‘There! Everyone who’s here now! All of them, every one!’
He stared at Zen with a manic intensity which suggested that there were in fact a number of guests not named on the list whose bodies were concealed in the cellar. Zen walked through an archway into the bar and sat down at a corner table, scanning the list. It was more or less what he had expected. Apart from the ten foreigners — three Swiss, four Germans, two Americans and a Frenchman — there was a woman, three couples and four single men, excluding himself. None of the names meant anything to him, but tomorrow he would return to the Commissariato di Polizia and ask them to run a search of the records.
‘Have you got a light?’
He looked up, his right hand already reaching automatically for his lighter. The speaker was a young woman in black leggings and a leather blouson. Zen vaguely remembered having seen her leaving the room next to his when he got back the previous evening. She lit her cigarette, then slumped down in the armchair opposite him.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’
Zen glanced at her curiously. The bar was empty, and there was no shortage of available seats.
‘Suit yourself.’
The woman took a few puffs at her cigarette, then ground it out in the ashtray. Her hair was cropped short in layers, she wore no make-up and the expression of her green eyes was uncompromisingly direct.
‘I don’t usually do things like this,’ she said.
Zen smiled politely.
‘No.’
‘The truth is, I’m going out of my mind with boredom.’
‘I see.’
‘Alba is fantastically boring, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so.’
It couldn’t be a pick-up, he decided. She was too straightforward to be anything other than a professional, in which case she would have got to the point by now. Besides, it was hard to imagine that sort of action in the bar of the Alba Palace.
The young woman’s eyes met his.
‘You’re here on business?’
Zen nodded.
‘And you?’
‘The worst kind. Family business.’
Silence fell. Zen had decided to make no attempt to keep the conversation going. The woman was quite pretty, he supposed, in a rangy, sharp-featured way, but he wasn’t attracted to her. For him, the voice was always the key to such things, and hers lacked that special resonance.
‘You’re a policeman,’ she said.
He hesitated just a second.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘I heard you talking to the desk clerk. Something about wanting a list of guests at the hotel. He seemed quite amazed, but then he always does.’
She pointed to the scroll of paper on the table.
‘Is that it?’
Zen regarded her in pointed silence.
‘I suppose I’m being indiscreet,’ she said. ‘It’s just that the idea that anyone in this dump might be of interest to the police seemed irresistibly… well, interesting.’
Zen thought briefly of telling her to mind her own business. Then it occurred to him that she might be of use.
‘It’s not an official matter. At least, not yet. Someone’s been making anonymous phone calls. I have reason to believe that it’s one of the people staying here.’
He handed over the list.
‘Have you met any of the men whose names I’ve marked?’
‘This one tried to chat me up in the restaurant last night and then gave me his card. He’s a commercial traveller in wines and seems to sample a lot of the product. And one of the others patted my bottom in the lift yesterday. I don’t know his name.’
She handed the list back.
‘What does your anonymous caller want, anyway?’
‘I don’t know. But he knows who I am, and…’
‘Speaking of which, we should introduce ourselves.’
She turned the list around and pointed to the name ‘Carla Arduini’.
‘And you must be Aurelio Zen.’
He looked at her, frowning.
‘How did you know that?’
‘It was in all the local papers, along with a photograph,’ she replied airily. ‘“Ministry sends top man from Rome to investigate Vincenzo case,” that sort of thing. Perhaps that’s how your caller found out, too.’
‘Perhaps.’
Zen felt slightly put out that this idea hadn’t occurred to him.
‘But why does he bother phoning you, if he’s staying here? If he’s too timid to go to your room, he could always accost you in the bar. After all, I have!’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea, signorina. That’s what makes it so unsettling. But enough about that. What are you doing here? Or is it too private to discuss?’
Carla Arduini appeared to consider this question for a moment.