Ratking (30 page)

The phone rang.

‘
Well, you seem to be better informed than I am,
Santucci
!
The gang have indeed been arrested. A magistrate went to
Florence this morning to question them. Hello? Hello, are you
there?
’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m here. Thanks. I’ll be in touch.’

I’ll never see Loredana’s children grow, he thought, never take Sergio hunting. But this uncharacteristic weakness lasted no more than a moment. Then he strode to the end of the room and opened the sliding door to the terrace, beckoning to Zen to follow him.

The terrace was covered by a pergola whose vines were just beginning to put out shoots. It was sunny, still and surprisingly hot.

‘So you’re accusing me of collaborating with my father-in-law’s killers, is that it?’ Gianluigi demanded point-blank.

Zen looked taken aback.

‘Not at all, dottore! I just wanted to warn you of certain developments which could potentially cause problems unless steps are taken now. That’s all.’

‘What kind of steps did you have in mind?’

Zen held up his hand, shaking his head.

‘That’s your affair, dottore. I don’t need to know anything about it. But whatever you decide, it’ll take time, and time is precisely what we don’t have at present. Rosella Foria is questioning the gang in Florence at this very moment. We must act right away.’

So that was the way of it, eh? Thank God for human nature, thought Gianluigi, rotten to the core!

‘Excuse me, but what’s in this for you?’ he queried pointedly.

Zen made a small gesture of embarrassment.

‘About four years ago I had a misunderstanding with my superiors in Rome. They transferred me from active service and stuck me away in the Ministry doing bureaucratic work. At this stage of my career I haven’t got much to look forward to except retirement anyway, but my pension will be pegged to my rank. Before this thing happened I was in line for promotion to Vice-Questore, but now …’

Gianluigi nodded and smiled.

‘And you’d still like that promotion.’

Zen shrugged, his eyes discreetly lowered.

‘You spoke of taking action,’ Gianluigi went on. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, there’s another factor involved. The kidnappers admit shooting Valesio, but they deny the Miletti murder. Moreover, one of the SIMP Fiats was observed near the scene of the murder, driven by a woman with blonde hair. I identified the car that day you found me at the garage, and later I had it stolen and subjected to a forensic examination.’

Gianluigi was silent. A display of outrage seemed a bit beside the point under the circumstances, and anyway, he needed to save his energy.

‘Several long threads were found,’ Zen went on. ‘Threads from a blonde wig. It almost looks as though someone was trying to frame your wife, particularly since Ruggiero was shot with a pistol similar to hers which you now tell me is missing. But the point is that all this presents us with both a risk and an opportunity.’

Gianluigi almost missed this last remark. A blonde wig, he was thinking. A blonde
wig
,

Feeling that the silence had gone on long enough, he murmured, ‘A risk for my wife, you mean?’

To his surprise Zen laughed rather nastily.

‘No, dottore! Look, Ruggiero was killed on Monday, twenty-four hours before the phone call saying he had been released. Only the kidnappers knew where he was then, so if they didn’t kill him they must have told the person who did. And only one person was in touch with the gang.’

‘I didn’t kill him!’

Gianluigi’s voice swooped from a scream to a whisper as he realized that he might be overheard.

Zen nodded earnestly.

‘I know, dottore. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I’m just pointing out that the investigating magistrate is bound to assume that the gang’s informant and Ruggiero Miletti’s murderer are one and the same person. That’s a risk we shouldn’t underestimate. But it also provides a way out of the original problem. Because if the informant and the murderer are assumed to be one and the same person, then providing we can persuade Rosella Foria that one of the others committed the murder, she’ll naturally assume that person was also the informant.’

After a moment’s silence Gianluigi burst out laughing, as if he had just been told a story about the bizarre customs of a foreign country.

‘You know, Zen, I think I’ve been underestimating you,’ he said.

‘We have an unfair advantage in the police. Everyone assumes we’re stupid.’

Gianluigi’s smile abruptly disappeared.

‘But it won’t work! Do you think these magistrates are children? How can you hope to implicate one of the family in Ruggiero’s murder? It’s preposterous!’

‘That doesn’t matter. The point is just to create as much fuss and confusion as possible, to send the shit flying in every direction. And then while Rosella Foria is busy trying to clear it all up there’ll be plenty of time to take whatever steps you feel are appropriate to bring about a satisfactory and lasting solution of the problem. But I don’t need to know anything about that. What I
do
need are those photographs of Silvio.’

