Ratking (11 page)

Zen noted the evasive reply.

‘If everything is, nothing is. If we’re all conspirators then there’s no conspiracy.’

‘On the contrary, the condition of this conspiracy is that we’re all part of it,’ Bartocci retorted. ‘It’s a ratking.’

‘A what?’

‘A ratking. Do you know what that is?’

Zen shrugged.

‘The king rat, I suppose. The dominant animal in the pack.’

‘That’s what everyone thinks. But it’s not. A ratking is something that happens when too many rats live in too small a space under too much pressure. Their tails become entwined and the more they strain and stretch to free themselves the tighter grows the knot binding them, until at last it becomes a solid mass of embedded tissue. And the creature thus formed, as many as thirty rats tied together by the tail, is called a ratking. You wouldn’t expect such a living contradiction to survive, would you? That’s the most amazing thing of all. Most of the ratkings they find, in the plaster of old houses or beneath the floorboards of a barn, are healthy and flourishing. Evidently the creatures have evolved some way of coming to terms with their situation. That’s not to say they like it, of course! In fact the reason they’re discovered is because of their diabolical squealing. Not much fun, being chained to each other for life. How much sweeter it would be to run free! Nevertheless, they
do
survive, somehow. The wonders of nature, eh?’

He paused for a moment, to let Zen’s exasperation mature.

‘Now a lot of people believe that somewhere in the wainscotting of this country the king of all the rats is hiding,’ he finally went on. ‘The toughest brute of all, the most vicious and ruthless, the dominant animal in the pack, as you put it. Some thought it was Calvi, some thought it Was Gelli. Others believe that it is someone else again, someone above and beyond either of them, a big name in the government perhaps, or on the contrary someone you’ve never even heard of. But the one thing they all agree is that he exists, this super-rat. It’s a message of hope and of despair. Hope, because perhaps one fine day we’ll finally trap him, run him down, finish him off and rid the house of rats for ever. Despair, because we know he’s too shrewd and powerful and cunning ever to be trapped. But in fact that’s all just a fairy story! What we’re dealing with is not a creature but a condition, the condition of being crucified to your fellows, squealing madly, biting, spitting, lashing out, yet somehow surviving, somehow even vilely flourishing! That’s what makes the conspiracy so formidable. There’s no need for agendas or strategies, for lists of members or passwords or secret codes. The ratking is self-regulating. It responds automatically and effectively to any threat. Each rat defends the interests of the others. The strength of each is the strength of all.’

‘I don’t quite see what all this has to do with the present case,’ Zen said.

Bartocci glanced at his watch.

‘I’m sorry, I got rather carried away. But the fact remains that whether or not there is a conspiracy in progress in the Miletti case, I believe that the investigation has reached a point where I can no longer continue to ignore such a theory. However, it would be fatal for me to announce my intentions. If I were to conduct this investigation like any other the political repercussions would ensure that the truth never came to light.’

‘Which is where I come in.’

The magistrate looked at him, the strange stalled smile straining away at the corner of his mouth.

‘If you are prepared to help.’

Zen turned round, taking a deep breath. One of the first-floor windows of the houses giving on to the piazza was a painted dummy, but at the one next to it a portly, silver-haired man in a red dressing-gown stood staring down at them with undisguised curiosity.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Zen asked tonelessly.

‘Just a few things that would be difficult for me to do without causing comment. First of all I’d like you to check what firearms are registered to members of the Miletti family. Don’t forget to include the Santuccis. I also want you to make discreet inquiries as to the whereabouts of members of the family yesterday.’

‘I can tell you where they were yesterday evening. They were having dinner with me at Antonio Crepi’s.’

Bartocci gave him a look that modulated rapidly from astonishment through alarm and respect to suspicion. Then he laughed rather aggressively.

‘Well, well! You do get around, don’t you?’

‘Apparently Crepi wanted me to meet the Milettis. To “see what we’re up against” as he put it.’

At the other end of the piazza a young couple were hungrily necking, bent over a parked car. The fat man at the window was still looking on, his thumbs tucked under the belt of his dressing-gown.

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Yes, quite a lot. In fact to some extent it seemed to tally with what you’ve been saying. Not that he suggested that the family had any complicity in the kidnapping …’

‘Of course not! Anyway, he wouldn’t know.’

