Dead Lagoon - 4 (16 page)

Dolfin shook his head sadly.

‘The
contessa
never got over it. Her husband had been killed just a couple of years before, and now this. She started making absurd accusations.’

He shot Zen a glance.

‘That’s why I had to move, to tell you the truth. She started putting it about that I’d done away with her daughter.’

Dolfin shrugged.

‘Normally I’d just have laughed it off, but it was a difficult moment for me just after the war. There were people who had it in for me because I’d been in the party. As though I’d been the only Fascist in Venice!’

He laughed bitterly.

‘She even made a formal complaint to the police! Nothing came of it, of course, but there were plenty of folk prepared to believe that there’s no smoke without fire, enough to make life in the old house impossible for me. So I pulled up my roots and moved over here to Dorsoduro. The people round this way are quite different. They don’t care what you may or may not have done fifty years ago, just as long as you leave them in peace now.’

He stood up painfully, wrapping the russet dressing-gown about his spare form.

‘And then that fool Saoner expects me to sign up for his fantasies of an independent Venice! I might, on condition that we bulldoze the Cannaregio and make it into a car park. So many terrible things have happened here, so many crimes, so many horrors. Who wants to remember all that? We’d all end up like Ada

Zulian, talking to people who aren’t there and ignoring those who are.’

Recognizing that the interview was at an end, Zen stood up, buttoning his coat.

‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he said. ‘The wine was excellent.’

‘It is not so bad,’ Andrea conceded. ‘I’m sorry I’m unable to tell you any more about Rosetta Zulian.’

He looked Zen in the eye.

‘I fear it’s just one of those episodes which will remain a mystery for ever.’

The next day dawned dull and cold. Aurelio Zen was up to watch as the light imperceptibly reclaimed the eastern sky. He had paid for his late afternoon nap with a broken, restless sleep from which even so early an awakening came as a relief. He had no idea how long he had slept. It might have been hours or minutes, but his abiding memory of the experience was of a continual tossing and turning which was the outward expression of his inner turmoil.

His visit to Andrea Dolfin the night before had merely served to confirm his sense that everything was slipping away from him. The old man’s parting words had echoed his own realisation that the fate of Rosetta Zulian, like that of Ivan Durridge, and for that matter his own father, would quite likely never be known. The few facts he had gleaned stood out like objects scattered at random in a dark room, illuminated by a beam of light whose brilliance only serves to emphasize the impenetrable obscurity all around.

Anxious to dispel this paralysing sense of hopelessness, Zen dressed rapidly and set out for the Questura on foot without even pausing to broach the packet of coffee he had bought the day before. The day was established by now, but the light was still mean and grudging. The keen wind which had seen off the last of the fog blew the pigeons down the streets towards him like flying débris from an explosion.

When Zen reached his office, having stopped off in a bar to get his caffeine count up to par, he discovered that the province’s maritime registration office had faxed over the details he had requested. The list was not extensive. Ivan Durridge’s boat had been the broad-beamed
topa
, once a common sight on the lagoon but now largely superseded by more utilitarian models. Since the 1st of November of the previous year, only three such vessels had been registered. Of these, one was still powered only by the original lugsail and could thus be discounted. The remaining two had both been equipped with diesel engines, one a Volvo, the other a Fiat.

Zen consulted his watch. By now it was after seven, and Marco Paulon would have made an early start to catch the tide. He looked up his number and dialled. The phone was answered by Signora Paulon, who informed Zen curtly that her husband could be reached on his mobile phone. Zen thanked her and dialled the number she supplied. A brief series of electronic beeps were followed by a gruff shout above the noise of a labouring marine engine.

‘Well?’

‘Good morning, Marco.’

‘Aurelio?’

‘Where are you?’

‘On the way to San Lazzaro with a load of paper for the Armenians’ printing press. What can I do for you?’

‘I hear that that fisherman from Burano you were telling me about was found drowned.’

‘Poor bastard. After whatever happened to him on Sant’Ariano, his brain must have snapped. Christ protect us all from such a fate.’

‘A word of advice, Marco. How do I trace the serial number of the engine of a missing boat?’

