Blood Rain - 7

by Michael Dibdin

  The other men all laughed loudly.

  ‘The Corleonesi didn’t kill your son,’ said Zen stolidly.

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ snapped the other man. ‘We all know that they control Palermo — or like to think they do, at least. Tonino was found in a wagon of a train which had come from Palermo, with our family name written on the waybill. The message is clear.’

  ‘That train never existed.’

  ‘This is totally absurd! You of all people should know that! Your colleagues had it under investigation at the marshalling yard in Catania for weeks. For all I know it’s still there.’

  ‘A train existed,’ Zen replied, ‘and it certainly originated in Palermo. But the wagon in which your son was found was never part of it. All the indications are that it had been sitting on the siding where it was found for at least a month and possibly much longer. Your son was kidnapped in Milan on his way to Costa Rica. He was then brought back to Sicily and locked in that wagon, to which a fake waybill was attached. Once he was dead, a goods train from Palermo was stopped and backed briefly into the siding where the wagon was parked, precisely to make you and everyone else believe that this was indeed a message from Palermo.’

  ‘But if it wasn’t the Corleonesi, then who? And why?’

  The voice was almost imploring now. Zen had gained the upper hand.

  ‘We’ll come to that in a minute,’ he said in a slightly condescending tone. ‘First, I’d like to discuss something else. We’ve talked about your son, Don Gaspare. What about my daughter?’

  ‘I already told you that that had nothing to do with us. We had no interest in killing that judge. I was informed that the DIA had closed the case, having accepted our declaration that the body on the train was not Tonino. It was, of course, but we prefer to settle our accounts in our way and in our own good time, without interference from the authorities. Anyway, they believed us. Why should we bother killing a judge who had been taken off a case which was no longer active?’

  ‘Nunziatella must have had other active cases, perhaps involving other clans. Maybe one of them killed her.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘You don’t understand!’

  The words were like another fist in the face.

  ‘Nothing happens on my territory unless I have either ordered or connived at it, understand? I run Catania. The port, construction projects, kickbacks, protection rackets, hiring and firing, everything! And most certainly any killings that occur. I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t. And I’m telling you that neither I nor any of my friends had anything whatsoever to do with the murder of that judge.’

  ‘You used to run Catania,’ Zen said quietly.

  An enormous silence.

  ‘Maybe I’ll have Rosario cut your throat,’ hissed the other man. ‘If only to show that I still have some fucking say about what goes on around here!’

  ‘Of course you do, Don Gaspare,’ Zen replied soothingly. ‘But killing me wouldn’t prove that. Just the opposite, in fact. I’m just a common policeman, not even a DIA operative. You would actually lose respect by killing someone like me. It would be like mugging an old lady.’

  There was a low laugh.

  ‘You’ve got balls, Zen, I’ll give you that.’

  I’m not a fool either. I think I know who killed Corinna Nunziatella, but I don’t have conclusive proof and so I had to make absolutely sure that you and your friends were not involved. But there was no need to get so angry. You could simply have given me your word as a uomo d’onore. I would have accepted that without question.’

  ‘So who did kill that judge?’ the voice asked in a mollified tone.

  ‘The same people who killed Spada. The same people who killed your Tonino.’

  He braced himself for the blow, but it did not come.

  ‘The ROS agents?’

  ‘Either them, or someone very much like them.’

  ‘But why would they kill one of their own?’

  ‘Well, they might have done so because Nunziatella had stumbled on evidence undermining the official line on your son’s death. If one of the clans had wanted to kidnap Tonino, they wouldn’t have waited until he was in transit at the international airport in Milan to do it. And diverting a train is much easier if you’ve got the power of a state organization behind you. But as a matter of fact I don’t think that killing the judge was their primary intention. She was just an extra, a little ham on the bread, as they say. But it was very helpful to them, because it enabled them to make the operation look like a typical Mafia hit, and so disguise the identity of the real target.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  This time, the ensuing silence felt thin, diffuse and frail.

