‘Of course, of course,’ the Romanian murmured. ‘You can count on my discretion.’
Martin phoned Tom Newman.
‘He’s on the ground. Get Mantega round with the samples. We’ll be there in forty minutes, max.’
In the end, it took twenty-five. At one point, Alecsandri pointed to the driver and whispered, ‘This man’s a maniac!’
‘Un romano,’ replied Martin.
Alecsandri tossed his head lightly, as if that explained everything.
The conference began an hour later in the sitting room that formed part of the suite which Jake occupied. It had been delayed by Alecsandri’s desire to shower and change, and the length of time it took Martin to prise Jake away from his online game and Tom Newman away from his mobile phone, on which he had been making arrangements to meet some girl called Mirella at the Antica Osteria dell’Arenella for dinner the following evening. Tom had been speaking Italian, but Martin’s passive command of the language was increasing by leaps and bounds. Too bad his ability to speak it lagged behind, otherwise he could dispense with his translator altogether. But he had plans for doing so just as soon as a deal was struck, so he didn’t comment on Tom’s evident intention of taking tomorrow night off. In fact, it rather suited his purposes.
He finally got all the players assembled. Martin himself was wearing his usual Islamic fundamentalist outfit: a black lightweight woollen suit over a grey clerical-style shirt tightly buttoned at the collar and tiny, highly polished slip-on shoes. Jake sported a baseball cap turned backwards on his shaven skull, a T-shirt that read ‘AWGTHTGTTSA???’, faded jeans artfully torn at the knee and thigh, and basketball shoes that must have cost more than Martin’s whole ensemble. Tom had gone native in pigskin loafers, khaki cords, check shirt open half-way down his chest, a yellow lambs-wool pullover draped off his shoulders like a scarf, and aviator shades perched way up in the nest of blue-black curls above his broad and unfurrowed brow. Only Mantega and Alecsandri could have passed unremarked anywhere. Well, almost anywhere, because the Italian was clearly strapped, an automatic pistol peeking out of the shoulder holster he had left just sufficiently visible for his purposes.
Martin gestured to Nicola Mantega, who proceeded to unpack a large golden plate and dish from the cardboard box he had brought with him and lay them down on the long table of some faux wood. Everyone clustered around, but there weren’t enough chairs for them all to sit down.
‘You go here,’ Martin told Jake. ‘George, over there please.’
He himself remained standing, as did Mantega and Tom. Jake picked up the plate and tilted it this way and that.
‘Tableware,’ he said. ‘You ever meet Rob?’
The question was directed at Martin.
‘We worked together on NT?’ Jake went on. ‘He bought his dishes at Costco, like in a crate, hundred a time, then threw them in the garbage when he’d done. Said it was cheaper than running the dishwasher.’
‘And more environmentally friendly, no doubt.’
Martin felt furious at Jake for revealing to these foreigners that he, Martin Nguyen, worked for a moron.
‘What do those letters on your shirt mean?’ he snapped.
Jake returned one of his unfathomably shallow glances.
‘Are we going to have to go through this shit again?’
Martin realised he’d screwed up.
‘Hey, Jake, I’m sorry! Didn’t know I’d asked you before.’
‘You didn’t. That’s what it means.’
He stretched the T-shirt out tightly, his nipples poking through the cotton in a pubescently girlish manner, grinned hugely at the assembled company, then resumed fingering his wispy goatee. Gheorghe Alecsandri had meanwhile been studying the two artefacts on the table with the aid of various instruments which he took out of the bulky overnight bag he had brought up with him from the sales rep’s cubicle into which he had been checked for the night. He examined each at considerable length, first by the naked eye, then under a series of furled magnifying glasses, and finally a small microscope that fitted away neatly into a leather case. He entirely ignored the massive silence which had formed in the room since Jake’s exchange with Martin. He replaced the two pieces on the table, sat back in his chair and sighed deeply.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘They’re the real McCoy?’ prompted Martin.
