Back to Bologna

by Michael Dibdin

  It was only after administering a lengthy course of plain yoghurt diluted with lemon juice that Flavia was able to get her visitor into a fit state to leave, which by then was all he showed any desire to do. Unfortunately the interruption left her no time to complete and then eat the late lunch she had been eagerly anticipating before going to work. She was particularly resentful about this since the sauce–despite the unprintable things the secret policeman had said about it–was a personal favourite which she could only prepare on very rare occasions when the necessary ingredient was to hand.

  There were few enough things that Flavia missed about her native country, but the relish which formed the basis of this sauce was one. It consisted of sliced red and yellow goatshorn peppers, robustly hot and subtly sweet, steeped in oil with garlic and lemon zest and mysterious spices. The wonderfully intense flavour suffused your entire system for hours afterwards, warming and reinvigorating both flesh and spirit. It was a perfect pick-me-up for this vicious cold spell that had lasted for weeks, and Flavia had been overjoyed when six large and priceless jars emerged from the parcel she had received the day before from the woman who had been her closest friend during their long childhood years in the House of Joy.

  But enough water to cook the pasta would take at least twenty minutes to come to the boil on the feeble electric ring, and in half an hour she was due at work. The managerial underling she had to deal with was an obnoxious little tyrant who had already made it abundantly clear that he regarded women like Flavia as expendable casual labour, and that the least infringement of her verbal terms of engagement would result in instant dismissal. So she mopped up as much of the delicious sauce as she could by dunking chunks of day-old bread into it, happily chomping it down. Why on earth the policeman had made such a fuss about the mouthful he’d tasted was utterly beyond her, although the remains of a glass of the homemade plum brandy that Viorica had also sent was probably not the ideal antidote.

  Nevertheless, she felt that she had scored a point in some way. By the time he finally left, Dragos had been very tractable, indeed almost tearfully grateful for Flavia’s ministrations, and had insisted on leaving her his phone number with a line about her ‘being well rewarded’ for any information she passed on about Vincenzo Amadori. Flavia would of course never have dreamt of voluntarily telling the police anything about anyone, let alone a person associated, however insignificantly, with Rodolfo, but she definitely felt that she had won that particular encounter, and arrived at the bus stop in the freezing gloom with a light, lively smile on her lips.

  10

  The subject of Romano Rinaldi’s private life had generated a good deal of speculation, the more so in that next to nothing was known about it. For that matter, he himself barely knew anything definite about his true origins and–as he had explained to his publicist when Lo Chef’s growing fame made it necessary to hire one–what he did know, or suspected, was far too lurid to form a basis for the type of public persona he wished to create.

  The publicist had listened to a rambling account of an informal and peripatetic childhood under the tutelage of a number of ‘aunts’, all of whom had originally formed part of the female entourage of a certain Italian pop idol of the 1960s whose star had now faded, but who was still alive and known to be extremely litigious. One by one these guardians had disappeared from the scene, until the last had brought the pubescent Romano with her when she joined a religious cult based in an abandoned complex of troglodytic dwellings out in the wilds somewhere east of Potenza.

  At this point the publicist–a smugly jovial man with the air of a retired circus ringmaster–held up his hand.

  ‘Has anyone from that period ever tried to contact you?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any family members still living?’

  ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘If someone shows up claiming to be related to you, do we have deniability?’

  ‘Why not? I can’t even prove anything myself.’

  The publicist beamed and released a long, lingering sigh.

  ‘I’ve been waiting all my life for someone like you,’ he said.

  An alternative version of the star’s early years had duly been invented, featuring a poor but happy upbringing in working-class Rome, with a classic salt-of-the-earth mother who ruled her numerous brood with a rod of iron but saw them through the hard times, of which needless to say there were many, and above all served up the delicious, nourishing traditional meals that had first awakened the young Romano’s interest in cooking. For a time, an out-of-work actress had been hired to represent this redoubtable personage, but she had threatened to sell her story to a celebrity gossip mag and had had to be bought off and written out of the plot. After that the surrogate family had been kept strictly off-stage, ostensibly to protect the sanctity of Lo Chef’s private life, which was particularly precious to him following his mother’s tragic stroke.

  Romano’s actual roots had however left their mark on him, not least in his conviction that the only thing worth achieving was the long-term certainty of short-term pleasure, and that any attempt to analyse or understand life was a complete waste of time. He was therefore unaware of the irony involved in the fact that once the money started rolling in to the point where he could invest in the construction of new apartment blocks, he himself had chosen to live exactly where he had grown up: illegally in a hole in the ground. The owners of properties such as his typically had a phantom abusivo dwelling constructed on the roof and classified for rating purposes as a storage facility; Romano had done something similar, but deep underground, and it was in this bunker that he was now planning the opening blitzkreig of his total war against Professor Edgardo Ugo.

  To be honest, he was still furious with Delia, although a smidgin or two of the good stuff had phased his anger down from the screaming fit he had treated her to when she originally pitched the idea to him after the recording session that morning. But his core position hadn’t changed one iota, and the sooner she realised this the better. He had no interest in a negotiated solution to Ugo’s scandalous provocation. What he wanted was the arsehole’s arse on a plate, and Delia’s job, as his highly-paid gofer, was to jiggle her brisket cutely under his nose and enquire sweetly if he wanted fries with that, not tell him that he should have ordered something else.

