Dead Lagoon - 4

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘Excuse me!’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Rosalba?’

  ‘Ah, if it isn’t Casanova himself!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘“I’m just going over to see Wanda,” she tells me last night. That’s Wanda Dal Maschio, Nando’s sister, somehow they’ve remained on good terms despite what’s happened. The next thing I know, Lisa Rosteghin’s phoning me to ask who’s the tall dark stranger Cristiana’s been seen having a pizza with!’

  Zen gave a feeble smile.

  ‘I just wanted to catch up on the local gossip.’

  ‘Of course!’ returned Rosalba heartily. ‘Once Cristiana got back and I found out it was you, I knew there was no question of any hanky-panky. Why, you’re old enough to be her father!’

  Zen’s smile slowly faded. Rosalba picked up her shopping and slipped back into the fog, disappearing within moments.

  ‘Thick as snot,’ her voice called back. ‘Mind how you go, Aurelio.’

  On the Cannaregio, a slight breeze was at work, stirring the fog into currents of differing density. The palaces and churches fronting the canal came and went, the forms firming up and vagueing away like a print from an old photographic plate damaged by the ravages of time. A barge nosed through out from a side canal into the main channel, hooting mournfully. Similar sirens and signals, muffled by the moist air, resounded in the distance.

  Zen was making slow progress towards the ferry stop when he was hurled headlong to the cobbles, banging his knee and shoulder painfully. Getting up again and looking round, he saw the line of tubing over which he had tripped, straight lengths of metal bolted together with blue concertina inserts in plastic to accommodate corners. Down at the quayside one of the ubiquitous red barges marked POZZI NERI would be moored ready to receive the contents of whichever septic tank was being drained that morning.

  He picked up his briefcase, lit a cigarette and continued on his way across the bridge to the floating platform where a dozen people were already waiting. Spectral in the fog, the massive wooden pilings chained together to form a tripod securing the platform, their tops phallically rounded, looked like an idol dedicated to some god of the lagoon. From time to time invisible craft passed by, the wash making the landing stage shift restlessly at its moorings.

  At length a muffled cone of light appeared in the fog, gradually brightening and widening until the boat itself became visible, one of the motoscafi with a rakishly high bow like a torpedo boat. The waiting crowd filed on board and the ferry continued cautiously on its way, creeping through the water, the engine barely turning over, the searchlight at the bow scanning back and forth. Once they cleared the mouth of the Cannaregio the water started to heave dully, making the boat yaw and wallow.

  At Fondamente Nove, where he had to change, Zen stopped off in a bar for a caffè corretto. The barman had the radio on, and Zen caught the end of some local news item about a fisherman who had been found drowned somewhere in the northern lagoon. The police were said to be investigating. Zen tossed off the scalding coffee, heady with grappa, and wandered over to the window to look for his ferry. The steamer to Burano and Treporti was just casting off, but there was no activity at the pier where the number 5 stopped.

  On the wall beside the window was another of the calendars which he had seen the previous day at the osteria where he had met Marco Paulon, with the fall and rise of the tides in the lagoon superimposed on the days of the month. Zen lifted it down from its hook and copied the information for the earlier part of the month into his notebook, glancing out of the window from time to time. There was still no sign of the circolare destra. After waiting five minutes, he decided to walk.

  Away from the slight breezes of the open lagoon, the fog blocked the winding cuts and alleys, as thick as silt. Zen waded through it, narrowly avoiding a number of close encounters with walls, canals and other pedestrians, until he emerged at length in Campo San Lorenzo. A blue-and-white launch was just setting off from the Questura with the ear-splitting roar to which police drivers always aspired, whatever their vehicle. Zen climbed the stairs to the office he had been assigned on the second floor. Aldo Valentini was standing by the window, looking out at the swirling grey pall.

  ‘Filthy stuff,’ he said vehemently, catching sight of Zen’s reflection in the glass. ‘Coats your throat and lungs. Can’t you taste it? All the pollution from Mestre and Marghera packaged for your convenience in easy-to-breathe aerosol form.’

