the Don is equally anxious to talk to him. The person’s name is Aurelio Zen. Do you think you could make enquiries and … He’ll be out here in the street, in about five minutes. Very good, we’ll expect them soon.’

  He closed the shutters and turned to Zen.

  ‘They’re on their way. Have you a gun?’

  Zen shook his head.

  ‘Good,’ said Genzler. ‘I’ll see you to the door.’

  ‘I can find my own way.’

  ‘No, I’ll accompany you.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Herr Genzler.’

  ‘It’s not a question of kindness. Like this, they will know that I know that you are in their hands. So if they kill you, they will have to kill me too. As I said, I can’t guarantee anything, but it may improve your chances of survival.’

  Zen stared at him.

  ‘But you don’t even know me! Why would you risk your life like that?’

  Genzler’s gaze was an abyss of pride and anguish.

  ‘Because I am a German officer,’ he said.

  Zen pondered the implications of this statement until his thoughts were cut short by the sound of several cars outside. Then came the knock at the door.

  This time he was blindfolded: a thick band of fabric over the eyes, taped to his forehead and cheeks. He tried to make himself believe that this was reassuring.

  They drove for about twenty minutes along roads which reared up and down and roiled about without sense or reason. No one spoke. There were at least three of them with him in the car, the ones who had come to the door and taken him away. No one had said anything then, either, even when the German had extended his hand and said, ‘Buona notte, dottore.’ They didn’t seem interested. Zen was just a piece of merchandise which they had to deliver, like those plastic-wrapped packages transferred from the plane to the van on the strip of motorway where he had landed, many hours ago.

  At last the car made one final lurch to the right and came to a halt. There was a brief exchange in dialect, then Zen was shoved out of the car and hustled across a paved surface, up a set of steps, where he stumbled twice, and into a building. It smelt musty and disused. His escort marched him along a bare board floor, turned him to the left, positioned him and told him to sit down. Oddly, he was more afraid of doing this blindfolded than of anything else that had happened so far, perhaps because of some memory of a childhood prank where the chair is removed at the last moment and you land on your silly bottom, hurt and humiliated.

  But these people were not playing such games. He touched down on a chair to which his ankles and wrists were immediately bound with what felt like nylon cord. The men then withdrew, leaving Zen alone in the room.

  It was perhaps half an hour later that he heard the car pull up outside. Being unable to see seemed to have disoriented him to a point where it was difficult to judge time. Cut off from external distractions, however, the rest of his brain had been working much more efficiently than usual. By the time the clomping of footsteps on the wooden floor announced the return of his captors, he had reviewed everything he knew or could infer about what had happened in the past weeks.

  He had also decided how to handle the interrogation which he was about to undergo. He would be respectful, and demand respect in return. ‘Don’t grovel,’ Gilberto had told him. Grovelling to these people, even though he was totally in their power, would be fatal. If they were planning to kill him, no amount of pleading would stop them. But if they came to despise him, they might well kill him anyway, out of sheer contempt.

  The broken rhythm of footsteps came to a stop near and in front of him. It was as if the room had suddenly become smaller. There were at least six of them, Zen estimated. Silence fell. He sensed that someone was inspecting him, sizing him up, gauging whom he had to deal with.

  ‘So, Signor Zen, why did you kill our friend Spada?’

  Zen noted the epithet signore, itself a form of insult in Sicily, implying as it did that the person concerned had no right to a title of more weight.

  ‘Why did you kill my daughter, Don Gaspare?’ he replied.

  ‘We didn’t.’

  ‘Well, that makes us quits, because I didn’t kill Spada.’

  There was a brief sardonic laugh.

  ‘Spada’s brother-in-law is the caretaker at that museum. He lives in an apartment which is part of the building. When he got home later that evening, he noticed a window open on the first floor. When he went to investigate, he found Spada lying on the floor, his hands bound behind him. He had been strangled. That was at ten o’clock. He had been dead approximately two hours. You had an appointment to meet Spada there at eight o’clock. I understand that you’re a policeman, Signor Zen. What conclusion would you draw from these facts?’

