Michael Dibdin: Dead Lagoon

Zen smiled thinly.

‘And Claudio?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

The old man looked as bewildered as the victim of a practical joke. Zen waved at the locked door, the fly-posted window.

‘Gone!’ Daniele exclaimed. ‘Claudio’s moved down to the bridge, where the tourists are. You can’t turn a profit round here any more. And what’s the police business that has brought you here, if it’s not an indiscreet question from an old family friend?’

But Zen had caught sight of the vaporetto approaching and hurried off, leaving Daniele Trevisan looking after him with a quizzical, slightly malicious smile.

At first it looked as though Zen would not be in time to catch the boat, but fortunately another ferry, bound for the station, arrived at the landing stage first, forcing its opposite number to throttle back and drift in mid-stream, awaiting its turn. The result was that Zen was able to saunter across the Tre Archi bridge and even light a cigarette before boarding.

As they passed the modernistic council houses on San Girolamo and emerged into the open waters of the lagoon, the full strength of the wind became clear for the first time. The boat banged and buffeted its way through the short, hard waves, swathes of spray drenching the decking and the windows of the helmsman’s cabin. Zen’s cigarette obliged him to stand outside, at the top of the stairs leading down to the saloon. It was rush hour, and the boat was packed with school-children and commuters. They sat or stood impassively, reading papers, talking together or staring blankly out of the windows. Apart from the pitching and rolling, the crunch of the waves and the draughts of air laden with salt, not fumes, it might almost have been the bus which Zen took to work every morning in Rome. He eyed the children hunched under their satchels, chattering brightly or horsing about. They thought this was normal, he reflected, as he once had. They thought everywhere was like this. They thought that nothing would ever change.

At Fondamente Nove, Zen changed to avoid the detour to Murano. It would have been quicker to get off at the next stop, by the hospital, and walk through the back streets to the Questura, but as he was in plenty of time he rode the circolare destra through the Arsenale shipyards and out into the sweeping vistas of the deep-water channel beyond. The wind’s work was even clearer here, cutting up the water into staccato wavelets breaking white at the crest. They slapped and banged the hull, sending up a salty spindrift which acted as a screen for brief miniature rainbows and coated Zen’s face like sweat.

When they reached the Riva degli Schiavoni he disembarked, crossed the broad promenade, bustling even at that hour, and plunged into the warren of dark, deserted alleys beyond. He was largely following his nose at this point, but it proved a good guide, bringing him out on a bridge leading over the San Lorenzo canal near the three-storey building which housed the police headquarters for the Provincia di Venezia. Zen held his identity card up to the camera above the bell and the door release hummed loudly. Since the years of terrorism, police stations had been defended like colonial outposts in enemy territory. The fact that the Questura and the Squadra Mobile headquarters next door were both traditional buildings typical of this unglamorous area of the city made such measures seem all the more bizarre.

The guard on duty behind a screen of armoured glass in the vestibule was sleepy and offhand. No one was in yet, he told Zen, a claim substantiated by the bank of video screens behind him, showing a selection of empty rooms, corridors and staircases. Zen walked upstairs to the first floor and opened a door at random. The scene which met his eyes inside was absolutely predictable to anyone who had worked in police offices anywhere in Italy from Aosta to Siracuse. The air was stale and stuffy, used up and warmed over. The bare walls were painted a shade of off-white reminiscent of milk left too long out of the fridge. A double neon tube housing, its cover missing, hung from the ceiling on frail chains. The available space was divided into three areas by screens of the thick frosted glass commonly associated with shower cubicles, set in gilt-anodized aluminium frames. At the centre of each squatted a large wooden desk.

Zen went over to one of the desks and looked through the contents of the three-tiered metal tray until he found what he was looking for: a sheaf of computer printout stapled together at the upper left-hand corner. The top sheet bore the words NOTIZIE DI REATI DENUNCIATI ALLA POLIZIA GIUDIZIARIA and the dates of the previous week. The pages inside listed all the incidents which had been brought to the attention of the police during the period in question. Zen leafed through the pages, looking for something suitable.

It was a delicate business. He didn’t want to attract unwanted attention by poaching a case which had already been assigned, or in which someone was taking a special interest for one reason or another. On the other hand, he couldn’t just select some minor misdemeanour at random. There had to be something special about it to justify his being sent up all the way from the elite Criminalpol squad in Rome to take over the case. He was still puzzling over this problem when a familiar name leapt out at him.

He read the entry again, then dropped the document and lit a cigarette. The contessa! Christ almighty. For a time he was lost in memories. Then he looked at the page again. Two weeks earlier, Ada Zulian had reported intruders at her home, claiming that it was part of a campaign of systematic persecution which had been going on for over a month. She had renewed her complaints the previous week.

Zen looked up at the window. He nodded slowly to himself. That would do nicely. It was too trivial to have excited any interest from any of the resident staff, but the family connection would provide exactly the kind of illusory logic he needed to justify his involvement to anyone who asked. He noted down the date and case number in his diary and replaced the list in the metal tray.

When the Personnel office responded to the phone half an hour later, Zen went along and introduced himself. The clerk in charge dug out the chit which had been faxed up from Rome.

‘Zen, Aurelio. Criminalpol. Temporary transfer regarding…’

He frowned at the form.

‘That’s odd. They’ve forgotten to fill that bit in.’

Zen shook his head.

‘Typical! The people they’re employing these days can’t remember their own names half the time.’

He took out his notebook.

‘It’s to do with someone called Zulian. I’ve got the details here somewhere… Yes, here you go.’

He showed the reference number and date to the clerk, who copied them on to the chit.

‘I’ll need some office space,’ Zen remarked. ‘What have you got available?’

The clerk consulted a wall-chart.

‘How long are you going to be here?’

Zen shrugged.

‘Hard to say. A week or two at least.’

‘There’s a desk free in three one nine until the seventeenth. Gatti’s on holiday until then.’

Room 319 was a small office at the front of the building, overlooking the canal. Zen was looking down at a refrigerated barge marked GELATI SANSON squeezing past the police launches moored outside the Questura when the door opened to admit Aldo Valentini, whose name figured alongside that of the absent Gatti on the door.

Valentini was a mild, scholarly-looking man with Armani glasses and a skimpy blond beard like grass which has been growing under a plank. He seemed pleased to have company, and suggested that he and Zen pop out to get some breakfast. As they emerged into the sunlight, bucking the incoming tide of staff hastening to sign themselves in so that they could slip out again, Valentini inquired about the reason for Zen’s transfer.