The Romanian gave him a look that he understood better than Jake’s, but definitely didn’t appreciate. It was time to make enough money to buy his way out of being looked at like that, the same way you could buy your way out of living in a walkup by the freeway, if you won the lottery.
‘I can’t see what Scotch whisky has to do with the matter,’ Alecsandri replied.
‘Answer the question!’ rapped Martin.
‘They are quite certainly genuine, probably executed by a Greek artisan, or one familiar with that tradition, for a Roman patron.’
Martin looked at Jake, but he was staring at the blank screen of the TV and didn’t appear to be listening.
‘You’re sure of that?’ he insisted.
‘It is impossible to be absolutely sure. Gold is a metallic element. It cannot be carbon-dated unless it contains organic impurities, which I doubt very much is the case here.’
‘When were they made?’
‘That is conjectural. On stylistic evidence, my best guess would be the second century after Christ. Certainly no later than the third.’
He began to pack away his instruments.
‘I might add, if this aspect of the situation is of any interest to you, that they are exquisite and show very little sign of wear. It is probable that they were used for display purposes, the actual food being consumed from cheap oven-fired dishes which were eventually discarded in the manner of your friend’s colleague Rob in one of those landfill sites that have proved so useful to archaeologists in the past, as they doubtless will to those who investigate our quaint social customs in the future.’
He took one last look at the two golden objects and then stood up.
‘Quite unique and inexpressibly precious,’ he said. ‘Were they offered for sale to the institution for which I work, I shouldn’t have the slightest hesitation in advising the directors to proceed with the acquisition.’
He looked at Martin and grinned coldly.
‘But I am not such a fool as to imagine that there is any chance of that happening.’
‘Nice doing business with you, George!’ Martin replied. ‘Run along and get some sleep. My driver will take you back to the airport in time for your flight home tomorrow. Thanks for coming. We sure appreciate your input.’
When the door had closed and been locked behind the Romanian, Martin turned to Nicola Mantega.
‘Okay, this stuff’s good. What else you got?’
After listening to Tom’s translation, Nicola Mantega gave an oddly feminine shrug.
‘I’m just the negotiator. They haven’t shown me any more than what’s on the table now. But if there’s anything in particular that you’re interested in …’
‘There is. Just one, in fact. If your friends are unable to supply it, then no deal.’
‘They are not my friends, signore, but I can certainly make enquiries. Discreetly, of course, given the highly sensitive nature of the transaction. Please provide further details of the item in question.’
Jake shot Martin a Greta Garbo look and shambled off into the bedroom, mumbling to himself in Leetspeak. Taking the hint, Martin Nguyen slapped the startled Mantega on the back.
‘Hey, it’s past midnight! Let’s all get some sleep and then talk it through over lunch tomorrow.’
The three of them trooped out and headed for the lifts. Tomorrow, thought Martin, it was going to be time to try out his rudimentary Italian on Nicola Mantega. He didn’t trust himself to handle the detailed negotiations involved in the purchase and handover of the menorah, but there was another matter that he had to communicate privately to this sleazy notary public. One of
Martin’s principles in life was never to leave his personal security in pawn to third parties with everything to gain and nothing to lose by revealing – or threatening to reveal – the truth. So Tom would have to be disposed of. Calabria struck Martin as a suitable place for this to happen, and Nicola Mantega as the kind of operator who might well know someone prepared, for the going rate, to take care of this chore.
A hawk was being harassed by a pack of crows. To gain altitude, they beat their wings like drowning swimmers thrashing about, then swivelled and dived as if to ram their opponent, squawking madly but always deliberately missing their target. At each feigned assault, the hawk adjusted the angle of its outstretched wings and glided on, surfing the currents of hot air rising from the rock and scrub beneath. It could easily have turned on its tormentors and gutted them with its great claws, but killing on the wing was alien to its species. For their part, the mob of crows might have attacked this competitor on their territory in earnest, flustering it enough to give one of them an opening to drive its spiky beak into the intruder’s body, but neither was such behaviour programmed into their genetic code. It was thus a confrontation that neither protagonist could win decisively, and would go on and on until one or the other tired of the game and gave up.
