Ratking az-1

by Michael Dibdin

  His immediate solution was to go boating. Not for long, of course. With all these new developments pressing in on him the last thing he could afford was an afternoon off work. But neither was there any point in trying to take action with his head in this condition. So having made his way back to the hotel he closed the shutters, took off his shoes, jacket and tie, lay down on the bed and cast off. The image of the long shallow craft gliding forward through the reeds in regular surges, propelled by the oarsman’s graceful double-handed sweeps, was a powerful agent of calm. Just ten or fifteen minutes of it now would see him right, a short trip out through the islets and mudbanks where you could let the boat drift, lean over the stern and watch the inner life of the dirty green water, the shreds of seaweed and small branches and other shapes that sometimes proved to be alive, or focus on the surface, a depthless sheet of scum on which the pearly light shimmered in continual shifting patterns, or even look up to see a huge modern building, several storeys high, going for a stroll along a neighbouring island, the superstructure of a freighter putting out to sea along the deep-water channel…

  He got up and put the light on, shivering. Something was wrong. How could the room feel stuffy and cold at the same time? And it was totally silent, no distant murmur of traffic, no footsteps, no voices. Catching sight of the transistor radio, he clicked it on and fiddled with the tuning, encountering only heavy bands of static interspersed with the twittering gibberish of machines. He felt like the last person left alive.

  ‘… very much and you get a fabulous Radio Subasio T-shirt so keep those calls coming out there this one is for Adriana in Gubbio it’s Celentano’s latest coming to you at fifteen before four this Thursday morning courtesy of your friend Tullio who says… ’

  Zen silenced the radio, walked to the window and opened the shutters. The deserted piazza glistened under the streetlights. He had slept right through the night.

  Catching sight of his reflection in the window he felt a surge of self-pity and suddenly realized that he missed Ellen very badly, and that it was only at moments like this, when he surprised himself, that he could admit how much he needed her. Why couldn’t he tell her? That was what she wanted, after all, and he knew that she was right to want it. For a moment he thought of phoning her, then and there, and telling her how he felt. But it would be ridiculous, of course. He imagined the phone ringing and ringing until it prodded her unwillingly out of sleep, and her uncomprehending response. ‘For Christ’s sake, Aurelio, couldn’t this have waited? Do you know what time it is? I’ve got a sale to go to at nine, and you know how difficult it is for me to get back to sleep once I’ve been woken.’ Instead he read a paper he’d bought in Trieste and forgotten to throw away, immersing himself in a debate over the council’s delay in resurfacing the streets in an outlying zone of the city until it was time to go to work.

  A crowd of people of various races, clutching passports and sheaves of official documents, were clustered around an office in the foyer of the Questura. A sheet of paper attached to the glass partition with sticky tape read ‘Foreigners’ in crude lettering. Behind the glass an official from the Political Branch scowled at a worried-looking black.

  ‘And I suppose it’s my fault you haven’t got it?’ he demanded.

  As Zen approached his office, the inspector who had been trying to trace Ubaldo Valesio’s movements poked his head around the door of the next room.

  ‘Just a moment, chief!’

  Lucaroni was short and rather sleazy-looking, with narrow-set eyes and a broad jaw blue with stubble. His movements were quick and furtive and he spoke in a speedy whisper, as though every word were classified information.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he muttered. ‘The widow. Rolled in about five minutes ago demanding to see you. We weren’t sure what to do with her.’

  He looked doubtfully at Zen, who nodded.

  ‘Turn up anything yesterday?’

  Lucaroni shook his head.

  ‘He phoned his office at nine to cancel all appointments. It was obviously unexpected. There were two clients waiting who had to be sent away.’

  Zen looked into the inspectors’ room. Chiodini was poring over a sports paper. Geraci was staring fixedly back at Zen, as though he was trying to remember whether he’d turned the gas off before leaving home.

  ‘How about you two?’ Zen asked.

  Geraci’s eyebrows wiggled briefly.

  ‘Just a lot of stuff about his house and taxes and kids.’

  ‘And those marks in the diary,’ Chiodini put in without looking up from his paper.

  ‘They’re nothing,’ Geraci commented dismissively.

  ‘What marks?’ asked Zen.

  He was really just buying time before having to deal with Patrizia Valesio.

  Chiodini took the diary from the pile of documents on his desk and showed him that the lawyer had marked several pages during the previous three months with a red asterisk, the last being two days earlier. Zen walked over to the door opening directly into his office, taking the diary with him.

  ‘What do you want us to do now, chief?’ Geraci asked. He sounded slightly panicky.

  ‘Nothing, for now.’

  He should never have asked for three assistants, he realized. Now he would always have them hanging about, making him feel guilty, getting in his way. Moreover one of them was bound to be reporting back to the Questore, and since there was no way of finding out which he would have to keep them all busy if he was to do what Bartocci had asked.

  The spare chair in his office was occupied by a woman of about thirty dressed in an elegant black outfit. Her face was large and round and slightly concave, with a long sharp nose.

  ‘You’re the man they sent up from Rome?’ she asked. ‘I am Patrizia Valesio.’

