On top of the chest of drawers lay a leather wallet, a bunch of keys, a red plastic diary, some loose change, an open letter and a framed photograph of a young woman holding two small children by the hand. A faded chrysanthemum lay on its side in front of the picture. Zen picked up the letter, from some relative in Bari, and skimmed through it. It was mostly about Grimaldi’s children, who were apparently well and ‘as happy as can be expected’, although they sometimes confused their mother’s absence with their father’s, thinking that he was in heaven and she in Rome. Zen put the letter down beside the flower of death. He stepped over to the window and looked down at the street below, sighing deeply as though gasping for breath. By the entrance to the pizzeria opposite a group of men were standing in the mild sunshine, arguing good-naturedly.
Zen whirled round as though someone had touched him. There was no one there. There was no one there. The unlocked door, the clothes laid out on the bed, the wallet and money and keys all ready, the drawers in disorder, the sound of rain while the sun shone… As if sleep-walking, Zen crossed the room and opened the door. Along the floor of the corridor, a long mobile tongue of dark liquid was making its slow way, curling this way and that across the red tiles. Zen set off towards the direction from which it was coming. At the end of the corridor was a door painted glossy white, with no number and no lock, just a semi-circular metal handle. The sound of falling water grew louder as Zen splashed his way towards it. Light streamed out of the cracks around the door on three sides, water on the fourth.
He rapped loudly on the white panelling. When there was no reply, he pulled and then pushed the door handle. The door rattled, but it was bolted on the inside. Zen stepped back, measuring his distance carefully. He bent his right leg and raised his foot to about the level of the internal bolt, then kicked out hard. The door burst inwards, but held.
‘Hey!’
A man had poked his head out of a doorway further along the corridor. Zen ignored him. He brought his leg up again and smashed his foot viciously at the door. This time the bolt gave way and the door sagged in. A wave of water poured down the steps into the corridor, creating a series of miniature waterfalls.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the man demanded.
Zen didn’t even look round. He was staring at the water running down the white porcelain tiles of the floor, at the drenched dressing-gown which had for some time stemmed the flood under the door, at the eight-pointed cross roughly chalked on the wall, at the naked body slumped in the shower, blocking the drain, and at the face of Giovanni Grimaldi staring back at him, seemingly with an astonishment to match his own.
If the man had done as Zen had told him — phoned the police, and then waited outside for them to arrive — there would have been no problem. There was no phone in the building, so he had to go across the road to the pizzeria. That should have left plenty of time for Zen to subject Grimaldi’s room to a thorough search. As it was, he had barely started when he heard voices on the stairs. He hastily stuffed the red plastic diary into his pocket and regained the corridor just before the neighbour returned with a Carabinieri patrolman whose 850cc Moto-Guzzi had been parked outside the pizzeria while its driver demolished a piece of ham-and-mushroom within.
Apart from forcing him to curtail his search, this coincidence meant that Zen was cast in the role of Material Witness in the ensuing investigation, which went on for the rest of the afternoon. Faced with a couple of subordinates from his own force, he could have made a brief statement and then buggered off, but the paramilitary Carabinieri saw no reason to stretch the rules to accommodate some big shot from their despised civilian rivals. On the contrary! The inquiry into Giovanni Grimaldi’s death was handled strictly according to the letter of the law, with every t crossed, every i dotted, and every statement, submission and report written up in triplicate and then signed by the witnesses and counter-signed by the officials.
Not that there was the slightest doubt as to the cause of the tragedy. ‘I always said it was just a matter of time before something like this happened,’ the dead man’s neighbour told the patrolman as they gazed in through the open doorway of the shower. Marco Duranti was one of those florid, irascible men who have the answer to all the world’s problems. It’s all so very simple! The solution is right here, at their fingertips! Only — and this is what drives them mad — no one thinks to ask them. Not only that, but when they offer the information, as a disinterested gesture of goodwill, people take no notice! They even turn away, muttering ‘Give it a rest, Marco, for Christ’s sake!’ That’s what Grimaldi had done, the last time he’d warned him — purely out of the kindness of his own heart — about that damned shower. It was thus understandable that Duranti’s grief was tempered by a certain satisfaction that his oft-repeated warnings of disaster had been proved right.
He drew the attention of the Carabinieri patrolman to the electric water heater supplying the shower. Sellotaped to the wall near by was a piece of paper in a plastic cover punched for use in a folder. A faded message in red felt-pen indicated that the heater should always be turned off before using the shower. Now, however, the switch was clearly set to ON.
‘It should have been replaced years ago,’ Duranti went on indignantly, ‘but you can imagine the chances of that happening. The Church has always got enough money to keep Wojtyla jetting about the world, but when it comes to looking after its own properties and the poor devils who live in them — eh, eh, that’s another matter! This whole place is falling to pieces. Why there was someone in only yesterday morning poking about in the drains. The next thing we know the floor will be running with shit, never mind water!’