Aurelio Zen had never paid much attention to birds, but the stealthy approach of death had made him more attentive to any form of life. He was sitting on the top step of the burnt-out bastiglia, on the very spot where Pietro Ottavio had been explosively decapitated, looking alternately up at this dumb show in the sky and down at the tapestry of plants and shrubs that had established themselves among the charred blocks of stone in the years since the baronial residence had been consumed by fire one winter night.
The most striking specimen was a fig tree whose roots must, with their seemingly intuitive attraction to proximate water, have found out the ancient well which had once supplied the needs of the Calopezzati family and its retinue of servants, clerks, managers and armed guards. There was also a young almond on whose leaves a beetle resembling a piece of jewellery was crawling about, its carapace a brilliant green flecked with gold and black. Eventually it took to the air with a low droning noise like a clockwork toy and was snaffled up by a passing golden oriole. Zen consoled himself for its loss by turning his attention back to the aerial scrimmage. He knew the idea to be absurd, but it was difficult to believe that hawks didn’t enjoy flying for its own sake.
In this context, the electronic whining of his mobile phone came as a double shock. How he hated these attention-seeking pests to which everyone was shamelessly addicted! He recalled a dinner party in Lucca where half the guests had spent the evening yammering away to people who weren’t there while ignoring those who were. When he’d complained on the way home afterwards, Gemma had told him that that was the way it was these days. He should adapt, she’d said, but he couldn’t. It was in his nature, just as the behaviour of hawks and crows was in theirs.
‘Old woman attempted to approach up the path,’ Arnone’s voice said. ‘I’ve stopped her and sent you her photograph.’
Natale Arnone was guarding the exit from the track leading up to the abandoned town from the new settlement of Altomonte. On the other side of the hill, Luigi Caricato was performing a similar duty at the only other point of access, which Zen and the two officers had used earlier, leaving their unmarked car in the deserted car park below. Zen pressed the necessary minuscule buttons and Maria’s face appeared on the screen of his phone.
‘Let her in,’ he told Arnone. ‘Then lock the front door until further notice. Tell Caricato to do the same with the rear entrance.’
A dark pall of thunderclouds hung over the coastal mountain range to the west, but here on the heights of the Sila massif the sun shone harshly down, except in the quadrant of shadow cast by the remaining walls of the Calopezzati stronghold. Zen had arrived deliberately early for his appointment with Maria, but now the outcome of their meeting seemed almost irrelevant. It was enough to be here, in the pleasantly warm and very fresh air, surrounded by a host of plants and creatures which Zen was unable to name. A diminutive, rotund figure appeared in the distance, making its way steadily up the former main street of the town past the ruined walls stripped of all reusable material, the cellars now stocked only with rubble, and the foundations marking the outline of vanished houses where vanished people had enjoyed or suffered the finite and largely predictable selection of experiences that life affords.
When Maria reached the piazzetta, Zen got to his feet and walked over to her. They exchanged restrained greetings.
‘Are you sure you weren’t followed, signora?’ Zen asked.
He was enjoying his morning off work, but Giorgio had demonstrated his capacity of swift and merciless retribution and Zen was concerned for Maria’s safety.
‘Who would bother following an old woman like me? Besides, I took a side path which joins the main track well out of sight of the town, then stopped in the woods to see if anyone came. There’s no need for concern.’
‘You must be tired. It’s a stiff climb.’
Maria made a dismissive swishing sound.
‘I’ve done it so many times that my legs don’t even notice. I could do it on a moonless night by starlight.’
Up here in the mountains the stars would still be a luminous presence, Zen realised. It had used to be like that everywhere, but within his lifetime that celestial array had been erased like a mediaeval fresco gaudily overpainted in a more enlightened era.
