Michael Dibdin: Blood rain

Since she could not expand laterally, Corinna had followed the Manhattan model, stacking files in precarious piles propped up one against the other like exhausted drunks. Retrieving any given file was a work of considerable dexterity, requiring the skills of those conjurors who can remove a tablecloth while leaving the dinner setting intact. Relief was promised shortly in the form of a computer network linking all members of the Catania DIA pool both to each other and to their colleagues in the other provincial capitals, but despite a month of installation work, it was still not up and running. In the meantime, the massive terminal squatted idly on her desk, taking up yet more precious space.

‘E se tutto cio non bastasse…’ she murmured under her breath.

Yes, indeed. As if all this were not enough, Corinna Nunziatella was beginning to suspect that she was falling in love.

She was not left long to brood on these incidental problems, for within a few minutes the phone rang, summoning her to the director’s office for a ‘progress report’. Corinna hastily grabbed an impressive-looking dossier of papers, some of which were actually related to her current cases, checked that her appearance was at once professional and uninviting, and proceeded up to the fifth floor.

The arrival of Sergio Tondo, the recently appointed director of the AntiMafia pool, had proved a source of much mirth to his subordinates, since in appearance he resembled the classic, slightly racist stereotype of the typical mafioso: short, broad, sallow and intense, with a moustache of which he was excessively proud, black voided eyes, and an air of undefined but potentially threatening distinction. The punchline of the joke was that, far from being Sicilian, or even a southerner, Tondo — originally, no doubt, Tondeau — was in fact a native of the Valle d’Aosta, the French-speaking mountain region in the extreme north-west corner of the country, well over a thousand kilometres from Catania as the crow flew, had there been any crows ambitious enough to attempt such a trip.

As though to confirm the initial impression he had created, Sergio Tondo seemed to go out of his way to act as well as look like a caricature Sicilian, to the extent of having made explicit sexual advances to all the female magistrates on his team. Corinna Nunziatella had already been obliged to remove one or other of his hands from her hip, her knee, her shoulder and just below her left breast, and to do so in such a way as to make it seem that she hadn’t really been aware that it had been there in the first place.

It was a delicate operation, calling for exquisite timing, adroitness and tact. Corinna would have been the first to admit that she was ambitious, and it was hard to overemphasize the importance of her promotion to the AntiMafia pool at the age of only thirty-four. To be eased out now would not just mean a return to her previous, uninspiring postings; it would mean being marked for the rest of her life as someone who had been given a rare chance to succeed at the highest level, but who had failed. No one would ever know why, still less bother to find out. And if she started retailing stories about sexual harassment, everyone would just assume that she was trying to lay the blame elsewhere in a feeble attempt to excuse her own incompetence.

Her tactics at present were to try to make herself look drably forbidding. Not so much impregnable, which might put the director on his macho mettle, as unworthy of the effort involved. The image she strove for was that of a walled mountain village at which the invading hordes in the valley below cast a brief glance, then shook their heads, shouldered their weapons and moved on to easier pickings elsewhere. The trick was to make Tondo feel that he had rejected her, thus leaving his pride and self-esteem intact — and, above all, to do so before he pushed matters to a point she could already sense somewhere close ahead, where she would ram her knee into his bulging crotch and rake her clawed nails across his piggy little eyes.

The moment she opened the door to the director’s absurdly spacious office, Corinna Nunziatella knew that something had happened, and that it was not good news. Having dreaded being overwhelmed by unwanted attentions, she found herself treated to an almost brutal absence of elementary politeness, never mind charm, which she found threatening in a quite different way. So far from rushing over to ‘drink in your perfume’, as he had once said, Sergio Tondo did not even bother to get to his feet. His greeting was perfunctory and barely audible. In short, his manner was everything she had wished it would be — cool, distant, and totally professional — and it scared the hell out of her. Because if the director was finally treating her as a colleague rather than a woman, it could only mean that something was very badly wrong indeed.

Corinna Nunziatella sat down in one of the two armchairs facing the desk, the antique leather creaking beneath her. Apart from a crucifix, a portrait of the president, a map of the province of Catania and a couple of shelves of law books apparently selected on the basis of format and size rather than content, the director’s office was strikingly, indeed significantly, empty. No piles of files here, no unsorted notes, no computer terminal. All this austerity made the three telephones on the desk — red, blue and yellow, respectively — loom even larger. One would be for internal calls within the building, another an ‘open’ external line.

And the third? Corinna Nunziatella found herself irresistibly reminded of the so-called terzo livello of the Mafia, whose existence had often been postulated but never proved; the fabled Third Level, far above mundane criminal activities and inter-clan rivalries, on which the most powerful and influential bosses met with their political patrons and protectors in Rome to discuss kickbacks, mutual interests, and the delivery of votes come election time.

‘So?’ the director remarked, as though Corinna had requested a meeting with him.

‘I understood you to say that you wanted a progress report,’ she replied stiffly.

Sergio Tondo smiled superficially and made a throw-away gesture with his left hand.

‘That was just a manner of speaking. I really want to have a chat, hear what you’re working on at present, that sort of thing. As you know, I try to foster a team spirit here, and I feel very strongly that face-to-face meetings like this, informal and off the record, without the inevitable stresses of peer pressure, can genuinely promote a sense of individual empowerment in each and every member of the department, resulting in an enhanced professional dynamic and group cohesion.’

Corinna kept her mouth shut.

‘How’s the Maresi case going?’ the director continued at length.

‘It isn’t going anywhere. It’s been deadlocked for months, and looks likely to stay that way.’

‘And the Cucuzza business?’

‘That looked promising, until the Supreme Court released my principal witness, who promptly disappeared and is now probably in hiding abroad or dead.’

The court was merely upholding the law,’ Sergio Tondo remarked in a tone of light reprimand. ‘The procedural irregularities which had evidently occurred — through no fault of yours, dottoressa, I dare say — unfortunately made it impossible for them to act in any other way.’

Corinna Nunziatella nodded sagely.

‘I’m sure the citizens of Italy will sleep more soundly in their beds at night, knowing that the legal rights of convicted mafiosi are being protected with such rigour.’

The director gave a sympathetic sigh.

‘I know how frustrating these setbacks can be, but try not to feel too bitter. It’s quite pointless, and might ultimately have a negative effect on your performance as a valued member of our team.’