Sunday, 07.00 -- 11.20 Perhaps if the kidnap attempt had not occurred when he had been driving back from it, Oscar Burolo might have shown his appreciation to the local church by donating a set of real bells. It was the kind of showy gesture he was fond of, stage-managed to look like an impulsive act ~>t generosity, although in fact he would have costed the whole thing down to the last lira and got a massive dis- count from the foundry in return for some building work using materials recycled from another contract. Neverthe- less, the village church would have got its bells. As it was, it had to make do with a gramophone record of a carillon played through loudspeakers, and it was this that woke Aurelio Zen shortly before dawn the following morning. The gramophone record was very old, with a loud scratch which Zen's befuddled brain translated as high-velociti shots being fired at him by a marksman perched in thv bell-tower. Luckily, by the time they reached his room the bullets had slowed down considerably, and in the ena they just hovered in the air about his face, darting this wax- and that like dragonflies, a harmless nuisance. As the recorded bells finally fell silent, Zen opened his eyes on a jumble of colours and blurred shapes, impossible to sort by size or distance. He waited patiently for things to start making sense, but when minutes went by and hi~ surroundings still refused to snap into focus, he began tc worry that he had done some permanent injury to his brain. pe hauled himself upright in bed, slumping back against the wooden headboard. Things improved Somewhat True, he Still had a Sp]it- ting headache and felt like he might throw up at any moment, hut to his relief the objects in the room began -- a little reluctantly, it seemed -- to assume the shapes and relationships he vaguely remembered from the previous cfay. There was the large plywood wardrobe with the cfoor that wouldn't close properly and the wire coat- pangers hanging like bats from a branch. There was the small table with its cumbersome ceramic lamp, and the three cheap ugly wooden chairs squatting like refugees awaiting bad news. From a ceiling the colour of spoiled milk a long rusty chain supported a dim light, whose irregular thick glass bowl must have looked very futur- istic in about 1963. There was the washbasin, the rack for glasses below the mirror and the dud bulb above, the metal rubbish bin with its plastic liner, the barred window lying open into the room. He must have forgotten to close it when he went to bed. That was why the air seemed stiff with cold, and why the sound of the bells had wakened him. He didn't feel cold in bed, though, probably because he was still fully dressed apart from his shoes and jacket. He laboriously transferred his gaze to the floor, a chilly expanse of speckled black and white aggregate polished to a hard shine. There they were, the two shoes on their sides and the discarded jacket on its back above them, like the outline drawing of a murder victim. He lay back, exhausted by this effort, trying to piece together the events of the previous evening. Quite apart from resulting in the worst hangover he had ever experi- enced, he knew that what had happened hadn't been good news. But what had happened? He remembered arriving back at the hotel. The bar was empty except for the old man called Tommaso and a younger man playing the pinball machine in the corner. The proprietor called Zen over and handed him his identity card and a bill. 'The hotel's closing for repairs.' 'You didn't tell me when I checked in.' 'I'm telling you now.' The pinball player had turned to watch them, and Zen recognized him. He even knew his name -- Patrizio -- although he had no recollection of how or where they had met. What had he been doing all evening? Abandoning this intractable problem, Zen swung his feet down on to the icy fioor and stood up. This was a mistake. Previously he had had to deal with the electrical storm in his head, a stomach badly corroded by the toxic waste swilling around inside it, limbs that twitched, joints that ached and a mouth that seemed to have been replaced by a plaster replica. The only good news, in fact, had been that the room wasn't spinning round and round like a fairground ride. That was why it had been a mistake standing up. Washing, shaving, dressing and packing were so man ~. stations of the cross for Aurelio Zen that morning. But it wasn't until he lit a cigarette in the mistaken belief that it might make him feel better, and found tucked inside thc packet of Marlboros a book of matches whose cover reaa 'Pizzeria II Nuraghe', that the merciful