Thursday, 07.55 -- 13.20 All the talk at the cafe the next morning was of the over- night swoop by the police and Carabinieri on leftist sym- pathizers in Milan, Turin and Genoa. 'About time too,' was the dentist's comment, but one of the craftsmen from the basement workshops disagreed. 'The real terrorists don't have anything to do v,~ith those sinistrini. It's just the cops trying to make a good impres- sion. A week from now they'll all have been turned loose again and we'll be back where we started!' The barman Ernesto and the dentist looked at Zen, who maintained a stony silence. The reason for this was neither professional reserve nor disapproval of the craftsman's cynical tone. Zen simply wasn't paying any attention to the conversation. He had problems of his own that were too pressing to allow him the luxury of discussing other people's, problems which were quite literally closer to home. Once again he had stayed up until the small hours of the morning, trying without success to find the missing link that would explain the events of the previous days. Noi only had he not succeeded, he wasn't even sure that success was possible. The temptation to fit everything into a neat pattern, he knew, should be resisted. It might well be that two or more quite unrelated patterns were at work. One thing was sure. During the three hours he had been absent from home the night before, someone had entered his flat and left an envelope filled with shotgun pellets on the sideboard in the hallway. Zen had locked the front door on leaving and it had still been locked on his return. Questioning his mother obliquely, to avoid frightening her, he had confirmed that she had not let anyone in. The only other person with a key was Maria Grazia. Before leaving for work Zen had interrogated her without result. The key was kept in her handbag, which hadn't been lost or stolen. Her family were all strict Catholics of the type who would have guilt pangs about picking up a hundred- lire coin they found in the street. It was out of the question that any of them might have been bribed to pass on the key to a third party. Zen also questioned Giuseppe, who had duplicate keys to all the apartments. He was equally categorical in his denials, and given the fanatical vigilance with which he carried out his duties it seemed unlikely that the intruder could have gained access in this way. Which left only the metallic scraping Zen's mother had reported hearing the night before. It had come from the other side of the room, she said, where the large wardrobe stood. It now seemed clear that the noise had been made by someone picking the lock of the door leading to the fire escape, only to find that it was blocked by the wardrobe which had been placed in front of it. Since this attempt had failed, the intruder had returned during Zen's absence the evening before and tried the riskier option of picking the lock of the front door. Almost the most disturbing thing about the incident was what had not happened. Nothing had been stolen, nothing had been disarranged. Apart from the envelope, the intruder had left no sign whatever of his presence. He had come to leave a message, and perhaps the most important element of that message was that he had done nothing else. As a demonstration of power, of arrogant self-confidence, it made Zen think of the Villa Burolo killer. 'I can come and go whenever I wish,' was the message. 'This time I have chosen simply to deliver an envelope. Next time... who knows?' Determined that there should not be a next time, Zen had made Maria Grazia swear by Santa Rita of Cascia, whose image she wore as a lucky charm, that she would bolt the front door after his departure and not leave the apartment until he returned. 'But what about the shopping?' she protested. 'I'll get something from the tavola calda,' Zen snapped impatiently. 'It's not important!' Cowed by her employer's unaccustomed brusqueness, Maria Grazia timidly reminded him that she would have to leave by six o'clock at the latest in order to deal with her own family's needs. 'I'll be back by then,' he replied. 'Just don't leave the apartment unattended, not even for a moment. Under- stand? Keep the door bolted and don't open it except for me.' As soon as he got to work, Zen called the vehicle regis- tration department and requested details of the red Alfa Romeo he had seen in the street the night before. It was a long shot, but there was something about the car that made him suspicious, although he wasn't quite clear what it was. The information he received was not encouraging. The owner of the vehicle turned out to be one Rino Attilio Lusetti, with an address in the fashionable Parioli area north of the Villa Borghese. A phone call to the Questura elicited the information that Lusetti had no criminal record. By now Zen knew that this was a wild-goose chase, but having nothing better to do he looked up Lusetti in the telephone directory and rang the number. An uneducated female voice informed him that Dottor Lusetti was at the university. After a series of abortive phone calls to various departments of this institution, Zen eventually discovered that the car which had been parked near his house for the two previous nights was owned by the Professor of Philology in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Rome. Giorgio De Angelis wandered into Zen's cubicle while he was making the last of these calls. 