Ratking

FOUR

That afternoon Aurelio Zen went boating.

After the shock of Valesio’s murder and his almost sleepless night, lunch with Luciano Bartocci had really been the last straw. One thing he could have done without was an ambitious young investigating magistrate with a strong political bias, a prefabricated conspiracy theory and an itch to get his name in the news. At Zen’s expense, needless to say, should anything go wrong.

Once upon a time magistrates had been dull, stolid figures, worthy but uninspiring, above all remote and anonymous. But the combination of television and terrorism had changed all that. A new breed of men had emerged from the vague grey ranks of the judiciary to stamp themselves on the nation’s consciousness: the glamorous investigating magistrates and Public Prosecutors who were to be seen on the news every evening leading the fight against political violence and organized crime. Now all their colleagues craved stardom too, and almost overnight the once faceless bureaucrats had blossomed out in trendy clothes and bushy beards, and an anonymous letter was enough to get them as excited as any schoolboy.

Since Bartocci had been at pains to emphasize that his comments were ‘off the record’, Zen could of course simply ignore them. But that would be rash. There were an infinite number of ways in which the investigating magistrate could compromise or embarrass a police officer, whereas having the judiciary on your side was an invaluable asset. No, he had to try and keep Bartocci happy. On the other hand, the inquiries he had been asked to make, although apparently innocuous, were also fraught with risk. A great family such as the Milettis is like a sleeping bear: it may look massively apathetic and unimpressionable but each hair of its pelt is wired straight into the creature’s brain, and if you twitch it the wrong way the thing will flex its tendons and turn on you, unzipping its claws. What was he to do? How was he to react? What was a safe course to take?

His immediate solution was to go boating. Not for long, of course. With all these new developments pressing in on him the last thing he could afford was an afternoon off work. But neither was there any point in trying to take action with his head in this condition. So having made his way back to the hotel he closed the shutters, took off his shoes, jacket and tie, lay down on the bed and cast off. The image of the long shallow craft gliding forward through the reeds in regular surges, propelled by the oarsman’s graceful double-handed sweeps, was a powerful agent of calm. Just ten or fifteen minutes of it now would see him right, a short trip out through the islets and mudbanks where you could let the boat drift, lean over the stern and watch the inner life of the dirty green water, the shreds of seaweed and small branches and other shapes that sometimes proved to be alive, or focus on the surface, a depthless sheet of scum on which the pearly light shimmered in continual shifting patterns, or even look up to see a huge modern building, several storeys high, going for a stroll along a neighbouring island, the superstructure of a freighter putting out to sea along the deep-water channel…

He got up and put the light on, shivering. Something was wrong. How could the room feel stuffy and cold at the same time? And it was totally silent, no distant murmur of traffic, no footsteps, no voices. Catching sight of the transistor radio, he clicked it on and fiddled with the tuning, encountering only heavy bands of static interspersed with the twittering gibberish of machines. He felt like the last person left alive.

‘… very much and you get a fabulous Radio Subasio T-shirt so keep those calls coming out there this one is for Adriana in Gubbio it’s Celentano’s latest coming to you at fifteen before four this Thursday morning courtesy of your friend Tullio who says… ’

Zen silenced the radio, walked to the window and opened the shutters. The deserted piazza glistened under the streetlights. He had slept right through the night.

Catching sight of his reflection in the window he felt a surge of self-pity and suddenly realized that he missed Ellen very badly, and that it was only at moments like this, when he surprised himself, that he could admit how much he needed her. Why couldn’t he tell her? That was what she wanted, after all, and he knew that she was right to want it. For a moment he thought of phoning her, then and there, and telling her how he felt. But it would be ridiculous, of course. He imagined the phone ringing and ringing until it prodded her unwillingly out of sleep, and her uncomprehending response. ‘For Christ’s sake, Aurelio, couldn’t this have waited? Do you know what time it is? I’ve got a sale to go to at nine, and you know how difficult it is for me to get back to sleep once I’ve been woken.’ Instead he read a paper he’d bought in Trieste and forgotten to throw away, immersing himself in a debate over the council’s delay in resurfacing the streets in an outlying zone of the city until it was time to go to work.

A crowd of people of various races, clutching passports and sheaves of official documents, were clustered around an office in the foyer of the Questura. A sheet of paper attached to the glass partition with sticky tape read ‘Foreigners’ in crude lettering. Behind the glass an official from the Political Branch scowled at a worried-looking black.

‘And I suppose it’s my fault you haven’t got it?’ he demanded.

As Zen approached his office, the inspector who had been trying to trace Ubaldo Valesio’s movements poked his head around the door of the next room.