fog obscuring the events of the previous evening suddenly lifted. He collapsed on one of the rickety wooden chairs, its feet scraping atrociously on the polished floor slabs. Ze n didn't notice. He wasn't in his hotel room any longer. He was sitting at the table in the pizzeria, drunker than he had ever been in his life; horribly, monstrously, terminally drunk. Five men, three seated and two standing, were staring at him with expressions of pure, malignant hos- tility. The situation was totally out of control. Nothing he could say or do would have any effect whatsoever. For a moment he thought that they might be going to assault him, but in the end Furio Padedda and his friend Patrizio had just turned away and walked out. Then the man called Turiddu threw some banknotes on the table and he and his companions left too, without a word. putside, the air was thick with scents brought out by the rain: creosote, wild thyme, wood smoke, urine, motor oil. yo judge by the stillness of the street, it might have been tpe small hours. Then a motorcycle engine opened up the night like a crude tin-opener, all jagged, torn edges, The pike emerged from the shadows of an alley and moved slowly and menacingly towards Zen. By the volatile ~oonlight, he recognized the rider as Furio Padedda. The Sardinian bestrode the machine like a horse, urging it on with tightenings of his knees. From a strap around his shoulders hung a double-barrelled shotgun. Then a figure appeared in the street some distance ahead cf Zen. One ahead and one behind, the classic ambush. The correct procedure was to go on the offensive, take out one oi the other before they could complete the squeeze. But if Zen had been following correct procedures he would never have been there in the first place without any back-up. Even in his prime, twenty years ago, he couldn't have handled either man, never mind both of them. As Zen approached the blocker, he saw that it was Turiddu. With drunken fatalism, he kept walking. Ten metres. Five. Two. One. He braced himself for the arm across the throat, the foot to the groin. Then he was past and nothing had happened. He sensed rather than saw Turiddu fall in behind him, his footsteps blending with the raucous murmur of Padedda's motorcycle. Zen forced himself not to hurry or look round. He walked on past rows of darkened windows, closed shutters and locked doors, followed by the two men, until at last he reached the piazza and the hotel. Now, mulling it over in his room, his thoughts crawling through the wreckage of his brain like the stunned sur- vivors of an earthquake, Zen realized that he owed his escape to the enmity between the two Sardinians. Each had no doubt intended to punish the impostor, but neithe was prepared to allow the other that honour, and co- operation was out of the question. Back at the hotel, the proprietor, alerted by Padedda's associate Patrizio, had delivered his ultimatum. There was no other accom- modation in the village, and in any case there was no point in Zen remaining, now that Reto Gurtner had been exposed as a fraud. Whatever he said or did, everyone would assume that he was a policeman, a government spy. The farce was over. He would drive to Cagliari that morning and book a ticket on the night ferry to the main- land. When he returned to the village, it would be in his official capacity. At least that way he could compel respect. His inability to do so at present was amply demon- strated by the length of time it took him to get breakfast in the bar downstairs. At least half-a-dozen of the locals had drifted in and out again, replete with cappuccinos and pastries, before Zen was finally served a lukewarm cup of coffee that tasted as though it had been made from second hand grounds and watered milk. 'Goodbye for now,' he told the proprietor as he stalked out. The remark elicited a sharp glance that expressed anxious defiance as well as hostility. It gladdened Zen for a moment, until he reflected that his implied threat was the first step on the path which had led to the Gestapo tactics of the past. The weather had changed. The sky was overcast, grey and featureless, the air still and humid. Zen's hangover felt like an octopus clinging to every cell of his being. Although weakening, the monster had plenty of life in it yet. Every movement involved an exhausting struggl against its tenacious resistance. He found himself looking, forward to sinking luxuriously into the Mercedes' leather upholstery and driving away from this damned village, listening to the radio broadcasts from Rome, that lovely, civilized city where Tania was even now rising from