Dead Lagoon - 4

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘I’ll do what I can, sir.’

  The policewoman left to start her inquiries, while Zen finished his cigarette and grappa before returning to the Questura to interview Domenico Zuin, an encounter he regarded with considerable apprehension. Apart from Giulio Bon, there was no evidence that either of the men who had taken part in the first landing on the ottagono had also participated in the kidnapping of Ivan Durridge a month later. Bon was linked to this event through his sale of Durridge’s boat, but any attempt to interrogate him directly would result in the intervention of Carlo Berengo Gorin. As for Massimo Bugno, it now appeared likely that he had no connection with the kidnapping.

  That left Domenico Zuin as the key to the whole affair. If he could be persuaded to co-operate, Zen stood a real chance of achieving enough progress in the Durridge case to force Francesco Bruno to extend his transfer. But that was a very big if. Zuin was a much tougher proposition than Bugno, and the tactics which had proved successful in that case would not necessarily work in the other. Bugno was an employee, accustomed to following orders and obeying those in authority, while Zuin was an entrepreneur, a member of the privileged élite who formed the city’s watertaxi monopoly. He couldn’t be so easily cowed or browbeaten, as he proceeded to demonstrate the moment he was led into Zen’s office.

  ‘I want a lawyer.’

  Domenico Zuin had a trim, muscular body and one of those faces Zen associated with Americans: hair like an inverted scrubbing-brush, skin that looked as if it had been shaved down to the dermis, excessively white teeth and slightly protuberant eyes.

  ‘I’m saying nothing without a lawyer present,’ he insisted.

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘I’m not asking you to say anything. I’ll do the talking. I want to fill you in on the situation, so that when we bring a lawyer in and make everything official, you’ll have a clear idea of how you want to play this one.’

  He offered Zuin a cigarette, which was refused with an abrupt jerk of the head. Zen lit one himself and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the air between them, transected by a seam of dazed sunlight.

  ‘Basically I’d say that you’re looking at a minimum of two to four,’ he continued conversationally. ‘I can’t see squeezing it below that, whatever we do. On the other hand, it could well be more. A lot more.’

  He picked up Zuin’s file and scanned the contents.

  ‘Let’s see, what have we got here? Two counts of bribery. One aggravated assault, charges dropped when witness withdrew. A few run-ins involving under-age rent-boys. Nothing that need concern us.’

  He tossed the file back on the desk.

  ‘I can see no reason why we shouldn’t land you a nice two to four in that VIP facility near Parma where they’re putting all these corrupt businessmen and politicians. You wouldn’t object to sharing a cell with them, I suppose? You might even make a few useful contacts.’

  He gazed over at Zuin, who was staring at the floor, visibly struggling to keep his resolution not to speak.

  ‘That’s assuming we can position Giulio Bon correctly, of course,’ Zen went on. ‘Ideally, we need the third man to come in with us. It would look much better that way.’

  Zuin glanced up quickly and their eyes met for a moment.

  ‘I can quite see why you decided not to take Bugno along the second time,’ Zen murmured. ‘Not a good man in a crisis.’

  Zuin’s eyes started to twitch from side to side, as though dazzled by every surface they landed on.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he muttered.

  Zen gave him a look, level and lingering.

  ‘Yes, you do. What you don’t know – what nobody knows yet – is that we’ve found the body.’

  The skin over Zuin’s cheekbones tightened.

  ‘All that’s left of it, that is,’ added Zen, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘But that’s enough to tell us who it was and how he died. Which changes everything. It means we’re talking about murder.’

  There was a knock at the door. Zen got up, walked over and opened it. Pia Nunziata stood in the passageway, holding a folder which she passed to Zen.

  ‘That was quick,’ he commented.

  ‘It was very straightforward,’ the policewoman said. ‘I phoned the airport, they looked out their records for that day and faxed them over.’

  Zen thanked her and walked back to his desk, looking through the papers. Domenico Zuin sat staring at him with an expression of extreme anxiety. Zen suddenly had an idea.

