Cabal - 3

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘With Big Ears by his side,’ Gino explained, ‘he’ll go all the way.’

  ‘And how far is that?’ asked Zen.

  Gino stabbed the outer fingers of his right hand at the photograph in the gesture used to ward off evil.

  ‘All the way to hell!’

  The lift seemed to have a mind of its own that day. Zen was sure that he had pushed the right button, but when the doors slid apart the scene which greeted him was very different from what he had expected. Instead of the polished marble and elegant appointments of the Criminalpol offices on the third floor, he found himself in a cavernous hangar, ill-lit and foul-smelling. The oppressively low ceiling, like the squat rectangular pillars that supported it, was of bare concrete. The air was filled with a haze of black fumes and a continuous dull rumbling.

  ‘What can I do for you, dottó?’

  A dwarf-like figure materialized at Zen’s elbow. The empty right sleeve of his jacket, flattened and neatly folded, was pinned back to the shoulder. The face, shrivelled and deeply lined, expressed a readiness to perform minor miracles and cut-price magic of all kinds.

  ‘Oh, Salvató!’ Zen replied.

  ‘Don’t tell me. You couldn’t get through on the phone.’

  Salvatore ejected an impressive gob of spittle which landed on the concrete with a loud splat.

  ‘I had your boss Moscati down here the other day. Salvató, he says, I’ve been on the phone half an hour trying to get through, finally I decided it was quicker to come down in person.’

  He waved his hand expressively.

  ‘But what can I do? All I’ve got is one phone. One phone for the whole Ministry to book rides, dottó! You need a switchboard down here, Moscati says to me. Don’t even think about it, I tell him. Look at the switchboard upstairs. The girls are so busy selling cosmetics and junk jewellery on the side that you can’t get through at all!’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Where to, dottó?’ asked Salvatore, resuming his air of professional harassment.

  Zen was about to confess his mistake, or rather the lift’s, when an idea sprang fully-formed into his mind.

  ‘Any chance of a one-way to Fiumicino in about half an hour?’

  Salvatore frowned, as he always did. Then an almost incredulous smile spread slowly across his face.

  ‘You’re in luck, dottó!’

  He pointed across the garage towards the source of the rumbling noise. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dimness, Zen could just make out a blue saloon with its bonnet open. A man in overalls was bent over the engine while another sat behind the wheel with his foot on the accelerator.

  ‘We’ve been having a spot of trouble with that one,’ Salvatore explained, ‘but it’s almost sorted out now. It’s the grace of God, dottó. Normally I’d have been a bit pushed to come up with a vehicle at such short notice.’

  This was an understatement. The real point of the joke at which Salvatore and Zen had laughed a moment before was that the garage phone was largely tied up by the demands of the private limousine service which Salvatore and his drivers had organized. Their rates were not the lowest in Rome, but they had the edge over the competition in being able to penetrate to any part of the city, including those officially closed to motor vehicles. For a special rate, they could even lay on a police motorcycle escort to clear a lane through the Roman traffic. This was a boon to the wealthy and self-important, and was frequently used by businessmen wishing to impress clients from out of town, but it did have the effect of drastically restricting use of the pool by Ministry staff.

  ‘The airport in half an hour?’ beamed Salvatore. ‘No problem!’

  ‘Not the airport,’ Zen corrected as he stepped back into the lift. ‘The town of Fiumicino.’

  In the Criminalpol suite on the third floor, Zen flipped through the items in his in-tray. It was the first time he had been into work since Friday, so there was quite a pile. Holding the stack of papers, envelopes and folders in his left hand, he dealt them swiftly into three piles: those to throw away now; those to throw away later, after noting the single relevant fact, date or time; and those to place in his out-tray, having ticked the box indicating that he had read the contents from cover to cover.

  ‘Dominus vobiscum,’ a voice intoned fruitily.

