Dead Lagoon - 4 (33 page)

He removed his rubber gloves and shook Zen’s hand.

‘Leave these medical details with me and I’ll send over a full report in due course.’

Zen was so deep in thought as he left the hospital that he did not notice the funeral when he tried to push his way through the cortège and was indignantly repulsed. Only then did he become aware of the dirge-like bell strokes, and the blue motor launch bearing a coffin submerged in flowers and wreaths with sprays of lilies and palm leaves crossed with violet ribbons. He took off his hat respectfully as the hearse cast off for the short trip to San Michele, followed by a line of watertaxis bearing the mourners.

Once the crowd had dispersed, he began to walk slowly back to the Questura. But though his pace was deliberate, his mind was racing. The Durridge case had entered a phase of extreme delicacy, and Zen knew that he needed to decide exactly what he was going to do and not do before making his next moves. A mistake at this point would not only jeopardize any hope of bringing the investigation to a successful conclusion, but might well leave Zen himself at risk, professionally if not personally.

All the elements of the case were now before him. It was just a question of fitting them together in the right way, so that the overall picture could be deciphered. And the key to the puzzle, he felt sure, was the question of how Ivan Durridge had died. How could a man fall to his death when there was nowhere to fall from? As for the pathologist’s idea that the corpse might have been moved subsequent to death, that was simply not credible, given the terrain. It would have been possible to transport the body to Sant’ Ariano by boat, assuming you knew the lagoon well, but no one could have carried it across the island through that dense undergrowth. It would have had to be hoisted into place using a crane, or …

As he entered the Questura, the policeman on guard behind the armoured glass screen in the vestibule called to him.

‘The Questore wants to see you in his office immediately,
dottore
. Top floor, first on the right.’

Francesco Bruno was sitting behind his desk initialling papers when Zen entered. Well dressed, carefully groomed and quietly spoken, there was nothing about him to suggest the policeman. He could equally well have been a senior manager in a multinational company, or indeed a political figure with a high public profile.

‘Ah, at last!’ he murmured as Zen came in. ‘I was beginning to think you’d gone back to Rome already.’

‘Sorry, sir. I just slipped out for a moment to look into one or two things …’

Bruno waved impatiently.

‘I’ve got nothing against my officers popping out for the occasional coffee. Unfortunately the matter I have to raise with you is rather more serious.’

He picked up a copy of a newspaper lying on his desk, folded it carefully and handed it to Zen. The article was headed ELDERLY VENETIAN ARISTOCRAT THREATENED BY UNDERCOVER POLICEMAN. The text below described how Contessa Ada Zulian had been accosted in the street by an official working for the Ministry of the Interior, who had attempted to blackmail her into altering her testimony to allow the State to prosecute her nephews. When Contessa Zulian refused, the official – ‘whose name is known to this paper’ – made a number of cruel and gratuitous references to a personal tragedy suffered by the Zulian family. The
contessa
, whose health had long been extremely fragile, collapsed and had to be taken to a nearby house, where she made a slow recovery. The article went on to condemn this ‘typical example of the arrogance and brutality of Rome’, and invited readers to make their indignation clear by voting overwhelmingly for the
Nuova Repubblica Veneta
in the forthcoming municipal elections.

Zen glanced at the cover of the newspaper.

‘This is a party journal,’ he remarked, tossing it down on the desk. ‘They’re just playing politics.’

‘Playing to win!’ retorted Francesco Bruno. ‘If the opinion polls are right, they’re likely to be the biggest party on the city council after the local elections. Ferdinando Dal Maschio will be a person of immense power and influence in the capital of the province whose police chief I am.’

Bruno kept looking straight at Zen, but there was a strangely absent quality about his gaze, as though he weren’t really seeing what he was looking at.

‘Times have changed,
dottore
! It’s just not good enough any longer for police officers to swagger about like a pack of licensed bully-boys. It’s essential for all of us to realize that we are the servants of the public, not its masters. Accountability is the name of the game.’

He got to his feet, sighing loudly, and wandered over to the window.

‘Here we are, trying to build a new Italy, with nothing but the old materials to hand! I appreciate that it’s difficult for the older personnel such as yourself to change your ways overnight, but this incident involving the Contessa Zulian is completely unacceptable by any standards. There is simply no excuse for it.’

He turned to face Zen.

‘I simply won’t permit this sort of heavy-handed loutishness to wreck the carefully nurtured public relations which I and my staff have been at such pains to build up. You Criminalpol people come and go, but the rest of us have to live and work here. To do so successfully involves winning and retaining the respect and trust of the local population, and more especially their elected representatives.’

Francesco Bruno sat down and started initialling documents again.

‘I’ve issued a press statement to the effect that your transfer here will cease as of midnight tonight,’ he said without looking up.

Zen did not move. After some time, the Questore raised his head and nodded once at Zen.

‘That’s all.  