  ‘You’re making me feel old and out of touch,’ the voice said.

  Zen smiled for the first time.

  ‘Welcome to the club. I’ve only worked it out myself in the last day or two. There’s nothing like being on the run to concentrate the mind. My daughter was installing the new computer network for the DIA offices in Catania, designed to link them to each other and their colleagues in Palermo and elsewhere. She told me that she had discovered an anomaly in the system, someone coming in from outside and spying on the status of the work in progress. She had also identified the “fingerprint” of the computer being used to access the system. That meant that it could be traced.’

  He broke off.

  ‘Could someone give me a smoke?’

  After a brief pause, a lighted cigarette was pushed between his lips. He inhaled urgently. It was a bionda, by the taste of it, probably American. That made sense. The Mafia would smoke the cigarettes they smuggled, and these wouldn’t be the low-cost, low-profit Nazionali. He took two or three puffs, then spat the cigarette out to one side.

  ‘Carla naturally assumed that the intruder was someone working for Cosa Nostra, so she informed the director of the DIA in Catania about her discoveries. Unfortunately, her assumption was almost certainly mistaken. For one thing, you and your friends don’t strike me as being any more computer-literate than I am. No doubt you could hire someone to try to hack into the DIA server, but I doubt that such an idea would even occur to you. More to the point, according to Carla, the DIA network hadn’t been forcibly entered. The access which the intruder was using had been planted in the system from the start. Well, we know who specified the system to be used by an élite judicial and law-enforcement department, and it wasn’t you or your friends.’

  Zen tried to loosen slightly the bonds on his wrists and ankles, which were beginning to ache intolerably. To his surprise, the voice barked an order in dialect, and the cords were untied.

  ‘Thank you, Don Gaspare,’ he said.

  ‘So they kill your daughter because she knows that they exist. But who are they, and what are their aims?’

  Zen rubbed his wrists, trying to get the circulation going again.

  ‘The short answer, of course, is that we’ll never know. But on the basis of the events we do know about, I think we can make a pretty accurate guess. Are you familiar with that famous trick picture, Don Gaspare? You can see it either as a vase or as the profile of two faces in silhouette. I think that this affair has been a similar trick. Everybody assumes that the Corleonesi killed your son, that you or some other clan killed Judge Nunziatella, and that some equally shadowy party di stampo mafioso strangled Spada.’

  ‘Well, it certainly looks like that’s what happened, doesn’t it?’

  Zen smiled again.

  ‘But what would it look like, if it looked like my version of events? What would it look like if someone had an interest in promoting violence between the clans here in Sicily, and in showing that they are still capable of killing heavily protected DIA judges? What would it look like if that someone had ordered your son to be kidnapped and then left to die in that wagon, in
such a way as to make the killing appear to be a message from Palermo? What would it look like if they had discovered that my daughter had unearthed evidence which would identify this someone, and that Spada was about to give me further details when we met that evening? What would it look like if all this were the case, Don Gaspare?’

  There was a pause, then a low cough.

  ‘It would look the same as it does in fact look,’ the voice replied.

  ‘My point precisely.’

  ‘But who is this “someone”?’

  ‘Who knows? There must be plenty of people in Rome who regret the good old days of the Red Brigades and the Mafia wars. Too much stability is the last thing a politician wants. Who needs a strong government when everything is going well? Politicians have a vested interest in problems, crises and general unease. And if those things don’t happen to exist at a given moment, then they have to invent them. And that’s what this whole bloody business has been from start to finish — an invention.’

  ‘You don’t need to lecture me about the terzo livello,’ the other man replied drily. ‘But believe me, it’s dead. All our contacts are either in prison, in exile, or politically disgraced and powerless.’

