Dead Lagoon - 4 (34 page)

The ideal which inspired him was nothing as abstract as Justice or Truth. His dream was personal, and attainable. Having scored a great coup by solving the Durridge case where everyone else had failed, he would apply for a permanent transfer and return in triumph to his native city. He would bring his mother back from her exile in Rome, back to her friends and the way of life she had been forced to give up. Once the Durridge case came to court, Cristiana Morosini would have the perfect excuse for divorcing her disgraced husband. And a year or so later, she and Zen could marry without exciting any adverse comment. The Zen house would be a home again, once more to resound with laughter and life.

He checked his euphoria. Much remained to be done. The next hurdle to be surmounted was lunch with Tommaso Saoner.

‘I’d be delighted, Aurelio,’ Saoner had replied urbanely when Zen phoned to invite him, ‘but unfortunately I’ve already got an engagement.’

‘Break it.’

There was a pause before Saoner’s laugh. He sounded embarrassed by his friend’s peremptory tone.

‘I’m afraid I can’t, Aurelio.’

‘I’m afraid you must.’

This time Saoner’s laugh was drier.

‘Don’t play the policeman with me.’

‘I’m playing the friend, Tommaso. But the policeman isn’t far behind, and neither are the judges and the courts and the reporters and the television cameras. I’ll be at
El S’ciopòn
at half past twelve.’

As he walked towards the restaurant, situated in an alley near the church of San Lio, he was suddenly brought up short. The scene before him – a certain combination of bridge, canal, alley, courtyard and wall – was just one of an almost infinite repertoire of variants on that series which the city contained, and it took him a moment to work out why this particular example seemed so significant. Then he realized that this was where he had seen the moored boats of the emergency services and the jointed metal tubing which led to the septic tank in which Enzo Gavagnin had met his hideous death.

The Carabinieri were evidently still hard at work on the case, for there were two of their launches tied up alongside. As Zen crossed the bridge, a uniformed officer emerged from one of them. He glanced up at Zen, then looked again.

‘Rodrigo! Pietro!’

Two Carabinieri rushed out on deck, brandishing machine-guns. The officer had already leapt ashore. Zen looked round, trying to spot the object of their attentions.

‘Stop!’ yelled the officer.

‘Halt or I shoot!’ cried a younger voice.

Zen stepped back to let them pass, and promptly tripped over a panic-stricken cat dashing past. Both went flying, but the cat recovered quickly and scampered off. Running boots clattered to a halt by Zen’s ear. A rough hand grasped his collar and rolled him over to receive a gun barrel in the eye.

‘Move and you’re dead,’ the man holding the gun informed him succinctly.

Zen did not move. He did not speak or even, to his knowledge, breathe. Slower footsteps neared on the cobbles.

‘That’s him all right! It’s the old story of the murderer always returning to the scene of the crime. He’s a cool one, though! He was standing right next to me when we pulled the body out of the cesspool. Even asked me what had happened! Then he turned to me and brazenly admitted that he’d killed him. Well, we’ve got him now.’

Zen gasped in pain as a pair of plastic handcuffs bit into his wrists. One of the patrolmen held a machine-gun to his forehead while the other searched him for concealed weapons.

‘He’s clean, boss.’

‘Right, let’s go!’

The two patrolmen hauled Zen to his feet.

‘Have a look at my wallet,’ Zen murmured to the Carabineri officer.

 ‘Trying to bribe me, eh?’ the man shouted. ‘That’s a very serious offence!’

‘In my jacket pocket, left-hand side.’

The major looked at Zen sharply.

‘Keep him covered, Rodrigo!’ he barked. ‘Pietro, search him!’

Knows how to delegate, this one, thought Zen.

‘Here it is, sir,’ said Pietro, flourishing Zen’s black leather wallet.

‘Check the identity card in the window,’ Zen told him.

The Carabiniere’s eyes flicked down.

‘
Cazzo!
’ he exclaimed.

‘What is it?’ the major demanded irritably. ‘What’s the matter?’

Pietro handed over the wallet to his superior.

