On the other hand he had been extremely interested in the contents of the battered leather suitcases he brought back from those yearly trips with his beautiful young wife, one of which had spilled open when he stumbled and let it fall on the staircase of their villa — very much as he himself was to fall later — disclosing an astonishing quantity of one-hundred-thousand-lire notes bundled thickly together with rubber bands. When she’d asked where the money came from, he’d told her in a crisp, harsh tone he’d never used before that this was a professional matter, and then made her swear never to mention the incident to anyone. As if she would! She had been disloyal to Gaetano, but not in that way.
But she didn’t want to think about the past. It was just that there wasn’t much else to think about these days. So this Zen loomed rather larger than he otherwise might have done. That and a sense that he wanted something. Claudia had toyed briefly with the idea that he simply wanted her, but she had enough common sense to know that the days when strange men would approach her on that basis were almost certainly over, even here in the casino at Campione.
So on what basis? If not for that, then what? She’d never been wanted for anything much else, except for money, in her son’s case, and a good word in Gaetano’s ear from some of the junior officers. She’d originally suspected that that might be why Leonardo was coming on to her, and had been quite sharp with him on one occasion, a detail she had conveniently forgotten during her reverie at their trysting house the other day. That had set the whole thing back at least a month, when they’d had so little time to begin with. So little time.
Enough. Signor Zen. Yes, there was something of the favour seeker about him, some hint that she had something he needed and that he was prepared to pay assiduous attentions to her in order to get it. But what on earth could it be? It had of course crossed her mind that the man was an adventurer, one of those charming, unscrupulous con men who hung around casinos looking for a suitable target. And despite the fact that she had been playing the slots when he approached her — and he had deliberately approached her, she now felt sure — her manner, clothing and, alas, her age would have marked her down as just such. He certainly wanted something, that much was clear, but what was it?
The only remotely similar thing she could remember had been Danilo in the weeks immediately following Gaetano’s death, when he had started being so creepily solicitous. At first she had thought that was just his faggish way of demonstrat¬ ing sympathy for the bereaved wife, but after a while his constant questions, always delivered as though he was a grief counsellor helping her to come to terms with the reality of what had happened, had begun to seem just a little too pointed and insistent.
What exactly had she been doing when Gaetano fell? Which room had she been in? Hadn’t she heard anything? When did she realize what had happened? What had she done then? And so on. And on and on and on, until one day she had finally turned on him and said, quite coolly, ‘You think I killed him, don’t you?’
And he had. It had been written on his face as he tried desperately to backtrack, to work up enough honest indignation to treat her question with the contempt it should have deserved. Only he couldn’t quite do it. Claudia had dismissed him, and when they started to see each other again, a year or so later, the matter was never discussed. Thereafter she had kept Danilo at arm’s length until she decided that she had either been mistaken or that he had changed his mind. Either way, it was over. Or so she’d thought, until the veiled insinuations he’d made while breaking the news about the discovery of Leonardo’s body.
Speaking of which, she had better call Naldino soon and find out what was happening with the judicial application. Claudia had no illusions about her son. He was well-meaning but indecisive, just like his father, and needed constant prodding in order to achieve anything. Come to think of it, a spell in the army wouldn’t have done him any harm. Some people could only achieve their full potential when they were ordered around. An unfashionable truth, like so many others.
At four o’clock, punctual to the minute, her admirer came to escort her out of the main door of the casino, down the curving slope to the main piazza of the little village and into the Bar Rouge et Noir on the corner. This was where the croupiers and bouncers came later in the evening to loosen up before their shift began, the nearest thing that Campione had to a neighbourhood bar. Claudia was initially surprised that Zen had chosen it rather than one of the more fashionable tourist establishments a little further along the leafy promenade overlooking the lake, but perhaps he liked something a little rougher and edgier. So had Leonardo, once he’d got over his initial inhibitions and grown masterful. And so, to be honest, did she.
She ordered a cappuccino, Zen a beer.
‘Do you come here often?’ he asked.
It was such a classically lame pick-up line that Claudia almost laughed. Under the circumstances, however, she decided to treat it literally.
‘For decades.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes! I used to visit Campione regularly with my late husband.’
Just to let him know that she was unattached.
‘You had good fortune at the tables, then?’
‘I always broke even.’
‘And your husband?’
Claudia was starting to feel relaxed in this man’s company. She decided to paint a romantic, glamorous and slightly mysterious picture of her marriage, even though the reality had been rather different. Intrigue him.
‘Oh, he was much more successful than me. He used to bring back suitcases full of money.’
‘Did he have a system? I’ve always wanted to hear of a really good one.’
‘No, no. He wasn’t a gambler. He came here to see his bankers.’
‘There are no banks in Campione.’
‘Well, that’s what he told me.’
Zen nodded. ‘So perhaps he was a gambler after all, but at games they don’t play in the casino.’
Claudia was confused by this response, but Zen immediately changed the subject and proceeded to ask her a series of ‘questions expecting the answer Yes’. This was a phrase she remembered from school, and a technique she remembered from a rather more recent era. Get them used to saying yes and they’ll find it harder to say no when the time comes. But what did this Zen want her to say yes to? Dinner here or back in Lugano? Followed by a nocturnal visit to the rooms upstairs at the casino dedicated to roulette, chemin de fer, vingt-et-un and other giochi francesi? Followed by what? Giochi francesi?
In the end, it all proved to be rather different from what she had imagined.
‘Perhaps I’d better lay my cards on the table,’ Zen told her, producing a plastic rectangle from his wallet. ‘Or rather my card.’
Polizia di Stato, she read.
So she had been conned, after all. And he would take her for everything she was worth, she knew that. He would destroy her. Despite her efforts to forget, some part of her had been expecting this moment for the past fifteen years. Now it had come, but she was no readier to cope with it.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked, stalling for time.
Zen was obviously still trying the charm, because he smiled.
‘I went to see your son, signora. Naldo Ferrero. I visited him last night at that rustic restaurant in the Marche. He told me that you were staying in Lugano. I enquired at various hotels until I found the one at which you are registered. The desk clerk told me that you had gone to Campione for the day. One of the staff at the casino then identified you.’
Despite the fact that the money and the number plates were Swiss, Campione was part of Italy, she reminded herself. This man could arrest her here, but on the other side of the lake he would have no such power. She furtively consulted her watch. The next ferry was due in less than ten minutes.
‘It’s about the circumstances surrounding the death,’ Zen continued. ‘And, of course, the identity of Naldo’s father.’