Once again Gianluigi lost his head.

‘Who put you up to this, Zen? You’re not big enough to be operating on your own. Who’s behind you, eh? What’s the game?’

A dark suspicion suddenly took form in his mind as he remembered the look Zen and his wife had exchanged. Yes, it had to be her. No one else knew about the photographs.

He stepped forward furiously.

‘Look here, you fuck off! Just fuck off out of here right now!’

But Zen stood his ground, gazing at him with the stolid confidence of a dog or horse that knows its owner will see reason sooner or later. And Gianluigi immediately realized that he was right. He would deal with Cinzia later, in private. He mustn’t make it a public shame, still less allow it to compromise the successful resolution of the appallingly dangerous situation he found himself in. To do that would be the folly of an impetuous amateur, not the astute and hardened professional that he was.

‘What are you going to do with the photographs?’

His voice was as calm as marble, and as hard.

‘Don’t you think it might be better if I didn’t tell you?’ Zen replied. ‘They’re going to question you, you know. I think it would be best for you to know as little as possible. It’s amazing what people give away without even realizing it. When I mentioned the blonde wig, for example, you reacted. A magistrate would notice that. As you said, they’re not children. What was it about the wig, by the way?’

Gianluigi eyed him for a final long moment before deciding.

‘I’ll show you.’

He went back into his office, opened the wall-safe and took out a yellow envelope. There were nine prints in all. He selected two, snipped the corresponding negatives from the strip of film and attached them to the prints with a paperclip. The other prints and negatives, the pick of the set, he put back in the safe. They would still do their job when the time came. Indeed, this could be a useful try-out, to see how Silvio reacted to being blackmailed.

When he re-emerged Zen had his back to the house, gazing at the view Gianluigi greeted exultantly each morning on rising with the thought, ‘I bought you!’ He handed over the envelope and watched with undisguised amusement as Zen studied the first photograph. It showed Silvio, naked to the waist, dancing in a crowded discotheque. His hairy chest and smooth shiny belly were bare and a leather dog-lead dangled from each of his pierced nipples. His head was covered in a startling profusion of long blonde locks.

‘The wig,’ murmured Zen.

Gianluigi nodded.

‘Where was this taken?’ Zen asked him.

‘In Berlin.’

‘Ah yes, of course. Home of Gerhard Mayer.’

Gianluigi decided that it was time to remind his new employee of the realities of their relationship.

‘So you know about that too, do you? Very clever. But don’t get so clever that you forget what’s what, will you? Because if you do I promise that you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. And I don’t make empty threats, Zen.’

Zen looked at him with an expression brimming with earnest sincerity.

‘Dottore, please! I’m one hundred per cent on your side!’

Gianluigi nodded.

‘Then we’ll say no more about it. Now let’s see just how clever you are. What do you make of this, eh?’

The second picture apparently showed Silvio leaning back against a tiled wall. But what was that gleaming white mass of vaguely rump-like curves looming above his chest? And why did he have that expression of ecstatic martyrdom?

Gianluigi turned the print on its side, observing Zen’s puzzlement with a knowing smirk. It really was very difficult if you hadn’t seen some of the later and more explicit shots.

‘Does that help?’ he prompted.

Now Silvio was seen to be lying supine on a white tiled floor beneath the white structure. It might almost have been an altar of some sort. Certainly the scene had a ritual air about it, as though it formed part of a ceremony whose exact significance was revealed only to initiates.

‘What’s this?’ Gianluigi asked teasingly, pointing out the white object.

Zen shook his head.

‘Well, what does it look like?’

He was having his fun all right, getting his money’s worth!

‘To be perfectly honest, it looks like a toilet.’

Gianluigi applauded ironically.

‘Bravo, my friend. It is a toilet. But a rather special toilet. It’s not connected to a sewer, it’s connected to Silvio. He’s waiting for someone to come along and use it. One of the places our Silvio goes when he visits his boyfriend in Berlin is a club for people who like to be crapped on, and vice versa of course. Don’t you wish you’d thought of it, eh? What a goldmine! They both pay for their fun, and you’ve got a flourishing little business in top-quality garden manure on the side.’

