Vendetta

'It really was most good of you to come, dottore. I trust that your work has not been… that's to say, that no serious disruption will make itself felt in…'

The appearance of the stocky Lino rescued them both from these incoherent politenesses. Like a man in a dream, Zen walked back through the dim vastness of the room to the walnut door, which Lino closed behind them as softly as the lid of an expensive coffin.

'This way.'

'That's very good,' Zen remarked as they set off along the corridor. 'Have they trained you to say anything else?'

Lino turned round looking tough.

'You want your teeth kicked in?'

'That depends on whether you want to be turned into low-grade dog food. Because that's what's liable to happen to anyone round here who fails to treat me with the proper respect.'

'Bullshit! '

'On the contrary, chum. All I have to do is mention that I don't like your face and by tomorrow you won't have a face.'

Lino sneered.

'You're crazy,' he said, without total conviction.

'That's not what I'onorevole thinks. Now beat it. I'll find my own way out.'

For a moment Lino tried bravely to stare Zen out, but doubt had leaked into his eyes and he had to give up the attempt.

'Crazy!' he repeated, turning away with a contemptuous sniff.

Zen left the portal of Palazzo Sisti with a confident, unfaltering stride, a man with places to go to and people to see. The moment he was out of sight around the nearest corner, his manner changed beyond all recognition. He might now have been taken for a member of one of the geriatric tourist groups that descend on Rome once the high season is over. Far from having an urgent goal in mind, he turned right and left at random, obeying impulses of which he wasn't even aware and which in any case were of no importance. All that mattered was to let the tension seep slowly out of his body, draining out through the soles of his feet as they traversed the grimy undulating cobbles, scattering pigeons and sending the feral cats scuttling for cover under parked cars.

In due course he emerged into an open space which he recognized with pleasure as the Piazza Campo dei Fiori, almost Venetian in its intimacy and hence one of Zen's favourite spots in Rome. The morning vegetable market created a gentle bustle of activity that was supremely restful. He made his way across the cobbles strewn with discarded leaves and stalks, past zinc bathtubs and buckets full of ashes from the wooden boxes burned earlier against the morning chill. Now the sun was high enough to flood most of the piazza with its light. The stall-holders were still hard at work, washing and trimming salad greens under the communal tap. Elderly women in heavy dark overcoats with fur collars walked from stall to stall, looking doubtfully at the produce.

Zen walked over to a wine shop he knew, where he ordered a glass of vino novello. He leaned against the doorpost, smoking a cigarette and sipping the frothy young wine, which had still been in the grapes when Oscar Burolo and his guests were murdered. A gang of labourers working on a house nearby were shouting from one level of scaffolding to another in a dialect so dense that Zen could understand nothing except that God and the Virgin Mary were coming in for the usual steady stream of abuse.

A neat, compact group of Japanese tourists passed by, accompanied by two burly Italian bodyguards. The female guide, clutching a furled pink umbrella, was giving a running commentary in which Zen was surprised to make out the name 'Giordano Bruno', like a fish sighted under water. She pointed with her umbrella to the centre of the square, where the statue of the philosopher stood on a plinth, its base covered with the usual incomprehensible graffiti.

Nearby an old woman bent double like a wooden doll hinged at the hips was feeding last night's spaghetti to a gang of mangy cats. Zen thought nostalgically of the cats of his native city, carved or living, monumental or obscure, the countless avatars of the Lion of the Republic itself. In Venice, cats were the familiars of the city, as much a part of it as the stones and the water, but the cats of Rome were just vermin to be periodically exterminated.

It somehow seemed typical of the gulf which separated the two cities. For while Zen liked Campo dei Fiori, he could never forget that the statue at its centre commemorated a philosopher who was burnt alive on that spot at about the same time that the gracious and exquisite Palazzo Sisti was taking shape a few hundred metres away.

As he took his empty glass back inside, Zen found himself drawn to the scene at the bar. One of the labourers, wearing dusty blue overalls and a hat made from newspaper like an inverted toy boat, was knocking back a glass of the local white wine. Further along, two businessmen stood talking in low voices. On the bar before them were their empty glasses, a saucer filled with nuts and cocktail biscuits, two folded newspapers and a removable in-car cassette player.

Zen turned away. That was what had attracted his attention. But why? Nothing was more normal. No one left a cassette deck in their car any more, unless they wanted to have the windows smashed in and the unit stolen.

It wasn't until Zen stepped into the band of shadow cast by the houses on the other side of the piazza that the point of the incident suddenly became clear to him. He had seen a cassette player in a parked car recently, in a brand-new luxury car parked in a secluded street late at night. Such negligence, coupled with the scratches and dents in the bodywork and the use of the floor as an ashtray, suggested a possibility that really should have occurred to him long before. Still, better late than never, he thought.

Or.were there cases where that reassuring formula didn't hold, where late was just too late, and there were no second chances?

Back at the Ministry, Zen phoned the Questura and asked whether Professor Lusetti's red Alfa Romeo appeared on their list of stolen vehicles. Thanks to the recent computerization of this department, he had his answer within seconds. The car in question had been reported stolen ten days earlier.

He put the receiver down, then lifted it again and dialled another number. After some time the ringing tone was replaced by a robotic voice. 'Thank you for calling Paragon Security Consultants. The office is closed for lunch until three o'clock. If you wish to leave a message, please speak now.'

'It's Aurelio, Gilberto. I was hoping to…'

'Aurelio! How are things?'

Zen stared at the receiver as thought it had stung him.

'But… I thought that was a recorded message.'

'That's what I wanted you to think. At least, not you, but any of the five thousand people I don't want to speak to at this moment.'

'Why don't you get a real answering machine?'

'I have, but I can't use it just at the moment. One of my competitors has found a way to fake the electronic tone I can send down the line to have it play back the recorded messages to a distant phone. The result is that he downloaded a hundred million lire's worth of business, as well as making me look an idiot. Anyway, what can I do for you?'

'Well, I was hoping we could have a talk. I don't suppose you're free for lunch?'

'Today? Actually that's a bit… well, I don't know.

Come to think of it, that might work quite well. Yes!

Listen, I'll see you at Licio's. Do you know where it is?'

'I'll find it.'

Zen pressed the rest down to get a dialling tone, then rang his home and asked Maria Grazia if everything was all right.

'Everything's fine now,' she assured him. 'But this morning! Madonr.a, I was terrified!'

Zen tightened his grip on the receiver. 'What happened?'

'It was frightful, awful! The signora didn't notice anything, thanks be to God, but I was looking straight at the window when it happened!'

'When what happened?'

'Why, this man suddenly appeared!'