Vendetta: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (7 page)

Zen flexed his fingers, making the joints creak like old wood. He had now disposed of the suspects the judiciary had rejected. It only remained to discuss their eventual choice, currently awaiting trial in Nuoro prison. And here he had to tread very carefully indeed.

T
HE REMAINING POSSIBILITY CENTERED ON
R
ENATO
F
AVELLONI
. F
AVELLONI HAD VISITED THE
B
UROLO PROPERTY ON MANY PREVIOUS OCCASIONS AND HAD BEEN STAYING THERE DURING THE PERIOD IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE MURDERS
. E
ARLY THAT EVENING HE AND HIS WIFE WERE FLOWN BY
O
SCAR
B
UROLO TO
O
LBIA AIRPORT TO CATCH
A
LISARDA FLIGHT
IG113
TO
R
OME
. A
CCORDING TO
N
ADIA
F
AVELLONI, SHORTLY BEFORE THE FLIGHT WAS CALLED, HER HUSBAND TOLD HER THAT HE HAD FORGOTTEN A VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT AT THE VILLA AND HAD TO RETURN TO GET IT
. S
HE WAS TO GO ON TO
R
OME WHILE HE WOULD TAKE A LATER FLIGHT
. N
ADIA
F
AVELLONI DULY LEFT ON
IG113,
BUT AN EXAMINATION OF PASSENGER LISTS REVEALED THAT
F
AVELLONI HAD MADE NO BOOKING FOR A LATER FLIGHT
. U
NDER QUESTIONING
, F
AVELLONI FIRST CLAIMED THAT HE HAD FLOWN TO
M
ILAN INSTEAD
. W
HEN IT WAS POINTED OUT TO HIM THAT HIS NAME DID NOT APPEAR ON THE PASSENGER LIST OF THE
M
ILAN FLIGHT EITHER, HE STATED THAT THE PURPOSE OF HIS TRIP HAD BEEN TO VISIT HIS MISTRESS
. T
HIS WAS WHY HE HAD TOLD HIS WIFE THE FALSE STORY ABOUT LEAVING A DOCUMENT AT THE
V
ILLA
B
UROLO AND WHY HE HAD BOOKED UNDER A FALSE NAME
. H
IS WIFE WAS SUSPICIOUS AND HAD ONCE HIRED A PRIVATE DETECTIVE TO CHECK ON HIS MOVEMENTS
. H
OWEVER, NONE OF THE STAFF OR PASSENGERS ON THE
M
ILAN FLIGHT WAS ABLE TO IDENTIFY
F
AVELLONI, AND SINCE HIS MISTRESS’S TESTIMONY IS INADMISSIBLE, THERE IS NO PROOF THAT HE EVER LEFT
S
ARDINIA ON THE NIGHT OF THE MURDERS
.

T
HE KEY TO THE
B
UROLO CASE THROUGHOUT HAS BEEN THE QUESTION OF ACCESS
. O
SCAR
B
UROLO HAD PAID AN ENORMOUS SUM OF MONEY TO TURN HIS PROPERTY INTO A FORTRESS, YET THE MURDERER WAS ABLE TO ENTER AND LEAVE THE PROPERTY WITHOUT SETTING OFF ANY OF THE ALARMS, ALL WITHIN A FEW MINUTES
. H
OW WAS THIS POSSIBLE?

T
HE MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION REQUIRES SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE PROVISION MADE TO ENABLE THE INHABITANTS OF THE VILLA THEMSELVES TO COME AND GO
. S
INCE
B
UROLO REFUSED TO EMPLOY SECURITY GUARDS TO MAN THE GATES OR THE CONTROL ROOM, THIS HAD TO BE DONE AUTOMATICALLY, BY MEANS OF A REMOTE CONTROL UNIT, OR PROXIMITY DEVICE, SIMILAR TO THOSE USED FOR OPENING GARAGE DOORS
. B
UT WHILE MOST COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE MODELS ARE OF LITTLE VALUE IN SECURITY TERMS SINCE THEIR CODES CAN EASILY BE DUPLICATED, THE SYSTEM AT THE
V
ILLA
B
UROLO WAS VIRTUALLY UNBREAKABLE BECAUSE THE CODE CHANGED EVERY TIME IT WAS USED
. A
LONG WITH THE EXISTING CODE, WHICH CAUSED THE GATES TO OPEN, THE REMOTE-CONTROL UNIT TRANSMITTED A NEW RANDOMLY GENERATED CLUSTER REPLACING THE PREVIOUS CODE WHICH WOULD SERVE TO OPERATE THE MECHANISM AT THE NEXT OCCASION
. S
INCE EACH SIGNAL IS UNIQUE, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A WOULD-BE INTRUDER TO DUPLICATE IT
. B
UT ANYONE WHO HAD BEEN ADMITTED TO THE VILLA COULD EASILY REMOVE THE DEVICE AND USE IT TO REENTER THE PROPERTY WITHOUT TRIGGERING THE ALARMS
.