her bed, sipping her morning coffee, even thinking of him perpaps. He could allow himself to dream. Given all he'd been through, he'd surely earned the right to a little harm- less self-indulgence. Half-way across the piazza, beside the village war memorial, Zen had to stop, put his suitcase down and catch his breath. The dead of the 1915 -1918 war covered two sides of the rectangular slab, the same surname often repeated six or eight times, like a litany. The Sardinians pad formed the core of the Italian army's mountain divi- sions and half the young men of the village must have died at Isonzo and on the Piave. The later conflicts had taken a lesser toll. Thirty had died in 1940 -1945, four in Spain and five in Abyssinia. As Zen picked up the leaden suitcase again, he noticed a tall thin man in a beige overcoat staring at him curiously. His deception would be common knowledge by now, he realized, and his every action a cause for suspicion. He dumped the suitcase in the boot of the Mercedes, got inside and turned the ignition on. Nothing happened. It was a measure of his befuddlement that it took him several minutes to realize that nothing was going to happen, no matter how many times he twisted the key. At first he thought he might have drained the battery by leaving the lights on, but when he tried the windscreen wipers they worked normally. He had invented problems with the Mercedes as a way of breaking the ice with Turiddu and his friends the night before, and the wretched car was apparently now taking its revenge by playing up just when he needed it most. Then he noticed the envelope tucked under one of the wiper blades, like a parking ticket. Zen got out of the car and plucked it free. The envelope was blank. Inside was a single sheet of paper. FURIO PADKDDA IS A LIAR,' he read. HE WAS NOT IN THE BAR THE NIGHT THE FOREIGNERS WERE KILLED BUT THE MELEGA CLAN OF ORGOSOLO KNOW WHERE HE WAS. The message had been printed by a hand seemingly used to wielding larger and heavier implements than a pen. The letters were uneven and dissimilar, laboriously crafted, starting big and bold but crowded together at the right-hand margin as though panicked by the prospect of falling off the edge of the page. Despite his predicament, Zen couldn't help smiling. So the humiliating disaster of the previous night had worked to his advantage, after all. Turiddu had seen an opportu- nity to even the score with his rival, no doubt easing his conscience with the reflection that Zen had not yet been officially identified as a policeman. If the information was true, it might be just what Zen needed to fabricate a case against Padedda and so keep Palazzo Sisti off his back. Unfortunately Turiddu's hatred for the 'foreigner' from the mountains, whatever its cause, did not make him a very reliable informant. Nevertheless, there was some- thing about the note which made Zen feel that it wasn't pure fiction, although in his present condition he couldn't work out what it was. He stuffed the letter into his pocket, wondering what to do next. For no reason at all, he decided to ring Tania. The phone was of the new variety that accepted coins as well as tokens. Zen fed in his entire supply of change and dialled the distant number. Never had modern technology seemed more miraculous to him than it did then, stranded in a hostile, poverty-stricken Sardinian village listening to a telephone ringing in Tania's flat, a universe away in Rome. 'Yes?' It was a man's voice, abrupt and bad-tempered. 'Signora Biacis, please.' 'Who's speaking?' 'I'm calling from the Ministry of the Interior.' 'For Christ's sake! Don't you know this is Sunday?' 'Certainly I know!' he replied impatiently. The coins were dropping through the machine with alarming fre- quency. 'Do you think I like having to work today either?' What do you want with my wife?' 'I am afraid that's confidential. Just let me speak to her, please.' 'Oh no, certainly not! And don't bother ringing any more, signore, because she isn't in! She won't be in! Nog ever, not for you! Understand? Don't think I don't know wpat's going on behind my back! You think I'm a fool, gon't you? A simpleton! Well, you're wrong about that! I'll peach you to play games with a Bevilacqua! Understand? I know what you've been doing, and I'll make you pay for it! Adulterer! Fornicator!' At this point Zen's money ran out, sparing him the rest of Mauro Bevilacqua's tirade. He walked despondently pack to the Mercedes. By now the octopus had slackened its grip somewhat, but it still took Zen five minutes tp work out how to open the bonnet. Once he had done so, however, he realized at once