Zen had discovered, in the course of the sort of casual enquiries and undirected researches that were part of his personality, that the bakery which supplied the most renowned cafe in Lucca was located a relatively short distance from their house. The cafe itself did not open until seven, but the pastries for which it was famous were ready long before that. It had only remained for him to make a private arrangement with the pasticciere, and he was able to combine the healthy and pleasant effects of an early-morning walk through the twisty, awakening back-streets of the town with the pleasure of seeing the delighted smile of a greedy child on Gemma’s face when he awoke her with some sumptuous confection and a freshly- made cup of milky coffee.
Their relationship, which Zen had characteristically assumed was going to be difficult if not doomed from the start, was proving on the contrary to be the easiest and most pleasant that he had ever known. It had a quality of lightness he had never come across before, an almost total absence of stress and effort, of painful compromise and problematic negotiation. It was as if they had both done all that, put in their time and paid their dues, and now wanted simply to relax and enjoy themselves. Not in any grand extravagant style, but in everyday details such as this daily breakfast ritual. Mild satisfaction and a total absence of fuss seemed to be their common, unspoken goal, to which each contributed as if by instinct.
When he entered the apartment this morning, however, he was surprised and slightly irritated to find Gemma in the kitchen, already showered and dressed, making coffee and listening to the news.
‘You’re supposed to be in bed,’ he told her grumpily.
She switched off the radio and kissed him.
‘Not today, darling.’
‘What’s so special about today?’
‘It’s my birthday.’
He set the parcel of pastries down on the counter, feeling obscurely aggrieved.
‘You should have told me. I could have got you a present.’
‘I don’t need anything. But you can take me to lunch, if you want.’
‘There are no decent restaurants here.’
‘Not in the town, no. The locals are too stingy to support anything worthwhile.’
She put on an exaggerated version of the local accent, which Zen could just about recognize but still not replicate. ‘“Why waste a lot of money going out when we can eat perfectly well here at home for a quarter of the price?”’
‘Venetians are the same.’
‘But there’s a good place up in the Serchio valley. At least, I like it. Simple and unpretentious, but the food’s genuine and the place is very pretty. Unfortunately today’s also the day I have to meet a sales rep from Bayer about their line of new products, as well as filing a mound of overdue paperwork with the regional authorities. That’s why I’m making such an early start. I was going to do it all while you were away, but those people from the gas company came round and just tore the place apart. I couldn’t leave them here unsupervised, of course, but it was impossible to work with them hammering and banging away.’
She poured coffee for them both.
‘There’s a problem with the gas?’ Zen asked.
‘Well, I didn’t have one. But they said they’d had a complaint from someone else in the building, so they sent some workmen around to check that the system was functioning normally.’
‘And?’
‘Well, they installed a new meter and replaced some of the piping. Apparently it’s fine now.’
Zen savoured a few bites of a brioche still meltingly warm from the oven.
‘When was this?’ he asked.
‘While you were in Bolzano.’
He nodded.
‘Dangerous stuff, gas. One takes it for granted, but it’s potentially lethal. We don’t want to be asphyxiated or blown up. Particularly on your birthday.’
Gemma looked at him oddly.
‘You checked their identification, I suppose?’ Zen continued.
‘Whose?’
‘The men who came about the gas. Sometimes petty criminals use a ruse like that to get into someone’s apartment, then tie up the occupant and clean the place out.’
‘Nothing like that happened. They had valid ID, were wear¬ ing uniformed overalls and obviously knew what they were doing.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Gemma rose.
‘Well, I’d better get over to the pharmacy.’
She went to get her coat, briefcase and bag. Zen finished the remaining coffee, staring out of the window at the blank plastered wall opposite. When Gemma reappeared, he followed her out of the apartment on to the landing.
‘When the Ministry called here to arrange that appointment in Rome, was Brugnoli’s name mentioned?’ he asked in an unusually quiet voice.
‘How else would I have known it? It may even have been he who phoned, I don’t know. The caller just told me that he wished to see you the next day in Rome. I told you all this when I met you off the train in Florence.’
‘Sorry, I was rather distracted that morning.’
‘You certainly were.’
‘It was that case I was working on. Creepy business. But that’s all over now. Now, when do we go to lunch?’
‘I’ll be back by half past eleven. I’ll make a reservation from the shop, but we should aim to leave by twelve at the latest. Ciao!’
‘ A presto, cara.’
Gemma hurried down the stone steps and disappeared round the corner, the sound of her suede boots echoing back up the stairwell, while Zen made his way thoughtfully back to their apartment.
There was a lot to think about. He walked through to the kitchen, where he disassembled the caffettiera and rinsed it out, then stacked the breakfast plates and cups in the dishwasher with the load from last night, added detergent powder and switched it on. What a wonderful invention dishwashers were! You just piled all the dirty stuff in, listened to the machine making its soothing swooshy sound for an hour or so, then opened it up and everything was sparkling clean. If only there were a similar appliance for the other problems of life.
Having run out of tasks to take his mind off his worries, he lit a cigarette and reluctantly attempted to confront them. Until proven otherwise, he had to proceed on the assumption that the supposed visit from the gas company had in fact been a pre-emptive surveillance operation mounted by Brugnoli’s enemies at the Defence Ministry, or possibly even the secret services. If the ID and uniforms were fake, this indicated a high level of professionalism and resources.
The object of the exercise would presumably have been to tap the phone line and install area microphones linked to micro-transmitters. The only way to be certain would be to return to Rome, contact Brugnoli through the agreed cut-out and have him order in an electronic security team to sweep the apartment. But that would merely serve to confirm the opposition’s suspicions about Zen’s involvement. Better to leave the bugs in place and use them to convey disinformation.
A distant shrilling recalled him to the present. It was his mobile phone, which he had left in the pocket of his overcoat. He walked through to the hallway, retrieved the shiny slab, stepped back out on to the landing and closed the door behind him before answering the call.
‘ Pronto! ’
‘Dottor Aurelio Zen?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Here is Werner Haberl, the doctor you spoke to in Bolzano the other day.’
‘Ah, yes. How are you, doctor?’
‘Very well, thank you. I apologize for calling so early, but you asked me to get in touch if there were any further developments regarding the matter we discussed.’