So far, so good, thought Zen. Technical jargon about remote control devices was no problem. Where the Favelloni angle got sticky was when it came to dealing not with means and opportunity but with motive. It was widely assumed that the reason why Renato Favelloni had paid so many visits to the Villa Burolo that summer was that he was involved in negotiations between Oscar Burolo and the politician referred to as
l’onorevole,
whose influence had allegedly been instrumental in getting Burolo Construction its lucrative public-sector contracts. According to the rumours circulating in the press and elsewhere, the two men had recently fallen out, and Oscar had threatened to make public the records he kept detailing their mutually rewarding transactions over the years. Before he could carry out this threat, however, he and his guests had been gunned down, his documentary collection of video tapes and floppy discs ransacked, and
l’onorevole
spared any possible future embarrassment.

This was the aspect of the case which was presumably occupying the attention of the investigating magistrate, but Aurelio Zen, unprotected by the might and majesty of the judiciary, wanted to give the subject the widest possible berth. Fortunately he had a convenient excuse for doing so. Although these theories had been widely touted, because of the secrecy in which the prosecution case was prepared they remained mere theories, lacking any substantive backing whatsoever. Once Renato Favelloni was brought to trial—in a few weeks, perhaps—all this would very rapidly change, but until then no one could know the extent or gravity of the evidence against him. Thus all Zen needed to do was to plead ignorance.

A
S ALREADY STRESSED, THE DETAILS OF THE CASE REMAIN
sub judice,
BUT THE FACT THAT THE CHARGE IS ONE OF CONSPIRACY TO MURDER INDICATES THAT ANOTHER PERSON OR PERSONS ARE THOUGHT TO BE IMPLICATED
. T
HIS MIGHT INDEED HAVE BEEN INFERRED FROM THE FACT THAT
D
OTTOR
V
IANELLO’S PISTOL SHOT APPARENTLY WOUNDED THE ASSASSIN, PROBABLY IN THE LEG, WHILE A MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED REVEALED NO RECENT LESIONS
. I
N THIS HYPOTHESIS
, R
ENATO
F
AVELLONI WOULD HAVE REMOVED THE REMOTE-CONTROL DEVICE FROM THE VILLA AND PASSED IT ON TO AN ACCOMPLICE, PROBABLY A PROFESSIONAL GUNMAN, WHO USED IT TO ENTER
V
ILLA
B
UROLO AND LEAVE AGAIN, HAVING CARRIED OUT THE MURDERS
. I
N A CASE LIKE THIS, ONE WOULD OF COURSE EXPECT A PROFESSIONAL KILLER TO USE HIS OWN WEAPON, PROBABLY WITH A SILENCER
. I
T CAN BE ARGUED THAT THIS ANOMALY MERELY STRENGTHENS THE CASE AGAINST
F
AVELLONI, INDICATING THAT AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO DISGUISE THE FACT THAT THE CRIME WAS A PREMEDITATED CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE LIFE OF
O
SCAR
B
UROLO
.

Zen knocked the pages into order and read through what he had written, making a few corrections here and there. Then he put the report into a cardboard folder and carried it through the gap in the screens separating his work area from that of Carlo Romizi.

“How’s it going?” he remarked.

Romizi looked up from the railway timetable he had been studying.

“Did you know that there’s a train listed in here that doesn’t exist?”

In every organisation there is at least one person of whom all his colleagues think, How on earth did he get the job? In Criminalpol, that person was Carlo Romizi, an Umbrian with a face like the man in the moon. Even after some gruelling tour of duty, Romizi always looked as fresh as a newly laid egg, and his expression of childlike astonishment never varied.

“No, I didn’t know that,” Zen replied.

“De Angelis just told me.”

“Which one is it?”

“That’s the whole point! They don’t say. Every year they invent a train which just goes from one bit of the timetable to another. Each individual bit looks all right, but if you put it all together you discover that the train just goes round and round in circles, never getting anywhere. Apparently it started one year when they made a mistake. Now they do it on purpose, as a sort of joke. I haven’t found it yet, but it must be here. De Angelis told me about it.”

Zen nodded noncommittally.

“What did la Biacis want?” he asked casually.

The effort of memory made Romizi frown.

“Oh, she was nagging me about some expense claim I put in. Apparently Moscati thinks that it was excessive. I mean excessively excessive. I said I’d send in a revised claim, only I forgot.”