By this time a small group of residents, neighbours and hangers-on had gathered in the corridor. No one wanted to go into the bathroom while the water was still potentially lethal, so Duranti fetched a hook with a long handle which was used for opening the skylight windows, and after several abortive attempts the patrolman managed to flip the heater switch to the OFF position. Protected by the solid leather soles of his magnificent boots, he then ventured into the flooded cubicle and turned off the water just as the maresciallo arrived with three more patrolmen and a doctor. No one paid any attention to the design chalked on the wall, and by the time they all adjourned to the local Carabinieri station it had been rubbed by so many sleeves and shoulders that it was no longer recognizable.
For the next few hours, Zen, Duranti and a selection of the other residents were questioned severally and together. Zen told them that he had gone to the house while following up a lead in a drugs case he was engaged on, details of which he could not disclose without authorization from his superiors. The lead had in fact been false — an address on the fifth floor of a building which only had four — but when he reached the top of the stairs he had noticed the water seeping along the corridor. Having traced the source to the shower, he attempted to communicate with the occupant, and when that failed he had kicked the door down.
It was this homely gesture which had finally won the Carabinieri over. They glanced at each other, nodding sympathetically. Confronted by an obstinately locked door and a stubborn silence on the other side of it, that was what you did, wasn’t it? You kicked the fucking thing down. It might not do the door any good, but it would sure as hell make the next one think twice about messing you around. The maresciallo thanked Zen for his cooperation and told him he could go. Marco Duranti on the other hand, was detained for a further forty minutes. Zen spent the time in a cafe across the road making a number of phone calls. The first was to the contact number he had been given in the Vatican. This was engaged, so he phoned Tania.
‘Hello?’
It was a man’s voice, with a reedy timbre and clipped intonation.
‘Sorry, I must have a wrong number.’
He dialled again, but now this number was engaged as well, so he fed the two-hundred lire piece back into the slot and called Paragon Security Consultants. A secretary made him hold the line for some time
before putting him through to the managing director.
‘Gilberto Nieddu.’
‘This is the Ministry of Finance, dottore. Following a raid by our officers on a leading firm of accountants, we have uncovered evidence which suggests that for the last five years your company has consistently failed to declare twenty-five per cent of its profits.’
There was silence at the other end.
‘However, we have no time to concern ourselves with such small-time offenders,’ Zen continued, ‘so we’d be prepared to overlook the matter in return for the services of a discreet, qualified electrician.’
This was greeted by a sharp intake of breath.
‘Is that you, Aurelio?’
Zen chuckled.
‘You sounded worried, Gilberto.’
‘You bastard! You really had me going there!’
‘Oh come on, Gilberto! You don’t expect me to believe that you’re fiddling a quarter of your taxes, do you?
‘Of course not, but…’
‘It must be a hell of a lot more than that.’
Nieddu made a spluttering sound.
‘Now about this electrician,’ Zen went on.
‘Look, Aurelio, it may have escaped your attention, but I’m not running a community information service. You need an electrician, look in the pagine gialle. ’
‘I’m not talking about changing a plug, Gilberto.’
‘So what are you talking about?’
Zen told him. Nieddu gave a long sigh.
‘Why do I let you drag me into these things, Aurelio? What’s it got to do with me? What’s it got to do with you, for that matter?’
He sighed again.
‘Give me the address.’
When they’d agreed a rendezvous, Zen called Tania again. The same male voice answered.
‘Who’s that?’ demanded Zen.
There was a brief interval of silence, then the receiver was replaced. Zen immediately redialled, but the phone rang and rang without any answer. He hung up, went to the bar and ordered a double espresso which he gulped down, searing his throat. He got out the red plastic-bound diary which he had removed from Giovanni Grimaldi’s room. It turned out to be dated the following year, a freebie given away with a recent issue of L’Espresso. He riffled through it, but the pages were blank except for a few numbers and letters scribbled in the Personal Data section. Replacing the diary in his pocket, Zen touched his packet of Nazionali cigarettes. He took one out and lit it, then returned to the phone. There was still no reply from Tania’s number, so he tried the Vatican again. This time the number answered almost immediately.
‘Yes?’
‘This is Signor Bianchi.’
‘Yes?’
It was a voice Zen didn’t recognize.
‘I’ve just seen Signor Giallo.’
He felt ridiculous, but Lamboglia’s instructions had been quite clear: even on this supposedly secure line, Zen was to refer to Grimaldi only by this code name.
‘He’s dead.’
There was a brief silence.
‘Is there anything else?’ asked the voice.
‘You mean any other deaths?’ Zen shouted. ‘Why, how many are you expecting?’
He slammed the phone down. When he turned, the barman and all five customers were staring at him. He was about to say something when he saw Marco Duranti emerge from the Carabinieri station and set off along the street at a surprisingly brisk trot. Zen tossed a five-thousand-lire note in the general direction of the barman and ran after him.
‘Excuse me!’
Duranti swung round with a wary, hostile expression. When he saw Zen he relaxed, but only slightly.
‘It’s about this maintenance man you saw in the building yesterday,’ Zen told him.
‘Yes?’
Zen pointed across the street.
‘Are you going home? We could walk together.’
Duranti shrugged gracelessly.