On the way back to his office, Zen met Pia Nunziata and asked her to come and have a coffee with him.

‘You’re supposed to be on sick leave and I’ve just been told to clear my desk,’ he said when she looked doubtful. ‘Technically speaking, we’re not here in the first place.’  

The
Bar dei Greci
was empty apart from two elderly men mumbling at each other over their glasses of wine. Pia Nunziata asked for a mineral water. Zen ordered himself a coffee and a grappa. He felt he deserved it.

‘Why have they told you to leave?’ the policewoman asked as they sat down.

‘I was sent here to investigate the Zulian case, and there is no Zulian case.’  

‘But we caught them red-handed!’  

Zen shot her a curious glance, then nodded.  

‘Ah, I forgot that you’ve been away. They wriggled out of it, I’m afraid. The
contessa
refused to testify against her nephews, and without that we can’t proceed. So you got shot in vain, and I’m out of a job.’  

He lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke upwards and making the
No Smoking
sign revolve lazily.

‘Nevertheless, there is one small matter I’d like to clear up before I leave, and I was wondering if you would help me. I haven’t time to do it myself, and I need the answer quite urgently.’

‘I’ll be glad to help,’ Pia Nunziata replied simply.

‘But without telling anyone what you’re doing, understand? Now I’ve been given my marching orders, it might complicate things.’

The policewoman nodded.

‘You can rely on me.’

Zen held her eye for a moment.  

‘I need some technical information relating to air traffic. I don’t know where flights in this area are controlled from, but it’s probably either the international airport at Tessera or the NATO airbase at Treviso. What I want is a record of any low-altitude flights over the lagoon on the eleventh of November last year.’

He sipped his grappa while Pia Nunziata laboriously copied this into her notebook.  

‘Do you want me to write it for you?’ asked Zen.  

‘It’s all right, thanks. I’m getting used to writing with my other hand.’  

‘Get whatever information you can, in as complete a form as possible, and above all as soon as possible. By tomorrow, this will be history.’  

‘I’ll do what I can, sir.’

The policewoman left to start her inquiries, while Zen finished his cigarette and grappa before returning to the Questura to interview Domenico Zuin, an encounter he regarded with considerable apprehension. Apart from Giulio Bon, there was no evidence that either of the men who had taken part in the first landing on the
ottagono
had also participated in the kidnapping of Ivan Durridge a month later. Bon was linked to this event through his sale of Durridge’s boat, but any attempt to interrogate him directly would result in the intervention of Carlo Berengo Gorin. As for Massimo Bugno, it now appeared likely that he had no connection with the kidnapping.

That left Domenico Zuin as the key to the whole affair. If he could be persuaded to co-operate, Zen stood a real chance of achieving enough progress in the Durridge case to force Francesco Bruno to extend his transfer. But that was a very big if. Zuin was a much tougher proposition than Bugno, and the tactics which had proved successful in that case would not necessarily work in the other. Bugno was an employee, accustomed to following orders and obeying those in authority, while Zuin was an entrepreneur, a member of the privileged élite who formed the city’s watertaxi monopoly. He couldn’t be so easily cowed or browbeaten, as he proceeded to demonstrate the moment he was led into Zen’s office.

‘I want a lawyer.’

Domenico Zuin had a trim, muscular body and one of those faces Zen associated with Americans: hair like an inverted scrubbing-brush, skin that looked as if it had been shaved down to the dermis, excessively white teeth and slightly protuberant eyes.

‘I’m saying nothing without a lawyer present,’ he insisted.

Zen shrugged.

‘I’m not asking you to say anything. I’ll do the talking. I want to fill you in on the situation, so that when we bring a lawyer in and make everything official, you’ll have a clear idea of how you want to play this one.’

He offered Zuin a cigarette, which was refused with an abrupt jerk of the head. Zen lit one himself and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the air between them, transected by a seam of dazed sunlight.

‘Basically I’d say that you’re looking at a minimum of two to four,’ he continued conversationally. ‘I can’t see squeezing it below that, whatever we do. On the other hand, it could well be more. A
lot
more.’

He picked up Zuin’s file and scanned the contents.

‘Let’s see, what have we got here? Two counts of bribery. One aggravated assault, charges dropped when witness withdrew. A few run-ins involving under-age rent-boys. Nothing that need concern us.’

He tossed the file back on the desk.

‘I can see no reason why we shouldn’t land you a nice two to four in that VIP facility near Parma where they’re putting all these corrupt businessmen and politicians. You wouldn’t object to sharing a cell with them, I suppose? You might even make a few useful contacts.’

He gazed over at Zuin, who was staring at the floor, visibly struggling to keep his resolution not to speak.

‘That’s assuming we can position Giulio Bon correctly, of course,’ Zen went on. ‘Ideally, we need the third man to come in with us. It would look much better that way.’