  Zen looked up from an internal memorandum reading ‘Please call 645 9866 at lunchtime and ask for Simonelli.’ Giorgio De Angelis was looking round the edge of the hessian-covered screen which divided off their respective working areas.

  ‘According to the media, you’re dangerously ill with a rare infectious virus,’ the Calabrian went on, ‘so I won’t come any closer. This miraculous recovery is just one of the perks of working for the pope, I suppose. Pick up thy bed and walk and so on. How did you swing it, anyway? They say you can’t even get a cleaning job in the Vatican these days unless you have Polish blood.’

  For some time after his transfer to Criminalpol, Zen had been slightly suspicious of De Angelis, fearing that his apparent bonhomie might be a strategy designed to elicit compromising admissions or disclosures. The promotion of Zen’s enemy Vincenzo Fabri to the post of Questore of Ferrara, combined with Zen’s coup in solving the Burolo affair to the satisfaction of the various political interests involved, had changed all that. With his position in the department no longer under direct threat, Zen was at last able to appreciate Giorgio De Angelis’s jovial good-humour without scanning everything he said for hidden meanings.

  The Calabrian produced a newspaper article which quoted Zen as ‘reaffirming that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Ludovico Ruspanti’ and dismissing the allegations in the anonymous letter as ‘mischievous and ill-informed’.

  ‘Impressive prose for a man with a high fever,’ he commented, running his fingers through the babyish fuzz which was all that now grew on the impressive expanses of his skull. ‘I particularly liked the homage to our own dear Marcelli.’

  Zen smiled wryly. The phrase ‘mischievous and ill-informed rumours’ was a favourite of the Ministerial under-secretary in question, who had almost certainly penned the statement.

  ‘But seriously, Aurelio, what really happened? Is there any truth in these allegations that Ruspanti was murdered?’

  Catching the eager glint in De Angelis’s eyes, Zen realized he was going to have to come up with a story to peddle round the department. At least half the fun of working there was the conversational advantage it gave you with your relatives and friends. Whether you spoke or kept silent, it was assumed that you were in the know. As soon as his colleagues discovered that Zen was no longer ‘ill’, they were all going to want him to fill them in on the Ruspanti affair.

  ‘Who’s to say it was Ruspanti?’ he replied.

  De Angelis goggled at him.

  ‘You mean …’

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘I saw the body, Giorgio. It looked like it had been through a food processor. I’d be prepared to testify that it was human, and probably male, but I wouldn’t go any further under oath.’

  ‘Can’t they tell from the dental records?’

  Zen nodded.

  ‘Which may be why the body was handed over to the family before anyone had a chance. The funeral’s being held this afternoon.’

  De Angelis gave a low whistle.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Ruspanti was broke and had this currency fraud hanging over him. He needed time to organize his affairs and play his political cards. So he decided to fake his own death.’

  De Angelis nodded, wide-eyed at the sheer ingenuity of the thing.

  ‘So who died in St Peter’s?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ll never know. You’d need a personal intervention by Wojtyla to get an exhumation order now. It was probably someone you’ve never heard of.’

  De Angelis shook his head with knowing superiority.

  ‘More likely a person of the very highest importance, someone they needed to get out of the way.’

 
Zen gestured loosely, conceding that this too was possible.

  ‘Let’s talk about it over lunch,’ the Calabrian suggested eagerly.

  ‘Sorry, Giorgio, not today. I’ve already got an appointment. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make a phone call.’

  As his colleague left to circulate the true story behind the Ruspanti affair through the department, Zen pulled the phone over and dialled the number written on the message form.

  ‘Hotel Torlonia Palace.’

  The calm, deep voice was in marked contrast to the usual Roman squawk which hovered as though by an effort of will on the brink of screaming hysteria. Zen had never heard of the Hotel Torlonia Palace, but he already knew that you wouldn’t be able to get a room there for less than a quarter of a million lire a night.

  ‘May I speak to Dottor Simonelli, please.’

  ‘One moment.’