'Problems?' he asked as Zen hung up. Zen shrugged. 'Just a private matter. Someone keeps parking his car in front of my door.' 'Give his windscreen a good coat of varnish,' De Angelis advised. 'Polyurethane's the best. Weatherproof, durable, opaque. An absolute bastard to get off.' Zen nodded. 'What's this you've been telling Romizi about a train that goes round in circles?' De Angelis laughed raucously, throwing his head back and showing his teeth. Then he glanced round the screens to check that the official in question wasn't within earshot. 'That fucking Romizi! He'd believe anything. You know he loves anchovy paste? But he's a tight bastard, so he's always moaning about how much it costs. So I said to him, "Listen, do you want to know how to make it yourself? You get a cat, right? You feed the cat on anchovies and olive oil, nothing else. What comes out the other end is anchovy paste." ' 'He didn't believe you, did he?' 'I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if he gives it a try. I just wish I could be there. What I'd give to see him spreading cat shit on a cracker!' As De Angelis burst out laughing again, a movement nearby attracted Zen's attention. He turned to find Vin- cenzo Fabri looking at them through a gap in the screens. He was wearing a canary yellow pullover and a pale blue tie, with a marooh sports jacket and slacks, and chunky hand-stiched shoes. Expensive leisurewear was Fabri's hallmark, matching his gestures, slow and calm, and his deep, melodious voice. 'I'm so relaxed, so laid back,' the look said, 'just a lazy old softy who wants an easy time.' Zen, who still wore a suit to work, felt by comparison like an old-fashioned ministerial apparatchik, a dull, dedi- cated workaholic. The irony was that Vincenzo Fabri was the most fiercely ambitious person Zen had come across in the whole of his career. E4is conversation was larded with references to country clubs, horses, tennis, sailing and holidays in Brazil. Fabri wanted all that and more. He wanted villas and cars and yachts and clothes and women. Compared to the Oscar Burolos of the world, Fabri was a third-rater, of course. He wasn't interested in the real thing: power, influence, prestige. All he wanted were the trinkets and trappings, the toys and the bangles. But he wanted them so badly. Zen, who no longer wanted any- thing very much except Tania Biacis, didn't know whether to envy or despise Fabri for the childlike voracity of his desires. 'Giorgio!' Fabri called softly, beckor,ing to De Angelis. His expression was one of amused complicity, as though he wanted to share a secret with the only man in the world who could really appreciate it. At the same moment, the phone on Zen's desk began to warble. 'Yes?' 'Is this, ah... that's to say, am I speaking to, ah, Dottor Aurelio Zen?' Fabri, who had ignored Zen's presence until now, was staring at him insistently whilst he murmured something in De Angelis's ear. 'Speaking.' 'Ah, this is, ah... that's to say I'm calling from, ah, Palazzo Sisti.' The voice paused significantly. Zen grunted neutrally. He knew that he had heard of Palazzo Sisti, but he had no idea in what context. 'There's been some, ah... interest in the possibility of seeing whether it might be feasible to arrange...' The rest of the sentence was lost on Zen as Tania Biacis suddenly appeared beside him, saying something which was garbled by the obscure formulations of his caller. Zen covered the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand. 'Sorry?' 'Immediately,' Tania said emphatically, as though she had already said it once too often. She looked tired and drawn and there were dark rings under her eyes. 'Are you all right?' Zen asked her. 'Me? What have I got to do with it?' The phrase was delivered like a slap in the face. From the uncovered earpiece of the phone, the caller's voice squawked on like a radio programme no one is listening to. 'So you'll see to that, will you?' Tania insisted. 'See to what?' 'The video tape! They were extremely unpleasant about it. I said you'd call them back within the hour. I don't see why I should have to deal with it. It's got nothing what- ever to do with me!' She turned angrily away, pushing past De Angelis, who was on his way back to his desk. He looked gJum and preoccupied, his former high spirits quite doused. Fabri had disappeared again. Zen uncovered the phone. 'I'm sor.y. I was inter- rupted.' 'So that's agreed, is it?' the voice said. It was a question in form only. 'Well...' 