  ‘It looks like you’ve left it too late,’ he murmured, shaking his head sadly. ‘I had hoped to let you off lightly, Zuin. Make out you just went along in the boat, didn’t have any idea what it was all about, that sort of thing. Bon is the one I had targeted. He was the one who screwed the whole thing up by selling Durridge’s boat, after all. It seems only fair that he should take the rap.’

  Zuin’s shock was evident on his face.

  ‘Didn’t you know about that?’ asked Zen. ‘I suppose Bon claimed he’d scuttled the thing, but in the end his greed got the better of him. You can get quite a nice price for a topa these days, even without the proper papers.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Anyway, he’s decided to go for a pre-emptive strike.’

  He tapped the sheets of paper.

  ‘One of my colleagues has been interviewing Bon downstairs. This is a draft of his statement. I’m afraid he’s dropped you right in it. He claims he only went along to handle the boat and had no part in what followed. But what’s really damaging is where he says …’

  He pretended to pore over the page.

  ‘Here we are. My colleague asked about how you left the ottagono. Bon replies, “I left in the same way we arrived, by boat.” Question, “With Domenico Zuin.” Witness, “No, he remained on the island.” Question, “Then how did he get off again?” Witness, “The same way as Durridge, presumably.”’

  ‘He’s lying!’ Zuin burst out.

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘He’s talking. And that’s all that counts.’

  He came round and sat on the edge of the desk, looking down at Zuin.

  ‘You don’t seem to understand. This American disappears. There’s a brief flurry of interest and then the whole thing dies down. Now, suddenly, his body turns up. All hell’s going to break loose!’

  He spread his hands wide in appeal.

  ‘Try to see it from my point of view, Zuin. I’ve got an illustrious corpse on my hands. I need someone I can take to the magistrates in the next few hours. I’d rather it was Giulio Bon than you, but if you clam up and he plays along there’s nothing I can do. You’re looking at a minimum of ten to fifteen, and if they believe Bon it’ll be life. Ergastolo. Life meaning life. Meaning death.’

  Domenico Zuin slammed his fists down on his thighs.

  ‘You can’t let him get away with this!’

  Zen frowned.

  ‘The only way around it I can see is to get the other man on our side. You must have taken someone else along, a replacement for Bugno. If he supports your version of events, we could still swing it.’

  Zuin looked down at the floor.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Pity. Anyone I know?’

  ‘You should do,’ Zuin replied caustically. ‘He worked here.’

  Zen gazed out through the window.

  ‘Of course,’ he murmured.

  He got up, walked quickly round the desk and picked up the phone.

  ‘Get me the Law Courts,’ he told the switchboard operator.

  He looked over at Domenico Zuin.

  ‘I’m going to take a chance on you,’ he declared. ‘If we move fast, we might just be able to pip Bon at the post.’

  He turned back to the phone.

  ‘Hello? This is Vice-Questore Aurelio Zen phoning from the Questura. Please send a court-appointed lawyer over here immediately. I have a witness who wishes to make a statement.’

  *

  The bells of the city were all peal
ing midday as Zen left the Questura and crossed the small square on the other side of the canal. Trapped by the walls on every side, the sound ricocheted to and fro until the whole campo rang like a bell. Nevertheless, the chronology they represented was only one – and by no means the most important – of a number of distinct strands of whose progress he was aware.

  Since Francesco Bruno had issued his ultimatum, time had become as real a player in the Durridge case as any of the people involved, and Zen knew that success or failure depended on how well he mastered its ebb and flow, its tricky, shifting tidal currents. The clock hardly came into it. Already he had accomplished more in a single morning than in most weeks of his professional life. What mattered was the sense of utter commitment to the case which had come to him as he stood before Francesco Bruno like a schoolchild before a master and heard himself being dismissed. As a result of that experience, Zen knew exactly what he was working for.

  The ideal which inspired him was nothing as abstract as Justice or Truth. His dream was personal, and attainable. Having scored a great coup by solving the Durridge case where everyone else had failed, he would apply for a permanent transfer and return in triumph to his native city. He would bring his mother back from her exile in Rome, back to her friends and the way of life she had been forced to give up. Once the Durridge case came to court, Cristiana Morosini would have the perfect excuse for divorcing her disgraced husband. And a year or so later, she and Zen could marry without exciting any adverse comment. The Zen house would be a home again, once more to resound with laughter and life.