why the car would not start. This was no credit to his mechanical knowledge, which was non-existent. But even he could see that the spray of wires sticking out of the centre of the motor, each cut cleanly through, meant that some essential component had been deliberately removed. He closed the bonnet and looked around the piazza. The phone box was now occupied by the man in the beige overcoat. With a deep sigh, Zen reluctantly returned to the hotel. Why on earth should anyone want to prevent him from leaving? Did Padedda need time to cover his tracks? Or was this sabotage Turiddu's way of reconciling his anonymous letter with the burdensome demands of omerta? The proprietor greeted Zen's reappearance with a per- fectly blank face, as though he had never seen him before. 'My car's broken down,' Zen told him. 'Is there a taxi service, a car hire, anything like that?' 'There's a bus.' 'What time does it leave?' 'Six o'clock.' 'In the evening?' 'In the morning.' Zen gritted his teeth. Then he remembered the railway down in the valley. It was a long walk, but by now he was prepared to consider anything to get out of this cursed place. 'And the train doesn't run on Sunday,' the proprietor added, as though reading his thoughts. A phone started ringing in the next room. The pro- prietor went to answer it. Zen sat down at one of the tables and lit a cigarette. He felt close to despair. Just as he had received information that might well make his mission a success, every door had suddenly slammed shut in his face. At this rate, he would have to phone the Carabinieri at Lanusei and ask them nicely to come and pick him up. It was the last thing he wanted to do. To avoid compromising his undercover operation, he hacf left behind all his official identification, so involving the rival force would involve lengthy explanations and verifi- cations, in the course of which his highly questionab]e business here would inevitably be revealed, probabli stymieing his chances of bringing the affair to a satisfac- tory conclusion. But there appeared to be no alternative, unless he wanted to spend the night in the street or:; cave, like the beggar woman. He looked up as the thin man in the beige overcoat walked in. Instead of going up to the bar, he headed for the table where Zen was sitting. 'Good morning, dottore.' Zen stared at him. 'You don't recognize me?' the man asked. He seemed disappointed. Zen inspected him more carefully. He was about forty years old, with the soft, pallid look of those who work indoors. At first sight he had seemed tall, but Zen now realized that this was due to the man's extreme thinness, and to the fact that Zen had by now adjusted to the Sardinian norm. As far as he knew, he had never seen him before in his life. 'Why should I?' he retorted crossly. The man drew up a chair and sat down. 'Why indeed? It's like at school, isn't it? The pupils all remember their teacher, even years later, but you can't expect the teacher to recall all the thousands of kids who pave passed through their hands at one time or other. But I still recognize you, dottore. I knew you right away. You haven't aged very much. Or perhaps you were already old, even then.' He took out a packet of the domestic toscani cigars and broke one in half, replacing one end in the packet and putting the other between his lips. 'Have you got a light?' Zen automatically handed over his lighter. He felt as though all this was happening to someone else, someone who perhaps understood what was going on. Certainly he didn't. The man lit the cigar with great care, rotating it constantly, never letting the flame touch the tobacco. When it was glowing satisfactorily, he slipped the lighter into his pocket. 'But that's mine!' Zen protested, like a child whose toy has been taken away. 'You won't be needing it any more. I'll keep it as a souvenir.' He stood up and took his coat off, draping it over a chair, then walked over to the bar and rapped on the chrome surface with his knuckles. 'Eh, service!' The proprietor emerged from the back room, scowling furiously. 'Give me a glass of beer. Something decent, not any of your local crap.' Shorn of his coat, the man's extreme thinness was even more apparent. It gave him a disturbing two-dimensional appearance, as though when he turned sideways he might disappear altogether. The proprietor banged a bottle and a glass down on the counter. '3,ooo lire.' The thin man threw a banknote down negligently. 'There's five. Have a drink on me. Maybe it'll cheer you up.' He carried the bottle and glass back to the table ang proceeded to pour the beer as carefully as he had lit the cigar, tilting the glass and the bottle towards each other so that only a slight head formed. 