Ratking

TWELVE

It was raining in Rome. People said Venice was wet, but it seemed to Zen that it rained even more in the city of his exile. It had something to do with the way the two places coped with this basic fact of life. Venice welcomed water in any form, perfectly at home with drizzle or downpour. The city was rich in cosy bars where the inhabitants could go to shelter and dry out over a glass or two, secretly glad of this assurance that their great ark would never run aground. But Rome was a fair-weather city, a playground for the young and the beautiful and the rich, and it dealt with bad weather as it dealt with ageing, ugliness and poverty, by turning its back. The inhabitants huddled miserably in their draughty cafes, gazing out at this dapper passer-by with his large green umbrella and his bouquet of flowers, taking the rain in his stride.

Two weeks had passed since Zen’s return from Perugia. His working days had been dominated by the readjustment to the humdrum world of Housekeeping and his personal life by the apparent impossibility of getting together with Ellen. Whenever he tried to arrange to see her it seemed to be the wrong day or the wrong time. In the end he’d begun to suspect that she was putting him off deliberately, but then this morning she had phoned out of the blue and invited him round to her flat for dinner.

‘ I’ll get us something to eat. It won’t be much, but…’

He knew what she meant by throwaway phrases like that! She had probably been planning the meal for days.

Ellen’s attitude to food had initially been one of the sharpest indicators of her very different background. Brought up to assume that women cooked the regional dishes they had learned from their mothers, Zen had at first been both amazed and appalled by Ellen’s eclecticism. He would no more have expected Maria Grazia to make a Venetian dish, let alone a French or Austrian one, than she would have expected to be asked. But at Ellen’s you had to expect anything and everything. A typical meal might begin with a starter from the Middle East followed by a main course from Mexico and a German pudding. Presumably this was an example of the famous American melting-pot, only far from melting, the contents seemed to have retained all their rugged individuality and to jostle each other in a way Zen had found as disquieting as the discovery that the source of these riches was not family or cultural tradition but a shelf of cookery books which Ellen read like novels. Nevertheless, with time he had come to appreciate the experience. If the menu was bizarre, the food itself was very good, and it all made him feel pleasantly sophisticated and cosmopolitan. What new discoveries would he make tonight?

Ellen was given to dressing casually, but the outfit in which she came to the door seemed fairly extreme even by her standards: a sloppy, shapeless sweater and a pair of jeans with paint stains whose colour dated them back more than two years, when she’d redecorated the bathroom. The flowers he presented her with seemed to make her slightly ill at ease.

‘Oh, how lovely. I’ll put them in water.’

‘There’s no hurry, I expect they’re wet enough.’

She led him into the kitchen.

‘I really meant it about the food being simple, you know.’

She held up a colourful shiny packet. Findus 100% Beef American-style Hamburgers, he read incredulously. Was this one of her strange foreign jokes, the kind you had to be a child or an idiot to find funny?

‘I imagine you ate well in Perugia, didn’t you?’ she continued with restless energy. ‘Tell me all about it. What I don’t understand is how the Cook woman ever thought she could get away with it. Surely it was an insane risk to take.’

He sat down at the kitchen table.

‘It only seems like that because the kidnappers were arrested. Of course once I knew what had happened then I started to notice other things. For example, in the phone call to the Milettis which we recorded on the Tuesday, the gang’s spokesman gave the name of a football team, Verona, as a codeword. Pietro should have responded with the name of the team Verona were playing the following Sunday, but he didn’t understand and simply assumed it was a wrong number. Yet the kidnapper, instead of insisting or hanging up, says that’s fine and goes ahead as if the correct response had been given. Which it had, of course, in the original conversation with Ivy. Also the spokesman refers to “the Milettis’ father”, because he knows that the person he’s speaking to is not a member of the family. If he’d been phoning the Milettis direct he’d have said “your father”.’

Ellen ignited the gas under the grill.

‘Go on!’ she told him as she peeled away the rectangles of plastic which kept the hamburgers separate. She seemed more concerned that he might fall silent than interested in what he had to say.

‘Well, you know most of the rest. The kidnapper I spoke to in Florence told me that they’d phoned the same number as was used to arrange details of the kidnapping. The family had never revealed what this was, and I obviously couldn’t approach them directly. But I knew that the gang had used advertisements in a local newspaper as a way for people to get in touch with them. I went to the library and looked through the paper until I found an advertisement that was supposedly for a two-way radio. Phone 8818 after 7, it said. There are no four-digit telephone numbers in a big city like Perugia. But if you read the instructions literally you get a five-digit one, 78818. That was Ivy Cook’s number.’

There was a crinkling sound as Ellen tore off a sheet of aluminium foil to line the grill-pan.

