The Absolution (6 page)

“
IF WE WAIT
until his wife's made a formal identification, any useful evidence at his office will almost certainly have been whisked away,” Kat said patiently. “A warrant to search the place now is the only way we can be sure of getting whatever's there.”

The prosecutor, Flavio Li Fonti, turned to his number two, a lawyer called Melissa Romano. “I imagine you'll have something to say about that, Avvocatessa?”

“Indeed I do,” she said crisply. “As I understand it, Captain, you have no probable cause that any such evidence exists. It would be a fishing expedition, pure and simple.”

“The man was a banker, and his death is linked to Freemasonry,” Kat argued. “Given his wounds, it's highly unlikely to be a domestic dispute. Therefore, searching his office sooner rather than later is just a sensible precaution.”

They were in Flavio Li Fonti's office in the Cittadella della Giustizia, the Palace of Justice, one of Venice's few strikingly modern buildings. Both prosecutors had already been in court and were wearing the formal black robes and white cravats of their profession. Kat and Bagnasco sat opposite them, on the other side of Li Fonti's desk.

“There's no suggestion he was killed at his workplace. It would be more logical to search the nearest Freemason's lodge,” Li Fonti said, crossing his legs.

“He's not listed as a member of the official Venetian lodge.”

“Which makes the link to Freemasonry even more tenuous,” Melissa Romano interjected. “Your argument defeats itself, Captain.”

Kat knew from experience that these objections, although couched in a tone that suggested she was wasting her time, actually meant nothing of the kind. Good prosecutors were no pushover, particularly when you were asking for something out of the ordinary. They would test your argument to destruction, and only then make a decision.

And Flavio Li Fonti was a very good prosecutor. Proof of that could be glimpsed through the open door of his office, where two plain-clothes bodyguards sat in the vestibule, toying with their mobile phones. The long series of trials, lasting over eight years, which had cracked open a major 'Ndrangheta drugs network had been a spectacular success, with convicted
mafiosi
turning
pentito
one by one and incriminating others in return for a lighter sentence. But the 'Ndrangheta weren't the type to forgive and forget. While the
pentiti
were able to disappear to new lives abroad, the price of Li Fonti's success was that he now had to be guarded around the clock, never spending more than one night a week in the same place, never travelling by the same route to the courts or his office. It had cost him his marriage, his wife adopting a new identity and fleeing abroad just like the
pentiti
. It was said that he saw his children no more than half a dozen times each year. He couldn't have been more than forty, but his face was deeply lined and his brown eyes had a permanent sadness in them.

“Of course, it might be different if you were arguing that the killer could have contacted him via his office computer,” he said thoughtfully.

“That's exactly what I'm saying,” Kat said quickly, grateful for the steer. “As a banker, he would have worked long hours, and his personal and professional lives would certainly have overlapped. There could well be information on his computer that could help identify his killer.”

“Tell me, Captain,” Melissa Romano said. “You appear to have discounted the most logical explanation for a man being killed in such a manner – that he had revealed Masonic secrets connected with their rites, and that his fellow Masons exacted the literal penalty. Why is that?”

Kat thought. “I suppose I have trouble in taking all that mumbo-jumbo about ancient rites seriously myself, so I'm inclined to doubt that anyone else would care about them enough to murder for them. Besides, there have been Masonic scandals in Italy before, haven't there? Banco Ambrosiano, P2, Roccella Ionica, Catanzaro . . . the list goes on and on. And in almost every case it's turned out to have been about power, corruption and the bribery of public officials. I don't doubt that Cassandre was killed as a warning to his fellow Masons. But whatever he betrayed, I suspect it was to do with influence and money, not some threadbare ancient ritual.”

Li Fonti came to a decision. “Very well. You can have a warrant to seize his computer and phone records. But nothing else. Come back in twenty minutes for the paperwork.”

As the two
carabinieri
stood up, Li Fonti addressed Bagnasco directly. “You're the new
sottotenente
, I take it?”

“Yes,” she said. “It's my first posting in Venice.” She smiled at him, clearly grateful to have been noticed. The handsome prosecutor with the tragic life story was something of a heart-throb amongst the younger female officers.

“Well, stick close to your captain,” he said, nodding at Kat.
“You can learn a lot from her.”

“I will,” Bagnasco said, although she sounded a little doubtful.

