Vendetta: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (6 page)

Zen paused to give his numbed fingers a chance to recover. Next on his list was the vendetta theory, which involved filling in the background about the attempted kidnapping of Oscar Burolo. This had surprised no one, except for the fact that the intended victim had gotten away with nothing but a scratch on his shoulder. Goddamn it, people had murmured in tones of exasperated admiration, how does he do it? Kidnapping was notoriously a way of life in Sardinia, and what had Burolo done but choose a property on the very edge of the Barbagia massif itself, the heartland of the kidnapping gangs and the location of the underground lairs where they hid their victims? He was
asking
for it!

And he duly got it. Fortunately for Oscar, the Lincoln Continental he had been driving at the time was a rather special model, built for the African president who figured in the fictitious slave story. Oscar did a lot of work in Africa, which he liked to describe as “a land of opportunity,” rolling his eyes comically to suggest what kind of opportunities he had in mind. The president in question was unfortunately toppled from power just after taking delivery of the vehicle and just before Oscar could collect on the contract the president had signed for the construction of a new airport in the country’s second-largest city, a job which had promised to be even more lucrative than most of those which Oscar was involved in.

Where other companies might reckon on a profit margin of twenty or thirty percent, regarding anything above that as an extraordinary windfall, the projects which Burolo Construction undertook seemed able to generate profits that were often in excess of the total original budget. Oscar had earned the sobriquet King Midas for his ability to turn the hardest rock, the most arid soil, and the foulest marshland into pure gold. In the case of the African airport, his bill had already soared to a sum amounting to almost four percent of the country’s gross national product, but on this occasion Oscar was thus constrained to realism. Even if the new regime had been disposed to honour the commitments of the former president, it would have had considerable difficulty in doing so, since the latter had prudently diverted another considerable slice of the country’s GNP to the Swiss bank account that was now financing his premature retirement. All this was very regrettable, but Oscar was a realist. He knew that while governments come and go, business goes on forever. So rather than stymie his chances of profitable intervention in the country’s future by pointless litigation, he reluctantly agreed to accept a settlement which barely covered his expenses. To sweeten the pill, he asked for and was given the Lincoln Continental as well.

At the time, Oscar had seen the car as just another of the fancy gadgets with which he loved to surround himself, but it undoubtedly saved his life when the kidnappers tried to take him. He was driving back from the local village church when it happened. Much to most people’s surprise, Oscar never missed Sunday Mass. Experience had taught him the importance of keeping on the right side of those in power, and compared with the kind of kickbacks, favours, and general dancing of attendance which some of his patrons expected, God seemed positively modest in His demands. It was true that you could never be absolutely certain that He was there, and if so, whether He was prepared to come up with the goods, but much the same could be said about most of the people in Rome, too. As long as all that was needed to stay in good with Him was taking communion every Sunday, Oscar thought it was well worth the effort. Unfortunately the local village church lacked a suitable landing place for the Agusta, so he had to drive.

As he rounded one of the many sharp bends that Sunday, Oscar found the road blocked by what appeared to be a minor accident. A car was lying on its side in the ditch, while the lorry which had apparently forced it off the road was slewed around broadside to the approaching limousine. Three men were kneeling beside a fourth who was lying facedown in the road.

As Oscar got out to help, the men turned toward him.

“Instantly, I
knew!”
he told countless listeners later. “Don’t ask me how. I just knew!”

He leapt back into the car as the accident victim rolled to one side, revealing the rifles and shotguns on which he’d been lying. Several shots were fired, one of which wounded Oscar slightly in the shoulder. He didn’t even notice. He threw the Lincoln into reverse and accelerated back up the road.

The kidnappers gave chase on foot, firing as they ran. But the African president, even more of a realist than Burolo himself, had specified armour-plating and bulletproof windows, and the kidnappers’ shots rattled harmlessly away. When he reached the corner, Oscar reversed onto the shoulder to turn the car round. As he did so, the youngest of the four men sprinted forward, leaped onto the bonnet, pressed the muzzle of his rifle against the windscreen, and fired. The shot barely chipped the toughened glass, but for a second Oscar had stared death in the face. His reaction was to slam on the brakes, sending the man reeling onto the road, and then accelerate right over him.

By the time the police arrived at the scene there was nothing to see except a few tyre marks and a little blood mixed in with the loose gravel in the centre of the road. A few days later the funeral of a young shepherd named Antonio Melega took place in a mountain village some forty kilometres to the northwest. According to his grim-faced, taciturn relatives, he had been struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking home from his pastures.

