‘Okay, all right! Maybe we did sell it!’ shouted Bon, his restraint suddenly cracking. ‘So what?’
‘Where did you get it from?’
Bon closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
‘I’d need to consult my records.’
Zen lit a cigarette. He leant back in his chair, staring coldly at Bon across the desk.
‘According to a sworn statement made in this office this morning, you informed the purchaser that the vessel had been laid up for years prior to being overhauled and fitted with a reconditioned engine. The witness, Sergio Scusat, further deposed that the price had been substantially reduced owing to the fact that no documents were available for the boat. He said that you claimed this was because she had been out of the water for so long that no one could trace the previous owner and she would have to be re-registered. Is that true?’
Guilio Bon shifted in his chair but said nothing.
‘Why are you being so evasive?’ murmured Zen silkily.
‘I’m not being evasive! I just can’t remember. Is that against the law?’
Zen allowed the silence to frame this outburst before continuing tonelessly.
‘The Nuova Venezia has confirmed that you placed an advertisement in the paper to run for the second week of December, offering a diesel-engined topa for sale. Sergio Scusat has testified that he bought the boat from you on the fifteenth. All I’m asking you to do is to confirm or deny the truth of the account you then gave him as to the vessel’s provenance.’
Bon looked at his knees, at the wall, at the ceiling.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘It’s all coming back to me.’
Zen puffed a smoke ring which hovered in the air above the desk like a detached halo.
‘Of course!’ Bon continued. ‘It was that old hulk we found round the back of the shed when we resurfaced the yard. God knows how many years it must have been sitting there. The hull was still sound, though. They built them to last in those days. All we needed to do was replace a few timbers here and there.’
‘And install an engine,’ Zen put in, apparently addressing the neon light fitting.
There was no reply. Zen lowered his head until his gaze met Bon’s.
‘Where did you get the engine?’
Bon waved one hand vaguely.
‘There are various suppliers we use from time to time, depending on…’
‘You told Scusat that the engine was reconditioned. There can’t be many suppliers of reconditioned Volvo marine engines in this area.’
‘“Reconditioned” is a relative term. It was probably some engine we had lying around the yard somewhere which we’d stripped down ourselves and reassembled.’
‘But it would still have had a serial number,’ Zen mused quietly. ‘To sell a craft without papers is one thing, but no one’s going to touch a motor whose serial number has been filed off. Besides, as you probably know, these days there are techniques for recovering markings which are no longer visible to the naked eye.’
There was a knock at the door. Zen gestured to the policewoman, who paused the tape. The door opened to admit a burly man with a bushy beard and a mass of fine wavy hair. In his grey tweed suit and black cape, he looked like a bear got up for a circus act.
‘Carlo Berengo Gorin,’ he said, thrusting out an enormous hand. ‘I represent Signor, er…’
He gestured impatiently at Giulio Bon, then swung round on Zen.
‘Are you Valentini or Gatti?’
‘Aurelio Zen.’
The avvocato’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Zen? Weren’t we at school together? Yes, of course! The basketball ace! The height, the grace, the movements which so bewitched the opposition that they stood like statues while you danced your way through them to notch up yet another point!’
Zen stared dumbly at the lawyer. Despite his height, he had never played basketball in his life. Gorin beamed reminiscently.
‘Happy days!’ he sighed. ‘Now then, will you kindly inform me of my client’s precise legal status?’
Zen felt his stomach tense up. The revised Code governing police procedure which had come into effect in 1988 had changed many aspects of its predecessor, especially regarding the rights of witnesses and suspects and the degree of latitude accorded the police. In many ways this had been a positive step, putting an end to practices which had led to so many abuses in the past, when they had been justified by the need to win the battle against political terrorists such as the Red Brigades. Nevertheless, the new approach suited neither Zen’s habits nor his temperament.
This possibly explained why he could never remember the precise norms and procedures which the revised Code prescribed. Like all senior officials, he had had to attend a course on the new system, but his position with the elite Criminalpol squad meant that in practice he had been largely spared any need to change his working practices. Criminalpol officials intervened only in the most important cases, and were usually accorded a fairly free hand by the magistrates involved.
But this was very different. Not only was Zen not acting under the aegis of the Interior Ministry in the present instance, he was not even supposed to be investigating the Durridge case at all. He was on his own, and any initiatives he took would have to respect the letter of the new law if they were to pass the scrutiny of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. He had known this all along, but he had been counting on the fact that a small-time boatyard owner like Giulio Bon probably wouldn’t know his exact rights under the new system either, still less have access to a lawyer who could make them stick.
Zen looked at the intruder, who was waiting expectantly for an answer. It was odd that a man like Bon should be prepared to pay the kind of money Gorin must charge. It was still odder that Gorin apparently did not know his client’s name.
‘I have reason to suppose that this man possesses information relating to a case I am currently investigating,’ he said carefully. ‘I have therefore had him brought here to answer a few questions.’
‘What is the case?’ asked Gorin.
‘It concerns the sale of a boat.’
Gorin frowned.
‘Involving an infraction of which article of the Code?’
‘That remains to be seen,’ Zen replied stolidly.
‘Have you informed the Public Prosecutor’s Office?’
‘Not yet.’
Gorin turned to Bon.
‘Signor, er…’
‘Bon, dotto. Giulio Bon.’
‘Have you answered any of this official’s questions?’
‘Yes.’