‘But he feels they’re not doing enough to bring Ruggiero home. He asked me to make that plain to the press in an attempt to pressure the Milettis to pay up.’

The young magistrate smiled sourly.

‘Typical. Anyway, one thing is certain. No additional pressure will be necessary now. Valesio’s death will do more than any press conference to resolve this issue one way or the other. Within the next few days I expect the family to say that they’ve received a demand for the full amount of the ransom to be paid at once and that they are going to comply. That’s why we need to move fast. Once that money is handed over and Ruggiero is back we’ll never be able to prove anything. But we must be discreet, above all! This entire matter is politically sensitive in the very highest degree, and if any word of it leaks out I shall be forced to …’

He broke off suddenly, looking past Zen. The young man had produced a camera and was taking photographs of his girlfriend posed in various positions against the landscape.

‘Anyway, I must go. No time for coffee, I’m afraid.’

As Bartocci hurried away the man with the camera came striding purposefully towards Zen, his girlfriend following more slowly behind.

‘Pardon me! Would you be as good enough to mind making of us two both a photograph?’

Foreign, thought Zen with relief. The young magistrate’s sudden haste had been unnecessary. One thing at least was certain: the bastards would never employ foreigners.

That afternoon Aurelio Zen went boating.

After the shock of Valesio’s murder and his almost sleepless night, lunch with Luciano Bartocci had really been the last straw. One thing he could have done without was an ambitious young investigating magistrate with a strong political bias, a prefabricated conspiracy theory and an itch to get his name in the news. At Zen’s expense, needless to say, should anything go wrong.

Once upon a time magistrates had been dull, stolid figures, worthy but uninspiring, above all remote and anonymous. But the combination of television and terrorism had changed all that. A new breed of men had emerged from the vague grey ranks of the judiciary to stamp themselves on the nation’s consciousness: the glamorous investigating magistrates and Public Prosecutors who were to be seen on the news every evening leading the fight against political violence and organized crime. Now all their colleagues craved stardom too, and almost overnight the once faceless bureaucrats had blossomed out in trendy clothes and bushy beards, and an anonymous letter was enough to get them as excited as any schoolboy.

Since Bartocci had been at pains to emphasize that his comments were ‘off the record’, Zen could of course simply ignore them. But that would be rash. There were an infinite number of ways in which the investigating magistrate could compromise or embarrass a police officer, whereas having the judiciary on your side was an invaluable asset. No, he had to try and keep Bartocci happy. On the other hand, the inquiries he had been asked to make, although apparently innocuous, were also fraught with risk. A great family such as the Milettis is like a sleeping bear: it may look massively apathetic and unimpressionable but each hair of its pelt is wired straight into the creature’s brain, and if you twitch it the wrong way the thing will flex its tendons and turn on you, unzipping its claws. What was he to do? How was he to react? What was a safe course to take?

His immediate solution was to go boating. Not for long, of course. With all these new developments pressing in on him the last thing he could afford was an afternoon off work. But neither was there any point in trying to take action with his head in this condition. So having made his way back to the hotel he closed the shutters, took off his shoes, jacket and tie, lay down on the bed and cast off. The image of the long shallow craft gliding forward through the reeds in regular surges, propelled by the oarsman’s graceful double-handed sweeps, was a powerful agent of calm. Just ten or fifteen minutes of it now would see him right, a short trip out through the islets and mudbanks where you could let the boat drift, lean over the stern and watch the inner life of the dirty green water, the shreds of seaweed and small branches and other shapes that sometimes proved to be alive, or focus on the surface, a depthless sheet of scum on which the pearly light shimmered in continual shifting patterns, or even look up to see a huge modern building, several storeys high, going for a stroll along a neighbouring island, the superstructure of a freighter putting out to sea along the deep-water channel …

He got up and put the light on, shivering. Something was wrong. How could the room feel stuffy and cold at the same time? And it was totally silent, no distant murmur of traffic, no footsteps, no voices. Catching sight of the transistor radio, he clicked it on and fiddled with the tuning, encountering only heavy bands of static interspersed with the twittering gibberish of machines. He felt like the last person left alive.