‘What confused the issue slightly was that the kidnapper told me that the person who answered was a man with an accent like mine. For a moment I thought it might have been Daniele. But Ivy’s voice is deep enough to be mistaken for a man’s, and to a shepherd from Calabria her foreign accent sounded like someone from the North. She recorded the kidnappers’ call on the answering machine attached to her phone, edited the tape to cut out her own voice, then telephoned the Milettis the next morning and played it back to Pietro.’

Ellen laid the patties on the foil and slid the pan under the grill.

‘I’m surprised she and Silvio weren’t more cautious,’ she remarked. ‘Talking freely like that in a police station.’

‘They weren’t in a police station, just an anonymous room in an annexe of the prison. But what really put them at their ease was that it all seemed to have been rigged in their favour. I arranged for one of my inspectors to call Silvio and offer to get him in to see Ivy in return for various unspecified favours. It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time to people in Silvio’s position, so he found it completely natural. When he arrived, the inspector got rid of Ivy’s guard and made a big point of the fact that he was leaving the two of them alone together. They both assumed that the Miletti family power was working for them as usual. After that it never occurred to them to watch what they were saying. They felt they were on their home ground, as though they owned the place.’

The patties were sizzling away loudly. Ellen kept busy slicing up buns and laying them on top of the grill to warm.

‘Can I do anything?’ he asked.

‘No, you just take it easy.’

Normally she would have asked him to lay the table, but this evening he was being treated as an honoured guest, except that she’d hardly bothered to cook at all. Zen had once seen a film in which people were taken over by aliens from outer space. They looked the same and sounded the same, but somehow they weren’t the same. What had Ellen been taken over by? No sooner had he posed the question than the answer, the only possible answer, presented itself, and everything made sense. But the sense it made was too painful, and he pushed it aside.

‘All the same, so much scheming just to bring one guilty person to justice!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you always go to this much trouble?’

‘Not usually, no. But I was practically being accused of responsibility for Miletti’s death myself. Besides…’

‘What?’

Zen had been going to say that he had personal reasons for wishing fathers’ deaths to be avenged, but he realized that it might sound as if he was fishing for sympathy.

‘It’s not that I’m criticizing you, Aurelio,’ Ellen went on. ‘I’m just staggered, as always, at the way this country works.’

‘Oh, not that again!’

It was intended as a joke, but it misfired.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a tone that was half contrite and half defiant. ‘I won’t say another word.’

She served the hamburgers wrapped in sheets of kitchen paper and brought a litre bottle of Peroni from the fridge. The hamburgers were an unhappy hybrid of American and European elements. The meat, processed cheese and ketchup tried to be as cheerfully undemanding as a good hamburger should, but were shouted down by the Dijon mustard, the pungent onions and the chewy rolls.

Zen began dismantling his hamburger, eating the more appetizing bits with the fork and discarding the rest. Ellen wolfed hers down as though her life depended on it. After a few minutes she lit another cigarette without asking. He took the opportunity to push his plate away.

‘Don’t you like it?’

She sounded almost pleased.

‘It’s delicious. But I had to eat something with my mother. You know how it is.’

Ellen laughed quietly.

‘I surely do.’

The conversation stalled, as if they were two strangers who had exhausted the few topics they had in common.

‘Anyway, what have you been up to?’ he asked her.

She refilled her glass with beer.

‘Well…’

She broke off to puff at her cigarette. But he already knew what she was going to say. She had met someone else, these things happened, she’d been meaning to tell him for some time, she hoped they would remain friends. This was what he had glimpsed earlier, the answer to the question of what was making her act in this odd way, of what it was that had taken her over. The only possible answer was another man.

‘The thing is, I’m going home, Aurelio.’

But you are at home, he thought. Then he realized what she meant.

‘For a holiday?’

She shook her head.

‘You’re joking,’ he said.

She walked over to the glass jars where she kept rice and pulses, pulled out an envelope tucked under one and handed it to him. ‘Whether you travel for business or pleasure, MONDITURIST!’ it read. ‘Our business is to make travelling a pleasure!’ Inside there was an airline ticket to New York in her name.

‘I decided one night last week. For some reason I had woken up and then I couldn’t get back to sleep. I just lay there and thought about this and that. And it suddenly struck me how foreign I feel here, and what that was doing to me.’

She paused, biting one fingernail.

‘People who have been exiles too long seem to end up as either zombies or vampires. I don’t want that to happen to me.’

There was a roar from the street outside as a metal shutter was hauled down, then a gentler rumble as it was eased into position and the lock attached. The greengrocer opposite was closing up and going home to his family.

‘I think we should get married,’ Zen said, to his total astonishment.