'I'll expect you in about twenty minutes.' The line went dead. Zen thought briefly about calling Archives, but what was the point? It was obvious what had happened. Fabri had told them that the tape of the Burolo killings was blank and they were urgently trying to contact Zen to find out what had happened to the original. This was no doubt the news that he had been gleefully passing on to De Angelis. But how had Fabri found out so quickly that Zen had been t'he previous borrower? Presumably Archives must have told him. Unless, of course... Unless it had been the video tape, and not a wallet or pocket-book, that had been the thief's target all along. It would have been a simple matter for Fabri to find some pickpocket who would have been only too glad to do a favour for such an influential man. Once the tape was in his hands, Fabri had put in an urgent request for the tape at Archives, ensuring that Zen was officially com- promised. Now he would no doubt sell the original to the highest bidder, thus making himself a small fortune and at the same time creating a scandal which might well lead to criminal charges being brought against his enemy. It was a masterpiece of unscrupulousness against which Zen was absolutely defenceless. As he emerged from the portals of the Ministry and made his way down the steps and through the steel barrier under the eye of the armed sentries, Zen wondered if he was letting his imagination run away with him. In the warm hazy sunlight the whole thing suddenly seemed a bit far-fetched. He lit a cigarette as he waited for the taxi he had ordered. He had decided against using an official car, since the caller had left him in some doubt as to whether or not this was an official visit. In fact, he had left him in doubt about almost everything, including his name. The only thing Zen knew for certain was that the call had come from Palazzo Sisti. The significance of this was still obscure to Zen, but the name was evidently familiar enough to the taxi driver, who switched on his meter without requesting further directions. They drove down the shallow valley between the Vimi- nale and Quirinale hills, leaving behind the broad utilitarian boulevards of the nineteenth-century suburbs, across Piazza Venezia and into the cramped, crooked intestines of the ancient centre. Zen stared blankly out of the window, lost in troubled thoughts. Whatever the truth about the video tape, there was still the other threat hanging over him. The form of the message he had received the night before had been disturbing enough, but its content was even more so. According to Signora Berto- lini, her husband had 'received threats' before his death. 'There were tokens, signs,' she h d said. 'For example an envelope pushed through our letter-box with nothing inside but a lot of tiny little metal balls, like caviare, only hard.' It was no doubt symptomatic of their respective lifestyles that the contents of the envelope had made Zen think of cake decorations and Signora Bertolini of caviare, but there was little doubt that they had been the same. And a few days after receiving his 'message', Judge Giulio Bertolini had been killed by just such little metal balls, fired at high velocity from a shotgun. Zen had no intention of letting his imagination run away with him to the extent of supposing that there was any direct connection between the two events. What he did suspect was that someone, probably Vincenzo Fabri, was trying to put the wind up him, to knock him off balance so that he would be too agitated to think clearly and perceive the real nature of the threat to him. No doubt Fabri's thief had first attempted to enter Zen's flat to steal the video, and, having been foiled by the blocked emergency exit, had picked Zen's pocket in the bus queue the following morning. Then Fabri had seen the newscast in which the judge's widow spoke about the envelope, and with typical opportunism had seen a way to further ensure the success of his scheme, by keeping Zen preoccupied with false alarms on another front. The taxi wound slowly through the back streets just north of the Tiber, finally drawing up in a small piazza. By the standards of its period, Palazzo Sisti was modest in scale, but it made up for this by a wealth of architectural detail. The Sisti clan had clearly known their place in the complex hierarchy of sixteenth-century Roman society, but had wished to demonstrate that despite this their taste and distinction was no whit inferior to that of the Farnese or Barberini families. But neither their taste nor their mod- esty had availed them anything in the long run, and today their creation could well have been just another white elephant that had been divided up into flats and offices, if it had not been for the two armed Carabinieri sitting in their jeep on the other side of the piazza and the large white banner stretched across the faqade of the building, bearing the slogan A FAIRER ALTERNATIVE and the initials of one of the smaller political parties which made up the government's majority in parliament. Zen nodded slowly. Of course, that was where he had heard the name before. 'Palazzo Sisti' was used by news- casters to refer to the party leadership, just as 'Piazza del Gesu' indicated the Christian Democrats. This particular party had been much in the news recently, the reason being that prominent among its leaders was a certain ex- Minister of Public Works who was rumoured to have enjoyed a close and mutually profitable relationship with Oscar Burolo, prior to the latter's untimely demise. The entrance was as dark as a tunnel, wide and high enough to accommodate a carriage and team, lit only by a single dim lantern suspended from the curved ceiling. At the other end it opened into a small courtyard tightly packed with limousines, whose drivers, dressed in neat cheap suits like funeral attendants, were standing around swapping gossip and polishing the chrome. A glass door to the left suddenly opened, and an elderly man no bigger than a large dwarf scuttled out. 'Yes?' he called brusquely to Zen. A young woman carrying a large pile of files followed him out of the lodge. 