Blood Rain - 7 (10 page)

He glanced at Zen, then walked around him, took the woman’s arm and felt her wrist with two delicately probing fingers. Zen sat down heavily in a chair by the bed.

‘When she was in her teens, my mother worked for a French family who had rented a
palazzo
on the Grand Canal,’ he said dreamily. ‘I remember her telling me, years ago, when I was a child, about the stylish dresses and dazzling jewellery which the wife owned. My mother had never seen anything like that. She lived in the house with them for three months, one summer before the war, back in the thirties.’

There were tears in his eyes. He hastily brushed them away.

‘So you studied medicine?’ he asked the Tunisian.

‘Yes,’ the man said, laying Signora Zen’s arm back on the sheet. ‘Engineering, too, for a while. A perfect training for my present position, when you think about it. Routine hospital maintenance.’

He laughed darkly.

‘Well, I must get back to my mop. Your mother may have spoken in French, but all languages are the same now. Talk to her. This is your last chance. Tell her everything you will regret not saying for ever if you let this opportunity slip.’

He bent over the figure lying on the bed and rapidly muttered some words in a language Zen did not understand, then turned away. The door oozed shut behind him on its pneumatic spring.

Alone with this dying stranger, Zen at first could think of nothing to say. But as time passed an odd thing happened. He found himself warming to this old woman, whoever she might be, who had rattled on to him in French. It didn’t seem to matter any longer who she was. Perhaps she
was
his mother. What difference did it make now? She had been somebody’s mother. Even if she wasn’t his, did that make her less admirable, less worthy of pity and love? He found himself holding her wizened hand, kissing her rugged face. Then, suddenly, the words came, a stutter at first, but soon a torrent, a shameless gush obliterating every distinction between what was sayable and unsayable.

Later he felt cold. So did she. Light crept in through the shuttered window, reducing the obscure splendours of the night to ashes. Men in white coats appeared and ushered him aside. Curtains were drawn about the bed where an old woman lay. An outsider, an intruder, Zen was hustled out into the corridors, to the brutal glare of the lights, the squeal and tap of footsteps on the polished flooring, the hum of distant machinery. He made his way to the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. The lift stopped before that and the cleaner got in, stowing his bucket, towel and mop in the corner.

They say she’s dead,’ Zen told him.

The man nodded.

‘She was dead when I left you.’

Zen looked at him incredulously.

‘But you told me to talk to her! You said it was my last chance, that I would regret it for ever if I let the opportunity slip. And now you tell me that she was dead all the time?’

The lift came to a rest. The cleaner collected his equipment and stepped out.

‘Yes, but you aren’t,’ he said as the doors closed.

Outside, the sky was falling. As yet it was just a light dust which appeared on Zen’s coat like mist. It seemed to be pink. He walked back along the bridge, pausing at the same spot as before to light a cigarette. A gentle aerosol, soft yet solid, had soaked the night, thickening it and covering every surface with a patina of reddish dust.

It was only when he saw it on his sleeve, his hands, that Zen realized that this was not just a trick of the light. The stuff was everywhere, saturating the air and coating every surface like a fine spray of wind-blown paint. He walked on across the bridge to the mainland, where a man was busily cleaning the windscreen of his car.

‘It happens every time,’ he remarked in a disgusted tone, glancing at Zen and shaking his head.

‘What?’

‘Yesterday I got the car washed and waxed, right?’ the man replied. ‘So of course today we get the
pioggia di sangue.’

‘Blood rain?’ echoed Zen.

‘The sand from the Sahara! The wind picks it up and carries it along, thousands of metres high, and then at a certain point the pressure changes, the wind loses its force, and the sand rains down. And it’s always just after I get my car cleaned. It happens every time!’

With a throw-away ‘That’s life!’ gesture, the man climbed into the driver’s seat and started trying to goad the motor into action. Zen crunched off across the fine sand which squirmed and squeaked beneath his shoes.