  The computer emitted a soft gong-like sound, indicating the arrival of an email. Sensing his mood starting to darken again, Rinaldi quickly snorted another line. Cooking might be problematic for him, but when it came to coking he was a wizard. He crossed the minimalistically furnished expanses of the concrete coffer-dam that had been constructed amid the foundations of the apartment block and glared at the screen.

  I can’t take your refusal as absolute, Romano, there’s just too much at stake. This was potentially a great crisis. I’ve turned it into an equally great opportunity. I completely understand your justifiable feelings of hurt, but the fact remains that you’d be a fool not to grab this chance of both clearing your name and garnering positive publicity for the show, the products and the Lo Chef brand name. FWIW, the whole team is in agreement on this.

  Rinaldi sat down at the keyboard and fired off his reply.

  I don’t do live.

  The little bitch was obviously handling this in real time–her own job was on the line, of course, although so far she hadn’t mentioned this–because she came right back at him.

  The jury will be rigged. I explained all this to you when we met. I’ve already got five judges signed up and am working on the rest. You will also be informed of the list of ingredients in advance–in fact we can more or less dictate them–and will be intensively coached by Righi as usual. By the time the show goes on stage even you will be able to whip up an acceptable pasta dish within the time limit. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose. For God’s sake think about it.

  He let the coke reply to this one.

  There’s nothing to think about. Where I grew up, down in the
streets, among people who had nothing but their pride, we had a saying. ‘If you lose your money, nothing is lost. If you lose your health, much is lost. If you lose your honour, all is lost.’ This arrogant bastard has impugned my honour. He shall pay for that.

  Romano clicked this off and then fiddled around until he had programmed the stress-reducing ‘Pure White Noise’ audio file. Barely had the unvarying swishing pervaded the room than the computer gonged again. Rinaldi was tempted to ignore it, but he knew that this issue had to be resolved, and far better by email than in person.

  Fine, go right ahead. FYI, our legal consultant has advised us that our chances of winning a court case are at best fifty-fifty. Technically speaking, Ugo did not libel you. His comments were simply a ‘hypothetical illustrative example’ designed to sex up one of his the-way-we-live-now pieces. But if you sue, he will hire the very best lawyers in the country and quite possibly a few muckraking hacks to dig around and see what they can come up with. Disgruntled former employees, etc. Remember little Placida, who turned out not to be? It could get really nasty. At best we’ll win a ‘moral victory’ that no one will care about, which will cost a fortune in fees and still leave everyone wondering whether you can actually cook or not. But once you have demonstrated your skills and superiority live on TV at the Bologna food fair–and don’t forget that the contest is sewn up in your favour whatever happens in the kitchen–then the prospects for your future career are assured, not just here in Italy but world-wide. Professor Ugo may be an arrogant bastard, but he is also a huge international personality. Out-takes from this event are going to be shown on hundreds of foreign channels, maybe thousands. You know those little feel-good stories they stick in at the end of the news after the politics and wars and atrocities? ‘And now, on a lighter note…’ You’re going to own that slot, Romano. I personally guarantee you that if you accept the opportunity that I’ve set up then by the end of the year Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta will be global, and all the spin-off branded products along with it. We’re talking potentially millions. And one more thing, for what it may be worth. If you pigheadedly insist on going to court despite all the above, consider me fired.

  Feeling his resolution beginning to weaken, Rinaldi sidled over to the modest kitchenette, where he occasionally warmed up a cup of instant soup or burnt a defrosted slice of bread under the grill, and snapped open a bottle of Coke. He well remembered the days before his current success, when he had eked out an exiguous livelihood voicing jingles for advertisements to be aired on local radio stations. It had been a studio director for one of these who had come up with the original idea for the Lo Chef show, and originally it had been intended as little more than a joke. But the director had contacts at various television production companies, and after a few embellishments, such as the singing, had been added to the pitch, one of these had agreed to make a pilot at a discounted fee refundable if they could find a broadcaster willing to take it on.

  They had, and the ratings had been good enough for the TV station to come back for a mini-series of six episodes. Ratings had climbed by leaps and bounds with each screening–all word of mouth–and Rinaldi got a contract to do a full series for the rest of the year. When that expired, he was in a position to negotiate a very much more lucrative contract with the nation’s most-watched channel, plus a prime-time slot right after the smash hit Filthy Rich Stupid Sluts reality show. At first the friend involved had run the production company, but the momentum of the product had soon exhausted his meagre skills and Romano Rinaldi had reluctantly been forced to dispense with his services.

  Like all ideas of genius, this one was basically very simple. Italian cooking was dying. Not at the restaurant level, but in the home. Men had never dreamt of learning how to cook, and nowadays most women were too tired and preoccupied to do so. In any case, they wouldn’t know how. The oral tradition that had passed down recipes and techniques from mother to daughter for countless centuries had virtually died out, along with the extended family and stay-at-home wives.