Zuin glanced up quickly and their eyes met for a moment.

‘I can quite see why you decided not to take Bugno along the second time,’ Zen murmured. ‘Not a good man in a crisis.’

Zuin’s eyes started to twitch from side to side, as though dazzled by every surface they landed on.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he muttered.

Zen gave him a look, level and lingering.

‘Yes, you do. What you don’t know – what nobody knows yet – is that we’ve found the body.’

The skin over Zuin’s cheekbones tightened.

‘All that’s left of it, that is,’ added Zen, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘But that’s enough to tell us who it was and how he died. Which changes everything. It means we’re talking about murder.’

There was a knock at the door. Zen got up, walked over and opened it. Pia Nunziata stood in the passageway, holding a folder which she passed to Zen.

‘That
was
quick,’ he commented.

‘It was very straightforward,’ the policewoman said. ‘I phoned the airport, they looked out their records for that day and faxed them over.’

Zen thanked her and walked back to his desk, looking through the papers. Domenico Zuin sat staring at him with an expression of extreme anxiety. Zen suddenly had an idea.

‘It looks like you’ve left it too late,’ he murmured, shaking his head sadly. ‘I had hoped to let you off lightly, Zuin. Make out you just went along in the boat, didn’t have any idea what it was all about, that sort of thing. Bon is the one I had targeted. He was the one who screwed the whole thing up by selling Durridge’s boat, after all. It seems only fair that he should take the rap.’

Zuin’s shock was evident on his face.

‘Didn’t you know about that?’ asked Zen. ‘I suppose Bon claimed he’d scuttled the thing, but in the end his greed got the better of him. You can get quite a nice price for a
topa
these days, even without the proper papers.’

He sighed.

‘Anyway, he’s decided to go for a pre-emptive strike.’

He tapped the sheets of paper.

‘One of my colleagues has been interviewing Bon downstairs. This is a draft of his statement. I’m afraid he’s dropped you right in it. He claims he only went along to handle the boat and had no part in what followed. But what’s really damaging is where he says …’

He pretended to pore over the page.

‘Here we are. My colleague asked about how you left the
ottagono
. Bon replies, “I left in the same way we arrived, by boat.” Question, “With Domenico Zuin.” Witness, “No, he remained on the island.” Question, “Then how did he get off again?” Witness, “The same way as Durridge, presumably.”’

‘He’s lying!’ Zuin burst out.

Zen shrugged.

‘He’s talking. And that’s all that counts.’

He came round and sat on the edge of the desk, looking down at Zuin.

‘You don’t seem to understand. This American disappears. There’s a brief flurry of interest and then the whole thing dies down. Now, suddenly, his body turns up. All hell’s going to break loose!’

He spread his hands wide in appeal.

‘Try to see it from my point of view, Zuin. I’ve got an illustrious corpse on my hands. I need someone I can take to the magistrates in the next few hours. I’d rather it was Giulio Bon than you, but if you clam up and he plays along there’s nothing I can do. You’re looking at a minimum of ten to fifteen, and if they believe Bon it’ll be life.
Ergastolo
. Life meaning life. Meaning death.’

Domenico Zuin slammed his fists down on his thighs.

‘You can’t let him get away with this!’

Zen frowned.

‘The only way around it I can see is to get the other man on our side. You must have taken someone else along, a replacement for Bugno. If he supports your version of events, we could still swing it.’

Zuin looked down at the floor.

‘He’s dead.’

‘Pity. Anyone I know?’

‘You should do,’ Zuin replied caustically. ‘He worked here.’

Zen gazed out through the window.

‘Of course,’ he murmured.

He got up, walked quickly round the desk and picked up the phone.

‘Get me the Law Courts,’ he told the switchboard operator.

He looked over at Domenico Zuin.

‘I’m going to take a chance on you,’ he declared. ‘If we move fast, we might just be able to pip Bon at the post.’

He turned back to the phone.

‘Hello? This is Vice-Questore Aurelio Zen phoning from the Questura. Please send a court-appointed lawyer over here immediately. I have a witness who wishes to make a statement.’

*

The bells of the city were all pealing midday as Zen left the Questura and crossed the small square on the other side of the canal. Trapped by the walls on every side, the sound ricocheted to and fro until the whole
campo
rang like a bell. Nevertheless, the chronology they represented was only one – and by no means the most important – of a number of distinct strands of whose progress he was aware.

Since Francesco Bruno had issued his ultimatum, time had become as real a player in the Durridge case as any of the people involved, and Zen knew that success or failure depended on how well he mastered its ebb and flow, its tricky, shifting tidal currents. The clock hardly came into it. Already he had accomplished more in a single morning than in most weeks of his professional life. What mattered was the sense of utter commitment to the case which had come to him as he stood before Francesco Bruno like a schoolchild before a master and heard himself being dismissed. As a result of that experience, Zen knew exactly what he was working for.