Carla Arduini had calculated that it would take her two hours to drive to Palermo, but she hadn’t counted on a long stretch of repair work being done — or rather not being done — in the tunnels through which the A19 motorway descends into the valley of the Imera after crossing the island’s central mountain chain near Enna. Now, stuck in a tail-back which from this point on the road seemed indefinitely long, she began to worry about being on time for her appointment. She was fully aware that this was simply an acceptable cover for her real worry, which was why she had an appointment in the first place.

It was just after seven in the morning when her cellphone rang. Carla was just about to leave her apartment for her morning coffee with her father at the bar in Piazza Carlo Alberto. The phone call, at such an early hour, had to be bad news. She had two mobile phones, and this one was her work phone, supplied and paid for by her company. Therefore it was official and urgent, and Carla had a bad conscience, because the work she had been doing early that morning and the night before was certainly improper and quite possibly illegal.

In an effort to put her tentative theories about unlicensed intruders on the DIA network to the test, she had decided to try to do a little ‘pinging’ herself. Armed with the information she already had, as the licensed installer, it had taken her little time to penetrate the various firewalls surrounding the system. She had then called up the data files which had been opened by the nocturnal visitor she had provisionally named Count Dracula. She was still unsure whether the data vampire was from the Mafia, the media, or some other interested party, and it had occurred to her that some clue to this might be concealed in the material he had chosen to access.

If so, it had yet to emerge. In this case, the most recent interception, the text consisted of the transcript of an interview between a magistrate in Palermo and a
pentito
, one of the former members of Cosa Nostra who had agreed to collaborate with the authorities in return for them and their families being buried and rebirthed in the government’s witness protection programme, safe from the vengeance of those they had betrayed.

Sometimes, yes, but normally we just kill them. It’s quicker and cheaper. Saves a lot of effort. When you kill someone, you also send a message. Maybe even many messages
.

Even contradictory messages?

Especially those. But it has to be done right. There’s an art to the thing. Because there’s no such thing as a messageless death, are you with me?

In other words, if a message doesn’t exist, someone will invent one.

Exactly. So you have to make sure that some message comes through loud and clear. Otherwise the communications can get fouled up. And when that happens
…

Yes?

When the messages start going astray, there’s no rhyme or reason
any more. No one knows what’s going on, so everyone’s extra edgy. Mistakes happen, and those mistakes breed others. Before you know where you are, you have another clan war on your hands
.

So these executions have to be correctly performed. It’s a sort of ritual theatre, in other words, like the priest consecrating the host. What’s the matter?

Look, I’m trying to cooperate, all right? We’re different men with different objectives, but I respect you just as you respect me
.

Of course.

So no more jokes about the holy mass, please
.

I apologize. To go back to what we were discussing, can you give me an example of such a message?

There are so many. But I’ll mention a recent one
.

Just to show that, even though for your own protection you’re in solitary confinement down at the Ucciardone prison, you’re still in touch.

Why would you take me seriously if you thought you were dealing with someone whose clock stopped when he got picked up? Anyway, the thing I’m thinking of is that body they found in a train near Catania
.

The Limina case.

Only it wasn’t the Limina kid at all, is what I’ve heard
.

Who, then?

Some sneak thief who was picked up operating on protected turf. He’d been warned before, but he had more balls than brains. They were going to waste him in an alley somewhere, but then someone had a brighter idea. The thief looked quite a bit like Tonino Limina. Same age, same height and build, same colour hair. The Limina clan have been making themselves a bit of a nuisance on this side of
the island, so a warning seemed in order. They shut the thief up in a freight car on a train bound from Palermo to Catania, with a label with ‘Limina’ scrawled on it. One message delivered and one undesirable disposed of. A perfect solution
.

But the Liminas explicitly denied that the murdered man was their son. Obviously they knew that Tonino was still alive. So the message was pointless.

No message is pointless. Maybe in this case it wasn’t the young Limina. Next time, who knows?