Ellen gave a yelp of laughter.

‘Married?’

One of the other tenants had put on some rock music whose bass notes penetrated to where they sat as a series of dull thumps. Somewhere else, seemingly quite unrelated to them, a tinny melody line faintly wailed.

‘You don’t know how many times I’ve imagined that you might say this, Aurelio,’ Ellen sighed. ‘I always thought that it was the one thing needed to make everything right.’

‘It is. It will.’

But his voice lacked conviction, even to himself.

He looked around slowly, conscious that all this was about to join his huge gallery of memories. The latest addition to our collection. A significant acquisition. ‘They’re turning the whole city into a museum,’ Cinzia Miletti had complained. But it wasn’t only cities that suffered that fate.

‘I’d better go.’

She made no attempt to stop him.

‘I’m sorry, Aurelio. I really am.’

The rain had almost stopped. Zen stood waiting at the tram stop, his mind completely blank. The shock of what had just happened was so severe that he found it literally impossible to think about. The last thing he could clearly remember was eating the hamburger and telling Ellen about the Miletti case. He had not mentioned the most recent development, which had occurred just the day before.

The arrest of Ivy Cook had had the unusual effect of uniting both sides of the political spectrum. On the one hand there was talk of a carefully orchestrated attempt by the forces of the Left to undermine the Milettis, on the other of a typically cynical solution by the Right to the embarrassing problem of the family’s involvement in Ruggiero’s death. In short, whatever your political leanings, Ivy Cook appeared as a humble employee who was being made to carry the can for others, a foreigner without influence or power, the perfect scapegoat. Di Leonardo, the Deputy Public Prosecutor, contributed to the debate with some widely quoted off-the-record criticisms of ‘serious irregularities in the procedures adopted by the police’, Senator Gianpiero Rossi publicly expressed the opinion that the tape recording was inadmissible evidence since it had neither been authorized by the judiciary nor made on official equipment, while Pietro Miletti flew back from London to demand an end to ‘the continual harassment of the Miletti family and their dependants’. The net result was that Rosella Foria had finally granted an application for Ivy Cook’s release on bail pending a full investigation. The case still hung in the balance, but Ivy was free.

The tram arrived and Zen was rumbled and jolted across the Tiber, over the Aventine hill and past the Colosseum to Porta Maggiore. He then walked three blocks to the street where Gilberto Nieddu lived with a dark-haired beauty who treated him with bantering humour, as though Gilberto’s clumsy attempts to woo her aroused nothing but her amusement. In fact they had been married eight years and had four children, who sat open-mouthed and wide-eyed as Uncle Aurelio described the dramatic end of his relationship with ‘ l’americana ’.

Rosella Nieddu diagnosed a lack of proper food and made Zen eat a bowl of ravioli, while Gilberto opened a bottle of the smooth and lethal rose made by a relative of his. Then the children were packed off to bed and the adults spent the evening playing cards.

‘Unlucky at love, lucky at cards,’ Gilberto joked to his friend, but as usual Rosella Nieddu easily beat both of them, even with one eye on the television. Then the phone rang, and while the Sardinian went to answer it Rosella changed channels for the late movie, catching the end of the late-night newscast. There were stories about the seizure of a shipment of heroin by the Customs in Naples, a conference on the economic problems of the Third World due to open in Rome the following afternoon and a trade fair promoting Italian agricultural machinery which had just opened in Genoa.

‘ And finally the main news again. In a dramatic develop ment in the Miletti murder case, Signora Ivy Cook, the foreign woman formerly being held in connection with this crime today failed to report to the police in Perugia as laid down in the conditions of her release. According to as yet unconfirmed reports she may already have left the country. Investigators are attempting to trace the person who chartered a light aircraft from Perugia to an airfield in Austria late this afternoon. And now for a round-up of the weekend sports action here’s…’

‘I have to go,’ Zen said as soon as Gilberto came back. ‘Mamma will get anxious.’

It had stopped raining. He started to walk home through the almost deserted streets. The chartered plane to Austria would no doubt have been followed by an international flight to South Africa, from which she could not be extradited. Ivy’s plans would have been laid for days, carefully worked out in the course of her meetings with Silvio. Her passport had been impounded, so he must have obtained false papers for her as well as putting up bail and arranging the flight. Money would have been no problem. All sorts of people would have been happy to contribute financially to ensure that the contents of the famous safety-deposit box vanished with Ivy.

So she was in the clear. For Silvio the consequences were likely to be more serious, at least in the short run. The fickle public mood was about to turn very ugly indeed. Important people had been made to look foolish. The Miletti name would no longer be enough to protect Silvio. Her hands freed, Rosella Foria would have him arrested and charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The case would drag on and on, getting bogged down in tedious details until everyone had lost interest, and then in a year or so, when the whole thing had been forgotten, Silvio would be quietly released for lack of evidence.