Zen laughed and replaced the photographs in the envelope. Gianluigi clapped him familiarly on the back, pushing him into the house. Now he must get rid of him quickly. He needed peace and quiet in which to think. It was no use alerting his usual contacts. For them to be effective they would have to know the truth, and if they knew the truth they would abandon him. There were limits to what you could get away with, and he was well aware that he’d overstepped them. It was a pity the judiciary were already involved. Magistrates were so bloody-minded that they would often pursue their investigations even when it had been made perfectly clear to them that it was against their own best interests. That sort of stubbornness was something that Gianluigi absolutely despised. As far as he was concerned it was an aberration like religious or political fanaticism, something quite out of place in a modern democratic society.

‘I need to talk to Silvio as soon as possible,’ Zen remarked as they reached the front door. ‘Could you get someone to persuade him to go to Antonio Crepi’s house this afternoon? Crepi himself needn’t know anything about it.’

Gianluigi stared at him, his eyes narrowing.

‘You’re asking an awful lot and giving very little in return,’ he observed sourly.

‘I’m doing it all for you, dottore!’ Zen exclaimed with a hurt expression.

After a moment Gianluigi broke into loud laughter.

‘All for me, my arse! You’re doing it for your pension, my friend, and don’t think I don’t know it.’

Zen shrugged awkwardly.

‘Oh well, that too, of course.’

‘What now?’

Silvio silently echoed his driver’s exasperated murmur as he caught sight of the patrolman waving them down. What now, indeed? Another annoyance, another setback, another delay.

As the taxi slowed to a halt beside the unmarked police car parked at a bend in the road a massive sigh began its slow progress up from the bottom of Silvio’s chest. For this was not the first vexation which the day had dropped on him, not by a long chalk! In fact it had been nothing but trials and tribulations from the moment his clock-radio had turned itself on at five o’clock that morning, shocking him into consciousness. It had been supposed to wake him from a nap the previous afternoon in time for an appointment with a young friend, but he must have set it wrong, for having messed up his evening by failing to go off, it had then ruined his sleep into the bargain. So there he was, wide awake at the crack of dawn, with no more chance of going back to sleep than of getting a turd back where it came from, as dear Gerhard used to say.

He really must get in touch with Gerhard soon. One of the most unpleasant features of the last few months had been having to suspend his trips to Berlin, but now everything was satisfactorily resolved he would be able to slip away again sometime soon. As Ivy pointed out, Ruggiero’s death was not without its consolations.

‘Rubbish!’ she’d retorted when he claimed to be grief-stricken.

‘But my father’s dead!’ he’d cried with a dramatic gesture. ‘I’ve got a
right
to be upset. It’s only natural!’

‘But you’re not upset. On the contrary, you’re quite relieved.’

‘Don’t say that!’

But he had known that she was right. That was what was so amazing about Ivy, her ability to reach into his mind and show him things he had never dared admit to himself were there. It was terrible, sometimes, how right she could be.

The policeman, a rather attractive young fellow with an enormous moustache, was checking the driver’s documents. Silvio thought he’d seen him somewhere before. And wasn’t there something familiar about the spot where they had been stopped too? The sun was high and it was unpleasantly hot in the taxi. He felt grotesquely overdressed in his heavy underwear, thick suit and overcoat, perspiring all over. But the moisture remained trapped between flesh and fabric, unable to do its business properly. Silvio consulted his watch. The patrolman was now walking in a maddeningly leisurely fashion around the taxi, inspecting it closely, taking his time. If this went on much longer he was going to be really late.

After that rude awakening he’d tried in vain to get back to sleep, but in the end he’d given up all hope and gone downstairs, only to find that Daniele had scoffed all his special organic goat’s yoghurt rich in the live bacilli which Silvio’s homoeopathist was adamant he needed to maintain the precarious equilibrium of his health. The goaty taste was what attracted Silvio, though. Everything to do with goats came into that special category where pleasure and disgust struggled for supremacy like two naked wrestlers. Sweat was another, and farts and bad breath. Gianluigi’s breath was quite overpowering sometimes, because of his indigestion problems no doubt, or those teeth of his which never saw a brush, packed with rich, undisturbed deposits of plaque, so that he wondered sometimes how Cinzia could stand it. But perhaps she too loved to loathe, longed to stretch herself languorously out and yield to the very thing that made her shudder with disgust.