It was as she was reading these words that the phone rang. At once she felt a panicky guilt, as when her mother had burst into the room when she was reading a letter from her current boyfriend. Desperately she groped for the keyboard, killed the document on screen and got safely out of the DIA data files. Only then did she answer the phone.

‘Signorina Arduini?’

‘Speaking.’

‘We’d like to see you today to ascertain what progress is being made with regard to the computer installation for which you’re responsible. As you probably know, the handover date has already been put back twice. Through no fault of yours, I’m sure, but we’re naturally anxious to get the system up and running as soon as possible. I’ve therefore made a booking for lunch at the Hotel Zagarella in Santa Flavia, just east of the city. We’ll expect you at one o’clock.’

The caller hung up. Carla dug out her map, but failed to find any village named Santa Flavia. And how could it be ‘just east of the city’? East of Catania, there was nothing but water. She tried ringing her father, first at the Questura, then at home, and finally on his cellphone, without success. Finally, in timid desperation, she had called Corinna Nunziatella. Rather to Carla’s surprise, the judge seemed delighted to help, and informed her that the city east of which Santa Flavia was situated was Palermo.

‘Take the Casteldáccia exit off the motorway and follow the signs,’ the magistrate told her. ‘Who are these people, anyway?’

‘He didn’t say, but it seems to be about my work.’

‘Where are you meeting?’

‘A hotel called the Zagarella.’

The only reply was a low whistle.

‘Do you know it?’ Carla asked.

There was a long silence.

‘It’s a well-known venue,’ Corinna Nunziatella finally replied. ‘For all sorts of events. Listen,
cara
, make it clear to the people you’re meeting that you have an appointment with me back here in Catania this evening.’

‘But I don’t.’

Corinna’s response was unusually brusque.

‘Never mind that! Make sure they know that you’ve told me you’re meeting them at the Zagarella for lunch, and that I’m expecting you back by six o’clock this evening. I’ll call you then to make sure you’re safely back.’

Carla laughed.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘I’ll explain tomorrow,’ Corinna replied. ‘Just do what I say. Make very sure that these people know what the situation is, all right? It could be important.’

‘Very well.’

‘And listen, don’t…’

Corinna’s voice broke off.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Oh, nothing. I’m just being silly. I’ll call you this evening at six.’

At length the constipated press of traffic in which Carla’s Fiat Uno was embedded passed through the succession of tunnels where so much expensive and urgent repair work was not being done, and she completed the drive down to the north coast of the island and then westwards to her destination. The Hotel Zagarella turned out to be a modern monstrosity on what must at one time have been a stunning peninsula, with extensive views along the neighbouring bay and out to sea. Next to the hotel was yet another construction site, one of those timeless projects which look like a nuclear power station being built by two old men with buckets, spades and a rope hoist.

Of the grand villas belonging to the Palermitan nobility which had once stood here, there was almost no sign. Those that did remain were imprisoned in a perspectiveless absurdity, a concrete Gulag constructed by the ‘state within the state’, where the memory of what might have been was perhaps the bitterest punishment in this society of latter-day zeks, where even the winners were losers.

When Carla pulled up outside the hotel, a flunkey rushed over and opened the door.

‘Signorina Arduini! You’re expected inside. I’ll see to the car.’

So whoever ‘they’ were, they knew the number of her
telefonino
and the make and registration of her car. But the most disturbing aspect of the situation was that they were evidently making no effort to hide the fact that they knew. Carla handed over the keys and walked up the plush red-carpeted steps. At the top, another functionary opened the door for her with a respectful bow. Once inside, a small rotund man in a suit and tie came bustling over to her.

‘Welcome to the Zagarella, Signorina Arduini! I trust your journey was not too arduous. Your friends are waiting for you in a private room at the rear of the premises. If you permit, I shall be happy to accompany you there myself. This way, please!’