‘Just a moment, chief!’

Lucaroni was short and rather sleazy-looking, with narrow-set eyes and a broad jaw blue with stubble. His movements were quick and furtive and he spoke in a speedy whisper, as though every word were classified information.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he muttered. ‘The widow. Rolled in about five minutes ago demanding to see you. We weren’t sure what to do with her.’

He looked doubtfully at Zen, who nodded.

‘Turn up anything yesterday?’

Lucaroni shook his head.

‘He phoned his office at nine to cancel all appointments. It was obviously unexpected. There were two clients waiting who had to be sent away.’

Zen looked into the inspectors’ room. Chiodini was poring over a sports paper. Geraci was staring fixedly back at Zen, as though he was trying to remember whether he’d turned the gas off before leaving home.

‘How about you two?’ Zen asked.

Geraci’s eyebrows wiggled briefly.

‘Just a lot of stuff about his house and taxes and kids.’

‘And those marks in the diary,’ Chiodini put in without looking up from his paper.

‘They’re nothing,’ Geraci commented dismissively.

‘What marks?’ asked Zen.

He was really just buying time before having to deal with Patrizia Valesio.

Chiodini took the diary from the pile of documents on his desk and showed him that the lawyer had marked several pages during the previous three months with a red asterisk, the last being two days earlier. Zen walked over to the door opening directly into his office, taking the diary with him.

‘What do you want us to do now, chief?’ Geraci asked. He sounded slightly panicky.

‘Nothing, for now.’

He should never have asked for three assistants, he realized. Now he would always have them hanging about, making him feel guilty, getting in his way. Moreover one of them was bound to be reporting back to the Questore, and since there was no way of finding out which he would have to keep them all busy if he was to do what Bartocci had asked.

The spare chair in his office was occupied by a woman of about thirty dressed in an elegant black outfit. Her face was large and round and slightly concave, with a long sharp nose.

‘You’re the man they sent up from Rome?’ she asked. ‘I am Patrizia Valesio.’

‘I’m very sorry…’

She waved dismissively.

‘Please, don’t let’s waste time.’

Zen took out a notepad and pencil and laid them on the desk.

‘Very well. What can I do for you?’

‘I’ve come to make an accusation. You may find it bizarre, even unbelievable. I simply ask you to listen, and not to judge what I say until I have finished.’

She took a deep breath.

‘My husband did not usually discuss the negotiations for Ruggiero Miletti’s release with me, but on one occasion about a month ago, while we were having dinner…’

She paused. The strain of what she was saying showed on her face. Then she finished quickly.

‘He suddenly blurted out, “Someone is going behind my back”.’

The phone started to ring.

‘Excuse me,’ Zen said, and lifted the receiver.

‘ Good morning, Commissioner. This is Antonio Crepi. I’m just phoning to make it quite clear that our discussion the other night is no longer relevant. Pietro has flown in from London and he’s assured me that as soon as the gang make contact the matter will be resolved without further delay. I don’t need to tell you to keep what I said to yourself of course.’

Of course.’

‘ Incidentally, I hear you had lunch with young Bartocci yesterday .’

Zen watched Patrizia Valesio removing an invisible hair from her coat.

‘ I don’t want to interfere, dottore, but remember what I told you about him. Luciano’s a good lad at heart, but he’s got a bee in his bonnet when it comes to the Milettis. You know how these lefties are, they read Marx and stop seeing reality. Now that’s a dangerous attitude for an investigating magistrate, in my opinion. Still more so for a policeman. See what I mean? Just a friendly word of advice, from one who knows.’

Zen put the phone down. ‘… from one who knows.’ Where had he heard that phrase before?

Patrizia Valesio was staring at him with the expression of one who is not to be put off by interruptions. Her face reminded Zen of an old-fashioned candlestick: a shallow dish with a spike in the middle.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You were saying that…’

‘Ubaldo told me that someone was going behind his back,’ she repeated. ‘He said that every time he returned to the kidnappers to present an offer worked out after lengthy discussions with the family, claiming that this was the absolute maximum the Milettis could afford to pay, the gang accused him of lying. “Have you forgotten the villa at Punta Ala? And what about the olive grove at Spello? Why haven’t you sold the shares in such and such a company?” And when Ubaldo asked the Milettis, lo and behold there was such a villa, such an olive grove, such shares! It was a negotiator’s nightmare!’

Zen stared hard at the pad. He had been doodling obsessive box-like designs, a nest of interlocking right-angled lines locking out all possibility of error or surprise.

‘What about Ruggiero himself?’ he suggested. ‘He knows more than anyone about the family assets, and he’s totally in the gang’s power. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to make him talk.’