For a while there was only the gurgling throb of Marco Paulon’s boat bucking out across the lagoon.

‘Probably the easiest way is to trace the boatyard which sold or serviced it,’ Marco replied at length.‘They’ll be bound to have those details on record.’

‘Of course. Thanks, Marco.’

‘Any time. Hey, what about coming to dinner one of these days? Fabia’s telephone manner may stink, but she’s also a lousy cook. On the other hand, how good do you need to be to cook fish?’

‘Good enough to buy it fresh and not mess it about too much.’

‘Give me a call when you’re free. How about Sunday?’

‘Sounds good to me.’

 ‘We’ll be expecting you.’

Zen dug out the office copy of the Venice Yellow Pages and looked up boatyards. Then he started a series of phone calls, identical in form and content.

‘Good morning, this is the Questura of Venice. Can you tell me if you sold or serviced a converted
topa
belonging to Ivan Durridge, spelt D-U-R-R-I-D-G-E? You’re sure? Thank you. Goodbye.’

There were about thirty-five yards altogether, and Zen had recited his formula over twenty times before he struck lucky. It seemed that Durridge had had his boat overhauled every year by a small family firm on the Giudecca from whom he had bought it in the first place. They evidently remembered him with affection.

‘Of course, the American. So kind! So friendly! He always brought a present for my little boy when he went away. We were shocked by what happened. What an appalling tragedy! Is there any fresh news?’

Zen said enough to impress on the boatyard owner the importance of the information he sought and then popped the question.

‘The serial number? Yes, of course, I’ll have it in the books somewhere. It was a Volvo, I remember that. Hold on just a minute.’

In the event it was more like five minutes. Meanwhile Zen went through the registration list again. The Volvo-engined
topa
was owned by one Sergio Scusat. Like all those in the city, the postal address supplied consisted of a number followed by the name of the
sestiere
, in this case San Polo. Zen was searching the desk drawers for a copy of the directory which converted these postal codes into street addresses when the receiver lying on the desk began to squeak. He picked it up and noted down the serial number of the motor fitted to Ivan Durridge’s boat. It was the same.

He was just thanking the boatyard owner when Aldo Valentini walked in, yawning loudly.

‘Are you here already?’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought you Romans lived in lotus land.’

Zen replaced the receiver with a bang.

‘Where the hell do you keep the street directory?’ he demanded.

‘There’s only one copy that I know of,’ Valentini replied through another mighty yawn, ‘and it’s jealously guarded by Bonifacio down in Admin. He might let you consult it if you suck his cock nicely. On the other hand you might prefer to take a walk to the bar where we went the other day. They keep a copy under the counter. Come to think of it, I’ll come with you.’

In front of the Questura a gleaming wooden launch was drawn up, its idling engine puking out water from time to time. A self-consciously good-looking man in a tweed suit and cashmere overcoat was just stepping ashore. He nodded minimally to Aldo Valentini as he walked past.

‘The chief,’ muttered the Ferrarese to Zen. ‘Francesco Bruno, son of a teacher from Calabria. Currently spends most of his time sticking his bum out of the window trying to decide which way the wind is blowing. You and I may have our problems, not least trying to make ends meet on our salaries, but it’s really tough at the top these days. How are you supposed to know whose orders to ignore?’

A black-headed gull swooped down as though to attack its reflection in the water. With a loud splash it seized a chunk of sodden bread and flew off, dropping a line of soggy bomblets along the canal.

The
Bar dei Greci
was empty apart from a child sitting on a table swinging his legs as he read a comic. The barman had been replaced by a stout woman wearing a flowery pinafore. Zen asked her for the directory and looked up Sergio Scusat’s address while Valentini skimmed the local paper. The headline read POLICE QUESTION DROWNED MAN’S BROTHER.

‘Enzo’s gone out on a limb on this one,’ Valentini remarked as they sipped their coffee. ‘Under the new Code he’s only got till six o’clock tonight to screw something out of Filippo Sfriso to justify having held him in the first place, and by all accounts he isn’t going to get it.’

Zen inspected the photographs of the Sfriso brothers: blurred images evidently blown up from a family snapshot or identity card mugshot.