She had visualized the ‘private room’ as an intimate space to one side of the hotel’s dining area, sectioned off perhaps by a slatted wooden partition. It turned out to be the size of a football field. Rows of metal tables and chairs stretched away in ranks towards a series of narrow windows reaching up to the ceiling. Despite the massive concrete columns supporting the latter, everything looked cheap, vulgar and temporary.

At the middle of the room stood a table heaped with food and centred by a vase roughly the size of an average sink, from which protruded a huge bouquet of flowers. Three men were seated around the table. All three stared blatantly at Carla as she made her way across the scuffed industrial flooring towards them.

Having reached the corner of the table, Carla stopped. After a significant pause, the middle of the three men jumped to his feet as though noticing her presence for the first time. He was dressed in the standard uniform of the professional classes: tweed jacket, blue shirt and red tie beneath a yellow pullover, brown trousers and highly polished shoes.

‘Good day,
signorina,’
he said coolly. ‘So glad you could join us. May I introduce my assistant Carmelo. And this is Gaetano, an esteemed colleague visiting from Rome.’

He waved alternately at the two men. Carla nodded briefly to each, then turned back to the speaker.

‘And you are?’

The man frowned.

‘But surely that was …’

He tapped his forehead lightly with the heel of one hand.

‘But I forgot, of course you didn’t get our message!’

He turned to the other two.

‘Apparently she didn’t get our message,’ he said.

The two men sat impassively, with the air of people who had better things to do.

‘My name is Vito Alagna,’ the man announced, turning back to Carla with a ceremonial bow.

‘How did you know my cellphone number?’ asked Carla, wondering at her own temerity. These people had power the way some had muscles.

‘I left a message late yesterday with the porter at the Palace of Justice. When you didn’t return it, I called again and was told you were working at home, so I called you there this morning. Please, take a seat!’

He waved towards the enormous buffet table, on which stood a huge variety of cold foods. Carla took a chair at random, the nearest one. No one at the
Palazzo di Giustizia
except Corinna Nunziatella knew her cellphone numbers, private or professional. She had been very careful not to give them out, to avoid endless harassment.

‘Forgive the seeming mystification,’ Vito Alagna went on. ‘It’s really quite simple and straightforward. I work for the autonomous parliament here in Palermo which oversees the internal affairs of this little island of ours. We have naturally collaborated with our colleagues in Rome on the creation and development of the various specialized bodies set up to investigate so-called “criminal activities of the Mafia variety” within our political and administrative jurisdiction.’

He glanced at the other men, as though for corroboration. If so, none was forthcoming. As though embarrassed by his colleagues’ lack of response, Alagna gestured to the food.

‘But please! Help yourself!’

Carla looked at him, then at the other two, and lastly at the food itself. Although superficially attractive, even luxurious, there was something rather odd about the selection on offer. It included both smoked and poached salmon, a block of smooth meat pate in its wrapper of congealed butter and gelatin, a haunch of cold roast beef, and a selection of cheeses including Stilton, Brie and some sort of cream cheese smothered in nuts. A moment later, Carla had worked out why it seemed so odd: every single item was imported.

‘Aren’t you eating?’ she asked Vito, who smiled and shrugged.

‘We’re not hungry yet,’ he said.

Carla nodded.

‘Neither am I.’

The man at the end of the table, whom Vito had named Gaetano, suddenly spoke.

‘Perhaps later,’ he said. ‘We have all day.’

Carla recalled what Corinna had said.

‘Unfortunately I haven’t. I have to be back in Catania by six this evening. A friend of mine is expecting me for dinner.’

‘Who’s that?’

The question came from Gaetano.

‘Dottoressa Nunziatella,’ Carla replied succinctly. ‘She is a judge for the AntiMafia pool, where I work.’

‘You two must be very close.’

Gaetano again.

‘We’re friends, yes,’ Carla retorted.

Gaetano looked up at the ceiling, where a glass lamp like a melting zeppelin gathered dust at the end of its black cord.