Nearby Florence drew the tourists, keeping Bologna more authentic and unspoiled, and Victor hoped it would always remain that way. The comparatively few visitors meant there were less foreigners for Victor to hide among, but the city was all the more pleasant to walk around for the lack of camera-equipped sightseers.
The weather was hot and dry. Victor wore a white linen shirt and loose cotton chinos and kept cool walking through the shaded maze of the city’s famous portico arcades. In all there were twenty-five miles of covered walkways: perfect for drawing out and losing any surveillance. He saw none and continued his walk to the Via Rizzoli, where he perused the many quaint book and antique stores in between using the plate-glass storefronts of fashion boutiques to further check for shadows. No one registered on his threat radar, but he remained cautious while eating lunch and he continued to perform counter surveillance while seeking out the city’s Renaissance palaces when the majority of stores closed between one and three p.m.
Victor had no enemies in Italy, which was one of the reasons he liked to visit when he could, but after the run-in with the surveillance team in Minsk he had to be especially careful. Whoever they worked for could be tracking him down right now, which was why it was so imperative to find out who they were.
When he was content he had done all he could to avoid being shadowed, Victor walked into a low-ceilinged osteria and surveyed the crowd of strange faces that turned in his direction. He was still within the city centre but the neighbourhood was poorer, shabbier and less welcoming. He made eye contact with those who looked his way to show he wasn’t an easy target, but didn’t stare long enough to invite a challenge. Conversations began again and he ordered a Coke from the skinny barmaid and sat down on a stool, shifting his weight a few times to get comfortable on the hard seat. An old man two stools along asked if he had a light. Victor shook his head.
He sipped his drink and waited. He had his back to the rest of the bar, but the corner tables were all occupied and a huge mirror behind the bar let him keep an eye on his flanks.
It took a few minutes before someone took a stool next to him. The man was short, slightly overweight, with thick arms and a dark, unkempt beard. He was somewhere in his fourth decade and judging by the deep yellow nicotine stains on his hands and teeth Victor didn’t give him more than a couple more.
‘I hear you’re looking for Giordano,’ the man said, without looking at Victor.
‘He’s a hard man to track down. Do you know where I can find him?’
‘I know so many things I fear my brain is not large enough to hold them all.’
‘Where might I find him?’
‘It pains me to say that you cannot. But I am a helpful soul and will fetch him for you. He is terribly shy of strangers, you understand.’
Victor didn’t believe what he was being told for a second. If the bearded man told Victor where to find Giordano, his own usefulness would have been cut short. By keeping Victor in the dark he kept himself as middleman and maintained his profit margins.
Victor opened his wallet and thumbed through the hundred-euro notes inside. He took out one and laid it on the bar, but kept a finger on it.
‘Tell me where I can find Giordano.’
The man reached for the money, but Victor slid it away from his eager fingers.
‘Where?’ Victor asked.
The man grunted. ‘That’s not how these things progress. Let me unburden you of that ugly piece of paper and I can introduce you to him.’
‘Very well.’ Victor slid the note from the bar and placed it back inside his wallet. ‘When can you arrange such an introduction?’
‘How does tomorrow sound to you?’
‘Too late,’ Victor said, understanding the game.
‘Alas, these arrangements take time,’ the man said.
‘And money?’ Victor placed two hundred-euro notes on the bar. ‘How about you take me to him now?’
The bearded man said, ‘That sounds perfectly amicable.’
They walked through the Piazza Maggiore. Locals and tourists sat around the grand square, enjoying the sun and Bologna’s friendly atmosphere while pigeons jostled for crumbs and flapped out of the path of charging children. The piazza was fronted on all sides by buildings dating back to the Middle Ages. To the south, Victor could see the Basilica di San Petronio dominating the square. Its huge facade was composed of elegantly constructed blocks of white and red stone with elaborate carvings and archways at the bottom. Above, however, it was merely topped by crude bare bricks. The result was bizarre to most, horrible to some, but Victor found it strangely appealing — the mix of the beautiful and the ugly.
The bearded man maintained a slow walking pace and smoked cigarettes the whole way, lighting a fresh one while the dying embers of the previous still glowed in the gutter. Victor tried to stay away from the smoke as much as he could because it was the sweetest aroma he’d smelled in a long time and one that tested his resolve. The city streets were narrow and notably absent of trees — the one mark he gave against Bologna’s beauty. The bearded man led him through several of the meandering porticos and Victor realised the route they were taking was just as meandering. He was happy to play along and enjoy viewing the array of old terracotta buildings they passed. Modern architecture was rare in Bologna and the city felt as though time had stood still within its walls while the world changed around it.
Eventually they passed beyond what remained of the medieval walls surrounding the historic centre and out of the time sink. The streets became more crowded, the traffic louder, the lights brighter. The bearded man led Victor for another fifteen minutes before they veered off into an alleyway that ran along the back of a row of restaurants.
‘This is where we part ways,’ the bearded man said, taking the cigarette from his lips. ‘It’s been a pleasure. Now, just walk up there and round the corner.’
He pointed and held out his hand.
‘Giordano?’
‘That would be far too easy, would it not? You’ll find a newspaper under a wooden box. Find the puzzle page. In the crossword is a time and a place. Farewell.’
The air was warm. Music from a nearby bar drifted over him. Victor walked slowly, gaze sweeping over the area, but there was nothing to concern him. He found the box and the paper and folded the puzzle page into his pocket.
The low sun made Victor reach for his shades as he walked back into central Bologna. He passed through the crowds, unnoticed, unremembered. When he had been young he’d wanted everyone to look at him. Now, if anyone did, they were his enemy until proved otherwise.
He used the city’s punctual buses to get around. For some reason, taxis didn’t seem to stop when hailed. Victor spent an hour swapping between buses, before heading to the train station where he sat on a platform bench, thumbing through a classic car magazine. When the eighteen-fifty train to Rome arrived he waited until eighteen-forty-eight before boarding. A few people boarded after him.
On the train, he stood in the vestibule, his hand on the door, counting each passing second. Through the window, he watched for the attendant on the platform give the train driver the all-clear, then he flung the door open and jumped out. He slammed it shut behind him and heard it lock a moment later.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the attendant shake his head. Victor ignored him, looked back and forth along the platform.