  ‘I’m very sorry…’

  She waved dismissively.

  ‘Please, don’t let’s waste time.’

  Zen took out a notepad and pencil and laid them on the desk.

  ‘Very well. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve come to make an accusation. You may find it bizarre, even unbelievable. I simply ask you to listen, and not to judge what I say until I have finished.’

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘My husband did not usually discuss the negotiations for Ruggiero Miletti’s release with me, but on one occasion about a month ago, while we were having dinner…’

  She paused. The strain of what she was saying showed on her face. Then she finished quickly.

  ‘He suddenly blurted out, “Someone is going behind my back”.’

  The phone started to ring.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Zen said, and lifted the receiver.

  ‘ Good morning, Commissioner. This is Antonio Crepi. I’m just phoning to make it quite clear that our discussion the other night is no longer relevant. Pietro has flown in from London and he’s assured me that as soon as the gang make contact the matter will be resolved without further delay. I don’t need to tell you to keep what I said to yourself of course.’

  Of course.’

  ‘ Incidentally, I hear you had lunch with young Bartocci yesterday .’

  Zen watched Patrizia Valesio removing an invisible hair from her coat.

  ‘ I don’t want to interfere, dottore, but remember what I told you about him. Luciano’s a good lad at heart, but he’s got a bee in his bonnet when it comes to the Milettis. You know how these lefties are, they read Marx and stop seeing reality. Now that’s a dangerous attitude for an investigating magistrate, in my opinion. Still more so for a policeman. See what I mean? Just a friendly word of advice, from one who knows.’

  Zen put the phone down. ‘… from one who knows.’ Where had he heard that phrase before?

  Patrizia Valesio was staring at him with the expression of one who is not to be put off by interruptions. Her face reminded Zen of an old-fashioned candlestick: a shallow dish with a spike in the middle.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You were saying that…’


  ‘Ubaldo told me that someone was going behind his back,’ she repeated. ‘He said that every time he returned to the kidnappers to present an offer worked out after lengthy discussions with the family, claiming that this was the absolute maximum the Milettis could afford to pay, the gang accused him of lying. “Have you forgotten the villa at Punta Ala? And what about the olive grove at Spello? Why haven’t you sold the shares in such and such a company?” And when Ubaldo asked the Milettis, lo and behold there was such a villa, such an olive grove, such shares! It was a negotiator’s nightmare!’

  Zen stared hard at the pad. He had been doodling obsessive box-like designs, a nest of interlocking right-angled lines locking out all possibility of error or surprise.

  ‘What about Ruggiero himself?’ he suggested. ‘He knows more than anyone about the family assets, and he’s totally in the gang’s power. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to make him talk.’

  ‘That’s what Ubaldo thought at first. But the gang knew about financial developments which had taken place since the kidnapping, things Ruggiero couldn’t have known about. Eventually Ubaldo became convinced that someone in the family circle was supplying the gang with information on a day-to-day basis. Which means that my husband was the innocent victim of some hideous double-deading within the Miletti family! That’s why I have come. I want his murderers punished. Not just the ones who pulled the trigger but also the ones who stood behind them, in the shadows!’

  She broke off, taking quick shallow breaths.

  ‘This is all very interesting, signora…’

  ‘I haven’t finished!’ she snapped. ‘There’s something else, a vital clue. The gang always used the same procedure when they wanted to make contact. The telephone would ring at one o’clock, just as we were sitting down to lunch. Only two words were spoken. The caller gave the name of a football team and Ubaldo had to reply with the name of the team they were playing the following Sunday. He kept the fixtures list by the phone. Then he hung up immediately, phoned his office and cancelled his afternoon appointments. That was the procedure, and it never varied. But on Tuesday…’

  She broke off again, fighting for control.

  ‘On Tuesday the call came not at lunchtime but early in the morning, about seven forty-five. I heard Ubaldo give the password and then say “Now?” in great surprise.’

  She held Zen’s eyes with hers.

  ‘When did you arrive here in Perugia, Commissioner?’

  ‘On Tuesday.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘About half past one.’

  ‘And who knew you were coming?’

  He frowned slightly.

  ‘Various people in the Ministry and here at the Questura.’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. Why?’

  Was that a sound from the next room, from behind the closed door?

  ‘Then how do you explain the fact that the kidnappers phoned urgently, demanding to see Ubaldo in person, at a time when you were still in Rome and no one supposedly knew you were coming except the authorities?’

  Her voice was triumphant, as though this clinched the matter. Zen deliberately allowed his frown to deepen.

  ‘I don’t see there’s anything to explain. What connection is there between the two events?’

  She snorted indignantly.

  ‘The connection? The connection is obvious to anyone who can put two and two together. Do you really believe that the first contact after weeks of silence just happened by sheer coincidence to fall on the same day as your arrival here? I’m sorry, but that would be just a little too convenient. But how could the kidnappers have known about your arrival in Perugia five hours before it happened? Obviously their contact in the family tipped them off!’

  ‘But how did the Milettis know, for that matter?’

  ‘Because it was they who had you sent here, of course! You don’t, for heaven’s sake, think that things like that happen without someone pulling strings, do you?’