‘That’s what Ubaldo thought at first. But the gang knew about financial developments which had taken place since the kidnapping, things Ruggiero couldn’t have known about. Eventually Ubaldo became convinced that someone in the family circle was supplying the gang with information on a day-to-day basis. Which means that my husband was the innocent victim of some hideous double-deading within the Miletti family! That’s why I have come. I want his murderers punished. Not just the ones who pulled the trigger but also the ones who stood behind them, in the shadows!’

She broke off, taking quick shallow breaths.

‘This is all very interesting, signora…’

‘I haven’t finished!’ she snapped. ‘There’s something else, a vital clue. The gang always used the same procedure when they wanted to make contact. The telephone would ring at one o’clock, just as we were sitting down to lunch. Only two words were spoken. The caller gave the name of a football team and Ubaldo had to reply with the name of the team they were playing the following Sunday. He kept the fixtures list by the phone. Then he hung up immediately, phoned his office and cancelled his afternoon appointments. That was the procedure, and it never varied. But on Tuesday…’

She broke off again, fighting for control.

‘On Tuesday the call came not at lunchtime but early in the morning, about seven forty-five. I heard Ubaldo give the password and then say “Now?” in great surprise.’

She held Zen’s eyes with hers.

‘When did you arrive here in Perugia, Commissioner?’

‘On Tuesday.’

‘At what time?’

‘About half past one.’

‘And who knew you were coming?’

He frowned slightly.

‘Various people in the Ministry and here at the Questura.’

‘No one else?’

‘Not as far as I know. Why?’

Was that a sound from the next room, from behind the closed door?

‘Then how do you explain the fact that the kidnappers phoned urgently, demanding to see Ubaldo in person, at a time when you were still in Rome and no one supposedly knew you were coming except the authorities?’

Her voice was triumphant, as though this clinched the matter. Zen deliberately allowed his frown to deepen.

‘I don’t see there’s anything to explain. What connection is there between the two events?’

She snorted indignantly.

‘The connection? The connection is obvious to anyone who can put two and two together. Do you really believe that the first contact after weeks of silence just happened by sheer coincidence to fall on the same day as your arrival here? I’m sorry, but that would be just a little too convenient. But how could the kidnappers have known about your arrival in Perugia five hours before it happened? Obviously their contact in the family tipped them off!’

‘But how did the Milettis know, for that matter?’

‘Because it was they who had you sent here, of course! You don’t, for heaven’s sake, think that things like that happen without someone pulling strings, do you?’

Zen looked away. He had just remembered where he’d heard the phrase with which Crepi had rung off. It had been the signature of the anonymous letter Bartocci had received suggesting that the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti was a put-up job. He found himself writing CREPI??? in block capitals on the pad in front of him. He hastily crossed it out, then covered the whole area with tight scribbles until all trace of the name had been obliterated.

‘I don’t quite understand, signora,’ he said. ‘First you claim that the family is collaborating with the kidnappers, then you say they must have used their influence to have me sent here. Isn’t there some contradiction in your ideas?’

With a convulsive movement Patrizia Valesio got to her feet.

‘Don’t you speak to me of contradictions! That whole family is a living contradiction, consuming anything and anyone that comes within its reach, one of them smiling in your face while another stabs you in the back. My poor husband, who wanted only to help, ended up as their victim. Be careful you don’t share his fate!’

Zen also rose.

‘Anyway, since this case is under investigation by the judiciary, the proper person to inform is the magistrate in charge, Luciano Bartocci.’

His visitor picked up her gloves and handbag.

‘Oh, I shall inform him, don’t worry! And I shall inform him that I’ve informed you. And then I shall inform the Public Prosecutor’s department that I’ve informed both of you. Do you know why I’m going to inform so many people, Commissioner? Because I am expecting there to be a conspiracy of silence on this matter and I intend to make it as difficult as possible for the Milettis and their friends. If there is to be a conspiracy, at least everyone will see that it exists and will know who is involved. That will be some poor consolation, at least.’

At the last moment Zen remembered the diary. He showed it to Patrizia Valesio and asked if she knew anything about the asterisks which Chiodini had pointed out. The sight of her husband’s writing was clearly a great shock, but she held herself together.

‘Those are the days on which Ubaldo had a meeting with the kidnappers,’ she replied in a dull voice. ‘He marked the diary as soon as they phoned. He thought it might be useful later.’

Well, perhaps it might, Zen thought when she had gone. But he couldn’t see how.