‘
… very much and you get a fabulous Radio
Subasio
T-shirt
so keep those calls coming out there this one is for
Adriana
in
Gubbio it’s Celentano’s
latest coming to you at fifteen before
four this Thursday morning courtesy of your friend
Tullio
who
says …
’

Zen silenced the radio, walked to the window and opened the shutters. The deserted piazza glistened under the streetlights. He had slept right through the night.

Catching sight of his reflection in the window he felt a surge of self-pity and suddenly realized that he missed Ellen very badly, and that it was only at moments like this, when he surprised himself, that he could admit how much he needed her. Why couldn’t he tell
her
? That was what she wanted, after all, and he knew that she was right to want it. For a moment he thought of phoning her, then and there, and telling her how he felt. But it would be ridiculous, of course. He imagined the phone ringing and ringing until it prodded her unwillingly out of sleep, and her uncomprehending response. ‘For Christ’s sake, Aurelio, couldn’t this have waited? Do you know what time it is? I’ve got a sale to go to at nine, and you know how difficult it is for me to get back to sleep once I’ve been woken.’ Instead he read a paper he’d bought in Trieste and forgotten to throw away, immersing himself in a debate over the council’s delay in resurfacing the streets in an outlying zone of the city until it was time to go to work.

A crowd of people of various races, clutching passports and sheaves of official documents, were clustered around an office in the foyer of the Questura. A sheet of paper attached to the glass partition with sticky tape read ‘Foreigners’ in crude lettering. Behind the glass an official from the Political Branch scowled at a worried-looking black.

‘And I suppose it’s my fault you haven’t got it?’ he demanded.

As Zen approached his office, the inspector who had been trying to trace Ubaldo Valesio’s movements poked his head around the door of the next room.

‘Just a moment, chief!’

Lucaroni was short and rather sleazy-looking, with narrow-set eyes and a broad jaw blue with stubble. His movements were quick and furtive and he spoke in a speedy whisper, as though every word were classified information.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he muttered. ‘The widow. Rolled in about five minutes ago demanding to see you. We weren’t sure what to do with her.’

He looked doubtfully at Zen, who nodded.

‘Turn up anything yesterday?’

Lucaroni shook his head.

‘He phoned his office at nine to cancel all appointments. It was obviously unexpected. There were two clients waiting who had to be sent away.’

Zen looked into the inspectors’ room. Chiodini was poring over a sports paper. Geraci was staring fixedly back at Zen, as though he was trying to remember whether he’d turned the gas off before leaving home.

‘How about you two?’ Zen asked.

Geraci’s eyebrows wiggled briefly.

‘Just a lot of stuff about his house and taxes and kids.’

‘And those marks in the diary,’ Chiodini put in without looking up from his paper.

‘They’re nothing,’ Geraci commented dismissively.

‘What marks?’ asked Zen.

He was really just buying time before having to deal with Patrizia Valesio.

Chiodini took the diary from the pile of documents on his desk and showed him that the lawyer had marked several pages during the previous three months with a red asterisk, the last being two days earlier. Zen walked over to the door opening directly into his office, taking the diary with him.

‘What do you want us to do now, chief?’ Geraci asked. He sounded slightly panicky.

‘Nothing, for now.’

He should never have asked for three assistants, he realized. Now he would always have them hanging about, making him feel guilty, getting in his way. Moreover one of them was bound to be reporting back to the Questore, and since there was no way of finding out which he would have to keep them all busy if he was to do what Bartocci had asked.

The spare chair in his office was occupied by a woman of about thirty dressed in an elegant black outfit. Her face was large and round and slightly concave, with a long sharp nose.

‘You’re the man they sent up from Rome?’ she asked. ‘I am Patrizia Valesio.’

‘I’m very sorry…’

She waved dismissively.

‘Please, don’t let’s waste time.’

Zen took out a notepad and pencil and laid them on the desk.

‘Very well. What can I do for you?’

‘I’ve come to make an accusation. You may find it bizarre, even unbelievable. I simply ask you to listen, and not to judge what I say until I have finished.’

She took a deep breath.

‘My husband did not usually discuss the negotiations for Ruggiero Miletti’s release with me, but on one occasion about a month ago, while we were having dinner …’

She paused. The strain of what she was saying showed on her face. Then she finished quickly.

‘He suddenly blurted out, “Someone is going behind my back”.’

The phone started to ring.

‘Excuse me,’ Zen said, and lifted the receiver.