When they were outside, Kat turned to her. “You recall our nudist saying he'd seen a cruise ship heading north? That means it was coming into Venice, not sailing away. So the chances are it'll still be moored at the cruise terminal.” Like most Venetians, Kat disliked the way these massive floating skyscrapers were allowed to sail right through the heart of Venice, across the Bacino di San Marco and along the Canale della Giudecca, on their way to the terminal at Tronchetto. Many claimed that their thunderous
moto ondoso,
the wake from their mighty propellers, was damaging the city's ancient buildings. Even at her own desk at Campo San Zaccaria, Kat could sometimes feel the vibrations as the behemoths passed by. A campaign to limit their size and number had been rumbling on for years, but the tourist dollars they brought in were simply too important for them to be banned.

“Every ship over twelve feet that sails in or out of Venice is given an identifier, a LOCODE, by the port's navigation system,” she continued. “If the other boat our witness saw really was a water taxi, it might have been picked up by the cruise ship's radar. It's a long shot, but I want you to ask the captains of all the cruise ships currently moored at the terminal for a copy of their radar logs.”

Bagnasco nodded. “Of course.”

When she was gone, Kat turned and re-entered the building. Going back up to Li Fonti's office, she found the door closed. She knocked. The bodyguards gave her an incurious look, then went back to their phones.

“Enter,” Li Fonti's voice said.

He looked up from his desk as she came in. “I thought it might be you.”

She undid her jacket and took it off.

“What are you doing, Captain Tapo?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

She unbuttoned her blouse. “Taking off my clothes.”

“I realised that. But why?”

“So that I can do what I promised I'd do if you got me a homicide of my own.”

“I must admit, I wasn't sure if that counted as a legally binding contract,” he said, watching her undress. “Since it was made in circumstances that might be construed as coercive.”

“You mean, because you were fucking me at the time?”

“I should also point out that there was no impropriety whatsoever about the decision to appoint you. General Saito was most insistent that you were the right woman for the job.”

“Even so, the offer stands,” she assured him, stepping out of her skirt.

He crossed to the door and locked it. “It looks like I'm in an urgent conference, then.”

“You were right, by the way,” she said as she moved towards him. “What you said earlier. Once we start looking for evidence without reasonable cause, we're on the way to becoming a police state.” She reached up and unpinned her hair, shaking it loose so that it fell over her shoulders, an unruly black mane. “But I had to try.”

“And you were right to,” he said. “If you'd waited for a formal ID, that office would be clean by the time you got there.”

“It may well be anyway.”

“At least letting you seize his computer gets you in there. I imagine you'll ask all the necessary follow-up questions at the
same time? This case stinks worse than the water below that window.” He picked up her Carabinieri hat and placed it on her head. “I think you should keep this on, by the way.”

“All right,” she said, pushing him back against his desk. “Now shut up, will you?”

I
S IT TRUE
?

Daniele scanned the attachments Max had sent him.
Which bit?

Any of it. The stuff about P=NP. Or what they're saying on the Huffington Post, that you've had some kind of breakdown.

Not that I'm aware of,
Daniele answered cautiously. On the side of the screen, three more avatars popped into the chat room, which was reserved for the exclusive use of wizards. These were Carnivia's administrators: Eric, Anneka, Zara and Max.

They were probably also his oldest friends. Zara had even helped him with some of the coding for Carnivia, back in the early days when it was still an open-source, collaborative project. He'd met her only once in the real world, and had discovered that she was profoundly deaf and almost mute, her speech an unintelligible mumble. Online, she was the most quick-witted and articulate of any of them. Max he had encountered a couple of times at conferences in the US: he had turned out to be obese and painfully shy, his gut straining at an ancient Nirvana T-shirt. Anneka and Eric he had still never met in the physical world. He sometimes wondered what hidden handicaps their confident online personas were concealing. He supposed he'd never find out, now.

It was Max who normally acted as their spokesman. But today he seemed unusually incoherent.

I just can't believe it. I can't fucking believe it.

Believe what?
Daniele replied.

That you've fucking BETRAYED us like this.

I don't understand,
Daniele wrote, mystified.

I think what Max means
, Zara interjected,
is that we were all taken by surprise by your announcement. None of us had any idea it was coming.

Of course. I hadn't told any of you.

DIDN'T YOU THINK YOU OWED US THAT FUCKING COURTESY AT LEAST?
That was Max again.

Daniele was confused.
Why?