  Hence Lo Chef’s appeal. His warm, unthreatening, campily flirty screen persona tapped deeply into his viewership’s culinarily challenged subconscious, allaying its anxieties and sense of inadequacy while validating its dream and aspirations. The popularity of his show was not based on educating the younger generation in the basics of putting food on the table, although the scriptwriters were constantly reminded that their target audience included people who thought that milk came fresh from the cow at 5°C, and even those who had never realised that cows were involved at all. But Lo Chef’s viewers didn’t want instruction, they wanted glamour, a few ‘authentic’ tips from the top, and above all a bit of fun.

  This was where the singing came in. Sections of the recipe, directions, ingredients, preparation methods all floated out in Rinaldi’s very serviceable light tenor–another link to his childhood, and possibly even his parentage–to the melodies of famous operas and popular songs. Everyone relaxed and smiled as the chubby, lovable TV personality whipped up another stunning, authentic dish ‘from our incomparable and timeless gastronomic tradition’, accompanied by two scantily clad, inanely grinning bimbettes with pneumatic boobs who got the male audience on board while giving the average housewife the satisfaction of jeering at their utter incompetence, for which they were always being indulgently scolded by the star, his eyes raised to heaven.

  It had been a dynamite concept, and one he had managed carefully. By now he was less interested in direct revenue from the TV station than in exposure for the ever-expanding line of products marketed under the Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta trademark. This was the sweetest aspect of the whole enterprise, since it required no effort on Rinaldi’s part whatsoever. Even initially, all he had had to do was to find a reasonably good product available at a knockdown wholesale price, then contact the producer and make a bid for exclusive retail rights. Now, of course, the producers contacted him. He was deluged with offers. Then it was just a matter of hiring some marketing hack to write a lyrical blurb to print on the label beneath a cheery image of the star in his white coat and chef’s hat, his hand held out and mouth open as he reached for a high C, and ship it out to the supermarkets.

  He had started with the Coop chain that controlled most mass food outlets in central Italy, then moved on to Conad and the other national chains. He knew just how women felt as they trudged up and down the aisles in those smelly, crowded food marts. They longed for the personal contact and preferential treatment they got at the small, old-fashioned shops, but doing the rounds of all those was just too much of a bother after a hard day at work. The supermarkets were quick, convenient and cheap, but they felt chilly and impersonal. So when Signora Tizia spotted Romano’s cheerful, friendly features on the distinctive red and yellow label, she reached for it as if he had been holding her arm. No need for expensive hitor-miss advertising either. The shelves of the studio where he recorded his show were stacked with those very same products, all with the labels turned outwards and sporting the Lo Chef logo that was also back-projected on the false rear wall of the set. And whenever a new product was introduced to the range, Rinaldi would extol its virtues in an extended aria based on the rhapsodic publicity gush.

  He took another swig of Coke, then headed back to the glass-topped table. He knew he was overdoing it, but he had a tough decision to make. Quite some time passed before he realised that he had in fact made it, and he reached for the phone.

  ‘All right, I’ll do it.’

  There was an audible intake of breath at the other end.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Romano! You’ve absolutely made the correct decision. But time is pressing. You need to come to Bologna this evening, okay? As in right now. I’ll arrange a car and book a hotel and email you the details ASAP. And once again, congratulations!’

  11

  As a parting shot on learning of Zen’s imminent departure from Lucca, Gemma had reminded him of their collusion in the death of Roberto Lessi and the subsequent disposal of
his body at sea. In his view, this had been a clumsy manœuvre–Gemma was brandishing a weapon they both knew was far too dangerously destructive to be used. She would have done better to have reminded him that on the occasion to which she had referred, when the truth about his identity had finally emerged, he had promised her that whatever happened he would never tell her any more lies.

  Despite itself being a barefaced whopper of some considerable magnitude, this had passed without comment, perhaps because at the time Zen had believed it himself. And until recently the atmosphere of the relationship, seemingly charged with infinite promise, had indeed appeared to make lies an irrelevant anachronism. Incredibly enough, he really had believed that in getting together with Gemma, and in the move from his apartment in Rome to hers in Lucca that resulted, he had magically reinvented himself. The events of recent months, however, had returned a different verdict, namely that this belief had been just another coil in the spiral of illusions that his life had come to resemble.

  As with the gradual deterioration of the body, it was hard to say exactly when it had all started, but the rows were coming more frequently, and with them the lies. A trivial example had occurred when Gemma had asked why Zen was going to Bologna, mistakenly believing this to be a free choice on his part. ‘Years ago I was stationed in the city and I loved it,’ he’d replied. It was true that he couldn’t wait to leave, but it was not going back to Bologna that he was looking forward to; anywhere would have done. During the journey up in the train, he tried to remember the last time he had been posted to the city, some time during the 1970s, the terrorist anni di piombo, when ‘red’ Bologna had been one of the hotbeds of unrest. But that side of police work was handled by the DIGOS and other specialised anti-terrorist units, while Zen, as a very junior officer attached to the criminal investigation department, had been left to deal with the usual routine crimes committed by people whose interest was not in overthrowing the state but in lining their pockets or settling some personal dispute.