Bon looked up warily.
‘Do I have to?’
Gorin turned to Zen.
‘Do you intend to place Signor Bon in detention or under arrest?’
This was the crux. Zen had enough evidence against Bon to hold him for questioning, but under the new Code he would have to communicate this fact to the judiciary. That would mean officially revealing his involvement with the Durridge case, and his position was still too weak to risk that.
‘Not at present,’ he replied.
Gorin turned back to Bon.
‘There is therefore no necessity for you to answer any questions, or indeed to remain here, unless you wish to do so.’
Bon stood up quickly.
‘I’ve already told him everything I know!’ he blurted out. ‘I’ve got work to do! Why should I waste my time here if I don’t have to?’
‘Why indeed?’ echoed Gorin.
Bon looked from Gorin to Zen and back again. With a snort of defiance he pushed past the policewoman and walked out. Gorin waggled a hairy finger at the tape recorder.
‘Now then, what about that?’ he asked.
‘What about it?’
‘Since the interview it records was conducted irregularly, the existence of the tape constitutes a violation of my client’s civil rights. Under articles 596 and 724 of the Criminal Code, it is an offence to make recordings of speech acts and other discourse without the written consent of the parties involved. Did my client grant such consent?’
Zen shook his head.
‘Then I must ask you to surrender the tape.’
Zen frowned.
‘It is not the existence of the tape which is at issue, but that of the recording.’
Gorin smiled.
‘A fine distinction, dottore. But since the recording subsists through the medium of the tape, for all practical purposes the two are one and the same. I must therefore ask you once again to hand over the offending article.’
Zen wagged his forefinger negatively.
‘It is true that the recording cannot exist without the tape, avvocato, but the reverse is not the case.’
He turned to Sottotenente Pia Nunziata, who had been watching this exchange open-mouthed.
‘Rewind the spool and erase the recording.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Gorin stepped forward, waving his hands impatiently.
‘No, no, I can’t be expected to hang around here for however long it takes to erase this illegal recording.’
The policewoman fended him off with an icy look.
‘Our equipment is fitted with a high-speed dubbing facility which makes it possible to erase a tape like this in a matter of minutes.’
To prove her point, she pressed a button and the tapes began spinning rapidly. Gorin stared at her for a moment, then stepped back and waved graciously, conceding the point.
‘In that case, I need detain you no longer. Good day!’
With a debonair smile and a courteous nod, the lawyer swept out. As soon as his footsteps had receded, Pia Nunziata switched off the tape recorder.
‘Shall I make a transcript, dottore?’ she asked Zen.
Zen frowned at her.
‘But that tape’s blank now.’
The policewoman shook her head.
‘I made that up. There’s no high-speed facility. I just put it on fast forward.’
Zen smiled slowly.
‘ Brava! But now, if you please, erase it properly.’
He watched her rewind the tape once more, disconnect the microphone and press the red button. Then he got his coat and hat and walked out. The existence of any record of his interview with Giulio Bon was now a threat to Zen, since the questions he had asked contained numerous clues to the real reason for his presence in the city. That was why he had been so concerned to stop it falling into the hands of Carlo Berengo Gorin, especially if Zen’s idea about how the lawyer had come to be summoned to the Questura proved to be correct. In that case the fighting was going to get very dirty indeed.
Zen walked quickly downstairs to the first floor, where he stopped to read the montage of typewritten announcements pinned to the staff noticeboard. Most concerned minor changes to rotas and shift schedules, and were of limited interest even to permanent staff, but Zen was apparently so absorbed by them that he did not even glance round when a door opened further along the corridor.
‘… again, Carlo.’
‘No problem.’
‘See you on Saturday, then.’
‘ Ciao, Enzo.’
‘ Ciao.’
Footsteps started along the marble flooring. Zen moved his head towards a notice pinned at the extreme right-hand edge of the board. He glanced briefly along the corridor, then turned his back on the two men, closing his eyes to study the image they retained: Carlo Berengo Gorin striding towards him consulting his watch while Enzo Gavagnin rolled up his shirt sleeves and stepped back into his office.
Once the lawyer had started downstairs, humming quietly to himself, Zen walked along the corridor until he heard the unmistakable tones of Gavagnin’s voice.