'Well?' she demanded. 'I don't know!' the porter cried exasperatedly. 'Under- stand? I don't know!' 'It's your job to know.' 'Don't tell me what my job is!' 'Very well, you tell me!' Zen walked over to them. 'Excuse me.' They both turned to glare at him. 'Aurelio Zen, from the Ministry of the Interior.' The porter shrugged. 'What about it?' 'I'm expected.' 'Who by?' 'If I knew that, I wouldn't need to waste my time talking to a prick like you, would I?' The woman burst into hoots of laughter. A phone started to ring shrilly in the lodge. Throwing them both a look of deep disgust, the porter went to answer it. 'Yes? Yes, dottore. Yes, dottore. No, he just got here. Very good, dottore. Right away.' Emerging from his lodge, the porter jerked his thumb at a flight of stairs opposite. 'First floor. They're expecting you.' 'And the Youth Section?' the young woman asked. 'How many times do I have to tell you, I don't know!' The staircase was a genteel cascade of indolently curving marble which made the one at the Ministry look vulgar and cheap. As Zen reached the first-floor landing, a figure he had taken to be a statue detached itself from the niche where it had been standing and walked towards him. The man had an air of having been assembled, like Franken- stein's monster, from a set of parts, each of which might have looked quite all right in another context, but didn't get along at all weli together. He stopped some distance away, his gaze running over Zen's clothing. 'I'm not carrying one,' Zen told him. 'Never do, in fact.' The man looked at him as though he had spoken in a foreign language. 'You see, it's no use carrying a gun unless you're pre- pared to use it,' Zen went on, discursively. 'If you're not, it just makes matters worse. It gives you a false sense of security and makes everyone else nervous. So you're better off without it really.' The man stared at Zen expressionlessly for a moment, then turned his back. 'This way.' He led Zen along a corridor which at first sight appeared to extend further than the length of the building. This illusion was explained when it became clear that the two men walking towards them were in fact their own reflec- tions in the huge mirror that covered the end wall. The corridor was lit at intervals by tall windows giving on to the courtyard. Opposite each window a double door of polished walnut gleamed sweetly in the mellow light. Zen's escort knocked at one of the doors and stood listening intently, holding the wrought silver handle. 'Come!' a distant voice instructed. The room was long and relatively narrow. One wall was covered by an enormous tapestry, so faded that it was impossible to make out anything except the general impression of a hunting scene. Facing this stood a glass- fronted bookcase, where an array of more or less massive tomes lay slumbering in a manner that suggested they had not been disturbed for a considerable time. At the far end of the room, a young man was sitting at an antique desk in front of a window that reached all the way up to the distant ceiling. As Zen came in, he put down the sheaf of typed pages he had been perusing and walked round the desk, his hand held out in greeting. 'Good morning, dottore. So glad that you felt able to see your way clear to, ah...' He was in his early thirties, slim and refined, with thin straight lips, delicate features, and eyes that goggled slightly, as though they were perpetually astonished by what they saw. His fastidious gestures and diffident man- ner gave him the air of a fin de siecle aesthete, rather than a political animal. He waved Zen towards a chair made of thin struts of some precious wood, with a woven cane seat. It looked extremely valuable and horribly fragile. Zen lowered him- self on to it apprehensively. The young man returned to the other side of the desk, where he remained standing for a moment with hands outspread, like a priest at the altar. 'First of all, dottore, let me express, on behalf of... the interest and, ah... that's to say, the really quite extra- ordinary excitement aroused by your, ah...' He picked up the pages he had been reading and let them fall back to the desk again, as a knock resounded in the cavernous space behind. 'Come!' the young man enunciated. A waiter appeared carrying a tray with two coffee cups. 'Ah, yes. I took the liberty of, ah...' He waggled his forefinger at the two cups. 'And which one is...? 'With the red rim,' the waiter told him. The young man sighed expressively as the door closed again. 'Unfortunately caffeine, for certain people...' Zen took his cup of undecaffeinated espresso and unwrapped the two lumps of sugar supplied by the bar, studying the 'Interesting Facts about the World of Nature' printed on the wrapper, while he waited for his host to proceed. 'As you are no doubt aware, dottore, this has been a sad and difficult time for us. Naturally, we already knew what your report makes abundantly clear, namely that the evi- dence against Renato Favelloni is both flimsy and entirely circumstantial. There is not the slightest question that his innocence would eventually be established by due process of law.' Zen noted the conditional as the coffee seared its way down his throat. 