  The voice was deep, the accent strong, the man perhaps about fifty.

  ‘Is that all that Spada’s brother discovered?’ demanded Zen.

  ‘Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘There was some damage to some of the exhibits, and the opened window.’

  Zen deliberately paused before replying.

  ‘You asked what conclusion I would draw from what you’ve just told me, Don Gaspare. The answer is that I would have come to the same conclusion as you, if I hadn’t been assured by an eye-witness that another man had also been killed in the museum that evening.’

  Several men laughed this time, even more sardonically.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re not in a position to call this eye-witness of yours, Signor Zen, even supposing that he existed.’

  ‘You don’t need to call him. And he does exist. He’s sitting in front of you.’

  ‘So you admit you were there.’

  ‘Certainly I was there. But so were two other men. One of them was strangling Spada when I surprised them. He drew a gun and I shot him dead. His partner escaped through the window. Evidently he returned later, turned off the burglar alarm which I had tripped, and removed his accomplice’s body’

  Another laugh, slightly less assured this time.

  ‘Why should we believe this?’

  ‘Don Gaspare, Spada was strangled by a professional. Not the clumsy two-handed grip you see at the movies, but with one hand gripping the windpipe and the other pressed into the back of the neck. It’s hard work. Look at my hands. I’m a bureaucrat, I work at a desk. Spada was strong, vigorous and at least ten years younger than me. There’s no way I could have strangled him like that, still less tied him up before.’

  A dense silence formed.

  ‘So you’re saying that another clan killed Spada? Who, the Corleonesi?’

  ‘They didn’t kill Spada. And I don’t think they killed Tonino either.’

  The blow came first as an outrageous surprise. It was only when he hit the floor that Zen began to feel pain, and to taste the dense salty blood in his mouth. Hands picked him up with the chair he was bound to and set him upright again.

  ‘Don’t you dare mention my son’s name again!’ the voice said, very close to Zen’s face now.

  Zen spat some bloody saliva on the floor and took a few deep breaths.

  ‘As you mentioned, Don Gaspare, I’m a policeman. I know how interrogations are conducted. I know all the moves and all the methods, hard and soft. If you want to go hard, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. But if you want the truth, we’re going to have t
o cooperate. You know things that I don’t know, and I know things that you don’t know. If you beat me up every time I mention one of them, we’re not going to get very far.’

  A sound of shuffling feet.

  ‘All right, then! Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘Spada was killed by an agent of the Carabinieri’s Special Operations Group, the one I shot. His name was Alfredo Ferraro. His partner, who got away, is called Roberto Lessi. They wanted to dispose of Spada before he could talk to me, but they wanted to do so in a way which would make it look like a classic Mafia execution.’

  He paused.

  ‘That’s how you do it, isn’t it? If you’re going to kill me, later tonight, you’ll strangle me.’

  ‘We might,’ the voice conceded lightly. ‘You seem very calm about the prospect.’

  ‘Don Gaspare, in the past week my daughter has been murdered and my mother has died. My own life no longer seems as important as it once did.’

  There was a brief whisper of indrawn breath.

  ‘I had heard about your daughter’s death, of course, but not about your mother’s. I offer my sincere condolences.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Don Gaspare. Now let’s get back to the death of your son. You won’t hit me if I call him that?’

  ‘Goon.’

  ‘Before she died, Judge Corinna Nunziatella made a photocopy of her file on the so-called Limina affair. She evidently feared that the papers would be officially “disappeared”, as indeed happened. A handwritten note at the end of the copy mentions the names of the two ROS agents who murdered Spada. Apparently they took possession of the original file. The copy, however, was left in my safe-keeping, and after Nunziatella’s death I opened it. The evidence it contains is indirect, and at first sight not very striking, but taken in conjunction with the other recent events, I think it indicates quite clearly who killed Ton … who killed your son.’

  A raucous guffaw.

  ‘We already know that! It was those bastards in Corleone, and we’ve already returned the compliment. We sent them a gift of some nice fresh meat from Catania! Right, lads?’