He leant forward and gazed at Tom intently.
‘Luckily for you, I have an idea. Some three or four years ago, I was approached by a certain party with a very unusual proposition.’
Mantega broke off and looked around cautiously.
‘You understand that I am speaking now in the strictest confidence,’ he went on in a conspiratorial undertone. ‘Nothing of what I say must be repeated beyond the four walls of this room. Agreed?’
Tom jerked his body in a spasm combining a shrug and a nod.
‘The individual’s name need not concern us,’ Mantega continued. ‘Suffice it to say that his story was so incredible that I didn’t even bother hearing him out to the end. On the contrary, I laughed in his face, told him in no uncertain terms not to bother me with such nonsense again and showed him the door.’
Mantega leant still nearer to Tom.
‘But after what you have just told me, I’m now asking myself if that wasn’t perhaps the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made in my life!’
He straightened up again, brisk and businesslike, marshalling the facts in his mind before proceeding.
‘This man claimed that by using advanced technological equipment called ground-penetrating radar, mounted on the back of a four-wheel-drive vehicle during the dry season when there’s no more than a trickle of water in the Busento, he and his associates had located the tomb of Alaric and then returned with mechanical diggers, cracked the vault and plundered the contents.’
He paused to let this sensational statement sink in. Tom Newman’s reaction was minimal, but at least he appeared to be listening.
‘The reason this person approached me, according to him, was that having got his hands on those untold treasures, he had belatedly realised that they were almost impossible to dispose of at a profit. None of the items concerned could be sold legally without a validated provenance and the necessary documentation. On the other hand, he was understandably reluctant to melt them down and sell them for the value of the raw materials. He therefore hoped that I could either arrange the necessary paperwork, or help him locate a potential purchaser who would overlook such tedious details.’
Mantega shot his visitor a glance. Tom was still listening, but he didn’t seem particularly interested.
‘So you’re saying that there’s someone around here who has the stuff that my guys were looking for stashed away in his basement or something?’
Mantega wiped the air with his hands forcefully.
‘I absolutely do not say that! Apart from anything else, I have had no contact with the man in question since that occasion several years ago. Even supposing his claims to have been true, there is no telling what he may have decided to do with the treasure in the meantime. But since, according to your account, the tomb has indeed been opened and cleaned out by someone at some stage, there is just a possibility that the artefacts it contained are still in existence, located not far from where we are now sitting, and in the hands of someone whom I can contact at any moment with one phone call. That’s all.’
He got up and strode to the window, where he stood for a moment looking pensively down at the street.
‘So?’ Tom demanded.
Mantega turned back to him with a loud laugh.
‘Quite right! Your bella ignota seems to be awaiting you below, so let us by all means wrap this up speedily.’
He started to walk back, then stopped and clutched his forehead.
‘Here, my friend, we move into the realm of the purely hypothetical,’ he pronounced, in a manner suggesting that he was perfectly at home in this abstruse sphere. ‘But since I note with pleasure that your grasp of the subjunctive has improved markedly since our initial meeting, let us suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that the person whom I mentioned earlier were still in possession of Alaric’s fabled treasure in its original form. Let us further suppose that certain other persons might wish to acquire one or more items for an agreed price, having of course inspected samples of the merchandise and had them authenticated by an independent expert of their own choice. Should any or all of this prove to be the case, then given the language problem and the need for absolute confidentiality, you –’
He flung out a dramatic digit in Tom’s direction.
‘– would in effect be the necessary and sole mediator between the interested parties. As such, you should in my professional opinion both expect and demand a percentage of the sale price.’
Tom got to his feet and walked over to the window, positioning himself where his host had stood earlier.
‘It is her, isn’t it?’ remarked Mantega. ‘I hope she’s waiting for you. Rather than for me, I mean.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Tom said earnestly, turning back to face him. ‘Last I heard, you wanted me to collaborate on this business because you had ethical issues with this priceless Calabrian heritage site being despoiled and the contents exported by my employers. Now you’re telling me that I can make a lot of money on the side by facilitating the sale of some or all of the treasure to those very same people. Is it just me, or is there something here that doesn’t quite add up?’
Mantega smiled broadly.
‘Ah, Signor Tommaso! Your grasp of the verbal subjunctive may have improved, but you evidently haven’t yet understood that in Calabria life itself is subjunctive. Reality here has always been so harsh that we have by necessity learnt to content ourselves with the possible, the desirable and the purely imaginary.’
He went over to Tom and grasped his arm. The young man flinched, a startled look in his distant eyes. Too bad, thought Mantega. It was about time for young Tommasino to forget the American culture of crisp deals and binding handshakes and learn the intricate round-dance of male power courtship here in the south.
‘Everything I said the other day was utterly sincere,’ he declared. ‘Supposing that Alaric’s horde of treasure has indeed been found, my principal object is to secure whatever may be secured for the public good of this province, and indeed the whole nation.’
He released his grip on the other man’s arm in favour of a more flexible choreography, punctuating his remarks with intense rhetorical gestures like someone signing for the deaf.