‘What’s the story?’ Zen asked politely, not really wanting to know.

‘In my humble opinion, it’s a concatenation of absurdities,’ Valentini pronounced with a theatrical gesture.

He paused, then repeated the phrase with evident pleasure.

‘A concatenation of absurdities! I spent several hours interviewing the family before Gavagnin took over. The mother kept insisting that no son of hers would take his own life, but she couldn’t suggest why anyone else would either. He was only a fisherman. Why would anyone bother killing him?’

‘In that case, why is Gavagnin giving the brother such a hard time?’

Valentini shrugged.

‘Because that’s how he gets his kicks. But I don’t think he’ll get much change out of Filippo Sfriso. As for Enzo’s drug angle, Sfriso told me that his brother had got involved with some girl in Mestre who’s into hallucinogenics. Obviously Giacomo must have taken a trip that went wrong and started seeing corpses. That’s all there is to it. What’s Enzo want to do, bust some no-hope users trying to take a break from the grim realities of life in Mestre? Christ, I’d probably use the stuff myself if I had to live there.’

As they strolled back along the quay, Aldo Valentini repaid Zen’s courtesy by asking how the Zulian case was coming along.

‘Too well!’ Zen returned. ‘The way things are going, I’ll have to come up with an excuse to stay on a few more days.’

‘Aren’t you missing the
dolce vita
down south?’

A fugitive smile appeared on Zen’s lips.

‘Perhaps I’ll try and muscle in on the Sfriso case,’ he murmured.

Aldo Valentini stared at him blankly a moment before bursting into laughter.

‘You and your Roman humour!’ he cried. ‘You nearly took me in for a moment there!

Back at the Questura, the two men shook hands and went their separate ways, Valentini to open a file on a case involving the hijacking of a barge conveying two removal lorries loaded with the entire possessions of a Dutch millionaire, Zen to engage one of the police launches with a view to calling on Sergio Scusat.

As though to give the lie to the sneering comments he had made earlier to Marco Paulon, the helmsman turned out to be an excellent and experienced seaman. Mino Martufò was from Palermo, and he had spent most of his time in boats from his earliest childhood. He handled the launch with a nonchalant panache which left Zen hovering between exhilaration and apprehensions as they went careening round corners and under bridges, siren blaring and lamp flashing, totally ignoring the posted speed limits and leaving all other traffic wallowing queasily in their wake. But all to no avail: Sergio Scusat was not at home. His sister, who was looking after the children, told Zen that her brother might be found at a construction site on the Sacca San Biagio, one of three small islands at the western tip of the Giudecca.

The launch roared off again through the back canals of Dorsoduro, narrowly avoiding a collision with a taxi full of fat men with video cameras and skinny women in furs, past tiny intricate palaces and vast abandoned churches, under bridges so low they had to duck and through gaps so narrow they touched the fenders of the moored boats. Then at last, with a dramatic suddenness that took Zen’s breath away, they emerged into the Giudecca channel, the deepest and broadest of all the waterways within the city.

The wind seemed much stronger here, chopping up the water into short, hard waves which shattered under the hull of the launch. The car ferry to Alexandria was steaming slowly down the channel, and Martufò sent the launch veering dangerously close under the towering bows of the huge vessel, keeling over with the force of the turn, the gunwales sunk in the surging torrent of white water. Then they were across the channel and into the sheltered canals separating the Giudecca from the
sacce
.

These small islands were some of the last areas in the city to be built on, remaining undeveloped until the 1960s. Zen could remember rowing across to them when they were still a green oasis of allotments and meadows. Now Sacca Fisola was covered in streets and squares, shops, schools, playgrounds and six-storey apartment blocks. Except for the eerie absence of traffic, it was all exactly identical to suburbs of the same period in any mainland city. But here there were no cars, no lorries, no motorbikes or scooters. The children played in the street, just as children everywhere had done a century earlier, but in a street flanked by the sort of brutalist architecture associated with chaotic parking, constant horns, revving two-strokes and blaring car radios. Here, the only sound was the lapping of the water at the shore. The overall effect was extremely unsettling, as though the whole thing were a hoax of some kind.