‘Well, you certainly put our local priest to shame. A little too emphatic, perhaps, but that’s to be expected in someone so young.’
But I do have a vocation, Zen thought. It’s this stupid, meaningless, utterly compromised job that I try to do as well as I can.
‘Were the origins of the child baptised Pietro Ottavio Calopezzati ever questioned?’ he asked.
‘Only once. Some Fascist bureaucrat from the north with ideas above his station asked la baronessa to confirm that the baby was indeed her natural child.’
‘And what did she reply?’
‘“I solemnly swear that this child was born of no other woman.” Which was literally true.’
‘And Giorgio?’ prompted Zen.
Maria considered this for some time, her head tilted askew like a bird’s, her eyes focused on nothing apparent.
‘I know for certain only that he calls himself that. The rest is hearsay. I have heard that his family name is Fardella or Fardeja. I have heard that he sells foreign drugs to our young people, that he has become addicted to them himself and that he lives in San Giovanni in Fiore. But he won’t be there now.’
‘Where will he be?’
Maria looked at him as though this question were too ingenuous to bother answering.
‘In the mountains, of course. Si e dato al brigantaggio. That’s what our men have done for centuries when the authorities hunted them down. They hide away in the forest, then watch and wait their chance.’
‘You said there were no forests left.’
‘Not like before, but there are places which were too far away from the railway to be worth logging. That’s where Giorgio will be. You could send a regiment to search those crags and they’d never find him!’
The last sentence was uttered as a defiant taunt. Zen glanced up at the lid of cloud sliding over the sky. The avian duel aloft had ended with the hawk being seen off by its pack of opponents, which now sat crowing harshly atop the burned-out shell of the huge mansion.
‘But why did Giorgio kill his kidnapping hostage as soon as he found out that he was a member of the Calopezzati family?’ Zen murmured, as if talking to himself aloud.
Maria appeared to be appraising the appearance of her shoes.
‘I have heard two stories,’ she replied at last in an equally neutral tone. ‘Some people say that over a century ago, before the Great War, the Calopezzati stole a piece of land belonging to Giorgio’s great-grandmother. They used to do that all the time, to even out the borders of their estate. They would simply seize land that didn’t belong to them, put up fences and send their guards to patrol the territory. The wronged family could seek redress in court, but the judgement wouldn’t be handed down for decades, most people couldn’t afford the legal fees and everyone knew that the Calopezzati had the judges in their pockets. So Giorgio’s great-grandfather did what a man was expected to do. He took his shotgun and lay in wait for the baron one day, only he was discovered and killed by the guards. It was officially declared to be a hunting accident and no one was ever punished.’
‘And the other?’
‘That happened later. Everyone here worked for the Calopezzati, so the baron could pay as low a wage as he liked. During the Depression, things got so bad that families who didn’t have a relative in America to send them money were starving, so they organised a demonstration in San Giovanni to get a decent living wage. That was all. No attempt to take back the land that the Calopezzati had stolen, no demands for the estate to be broken up and returned to the people, and certainly no violence. They assembled in the piazza in front of the cathedral, as they did every Sunday after mass, as much as anything simply to be together, to feel that they weren’t alone in their misery. The police were present but made no attempt to intervene. What no one knew was that a squad of armed Blackshirts had climbed the bell-tower earlier that morning. Their leader was Roberto Calopezzati, the baron’s son. At his signal, they began firing live rounds into the crowd. Amongst those killed was Giorgio’s great-aunt.’
One of Aurelio Zen’s strengths was knowing when to shut up. He did so now.
‘One or both of those stories may explain why he did what he did,’ Maria concluded dreamily. ‘Of course he was mistaken about the identity of his victim. In any case, due punishment had already been inflicted.’
Her odd, oblique, glassy gaze went everywhere except for the vast ruin across the piazzetta. Never once did she glance in that direction.
‘Punishment,’ Zen echoed vaguely.
‘The fire!’
A long silence intervened. At length Zen nodded.
‘Of course. That terrible accident…’
And then, finally, Maria turned her alienated eyes on him and the blackened palace behind.
‘It wasn’t an accident.’
Zen nodded again, as though assessing a mundane fact which had just come to light.
‘Why did you kill her?’
Maria laughed then, a rasping cackle that seemed to come from the ground.
‘ Perche? Perche! Because when I was a little girl my mother taught me how to lay and light a fire. Because every morning until I was sent away into service my duty was to rise before anyone else in the household, before it was light, and bring flames to life in the hearth. Because to make sure I woke in time I drank three cups of water before going to bed and my bladder never failed me. Because I stole a jerrican of petrol from the stores and spread it throughout the house and up the stairs to show the fire which way to go. Because la baronessa managed to clean up most of the blood but the smell hung in the air for days and the stains never faded. Because Caterina appeared to me night after night, her womb gaping open like an oven. Because I was lonely and terrified yet unafraid. Because to this day I don’t know where they buried her. Because of the baby. Because.’
Zen considered this for some time.
‘You said that when Ottavia Calopezzati informed the authorities that the child she was claiming as her own had been born of no other woman, that statement was true.’
‘She strangled Caterina and did a Caesarian on her corpse with one of the kitchen knives. Miraculously, the boy survived.’
She turned to Zen and scrutinised him.
‘There, pretino mio, I have made my confession. I swear to you, before God and as an honest woman, that everything I have told you is true. Are you going to absolve me or arrest me? Not that I care. This world is nothing to me now and the world to come will be far, far worse. But at least I have achieved something in my life. Yes, I’ll go to hell, but I sent that bitch there first. And not just in the after-life but on this earth, in her flesh, with all her sins on her head, unshriven and unblessed, and me standing out here in the piazza listening to her howls.’
Unable to sustain her gaze, Zen looked away.
‘So now it’s your turn,’ said Maria. ‘Giorgio’s great-grandfather knew what he had to do when the Calopezzati seized his property. I knew what I must do when Ottavia Calopezzati murdered my friend and stole her baby. And you know what you must do.’
Zen got to his feet.
‘I’m just a lone hawk, signora. Here in Calabria, it seems that the crows always win.’
He turned and walked away, leaving her alone in that desolate landscape.
‘… unfortunately, but there are many other artefacts, inestimably rare, beautiful and precious, which we would be happy to offer for sale. It will take a little time to remove them from their secure place of storage and transport them to a suitable site for inspection, but assuming that your client’s interest in the merchandise is genuine and that he has sufficient funds…’
‘So you don’t have the candlestick?’
Nicola Mantega would have put a slow loris to shame in the languidity of the gesture with which he indicated the pain, humiliation and infinite regret it cost him to confirm that, no, the sacred menorah from the Temple of Jerusalem, alas, did not figure among the items that his contacts had recovered from Alaric’s tomb.
‘Sure you do,’ Martin Nguyen replied.
‘He just said they don’t,’ Tom Newman interjected.
‘Shut up and translate, kid.’