He opened the door to the other room. Lucaroni was standing almost immediately inside, studying a notice concerning action to be taken in the event of fire breaking out in the building. Geraci was sitting at his desk, a paperback edition of the Penal Code open in front of him. Chiodini had slumped forward on his newspaper and seemed to be asleep.

‘Well, I’ve got some work for you, lads,’ Zen exclaimed breezily. ‘From what Valesio’s widow has told me, it’s clear that her husband’s contacts with the gang began with a telephone call that was simply a signal for him to go to some prearranged meeting-place. The chances are that it was a bar, somewhere not too far away. I want you to find it. Draw up a list and visit each in turn. Take a photograph of Valesio along. It shouldn’t be too difficult. A smart young lawyer driving a BMW will have been noticed.’

When they had gone Zen went back to his office and dialled an internal number.

‘ Records.’

‘I want a check run on any firearms licences issued to the following persons. Family name Miletti, first names Ruggiero, Pietro, Silvio and…’

Again that sound next door. Zen put the phone down, got up quietly and went over to the door into the corridor. He looked out. The corridor was empty, but the door to the inspector’s room was slightly ajar. Zen walked along the corridor and pushed it wide open. Geraci was standing by his desk. He whirled round as the door hit the rubbish bin with a loud clang.

‘Forgot my notebook,’ he explained.

Zen nodded.

‘Listen, Geraci, I want you to keep an eye on the other two for me.’

The inspector stared uncertainly at Zen.

‘Keep an eye on them?’

‘That’s it. Just in case.’

He winked and tapped the side of his nose.

‘Better safe than sorry. Know what I mean?’

Geraci clearly didn’t have the slightest idea what Zen was talking about.

‘I should get going,’ he muttered nervously.

‘Good thinking. Don’t want to make them suspicious.’

He watched Geraci walk all the way down the corridor before going back to his office, leaving the connecting door open so that if anyone came in he could see them reflected on Pertini’s portrait. Then he picked up the receiver again.

‘Hello?’

‘ So far I’ve got Miletti Ruggiero, Pietro and Silvio.’

‘Right. Also Miletti Daniele, Santucci Gianluigi and Cinzia nee Miletti.’

‘ Who’s speaking? ’

Zen seemed to see again that glare of hostility and hear the Questore murmur, ‘Until today he was handling the Miletti case for us.’

‘Fabrizio Priorelli.’

‘ I’ll call you straight back, dottore.’

‘Eh, no, my friend! Sorry, but you’ll do it now, if you please. I’ll hold.’

‘ Of course, dottore! Right away.’

There was a clunk as the receiver went down, followed by receding footsteps. While he waited Zen looked round his office. Something about it was slightly different today, but he couldn’t decide what it was.

The footsteps returned.

‘ There are three cards, dottore. A Luger 9mm pistol in the name of Miletti Ruggiero, issued 27 04 53. Then Santucci Gianluigi registered a rifle on 19 10 75. Finally Miletti Cinzia, a Beretta pistol, 4.5mm, dated 11 01 81.’

Zen noted these details in the margin of his earlier doodles.

‘ Shall I send a written copy up to your office, dottore? ’

‘No! Definitely not. I’ve got what I wanted. Much obliged.’

He hung up, studying the information. Ruggiero’s Luger would be war loot, belatedly registered once the menace of an armed Communist insurrection had faded. That might possibly have done the damage to Valesio’s head, at close range. So might Gianluigi’s hunting rifle, for that matter. But he didn’t really believe any of it, not for a moment.

He got an outside line, dialled the law courts and asked to speak to Luciano Bartocci. While he waited he looked round his office with a deepening frown, trying to track down the detail which had been altered. What was it? The filing cabinet, the coat-stand, the rubbish bin, that big ugly crucifix, the photograph of Pertini, the calendar. Of course, the calendar! Someone had thoughtfully turned the page to March and now the glossy colour photograph showed the Riot Squad drawn up in full battle gear in front of their armoured personnel carriers.

‘ Yes? ’

‘Dottor Bartocci? It’s Zen, at the Questura.’

‘ Finally! I’ve been trying to get hold of you since yesterday afternoon! Where have you been? ’

‘Well, I was…’

‘ Listen, there’ve been developments. Come and see me at once.’

‘Patrizia Valesio has been here. She claims that…’

‘ I’ve already seen her. This is something else. Be here in twenty minutes.’

Outside the weather was hazy and dull. In the car park between the Questura and the prison Palottino had taken a break from polishing the Alfetta to chat to a pair of patrolmen. He looked hopefully at Zen, who waggled his finger and walked off up the street.

It was market day, and the wide curving flight of steps leading up to the centre was lined with flimsy tables covered in kitchenware and watches and clothing and tools and toys. Music blared out from a stall selling bootleg cassette tapes. The traders called like barnyard cocks to the women moving from one pitch to the next, uncertain which to mate with.