The abortive kidnap made Oscar Burolo an instant hero among the island’s villa-owning fraternity, eminently kidnappable every one. One enterprising shopkeeper did a brisk trade in T-shirts reading “Italians 1, Sardinians 0” until the local mayor protested. But although Burolo was quite happy to be lionised, in private he was a frightened man, haunted by the memory of that dull bump beneath the car and the man’s muffled cry as the tons of armour-plating crushed the life out of him. He knew that by killing one of the kidnappers he had opened an account that would only be closed with his own death. Burolo had been born in the north, but his father had been from a little village in the province of Matera, and he had told his son about blood feuds and the terrible obligation of vendetta which could be placed on a man against his will, destroying him and everyone close to him because of something he had nothing to do with and of which he perhaps even disapproved. Young Oscar had been deeply impressed by these stories. To his childish ear they had the ring of absolute truth, matching as they did the violent and arbitrary rituals of the world he shared with other boys his age. Just as he had known the kidnappers the moment their eyes met, so now he knew they would not rest until they had avenged the death of their colleague.

Faced with this knowledge, a lesser man might have called it quits, sold off the villa—if he could find a purchaser!—and taken his holidays elsewhere in the future. But Oscar’s realism had its limits, and it ended where his vanity began. Had it been a business deal, where no one but himself and the other party would have been any the wiser, he might have cut and run. But he had invested all his self-esteem, to say nothing of several billion lira, in the villa, and it would take more than some bunch of small-time sheep-shaggers, as he jeeringly referred to them, to see him off.

Nevertheless, someone
had
seen him off, and the friends and relatives of the late Antonio Melega naturally came under suspicion. Apart from the sheer ferocity of the killings, some of the physical evidence seemed to support this hypothesis. Sardinians, particularly those from the poorer mountain areas, are the shortest of all Mediterranean peoples. The fingerprints found on the ejected shotgun cartridges at the scene of the murders were exceptionally small—“like a child’s,” the Carabinieri’s expert had remarked, an unfortunate phrase which had provoked much mirth in the rival force. But an adult gunman of small stature was another matter and would also explain the low angle of fire which had previously been attributed to the gun being held at hip level. Moreover, sheep rustlers would necessarily be skilled in moving and acting soundlessly, hence the eerie silence which had so impressed everyone who had seen the video tape.

U
NFORTUNATELY, THERE WAS AN INSURMOUNTABLE PROBLEM ABOUT THIS ATTRACTIVE HYPOTHESIS, NAMELY THE QUESTION OF ACCESS
. T
HE DEFENSES OF THE
V
ILLA
B
UROLO HAD BEEN SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO PREVENT AN INCURSION OF PRECISELY THIS KIND
. I
T IS TRUE THAT THE CONTROL ROOM ITSELF WAS NOT MANNED AT THE TIME OF THE MURDERS, BUT THE SYSTEM WAS DESIGNED TO SET OFF ALARMS ALL OVER THE VILLA IN THE EVENT OF ANY INTRUSION
. I
N ORDER TO TEST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THESE ALARMS, A SPECIALIST ALPINE UNIT OF THE
C
ARABINIERI ATTEMPTED TO BREAK INTO THE VILLA BY A VARIETY OF MEANS, INCLUDING THE USE OF PARACHUTES AND HANG GLIDERS
. I
N EVERY CASE, THE ALARMS WERE ACTIVATED
. A
NY DIRECT ASSAULT OF THE PREMISES, WHETHER BY LOCAL KIDNAPPERS OR ANY OTHER GROUP, THUS HAD TO BE RULED OUT
.

Placing an asterisk after
group,
Zen added a footnote at the bottom of the page.

S
UBSEQUENT TO AN ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION UNDERTAKEN BY THIS DEPARTMENT IN LATE
S
EPTEMBER
, D
OTTOR
V
INCENZO
F
ABRI SUGGESTED THAT THE INTENDED VICTIM OF THE KILLINGS MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN
O
SCAR
B
UROLO, WHO WAS UNARMED AND WHOSE DEMEANOUR THROUGHOUT THE VIDEO RECORDING SHOWED HIM TO BE UNAFRAID OF THE INTRUDER, BUT HIS GUEST
E
DOARDO
V
IANELLO
. F
ABRI POINTED OUT THAT THE FACT THAT THE ARCHITECT WAS CARRYING A PISTOL SHOWED THAT HE FEARED FOR HIS SAFETY AND RAISED THE POSSIBILITY THAT AN INVESTIGATION INTO
V
IANELLO’S PROFESSIONAL AFFAIRS MIGHT REVEAL AN INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ORGANISED CRIME FOR WHICH HIS NATIVE
S
ICILY IS NOTORIOUS
. T
O OVERCOME THE PROBLEM OF ACCESS
, F
ABRI SUGGESTED THAT
G
IUSEPPINA
B
INI WAS SECRETLY WORKING FOR THE
M
AFIA, DRAWING ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT IN
1861
HER MATERNAL GRANDFATHER HAD BEEN BORN IN
A
GRIGENTO
. F
OR SOME REASON, HOWEVER, THIS INGENIOUS THEORY FAILED TO ATTRACT THE SERIOUS ATTENTION IT NO DOUBT MERITED
.