‘Come and sit in the shade,’ he said. ‘It’s deliciously cool over there.’
He pointed to the steps where he had been sitting. Maria shook her head with finality.
‘Not there,’ she said.
It took Zen a moment to understand.
‘Ah, of course. Because of the murder.’
‘What murder?’ Maria demanded.
‘Why, the American lawyer. The son of Caterina Intrieri, according to you.’
Now Maria looked confused.
‘There’s a bench beside the church,’ she said. ‘It’ll be just as shady there and we’ll get the breeze from Monte Botte Donato. It’s very healthy, scented with resin. At least it used to be, before the railway came and they cut all the trees down. My father worked for the company that bought the rights. He said that felling those enormous pines was like chopping off your own limbs. But we needed the money.’
Zen noted her agitation, and the chatter with which she had tried to conceal it, but made no comment.
‘So, what is it you want from me?’ Maria said, when they had taken their places on the stone bench.
‘I want you to tell me everything you know, have heard or can guess about the man called Giorgio,’ he said with an earnest edge quite as revealing in its way as Maria’s babble. ‘You won’t give me that, of course, but I beg you to give me something, anything. This man is not only evil but quite possibly mad. He dressed up Caterina’s son as a corpse and made him walk up that path you have taken so many times, then pressed the button of a remote control, like changing channels on TV, and blew his head off. He personally cut off the tip of Francesco Nicastro’s tongue. You heard the screams. The boy may never be able to talk or eat normally again. I realise that it’s difficult for you to tell me what I know you know, because I am who I am and you are who you are. But your friend Benedicta has just died, signora. Your own death, may God forbid, cannot be long delayed. Do you want to go to your grave knowing that you protected a sadistic murderer, a threat to the community of which you are a part, because you were too proud to talk to the one person who could prevent him from doing any more harm? Deliberately and wilfully indulged, signora, pride is a mortal sin. Even the blessed sacraments may not suffice to ensure the salvation of your soul.’
Maria listened to this speech in silence.
‘Did your mother want you to be a priest rather than a policeman?’ she asked at last.
Zen smiled meekly.
‘She never got over i
t. But I had no vocation.’
‘Well, you certainly put our local priest to shame. A little too emphatic, perhaps, but that’s to be expected in someone so young.’
But I do have a vocation, Zen thought. It’s this stupid, meaningless, utterly compromised job that I try to do as well as I can.
‘Were the origins of the child baptised Pietro Ottavio Calopezzati ever questioned?’ he asked.
‘Only once. Some Fascist bureaucrat from the north with ideas above his station asked la baronessa to confirm that the baby was indeed her natural child.’
‘And what did she reply?’
‘“I solemnly swear that this child was born of no other woman.” Which was literally true.’
‘And Giorgio?’ prompted Zen.
Maria considered this for some time, her head tilted askew like a bird’s, her eyes focused on nothing apparent.
‘I know for certain only that he calls himself that. The rest is hearsay. I have heard that his family name is Fardella or Fardeja. I have heard that he sells foreign drugs to our young people, that he has become addicted to them himself and that he lives in San Giovanni in Fiore. But he won’t be there now.’
‘Where will he be?’
Maria looked at him as though this question were too ingenuous to bother answering.
‘In the mountains, of course. Si è dato al brigantaggio. That’s what our men have done for centuries when the authorities hunted them down. They hide away in the forest, then watch and wait their chance.’
‘You said there were no forests left.’
‘Not like before, but there are places which were too far away from the railway to be worth logging. That’s where Giorgio will be. You could send a regiment to search those crags and they’d never find him!’
The last sentence was uttered as a defiant taunt. Zen glanced up at the lid of cloud sliding over the sky. The avian duel aloft had ended with the hawk being seen off by its pack of opponents, which now sat crowing harshly atop the burned-out shell of the huge mansion.
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