  After a brief silence, a male voice with a distinct reedy timbre came on the line.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Vice-Questore Aurelio Zen, at the Interior Ministry. I received a message …’

  ‘That is correct. I am Antonio Simonelli, investigating magistrate with the Procura of Milan. Am I right in thinking that we’ve been in contact before?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Ah,’ the voice replied. ‘I must have confused you with someone else. Anyway, I was hoping it would be possible for us to meet. I have some questions I wish to ask you relative to my investigations. Could you call on me this afternoon?’

  Although his heart sank, Zen knew that this was one more hurdle he was going to have to go through. They made an appointment to meet at four o’clock in the lobby of the hotel. Zen hung up with a massive sigh and hastened downstairs to find Tania. This damned case was a hydra! No sooner had he seen off the Vatican, the Minister and an inquisitive colleague than up popped some judge from Milan.

  Of all the offices in the building, those occupied by the Administration department most clearly betrayed the Ministry’s Fascist birthright: a warren of identical hutches, each containing six identical desks disposed in the same symmetrical order. Tania shared her cubicle with three other women and two men, both of whom had unwittingly been auditioned by Zen for the part of her mysterious lover. But their voices didn’t match the one he had heard on the phone, and besides, he doubted whether Tania would have gone for either the fat, balding father-of-three or his neighbour, the neurotic obsessive with bad breath. He doubted, but he couldn’t be sure. You could never tell with women. She had gone for him after all. With taste like that, who could tell what she might stoop to next?

  Tania was talking on the phone when he walked in. As soon as she caught sight of Zen, a furtive air came over her. Shielding her mouth with one hand, she spoke urgently into the phone as he strode towards her. All he could make out before she hung up was ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ but it was enough. The form of the verb was familiar, her tone conspiratorial.

  ‘Who was that?’ he demanded.

  ‘Oh, just a relative.’

  She actually blushed. Zen let it go, out of self-interest rather than magnanimity. What with the stresses and strains of the morning, and those that loomed later in the afternoon, he needed an interval of serenity. In a way it didn’t even seem to matter that her love was all a fake. If she was making use of him, then he would make use of her. That way they were quits.

  He stared at the computer screen on the desk, which displayed a list of names and addresses, many of them in foreign countries. Surely they couldn’t all be her lovers? Tania depressed a key and the screen reverted to the READY display.

  ‘Shall we go?’ she asked.

  But Zen continued to gaze at the screen. After a moment he pressed one of the function keys, selecting the SEARCH option. SUBJECT? queried the screen. Zen typed ‘Malta/Knights’. The screen went into a brief coma before producing two lines of print: SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA/KNIGHTS OF MALTA/KNIGHTS OF ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM/KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS:1 FILE (S); 583 INSTANCE (S).

  ‘What does that mean?’ he asked Tania.

  She surveyed the screen with the impatience of a professional aware of the value of her time.

  ‘It means, first of all, that these people evidently can’t make up their minds what to call themselves, so they are referred to under four different titles. The database holds one report specifically dedicated to this organization. There are also five hundred plus references in other files.’

  ‘What sort of references?’

  Tania’s swift, competent fingers rattled the keyboard with panache. AUTHORIZATION? appeared. ZEN, she typed. Again the screen faltered briefly, then filled with text which proved to be an extract from the Ministry’s file on a Turin businessman who had been convicted of involvement in a local government corruption scandal in the early eighties. The reference Zen had requested was picked out by the cursor: ‘Member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta since 1964 with rank of Knight of Magisterial Grace.’

  That sort of thing was apparently all there was, at least in the open files. He got Tania to run him off a copy of the report on the Knights of Malta, even though he knew that anything really worth knowing would be held in the ‘closed’ section of the database, accessible only with special authorization restricted to a handful of senior staff. The files stored there supposedly detailed the financial status, professional and political allegiances, family situation and sexual predelictions of almost fourteen million Italian citizens. Like everyone else, Zen had often wondered what his own entry contained. Was his connection with Tania included by now? Presumably, judging by Moscati’s mocking remarks. How much more did they know? Reading such an entry would be like seeing a copy of your own obituary, and just as difficult.

