And Then You Die

by Michael Dibdin

  Everything the major had picked up from his seemingly avid perusal of the chapter on basic interrogation techniques in the training manual now deserted him. He leaned forward, eyes bulging, all agog.

  ‘What was that?’

  Having achieved her effect, Gemma proceeded to dismiss it.

  ‘Oh, nothing really. Pier Giorgio woke up at about three-thirty or so. I was going to get a coffee from Franco’s bar, and I asked him if he’d like one too. On my way back, someone ran into me and spilt the coffee all over my bathing costume. I didn’t have a spare with me, so there was nothing for it but to go home.’

  ‘The man was running? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, he wasn’t running at first. He was just standing there on the boardwalk down the centre of Franco’s strip. I thought he was staring at Pier Giorgio, to be honest.’

  A gleam came into the major’s eye.

  ‘Are you sure it was Signor Butani he was staring at? Might it not have been Signor Rutelli, who was sitting in the next chair?’

  Gemma made a moue of indifference.

  ‘It could have been. I didn’t have time to think about it. The next thing I knew, he’d whirled around and barged into me, spilling scalding coffee all over my belly and thighs.’

  The major reflected a moment.

  ‘Why did he run?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

  ‘Was it because he heard you coming?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He was facing the other way, and I was barefoot so he couldn’t have heard me. Besides, why should he be frightened of me?’

  The major nodded and smiled the ironic, knowing smile of the master detective who alone has grasped the hidden clue concealed in the witness’s seemingly ingenuous answer.

  ‘Exactly. Why indeed should he be frightened of you?’

  He turned to Zen.

  ‘Did you notice this man, signore?’

  ‘I saw him run off after he collided with Gemma, that’s all.’

  ‘Can either of you describe him?’

  ‘No,’ said Gemma decisively.

  ‘You must remember something!’ the major protested.

  ‘Why? How many people do you think I see every day here? Hundreds, maybe a thousand, none of whom mean anything whatever to me. If I paid enough attention to them all to be able to describe them, I’d go mad. The man who ran into me was young, that’s all I can tell you. And when you’ve said that, you’ve said everything. He looked young, he moved young, he acted young and he dressed young.’

  ‘How young?’

  Gemma shrugged and looked at Zen.

  ‘Thirty?’

  Zen nodded.

  ‘Early thirties, I’d say.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gemma. ‘He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with some writing on the front. In English.’

  ‘He was English?’ demanded the carabinieri officer.

  ‘No, no. At least, I don’t think so. He looked typically Italian, like any of the young Florentine teppisti who hang out down at Viareggio at the weekend.’

  ‘Do you remember what this writing said?’

  ‘Only one word.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘“Beach”. La spiaggia. I recognized that from those signs the council put up everywhere in all the different European languages, warning people about the currents and all the rest of it. But there was another word I didn’t get.’

  ‘“Life”,’ said Zen unexpectedly.

  The major regarded him with an air of professional triumph.

  ‘Signor Butani, you have testified that you did not see this man until he was running away after his collision with Signora Santini. How then could you possibly have seen anything printed on the front of his clothing?’

  ‘No, this wasn’t him. Well, it might have been, I suppose, but it was later, after I left the beach. I was coming out of a shop in Via Puccini when I noticed some young man in a shirt like that. I didn’t understand “beach”, but the first word was “life’s”. That’s the Anglo-Saxon genitive form, so the whole phrase must have been “A life’s beach”. La vita delta spiaggia.’

  His triumph at remembering this detail of English grammar from a long explanation once given to him by his American girlfriend Ellen was short-lived.

  ‘La spiaggia di una vita,’ Gemma corrected.

  ‘It still doesn’t make any sense!’ the major rapped out.

  ‘It’s probably the name of some pop group,’ said Gemma, rising. ‘Well, is that all? Because if so I wouldn’t mind getting home.’

  ‘Just one more question. This is to both of you. Did either of you at any point during your time on the beach either hear or see anything unusual occurring in the immediate vicinity of your chairs?’

  ‘Not apart from the incident I’ve mentioned,’ said Gemma.

  The major looked at Zen, who shook his head.

  ‘No, that’s all.’

  ‘Very well. Signora Santini, you’re free to go. Thank you for your cooperation and good night.’

  He now sounded eager to be rid of her. Gemma bent towards Zen, who immediately stood up.

  ‘Thanks for a wonderful evening,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

  ‘I really did, despite all this nonsense.’

  ‘So did I.’

  She pecked him briefly on both cheeks.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said, and slipped out of the room.

  Zen turned back to find the major regarding him with his knowing smile.

  ‘I fear you may have to postpone that appointment, dottore,’ he said.

  Zen noted the title, which the carabinieri officer had not used before. He sensed that something was happening which he did not understand and could not control, for now at any rate.

  ‘What more do you need from me?’ he asked, sitting down again.

  ‘Just a few brief questions.’

  ‘But in that case I could have gone with Signora Santini!’ Zen exclaimed, genuinely annoyed. ‘She would have given me a lift. As it is, I’ll have to call a taxi and …’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ the major replied, sitting down heavily behind his desk.