*

Thanks to this delay, the restaurant was almost full by the time Zen got there. There was no sign of Tommaso, so Zen ordered some wine and water and munched at the breadsticks to stave off his hunger. After fifteen minutes he gave in to the waiter’s pointed requests to take his order. The room was now packed and several people had been turned away. Zen ordered the set lunch – spaghetti with clams followed by grilled sardines and
radicchio di Treviso al forno
– and stuck his head in his newspaper.

The main stories concerned the latest episodes in the long-running saga of corruption in high places, and Zen dutifully ploughed his way through a leading article suggesting that while on the one hand the events currently unfolding were a political and social earthquake without parallel in the history of mankind, a cataclysmic upheaval compared to which the French and Russian revolutions were largely cosmetic rites of passage, it was perfectly clear to any sophisticated observer that nothing had really changed and that the whole affair was simply one more example of the national genius for adapting to circumstances, despite the earnest lucubrations of commentators from abroad who had as usual missed the point, bless their cotton socks.

The inside pages featured a gatefold spread showing the leader of the
Nuova Repubblica Veneta
, accompanied by his charming and attractive wife, being acclaimed by his enthusiastic supporters in Pellestrina, Burano and Treporti. There were shots of Dal Maschio at the controls of the helicopter he had piloted to each of these outposts, shots of Dal Maschio striding purposefully about the streets greeting the inhabitants and kissing babies, shots of Dal Maschio addressing an election rally. ‘Venice is the heart of the lagoon,’ he had reportedly declared, ‘and the NRV is the very heartbeat of Venice. Keep the lagoon alive! Keep Venice alive! Vote for the New Venetian Republic!’ At his side Cristiana stood smiling vacuously, sensuously solid in a pink dress and a fur coat worn off the shoulder.

The first course arrived, and Zen folded up his paper and started to eat. The clams were the genuine local article,
vongole veraci
, stewed in olive oil with garlic and parsley until the shells opened to reveal the tiny morsels of tender gristle inside. Zen slowly worked his way through them and the long strands of spaghetti soaked in the rich sauce. He was winding up a final coil of pasta when Tommaso finally arrived to claim the chair opposite.

‘I couldn’t get here any earlier. I had to change all my arrangements. What the hell is this about, Aurelio?’

The waiter loomed up. Tommaso took off his heavy glasses, which had steamed up, and said he’d skip the
primo
and have whatever was quickest to follow.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded as soon as the man had gone.

Zen wiped the oil off his lips with his napkin.

‘I need some information.’

Tommaso Saoner replaced his glasses and regarded Zen coldly.

‘I’m not an informer, Aurelio.’

Zen lit a cigarette.

‘Supplying information to the police doesn’t make you an informer, Tommaso. On the contrary, it’s the duty of every good citizen.’

Saoner poured himself some wine and broke off a crust of bread.

‘Information about what?’

‘About Ivan Durridge.’

Saoner glanced away, then quickly looked back at Zen.

‘Who?’

Zen shook his head in genuine embarrassment. Tommaso Saoner had been his friend for years at a time when a minute lasted longer than a month did now. Where were they now, that Tommaso and that Aurelio, so much more alive than the pallid impostors who had succeeded to their titles?

‘You know who,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows.’

He puffed out a cloud of smoke.

‘But you know more than everyone, Tommaso.’

Saoner frowned.

‘I thought you did when I phoned you,’ Zen went on, ‘and now I’m sure. Don’t try and lie to me, Tommaso. It won’t work. I know you too well.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

A faint smile appeared on Zen’s lips.

‘It’s a funny thing. All the people I’ve spoken to about the Durridge case have said exactly the same thing. Domenico Zuin, Giulio Bon, and now you. Is it some formula you’re taught when you join?’

The waiter brought the main course, and for a moment Saoner took refuge in the distraction offered by the task of filleting the sardines.

‘Join what?’ he asked eventually.

Zen sighed impatiently.

‘Come on, Tommaso! You may not consider me a friend any longer, but please don’t treat me as a fool.’

He stabbed a mouthful of the pink and purple chicory leaves, their delicate bitter flavour rounded and filled out by baking.

‘Zuin and Bon are both members. So is Massimo Bugno, who went along on the reconnaissance but didn’t measure up. So they replaced him with Enzo Gavagnin, who was not just a member but one of Dal Maschio’s lieutenants. Like you.’

He stared across the table at Saoner, who had stopped fiddling with his fish.