‘… at prices you simply won’t believe…’

‘… never before in Perugia…’

‘… thanks to the miracle of American technology…’

‘… ever wears out I will pay you twice the…’

‘SOCKS!!! SOCKS!!! SOCKS!!!’

‘… one for thirty thousand, two for fifty…’

A man sitting on a three-legged stool emptied a dustpan full of rubbish over his suit and then removed it with a battery-powered mini-vacuum cleaner. On the wall behind him the name UBALDO VALESIO appeared over and over again in large black capitals. It was a notice-board devoted exclusively to funeral announcements, and the lawyer’s death was well represented. There were posters signed by his partners, by the local lawyers’ association, the Miletti family, various relatives, and of course his wife and children. The wording changed slightly, depending on the degree of intimacy involved, but certain formulas recurred like the tolling of a bell.

‘… an innocent victim of barbarous cruelty…’

‘… tragically plucked from the bosom of his loved ones by a callous hand…’

‘… a virtuous and well-respected life extinguished by the criminal violence of evil men…’

The morning session at the law courts was in full swing, and the halls and corridors were crowded. Luciano Bartocci’s office was tall and narrow, with shelves of books that seemed to lean inwards like the sides of a chimney as they rose towards the distant ceiling. Two lawyers were facing the magistrate across a desk that occupied most of the floor space. One was clearly asking some favour on behalf of a client: bail or a visitor’s pass or access to official files. Meanwhile the other lawyer was growing impatient with Bartocci for allowing himself to be imposed upon in this way by his pushy and unscrupulous colleague instead of attending to his utterly reasonable request for bail or a visitor’s pass or access to official files. In the end Bartocci solved the problem by shooing both of them out of the office and leading Zen downstairs.

‘There’s something I want you to hear.’

He took him to a long narrow room in the cellars of the law courts, where phone-taps were carried out. A bank of reel-to-reel tape recorders lined the wall. A man was monitoring one of them over a pair of headphones. He jumped slightly as Bartocci touched his shoulder.

‘Morning, Aldo. Can you play us that recording I was listening to earlier?’

‘Right away.’

He selected a tape from the rack and threaded it on to a spare machine.

‘This was intercepted late yesterday afternoon on the Milettis’ home phone,’ the magistrate explained to Zen. ‘That’s why I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

The technician handed Zen a pair of headphones and started the tape. There was a fragment of ringing tone and then a voice.

‘ Yes? ’

‘ Signor Miletti? ’

‘ Who is this? ’

‘ Go to the rubbish skip at the bottom of the hill, on the corner of the main road. Taped to the inside there is a letter for you. Get down there quickly, before the cops beat you to it.’

The caller had a thick, raw Calabrian accent.

‘ The time for games is over. You have three days to do what we say, otherwise we’ll do to your father what we did to Valesio. Only more slowly.’

Zen removed the headphones, looking for clues to Bartocci’s reaction. The message had sounded genuine enough to him.

‘What was in the letter?’

‘That’s what we’re about to find out. Thank you, Aldo!’

As they walked back upstairs Bartocci went on, ‘Pietro Miletti has agreed to see me. I’m expecting him shortly and I’d like you to be present. We’ve just time for a coffee.’

They went to a tiny bar in Piazza Matteotti. The only other person there was a woman eating a large cream-filled pastry as though her life depended on it.

‘I had a phone call from Antonio Crepi,’ Zen remarked casually.

‘Really?’

Bartocci’s voice, too, was carefully expressionless.

‘He knows we had lunch.’

‘I’m sure he does. In fifteen minutes he’ll know we’ve had coffee, too.’

‘What did you make of Patrizia Valesio’s story?’ Zen asked.

The magistrate shrugged.

‘It doesn’t get us anywhere. A hostile Public Prosecutor would make mincemeat of her. The distraught widow trying to assuage her grief for her husband’s death by carrying out a vendetta against the Miletti family, that kind of thing. But this letter is another matter.’

It took Zen a moment to see what Bartocci was getting at.

‘If they try and fake a letter from the kidnappers, you mean?’

Bartocci nodded between sips of coffee.

‘They can’t fake it well enough to fool a forensic laboratory. I’m surprised they haven’t realized that. So this meeting with Pietro Miletti may well prove to be decisive. That’s why I want you to be there.’

