Scarpione hurried off, eager to prove that his loyalty, at any rate, was unimpeachable. As soon as he was out of earshot, Sanchez-Valdes turned to Zen.
‘Despite what our detractors say, dottore, I urge you to accept that the Vatican has no vested interest in obscurity or mystification, still less in such wickedness as these killings. Our only wish is to see the perpetrators brought to justice, and I can assure you that we will bend all our efforts to that end. On the basis of the information you have provided today, I shall make representations to the Carabinieri to reopen their investigation into Grimaldi’s death…’
‘Without mentioning my name,’ Zen insisted.
Sanchez-Valdes waved his beringed hand to indicate that this might be taken for granted. Outside the huge unused station building below, the diesel locomotive blew its horn. Luigi Scarpione stood on the platform near by, beckoning frantically.
‘It’s about to leave,’ said Sanchez-Valdes.
Zen turned to him suddenly.
‘What about the Cabal?’
A distant look entered the archbishop’s eyes.
‘What?’
‘Grimaldi’s letter to the newspapers claimed that on the day he died, Ruspanti had been going to meet the representatives of an organization called the Cabal. His other allegations have turned out to be true. What about that one?’
Sanchez-Valdes laughed lightly.
‘Oh, that! No, no, that was just some nonsense Ruspanti dreamed up.’
‘Ruspanti?’
‘Yes, he used it as bait, to tempt us into giving him sanctuary. It’s rather embarrassing, to tell you the truth! He took us in completely with this cock-and-bull tale about some secret inner group within the Knights of Malta which supposedly…’
Zen stared.
‘The Knights of Malta?’
‘Absurd, isn’t it? That bunch of old fogies and social climbers! Mind you, Ruspanti was one of them himself, which lent his claims a certain prima facie credibility. In return for our assistance, he promised to spill the beans on the various political conspiracies which this group was supposedly planning. As soon as we examined his claims, of course, it was evident that there was nothing in them.’
The diesel hooted again, longer this time.
‘Hurry, dottore, or they’ll leave without you!’ Sanchez-Valdes urged. ‘We don’t want to create an international incident by preventing the departure of an Italian train, do we? Incidentally, you’re probably the first person to leave the Vatican by train since Papa Roncalli went on a pilgrimage to Assisi back in the sixties. What about that, eh? Something to tell your grandchildren!’
‘Deuce!’
‘Thirty-forty, isn’t it?’
‘No, no, my friend. It was thirty-forty after you fluffed my last service return.’
‘All right, all right.’
Rackets were raised once more, the fluffy yellow ball sped to and fro, the players pranced about the pink asphalt. The server sported a racy Sergio Tacchini outfit whose top, shorts, socks, trainers and sweatbands were all elements in the same bold abstract pattern. His opponent had opted for a classic all-white image by Ellesse, but it was falling flat. Having just blown the opportunity to save the set, he looked plain rather than restrained, not timeless but out of date.
‘Advantage!’ called Sergio Tacchini confidently.
‘It was out!’ whined Ellesse.
‘Says who?’
‘I saw it cross the line! It was nowhere near!’
‘Oh! Oh! Gino, don’t try this stuff on with me!’
‘I tell you…’
‘All right, let’s get a neutral opinion.’
The server turned to the man who was looking on from the other side of the tall mesh netting which surrounded the court.
‘Hey, you! You saw that shot? It was in, wasn’t it?’
‘Come off it, Rodolfo!’ his opponent objected. ‘If they let the guy up here, he must work for you. Do you think he’s going to tell his own Minister that his shot was too long?’
‘On the contrary, everyone knows I’ll be on my way once this reshuffle finally hits. I can’t even get a cup of coffee sent up any more. In fact, he’s going to give it your way, Gino, if he’s got any sense. For all anyone knows, you could be his boss next week!’
He turned again to the onlooker, a gaunt, imposing figure with sharp, angular features and a gaze that hovered ambiguously between menace and mockery.
‘Listen, er — what’s your name?’
‘Zen, Minister. Vice-Questore, Criminalpol. I’m afraid I didn’t see the ball land.’
Rodolfo returned to the base-line shaking his head.
‘Fine, we’ll play a let. I don’t need flukes to beat you, Gino. I’ve got in-depth superiority.’
He skied the ball and whacked it across the net with a grunt suggestive of a reluctant bowel motion. Zen clasped his hands behind his back and pretended to take an interest in the progress of the game. Fortunately there were other distractions. Despite being located on the least illustrious of Rome’s seven hills, the roof of the Ministry of the Interior still afforded extensive views. To the right, Zen could admire the neighbouring Quirinal and its palace, once the seat of popes and kings, now the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. To the left, the ruined hulks of ancient Rome’s most desirable residential quarter gave a rural appearance to the Palatine. In between, the densely populated sprawl of the city centre, covered by a veil of smog, resembled the treacherous marshland it had once been. In the hazy distance below the hills of the far bank of the Tiber, the dome of St Peter’s hovered, seemingly weightless, like a baroque hot-air balloon.