‘Gavagnin may have been braver than Bugno, but he wasn’t very bright. It was he who tipped me off to the link between the
Nuova Repubblica Veneta
and the Durridge case in the first place. When I had Bon brought in for questioning, Gavagnin revealed that both Bon and he were members. And the next thing I know there’s an expensive lawyer by the name of Carlo Berengo Gorin beating at my door.’

He observed Saoner flinch, and nodded.

‘You know him, don’t you? And I learned from …’

He paused. He had almost named Cristiana!

‘… from a friend that Dal Maschio does too. I suppose he’s the party lawyer.’

Tommaso Saoner feigned a bored shrug.

‘What’s all this got to do with me?’

Zen unhurriedly ate some grilled sardine before replying.

‘Domenico Zuin has made a full confession of his part in the kidnapping of Ivan Durridge. It was made freely, in the presence of Zuin’s legal representative, and I have it in my office now, ready for delivery to the Deputy Public Prosecutor.’

‘I repeat, what’s it got to do with me?’

Zen looked him in the eye.

‘You were once my best friend, Tommaso. I’m giving you a chance to get out while there’s still time.’

Saoner stared at him, his expression alternating between anxiety and anger.

‘And what makes you think anyone will believe whatever pack of lies this man has trotted out?’ he sneered.

Zen shrugged.

‘I’m sure that Zuin has trimmed some of the details, and twisted others to cast himself in a good light. For example, he claims that he never left the boat, and that it was Gavagnin and Bon who took the foreigners ashore. That may well be a lie. I couldn’t really care less.’

He stripped the bones of his last sardine, exposing the succulent flesh.

‘What foreigners?’ Saoner asked with deliberate casualness.

‘He doesn’t know who they were or where they were from. He didn’t recognize the language they spoke, but it wasn’t Italian. There were four of them, all young and tough-looking. Zuin picked them up from a hotel near the Fenice in his taxi, along with Bon and Gavagnin. Bon had told him that the men wanted to be landed on the island in the lagoon which he and Bon had explored earlier with Bugno.’

He pushed his plate aside and lit another cigarette. Saoner’s food lay untouched.

‘In the late morning, while the tide was still high enough, Zuin ferried them all over to the
ottagono
. He claims that the foreigners went ashore with Gavagnin and Bon while he returned to the city and got on with his work. Of course he subsequently heard about the disappearance of the American, like everyone else. But he’d been paid, and it was none of his business.’

‘That’s all?’ Tommaso inquired ironically.

‘It’s enough.’

Saoner laughed contemptuously. Zen regarded him with a serious expression.

‘Look at it this way, Tommaso. Zuin landed six men on the island. We know that Giulio Bon took Durridge’s boat, just to confuse the issue, and as the tide was ebbing he must have left fairly soon afterwards. We also know that Durridge was still on the island shortly after one o’clock, when he spoke briefly to a relative on the telephone. By then it was too late to approach the island from the water. And yet when Franco Calderan returned at five o’clock from visiting his sister on the Lido he found the place deserted.’  

He leant forward.  

‘So how did Durridge and the others get off the island?’
 

Saoner shrugged impatiently.  

‘This is your life, eh, Aurelio? Picking over theories about what might or might not have happened, like a pack of grubby, dog-eared playing cards! Well I could play that game too, I suppose, only I’m too busy living.’  

Zen looked at him and nodded.  

‘I’m glad you and your friends are having so much fun, Tommaso, but someone has to clean up after you.’  

‘Leave the party out of it!’ Saoner snapped. ‘You don’t have a shred of evidence to implicate us. What if Zuin and his confederates happened to be members? So are thousands of ordinary, decent, hard-working Venetians! They are our strength and our pride! They guarantee the future of this city, Zen, while people like you can only grub around digging up dirty secrets from its past.’

He got to his feet.

‘Nothing you’ve said amounts to any more than unsubstantiated, opportunistic slander. Now that we are close to getting our hands on the levers of power, our enemies will move heaven and earth to throw a spanner in the works.’

‘The Sayings of Chairman Dal Maschio, page ninety-four,’ retorted Zen.

Saoner flushed.

‘I’m not just a parrot, you know.’

‘You mean you thought up that cheap rhetoric yourself? That’s even worse!’