‘I was wondering if there might be a connection with this case I’m working on, you see,’ Zen told him as they set off together. ‘They could be using the sewers as a place to hide their drug cache. Where was he actually working?’
‘I didn’t look. All I know is he had the electric drill going for about half an hour just when I’m trying to have my siesta. Of course they would have to pick the week I’m on night shift.’
They were just passing the Porta Sant’ Anna, the tradesman’s entrance of the Vatican City State. A Swiss Guard in the working uniform of blue tunic, sleeveless cloak and beret set at a jaunty angle was gesturing with white-gloved hands to a driver who had just approached the security barrier. Meanwhile his colleague chatted to a girl on the pavement. A little further up the street was a second checkpoint, manned by the Vigilanza. Their uniform, dark blue with red piping, badly cut and with too much gold braid, made a sad contrast with the efficient elegance of the Swiss. Revolver on his hip, radio on his shoulder, the Guard held up his hand to stop the car, which had now been permitted through the first barrier, and swaggered over to give the driver a hard time.
‘What did this man look like?’ Zen asked.
Duranti shrugged.
‘Stocky, muscular, average height, with a big round face. He wasn’t Roman, I’ll tell you that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The accent! All up here in the nose, like a real northerner.’
Zen nodded as though this confirmed his suspicions.
‘That’s very helpful. You make an excellent witness, signore. If only everyone was as observant.’
They had reached the corner of the street where Duranti lived. Zen thanked him and then waited until he had disappeared before following him down the street to the pizzeria where he had had lunch.
Normality had already returned to the neighbourhood. In an area where safety standards were rarely or never observed, domestic accidents were even more frequent than suicide attempts in St Peter’s. In the pizzeria, the owner and three cronies were discussing the recent and spectacular explosion of a butane gas cylinder which had blown a five-year-old girl clean through the window of the family’s third-floor apartment. The child landed on the roof of a car below, unhurt but orphaned, her father having been disembowelled by a jagged chunk of the cylinder while the mother succumbed to brain injury after part of the wall collapsed on her.
Zen elbowed his way through to the counter and ordered another slab of pizza to keep him going until, God willing, he finally got to eat a proper meal. The baker had just pushed a large baking tray filled with bubbling pizza through the serving hatch from the kitchen next door, and the pizzaiolo hacked out a large slice which he folded in two and presented to Zen with a paper wrapper. He moved to the back of the shop and leant against a stack of plastic crates filled with soft-drink bottles, munching the piping-hot pizza and awaiting the arrival of Paragon Security’s electrician.
A blowsy near-blonde of rather more than a certain age walked in and greeted the four men with the familiar manner of one who has seen the best and worst they could do and not been at all impressed. She ordered one of the ham and mozzarella pasties called calzoni, ‘trousers’. The men guffawed, and one remarked that that was all Bettina ever thought about. She replied that on the contrary, calzoni these days were usually a disappointment, ‘delicious looking from the outside, but with no filling worth a damn’. The owner of the pizzeria protested that his ‘trousers’, on the other hand, were crammed with all the good things God sends. Bettina remained unimpressed, claiming that while his father had known a thing or two about stuffing, the best the present proprietor could manage was a pathetic scrap of meat and a dribble of cheese.
Zen’s left elbow turned to a burning knob of pain.
‘Hi there.’
The pain vanished as suddenly as it had begun. Zen looked round to find Gilberto Nieddu grinning puckishly at him.
‘I didn’t expect you to come personally,’ said Zen.
He still found it odd to see Nieddu’s rotund, compact bo
dy dressed in a smart suit and tie. Gilberto had been running an independent security firm for years now, and very successfully too, but Zen still thought of him as the colleague he had once been, and was always vaguely taken aback to see him disguised as a businessman. Nieddu set down the small metal case he was carrying.
‘You don’t think I’d risk one of my lads getting involved with your crazy schemes?’
Zen waved at the counter.
‘Want something?’
Nieddu shook his head.
‘I’ve got a meal waiting for me at home, Aurelio. If I ever get home.’
Zen finished his pizza and lit a Nazionale.
‘Okay, this is the situation. Like I said on the phone, someone was killed in an accident this afternoon, only I don’t think it was an accident. The victim lived in a rundown tenement where the wiring was installed around the time Caesar got mugged in the Forum. The water heater in particular is very dodgy, and tenants have been warned to switch it off before using the shower. It seems to me that all someone needed to do was fix the heater so that it became seriously dangerous, and then wait for the victim to trot along and electrocute himself. In short, the perfect murder.’
‘Give me a smoke, polenta-head,’ said Nieddu.
‘I thought you’d given up.’
‘I’ve given up buying them. Don’t laugh. My doctor says it’s a first step.’
He lit up and exhaled mightily, then shook his head.
‘It wouldn’t work,’ he said. ‘They’d need to get out the element, for a start. That’s a major job even with a new heater. If this one’s as old as you say, the nuts will have rusted up. Anyway, the thing’s bound to be checked, and it’ll be clear that it’s been tampered with. There’s no chance of it being mistaken for an accident.’
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