‘But how can that be achieved? I know for a fact that the man who came to see me cares nothing for such selfless aspirations. He wants money, only money, and unless he gets it the historic artefacts from that burial site will without doubt be dispersed if not destroyed. It’s like a kidnapping! Only he knows where they are, which is certainly not in his house, or anywhere associated with him. But if your employers can be persuaded to ransom one of the items that he has seized at a sufficiently high price, it is possible that I may be able to convince him, by a mixture of cajolery and threats, that his interests are best served by taking the money on offer and handing over the rest of the loot to the authorities, rather than having me denounce him to the police.’
Breaking his tense pose, he relaxed with a fluid gesture of his right hand.
‘There will undoubtedly be some personal danger involved. I know this man to be both violent and unpredictable. Nevertheless, I ask nothing for myself but the satisfaction of having served my people. You, on the other hand, are a returning fellow-countryman, un immigrante, and it is only right that your return fare should be paid by those who neither know nor care about these matters so dear to us.’
He waved helplessly.
‘All this may well come to nothing, of course. But we owe it to ourselves and to our common heritage to try. Please, return to your employers and tell them what I have told you. Emphasise that samples of the merchandise will be provided for validation under whatever circumstances they may demand. If they show the slightest interest, then I’ll get in touch with my contact as soon as I hear from you. After that, matters should move very quickly.’
Mantega grinned broadly, as though mocking his own fervour.
‘But not a word to your girlfriend, mind. Poor women! They only have one thing to sell
, but for us the possibilities are endless.’
A terrible thing had occurred. For the first time in his life that he could recall, rare periods of illness aside, Aurelio Zen couldn’t face the prospect of lunch.
Until now, this quasi-sacred Italian rite had been the high point of his working day, the central pillar that supported the whole edifice. Zen was not greedy, but given that he had to eat anyway he preferred to do so as well as possible. In every single one of his numerous postings all over the country down the years he had always succeeded, after a few days, in tracking down a restaurant or trattoria that satisfied his needs. But not in Cosenza, and the reason was clear. The city was so small that most people went home for lunch, and so far off the tourist trail that there was little or no passing trade. Good restaurants did exist, but they only served dinner and Sunday lunch. Moreover, Natale Arnone’s remark about his being feared had given Zen an uneasy feeling that if he returned to one of his usual haunts the food would not only be unpalatable but one of the staff might have spat in the tomato sauce curdling in his dish of pasta.
Nevertheless, he was hungry and the day was not too hot, so he decided to take advantage of the power which had created that fear to do something that he hadn’t done for years. He called up a car from the pool and had himself driven to the finest gastronomia in town, where he ordered a varied selection of picnic foods, and then to the densely wooded gardens of the Villa Communale up in the old city. He told the driver to return in one hour precisely and wandered off along the path beneath massive chestnut and ilex trees until he found a suitable bench in a patch of sunlight mitigated by the canopy of verdure above, with a glorious panoramic view across the valley of the Crati river to the western slopes of the Sila massif.
For the next half-hour he sat there in perfect solitude, savouring a selection of antipasti, air-cured ham and salami from the mountains before him, a sharp sheep’s cheese, chunks of crusty wholewheat bread baked in a wood-fired oven, and half a bottle of a very tolerable rosé. Apart from birdsong, the only sounds were distant honks and hoots from the valley far below him. When his hunger was assuaged, he lit a cigarette – another plus for this establishment – and finished the wine along with the remaining dried tomatoes sott’olio, chewy russet roundels delivering an intensity of flavour which forced Zen to concede that this Aztec import might be good for something after all.
When he had finished, he packed up all the rubbish and deposited it in one of the bins provided by the progressive, centre-left city council, retaining only the plastic beaker he had been given for the wine. This he took to a fountain set in the sheer cliff behind and filled several times with water issuing from a metal tube embedded in the lips of a sculpted Triton, gulping it down with the greatest pleasure. The mythological frieze suggested a blow job gone horribly wrong, but a plaque above it proclaimed that the water was channelled from a natural source inside the peak on which the original Bruttii had founded their city. It was startlingly pure and stone-cold, even at this time of year, and had been issuing forth for countless centuries before that gang of Gothic military tourists had shown up to bury their dead leader somewhere beneath the mingled rivers into which it flowed.
This innocent, even lyrical, thought took the edge off his blissful mood by reminding him of work. The scene was still very pleasant, but it was as if the sun had gone behind a veil of high cirrus, although in point of fact it hadn’t. Earlier that morning, Zen had listened in to the conversation between Tom Newman and Nicola Mantega – courtesy of the electronic devices installed in the latter’s office – concerning the whereabouts of the treasure that had been buried with that Gothic chieftain. Mantega had performed very much as Zen had expected, which is to say in the manner of a third-rate tenor in a provincial opera house. He had neither the range nor the volume, not to mention the subtlety, to tackle really big roles in Rome or Milan, but he could certainly ham it up and belt it out. It remained to be seen whether anything would come of his plan for drawing Giorgio into a trap, but Zen’s only real criticism of it, having nothing better to suggest himself at present, was that it left him feeling trapped too. He longed to take action, but any move he made might ruin everything. There seemed to be nothing to do but wait and then react to events, and this was depressing him enormously.
