‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing.’
He glanced at his watch.
‘Let’s go.’
Outside, the streets were dark and almost deserted. A fine drizzle was falling, backed up by a powerful but lazy wind lolling around like a drunken braggart at the street corners. The few pedestrians about glanced nervously at the tall man and his armed escort, and hastened past.
As they turned into Via Gioberti, Zen began to have serious doubts about the wisdom of his plan. If there were an assassin, resentment with a rifle, this is where he would be waiting, in a doorway or at a window opposite the restaurant. He would take down young Dario first, then the unprotected Zen. But it was too late to back out now.
There were no shots. When they reached the Maddalena, Dario burst inside ahead of Zen, brandishing his machine-gun. The restaurant was packed, but when Zen made his entrance, there was not a sound to be heard. Everyone in the place had come to a halt in the midst of whatever they were doing, the waiters poised in mid-delivery or removal of dishes, the diners stilled, forks half-way to their mouths.
‘Aurelio Zen,’ he heard himself say. ‘I’m meeting someone for dinner. Has he arrived?’
A deferential elderly man in a suit and tie emerged from behind a desk.
‘ Si, certo,’ he said imperturbably, as though the appearance of armed men in uniform were a daily occurrence. ‘This way, please.’
Accompanied by the ever-watchful Dario, Zen and the head waiter traversed the crowded room and another beyond it, to come to rest at a table at the very rear of the premises. It was occupied by Carla Arduini. She and Zen stared at each other in silence for a long time. Then the head waiter coughed self-consciously.
‘You may go,’ Zen told him. ‘You too, Dario.’
The patrolman pulled him aside.
‘This could be a set-up, chief! They put this young woman out front to get you relaxed and off your guard while the killer awaits his chance…’
‘I don’t think so.’
Dario looked distinctly disappointed that the promised excitements and risks of the evening had come to nothing, leaving him to return to his routine duties at the police station.
‘Don’t you think I should take a seat at one of those tables over there and just keep an eye on things, just in case?’ he asked hopefully.
Zen scanned the room.
‘Those tables seem to be reserved.’
Dario smiled and patted his machine-gun.
‘Believe me, I’m not going to have any problem getting seated.’
Zen sighed and nodded.
‘All right. I’ll have some food sent over. But don’t wave that thing around too much. You’ll scare the customers.’
Dario grinned impishly.
‘We’ll get great service, though!’
Indeed, waiters appeared with extraordinary promptness, bearing menus and wine lists of such complexity that Zen finally shrugged and said, ‘Just bring me something good to eat. A warm starter and a main course. I don’t care what it is, as long as it has truffles grated thickly all over it.’
He glanced at Carla Arduini, who nodded.
‘The same for me.’
‘And take some over to that lad over in the corner with the gun,’ Zen added. ‘He gets nervous if he isn’t fed properly.’
When the flurry of attendance had died away, he looked up at his companion.
‘So it was you?’
She nodded. Zen lit a cigarette and studied her.
‘And who is your collaborator? The man on the phone.’
‘I have no collaborator.’
‘But that voice…’
‘It’s an electronic device which alters your voice to any register you desire,’ Carla Arduini explained. ‘I bought one and hooked it up to my telephone at the hotel. It can make you sound like a man, a woman, a child, even an opera singer. For my purposes, a slightly metallic man’s voice seemed best.’
Zen puffed away, studying her face closely all the while.
‘And what were those purposes?’
She smiled wanly.
‘I planned to make a series of threatening phone calls, each with a vague clue to the mystery, and leave you to twist slowly in the wind, tormented by nameless fears. I’m not sure what I planned to do after that. I certainly didn’t intend you any physical harm, despite my threats. I just wanted to scare you.’
She gestured to the table where Dario was sitting.
‘It certainly looks as if I succeeded.’
A bottle of wine arrived. Zen poured them both a glass and drank his off at a gulp.
‘So why me? Or is it the police in general you have it in for? Did you just pick any officer at random?’
‘No, it was personal.’
Their first course arrived with the same promptitude as the menus, a mound of homemade pasta buried under a fall of truffle flakes so thick as to almost overflow the bowl.
‘Personal? We met for the first time two days ago, signorina.’
‘Yes, but I already knew who you were, you see. And as soon as I saw a news report saying that you had been sent up here to investigate the Vincenzo murder, I decided that I had to act.’
She paused.