  4

  They strolled along the quay, hand in hand, fingers entwined. It had rained while they were in the restaurant, briefly but hard. Now the sky had cleared again, every surface glistened, and the air was flooded with elusive, evocative scents.

  The little town of Fiumicino, at the mouth of the narrower of the two channels into which the Tiber divided just before it met the sea, was somewhere Zen always returned to with pleasure. The scale of the place, the narrow waterway and the low buildings flanking it, the sea tang, the bustle of a working port, all combined to remind him of the fishing villages of the Venetian lagoon. In addition, Fiumicino contained several restaurants capable of doing justice to the quality and freshness of the catches which its boats brought in.

  Replete with crema di riso gratinato ai frutti di mare and grilled sea bass with artichokes, he and Tania wandered along the stone quays like a pair of young lovers without a care in the world.

  ‘… the best artichokes in the world,’ she was saying. ‘My aunt prepares the hearts, then they bottle them in oil, ten kilos at a time.’

  ‘You’re making me hungry again.’

  ‘You must try them, Aurelio! I’ll get Aldo to send an extra jar with the next batch of samples …’

  She broke off.

  ‘Batch of what?’ Zen asked mechanically, so as not to reveal that he hadn’t been listening, absorbed in the spectacle of a skinny cat stalking a butterfly across a pile of empty fish crates.

  ‘The next time one of the family comes to Rome, I mean,’ said Tania.

  ‘Look!’

  Balanced on its hind legs like a performing monkey, the cat was frantically pawing at the air, trying in vain to seize the elusive, substanceless quiver of colour.

  ‘You’ll never catch it, silly!’ laughed Tania in a slightly tipsy voice. ‘And even if you do, there’s nothing there to eat!’

  Still intent on its prey, the cat stepped off the edge of the boxes. It twisted round in mid-air and landed on its feet, shooting a hostile glance at the couple who had witnessed its humiliation.

  ‘Actually I may go myself, this weekend,’ Tania announced as they continued on their way.

  ‘Go? Where?’

  ‘Home to Udine, to see my cousins.
’

  Zen freed his hand.

  ‘Suppose I came too?’

  Tania shot him a panicky glance.

  ‘You? Well …’

  She gave an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘You see, Bettina and Aldo don’t actually know about you.’

  A few minutes earlier, as they walked together along the quay, Zen had found himself thinking, ‘This, or something very like it, is happiness.’ That exaltation now looked like nothing more special than a side effect of the verdicchio they had drunk at lunch. Now the hangover had arrived.

  ‘So who do they know about?’ he demanded truculently.

  Tania looked at him, a new hardness in his eyes.

  ‘They know I’m no longer with Mauro, if that’s what you mean.’

  He didn’t say whether it was or not.

  ‘So they think you’re living alone.’

  ‘Well, aren’t I?’

  They faced each other for a moment over that. Then Tania broke into a smile and took his arm.

  ‘Look, Bettina’s my cousin, the second daughter of my father’s younger brother. It’s not an intimate relationship, but since my parents died and Nino emigrated to Australia it’s the best I’ve got. Bettina doesn’t burden me with her problems and I don’t burden her with mine.’

  ‘I didn’t realize I was a problem,’ he replied, snapping up the cheap shot on offer.

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Aurelio. I mean that we don’t share our innermost preoccupations, good or bad. We keep our distance. That’s the best way sometimes, particularly with relatives. Otherwise the whole thing can get out of control.’

  ‘And control is important to you, is it?’

  He hated the snide way he said it. So did Tania, it soon became clear.

  ‘And why not?’ she snapped. ‘Damn it, I spent the first thirty years of my life asleep at the wheel. You saw the result. Now I’ve decided to try taking charge for a while and see how that goes. I mean is that all right?’