  Zen slumped behind his desk and phoned the Ospedale Civile. Putting on his most brutal tone, he cowed an unwilling functionary of that institution into briefing him on the condition of Ada Zulian. Eventually he was connected to a woman doctor who reported that the patient had made a complete recovery and was anxious to go home but was being kept at the hospital in accordance with the instructions which Zen had given the ambulance crew the night before. She had been visited by her nephews, who had strongly supported their aunt’s right to be discharged if she so wished.

  ‘And of course they’re absolutely right,’ the doctor concluded. ‘Quite apart from the considerable pressure on our facilities here, it’s no part of our business to keep patients confined when they’re able and willing to leave.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ Zen murmured soothingly. ‘Thank you so much for your forbearance. Unfortunately there’s a bit of a demand for transport at present, but I’ll come and pick up the contessa just as soon as a boat becomes available.’

  He hung up before the doctor could reply. Opening his briefcase, he extracted a bundle wrapped in newspaper and folded back the wrapping to reveal a large carving knife.

  ‘Where can I get this printed?’ he asked Valentini.

  ‘The lab’s at the university. If you leave it with Renaldi in the basement he’ll have it sent over. I’ll take it down for you, if you like. I’ve got bugger all else to do after getting bumped off the Sfriso case.’

  Being from Ferrara, Valentini pronounced it ‘Sfrizo’. Zen looked up.

  ‘Isn’t that the break-in you were talking about yesterday?’

  ‘It was. Now it’s a drowning. Out by Burano.’

  Zen suddenly recalled what Marco Paulon had told him on the way to the ottagono the day before.

  ‘Sfriso? Is he the same man who claimed to have seen the dead on Sant’Ariano walking around?’

  Aldo Valentini nodded.

  ‘And now he’s joined them. One of the monks rowing back to San Francesco del Deserto fished him out of the water yesterday afternoon. I spent most of last night at Burano, trying to piece together what happened, only to get in this morning and find that Gavagnin has taken over the case. He’s giving the brother a hard time downstairs even now.’

  ‘Why did they take you off the case?’

  Valentini scowled.

  ‘Damned if I know. First of all Gavagnin tried to take the break-in away from me. Claimed it was linked to some drugs case he’s working on. I couldn’t see it. The Sfriso brothers were just a couple of typical Burano fishermen.’

  ‘What was the break-in about?’

  ‘It happened one Sunday while they were at Mass with their mother. The house was torn apart, but nothing was taken. A neighbour saw the intruders leaving and phoned one one three, but by the time we got a boat there they were long gone. The only strange thing about it was that the Sfrisos wouldn’t co-operate. They didn’t want to pursue the matter, they said. Wouldn’t even file a complaint until I told them they had to.’

  Zen nodded to show a polite interest.

  ‘And now one of them’s dead. Is there any suggestion of foul play?’

  Valentini shrugged.

  ‘I didn’t see any, but it’s out of my hands. Gavagnin must have pulled some strings upstairs this time. They didn’t even bother to discuss it with me, just told me to hand over the file.’

  He sighed.

  ‘It’s really pissed me off, I can tell you. First interesting thing happens in months and it gets pulled out from under my feet.�
��

  He took the carving knife from Zen and wrapped it up again.

  ‘What was this used to do?’

  Zen briefly ran through the events of the previous night. Aldo Valentini yawned loudly.

  ‘I’ll bet you anything you like the prints on the handle are hers.’

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘Probably. Still, I’m going to have to put a man in the house. I don’t want her dead next time.’

  ‘It’d be better to get the old girl committed again. The chief isn’t going to agree to tying up personnel indefinitely to keep someone with her psychiatric record from slitting her wrists. We’re not running a nanny service, you know.’

  Zen put his finger to his lips.

  ‘If I do that, I’ll be out of work too,’ he said in a stage whisper. ‘I only just got here, for God’s sake. I want to spin it out for a week at least.’

  Valentini smiled broadly.

