He laid the receiver down on the desk.
‘It’s for you!’
Zen walked over and took the phone from him.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Aurelio.’
It was Cristiana.
‘Well, hello there.’
Aldo Valentini dashed back to the door.
‘Best of luck!’ Zen called after him.
‘For what?’ asked Cristiana.
‘Colleague of mine. He’s got a difficult operation coming up. You came through on his line, for some reason.’
‘I don’t understand. When I asked for you, they said there was no one of that name in the building. What’s going on, Aurelio?’
Zen smiled ruefully. Already he had become a non-person.
‘I’ll explain later,’ he told Cristiana. ‘When can I see you?’
She sounded embarrassed.
‘Well, that depends when… when you’re free.’
‘About eight?’
‘Oh that’s too late!’
He frowned momentarily.
‘Too late for what?’
‘I mean… couldn’t we make it earlier?’
‘How early?’
‘Would about six be all right?’
Her tone sounded oddly constrained. Zen took this to be a good sign, evidence that she was in the grip of the same turbulence that was disturbing his own emotional life, drawing them both away from the tried and familiar towards a new future together.
‘Will that give you time to get home after work?’ he asked.
There was a brief silence the other end.
‘That’s not a problem,’ she said at last.
She sounded so strange that Zen almost asked her if she was all right. But these were not things to discuss on the phone. In a few hours they could work it all out face to face.
‘Then I’ll see you at six,’ he said.
There was a brief pause.
‘Goodbye,’ said Cristiana.
Zen hung up, wondering why she wanted to see him so urgently. Perhaps after what the switchboard had told her she was afraid that he was going to abandon her and take off back to Rome without any warning. He could see how plausible that might look from her point of view. His tour of duty in the city had come to an end, he’d had his bit of fun with her, now it was time to go home. Zen smiled. He’d soon set her mind at rest about that.
But first he had a less agreeable task to perform. Whatever the motivation for the dressing-down he had received at the hands of Francesco Bruno that morning, he could not deny that it had been richly deserved. He glanced at his watch. There was just time to call in at Palazzo Zulian and make his apologies before going home to keep his appointment with Cristiana. They might very well not be accepted, but under the circumstances it was the least he could do to try.
Yet instead of collecting his hat and coat and going out, Zen found himself picking up the phone again. Now that the sustaining momentum of the Durridge case had receded, he had lost his steerage-way and was drifting at the whim of every current. The thought of Ada Zulian reminded him of his mother, and he realized with a guilty start that he had not phoned her since leaving Rome a week before. Reluctantly, he dialled the familiar number.
‘Hello? Mamma? Are you all right? You sound different.’
‘It’s me, Aurelio.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Me, Tania. Remember?’
For a moment he wondered if he’d dialled the wrong number.
‘Tania!’ he exclaimed over-effusively. ‘How are you?’
‘Your mother’s out.’
‘Out? Where?’
For a moment there was no reply.
‘And you, Aurelio?’
‘Sorry?’
A sigh.
‘Where are you?’
‘Still here in Venice, of course. Where do you think? I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, but I’ve been very busy.’
‘Of course.’