Michael Dibdin - Blood rain

Zen slammed his fist against his forehead. Why hadn’t he brought his mobile with him? You’re not just old-fashioned, Papa. You’re extinct.

‘Anyway, the point is that what applies to our hypothetical deal on your cigarettes also applies to land,’ the elderly gentleman went on. ‘Even more so, because they aren’t making any more land. So what there is is worth just as much as people will pay for it. And I imagine that the stretch where they built the section of motorway where you landed was sold at a very high price indeed. The buyer will have had friends in the regional government who informed him about the route of the proposed motorway. He buys the requisite fields, then resells them at twice the price to another friend, who then sells them back to him at twice that. Depending on how long they keep it up, they can then show legal bills of sale to the government agents, proving that that particular patch of parched scrub is now worth twenty or forty or a hundred times what the patch of parched scrub next to it is worth. And of course our friends’ friends in the regional government will ensure that, instead of rerouting the motorway, that price is paid.’

The whole house quivered briefly, setting the ceiling lamp swaying gently to and fro, shifting the shadows about.

‘An aftershock,’ Zen’s host said calmly. ‘There may be more. But what we really worry about here is that this could be the prelude to an eruption. The last time, in 1992, the molten lava almost reached the village. And that was just a leak, a dribble. If Etna were to blow as it did in 1169, 1381 or 1669, or in 475 BC for that matter, everyone in this village would be dead within seconds.’

‘So why do you choose to live here?’ asked Zen. ‘You’re not Sicilian, I take it.’

‘No, I’m not Sicilian.’

There was a long silence.

‘I will answer your questions in due course, if you wish,’ Zen’s host said at last. ‘But first we need to resolve your own problems.’

‘There must be a phone box in the village,’ suggested Zen. ‘Could you go down and make a call to a number I will give you and explain the situation?’

The other man again shook his head.

‘The only public phone is in the bar, which will have closed by now. I could go to a neighbour’s house, but this would be so unusual that they would almost certainly listen in on the call. I am eighty years old, dottore. Very soon now I shall move house for the last time, so to speak, but I do not want to have to do so until then. If it becomes known that I gave you refuge and then called the authorities, life here would become impossible for me.’

‘Can you drive me somewhere else?’

‘I have no car.’

‘So what are we to do?’ demanded Zen in a tone of desperation.

‘First strategy, then tactics, as my commanding officer used to say. I need to know a little more about the situation. For example, you say this light aeroplane which flew you from Malta landed somewhere near a town called Santa Croce, is that right?’

Zen nodded.

‘That was the first sign I remember seeing.’

‘In that case, the reception committee was almost certainly composed of members of the Dominante clan, which controls the Ragusa area, or of one of the splinter groups which is trying to take it over, such as the D’Agosta family.’

Zen looked sharply at him.

‘You seem very well informed on these matters.’

‘Village gossip. What football league ratings are to other cultures, Mafia family ups and downs are to us. You also said that the pilot told you that they were doing a favour to some people here who want to talk to you. That would be Don Gaspare Limina. This is his home village, and although almost all his operations are conducted in Catania, this remains his power base and the refuge to which he retreats when things get too hot for him in the city.’

‘He’s here now?’ asked Zen.

‘He’s here now. Can you think of any reason why he should want to meet you?’

Zen lit another cigarette and sat silently for a time.

‘Even better, I can think of a reason why I want to meet him,’ he said finally.

‘Excellent. But it may be dangerous, you understand. I can set up such a meeting, but I am not in a position to guarantee your safety.’

‘I understand. I’ll take my chances.’

His host got up and poured them both another shot of whisky.

‘They may well be better than you fear,’ he said. ‘You asked me why I live here. Well, one reason is that the people of whom we’ve been speaking remind me to some extent of myself and my comrades, many years ago. Contrary to popular belief, they are not sadistic thugs with a taste for violence. They do only what they need to do. If they need you dead, then they will kill you. If not, you will be safe. I’ve been living here for over forty years, and no one has ever bothered me. I’m not worth bothering about, you see.’

He raised his glass.

‘Gesundheit.’

‘You’re German?’ asked Zen.

The other man just looked at him.

Zen gestured in a relaxed way. The whisky was starting to have its effect.

‘I did my “hardship years”, as we call them in the police, up in the Alto Adige — what you call the Sudtirol — and I learned a few words of the language.’

The other man smiled.

‘Yes, I’m German. From a city called Bremen. My name is Klaus Genzler.’

Zen bowed slightly.

‘I can’t thank you enough for your hospitality, Herr Genzler. If you hadn’t taken me in, I would have been dead by now, and all for nothing. I didn’t know where I was, you see. I had no idea who these people were. But now I do, and I look forward to meeting them.’

‘And why would that be?’

‘Because I think they killed my daughter, and I want to find out.’

‘Your daughter?’

‘Carla Arduini. She died along with a judge, Corinna Nunziatella. You may have read about it in the papers. They machine-gunned the car and then threw in a stick of plastic explosive, just outside Taormina.’

Klaus Genzler smiled reminiscently.

‘Ah, Taormina! I haven’t been there in over fifty years.’

He’s gaga, thought Zen.

‘Kesselring based his headquarters in Taormina, in the old Dominican convent. I had the good fortune to be summoned there several times. Wonderful buildings, stunning views. Did himself well, the Feldmarschall. But I don’t think the Omina clan killed your daughter.’

Or maybe he’s not.

‘You don’t?’

Genzler shook his head.

‘I remember when the news of that atrocity arrived. There was a sense of fear and confusion. People here are used to terrible things happening, but they expect Don Gaspare to know who did them and why, even if he didn’t order them himself. They’re like children. As long as Daddy seems to know what’s going on, and not be bothered by it, then the children won’t be troubled either, even though they don’t personally understand.’

He took another sip of whisky and unwrapped a short cigar.

‘But the day that news arrived, there was a sense of panic in the village. I knew at once what must have happened, and subsequent enquiries have proved me right. Not only did Don Gaspa not order that operation, but he has no idea who did.’

Genzler lit the cigar and stared at Zen.

‘Do you know what that means, in the circles in which he moves? It means that you’re finished. Taormina is part of the Liminas’ territory. If something happens on your territory which you didn’t order, and you can’t find out and punish whoever did it, then you might as well retire and open a grocery store, because no one will ever take you seriously again.’

Zen nodded quickly. A mass of thoughts were stirring in his brain like a school of porpoises creasing the surface of the sea and then vanishing. He wanted to let this process work itself out before trying to assess the consequences.