Blood Rain - 7 (4 page)

‘Very well, I’ll try not to peek.’

The judge sighed and nodded.

‘I’m so used to this by now that I’ve forgotten how insane it must seem to someone who leads a normal life. Anyway, that’s the way things are, I’m afraid. Bear with me, if you can.’

She opened the door, then looked back at Carla with an unexpected intensity.

‘Do you think you can?’ she asked.

‘Of course I can!’ Carla replied warmly. ‘On the contrary, it’s very kind of you to think of inviting me. I have been frightfully lonely here, to tell you the truth.’

Corinna Nunziatella nodded once and left. Carla resumed her scrutiny of the screen. So many people suddenly inviting her out. It was very welcome. Despite her reservations about her father, no doubt they would have a reasonably pleasant time, while the prospect of an evening out with the eminent Judge Corinna Nunziatella was even more intriguing. Frankly, her social life since arriving in Sicily had been a disaster. She knew no one, had not managed to make any friends, and there simply wasn’t much that a young single woman could safely or pleasantly do in Catania alone by night.

Carla tried to force her attention back to her work. Lithe and articulate, her fingers began to caress the keyboard, combing the deep subconscious of the CPU, which was already on-line, via a highly secure link, with similar networks in Palermo and Trapani. The machine’s log files, which record who accessed a system and when, could not be deleted, even by the system administrator. If someone
had
broken in or borrowed a key, they would have left indelible fingerprints. All she had to do was to find them.

At four o’clock, Aurelio Zen left the restaurant where he and Baccio Sinico had had a long, inconclusive lunch. At five, he went food shopping. By six he was back home. The apartment he had leased was reasonably priced and very conveniently situated, on the upper floor of a three-storey
palazzo
just a short walk from the Questura. After bruising experiences in other Italian cities, Zen had been pleasantly surprised by the ease with which he had found such suitable accommodation, thanks to a colleague who had phoned him at work and offered him a short-term let on a property owned by a friend.

True, the exterior of the building was unprepossessing, despite its classical proportions and the pilasters, cornices and moulding surrounding every door and window. Lack of maintenance, or heavy-handed application of same, together with layers of airborne pollution and memories of ancient and uneven coats of distemper, had created an oddly incongruous effect, like skin disease on a marble bust. Once through the door, however, everything was spick-and-span, in keeping with the aristocratic restraint and harmony displayed in every detail of the hallways, stairwells and rooms, so unlike the overbearing display of Rome or Naples. For Zen, it felt almost like being back in his native Venice.

The only real difference was the constant noise of traffic outside, a noise quite specific to Catania: the squelch of tires on the river-smooth blocks of lava with which the streets were paved, like the black, dead-straight canals in the northern reaches of Venice. Actually, his hypothetical daughter Carla Arduini had come up with a far more appropriate epithet: ‘the Turin of the south’. Both cities were symmetrical, rectilinear entities planned at royal command in a single style and constructed all of a piece in a relatively short space of time. In the case of Catania, the reason for this was evident at every street corner in the smouldering dome of Etna to the north. In 1669 the volcano had erupted, submerging the whole of the city beneath a lava flow which had only stopped when it reached the sea, cooling into the low, craggy, black cliffs which still formed the coastline. Twenty-four years later, one of the devastating earthquakes for which the region had been notorious since antiquity demolished almost all the city’s few remaining structures.

After such a double blow, the surviving citizens could have been forgiven for packing their bags and moving to a less perilous spot. Some did, but by and large the Catanesi took the view that nature had now done its worst, and that they and their children would be safe where they were. So they rebuilt, hastily and using the only material to hand: the solidified lava which had wrought such havoc in the first place.

And now they finally had a piece of good luck, because the period happened to be an excellent moment for off-the-shelf civic architecture, just as it was for the bespoke version then under construction in the capital of Piedmont, nestling beneath the Alps some eight hundred kilometres further north. The buildings which arose along the grid plan of the new city were sober and solid, of fitting proportions and decorated with grace and elegance. Even three centuries later, many of them abandoned or in disrepair and surrounded by a concrete wasteland of speculative, Mafia-funded development they retained a sense of ineradicable character and dignity, which might be destroyed but never demeaned.

Zen set down his shopping on the marble counter in the kitchen and surveyed it with a morose air. He had never had pretensions to any but the most basic culinary skills, but for reasons into which he had not enquired too deeply, he felt a need to entertain Carla at home at least once. His solution had been to approach the owner of the restaurant where he had taken Baccio Sinico for lunch and to order some of the establishment’s excellent fish soup, packed in a large glass jar which according to the label had once contained olives. A loaf of bread, some salad, and a selection of local sheep’s cheeses, together with Carla’s promised dessert, completed the menu.