'But by then, alas, the damage will have been done!' the young man continued. His seemingly compulsive hesi- tations and rephrasings had now been set aside like a disguise that has served its purpose. 'If mud is thrown as viciously as it has been and will be, some of it is bound to stick. Not just to Favelloni himself, but to all those who were in any way associated with him, or who had occasion to, ah, call on his services at some time. This is the prob- lem we face, dottore. I trust you will not judge me indis- creet if I add that it is one we were beginning to despair of solving. Imagine, then, the emotions elicited by your report! So much hope! So many interesting new perspec- tives! "Light at the end of the tunnel", as 1'onorevole saw fit to put it.' Zen set his empty cup back in its saucer on the leather surface of the desk. 'My report was merely a resume of the investigations carried out by others.' 'Exactly! That was precisely its strength. If you had been one of our, ah, contacts at the Ministry, your findings would have excited considerably less interest. To be per- fectly frank, we have been let down before by people who promised us this, that and the other, and then couldn't deliver. Why, only a few days ago we asked our man there to obtain a copy of the video tape showing the tragic events at the Villa Burolo. A simple enough request, you would think, but even that proved beyond the powers of the individual in question. Nor was this the first time that he had disappointed us. So we felt it was time to bring in someone fresh, with the proper qualifications. Someone with a track record in this sort of work. And I must say that, so far, we have had no reason to regret our decision. Of course, the real test is still to come, but already we have been very favourably impressed by the way in which your report both exposed the inherent weaknesses of the case against Favelloni, and revealed the existence of various equally possible scenarios which, for purely political reasons, have never been properly investigated.' The young man stood quite still for a moment, his slen- der fingers steepled as though in prayer. 'The task we now face is to ensure that we do not suffer as much damage from this innocent man being brought to trial and acquitted as we would do if he were really guilty. In a word, this show trial of Renato Favelloni, and by implication of l'onorevole himself, engineered by our enemies, must be blocked before it starts. Your report makes it perfectly clear that the evidence against Favelloni has been cobbled together from a mass of disjointed and unrelated fragments. Those same fragments, with a little initiative and enterprise, could be used to make an even more convincing case against one of the other suspects you mention.' Perched precariously on the low, fragile chair, Zen felt like a spectator in the front row of the stalls trying to make out what was happening on stage. The young man's expression seemed to suggest that the next move was up to Zen, but he was unwilling to make it until he had a clearer idea of what was involved. 'Do you mind if I smoke?' he asked finally. The young man impatiently waved assent. 'Which of the other suspects did you have in mind?' Zen murmured casually as he lit up. 'Well, it seems to us that there are a number of avenues which might be explored with profit.' 'For example?' 'Well, Burolo's son, for example.' 'But he was in Boston at the time.' 'He could have hired someone.' 'He wouldn't have known how. Anyway, sons don't go around putting out contracts on their fathers because they want them to study law instead of music.' The young man acknowledged the point with a pro- longed blink. 'I agree that such a hypothesis would have needed a good deal of work before it became credible, but the possi- bility remains open. In fact, however, Enzo Burolo has close links with one of our allies in the government, so it would in any case have been inopportune to pursue the matter. I cited it merely as one example among many. Another, which appears to us considerably more fruitful, is the fellow Burolo employed to look after those absurd lions he bought.' Zen breathed out a cloud of smoke. 'Pizzoni? He had an alibi too.' 'Yes, he had an alibi. And what does that mean? That half-a-dozen of the local peasantry have been bribed or bullied to lie about seeing him in the bar that evening.' 'Why should anyone want to protect Pizzoni? He was a nobody, an outsider.' The young man leaned forward across the desk. 'Supposing that wasn't the case? Supposing I were to tell you that the man's real name was not Pizzoni but Padedda, and that he was not from the Abruzzi, as his papers claim, but from Sardinia, from a village in the Gennargentu mountains not far from Nuoro. What would you say to that?' Zen flicked ash into a pewter bowl that might or might not have been intended for this purpose. 'Well, in the first instance I'd want to know why you haven't informed the authorities investigating the case.' The young man turned away to face the window. The tall panes of glass were covered with a thick patina c)f grime which reflected his features clearly. Zen saw him smile, as though at the fatuity of this comment. 'When one's opponent is cheating, only a fool continues to play by the rules,' he recited quietly, as though quoting. 