Youth is only a lightness of the heart, Zen thought as he walked away, as happy as a bird and all because Tania had not treated Romizi to her confidences after all.

In stark contrast to the Criminalpol suite, the administrative offices on the ground floor were designed in the old style, with massive desks drawn up in rows like tanks on parade. Tania was nowhere to be seen. One of her colleagues directed Zen to the accounts department, where he spent some time trying to attract the attention of a clerk who sat gazing into the middle distance, a telephone receiver hunched under each ear, repeating, “But of course!” and “But of course not!.” Without looking up, he handed Zen a form marked Do Not Fold, Spindle Or Mutilate on which he had scribbled, Personnel? In the Personnel department on the fourth floor, Franco Ciliani revealed that the Biacis woman had just left after breaking his balls so comprehensively that he doubted whether they would ever recover.

“You know what her problem is?” Ciliani demanded rhetorically. “She’s not getting enough. The thing with women is, if you don’t fuck them silly every few days they lose all sense of proportion. We should drop her husband a line, remind him of his duties.”

Apart from these words of wisdom, Ciliani was unable to help, but as Zen was walking disconsolately downstairs again, Tania suddenly materialised beside him.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said.

“Except the women’s toilet, presumably.”

“Ah.”

He handed her the folder as they continued downstairs together.

“This is the report Moscati asked for. Can you get a couple of copies up there before lunch?”

“Of course!” Tania replied rather tartly. “That’s what I’m here for.”

“What’s the matter? Did Ciliani say something to you?”

She shrugged. “No, he just gets on my nerves, that’s all. It’s not his fault. He reminds me of my husband.”

This remark was so bizarre that Zen ignored it. Everything Tania had said so far suggested that she and her husband were blissfully happy together, a perfect couple.

As they reached the third floor landing, Zen reached over and took her arm.

“What was it you wanted me to do for you?”

She looked at him, then looked away.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

She didn’t move, however, and he didn’t let go of her arm. With his free hand he gestured toward the stairs. Whoever had designed the Ministry of the Interior had been a firm believer in the idea that an institution’s prestige is directly proportional to the dimensions of its main staircase, which was built on a scale that seemed to demand heroic gestures and sumptuous costumes.

“Perhaps it would work better if we sang,” Zen suggested with a slightly hysterical smile.

“Sang?” Tania repeated blankly.

He knew he should never have opened his mouth, but he was feeling light-headed because of her presence there beside him.

“This place reminds me of an opera. I mean, talking doesn’t seem quite enough. You know what I mean?”

He released her, stretched out one arm, laid his other hand on his chest, and intoned, “What was it you wanted me to do for you?”

Tania’s face softened into a smile.

“And what would I do?”

“You’d have an aria where you told me. About twenty times over.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Then Tania scribbled something on a piece of paper.

“Ring this number at seven o’clock this evening. Say you’re phoning from here and because of the murder of that judge there’s an emergency on and I’m needed till midnight.”

Zen took the paper from her.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

He nodded slowly, as though he understood, and turned away.

Blood everywhere, my blood. I’m collapsing like a sack of grain the rats have gnawed a hole in. No one will ever find me. No one but me knows about this place. I will have disappeared.

I made things disappear. People too, but that came later, and caused less stir. People drop dead all the time anyway. Things are more durable. A bowl or chair, a spade, a knife, can hang around a house so long that no one remembers where it came from. It seems that it’s always been there. When it suddenly disappeared, everyone tried to hush up the scandal. “It must be somewhere! Don’t worry, it’ll turn up, just wait and see.”

A crack had appeared in their world. And through it, for a moment, they felt the chill and caught a glimpse of the darkness that awaited them, too.

I’ve got together quite a collection, one way and another. What will become of it now, I wonder? Cups, pens, string, ribbon, playing cards, wallets, nails, clothing, tools, all piled up in the darkness like offerings to the indifferent god whose presence I sense at night in the space between the stars, featureless and vast.

·   ·   ·

Things don’t just disappear for no reason. “There’s a reason for everything,” as old Tommaso likes to say, nodding that misshapen head of his that looks like a lump of rock left standing in a field for farmers to curse and plough around or else blow up. I’d like to blow it up, his wise old head. “What’s the reason for this, then?” I’d ask as I pulled the trigger. Too late for that now.

Perhaps he would have understood at the last. Perhaps the others did, too. Perhaps the look on their faces was not just pain and terror, but understanding. At all events, the crack was there, the possibility of grace, thanks to me. Things are not what they seem. There’s more to this place than meets the eye. I was living proof of that.