'Miserable fuckers, these Sardinians,' he commented to Zen. 'Forgive me if I don't shake hands. Someone once told me that it's bad luck, and I certainly don't need any more of that. Strange, though, you not remembering my face. Maybe the name means something. Vasco Spadola.' Time passed, a lot perhaps, or a little. The thin man sat and smoked and sipped his beer until Zen finally found his voice. 'How did you know where I was?' It was a stupid question. But perhaps all questions were stupid at this point. Spadola picked up his overcoat, patted the pockets and pulled out the previous day's edition of La Nazione, which he tossed on the table. 'I read about it in the paper.' Zen turned the newspaper round. Half-way down the page was a photograph of himself he barely recognized. It must have been taken years ago, dug out of the news- paper's morgue. He thought he looked callow and cock- sure, ridiculously self-important. Beneath the photograph was an article headed NEW EVIDENCE IN BUROLO AFFAIR?' Zen skimmed the text. 'According to sources close to the family of Renato Favelloni, accused of plotting the murders at the Villa Burolo, dramatic new evidence has recently come to light in this case resulting in the re-opening of a line of esggation previously regarded as closed. A senior of the Ministry's elite Criminalpol squad, Vice- Questore Aurelio Zen, is being sent to Sardinia to assess ang coordinate developments at the scene. Further announcements are expected shortly.' Zen put the paper down. Of course. He should have guessed that Palazzo Sisti would take care to publicize his imminent trip to the area in order to ensure that the 'dramatic new evidence' he fabricated got proper attention from the judiciary. 'Shame I missed you in Rome,' Spadola told him. 'Giuliano spent over a week setting the whole thing up, watching your apartment, picking the locks, leaving those little messages to soften you up. By that Friday we were all set to go. I didn't know you'd sussed the car, though. Giuliano was always a bit careless about things like that. Same with that tape he took instead of your wallet. It comes of being an eldest son, I reckon, mamma's favourite. You think you can get away with anything.' He paused to draw on his cigar. 'When the cops rolled up I had to beat it out the back way. I was lucky to get away, carrying the gun and all. I had to dump it in a rubbish skip and come back for it later. All that effort gone to waste, and what was worse, they'd got Giuliano. I knew he wouldn't have the balls to hold out once they got to work on him. I reckoned I'd have to lie low for months, waiting for you to get fed up being shepherded about by a minder or holed up in some safe-house. I certainly didn't expect to be sitting chatting to you in a cafe two days later!' He broke out in gleeful laughter. 'Even when I read the report in the paper, I never expected it to be this easy! I thought you would be staying in some barracks somewhere, guarded day and night, escor- ted around in bulletproof limousines. Still, I had to come. You never know your luck, I thought. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anything like this!' The door of the bar swung open to admit Tommaso and another elderly man. They greeted the proprietor loudly and shot nervous glances at Zen and Spadola. Zen ground out his cigarette. 'All right, so you've found me. What now?' Spadola released a breath of cigar smoke into the air above Zen's head. 'What now? Why, I'm going to kill you, of course!' He took a gulp of beer. 'That's why I didn't want to shake hands. One of the people I met in prison used to be a soldier for the Parioio family in Naples. You worked there once, didn't you? Gianni Ferrazzi. Does the name ring a bell? It might have been after your time. Anyway, this lad had twenty or thirty hits to his credit, he couldn't remember himself exactly how many, and everything went fine until he shook hands with the victim before doing the job. He hadn't meant to, he knew it was bad luck, but they were introduced, the man stuck out his paw, what was he supposed to do? It would have looked suspicious if he'd refused. He still went ahead and made the hit, though, even though he knew he'd go down for it. That's what I call real professionalism. 