'This piece of information came to light as a result of research carried out privately on our behalf. We know only too well what would happen if we communicated it to the judiciary. The magistrates have decided to charge Favel- loni for reasons which had nothing to do with the facts of the case. They aren't going to review that decision unless some dramatic new development forces them to do so. Isolated, inconvenient facts, which do not directly bear on the case they are preparipg, would simply be swept under the carpet.' He swung round to confront Zen. 'Rather than squander our advantage in this way, we propose to launch our own initiative, reopening the investigation that was so hastily slammed shut for ill- judged political reasons. And who better to conduct this operation than the man whose incisive and comprehen- sive review of the case has given us all fresh hope?' Zen crushed out his cigarette carelessly, burning his fingertip on the hot ash. 'In my official capacity?' 'Absolutely, dottore! That's the whole point. Every- thing must be open and above board.' 'In that case, I would need a directive from my department.' 'You'll get one, don't worry about that! Your orders will be communicated to you in the usual way, through the usual channels. The purpose of this briefing is simply and purely to ensure that you understand the situation. From the moment you leave here today you will have no further contact with us. You'll be posted to Sardinia as a matter of absolute routine. You will visit the scene of the crime, interview witnesses, interrogate suspects. As always, you will naturally have at your dis- posal the full facilities of the local force. In the course of your investigations you will discover concrete evidence demolishing Pizzoni's alibi, and linking him to the mur- der of Oscar Burolo. All this will take no more than a few days at the most. You will then submit your find- ings to the judiciary in the normal way, while we for our part ensure that their implications are not lost on anyone concerned.' Zen stared across the room at a detail in the corner of the tapestry, showing a nymph taking refuge from the hunters in a grotto. 'Why me?' The young man's finely manicured hands spread open in a gesture of benediction. 'As I said, dottore, you have a good track record. Once your accomplishments in the Miletti case had been brought to our attention, well, quite frankly, the facts spoke for themselves.' Zen gaped at him. 'The Miletti case?' 'I'm sure you will recall that your methods attracted, ah, a certain amount of criticism at the time,' the young man remarked with a touch of indulgent jocularity. 'I believe that in certain quarters they were even condemned as irregular and improper. What no one could deny was that you got results! The conspiracy against the Miletti family was smashed at a single stroke by your arrest of that foreign woman. Their enemies were completely discon- certed, and by the time they re-formed to cope with this unexpected development, the critical moment had passed and it was too late.' He came round the desk, towering above Zen. 'The parallel with the present case is obvious. Here, too, timing is of the essence. As I say, the truth would in any case emerge in due course, but not before l'onorevole's reputation had been foully smeared. We have no intention of allowing that to happen, which is why we are entrus- ting you with this delicate and critical mission. In short, we're counting on you to apply in Sardinia the same methods which proved so effective in Perugia.' Zen said nothing. After a few moments a slight crease appeared on the young man's brow. 'I need hardly add that a successful outcome to this affair is also in your own best interests. I'm sure you're only too well aware of how swiftly one's position in a organization such as the Ministry can change, often with- out one even being aware of it. Your triumph in the Miletti case might easily be undermined by those who take, ah, a narrow-minded view of things. The size of the Criminalpol squad is constantly under review, and given the attrition rate amongst senior police officials in places such as Palermo, the possibility of transfers cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, success in the Burolo case would consolidate your position beyond question.' He reached behind him and depressed a lever on the intercom. 'Lino? Dottor Zen is just leaving.' Once again, Zen felt the pale, cool touch of the young man's hand. 'It really was most good of you to come, dottore. I trust that your work has not been ... that's to say, that no serious disruption will make itself felt in...' The appearance of the stocky Lino rescued them both from these incoherent politenesses. Like a man in a dream, Zen walked back through the dim vastness of the room to the walnut door, which Lino closed behind them as softly as the lid of an expensive coffin. 'This way.' 'That's very good,' Zen remarked as they set off along the corridor. 'Have they trained you to say anything else?' Lino turned round looking tough. 'You want your teeth kicked in?' 'That depends on whether you want to be turned into low-grade dog food. Because that's what's liable to happen to anyone round here who fails to treat me with the proper respect.' 'Bullshit! ' 'On the contrary, chum. All I have to do is mention that I don't like your face and by tomorrow you won't have a face.' Lino sneered. 