  ‘Oh well, put like that, of course, the case for ongoing police intervention becomes overwhelming. I’ll take this downstairs, then go and grab some breakfast.’

  He headed for the door, shaking his head.

  ‘Bastards!’

  Once Valentini had gone, Zen phoned the Questore’s office. Francesco Bruno, the provincial police chief, was out of town, and the call was taken by his deputy. Zen outlined the history of his involvement with the case so far and explained why he wished to post a guard inside Palazzo Zulian. The Deputy Questore at first expressed considerable doubts about this, and an even greater amazement that a Criminalpol operative had been commissioned to investigate such a comparatively insignificant case.

  ‘Exactly!’ Zen retorted triumphantly. ‘This woman clearly must have powerful connections to have me sent up here. It is therefore all the more essential that we do not leave ourselves open to any possible criticism. How’s it going to look if we wash our hands of the affair and then she goes and kills herself?’

  The Deputy Questore speedily acknowledged the force of this argument. Armed with this authorization from on high, Zen spent the next twenty minutes punishing the internal telephone system until he had made the necessary arrangements. He then typed up a confirmation, took it down to Personnel and extracted a receipt, thereby giving the staff an interest in seeing that his orders were actually carried out.

  Back at his desk, he rang Serenissmi Viaggi, the travel agency where Cristiana Morosini worked. He had phoned Palazzo Sisti before leaving home to pass on the fax number, but the subordinate he had spoken to then had been unable or unwilling to reveal whether or not l’onorevole had been successful in obtaining the material Zen wished to consult. So his disappointment at not being able to speak to Cristiana herself, who had gone out on some errand, was mitigated by the news that a fax transmission in his name had indeed arrived and was awaiting collection.

  Zen grabbed his hat and coat and hurried out. The light in the corridors and stairwell seemed slightly hazy, as though the drench all around had seeped through the walls to taint the air inside as well. Somewhere below a door slammed shut and a pair of metal-tipped shoes began running along an echoing passage. Zen continued down. As he reached the landing he met a tubby, choleric man dashing up the stairs two at a time.

  ‘Aren’t you Enzo Gavagnin?’ said Zen.

  ‘Well?’ snapped the other, whirling round.

  ‘Aurelio Zen, Vice-Questore. We met yesterday. I’m here on secondment from the Ministry.’

  Enzo Gavagnin’s eyes became smaller and more intense.

  ‘Excuse me! I for one have no time to chat.’

  ‘Oh quite,’ Zen murmured languidly. ‘Sounds like a big case you’re working on. A drowned fisherman, eh? I’ve never heard the like! Did he slip on a squid or get his waders caught in the winch?’

  Gavagnin glared at him.

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he growled in dialect.

  Outside, the fog was thicker than ever. Buildings loomed up like ships, towering above the narrow lanes where featureless figures slipped in and out of the clammy banks of vapour. As Zen passed on the corner, he caught sight of Aldo Valentini drowning his sorrows with a sandwich and glass of wine. For a moment he was tempted to join him, but he kept going, stopping at a bakery to buy half a loaf of olive bread. He chewed contentedly as he walked along, savouring the warm pulp of the dough and the sweet black putrefaction of the olives.

  Serenissimi Viaggi was in an alley just north of the Piazza, lined with shops selling carnival masks and costumes. A group of tourists passed by like soldiers on patrol in enemy territory, bunched for protection, cameras ready to shoot at the slightest opportunity. One of them looked at the posters in the window of the agency and frowned, momentarily disturbed by the idea that a city he thought of only as a holiday destination was offering holidays elsewhere.

  Inside the small shop were two desks piled with brochures and timetables and computer equipment. One was unoccupied. An anorexically cadaverous woman with unnaturally white skin and black hair was seated behind the other. She did not look up as Zen entered.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m Cristiana’s friend. I’ve come to pick up the fax which arrived for me.’

  The woman sighed mightily. She stood up and walked over to the other desk. After rummaging through the papers scattered there for some time, she returned with a large envelope which she handed to Zen, still avoiding any eye contact but fixing the half-eaten loaf in his hand with a look full of disapproval.