  He took a packet of cigarettes from a drawer and offered one to Zen, who accepted, mainly to see what this latest ploy forebode.

  ‘Shortly after seven this evening,’ the major went on, having lit their cigarettes, ‘I received a phone call from my immediate superiors at provincial headquarters in Lucca. They relayed a message from their superiors at the Ministry in Rome, but I was given to understand that the original source lay still elsewhere.’

  Zen smoked quietly and said nothing.

  ‘The message was to the effect that a certain Pier Giorgio Butani, temporarily resident in this district, might fall within the scope of the murder enquiry I was undertaking.’

  ‘What murder enquiry?’

  ‘The one we’ve been discussing, dottore.’

  ‘But Rutelli died of a stroke!’

  ‘That’s the story which the owner of the bagno in question has been putting out, for obvious reasons. We have made no official statement.’

  ‘Rutelli was murdered?’

  The major nodded.

  ‘Shot once through the heart from very close range with a nine-millimetre pistol which was almost certainly silenced. The bullet was of the fragmenting type which breaks up inside the body, so there was no exit wound and very little bleeding. What there was was soaked up by the towel, which may have been placed there for that purpose. No one I have interviewed records having heard anything unusual, although many of them were sitting or lying just a few metres away. Nor does anyone recall a stranger going near the place where Rutelli was sitting, apart from the usual watermelon sellers and itinerant African merchants and the like. In short, it has all the hallmarks of a very professional job.’

  Zen crushed out his cigarette.

  ‘For reasons we won’t go into, I have been staying for some time on the top fl
oor of the Rutelli villa. The lower floor was unoccupied until yesterday, when I heard noises down there. This was presumably Massimo Rutelli arriving and settling in. For other reasons which need not concern us, I did not make myself known to him, and he clearly had no idea that I had been using the family’s ombrellone at the beach. He therefore went there the next morning and settled in as usual. When I arrived, I saw someone in the place I had been using. I had no idea who it was, but since the place next to it had always been vacant during the week I sat down there instead. The towel was in place when I arrived, so Rutelli may already have been dead at that point. At no point did I hear or see anything remotely suspicious or untoward. Have you any other questions?’

  The major sighed histrionically.

  ‘There are numerous questions which I would very much like to put to you, dottore, but it has been made abundantly clear to me that this is not an option. Instead I have been instructed to turn you over to two operatives of a parallel authority who have driven up from Rome. That phone call earlier was to tell me that they have arrived.’

  ‘Which parallel authority?’

  The major gave him an unusually incisive look which made Zen realize the fatuity of his question.

  ‘The persons concerned are waiting for you downstairs,’ he remarked dismissively.

  And there indeed they were, pacing the floor of the entrance hall to the carabinieri station, a man and a woman in their twenties, both unexceptionably dressed in civilian clothing. The only thing that announced their profession was the single quick glance they both gave Zen as he appeared on the stairs, head to toe and back up again, like executioners mentally measuring him for the drop.

  The man turned away and started speaking into a portable radio. The woman walked up to Zen.

  ‘We have a car outside,’ she said, gesturing at the door.

  Zen did not move.

  ‘How do I know who you are?’ he asked.

  The woman smiled grimly.

  ‘How do you think we know who you are, Dottor Zen?’

  ‘Do you have identification?’

  ‘If we did, it would be from the same source as the papers you have identifying you as Pier Giorgio Butani. And just as reliable.’

  The man had finished his call.

  ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘We’ve wasted enough time.’

  A blue saloon was parked right outside the door. Another, in the middle of the street further down, flashed its headlights as they appeared. Once again Zen stopped dead, struck by the overwhelming sensation that all this had happened to him before. Tail lights, headlights … What was the connection?

  He had no time to think about it, as his escorts bundled him into the waiting car, which immediately drove off through the sleeping town, ignoring traffic signs and lights. Five minutes later they were heading south on the A12 autostrada.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked the female agent, who had seated herself with him in the back of the car.

  ‘Pisa,’ she replied. ‘From there you’ll be flown to another destination.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We are not ordered to know.’

  The car sped along the almost deserted freeway with its central divider of tall flowering bushes.

  ‘But what about my things?’ protested Zen. ‘My clothes and personal possessions. They’re all back at the villa in Versilia.’

  ‘Someone will be sent to collect and pack them up and they will be forwarded to you in due course. In the meantime a supply of clothing and toiletries will be provided at your destination.’

  Zen sighed in disgust.

  ‘You might have given me some notice,’ he said.

  The woman turned to him.

  ‘You don’t seem to understand, dottore. The first we heard about all this was when Girolamo Rutelli contacted us with the news that his brother had been killed. He had been phoned by the authorities in Versilia, partly with a view to positively identifying the victim. Once we learned from him what had happened, we of course took urgent steps to remove you from the vicinity as soon as possible.’

  ‘What have I got to do with it?’

  ‘All the evidence suggests that the killing of Massimo Rutelli was a case of mistaken identity, and that you were the intended victim. The modus operandi was that of a classic professional hit. The implication is that the Mafia discovered where you were staying and made an attempt to silence you before you could testify against the Rizzo brothers in the States. Having failed, they would of course have tried again, possibly even tonight.’

