‘You’re surely not going to meet that band of hooligans, dottore?’
Zen shook his head.
‘My interest in them is purely professional.’
Dolfin raised his eyebrows.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve got something on Dal Maschio!’
‘Would that surprise you?’
Dolfin laughed harshly.
‘It would surprise me if you could make it stick.’
The men in the square had concluded their discussion and were leaving in different directions in twos and threes. Zen buttoned up his overcoat and threw a note on the table to pay for his coffee.
‘After what you’ve just told me, I’m certainly going to try,’ he declared grimly.
Dolfin frowned.
‘What has that got to do with Dal Maschio?’
Zen looked at Rosa Coin.
‘Nothing. Everything.’
The windswept expanse of Campo Santa Margherita was deserted when Zen emerged from the bar. He turned left, walking quickly. It was a clear night, the darkness overhead pinked with stars and a bright battered moon rising. In the distance, on the bridge over the canal, Zen could just make out the figure of Dal Maschio and his two companions. Slowing his stride to match theirs, he followed.
The three men walked at a leisurely pace past the church of San Barnaba, through the dark passage burrowing beneath the houses on the far side, along walkways suspended over small canals or jutting out from the side of buildings linked by clusters of telephone and electricity cables and a washing-line from which an array of teddy bears dangled by their ears. The sound of their voices drifted back to Zen, resonant in the narrow streets, more faint in the open, sometimes snatched away altogether by the wind.
They crossed the bowed wooden bridge over the fretful, jostling waters of the canalazzo and rounded the church blocking the entrance to Campo San Stefano, where the trio came to a halt. Concealed in the shadows cast by a neighbouring church, Zen looked on as they concluded their discussion and said good night. Dal Maschio saluted his cohorts with a last masterful wave and walked off down a street to the left. The other two continued on across the square. Deprived of their leader’s inspirational presence, they walked more quickly and in silence, eager to get home.
Zen followed them along the cut to Campo Manin, past the hideous headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio bank and into the warped grid of alleyways beyond. The bitter wind had sent the usual crew of fops and flaneurs scurrying for cover, clearing the streets for Zen and his quarry. By the church of San Bartolomeo the two men paused briefly to say good night. One turned up the street leading to the Rialto bridge while the other, with Zen in attendance, continued straight on towards Cannaregio.
Lengthening his stride, Zen gradually closed the gap between them, and when they reached the broad thoroughfare of the Strada Nova he made his move. Hearing footsteps close behind him, the man looked round. Shock and suspicion mingled in his expression as he recognized his pursuer. Then, as though by an intense effort of will, he smiled.
‘How lucky we happened to meet! I was just going to ring you. I wanted to apologize for being so snappy at lunch.’
A trace of an answering smile appeared on Zen’s lips.
‘Dal Maschio told you to smooth things over, did he?’
Tommaso Saoner’s cheek twitched.
‘Don’t try and provoke me, Aurelio. I’ve offered you an apology and as far as I’m concerned the matter is closed. Just get on with your life and leave me to get on with mine, and we can still be friends.’
Zen shook his head decisively.
‘That’s no longer possible, Tommaso.’
Saoner stared fixedly at him for a moment. Then he shrugged.
‘So be it.’
He began walking again. Zen followed, a few paces behind. They passed through Campo Santa Fosca and rounded the corner of Palazzo Correr. Shortly after the next bridge, Saoner turned off to the right. When Zen entered the alley after him, Saoner wheeled round.
‘This is not your way home!’
‘Venice belongs to all its sons,’ Zen declaimed rhetorically. ‘The whole city is my home.’
Tommaso Saoner hesitated for a moment. Then he strode rapidly away, taking an erratic route through back lanes to the Ghetto Nuovo and across the San Girolamo canal, not pausing or looking round until he stopped in front of his house in Calle del Magazen. He was still fumbling in his overcoat pocket for his keys when Zen stepped between him and the door.
‘You can’t get away as easily as that, Tommaso.’
Saoner stared at him truculently.
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘It wasn’t just luck that we met this evening. I knew you’d be at the meeting and I followed you all the way from Campo Santa Margherita. We’ve got to talk.’
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’
Saoner tried to push past Zen to the door. There was a brief scuffle, which ended with Saoner sprawling on the pavement.
‘I wouldn’t try and push me around, Tommaso,’ Zen said quietly. ‘I’ve dealt with much tougher customers than you in my time.’
Crouching on the ground, Saoner examined his glasses, which had fallen off.
‘I’ll have you charged with assault,’ he muttered, getting to his feet.
‘And I’ll have you charged as an accomplice in the kidnapping and murder of Ivan Durridge.’
A silvery sheen crept over the walls and paving as the moon showed for the first time above the houses opposite.
‘They didn’t kill Durridge!’ Saoner declared passionately. ‘The man jumped out!’
‘If he did, it was because he preferred to die quickly rather than suffer what the Croatians had in store for him. But you didn’t know he was dead, did you? You thought Durridge was in Croatia awaiting trial for his war crimes.’
‘Ferdinando explained the whole thing to me this evening. The only reason he hadn’t told me before was that he didn’t want to implicate me.’
Zen laughed in his face.
‘Don’t be so naive, Tommaso. The reason he didn’t tell you is that he doesn’t trust you. He thinks of you as another Massimo Bugno, a shallow, fair-weather vessel, useful for running errands around the city but not to be relied on when a storm blows up.’
‘That’s not true!’