‘I am Antonio Simonelli.’
They’re letting all sorts in these days, thought Zen as they shook hands. With his crumpled blue suit and hearty manner, Simonelli seemed more like a provincial tradesman than a magistrate. But this might well be a deliberate ploy designed to lull Zen into a false sense of security. And indeed Simonelli at once struck a confidential note.
‘You know who that was, of course?’
The media star had swept out by now, surrounded by his entourage, and the lobby was quiet again.
‘Some designer, isn’t he? I don’t really keep up with such things.’
Simonelli subsided into a leather chair opposite, which resembled an overdone souffle.
‘Falco, he calls himself,’ Simonelli explained in his Bergamo whine, like an ill-tuned oboe d’amore. ‘He’s based in Milan, but he’s down here promoting some book he’s published, explaining his “design philosophy” if you please. Of course he would have to choose the very hotel where I always stay. It’s terrible. You can’t move for reporters.’
He signalled a waiter. Zen ordered an espresso, Simonelli a caffe Hag.
‘It’s my heart,’ he explained, unwrapping a panatella cigar with his big, blunt fingers. ‘One of my colleagues dropped dead just last month. He was fifteen years younger than me. Gave me a bit of a jolt, so I had a check-up, and it turns out I’m at risk myself.’
Zen smiled politely.
‘Anyway, I mustn’t bore you with my problems,’ the magistrate went on. ‘Except for the Ruspanti case, that is. I don’t know how much you know about the investigation I have been involved in…’
‘Only what I’ve read in the newspapers.’
‘It’s all water under the bridge now, of course,’ Simonelli sighed mournfully. ‘With my key witness dead, there’s no case to be made. This is really only a private chat, just to satisfy my curiosity. Naturally whatever is said between us two will remain strictly off the record.’
He broke off as the waiter brought their coffees. Simonelli emptied two sachets of sugar into his cup and looked across the table at Zen as he stirred.
‘So tell me, what really happened? Did he fall, or was he pushed?’
It had been perfectly done, thought Zen. The illusion of a personal rapport, the implied assumption that they were associates and equals, the casual request for information ‘just to satisfy my curiosity’, the assurance that Zen could speak freely in the knowledge that what was said would go no further, even the facetious touch of the final question. If Zen hadn’t been expecting something of the kind, he might well have fallen for it hook, line and sinker — and then spent the next few years wriggling and thrashing as Simonelli reeled him in. As it was, the magistrate’s adroitness merely reinforced Zen’s determination to give nothing away. Reticence would be a mistaken tactic, however, merely confirming that there were significant secrets to be learned. The true art of concealment, Zen knew, lay not in silence but garrulity, in rumour and innuendo. Best of all was to let the victim spin the web of deceit himself. That way, it was bound to conform perfectly to his fears and prejudices, forming a snug, cosy trap from which he had no desire to escape.
‘I found no evidence to suggest that Ruspanti’s death was anything other than it appeared to be,’ he declared firmly.
Simonelli gazed at him levelly.
‘So you accept that he committed suicide.’
‘I see no reason not to.’
The magistrate lit his cigar carefully, rotating the end above the flame of his lighter.
‘Even in the light of this second fatality?’
Zen looked blank.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The Vatican security man, Giovanni Grimaldi. You don’t think his death was connected in any way to Ruspanti’s?’
Zen downed his coffee in three swift gulps.
‘How do you know about that?’ he asked casually.
Simonelli sipped his coffee and puffed at his cigar, making Zen wait.
‘Grimaldi was what the espionage profession calls a double agent,’ he explained at last. ‘In addition to his duties for the Vigilanza, he was also working for me as a paid informant.’
Zen knew that this revelation was intended to encourage him to make one in return, but he was too intrigued not to follow it up.
‘So you knew that Ruspanti had taken refuge in the Vatican?’
Simonelli nodded.
‘After the Maltese kicked him out. Yes, I knew. But I couldn’t prove it, and if I’d spoken out they’d have spirited him away before anyone could do anything. So I bided my time and used Grimaldi to keep track of what was happening. Until last week, he was providing me with regular, detailed reports of Ruspanti’s movements, the people he met, the calls he made, and so on. Most of it was irrelevant, all about some organization which Ruspanti was threatening to expose if they didn’t help him. But the first thing I did when I heard of Ruspanti’s death was to try and contact Grimaldi. He didn’t return my calls, so I flew down here to look him up, only to find that he was dead.’
Zen sat perfectly still, eyeing Simonelli. His racing pulse might have been due to the coffee he had just drunk.
‘What was the name of this organization Ruspanti was threatening?’ he asked.
Simonelli looked annoyed at this reference to something he had made clear was a side-issue.
‘I really don’t remember.’
‘The anonymous letter to the papers spoke of a group calling itself the Cabal,’ said Zen.
‘Yes, that’s right. The Cabal. Why? Do you know any more about it?’
Zen shrugged.
‘To be honest, I assumed it referred to this group of businessmen you’ve been investigating.’
To his surprise, Simonelli reacted with a look of total panic. Then it was gone, and he laughed.
‘Really?’
Zen said nothing. Simonelli broke a baton of ash off his cigar into the glass ashtray on the table.
‘According to Grimaldi’s reports, I’d rather gathered that it had some connection with the Knights of Malta,’ he said.
Zen raised his eyebrows.
‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ Simonelli gasped two deep breaths.
‘Anyway, we’ve rather got away from my original question, which was whether you think that Grimaldi’s death could have been connected in any way to Ruspanti’s.’
Zen frowned like a dim schoolboy confronted by a concept too difficult for him to grasp.
‘But Ruspanti committed suicide by jumping off the gallery in St Peter’s and Grimaldi was electrocuted in his shower by a faulty water heater. What connection could there be?’
‘The two deaths occurring so close together was just a coincidence, then?’
‘I can’t see what else it could be.’
In his heart he apologized to Ruspanti and Grimaldi for adding such insults to the fatal injuries they had sustained. But it was all very well for the dead, he thought to himself. They were well out of it.
‘That anonymous letter to the press certainly was neither an accident nor a coincidence,’ Simonelli remarked with some asperity. ‘Someone wrote it, and for a reason. Do you have any ideas about that?’
Zen looked shiftily around the lobby, as though checking whether they could be overheard.
‘One thing I did find out is that certain people in the Vatican are not satisfied with the official line on Ruspanti’s death,’ he confided in an undertone. ‘The Vatican isn’t a monolith, any more than the Communist Party — or whatever it’s calling itself these days. There are different currents, varying tendencies, opposed pressure groups. One of them might well have wished to try and throw doubt on the suicide verdict.’
Simonelli plunged his cigar into the dregs of his coffee, where it expired with a hiss.
‘An official leak, then.’
Zen tipped his hand back and forth.
‘Semi-official disinformation.’
‘It must have been embarrassing for you,’ Simonelli suggested, ‘to have your professional integrity publicly attacked like that.’