If you're going to give Carnivia to anyone
, Eric wrote,
did you consider even for one moment that it should have been to us?

Daniele looked back and tried to recall.
No, I didn't.

He's not literally asking whether you did or didn't give any thought to the question, Daniele
, Zara explained.
He's saying that, in our opinion, you should have done.

Because???

BECAUSE WE DO YOUR SHIT FOR YOU, THAT'S WHY
, Max thundered.

Daniele, I'm not sure you realise just how much time being a Carnivia wizard takes up. Dealing with lost passwords. Resolving disputes. Remonstrating with trolls. Answering complaints—

There are complaints?
He hadn't known.

Of course there are complaints
, Eric snapped.

We also patch up holes in your coding
, Max put in.
You probably didn't know that either, did you? Places where the great Daniele Barbo's code is beautiful but just a tiny bit
impractical. Like the functionality that was allowing users to send anonymous text messages to other people's phones. A lovely, elegant piece of script. We disabled that after a teacher received rape threats from her entire class.

If it was from the entire class, why didn't she just punish them all?
Daniele wondered.

The point is, we clean up
, Max said.
Sometimes we don't sleep for days. We've never asked for anything in return. But we always assumed that if Carnivia WERE to become commercial, we'd be given our due.

It's not becoming commercial.

Oh, come on. Once it's owned by its users, how long before they cash in? Already stockpickers are telling investors to get themselves an account. It costs nothing and it might just net you a fortune when Google buys you out. We've gained half a million users since your announcement.

Then why don't YOU stand for election?
Daniele wrote.
As an administrator, who better to run Carnivia than you? Then you could put safeguards in place to make sure it stays independent.

So you'll endorse me? I've got the official backing of Daniele Barbo?

Daniele thought.
I'm sorry, Max. I just don't want to get involved in all that.

Screw you.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

No, you're not. It's all right for you, sitting in your father's Venetian palace. Your lifestyle's pretty good, isn't it? Whereas I look out of the window, I see a trailer park.

I didn't realise you cared so much about money
, Daniele wrote sadly.
I thought we all believed in the same things.

Me too, Daniele Barbo. Me too.

Daniele logged off. He knew he'd do no work for the rest of the day now. His brain was too clouded – not just by the row with the wizards, but also by what the MIT professor had written. The man knew what he was talking about, and his frank assessment of Daniele's chances of solving P=NP had depressed him.

Not that Daniele had been underestimating the task. Some of the finest minds in the world, men whose achievements dwarfed anything he had ever accomplished, had spent years puzzling at the P=NP conundrum. Most had concluded it was impossible. But he found himself inexorably drawn to it, all the same.

It was also true, as the professor had written, that many mathematicians believed a world in which P equalled NP would be a world that had lost some of its wonder. It would be a world in which breakthroughs such as Einstein's E=MC
²
or Newton's law of gravitational force would be generated not by once-in-a-generation flashes of inspiration but by computers, patiently scanning the furthest corners of mathematical notation, crunching numbers and sieving the resultant torrent of integers like a probe trawling through deep space.

But in such a world, Daniele believed, he would have a place. He knew that other people saw him as strange: his disfigured face, the legacy of his kidnap as a child, when the kidnappers had cut off his ears and nose in order to pressure his parents into paying the ransom, would have been reason enough for that. What few realised was that he saw them as equally incomprehensible. Perhaps in a world where P=NP, a world without ambiguity, the anxiety he felt whenever he tried to fathom out others would finally disappear.

He sighed, and picked up a piece of paper that was lying next to the computer. It was a letter from his guardian, Ian
Gilroy, requesting that Daniele vacate Palazzo Barbo in order for essential repairs to be carried out. The masonry in the lowest storey, the part that was regularly flooded by Venice's rising tides, had been eroded further by a leaking septic tank. Daniele wasn't surprised: it stank of fetid sewage and crumbling stone down there. You could see the damp slowly creeping up the walls, and many of the stone pillars which supported the higher storeys were soft to the touch.

Following an engineer's assessment, the letter said, it had been decided that the only solution was to slice the whole palace open at the waterline, hydraulically raise it by several metres, and create new foundations. It would cost millions and take years. During that time, the
palazzo
would be uninhabitable.

If Daniele had sold Carnivia to the highest bidder, he could have paid for the repairs out of the small change. But he would still have had to move out while the work was done.

He let the letter drop to the floor. He intended to go on ignoring its contents for as long as possible.