The low melancholy growl was repeated once more, a feeble echo of the jet's brief uproar, like a child feebly imitating a word it does not understand.
It does not sound happy, the lion,' Zen observed.
'It is dying.'
'Of what?'
'Of old age.'
'The planes disturb it'
'Strangers too.'
The man's tone was uncompromising. Zen pointed to the scar on his forearm.
'But it is still dangerous, I see.'
The man brushed past him towards the door.
'A very neat job, though,' Zen commented, following him out. 'More like a knife or a bullet than claws.'
'You know a lot about lions?' the keeper demanded sarcastically, as they emerged into the brilliant sunlight and pure air.
'Only what I read in the papers.'
The man walked over to the smaller hut and brought out a plastic bucket filled with a bloody mixture of hearts, lungs and intestines.
'I notice that you keep a shotgun in there,' Zen pursued, 'so I assume there is reason for fear.'
The man regarded him with blank eyes.
'There is always reason for fear when you are dealing with creatures to whom killing comes naturally.'
Seeing him standing there in open defiance, the bucket of guts in his hand, ready to feed the great beasts that he alor.e could manage, it was easy to see Furio Padedda's attraction for a certain type of woman. It was to these concrete huts that Rita Burolo had come to disport herself with the lion-keeper, unaware that their antics were being recorded by the infra-red video equipment her husband had rigged up under the roof.
How had Oscar felt, viewing those tapes which -according to gloating sources in the investigating magistrate's office – made hard-core porno videos look tame by comparison? Had his motive for making them been simple voyeurism, or was he intending to blackmail his wife? Was she independently wealthy? Had he hoped in this way h~ stave off bankruptcy until his threats forced 1'onorevole to intervene in his favour? Supposing he had mentioned the existence of the tapes to her, and she had passed on the information to her lover. To a proud and fiery Sardinian, the fact that his amorous exploits had been recorded for posterity might well have seemed a sufficient justification for murder. Or rather, Zen realized, as he sat moodily sipping his vernaccia, it could easily be made to appear that it had. Which was all that concerned him, after all.
The bar had emptied appreciably as the men drifted home to eat the meals their wives and mothers had shopped for that morning. Zen stared blearily at his watch, eventually deciphering the time as twenty to nine. He pushed his chair back, rose unsteadily and walked over to the counter, where the burly proprietor was rinsing glasses.
'When can I get something to eat?'
Reto Gurtner would have phrased the question more politely, but he had stayed behind at the table.
'Tomorrow,' the proprietor replied without looking up from his work.
'How do you mean, tomorrow?'
'The restaurant's only open for Sunday lunch out of season.'
'You didn't tell me that!'
'You didn't ask.'
Zen turned away with a muttered obscenity.
'There's a pizzeria down the street,' the proprietor added grudgingly.
Zen barged through the glass doors of the hotel. The piazza was deserted and silent. As he passed the Mercedes, Zen patted it like a faithful, friendly pet, a reassuring presence in this alien place. A roll of thunder sounded out, closer yet still quiet, a massively restrained gesture.
In the corner of the piazza stood the village's only public hone pox a high-tech glass booth perched there as if it hag jusf landed from outer space. Zen eyed it wistfully, but tge risk was just too great. Tania would have had time to think things over by now. Supposing she was off hand or indifferent, a cold compensation for her excessive warmth the day before? He would have to deal witg ppat eventually, of course, but not now, not here, with all the other problems he had.
The village was as still and dead as a ghost town. Zen shambled along, looking for the pizzeria. All of a sudden pe stopped in his tracks, then whirled around wildly, scanning the empty street behind him. No one. What had it been? A noise? Or just drunken fancy? 'They must have stumbled on something they weren't supposed to see,' the Carabiniere had said of the murdered couple in the camper. 'It can happen to anyone, round here. All you need is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
As the alcoholic mists in Zen's mind cleared for a moment, he had an image of a child scurrying along an alleyway running parallel to the main street, appearing at intervals in the dark passages with steps leading up. A child playing hide-and-seek in the darkness. But had he imagined it, or had he really caught sight of somethin8 out of the corner of his eye, on the extreme periphery of vision, something seen but not registered until now?
He shook his head sharply, as though to empty it of all this nonsense. Then set off again, a little more hurriedly now.
The pizzeria was just around the corner where the street curved downhill, among the new blocks on the outskirts of the village. The exterior was grimly basic -reinforced concrete framework, bare brickwork infill, adhesive plastic letters spelling 'Pizza Tavola Calda' on the window – but inside th place was bright, brash and cheerful, decorated with traditional masks, dolls, straw baskets and woven and embroidered hangings. To Zen's astonishment, the young man in charge even welcomed him warmly. Things were definitely looking up.
After a generous antipasto of local air-cured ham and salami, a large pizza and most of a flask of red wine, they looked even better. Zen lit a cigarette and looked around at the group of teenagers huddled conspiratorially in the corner, the table-top laden with empty soft-drink bottles.
If only he had had someone to talk to, it would have been perfect. As it was, his only source of entertainment was the label of the bottled mineral water he had ordered. This consisted of an assurance by a professor at Cagliari University that the contents were free of microbacteriological impurities, together with an encomium on its virtues that seemed to imply that in sufficient quantities it would cure everything but old age. Zen studied the chemical analysis, which listed among other things the abbassamento crioscopico, concentrazione osmotica and conducibilita elettrica specipca a x8'C. Each litre contained 0.00009 grams of barium. Was this a good thing or a bad thing?
The door of the pizzeria opened to admit the half-witted midget he had seen outside Confalone's office that morning. She was dripping wet, and Zen realized suddenly that the hushing sound he had been hearing for some time now, like static on a radio programme, was caused by a downpour of rain. The next instant a deafening peal of thunder rang out, seemingly right overhead. One of the teenagers shrieked in mock terror, the others giggled nervously. The beggar woman limped theatrically over to Zen's table and demanded money.
'I gave you something this morning,' Reto Gurtner replied in a tone of distaste.
The owner shouted angrily in Sardinian and the woman turned away with a face as blank as the wooden carnival masks hanging on the wall and went to sit on a chair near the door, looking out at the torrential rain. She must know a thing or two, thought Zen, wandering about from place to place, privileged by madness.
When the owner came to clear Zen's table, he apologized for the fact that he'd been bothered.
'I try to keep her out of here, but what can you do? She's got nowhere to go.'
'Homeless?'
The man shrugged.
'She's got a brother, but she won't live with him. Claims he's an impostor. She sleeps rough, in caves and shepherd's huts, even on the street. She's harmless, but quite mad. Not that it's surprising, after what happened to her.'
He made no effort to lower his voice, although the woman was sitting near by, perched on her chair like a large doll. Zen glanced at her, but she was still staring rigidly at the door.