Zen smiled sourly. It was rare for him to get an opportunity to put one over on Vincenzo Fabri. What the hell had the man been up to, he wondered, floating this kind of wild and unsubstantiated rumour?

The next candidate on Zen’s list came into the category of light relief.

F
URIO
P
IZZONI WAS DETAINED ON HIS RETURN TO THE VILLA ABOUT TWO HOURS AFTER THE KILLINGS HAD TAKEN PLACE
. W
HEN QUESTIONED AS TO HIS EARLIER WHEREABOUTS, HE CLAIMED TO HAVE SPENT THE EVENING IN A BAR IN THE LOCAL VILLAGE
. T
HIS ALIBI WAS SUBSEQUENTLY CONFIRMED BY THE OWNER OF THE BAR AND SEVERAL CUSTOMERS
. P
IZZONI UNDOUBTEDLY HAD ACCESS TO THE REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE MENTIONED BELOW (SEE
F
AVELLONI
, R
ENATO), BUT GIVEN HIS ALIBI AND THE ABSENCE OF ANY EVIDENT MOTIVE, INTEREST IN HIM SOON FADED, ALTHOUGH IT WAS BRIEFLY REVIVED BY THE DISCOVERY OF VIDEO TAPES SHOWING AMOROUS ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN HIM AND
R
ITA
B
UROLO
.

Zen drew the last fragrant wisps of smoke from his cigarette and crushed it out. After a moment’s thought, he decided against going into any more details. Even the magazine which had paid so dearly for the photographs made from one of those video tapes had drawn a discreet veil of verbiage over the exact nature of this little love triangle. It was difficult to offer a tasteful account of the fact that the murdered woman had been in the habit of meeting Pizzoni by moonlight in the hut where the lions slept during the day and rolling nude on the straw bedaubed with their sweat and excrement while the young man pleasured her in a variety of ways undreamt of in the animal kingdom. For some people it was still more difficult to accept that Oscar Burolo had known about these orgies and had done nothing whatever about them, apart from rigging up a small video camera in the rafters of the hut to record the scene for his future delectation.

Suddenly Zen caught the sound of Tania’s voice behind the screens.

“You promise?” She sounded anxious.

“But of course!” The heavy, monotonous voice was that of an official called Romizi.

“Otherwise it’ll mean a lot of trouble for me,” Tania stressed.

“Don’t worry! I’ll take care of it.”

Zen slumped forward until his forehead touched the cool metal casing of the typewriter. So she had found someone else to ask her favour of, after he had scared her away with his tactless impetuosity. He took a deep breath, expelled it as a long sigh, and began to pound the Olivetti’s stubborn keys again.

G
IVEN THE KILLER’S NEED OF SPECIALISED KNOWLEDGE TO OVERCOME THE VILLA’S SECURITY DEFENCES, IT WAS INEVITABLE THAT THE ONLY SURVIVING MEMBER OF
O
SCAR
B
UROLO’S IMMEDIATE FAMILY, HIS SON
E
NZO, SHOULD COME UNDER SUSPICION
. R
ELATIONS BETWEEN
E
NZO AND HIS FATHER HAD REPORTEDLY BEEN STRAINED FOR SOME TIME, LARGELY OWING TO THE YOUNG MAN’S REFUSAL TO AGREE TO GIVE UP HIS ATTEMPT TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL VIOLINIST IN FAVOUR OF A CAREER IN LAW OR MEDICINE
. T
HAT
A
UGUST
, E
NZO
B
UROLO WAS ATTENDING A MUSIC SCHOOL IN
A
MERICA, AND ENQUIRIES BY THE
FBI
CONFIRMED THAT HE HAD BEEN IN THE
B
OSTON AREA DURING THE PERIOD IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING AND FOLLOWING THE MURDERS
. T
HIS LINE OF INVESTIGATION WAS THEREFORE ALSO DROPPED
.