Suddenly Zen felt something give way inside his chest. It’s my heart, he thought, I’m dying. Unable to go on walking, or even stand upright, he bent over a parked car, fighting for breath. Only very gradually did he realize what was happening. He was weeping. It was the first time for years, a brutal and convulsive release, as painful as retching on an empty stomach.

‘Waiting for a bum-fuck, grandpa?’

Hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him round.

‘Rim-job you’re after, is it? Up from the provinces for a bit of fun, or are you local? I can fix you up, no problem. Not personally, you understand, but for the right money up front I can lay on a kid who went down on Pasolini. Meanwhile, let’s check your financial standing. Wallet, fuckface! Wallet!’

A torch flashed in his face. Then he heard a gentle chuckle.

‘Well, well, dottore, what a coincidence! Don’t you remember me? That time on the train a few weeks back, with the old fart who tried to act tough.’

He looked more closely at Zen.

‘But what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What have the bastards done to you?’

‘I’m all right.’

Unconvinced, the youth tugged his arm.

‘Come and have something warm to drink, dottore. There’s a place open just round the corner.’

‘No, I’m all right, really.’

But his whole body was trembling uncontrollably, and he allowed himself to be led away.

‘You shouldn’t hang around here at this time of night, you know,’ his companion remarked casually. ‘This is a very tough neighbourhood.’

The only other customer in the all-night bar was an old prostitute sitting in the corner, talking to herself and obsessively shaking out her hair with both hands. The youth greeted the barman familiarly and ordered two cappuccinos. He produced a packet of Nazionali from his jacket.

‘Smoke, dottore?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Fucking bastards. Don’t ever let them get you down, though. You let them do that, it’s the end.’

As their coffees arrived there was a screech of tyres outside. The door slammed open and two patrolmen walked in.

‘Evening, Alfredo.’

‘Evening lads. What can I get you?’

‘For me a cappucio, really hot, lots of froth on it.’

‘And a hot chocolate.’

‘Right away. Cold out there?’

‘It’s not warm. See the game last night?’

‘That Tardelli.’

‘Beautiful.’

The patrolmen stood looking round the bar, rubbing their hands together and stroking their moustaches, staring with insolent directness at the other customers. The muffled squawks of their car’s short-wave radio could be heard outside.

The youth looked down the room to the door at the end, beyond the video machine and the pinball table. Then he glanced at the barman, who shook his head almost imperceptibly.

‘Had any trouble lately, Alfredo?’ asked one of the patrolmen.

‘No, no. We never have any trouble here,’ the barman assured him, a shade too hastily.

‘Glad to hear it.’

Time passed, marked by the slow coiling of smoke from their cigarettes.

‘Was that us?’ one of the patrolmen finally remarked.

His colleague ambled to the door and held it open, listening to the radio. He turned and nodded.

‘Domestic altercation, Via Tasso.’

‘Someone giving the wife a bit of stick,’ the patrolman guffawed to Alfredo. ‘What do we owe you?’

‘You joking?’

‘Thanks. See you, then. Don’t work too hard.’

‘No fear.’

The patrolmen went out, leaving the door wide open. A moment later their car roared away.

The barman started towards the door.

‘I’ll get it,’ the youth told him, gulping down the rest of his coffee.

He gave Zen a little nod.

‘Take care now, dottore.’

He sauntered to the door and disappeared.

‘How much do I owe you?’ Zen muttered to the barman.

‘It’s already taken care of.’

‘How much?’

The barman looked at him more carefully.

‘Cappuccino’s eight hundred lire.’

As he took out his wallet, Zen came across the internal memorandum he had received that morning and put away unopened. It was bound to be bad news, probably disciplinary action of some kind resulting from his irregular handling of the Miletti case. But now he had nothing left to lose. Let’s know the worst and have done with it, he thought, as he tore the envelope open. To: Chief Commissioner Zen Aurelio From: Enrico Mancini, Assistant Under-Secretary. You are hereby informed of your promotion to the rank of Vice-Questore with effect from the 1st of May and consequent on this your transfer from inspection duties to the active rosta of the Polizia Criminale.

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. His deal with Gianluigi Santucci had only been intended to disguise his real purpose, which was to arrest Ruggiero’s murderer. But the Tuscan’s double-dealing had evidently gone undetected, and here was Zen’s reward.

I’m back in the pack, he thought. A functioning member of the ratking once again.

Outside the sky was clear and littered with stars. Zen began to walk home through a silence broken only by the thin, insistent ringing of a distant telephone.