The eldest of the Miletti children seemed about as unlike the others as was possible. Short and plump, with receding hair and a peeved expression, Pietro looked at first sight like an English tourist who had come to complain about his belongings being stolen from his hotel room, full of righteous indignation about Italy being a den of thieves and demanding to know when the authorities proposed to do something about it. From his tweed jacket to his patterned brogues he looked the part perfectly: not the usual designer mix from expensive shops in Milan or Rome, but the real thing, as plain and heavy as Zen imagined the English climate, character and cuisine to be.

Bartocci introduced Zen as ‘one of the country’s top experts on kidnapping, sent here specially by the Ministry to oversee the case’.

Pietro Miletti was politely dismayed.

‘I understood this was to be a private meeting.’

‘Nothing which is said in this room will go any further,’ Bartocci assured him. ‘We are simply here to discuss what measures to take in the light of recent developments. Please be seated.’

After a moment’s hesitation Pietro leaned his rolled umbrella and leather briefcase against the desk and sat down. Bartocci took his place on the other side of the desk. There was no other chair, so Zen remained standing.

‘Now then,’ the magistrate continued smoothly, ‘I understand that in the course of a telephone call yesterday afternoon the kidnappers informed you of the whereabouts of a letter from them, and that this letter was subsequently recovered. You’ve brought it with you, I take it.’

‘Not the original, no.’

Pietro Miletti spoke as though the matter was of no consequence, but Bartocci glanced at Zen before replying.

‘A copy of the letter is of very little use to our scientific experts.’

‘I haven’t brought a copy.’

Bartocci gestured impatiently.

‘Excuse me, dottore. You haven’t brought the original letter, you haven’t brought a copy. Would you mind very much telling me what you have brought?’

Pietro Miletti opened his briefcase and took out a sheet of paper which he offered to the magistrate.

‘I’ve brought a memorandum prepared from the original letter, itemizing every relevant piece of information it contained.’

Bartocci made no attempt to take the paper.

‘Dottore, I strongly resent the assumption that anybody is in a position to dictate to me what is or is not relevant to a case I am investigating. If you are not prepared to let me see the original letter then this pretence of cooperation becomes a farce and I see no point in continuing it.’

Pietro Miletti gave a short laugh that sounded unpleasantly arrogant and mocking, although it might equally well have been nervous in origin.

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible.’

‘Impossible? Allow me to remind you that you are head of the family in your father’s absence. Nothing is impossible if you want it.’

‘No, no, I mean it’s literally impossible. The letter no longer exists.’

Bartocci shot Zen a triumphant glance. So the Milettis had realized the threat to their schemes which the fake letter would pose and had no intention of letting them see it!

Pietro balanced the sheet of paper on his knees.

‘I should explain that although part of the letter was dictated by the kidnappers, most of it was written by my father. It was a personal letter addressed to his family, and like any personal letter it was not intended to be read by outsiders. It was, besides, a very long, rambling and really rather distressing document. Distressing, I mean, for the evidence it provided of my father’s state of mind. The strain and anguish of his long ordeal has clearly had a terrible effect on him. Naturally no reasonable person would wish to hold him accountable for what he wrote, but certain passages nevertheless made very disturbing reading.’

Zen gazed up at the shelves loaded with rows of books as uniform as bricks.

‘He accused you of having abandoned him,’ he said.

‘He recalled the innumerable sacrifices he has made on your behalf and reproached you for not being prepared to help him in his hour of need. He even compared your behaviour unfavourably with that of his kidnappers.’

Pietro Miletti looked round in amazement.

‘How do you know that? It isn’t possible! Unless…’

An idea flared up in his eyes for a moment and then went out.

‘Such letters resemble one another,’ Zen explained. ‘Like love letters.’

‘Ah, I see.’

Pietro had lost interest again.

Bartocci was staring angrily at Zen, who realized that he had made the mistake of speaking as though the letter really existed, as if the kidnapping was genuine. The magistrate rapped on his desk.

‘What became of the letter?’ he demanded.

‘We burned it.’

‘You did what?’

‘My father specifically forbade us to communicate any of the information it contained to the authorities, or to cooperate with them in any way whatsoever. That position received the strongest support from various members of the family, and it was only by strenuous and prolonged efforts that I have been able to persuade them to let me bring you this memorandum, which contains, as I’ve said, all the relevant items in the letter.’

Zen suddenly understood that Bartocci had some move in mind, something which he was keeping up his sleeve for the moment.

‘And what are these “relevant items” you mention?’ the magistrate asked, deliberately postponing this initiative.

Pietro Miletti picked up the paper again and began to read in a calm, confident voice, a voice that was accustomed to being obeyed, that never needed to make a fuss. The full ten thousand million lire, in well-worn notes, not consecutively numbered, was to be made ready for delivery immediately. An untapped telephone number was to be communicated to the gang, who would use it to pass on further details, identifying themselves by the same method they had used with Valesio. The police were not to be informed of any of these arrangements or to be involved in the payoff in any way. Failure to comply with these instructions would result in the immediate death of the victim.