  He checked his euphoria. Much remained to be done. The next hurdle to be surmounted was lunch with Tommaso Saoner.

  ‘I’d be delighted, Aurelio,’ Saoner had replied urbanely when Zen phoned to invite him, ‘but unfortunately I’ve already got an engagement.’

  ‘Break it.’

  There was a pause before Saoner’s laugh. He sounded embarrassed by his friend’s peremptory tone.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Aurelio.’

  ‘I’m afraid you must.’

  This time Saoner’s laugh was drier.

  ‘Don’t play the policeman with me.’

  ‘I’m playing the friend, Tommaso. But the policeman isn’t far behind, and neither are the judges and the courts and the reporters and the television cameras. I’ll be at El S’ciopòn at half past twelve.’

  As he walked towards the restaurant, situated in an alley near the church of San Lio, he was suddenly brought up short. The scene before him – a certain combination of bridge, canal, alley, courtyard and wall – was just one of an almost infinite repertoire of variants on that series which the city contained, and it took him a moment to work out why this particular example seemed so significant. Then he realized that this was where he had seen the moored boats of the emergency services and the jointed metal tubing which led to the septic tank in which Enzo Gavagnin had met his hideous death.

  The Carabinieri were evidently still hard at work on the case, for there were two of their launches tied up alongside. As Zen crossed the bridge, a uniformed officer emerged from one of them. He glanced up at Zen, then looked again.

  ‘Rodrigo! Pietro!’

  Two Carabinieri rushed out on deck, brandishing machine-guns. The officer had already leapt ashore. Zen looked round, trying to spot the object of their attentions.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled the officer.

  ‘Halt or I shoot!’ cried a younger voice.

  Zen stepped back to let them pass, and promptly tripped over a panic-stricken cat dashing past. Both went flying, but the cat recovered quickly and scampered off. Running boots clattered to a halt by Zen’s ear. A rough hand grasped his collar and rolled him over to receive a gun barrel in the eye.

  ‘Move and you’re dead,’ the man holding the gun informed him succinctly.

  Zen did not move. He did not speak or even, to his knowledge, breathe. Slower footsteps neared on the cobbles.

  ‘That’s him all right! It’s the old story of the murderer always returning to the scene of the crime. He’s a cool one, though! He was standing right next to me when we pulled the body out of the cesspool. Even asked me what had happened! Then he turned to me and brazenly admitted that he’d killed him. Well, we’ve got him now.’

  Zen gasped in pain as a pair of plastic handcuffs bit into his wrists. One of the patrolmen held a machine-gun to his forehead while the other searched him for concealed weapons.

  ‘He’s clean, boss.’

  ‘Right, let’s go!’

  The two patrolmen hauled Zen to his feet.

  ‘Have a look at my wallet,’ Zen murmured to the Carabineri officer.

  ‘Trying to bribe me, eh?’ the man shouted. ‘That’s a very serious offence!’

  ‘In my jacket pocket, left-hand side.’

  The major looked at Zen sharply.

  ‘Keep him covered, Rodrigo!’ he barked. ‘Pietro, search him!’

  Knows how to delegate, this one, thought Zen.

  ‘Here it is, sir,’ said Pietro, flourishing Zen’s black leather wallet.

  ‘Check the identity card in the window,’ Zen told him.

  The Carabiniere’s eyes flicked down.

  ‘Cazzo!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘What is it?’ the major demanded irritably. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Pietro handed over the wallet to his superior.

  *

  Thanks to this delay, the restaurant was almost full by the time Zen got there. There was no sign of Tommaso, so Zen ordered some wine and water and munched at the breadsticks to stave off his hunger. After fifteen minutes he gave in to the waiter’s pointed requests to take his order. The room was now packed and several people had been turned away. Zen ordered the set lunch – spaghetti with clams followed by grilled sardines and radicchio di Treviso al forno – and stuck his head in his newspaper.