The sun was hidden behind a skin of cloud which diffused its light evenly across the flat roof. The Ministry’s complex system of transmitting and receiving aerials, towering above like ship’s rigging, increased Zen’s sense of detachment from the mundane realities of life in the invisible streets far below. The train which had carried him back to Italy that morning consisted of four empty wagons which had discharged their duty-free imports and one flat-bed laden with the mosaics which were the Vatican’s only material export. Zen had looked back from the cab of the superannuated green-and-brown diesel locomotive at the massive iron gates closing behind the train, just as all the Vatican gates still did at midnight, sealing off the one-hundred-acre City State from its encircling secular neighbour. The complexities of the relationship between the two were something that Zen was only beginning to appreciate now that he found himself trapped between them like a speck of grit caught in the bearings of power.
Despite his promise to Sanchez-Valdes, he had every intention of filing a full report on the Ruspanti affair. The first rule of survival in any organization is ‘Cover thyself.’ No matter that Moscati had told Zen that he was on his own, that it was between him and the Vatican, that the Ministry didn’t want to know. None of that would save Zen if — or, as now seemed almost inevitable, when — the tortuous and murky ramifications of the Ruspanti affair turned into a major political scandal. If Zen failed to keep the Ministry fully briefed, this would either be ascribed to devious personal motives or to twitchings on the strings by which one of the interested parties controlled him. Either way, his position would be untenable. A man as sophisticated as Sanchez-Valdes must have known this, so Zen assumed that the real purpose of that ‘walk in the woods’ had been to pass on information which the Curia could not release officially, to smuggle a message out of the Vatican in much the same way as Zen himself. It was now up to Zen to make sure that the message got through.
Under normal circumstances, his section chief would have been the person to go to, but after hearing Tania recount Moscati’s gloating remarks about their relationship Zen didn’t trust himself to handle the conversation with the necessary professional reserve. Then he recalled something that Moscati had said when they had spoken on the phone the previous morning. ‘Result, the Minister finds himself in the hot seat just as the entire government is about to
go into the blender and he had his eye on some nice fat portfolio like Finance.’ So the Minister was not only aware of Zen’s gaffe, but had been politically embarrassed by criticism from the ‘blue-bloods at the Farnesina’, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who would have sustained the full wrath of the Apostolic Nuncio. By the time the Vatican goods train drew into the station of San Pietro F.S., Zen had decided that this was a case for going straight to the top. That way, when the lies and obfuscations started, he would at least know their source. He would speak to the Minister personally, tell him what had happened and what Archbishop Sanchez-Valdes had said. Then, later, he would write up a full report of the incident (with an editorial slant favourable to him, naturally) to be filed in the Ministerial database as permanent proof, dated and signed, that he had fulfilled his duties.
Until recently, San Pietro had been a little-used suburban halt on an antediluvian branch line to Viterbo. All that had changed with the decision to upgrade part of the route as a link between Stazione Termini and the new high speed direttissima line to Florence. As a result, the tunnel under the Gianicolo hill had been reconstructed and the station remodelled in the latest colour-coordinated Eurostyle. The local services hadn’t improved, however, so Zen walked out of the station and took the 62 bus across town, slipping into the Ministry through a side entrance to elude any reporters who might be around. Now, watching the tennis players swooping and reaching in the mild sunlight, that interlude seemed to him like a brief dip into the polluted and treacherous waters separating the verdant isle of the Vatican City State from this stately cruise liner where the Minister and his opponent were disporting themselves. Gino was an under-secretary in the Ministry of Health, which occupied the other half of the huge building on the Viminal hill. To satisfy the elaborate formulas of the manuale Cencelli, by which positions of power are distributed amongst the various political parties, this post had been allocated to a member of the moribund Liberal Party, while Rodolfo was a well-known figure on the Andreotti wing of the Christian Democrats. But although they were nominally political rivals, the contest that the two men were currently engaged in was infinitely more keenly fought than any which was ever allowed to disrupt the stifling calm in which the country’s nomenclatura basked and grew fat.
‘Game, set and match!’ called the Minister as the ball scudded off the asphalt out of reach of Gino’s racket.
‘Lucky bounce, Rodolfo.’
‘ Balle, my friend. You have just been outplayed physically and intellectually. My own surprise is that you still haven’t learned to lose with grace. After all, it’s all your party has been able to do for the last thirty years.’
He strode over to Zen, his skin gleaming with perspiration and flushed with victory. The Minister’s even, rounded features expressed an image of sensitivity and culture that was fatally undermined by the mouth, a cramped slot which might have been the result of plastic surgery.
‘You wanted to see me?’
Zen assumed his most respectful demeanour.
‘Yes, sir. I have a message for you.’
The Minister laughed shortly.
‘The problem of overmanning must be even more dire than I’d imagined if we’re using senior Criminalpol officials as messengers.’
He turned back to his opponent.
‘Consolation prize, Gino! You get to have first go in the shower while I see what this fellow wants.’
Rubbing his head vigorously with a towel, the Minister led the way down a short flight of stairs into his suite on the top floor of the building and threw himself down on a black leather sofa. Zen remained standing.
‘It’s about the Ruspanti case,’ he said hesitantly.