'You're crazy,' he said, without total conviction. 'That's not what I'onorevole thinks. Now beat it. I'll find my own way out.' For a moment Lino tried bravely to stare Zen out, but doubt had leaked into his eyes and he had to give up the attempt. 'Crazy!' he repeated, turning away with a contemptuous sniff. Zen left the portal of Palazzo Sisti with a confident, unfaltering stride, a man with places to go to and people to see. The moment he was out of sight around the nearest corner, his manner changed beyond all recognition. He might now have been taken for a member of one of the geriatric tourist groups that descend on Rome once the high season is over. Far from having an urgent goal in mind, he turned right and left at random, obeying im- pulses of which he wasn't even aware and which in any case were of no importance. All that mattered was to let the tension seep slowly out of his body, draining out through the soles of his feet as they traversed the grimy undulating cobbles, scattering pigeons and sending the feral cats scuttling for cover under parked cars. In due course he emerged into an open space which he recognized with pleasure as the Piazza Campo dei Fiori, almost Venetian in its intimacy and hence one of Zen's favourite spots in Rome. The morning vegetable market created a gentle bustle of activity that was supremely restful. He made his way across the cobbles strewn with discarded leaves and stalks, past zinc bathtubs and buckets full of ashes from the wooden boxes burned earlier against the morning chill. Now the sun was high enough to flood most of the piazza with its light. The stall-holders were still hard at work, washing and trimming salad greens under the communal tap. Elderly women in heavy dark overcoats with fur collars walked from stall to stall, looking doubtfully at the produce. Zen walked over to a wine shop he knew, where he ordered a glass of vino novello. He leaned against the door- post, smoking a cigarette and sipping the frothy young wine, which had still been in the grapes when Oscar Burolo and his guests were murdered. A gang of labourers working on a house nearby were shouting from one level of scaffolding to another in a dialect so dense that Zen could understand nothing except that God and the Virgin Mary were coming in for the usual steady stream of abuse. A neat, compact group of Japanese tourists passed by, accompanied by two burly Italian bodyguards. The female guide, clutching a furled pink umbrella, was giving a run- ning commentary in which Zen was surprised to make out the name 'Giordano Bruno', like a fish sighted under water. She pointed with her umbrella to the centre of the square, where the statue of the philosopher stood on a plinth, its base covered with the usual incomprehensible graffiti. Nearby an old woman bent double like a wooden doll hinged at the hips was feeding last night's spaghetti to a gang of mangy cats. Zen thought nostalgically of the cats of his native city, carved or living, monumental or obscure, the countless avatars of the Lion of the Republic itself. In Venice, cats were the familiars of the city, as much a part of it as the stones and the water, but the cats of Rome were just vermin to be periodically exterminated. It somehow seemed typical of the gulf which separated the two cities. For while Zen liked Campo dei Fiori, he could never forget that the statue at its centre commemorated a philosopher who was burnt alive on that spot at about the same time that the gracious and exquisite Palazzo Sisti was taking shape a few hundred metres away. As he took his empty glass back inside, Zen found himself drawn to the scene at the bar. One of the labourers, wearing dusty blue overalls and a hat made from newspaper like an inverted toy boat, was knocking back a glass of the local white wine. Further along, two businessmen stood talking in low voices. On the bar before them were their empty glasses, a saucer filled with nuts and cocktail biscuits, two folded newspapers and a removable in-car cassette player. Zen turned away. That was what had attracted his atten- tion. But why? Nothing was more normal. No one left a cassette deck in their car any more, unless they wanted to have the windows smashed in and the unit stolen. It wasn't until Zen stepped into the band of shadow cast by the houses on the other side of the piazza that the point of the incident suddenly became clear to him. He had seen a cassette player in a parked car recently, in a brand-new luxury car parked in a secluded street late at night. Such negligence, coupled with the scratches and dents in the bodywork and the use of the floor as an ashtray, suggested a possibility that really should have occurred to him long before. Still, better late than never, he thought. Or .were there cases where that reassuring formula didn't hold, where late was just too late, and there were no second chances? Back at the Ministry, Zen phoned the Questura and asked whether Professor Lusetti's red Alfa Romeo appeared on their list of stolen vehicles. Thanks to the recent computerization of this department, he had his answer within seconds. The car in question had been reported stolen ten days earlier. He put the receiver down, then lifted it again and dialled another number. After some time the ringing tone was replaced by a robotic voice. 