  The main stories concerned the latest episodes in the long-running saga of corruption in high places, and Zen dutifully ploughed his way through a leading article suggesting that while on the one hand the events currently unfolding were a political and social earthquake without parallel in the history of mankind, a cataclysmic upheaval compared to which the French and Russian revolutions were largely cosmetic rites of passage, it was perfectly clear to any sophisticated observer that nothing had really changed and that the whole affair was simply one more example of the national genius for adapting to circumstances, despite the earnest lucubrations of commentators from abroad who had as usual missed the point, bless their cotton socks.

  The inside pages featured a gatefold spread showing the leader of the Nuova Repubblica Veneta, accompanied by his charming and attractive wife, being acclaimed by his enthusiastic supporters in Pellestrina, Burano and Treporti. There were shots of Dal Maschio at the controls of the helicopter he had piloted to each of these outposts, shots of Dal Maschio striding purposefully about the streets greeting the inhabitants and kissing babies, shots of Dal Maschio addressing an election rally. ‘Venice is the heart of the lagoon,’ he had reportedly declared, ‘and the NRV is the very heartbeat of Venice. Keep the lagoon alive! Keep Venice alive! Vote for the New Venetian Republic!’ At his side Cristiana stood smiling vacuously, sensuously solid in a pink dress and a fur coat worn off the shoulder.

  The first course arrived, and Zen folded up his paper and started to eat. The clams were the genuine local article, vongole veraci, stewed in olive oil with garlic and parsley until the shells opened to reveal the tiny morsels of tender gristle inside. Zen slowly worked his way through them and the long strands of spaghetti soaked in the rich sauce. He was winding up a final coil of pasta when Tommaso finally arrived to claim the chair opposite.

  ‘I couldn’t get here any earlier. I had to change all my arrangements. What the hell is this about, Aurelio?’

  The waiter loomed up. Tommaso took off his heavy glasses, which had steamed up, and said he’d skip the primo and have whatever was quickest to follow.

  ‘What�
�s going on?’ he demanded as soon as the man had gone.

  Zen wiped the oil off his lips with his napkin.

  ‘I need some information.’

  Tommaso Saoner replaced his glasses and regarded Zen coldly.

  ‘I’m not an informer, Aurelio.’

  Zen lit a cigarette.

  ‘Supplying information to the police doesn’t make you an informer, Tommaso. On the contrary, it’s the duty of every good citizen.’

  Saoner poured himself some wine and broke off a crust of bread.

  ‘Information about what?’

  ‘About Ivan Durridge.’

  Saoner glanced away, then quickly looked back at Zen.

  ‘Who?’

  Zen shook his head in genuine embarrassment. Tommaso Saoner had been his friend for years at a time when a minute lasted longer than a month did now. Where were they now, that Tommaso and that Aurelio, so much more alive than the pallid impostors who had succeeded to their titles?

  ‘You know who,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows.’

  He puffed out a cloud of smoke.

  ‘But you know more than everyone, Tommaso.’

  Saoner frowned.

  ‘I thought you did when I phoned you,’ Zen went on, ‘and now I’m sure. Don’t try and lie to me, Tommaso. It won’t work. I know you too well.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  A faint smile appeared on Zen’s lips.

  ‘It’s a funny thing. All the people I’ve spoken to about the Durridge case have said exactly the same thing. Domenico Zuin, Giulio Bon, and now you. Is it some formula you’re taught when you join?’

  The waiter brought the main course, and for a moment Saoner took refuge in the distraction offered by the task of filleting the sardines.

  ‘Join what?’ he asked eventually.

  Zen sighed impatiently.

  ‘Come on, Tommaso! You may not consider me a friend any longer, but please don’t treat me as a fool.’

  He stabbed a mouthful of the pink and purple chicory leaves, their delicate bitter flavour rounded and filled out by baking.

  ‘Zuin and Bon are both members. So is Massimo Bugno, who went along on the reconnaissance but didn’t measure up. So they replaced him with Enzo Gavagnin, who was not just a member but one of Dal Maschio’s lieutenants. Like you.’