He expected some furious response, threats or insults, demands for apologies and explanations. The Minister merely stared up at him slightly more intently.
‘I’m sorry if… I mean, I understand that there were some… That’s to say…’
Zen broke off, disconcerted. He belatedly realized that he had allowed himself to be tricked into the elementary blunder of implying that what underlings like him did or failed to do could seriously affect anyone other than themselves. Moscati’s phrase about the Minister finding himself ‘in the hot seat’ as a result of Zen’s mishandling of the Ruspanti affair was pure hyperbole. Politicians could no more be brought down by such things than a ship could be capsized by the actions of fish on the ocean bed. It was the weather on the surface, in the political world itself, that would determine the Minister’s career prospects. Judging by his manner, the forecast was good.
‘I don’t want to rush you, er… what did you say your name was?’ he grunted, getting to his feet, ‘but if you have a message for me, perhaps you could deliver it without too much further delay. I have to see the Prefect of Bari in twenty minutes to discuss the Albanian refugee problem.’
He stretched out full length on the floor and started doing push-ups. Zen took a deep breath.
‘Yes, sir. The fact is, I’ve just returned from the Vatican, where I had an audience of His Excellency Juan Ramon Sanchez-Valdes, First Deputy to the Cardinal Secretary of State. His Excellency gave me to understand that he was entirely satisfied with my, quote, discreet and invaluable intervention, unquote. An official communique to this effect will be forwarded by the Papal Nuncio in due course.’
The Minister rolled over on to his back, hooked his toes under the base of the sofa and started doing sit-ups.
‘And you just wanted me to know that you’re happy as a pig in shit?’
‘No, sir. There’s more.’
‘And better, I hope.’
‘Yes, sir. His Excellency Sanchez-Valdes confirmed that Prince Ludovico Ruspanti had been living in the Vatican City State for some weeks prior to his death. Not only that, but a special undercover unit of the Vigilanza Security Service was tapping Ruspanti’s phone and maintaining surveillance on his movements. The implication is that some people at least knew from the beginning that Ruspanti had not committed suicide, and perhaps even knew the identity of his killers.’
That made the Minister sit up, and not just for exercise.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘One of those people was Giovanni Grimaldi, the Vigilanza official who was assigned to Ruspanti on Friday afternoon. He also had access to the transcript of the Prince’s phone calls, which subsequently disappeared. The Curia also have evidence that Grimaldi was the source of the anonymous letter sent to the newspapers on Monday evening.’
‘Bet you’re glad you’re not in his shoes, eh, Zeppo?’
‘Zen, sir. Yes, sir. He’s dead. It was disguised as an accident, but he was murdered, presumably by the people who killed Ruspanti. His Excellency Sanchez-Valdes mentioned that the Vatican was induced to give Ruspanti sanctuary by the promise of information about a secret political conspiracy within the Order of Malta, a group called the Cabal. Nothing more seems to be known about this organization, but the implication must be that it was their agents who faked Ruspanti’s suicide and arranged for Grimaldi to have his fatal accident.’
The door opened and Gino strode in, spick and span in a Valentino suit, reeking of scent, his hair implant cockily bouffant.
‘All yours, Rodolfo.’
The Minister got up heavily. He looked older and moved stiffly.
‘Just a moment, Gino. I won’t be long.’
Gino shrugged casually and left. It was he who looked the winner now. The Minister mechanically towelled away the sweat on his brow and face.
‘Is that all?’ he muttered.
‘Almost,’ nodded Zen. ‘There’s just one more thing. Yesterday I received an anonymous telegram saying that if I wanted to “get these deaths in perspective”, I should go to a certain address on the Aventine. It turned out to be the Palace of Rhodes, the extraterritorial property of the Order of Malta.’
The Minister grimaced contemptuously.
‘So what? Someone saw your name in the paper and decided to have a bit of fun at your expense. Happ
ens all the time.’
‘That’s what I thought at first. But the message referred to “deaths”, plural. At the time it was sent, only one person had died — Ludovico Ruspanti. But the people who sent the telegram already knew that Giovanni Grimaldi would be killed the following day. They’d spent the Monday afternoon making the necessary arrangements. And on the wall of the room where Grimaldi was killed, they’d chalked an eight-pointed Maltese cross.’
The Minister regarded Zen steadily for what seemed like a very long time. All his earlier facetiousness had deserted him.
‘Thank you, dottore,’ he said finally. ‘You did right to keep me informed, and I look forward to receiving your written report in due course.’
He flung his towel over his shoulder and padded off to the bathroom.
‘Can you find your own way out?’
The lift was through the Minister’s office, where Gino was studying a framed portrait photograph of the Minister with Giulio Andreotti. He smiled cynically at Zen.
‘Behold the secret of Rodolfo’s success,’ he said in a stage whisper.
Zen paused and looked up at the large photograph, which hung in pride of place above the Minister’s desk. Both politicians were in formal morning dress. Both looked smug, solid, utterly sure of themselves. Beneath their white bow-ties, both wore embroidered bands from which hung a prominent gilt pendant incorporating the eight-pointed cross of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
‘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.
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