‘And what do you intend to do?’ Bartocci asked when Pietro had finished.

‘We shall obey, of course. What else can we do?’

‘What you’ve been doing for the past four months! Stalling for time, crying poor, haggling over every lira.’

Pietro Miletti replaced the sheet of paper carefully in his briefcase.

‘That’ll do, Bartocci. We already know what our enemies say about us.’

An effortless hardening had taken place in his tone. He got to his feet and looked at both of them in turn.

‘Do you know why kidnapping flourishes here in Italy? Perhaps you think it’s because we’re saddled with a corrupt and inefficient police force directed by politically biased career judges lacking any practical training whatsoever. That is certainly a contributing factor, but similar conditions obtain in other countries where kidnapping is almost unknown. No, the real reason is that in our hearts we admire kidnappers. We don’t like successful people. We like to see them brought low, made to suffer, made to pay. They used to call Russia an autocracy moderated by assassination. Well, Italy is a plutocracy moderated by kidnapping.’

‘How do you propose to raise the money when for the past months you’ve been claiming that it just wasn’t possible?’

But Pietro Miletti had no further interest in the exchange.

‘That’s our affair.’

‘There’s always SIMP, of course,’ Bartocci insinuated.

‘Yes, there’s still SIMP left to bankrupt. No doubt some people would be very glad to see that happen. But if our company ever does go under, those are the very people who are going to moan loudest.’

‘What about this untapped telephone number the gang have asked for? How are you going to communicate it to them?’

‘If I told you that, I doubt whether the number would remain untapped for very long. We’re paying an extremely high price to get my father back. We have no intention of putting the success of that operation at risk because of the usual bungling by the authorities.’

‘I take it you’ve asked for guarantees,’ Zen put in quietly.

Pietro Miletti turned at the door.

‘What guarantees?’

‘How do you know your father is still alive?’

‘We just got a letter from him!’

‘How do you know when he wrote it? You should make it a condition of payment that the gang supplies a Polaroid photograph of your father holding the morning’s paper on the day the drop is made. That will incidentally also establish that the people you’re dealing with have still got possession.’

‘Possession of what?’

His tone was reasonable and polite, a senior manager seeking specialized information from a consultant.

‘The negotiations for your father’s release have been very long drawn out,’ Zen explained. ‘It may well be that the original kidnappers couldn’t afford to wait so long. It would depend on their financial situation, how the other jobs they’re involved in are going. If they need some quick cash they may have sold your father to another group as a long-term investment.’

Pietro Miletti repeated his short laugh.

‘My God, are we talking about a business in secondhand victims?’

Luciano Bartocci had been shuffling papers about noisily on his desk in an attempt to disrupt this exchange from which he was excluded.

‘There is just one other thing…’ he began.

Pietro Miletti cut him off.

‘But what does it matter, after all? We don’t mind who we pay as long as we get my father back.’

‘But you wouldn’t want to pay one gang and then find that they’d sold your father to another, would you?’

‘There is just one other thing.’ the magistrate repeated. ‘When the pay-off is made, one of the people present will be Commissioner Zen.’

Bartocci might previously have had some difficulty in making himself heard, but now he instantly had the total attention of both men. It was so still in the room that it seemed the three had suspended their dealings by mutual consent in order to catch the barely audible undulations of a distant ambulance siren.

‘You must be crazy,’ Pietro Miletti said at last.

The young magistrate did actually look slightly mad. His eyes were bright with determination, his face flushed with a sense of the risks he was taking, and the stillborn smile twitched away at the corner of his mouth as though he was trying to eat his beard.

‘Should you refuse to cooperate,’ he went on, ‘I must warn you that as from this evening each member of your family and household staff will be under surveillance twenty-four hours a day by a team of Commissioner Zen’s men from Rome.’

He gave Zen a long, level look, daring him to deny it.

‘Naturally this flurry of police activity will get into the newspapers. The kidnappers will quite possibly call off the whole operation.’

‘How dare you, Bartocci?’

Pietro Miletti’s voice was quiet and curious. Despite its rhetorical form, the question seemed to have real meaning.

‘How dare you make my father a pawn in your games?’

The investigating magistrate steepled his fingertips judiciously.

