‘And the other?’
‘That happened later. Everyone here worked for the Calopezzati, so the baron could pay as low a wage as he liked. During the Depression, things got so bad that families who didn’t have a relative in America to send them money were starving, so they organised a demonstration in San Giovanni to get a decent living wage. That was all. No attempt to take back the land that the Calopezzati had stolen, no demands for the estate to be broken up and returned to the people, and certainly no violence. They assembled in the piazza in front of the cathedral, as they did every Sunday after mass, as much as anything simply to be together, to feel that they weren’t alone in their misery. The police were present but made no attempt to intervene. What no one knew was that a squad of armed Blackshirts had climbed the bell-tower earlier that morning. Their leader was Roberto Calopezzati, the baron’s son. At his signal, they began firing live rounds into the crowd. Amongst those killed was Giorgio’s great-aunt.’
One of Aurelio Zen’s strengths was knowing when to shut up. He did so now.
‘One or both of those stories may explain why he did what he did,’ Maria concluded dreamily. ‘Of course he was mistaken about the identity of his victim. In any case, due punishment had already been inflicted.’
Her odd, oblique, glassy gaze went everywhere except for the vast ruin across the piazzetta. Never once did she glance in that direction.
‘Punishment,’ Zen echoed vaguely.
‘The fire!’
A long silence intervened. At length Zen nodded.
‘Of course. That terrible accident…’
And then, finally, Maria turned her alienated eyes on him and the blackened palace behind.
‘It wasn’t an accident.’
Zen nodded again, as though assessing a mundane fact which had just come to light.
‘Why did you kill her?’
Maria laughed then, a rasping cackle that seemed to come from the ground.
‘ Perche? Perche! Because when I was a little girl my mother taught me how to lay and light a fire. Because every morning until I was sent away into service my duty was to rise before anyone else in the household, before it was light, and bring flames to life in the hearth. Because to make sure I woke in time I drank three cups of water before going to bed and my bladder never failed me. Because I stole a jerrican of petrol from the stores and spread it throughout the house and up the stairs to show the fire which way to go. Because la baronessa managed to clean up most of the blood but the smell hung in the air for days and the stains never faded. Because Caterina appeared to me night after night, her womb gaping open like an oven. Because I was lonely and terrified yet unafraid. Because to this day I don’t know where they buried her. Because of the baby. Because.’
Zen considered this for some time.
‘You said that when Ottavia Calopezzati informed the authorities that the child she was claiming as her own had been born of no other woman, that statement was true.’
‘She strangled Caterina and did a Caesarian on her corpse with one of the kitchen knives. Miraculously, the boy survived.’
She turned to Zen and scrutinised him.
‘There, pretino mio, I have made my confession. I swear to you, before God and as an honest woman, that everything I have told you is true. Are you going to absolve me or arrest me? Not that I care. This world is nothing to me now and the world to come will be far, far worse. But at least I have achieved something in my life. Yes, I’ll go to hell, but I sent that bitch there first. And not just in the after-life but on this earth, in her flesh, with all her sins on her head, unshriven and unblessed, and me standing out here in the piazza listening to her howls.’
Unable to sustain her gaze, Zen looked away.
‘So now it’s your turn,’ said Maria. ‘Giorgio’s great-grandfather knew what he had to do when the Calopezzati seized his property. I knew what I must do when Ottavia Calopezzati murdered my friend and stole her baby. And you know what you must do.’
Zen got to his feet.
‘I’m just a lone hawk, signora. Here in Calabria, it seems that the crows always win.’
He turned and walked away, leaving her alone in that desolate landscape.
‘… unfortunately, but there are many other artefacts, inestimably rare, beautiful and precious, which we would be happy to offer for sale. It will take a little time to remove them from their secure place of storage and transport them to a suitable site for inspection, but assuming that your client’s interest in the merchandise is genuine and that he has sufficient funds…’
‘So you don’t have the candlestick?’
Nicola Mantega would have put a slow loris to shame in the languidity of the gesture with which he indicated the pain, humiliation and infinite regret it cost him to confirm that, no, the sacred menorah from the Temple of Jerusalem, alas, did not figure among the items that his contacts had recovered from Alaric’s tomb.
‘Sure you do,’ Martin Nguyen replied.
‘He just said they don’t,’ Tom Newman interjected.
‘Shut up and translate, kid.’
The setting was a fish restaurant down on the coast. Mantega had wanted to make a big-deal lunch out of it, but Martin had nixed that idea. He’d spent the morning at the airport, almost three hours wasted trying to get the replica menorah out of the hands of a bunch of customs thugs who seemed to think they worked for the KGB, and was in no mood for another lavish foodie-opera production with no surtitles. They ended up with a fish fry and salad. There were no other customers seated in the annexe at the back of the place, and the waiters, as if sensing the nature of the situation, kept their distance.
‘Okay,’ Martin continued weightily. ‘Before we go any further I need a verbal undertaking from both of you that nothing mentioned here today or resulting from it later will be disclosed to any other parties. Do you agree?’
Tom Newman nodded and muttered something in Italian to Nicola Mantega. After a pensive pause, he nodded too. Martin Nguyen flashed them his horrifying smile.
‘You may wonder why your agreement to this condition is necessary. The answer is that the scheme which I’m about to propose will mean laying ourselves open to charges of fraud, conspiracy and, at least in my case, tax evasion.’
He paused for the Italian translation — Tom seemed to have some trouble with the legal terminology — and then Mantega’s reaction. Everything seemed to be going smoothly so far, so he was amazed when Tom expressed an opinion.
‘I guess you can count me out, Mr Nguyen.’
Martin laid down his knife and fork, sipped his glass of sparkling mineral water and stared out at the lazy waves breaking on a beach that seemed both endless and pointless.
‘I have to get back home, anyway. The police called me this morning. They’re all set to release my father’s body for burial, so I’ll have to see to all that, contact the relatives, fix the funeral, get the will probated…’
His eyes clashed briefly with Martin’s as he speared a calamari ring.
‘Plus I don’t want to be involved in any criminal activities.’
Not the least of Martin’s talents was an instinctive understanding of the odds at any given juncture and a willingness to obey them.
‘I completely understand. You must of course see that poor Peter is appropriately laid to rest. But I’m not asking you to commit any crime. All I need is for you to translate my conversation with Signor Mantega and keep quiet about it afterwards. Once we have reached agreement, I will give you the balance of your wages due plus a bonus of one thousand euros towards the expenses of repatriating your father’s body. What do you say?’
The kid eventually settled for fifteen hundred, and Martin got down to business. He kept it brief and vague, partly because he suspected that Tom’s Italian wasn’t that great when it came to technical stuff, but mostly because he didn’t want him to know any more than the essential minimum even for the short period he had left to live.