His decision to ‘adopt’ this young woman who claimed to be his daughter, even though the DNA tests proved that they were not related, had been taken on the spur of the moment; a mere whim, although kindly meant. He had not thought the matter through — had not really thought at all, to be honest — and ever since had had to struggle to live up to the fantasy to which he had short-sightedly committed them both. This was not made any easier by his sense that it was all a bit of a strain for Carla, too. They were both reduced to improvising the roles which he had assigned them: the Father, the Daughter.

While he waited for Carla to arrive, he looked through the notes he had made of his lunch with Baccio Sinico, adding or deleting a phrase here and there. It had not been a convivial occasion. Not that the young Bolognese had been evasive; on the contrary, he had proved almost alarmingly forthcoming about the current state of morale — or rather the lack of it — within the Catania office of the
Direzione Investigativa Anti-Mafia
.

‘I almost regret the old days,’ Baccio Sinico had remarked at one point. ‘At least they fought us openly then.’

‘They?’ queried Aurelio Zen.

Sinico gave him a sharp look, as though trying to decide whether Zen was being ironical or just plain stupid.

‘Gli amid degli amici,’
he replied in a voice so low that Zen almost had to lip-read the coded phrase — ‘the friends of the friends’, meaning the Mafia’s presumed patrons and protectors in the government.

‘But those “friends” are no longer in power,’ he reminded Sinico. ‘Some of them are even under arrest or on trial.’

‘Precisely! In the old days, you knew who was who and what was what. Everyone knew where he stood, and what was at stake for both sides. Now it’s all done by indirection and inertia. The implication is that the great days are over, the Mafia is as good as beaten, and that all remains to be done is a low-level mopping-up operation without any real importance, glamour or risk. In other words, we’re being treated like traffic cops by Rome and like arrogant prima donnas by all our colleagues outside the department.’

‘The pay’s good, though!’ Zen had replied in a jocular, one-of-the-boys tone of voice suitable to the avuncular but slightly dim persona he cultivated for these professional encounters.

‘It’s not bad,’ Sinico had conceded. ‘Which is yet another reason why we’re resented and obstructed by all the other branches of the service down here. But money’s not everything. And, without undue bravado, it’s not really that I’m frightened of the risks involved. No, it’s the sense of isolation that’s getting to me. My family and friends are all back in Bologna, and here I am holed up in a fortified barracks deep in enemy territory, trying to do a job which no one seems to think needs doing any more.’

‘Have you noticed a weakening of support from the local population?’

Sinico laughed sardonically.

‘What support? There was a wave of protests and demonstrations after Falcone and Borsellino were killed, but that soon faded. In my view it was mostly window-dressing anyway. It wasn’t so much that two selfless and dedicated servants of the Italian state had been blown to bloody pulp that got to people, it was the fact that it happened here, on their doorstep. It made them look bad, and Sicilians hate that.’

He paused to toy with the largely uneaten food on his plate.

‘But we never expected much cooperation from the locals. What’s harder to take is the fact that the people at the top have started to distance themselves from us and our work. The old alliances have broken down, but new ones are in formation.’

‘With whom?’ asked Zen.

Sinico made a gesture indicating that this was an unanswerable question.

‘We don’t know yet. But the Mafia has always allied itself with the party of the centre, and they’re
all
in the centre nowadays, even the former Fascists. Meanwhile our work is obstructed by insinuation and neglect. “With everyone in prison except Binù,” they say …’

‘Except who?’

‘Bernardo Provenzano, also known as Binù. Totò Riina’s right-hand man, and now effectively running the Corleone clan through his wife. Communicates only by written messages, doesn’t trust the phone. On the run for the last thirty years. He’s the last of the historic
capi
. The rest are all under arrest or serving life sentences, and have been dispersed to remote prisons. So the back of the Mafia has been broken, we’re told. “All thanks to people like you, of course, but the moment has perhaps come to take the longer view, the broader perspective, etcetera, etcetera”’

He sighed deeply and shook his head.

‘It’s depressing, particularly when you know what’s really going on.’

‘And what is going on?’ asked Zen.

Sinico looked up at him.

‘Dottore
, the drug trade channelled through the port of Catania alone generates hundreds of millions of US dollars every year. There’s also a lucrative export market in firearms and military supplies, to say nothing of the usual construction scams, prostitution and protection rackets. Meanwhile, the youth unemployment rate is running at fifty per cent. There are seventy thousand people in this city with no visible means of support. Do you think the Mafia is going to have any trouble finding new recruits?’