  The car swept through the automatic payment lane at the Pisa Centro exit and accelerated away along the dual carriageway leading to the airport. When the female agent spoke again, she sounded more conciliatory.

  ‘Don’t worry, dottore. The danger has passed. Wherever they’re sending you next, you’ll be well looked after.’

  ISLANDA

  It was when the light stopped dazzling him that Aurelio Zen realized that something odd had happened. He had ill-advisedly chosen a seat on the port side of the plane, so that the sun shone directly in on him, its low-inclined rays empowered with the brittle brilliance of February and the stultifying heat of August.

  To make matters worse, it was all his own fault. The place he had originally been assigned was on the cool, shady, north-facing side of the plane, but this had not been apparent immediately after take-off, while the fat businessman in the next seat doing important things to a laptop computer had been. Spying an empty row of seats opposite, Zen had moved over, at which point the businessman promptly took possession of his original place and dumped all his voluminous gear in the place where he had been sitting. Theoretically, Zen supposed, he could call a cabin attendant and insist on being reseated in his rightful place, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble. Along with everyone else, he had pulled down his blind when the cabin lights were turned off after lunch, but the insistent glow was still enough to bleach all substance from the ghostly figures cavorting about on the video screen in front of him.

  Now, though, that intrusive radiance had disappeared. He raised the blind a fraction. No, the sun was no longer there. For a moment he wondered if it might have set, but the ocean vastness miles below still glittered in its reflected light. The sun must still be in the heavens, only it was now apparently aft of the plane. In which case they must be flying north. And even Zen’s elementary knowledge of global geography included the information that America was not north of Europe.

  He had spent the two weeks since his precipitate departure from Versilia on the small island of Gorgona, thirty-five kilometres off the Tuscan coast which was mainly occupied by a prison camp for non-violent juvenile offenders. Following his flight in a military helicopter from Pisa, Zen had been accommodated in a spare wing of the spacious quarters reserved for the director of the camp. The latter turned out to be a tall, perpetually stooping man with a whispery voice, diffident to the point of defensiveness, who – according to some camp lore which Zen later picked up from one of the warders – had been the principal of a college in Bari until certain rumours about the sexual activities of the staff and pupils came to the attention of the authorities. ‘So he got a job with the Grazia e Giustizia, and they sent him here,’ the man commented with a wry grin. ‘It keeps him off the street corner back on the mainland, and he certainly can’t corrupt these thugs. They’ll corrupt him, if anything. One of them offered me a blow job the other day for a cigarette end I was about to throw in the toilet. “What would you do for a whole pack?” I asked him. The little bastard looked me in the eye and said, “No disrespect, capo, but I’m not sure you could handle that level of service all by yourself. Better invite a couple of your pals along.”’

  Zen ate his meals in the canteen, which served excellent food based on the products of the farm where the prisoners worked during the day. He had introduced himself to the staff as an academic ornithologist pursuing research into the behaviour of various rare local breeds of gulls. As he had hoped, the pos
sibilities for conversational tedium opened up by this supposed professional interest ensured that no one ever addressed him. The rest of his time he spent exploring the maze of paths criss-crossing the island, which thanks to its 130-year vocation as a penal colony, remained completely unspoilt. The eastern slopes of the rugged interior were covered in pine forests like those which had once lined the coast, dimly visible through the haze to the east. Elsewhere, the prickly evergreen scrub of the macchia stretched as far as the eye could see, while occasional surviving groves of imported olives, holm oaks and sweet chestnuts provided shade. The air was utterly limpid, and as subtly perfumed as honey.

  His idyll was disturbed only by thoughts of Gemma, and above all by the fact that he had been forced to leave so hurriedly, and was unable to contact her to explain why. All phone calls and correspondence had been strictly banned, so as far as Gemma was concerned Zen – or rather Pier Giorgio Butani – had simply vanished from Versilia overnight, without so much as a word of farewell. Even though he told himself repeatedly that the affair could never have amounted to anything, it remained a brutal, ugly and unsatisfying conclusion which left a very bitter taste behind.

  He was entering his third week of seclusion when he received a message passed on by the director, instructing him to be packed and ready to leave at nine the following morning. Promptly at five minutes to that hour, a twin-rotor military helicopter identical to the one which had brought Zen to the island touched down in the parade ground where the inmates of the prison camp had to assemble each morning for their roll call and work assignments. He trudged across the concrete towards it, lugging the bags which had been shipped over on the ferry from Livorno shortly after his arrival. The sun was bright and clear in the cloudless sky, the air sweet and fresh, and until the helicopter’s arrival the silence had been absolute. Zen felt as if he were being exiled from a paradise to which he could never return.

  A matter of minutes later they were back at Pisa, at the military end of the airport, away from the commercial terminal. Here Zen was led to a small fixed-wing jet aircraft with no markings. His baggage was placed in the hold while he climbed a set of fold-down steps to the interior. This consisted of a single cabin with comfortable chairs facing a low central table. Seated in one of these was the young diplomat who had visited Zen during his convalescence.