Michael Dibdin - Blood rain

‘New people?’ asked Corinna, sitting down carefully on the cracked swivel chair which Agatella had scavenged from somewhere. It was perfectly comfortable and stable as long as you didn’t lean back too hard, in which case the whole thing tipped over while simultaneously spinning you around to land on your nose.

‘Arrived yesterday,’ the cleaning lady confided in hushed tones. ‘I was told in no uncertain terms to clean everything up by noon today, then clear out and never set foot in there again “under any circumstances whatsoever”.’

She rolled her eyes.

‘From Rome,’ she whispered. ‘I servizi.’

‘I servizi?’ repeated Corinna, repeating the common shorthand term for the alleged network of clandestine military agencies based in Rome, many of them tainted by scandals alleging their involvement in extreme right-wing terrorism. It may not have been coincidental that the word also meant ‘toilets’.

Agatella shrugged expressively.

‘Who knows? But that’s what Salvo thought.’

Salvo was Agatella’s son, employed at the Palace of Justice as a chauffeur.

‘He’s met them?’ asked Corinna.

‘He was sent to pick them up from the airport. Only not to the usual passenger terminal, but round the other side. You know that Fontanarossa used to be a military airfield? Well, it still is, and that’s where their plane came in, at the military buildings on the far side. Small jet, Salvo said, the sort millionaires have.’

Corinna gripped the file in her hands more tightly. She seemed about to say something, then aborted the remark in a lengthy exhalation, and started again.

‘Anyway, Agatella, the reason why I’m bothering you…’

‘It’s no bother, my dear! I’m always delighted to see you.’

‘The thing is, I was wondering if I could borrow your coat and scarf for about an hour.’

Agatella looked at her in astonishment.

‘My coat and scarf? Of course, but why, in heaven’s name?’

Corinna smiled sheepishly.

‘I’m meeting someone. A personal thing. But because of all this security nonsense, they won’t let me leave the building without an armed escort. And if I go with them, it won’t exactly be a relaxed encounter, to say the least, and of course word of the whole thing will be all over the department in five minutes. But if I could just put on your coat and scarf and slip out the side entrance, no one will be any the wiser.’

Agatella smiled radiantly.

‘Of course, my dear, of course! No one ever takes any notice of comings and goings at that door. Let me just fetch my things. Some nice young man, is it? It’s about time you settled down and started a family, my dear. None of us is getting any younger.’

Ten minutes later, a woman of uncertain age with a satin scarf on her head, carrying a bulging plastic bag with the logo of the Standa department chain, entered a newsagent’s shop on Via Etnea which advertised in the window that photocopies might be made there. Twenty or so minutes after that she reappeared, the plastic bag even more gravid than before, and started back the way she had come. But after going a short distance she stopped, then started to cross the street, as though at a loss. Traffic swirled and shrieked around her, while the other pedestrians went steadfastly about their business, ignoring this hapless female who had obviously lost her grip on the realities of life.

The woman walked down the street to a pasticceria, where she ordered a coffee. No one paid any attention there either. Even the barman who served her and took her money managed to convey the impression that the transaction hadn’t really taken place. The woman removed a large, thick manilla envelope from her plastic bag, sealed the flap and wrote something on the front.

‘How much to wrap this?’ she snapped.

The barman looked at her with a frown.

‘Like you do the cakes,’ the woman explained.

The barman cast a defeated glance at the other two male patrons in the bar, shook his head and started washing coffee cups.

‘Would two thousand do it?’ the woman demanded.

‘It might, if you had it,’ the barman replied in dialect.

A banknote appeared in the woman’s fingers as the envelope slid along the chrome counter to stop in front of the barman.

‘What is this?’ he asked irritatedly.

‘A practical joke I’m playing on a friend,’ the woman said. ‘I want it wrapped just like a cake, with a ribbon and all, and a little card. In return…’

She pushed the two-thousand-lire note into an empty glass on the other side of the bar. Seemingly embarrassed, the barman glanced again at the two men, then shrugged and did as the woman asked.

Five minutes later, she presented herself at the guard post at the main door of the police headquarters of Catania.

‘This is to be delivered to Vice-Questore Aurelio Zen,’ she told the officer on duty through the grille in the bullet-proof screen, placing an elegantly wrapped parcel on the shelf outside the access hatch, presently closed.

‘You know him?’ demanded the guard with a mocking air.

‘I’m a friend of his daughter, Carla Arduini. This is for her. A birthday present. All he has to do is give it to her on Saturday, understand?’

The officer shook his head, picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Excuse the disturbance, dottore,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘There’s someone here with what she says is a birthday present for your daughter. To be delivered on Saturday. Does this make any sense to you? Oh, it does? All right, sir. I understand. Very good.’

He hung up, and nodded vaguely at the woman.

‘Dottor Zen will pick it up on his way home.’

‘Mind he does, now!’ she replied. ‘And take good care of it meanwhile. It’s very precious, and you will be responsible if anything happens to it.’

The officer nodded repeatedly in a way that said, ‘Let’s humour the bitch and get her out of here.’ After a further sharp exhortation, the woman shuffled off across the little square in front of the police station. A lifetime of humiliation and submission seemed to have made it impossible for her to look up, so she did not notice the tall, gaunt figure gazing down at her from a balcony on the second floor of the Questura.

In all, almost an hour had elapsed before Corinna Nunziatella pushed open the obscure side entrance to the Palace of Justice, whose self-locking door she had propped open with one of Agatella’s wash rags. A few minutes after that, minus coat, scarf and plastic bag, she walked blithely through the checkpoint into the DIA section and along the corridor to her office. Opening the door, she found Laurel and Hardy in possession of her office, one lounging in her chair, the other inspecting the map of the province of Catania hanging on the wall.

‘Ah, there you are!’ cried Corinna with a touch of irritation. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You know what? I gave you the wrong file! I’m so sorry. This is the one you want. No, no receipt necessary, thank you.’

If it hadn’t been for the skateboarder, no doubt, everything would have been very different. In retrospect, it would have been almost reassuring to be able to believe that this too was part of one of the conspiracies by which he seemed to be surrounded. But there was not the slightest evidence to suggest that such was the case, any more than the periodic eruptions of Etna could be credibly linked — despite the ingenious attempts of the priests and believers of various religions, Christian and pagan — to divine retribution on the inhabitants of the city for exceptionally or exotically sinful behaviour in the preceding months.

The fact of the matter was that there was this kid zipping down the pavement of Via Garibaldi at an amazing speed, avoiding the plodding pedestrians with even more amazing skill, a mere wiggle of the hips here and there sufficing to plot a curving trajectory through the obstacles thrown up in his path, until a woman ill-advisedly tried to take evasive action herself, forcing the skateboarder to make a sudden course correction at the last moment, which brought him into immediate and violent contact with a gentleman who had just crossed the street, carrying what appeared to be a cake carefully balanced on the palm of his right hand, and had now gained what he evidently thought of as the safety of the kerb, only to receive the careening skateboarder right in the gut, a full frontal encounter which left both lying winded on the ground.