‘Dottore, we are all here in our official capacities. You represent your family. Commissioner Zen and I represent the State. As such our duties are clearly laid down in the Criminal Code. They are to investigate crimes, prevent them from being carried out, discover the guilty parties and take any further steps necessary to uphold the law. In our official capacities that is all that we need do. But we are not simply judges or police officials, we are also human beings, and as human beings we sympathize deeply and sincerely with the terrible situation in which the Miletti family find themselves, and wish to do everything possible to bring it to a swift and satisfactory conclusion. At the same time, we cannot ignore our duty. And so, after long and careful deliberation, we have arrived at a compromise between our official responsibilities and our natural wish to avoid hindering your father’s release in any way. It is this compromise which I have just outlined to you. I believe that you would be well advised to accept it.’

Pietro Miletti shook his head slowly.

‘How can you even consider putting my father’s safety at risk?’

‘There is no risk,’ Bartocci assured him. ‘No risk whatsoever. Isn’t that so, Commissioner?’

Zen’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. You bastard, he was thinking. You shifty little bastard.

But Pietro Miletti was not interested in Zen’s opinion.

‘The kidnappers have just given us quite explicit instructions not to involve the police in any way, yet you claim that we can send a senior officer along on the pay-off itself without there being any risk!’

Bartocci waved the objection aside.

‘They won’t know that he’s a police official.’

Pietro Miletti stood staring intently at the magistrate.

‘Why, Bartocci? You’re going to alienate half the city, put my father’s life at risk, all for what? What’s in it for you? Why are you prepared to play such a desperate game, to put your whole future in jeopardy like this?’

‘How dare you threaten me?’ Bartocci shot back.

After a moment Pietro shrugged and turned away.

‘I shall have to discuss the whole matter with the rest of the family.’

‘Since when has the Miletti family been run as a cooperative?’ Bartocci jeered.

‘I shall contact you tomorrow morning.’

‘You’ll contact me by three o’clock this afternoon,’ the magistrate insisted. ‘Otherwise I shall have no alternative but to allow Commissioner Zen to put his men in position.’

Bartocci made Zen sound like a mad dog he was managing to restrain only with the greatest difficulty.

Pietro Miletti turned in the doorway.

‘Needless to say, if we do agree, the responsibility for the consequences of that decision will be on your heads. You might like to think about that before committing yourselves to this course of action.’

‘I tell you there isn’t the slightest risk!’

‘That’s what they told Valesio.’

As the door closed, Zen let out a breath he realized he had been holding for a long time. And to think he’d been agonizing about what line to take on Bartocci’s conspiracy theory! No need for that now. Henceforth, as far as the Milettis were concerned, Zen was Bartocci’s accomplice, the henchman whose men were to be used to enforce their enemy’s will.

‘You’re prepared to go, I suppose?’ the magistrate asked him with a studied casualness Zen found rather insulting.

‘It’s my job. But I would have preferred to know you were going to do it.’

Bartocci laughed boyishly.

‘I didn’t know I was going to do it myself until it happened!’

He walked over to one of the shelves in the end wall and took down a large box-file. Zen thought he was going to be shown some decisive new piece of evidence, but Bartocci simply reached through the space left vacanton the shelfand with a grunt of effort manipulated a lever. There was a loud metallic click and the whole section of wallswung outwards.

‘It was this business about the letter that decided me,’ the magistrate continued, as a widening slice of the outside world appeared in the gap. ‘Clearly the reason they claim to have burnt it is simply that they realize it would be too risky to let us examine it.’

The view expanded as he pushed the twin doors fully open. There was a small balcony just outside the hidden window, now inaccessible and covered in pigeon droppings.

‘So according to the Milettis, what have we got?’ Bartocci asked rhetorically, counting off the points on his outspread fingers. ‘One telephone call which could easily have been faked from any phone box, a letter which no one outside the family has seen, and a pay-off which will supposedly take place once arrangements have been made over a telephone number they refuse to disclose. If I hadn’t insisted on you going along on the drop we would have absolutely no proof that it had ever taken place! It’s a conjuring trick! The money which has suddenly and mysteriously become available simply vanishes into thin air as Ruggiero Miletti magically reappears. And from that moment on there would be absolutely no way of ever proving that the whole thing had been faked. No, this pay-off is our last chance, and one that I wasn’t prepared to let slip.’

They stood gazing out at the few early swallows looping around the hazy, fragrant air.

‘It’s all coming together!’ Bartocci muttered excitedly, as though to himself. ‘So many separate bits of evidence all pointing in the same direction. Yes, it’s coming together!’

Despite his lingering feeling of resentment, Zen watched the young magistrate with an almost fatherly tenderness. He knew that he was feeling what Zen himself had felt often enough in the past, on one fateful occasion in particular: this time the bastards are not going to get away with it.