'Thank you for calling Paragon Security Consultants. The office is closed for lunch until three o'clock. If you wish to leave a message, please speak now.' 'It's Aurelio, Gilberto. I was hoping to...' 'Aurelio! How are things?' Zen stared at the receiver as thought it had stung him. 'But... I thought that was a recorded message.' 'That's what I wanted you to think. At least, not you, but any of the five thousand people I don't want to speak to at this moment.' 'Why don't you get a real answering machine?' 'I have, but I can't use it just at the moment. One of my competitors has found a way to fake the electronic tone I can send down the line to have it play back the recorded messages to a distant phone. The result is that he downloaded a hundred million lire's worth of business, as well as making me look an idiot. Anyway, what can I do for you?' 'Well, I was hoping we could have a talk. I don't sup- pose you're free for lunch?' 'Today? Actually that's a bit... well, I don't know. Come to think of it, that might work quite well. Yes! Listen, I'll see you at Licio's. Do you know where it is?' 'I'll find it.' Zen pressed the rest down to get a dialling tone, then rang his home and asked Maria Grazia if everything was all right. 'Everything's fine now,' she assured him. 'But this morning! Madonr.a, I was terrified!' Zen tightened his grip on the receiver. 'What happened?' 'It was frightful, awful! The signora didn't notice any- thing, thanks be to God, but I was looking straight at the window when it happened!' 'When what happened?' 'Why, this man suddenly appeared!' 'Where?' 'At the window.' Zen took a deep breath. 'All right, now listen. I want you to describe him to me as carefully as you can. All right?.What did he look like?' Maria Grazia made a reflective noise. 'Well, let's see. He was young. Dark, quite tall. Handsome! Twenty years ago, maybe, I'd have...' 'What did he do?' 'Do? Nothing! He just disappeared. I went over and had a look. Sure enough, there he was, in one of those cages. He was trying to mend it but he couldn't. In the end they had to take it off the wall and put up a new one.' 'A new what, for the love of Christ?' Stunned by this blasphemy, the housekeeper mur- mured, 'Why, the streetlamp! The one that was forever turning itself on and off. But when I saw him floating there in mid-air I got such a shock! I didn't know what to think! It looked like an apparition, only I don't know if you can have apparitions of men. It always seems to be women, doesn't it? One of my cousins claimed she saw Santa Rita once, but it turned out she made it all up. She'd got the idea from an article in Gente about these little girls who...' Zen repeated his earlier instructions about keeping the front door bolted and not leaving his mother alone, and hung up. On his way downstairs, he met Giorgio De Angelis coming up. The Calabrian looked morose. 'Anything the matter?' Zen asked him. De Angelis glanced quickly up and down the stairs, then gripped Zen's arm impulsively. 'If you're into anything you shouldn't be, get out fast!' He let go of Zen's arm and continued on his way. 'What do you mean?' Zen called after him. De Angelis just kept on walking. Zen hurried up the steps after him. 'Why did you say that?' he demanded breathlessly. The Calabrian paused, allowing him to catch him up. 'What's going on?' Zen demanded. De Angelis shook his head slowly. 'I don't know, Aurelio. I don't want to know. But whatever it is, stop doing it, or don't start.' 'What are you talking about?' De Angelis looked again up and down the stairs. 'Fabri came to see me this morning. He advised me to keep away from you. When I asked why, he said that you were being measured for the drop.' The two men looked at one another in silence. 'Thank you,' Zen murmured almost inaudibly. De Angelis nodded fractionally. Then he continued up the steps while Zen turned to begin the long walk down. I never used to dream. Like saying, I never used to go mad. The others do it every night, jerking and tossing, sweating like pigs, groaning and crying out. 'I had a ter~ible dream last night! I dreamt I'd killed someone and they were coming to arrest me, they'd guessed where I was hiding! It was horrible, so real!' You'd think that might teach them something about this world of theirs that also seems 'so real'! Then one night it happened to me. In the dream I was like the others, living in the light, fearing the dark. I had done something wrong, I never knew whaf, killed someone perhaps. As a punish- ment, they locked me up in the darkness. Not my darkness, gentle and consoling, but a cold dank airless pit, a narrow tube of stone like a dry well. The executioner was my father. He rammed me down, arms bound to rny sides, and capped the tomb with huge blocks of masonry. I lay tightly wedged, the stones pressing in on me from every side. In front of my eyes was a chink through which I could just see the outside world where people passed by about their business, unaware of my terrible plight. Air seeped in through the hole, but not enough, not enough air! I was slowly suffocating, smothered beneath that intolerable dead weight of rock. I screamed and screamed, but no sound penetrated to the people outside. They passed by, smiling and nodding and hat- ting to each other, just as though nothing was happening! It was only a dream, of course.