  ‘Thirty-eight thousand,’ she said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  The woman tapped the keys of a printing calculator.

  ‘Fourteen pages fax reception at two thousand a page equals twenty-eight thousand, plus five thousand handling fee makes thirty-three, plus VAT at fifteen per cent four nine five oh say another five equals thirty-eight thousand in all. Do you want a receipt?’

  Zen paid and shuffled out into the fog, clutching the envelope. He turned right, off the main street, away from the crowds, glancing at the shopfronts to either side. In Campo Santa Maria Formosa he found what he had been looking for: a small, cosy wine bar, almost empty at that hour. The walls were panelled with varnished laths, as though the hull of a boat had been flattened out like pollo alla diavola. The windows were screened by a lace curtain hanging on a rail. Brass lamps with bulbous glass shades cast patches of soft yellow light in the intimate gloom.

  At the bar, a brown-flecked marble slab, three men stood discussing the merits of various models of outboard engine. Zen took a seat at a trestle table near the back of the room, facing the door. When the barman came over, he ordered some breaded crab claws and a quarter litre of white wine. He waited till the man had gone, then opened the envelope and spread the contents on the table.

  The document faxed by Palazzo Sisti consisted of fourteen pages of double-spaced typing. There was no heading or other indication that the text formed part of an official report, the material having been retyped on to plain paper in order to conceal the source or to edit out any items which might have compromised friends or allies of l’onorevole.

  Zen skimmed quickly through the report, then went back to the beginning and started again, reading more carefully and making marks and comments in the margin here and there. The first thing he learned was that the missing man’s real name was not Durridge but He had been born in 1919 in Sarajevo, a city as notorious then, in the aftermath of the war which had been sparked off there, as it was again now that it had been abandoned to its fate by a world seemingly eager to demonstrate that it had learned nothing from the horrors of the intervening seventy-five years.

  Zen casually placed the envelope over the fax sheets as the barman returned with his food and drink. He tore open one of the golden-breaded pincers, exposing the pink bone, and savoured the sweet flesh with sips of wine while he read on. When Ivan was twenty, another European conflict engulfed his country, only this time he was able to take an active hand. Unfortunately he backed the wrong faction, and when Tito’s Communist partisa
ns took power of the new Yugoslavia the family were forced to make a hasty exit. They slipped across the Adriatric to Italy and thence to the United States, where Ivan changed his surname and went on to make a fortune in the trucking business.

  Zen finished the last of the crab. He poured himself more wine, lit a cigarette and went back to the report. Durridge had first come to the attention of the Italian authorities in March 1988, when he had bought the ottagono in the lagoon and applied to the local Questura for a residence permit. Since then, according to the records of the frontier police, he had come and gone between Venice and Chicago four or five times a year. There were only two other instances of his name in official files. The first was a complaint which Durridge had made towards the end of September the previous year about an alleged trespass. The other, just over a month later, was when Franco Calderan phoned the Carabinieri to report that his employer was missing.

  ‘… weed fouled round the screw then …’

  ‘… tilt the whole issue and clean it by hand …’

  ‘… still swear by the little Fiat my father used …’

  Zen blew an almost perfect smoke-ring towards the ceiling and called for more wine. Franco Calderan had returned from his day off on the Lido shortly after five o’clock that afternoon, the 11th. He used his own small dinghy for the crossing, and as soon as he approached the landing place he noticed that his master’s boat was absent from its mooring.

  This boat, a traditional broad-beamed topa fitted with a Volvo diesel engine instead of the traditional lugsail, had not been seen since. Durridge never used it without Calderan aboard, having learned the hard way about the hazards of navigation on the lagoon when he ran aground south of the Fondi dei Sette Morti and had to spend the night aboard in the open until a fishing vessel returning to Chioggia threw him a line. Since the boat was nevertheless missing, the investigators’ assumption was that it had been taken by the same person or persons who had abducted Ivan Durridge.