  ‘The old Third Level, perhaps,’ Zen replied. ‘But there may be levels that you don’t even know about. The fact is, Don Gaspare, and I say this with all due respect, I get the impression that neither you nor the Corleonesi are quite at the cutting edge of organized crime here in Sicily these days.’

  Footsteps sounded out loudly, stomping towards him. The voice said loudly, ‘No!’ The steps ceased in a sigh of mute frustration.

  ‘Forgive me, Don Gaspare,’ Zen went on. ‘I’m simply repeating what I’ve heard. And I’m all the more inclined to believe it, because it would explain why these people in Rome chose your two clans as subjects for their destabilization project. You both still have a high profile, which will guarantee lots of publicity in the event of another Mafia war breaking out, but the truth of the matter is that you’re both finished as major players. The real action now is in smaller places like Cáccamo and Belmonte Mezzagno, and above all in Ragusa, where I was “met at the airport” tonight. Those are the people that the politicians will be courting. You and your friends are yesterday’s men, just like me. We’re all expendable, counters in whatever game they’re playing.’

  He paused significantly.

  ‘And if you kill me, you’ll be playing their game.’

  There was a mutter of voices, a subdued argument, a sense of suppressed dissension. Then the voice returned, quite close to Zen, and slightly to his right.

  ‘We’re not going to kill you, Dottor Zen. You have treated me with respect, and I shall accord you the same treatment. You have never set eyes on me, and the place where we are is nowhere near my home. You therefore pose no threat to us, although those pushy little squirts in Ragusa could be in trouble if you reveal the location of the landing strip they use for their drug runs. But fuck them!’

  A wave of laughter enveloped the room.

  ‘It has been a privilege meeting you,’ the voice went on, ‘but for both our sakes I hope that our paths do not cross again. You cannot be my friend, and I would hate to have you as my enemy. We shall be leaving now. Your wrists and ankles have been freed. In your own interests, I ask you not to remove your blindfold for at least five minutes after we leave. If you do, and any of us are still here, we shall have no compunction about killing you. Once we are clear of this area, one of my men will place a call to the authorities in Catania and report your whereabouts. Goodbye, Dottor Zen.’

  ‘Goodbye, Don Gaspare.’

  The herd of footsteps trooped out, and then Zen heard the roar of car engines. Soon they faded, and a perfect silence formed.

  It was not broken for another three hours, much longer than Zen had reckoned on. He spent the time sitting on the steps of the abandoned farmhouse in which he had been questioned. The moon was up, but the only other light to be seen was a curved stripe of glowing red in the night sky, as vivid and troubling as an open wound. He finally realized that it must be the molten lava flowing down one of the many flanks of Etna after the eruption which had been signalled by the earlier tremors.

  Then, at long last, other lights appeared: mere points at first, two fixed, the other mobile, weaving from side to side and up and down and sometimes disappearing for minutes at a time. Eventually sound was added to the spectacle, a low thrumming and a slightly higher and more abrasive grating. All these phenomena increased in intensity, until a car and an accompanying motorcycle swept into the farmyard and came to a stop at the foot of the steps. The man seated astride the bright red motorbike started talking into a two-way radio, and Baccio Sinico leapt out of the car.

  ‘Thank God you’re safe!’ he exclaimed as Zen stood up. I’m sorry it took us so long to get here, but our colleagues in the Carabinieri were worried that it might be a trap and wanted to make certain preparations, all of which took some time. Then, to cap it all, their car got separated from us somehow on the drive up. They must have taken a wrong turning, I suppose. But, oh, dottore! Why did you run off like that? Look how it turned out! All we were trying to do was protect you. As it is, you’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘We’re all lucky to be alive, Baccio,’ Zen remarked sententiously ‘The problem is that we often forget it.’

  They walked down the steps and over to the waiting car. As they passed the man on the motorcycle, he removed his helmet and put away his radio.

  ‘We’re cleared to go,’ he told Baccio Sinico. ‘We’ll be taking a slightly different route, via Belpasso. I’ll stay about fifty metres ahead. Keep my tail-light in view at all times.’