'To be honest, I thought that it would be a bit like that with you. Impersonal, I mean, anonymous, like a paid hit. That's the way it was with Bertolini, unfortunately. I just hadn't thought the thing through, that first time. The bastard never even knew why he died. I had enough to cope with, what with his driver pulling a gun and his wife screaming her head off from the house. I realized after- wards that I wanted a lot more than that, otherwise I might just as well hire it out and save myself the trouble. I mean the victim's got to understand, he's got to know who you are and why you're doing it, otherwise what kind of revenge is it? 'So I swore that you and Parrucci would be different. I certainly got my money's worth out of him, but you were ~ore difficult. Once this terrorist scare started after I shot gertolini it seemed too risky to try and kidnap someone ~m the Ministry. They would have cracked down hard. I gad no intention of getting caught. I've done twenty years for a murder I didn't commit, so they owe me this one free!' He leant back in his chair with a blissful smile. 'Ah, but I never imagined anything like this! To sit here like two old friends, chatting at a table, and tell you that I'm going to kill you, and you knowing it's true, that you're going to die! And all the time those two old bas- tards over there are discussing the price of sheep's milk or some fucking thing, and the barman's cleaning the coffee machine, and the television's blatting away next door, and the ice-cream freezer in the corner is humming. And you're going to die! I'm going to kill you, while all this is going on! And it'll still go on, once you're dead. Because you're not needed, Zen. None of us are. Have you ever thought about that? I have. I spent twenty years thinking about it. Twenty years, locked up for a murder I didn't even do!' Spadola squeezed the last puff of acrid smoke from his cigar and threw that butt on the floor. 'You want to know who killed Tondelli? His cousin, that's who. It was over a woman, a bar-room scuffle. Once he was dead, the Tondellis saw a way to use it against me, and paid that cunt Parrucci to perjure himself. You bas- tards did the rest. But even supposing I had killed him, so what? People die all the time, one way or another. It doesn't make a fucking bit of difference to anything. 'That's what you can't admit, you others. That's what scares you shitless. And so you make little rules and regu- lations, like at school, and anyone who breaks them has to stand in the corner with a dunce's cap on. What a load of bullshit! The truth of it is that you're the first to break the rules, to cheat and lie and perjure yourselves to get a lousy rise, a better job or a fatter pension! You're the ones who ought to be punished! And believe it or not, my friend, that's what's going to happen, just this once. Take it in, Zen! You're going to die. Soon. Today. And I'm telling you this, warning you, and you know it's true, and yet therc '~ absolutely nothing whatsoever that you can do about it'. Not a single fucking thing.' Spadola put his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss up into the air like a connoisseur appreciating a fine wine. 'This is the ultimate! I've never felt anything like it. It makes up for everything. Well, no, let's not exaggerate. Nothing could make up for what I've been through. But it it's any consolation, you've made me a very happy man today. You destroyed my life, it's true, but you have also given me this moment. My mother, may she rest in peace used to say that I was destined to great sorrows and great joys. And she was right. She was so right.' He broke off, biting his lip, tears welled up in his eyes. 'I suppose it's no use telling you that I had nothing to do with the evidence against you being faked,' Zen said dully. Spadola rocked violently back and forth in his chair as though seized by an involuntary spasm. 'I don't believe it! This is too much! It's too good to be true!' He panted for breath. 'Do you remember what you said that morning at the farm near Melzo? I told you I was innocent. I told you I hadn't done it. I knew I'd been betrayed, and that made it all the harder to bear. If I'd really knifed that fucking southerner you'd never have got a word out of me, but knowing it was all a fix I thought I'd go crazy. And do you know what you said, when I screamed my innocence in your face? You said, "Yes, well you would say that, wouldn't you?" And you looked at me in that sly way you educated people have when you're feeling pleased with yourselves. Of course you had nothiny, to do with it, dottore! Just like this what's-his-name, th politician in this murder case you're investigating. He didn't have anything to do with it either, did he? People like you never do have anything to do with it!' 'I don't mean that I didn't plant the knife myself. I mean I dign'g even know that it had been plan