He was summoned from his reverie by the police driver, who had not only returned at the agreed time but had come on foot to find Zen, who had forgotten all about their arrangement. He got up unwillingly and took a last, long look at the hulking plateau opposite, the perched towns and villages appearing at this distance like quarries slashed into its wooded flanks, the elegant curves of the superstrada striding insolently across the landscape on its stilted viaducts. That thought in turn suggested one action that he could take, and as soon as he returned to the Questura he summoned Natale Arnone.
‘Do I have an accent?’ he asked the young officer.
Arnone looked shifty.
‘Sir?’
‘When I speak, are you conscious of an accent? In other words, could you tell that I wasn’t from around here if you didn’t already know?’
‘Well, sir, the thing is that –’
‘A simple yes or no will suffice, Arnone.’
‘Then yes. Sir.’
‘Right. I want you to call this number and ask for Signora Maria Arrighi. If she answers, pass the phone to me and get out. If someone else answers, and asks who’s calling, tell him or her that you are a doctor at the hospital and that you need to discuss the results of the signora’s tests with her. If she’s not at home, find out when she will be. Do not leave a number for her to call back. Got that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Zen did not listen to the ensuing phone call. He walked over to the window and looked out at the mass of the Sila mountains looming over the city to the east. He was now convinced that the origins of the case he was investigating lay there, and perhaps also the solution.
‘Un momento solo,’ he heard Arnone say behind him.
Zen put his hand over the mouthpiece of the held-out phone.
‘Pull Mirella Kodra off the front-line surveillance on Mantega. It sounds as though he’s starting to have doubts about her.’
Arnone nodded. Zen removed his hand and put the receiver to his ear.
‘Signora Arrighi, this is Aurelio Zen speaking. I need to see you tomorrow.’
‘Ah, that’s difficult!’
Zen tried to visualise the room that Maria was in, a squalid cube lit by a shrill bare bulb beneath which a swarm of flies circled endlessly, and whose walls had even better ears than those installed in Nicola Mantega’s office.
‘One of my friends died last night and I’m helping with the arrangements,’ Maria went on. ‘I can’t just drop all that now and say I have to go into the city to see my doctor. It would surprise the people here and cause comment. Do you understand, dottore?’
‘Perfectly. And please allow me to offer my condolences. When is the funeral?’
‘In a few days. Benedicta had relatives abroad. They will need time to get here.’
Zen grunted.
‘Obviously I have no wish to intrude at such a painful moment, but if you were prepared to meet me tomorrow morning, I have an idea to make such a meeting possible.’
‘Which is?’
‘That you announce that you intend to make a pilgrimage on foot to the church in Altomonte Vecchia in order to pray for your friend. You might say that it is your belief that prayers sent from the old church are more powerful than those that originate in the new. And also that you wish to go alone, at – shall we say? – eleven o’clock in the morning, and be undisturbed. If you agree, I should then join you there, having ascended from the other side of the hill with some of my men, who will seal off all entrances to the old city to everyone except you.’
There was silence at the other end.
‘You are proposing an assignation?’ Maria said at last.
‘Well, yes,’ Zen said after a moment. ‘Ye
s, I suppose I am.’
‘Why?’
At first he didn’t know how to reply, and then all the answers came at once.
‘Because you’re the only person I’ve met here whom I trust. Because you remind me of my mother, may God grant her peace. Because not long from now you will be as your friend Benedicta is, and I believe that there are things you have never told anyone which might compromise your bureaucratic status in vitam venturi saeculi.’
A long silence followed, then the acoustic at the far end of the line altered. There were background noises and a mumbly voice somewhere offstage.
‘I’m speaking to my doctor,’ Maria muttered. Then into the phone, very distinctly: ‘Tomorrow at eleven? Eh no, dottore! Mi dispiace, ma non posso veramente. I have to make a personal pilgrimage, all alone, to the church in the old town up on the hill here to pray for my dear friend Benedicta. She was a good person at heart, but the manner in which she died meant that she had no time to confess her sins and I can’t help worrying about the status of her immortal soul. So I shall be there at that time, not at the hospital. But thank you so much for having the kindness to call me. I shall not forget it.’
‘Car leaves in thirty minutes,’ Martin Nguyen snapped when Tom appeared back at the hotel. ‘You want a ride home, get your ass in gear. I’ve cancelled your room.’
Martin’s own room had been gutted and his impedimenta reduced to two armoured and combination-locked suitcases which stood beside the unmade bed. It had been a morning from hell. First the Iraqi work crew had had to be shipped off home, blissfully unaware that their death sentences had been revoked. Martin had got a break on the price from his Baghdad contact over that aspect of the deal, but he wasn’t about to pass this bit of good news on to Jake – not that he could have got through anyway. Jake’s site was down. He was offline. All you could get out of him was error messages and access denied.
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