  Zen looked away. He had just remembered where he’d heard the phrase with which Crepi had rung off. It had been the signature of the anonymous letter Bartocci had received suggesting that the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti was a put-up job. He found himself writing CREPI??? in block capitals on the pad in front of him. He hastily crossed it out, then covered the whole area with tight scribbles until all trace of the name had been obliterated.

  ‘I don’t quite understand, signora,’ he said. ‘First you claim that the family is collaborating with the kidnappers, then you say they must have used their influence to have me sent here. Isn’t there some contradiction in your ideas?’

  With a convulsive movement Patrizia Valesio got to her feet.

  ‘Don’t you speak to me of contradictions! That whole family is a living contradiction, consuming anything and anyone that comes within its reach, one of them smiling in your face while another stabs you in the back. My poor husband, who wanted only to help, ended up as their victim. Be careful you don’t share his fate!’

  Zen also rose.

  ‘Anyway, since this case is under investigation by the judiciary, the proper person to inform is the magistrate in charge, Luciano Bartocci.’

  His visitor picked up her gloves and handbag.

  ‘Oh, I shall inform him, don’t worry! And I shall inform him that I’ve informed you. And then I shall inform the Public Prosecutor’s department that I’ve informed both of you. Do you know why I’m going to inform so many people, Commissioner? Because I am expecting there to be a conspiracy of silence on this matter and I intend to make it as difficult as possible for the Milettis and their friends. If there is to be a conspiracy, at least everyone will see that it exists and will know who is involved. That will be some poor consolation, at least.’

  At the last moment Zen remembered the diary. He showed it to Patrizia Valesio and asked if she knew anything about the asterisks which Chiodini had pointed out. The sight of her husband’s writing was clearly a great shock, but she held herself together.

  ‘Those are the days on which Ubaldo had a meeting with the kidnappers,’ she replied in a dull voice. ‘He marked the diary as soon as they phoned. He thought it might be useful later.’

  Well, perhaps it might, Zen thought when she had gone. But he couldn’t see how.

  He opened the door to the other room. Lucaroni was standing almost immediately inside, studying a notice concerning action to be taken in the event of fire breaking out in the building. Geraci was sitting at his desk, a paperback edition of the Penal Code open in front of him. Chiodini had slumped forward on his newspaper and seemed to be asleep.

  ‘Well, I’ve got some work for you, lads,’ Zen exclaimed breezily. ‘From what Valesio’s widow has told me, it’s clear that her husband’s contacts with the gang began with a telephone call that was simply a signal for him to go to some prearranged meeting-place. The chances are that it was a bar, somewhere not too far away. I want you to find it. Draw up a list and visit each in turn. Take a photograph of Valesio along. It shouldn’t be too difficult. A smart young lawyer driving a BMW will have been noticed.’

  When they had gone Zen went back to his office and dialled an internal number.

  ‘ Records.’

  ‘I want a check run on any firearms licences issued to the following persons. Family name Miletti, first names Ruggiero, Pietro, Silvio and…’

  Again that sound next door. Zen put the phone down, got up quietly and went over to the door into the corridor. He looked out. The corridor was empty, but the door to the inspector’s room was slightly ajar. Zen walked along the corridor and pushed it wide open. Geraci was standing by his desk. He whirled round as the door hit the rubbish bin with a loud clang.

  ‘Forgot my notebook,’ he explained.

  Zen nodded.

  ‘Listen, Geraci, I want you to keep an eye on the other two for me.’

  The inspector stared uncertainly at Zen.

  ‘Keep an eye on them?’
>
  ‘That’s it. Just in case.’

  He winked and tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘Better safe than sorry. Know what I mean?’

  Geraci clearly didn’t have the slightest idea what Zen was talking about.

  ‘I should get going,’ he muttered nervously.

  ‘Good thinking. Don’t want to make them suspicious.’

  He watched Geraci walk all the way down the corridor before going back to his office, leaving the connecting door open so that if anyone came in he could see them reflected on Pertini’s portrait. Then he picked up the receiver again.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘ So far I’ve got Miletti Ruggiero, Pietro and Silvio.’

  ‘Right. Also Miletti Daniele, Santucci Gianluigi and Cinzia nee Miletti.’

  ‘ Who’s speaking? ’

  Zen seemed to see again that glare of hostility and hear the Questore murmur, ‘Until today he was handling the Miletti case for us.’

  ‘Fabrizio Priorelli.’

  ‘ I’ll call you straight back, dottore.’

  ‘Eh, no, my friend! Sorry, but you’ll do it now, if you please. I’ll hold.’

  ‘ Of course, dottore! Right away.’

  There was a clunk as the receiver went down, followed by receding footsteps. While he waited Zen looked round his office. Something about it was slightly different today, but he couldn’t decide what it was.

  The footsteps returned.

  ‘ There are three cards, dottore. A Luger 9mm pistol in the name of Miletti Ruggiero, issued 27 04 53. Then Santucci Gianluigi registered a rifle on 19 10 75. Finally Miletti Cinzia, a Beretta pistol, 4.5mm, dated 11 01 81.’