  Sinico turned to Zen.

  ‘This is our colleague from the Carabinieri, Roberto Lessi. I think you’ve met before.’

  The ROS agent stared silently at Zen, who nodded slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’ve met before.’

  Lessi replaced his helmet and revved up his engine. Sinico was holding the back door of the car open, but Zen got into the one in front.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ he asked. ‘They tied me up for a long time and I’d like to be able to stretch my legs.’

  ‘Of course, dottore,’ said Sinico. Then, to the driver, ‘Let’s go, Renato! Follow the bike.’

  Zen lit a cigarette with trembling fingers.

  ‘But how on earth did you manage to talk the Limina clan into letting you go?’ Sinico demanded, leaning forward from the back seat. ‘They have a reputation for cruelty second to none. Their speciality is slow drowning in a bath of water followed by disposal of the corpse in one of the side vents of Etna.’

  Zen opened the window to clear the smoke from his cigarette.

  ‘Oh, I told them a pack of lies,’ he said dully.

  ‘What sort of lies?’

  ‘I turned the facts of the affair inside out and suggested that some secret government agency in Rome was behind the whole thing. A campaign of destabilization and so on.’

  Sinico gave an incredulous laugh.

  ‘And they believed you?’

  ‘I don’t know if they believed me, but they let me go.’

  Sinico leaned forward between the two front seats and spoke quietly into Zen’s ear.

  ‘But you don’t believe this conspiracy theory, do you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  They hurtled along the twisting road, following the tail-light of the Moto Guzzi.

  ‘By the way, do you have my revolver?’ asked Sinico.

  ‘I’m afraid I lost it. I’ll take full responsibility. Fill out a docket for a replacement and I’ll sign it.’

  ‘Only there’s a problem, you see. One of Roberto’s colleagues has been killed. I think you met him too. Alfredo Ferraro.’

  ‘I seem to remember the name.’

  ‘Well, he was shot. Late last night, in that rou
gh area just north of Piazza San Placido, where the whores and the extra-communitari hang out.’

  Zen took another drag at his cigarette and tossed it out of the window.

  ‘That’s where they found the body?’

  ‘Yes, at about midnight. And the problem is that it seems that he was almost certainly shot with my revolver. As you know, we have to perform test firings whose ballistic characteristics are kept on file. They found one of the bullets fired at the scene, and forensic tests show that the characteristics of my revolver are identical to those of the murder weapon.’

  Zen nodded.

  ‘Unfortunately I can’t help you, because the gun was taken from me much earlier that evening, just an hour or so after I left you.’

  ‘Taken? How?’

  ‘A pickpocket. You know that Catania is notorious for petty crime. I was walking down a street near San Nicolò when a woman stopped me and asked me for a light. While I was holding it out to her, a man pushed into me from behind. The next thing I knew, they had both disappeared down an alley. Your gun and my wallet had disappeared with them.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Sinico doubtfully.

  ‘This Alfredo Ferraro probably saw the couple trying something similar in the Via San Orsola area. He challenged them, and the man pulled out your gun and shot him.’

  ‘I suppose so. All the same, it’s awkward.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Baccio, I’ll sort it all out. We’re alive, that’s the main thing. The rest is just details.’

  Ahead of them, the red light had turned brilliant white, shining straight back at them from the other side of a small valley where the road curved down across a seasonal torrente, now a bone-dry mass of lava boulders.

  ‘Get a move on, Renato!’ Sinico told the driver. ‘We’re getting left behind.’

  ‘This is a dangerous road,’ the man grumbled.

  Nevertheless, he jammed his foot to the floor and the car shot forward on to the low concrete bridge across the riverbed. At the top of the hillside opposite, the man on the motorcycle flashed his headlight on and off. An answering flash of light appeared in the darkness above. A moment later, the bridge exploded.