Arancid darkness had fallen by the time Romano Rinaldi set out in search of sustenance for his soul. The cold that had gripped the city all week seemed if anything to have intensified, so it was perfectly natural that he should be wearing a scarf drawn up over his nose to ward off dangerous germs and potential lung infections, and coincidentally concealing his famous face. He had been worried about slipping out of the hotel unobserved, but ironically enough all attention in the lobby had been focused on two reporters pretending to be police detectives who were trying to browbeat the assistant manager into giving them a pass key to Signor Rinaldi’s suite, and he felt reasonably confident that none of the other pedestrians trudging about the streets with an air of aimless intent would recognise him. As for the locales he planned to cruise, they would be dimly lit and packed with students, addicts, artists, anarchists and suchlike demographic flotsam and jetsam that definitely didn’t form part of the core viewership of Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta. Then, once he had restored his spirits, he would be off to that villa in Umbria, never to return to this accursed town.
He made his way slowly through the narrow streets of the university district, inspecting various locations with care. He was tempted for a moment by a pizzeria-cum-snack bar called La Carrozza, which had a handwritten sign in the window reading ‘Temporary Kitchen Help Urgently Wanted’, and appeared to be patronised by exactly the sort of people he was in search of. But service was at tables only, and once seated it would be difficult to make the kind of approach he had in mind. Besides, he would have to remove his scarf to eat or drink anything. Too risky, he decided.
One or two bars also looked likely propositions, particularly one darkened and smoke-filled dive where youths of various sexes wearing ethnic-looking knitted hats with earflaps perched on bar stools listening to American popular music beneath posters acclaiming Il popolo di Seattle and denouncing the World Trade Organization. But the place had almost the atmosphere of a private members’ club, and Rinaldi would be the oldest person in the room and far too conspicuous.
In the end he found what he wanted on Via Zamboni, the main street of the quarter. It was one of the ‘Irish pubs’ that were now proliferating all over Italy. Cluricaune, as this one was called, was very spacious, on two levels, and packed with likely targets. Rinaldi fought his way to the bar and ordered a vodka martini. Although the place was stuffed with posters and statuettes of leprechauns, the use of the Irish language was limited to the name. Details of the cocktails and beers on offer, and of the establishment’s ‘Happy Hour’, which was now in force, were all in English.
Drink in hand, Rinaldi nudged through the assembled throng, looking about him carefully. After a few moments he spotted a young man propped up on his elbows at the far end of the bar, an empty glass before him and his head lowered. He was wearing a black leather jacket with some sort of crest on the back, and looked drunk and very depressed. Rinaldi made his way through the crowd and stood to the man’s left, close enough to attract his attention but not so close as to give offence. He lowered his scarf, which was beginning to suffocate him, downed his drink in one and signalled the barmaid.
‘A large vodka martini,’ he told her. ‘And bring my friend here one too.’
The young man glanced at him sideways for a moment without straightening up.
‘Sono rovinato,’ he said tonelessly.
‘Ruined?’ Rinaldi echoed. ‘Well, maybe I can help.’
He waited until the barmaid had come and gone before flashing some high-denomination banknotes at the other man.
‘Good quality coca,’ he said. ‘The best on the market, the more the merrier, and immediately. If you can’t deliver, there’s a hundred in it for you to introduce me to someone who can.’
At first the youth did not react. I’ve picked the wrong man, thought Rinaldi, adjusting his scarf and preparing to move away. Then his companion straightened up with a weary sigh, downed his drink and laughed harshly.
‘Sure, I can do that! Who cares now anyway? Let me make a few calls.’
He stepped back from the bar and immediately lurched sideways, completely off balance, clutching at Rinaldi with both arms for support. They clung together like two lovers for fully half a minute, before the younger man managed to stand upright on his own two feet, albeit swaying alarmingly.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he announced defiantly.
Rinaldi had his doubts about that, but the youth hadn’t asked for any money up front, so at worst the approach would have cost him a little time and the price of a drink. He cradled his glistening cocktail glass and gazed up idly at the TV mounted on brackets above the bar. Some game show was on, while a crawl bar at the bottom unscrolled the latest news headlines. Rinaldi watched idly, slurping his drink, as gnomic references to atrocities in the Middle East, domestic political feuding and the transfer of some football star danced across the screen. Then he almost dropped his glass. He thought he had seen his own name. But that item had already exited stage left, and he had to wait for the whole chorus line to go through their act again before it reappeared.
When it finally did, he wrapped the scarf around his face and made his way as quickly as the crush allowed to the door. ‘Famous author Professor Edgardo Ugo shot in Bologna after cookery duel with star of Lo Chef Che Canta e Incanta. Police confident of imminent arrest’. This can’t be happening, thought Rinaldi, striding head down along the tunnel of the long arcade. The wall and pillars were covered in hand-written ‘Wanted’ ads that now suggested something very different than the innocent pursuit of accommodation or employment. And maybe those two men who had been trying to get to him back at the hotel hadn’t been reporters after all.
Still, it would surely be easy enough to establish his innocence. He had driven straight from the exhibition centre to his hotel and remained there all afternoon. Not only hadn’t he shot Ugo, he couldn’t possibly have done so. There was nothing to worry about.
Amoment later, he realised that there was no way of proving that he had remained in his room all that time. He had locked the door, turned off the phone, instructed the management to refuse all visitors and had not been seen or heard by anyone until he finally summoned Delia to bring him the vodka, which might very well look as though he had belatedly been trying to establish an alibi. From the cops’ point of view, of course, his public humiliation that morning would constitute one hell of a motive. Did anyone else have such good cause to shoot Ugo on this particular day? If not, he was inevitably going to be the prime suspect. And whatever ultimately came of it, his arrest at this crucial moment really would mean the end of everything. Not even Delia could spin him out of a murder charge.