‘
Good morning, Commissioner. This is Antonio Crepi.
I’m
just phoning to make it quite clear that our discussion the other
night is no longer relevant.
Pietro
has flown in from London
and
he’s
assured me that as soon as the gang make contact the
matter will be resolved without further delay. I
don’t
need to
tell you to keep what I said to yourself of course
.’

Of course.’

‘
Incidentally, I hear you had lunch with young
Bartocci
yesterday
.’

Zen watched Patrizia Valesio removing an invisible hair from her coat.

‘
I
don’t
want to interfere,
dottore
, but remember what I told
you about him.
Luciano’s
a good lad at heart, but
he’s
got a bee
in his bonnet when it comes to the
Milettis
. You know how
these lefties are, they read Marx and stop seeing reality. Now
that’
s
a dangerous attitude for an investigating magistrate, in
my opinion. Still more so for a policeman. See what I mean?
Just a friendly word of advice, from one who knows
.’

Zen put the phone down. ‘… from one who knows.’ Where had he heard that phrase before?

Patrizia Valesio was staring at him with the expression of one who is not to be put off by interruptions. Her face reminded Zen of an old-fashioned candlestick: a shallow dish with a spike in the middle.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You were saying that …’

‘Ubaldo told me that someone was going behind his back,’ she repeated. ‘He said that every time he returned to the kidnappers to present an offer worked out after lengthy discussions with the family, claiming that this was the absolute maximum the Milettis could afford to pay, the gang accused him of lying. “Have you forgotten the villa at Punta Ala? And what about the olive grove at Spello? Why haven’t you sold the shares in such and such a company?” And when Ubaldo asked the Milettis, lo and behold there
was
such a villa, such an olive grove, such shares! It was a negotiator’s nightmare!’

Zen stared hard at the pad. He had been doodling obsessive box-like designs, a nest of interlocking right-angled lines locking out all possibility of error or surprise.

‘What about Ruggiero himself?’ he suggested. ‘He knows more than anyone about the family assets, and he’s totally in the gang’s power. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to make him talk.’

‘That’s what Ubaldo thought at first. But the gang knew about financial developments which had taken place
since
the kidnapping, things Ruggiero couldn’t have known about. Eventually Ubaldo became convinced that someone in the family circle was supplying the gang with information on a day-to-day basis. Which means that my husband was the innocent victim of some hideous double-deading within the Miletti family! That’s why I have come. I want his murderers punished. Not just the ones who pulled the trigger but also the ones who stood behind them, in the shadows!’

She broke off, taking quick shallow breaths.

‘This is all very interesting, signora …’

‘I haven’t finished!’ she snapped. ‘There’s something else, a vital clue. The gang always used the same procedure when they wanted to make contact. The telephone would ring at one o’clock, just as we were sitting down to lunch. Only two words were spoken. The caller gave the name of a football team and Ubaldo had to reply with the name of the team they were playing the following Sunday. He kept the fixtures list by the phone. Then he hung up immediately, phoned his office and cancelled his afternoon appointments. That was the procedure, and it never varied. But on Tuesday …’

She broke off again, fighting for control.

‘On Tuesday the call came not at lunchtime but early in the morning, about seven forty-five. I heard Ubaldo give the password and then say “Now?” in great surprise.’

She held Zen’s eyes with hers.

‘When did you arrive here in Perugia, Commissioner?’

‘On Tuesday.’

‘At what time?’

‘About half past one.’

‘And who knew you were coming?’

He frowned slightly.

‘Various people in the Ministry and here at the Questura.’

‘No one else?’

‘Not as far as I know. Why?’

Was that a sound from the next room, from behind the closed door?

‘Then how do you explain the fact that the kidnappers phoned urgently, demanding to see Ubaldo in person, at a time when you were still in Rome and no one supposedly knew you were coming except the authorities?’

Her voice was triumphant, as though this clinched the matter. Zen deliberately allowed his frown to deepen.

‘I don’t see there’s anything to explain. What connection is there between the two events?’

She snorted indignantly.

‘The connection? The connection is obvious to anyone who can put two and two together. Do you really believe that the first contact after weeks of silence just happened by sheer coincidence to fall on the same day as your arrival here? I’m sorry, but that would be just a little too convenient. But how could the kidnappers have known about your arrival in Perugia five hours before it happened? Obviously their contact in the family tipped them off!’