‘But if the bosses are all in jail…’

‘Then new bosses will emerge. Someone said that only two things are certain, death and taxes. The Mafia combines both. It’s not going to go away. But whereas we knew who the old
capi
were, even if we couldn’t lay hands on them, we have virtually no idea at all who’s in charge now. Not only that, but the structure of power is shifting. The Corleonesi are more or less finished, having wiped out all their rivals. But other clans have emerged, two of the most powerful based in Belmonte Mezzagno and Cáccamo.’

‘Where?’

‘Exactly Villages up in the mountains behind Palermo. No one’s ever heard of them except the DIA. Ragusa is also emerging as a major centre. In Catania and Messina, you have shifting alliances. The Limina family is on the way out, although they don’t seem to realize it yet. And as if all this weren’t enough, there are reliable rumours that alliances are being formed with the Calabrian
n’drangheta
, who are the real top dogs now, to say nothing of the start-up Albanian mobs in Puglia, some of which have opened branch offices right here in Sicily. In short, it’s an unbelievably complex and obscure situation, far more so than ever before. But no one wants to know. People here used to say, “What Mafia? There’s no such thing!” The only difference now is that they add “any longer”. Well, I’ve just about had enough, and I’m not the only one, believe me.’

Zen did believe him, but could hardly afford to say so. His remit was to report on the operations of the Catania DIA, not connive at its dissolution.

‘But surely you must have had some successes recently?’ he said encouragingly. ‘That case of the body on the train, for example.’

Baccio Sinico gave a massively expressive shrug.

‘It seems it wasn’t the Limina kid after all.’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘It seems not.’

Zen frowned at him.

‘How do you mean, “seems”? Either it was or it wasn’t.’

Sinico smiled his humourless smile once again.

‘With all due respect,
dottore
, it’s easy to see that you’ve only just arrived here. The dualistic, northern approach to life is completely alien to the Sicilian mind. So far from there being just two possibilities, there are, in any given case, an almost infinite number.’

‘Skip the philosophy, Sinico,’ Zen retorted gruffly. ‘I’ve never had a head for it.’

The young officer smiled, this time with genuine warmth.

‘I apologize,
dottore
. A hobby of mine. It’s what I studied at university, until I realized that the job market in that particular subject was rather restricted. And for that matter I make no claims to understanding the Sicilian mentality either. You have to be born here to do that. But to get back to the point, it seems that the judiciary has seen fit to accept the statement of the Limina family that their son is alive and well, on holiday in Costa Rica, despite their reluctance to say exactly where he is, still less produce him in person.’

‘So you don’t think their story is true?’

Baccio Sinico laughed again.

‘If you start asking yourself questions like that here in Sicily, you’ll drive yourself mad. I’m just telling you what’s happened. The case is closed and that’s that. As for the truth, who knows? Or cares?’

Aurelio Zen considered this in silence for a while.

‘What about the magistrate who was investigating the case?’ he asked at length.

‘Nunziatella? She’s been taken off it. The case has been officially downgraded to a routine accidental death enquiry. They’re no doubt writing up the press release as we speak. It’ll be all over the papers and the television tomorrow, if you’re interested.’

He sniffed and lit a cigarette.

‘Besides, the judge in question has her own problems, if the office gossip is to be believed.’

‘How do you mean?’

Sinico gave him a quick glance.

‘The word is that
la Nunziatella
doesn’t like men.’

Zen shrugged.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that she does like women.’

Another shrug.

That’s not illegal.’

Baccio Sinico sighed again.

‘Despite some recent changes, this is a very conservative society,
dottore
. I’ve heard that there is a photograph in existence, showing Corinna Nunziatella and another woman in a restaurant.’

‘So?’

‘They’re kissing,’ Sinico went on. ‘On the mouth.’

Zen got out his battered pack of
Nazionali
cigarettes and lit up.

‘Who took the photograph?’ he asked.

‘No one knows.’

‘Well, where is it now?’

‘No one knows.’

There was a brief silence.

‘But in a sense it doesn’t even matter whether the photo actually exists or not,’ Sinico went on. ‘All that matters is that the word is out that it does. And if it were to be sent to the local paper and printed on the front page, all of which could easily be arranged by certain people, then it would become difficult, if not impossible, for Judge Nunziatella to continue to carry out her duties in a satisfactory manner. In which case, of course, she would have to be replaced.’