‘Christ knows what that was all about. Once upon a time we could have pulled a few strings of our own and found out, but these days…’
He pointed to the headline in the newspaper lying on the counter. THE OLD FOX FIGHTS FOR HIS POLITICAL LIFE, it read, above a photograph of the politician in question. Zen picked the paper up and scanned the article, which concerned alleged payments made by a number of leading industrialists into a numbered Swiss bank account allegedly used to fund the party in question. The paper’s cartoonist made play with the slogan adopted by the party at the last election: ‘A Fairer Alternative’. In a secondary article, a spokesman for the regionalist Northern Leagues hailed the development as ‘a death blow to the clique of crooks who have bled this country dry for decades’ and called for new electoral laws designed to radically redraw the political map of the country.
‘It’s total chaos,’ remarked Valentini sourly. ‘You can’t get anything done any more. No one knows what the rules are.’
Feeling a touch on his arm, Zen looked round. A young woman with blonde hair, wearing a ski-jacket and jeans, stood staring at him, smiling inanely and stabbing one finger in the air. For a moment Zen thought she must be mad, or perhaps from some religious sect or other. Then he caught sight of the suspended rectangle of cardboard circling slowly in the draught above his head. The logo on each side showed a smouldering cigarette in a red circle with a broad slash across it.
‘Don’t tell me you can’t even smoke any more!’ he exclaimed incredulously to Valentini, who shrugged sheepishly.
‘The city council passed a by-law making it compulsory to provide a no-smoking area. It’s just for show, to keep the tourists happy. Normally no one pays any attention in a place like this, but every once in a while some arsehole insists on the letter of the law.’
He slipped some money to the cashier and they stepped outside. Already the sunshine was looser and more generous. Zen paused to look at a series of posters gummed to the wall. The design was identical to the ones he had seen earlier that morning, on the window of the closed cafe in Cannaregio, but these were much newer. At the top was a drawing of the lion of Saint Mark, rampant, its expression full of defiance. The huge black capitals beneath read NUOVA REPUBBLICA VENETA and the text announced a rally the following evening in Campo Santa Margherita.
‘Total chaos,’ Aldo Valentini repeated, leading the way back to the Questura. ‘Every day it turns out that another big name, someone you would have sworn was absolutely untouchable, is under investigation on charges ranging from corruption to association with the Mafia. Result, no one dares to do a friend a favour any more. Nothing would please me more than to see this country turn into a paradise of moral probity, but how the hell are we supposed to get by in the meantime?’
Zen nodded. This was a conversation he had been having at least once a day for several months. By now he had the lines off by heart.
‘It’s just like in Russia,’ he declared. ‘The old system may have been terrible, but at least it functioned.’
‘My brother-in-law’s just moved into a new house near Rovigo,’ Valentini continued. ‘The telephone people tell him he’ll have to wait six weeks to get a phone installed, so he gets on to the engineer and offers him a bustarella, you know. Nothing exorbitant, just the odd fifty thousand or so to move up to the top of the list.’
‘The normal thing,’ murmured Zen.
‘The normal thing. You know what the guy tells him? “No way, dottore, ” he says. “It’s more than my job’s worth.” Can you believe it? “It’s more than my job’s worth.”’
‘Disgusting.’
‘How the hell are you supposed to get anything done with that sort of attitude? It’s enough to make you sick.’
He tossed his cigarette into the canal, where a seagull made a half-hearted pass at it before landing on the gunwale of the outermost police launch.
Back in their office, a man stood framed in the sunlight streaming in through the window. He turned as Zen and Valentini entered.
‘Aldo?’
He came forward, frowning at Zen.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked suspiciously.
Valentini introduced them.
‘Aurelio Zen, Enzo Gavagnin. Enzo’s head of the Drugs Squad.’
Enzo Gavagnin had a large womanish face and the stocky, muscular body of a gondolier. He inspected Zen coolly.
‘New posting?’
Zen shook his head.
‘I’m with the Ministry,’ he said. ‘On temporary assignment.’
Enzo Gavagnin glanced at Valentini.
‘An emissary from Rome, eh?’ he murmured in a manner both humorous and pointed. ‘I hope you haven’t been giving away any of our secrets, Aldo.’
‘I didn’t know we had any,’ Valentini replied lightly. ‘Anyway, anyone who comes all this way to take the Ada Zulian case off my hands is a friend as far as I’m concerned.’
Gavagnin laughed loudly.
‘Fair enough! Anyway, the reason I came was about that breaking-and-entering on Burano.’
‘The Sfriso business?’
‘If you want to reduce your work-load still further then you’re in luck, because I’ve discovered that there’s an angle which ties it in to a case we’ve been working on for some time…’
Valentini looked doubtful.
‘I don’t know, Enzo. If I shed two cases the same morning, people might start to ask questions.’
Gavagnin took Valentini’s arm and led him away.
‘It’s just because of the possible conflict of interest. Naturally we don’t want our on-going investigation compromised, so it’s better all round if…’
The pair disappeared behind the glass panelling around Valentini’s desk, becoming fuzzy, unfocused images of their former selves. Zen went into his own cubicle and dug the phone book out of the desk drawer. He looked up Paulon, M and dialled the number.
‘Well?’
The reply was abrupt to the point of rudeness.
‘Marco?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Aurelio.’
There was a brief pause.
‘Aurelio! How’s it going? I was reading about you in the paper just a while ago. That business in St Peter’s. I used to go fishing with him, I thought, and here he is consorting with Archbishops and the like! Gave me quite a thrill. Are you here in town?’
‘Yes. Can we meet?’
‘Of course!’
‘I need some advice, maybe some help.’
‘Well I’m out delivering all morning, but… Do you know the osteria on the San Girolamo canal, just opposite the church?’