Michael Dibdin - Dead Lagoon

The main stories concerned the latest episodes in the long-running saga of corruption in high places, and Zen dutifully ploughed his way through a leading article suggesting that while on the one hand the events currently unfolding were a political and social earthquake without parallel in the history of mankind, a cataclysmic upheaval compared to which the French and Russian revolutions were largely cosmetic rites of passage, it was perfectly clear to any sophisticated observer that nothing had really changed and that the whole affair was simply one more example of the national genius for adapting to circumstances, despite the earnest lucubrations of commentators from abroad who had as usual missed the point, bless their cotton socks.

The inside pages featured a gatefold spread showing the leader of the Nuova Repubblica Veneta, accompanied by his charming and attractive wife, being acclaimed by his enthusiastic supporters in Pellestrina, Burano and Treporti. There were shots of Dal Maschio at the controls of the helicopter he had piloted to each of these outposts, shots of Dal Maschio striding purposefully about the streets greeting the inhabitants and kissing babies, shots of Dal Maschio addressing an election rally. ‘Venice is the heart of the lagoon,’ he had reportedly declared, ‘and the NRV is the very heartbeat of Venice. Keep the lagoon alive! Keep Venice alive! Vote for the New Venetian Republic!’ At his side Cristiana stood smiling vacuously, sensuously solid in a pink dress and a fur coat worn off the shoulder.

The first course arrived, and Zen folded up his paper and started to eat. The clams were the genuine local article, vongole veraci, stewed in olive oil with garlic and parsley until the shells opened to reveal the tiny morsels of tender gristle inside. Zen slowly worked his way through them and the long strands of spaghetti soaked in the rich sauce. He was winding up a final coil of pasta when Tommaso finally arrived to claim the chair opposite.

‘I couldn’t get here any earlier. I had to change all my arrangements. What the hell is this about, Aurelio?’

The waiter loomed up. Tommaso took off his heavy glasses, which had steamed up, and said he’d skip the primo and have whatever was quickest to follow.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded as soon as the man had gone.

Zen wiped the oil off his lips with his napkin.

‘I need some information.’

Tommaso Saoner replaced his glasses and regarded Zen coldly.

‘I’m not an informer, Aurelio.’

Zen lit a cigarette.

‘Supplying information to the police doesn’t make you an informer, Tommaso. On the contrary, it’s the duty of every good citizen.’

Saoner poured himself some wine and broke off a crust of bread.

‘Information about what?’

‘About Ivan Durridge.’

Saoner glanced away, then quickly looked back at Zen.

‘Who?’

Zen shook his head in genuine embarrassment. Tommaso Saoner had been his friend for years at a time when a minute lasted longer than a month did now. Where were they now, that Tommaso and that Aurelio, so much more alive than the pallid impostors who had succeeded to their titles?

‘You know who,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows.’

He puffed out a cloud of smoke.

‘But you know more than everyone, Tommaso.’

Saoner frowned.

‘I thought you did when I phoned you,’ Zen went on, ‘and now I’m sure. Don’t try and lie to me, Tommaso. It won’t work. I know you too well.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

A faint smile appeared on Zen’s lips.

‘It’s a funny thing. All the people I’ve spoken to about the Durridge case have said exactly the same thing. Domenico Zuin, Giulio Bon, and now you. Is it some formula you’re taught when you join?’

The waiter brought the main course, and for a moment Saoner took refuge in the distraction offered by the task of filleting the sardines.

‘Join what?’ he asked eventually.

Zen sighed impatiently.

‘Come on, Tommaso! You may not consider me a friend any longer, but please don’t treat me as a fool.’

He stabbed a mouthful of the pink and purple chicory leaves, their delicate bitter flavour rounded and filled out by baking.

‘Zuin and Bon are both members. So is Massimo Bugno, who went along on the reconnaissance but didn’t measure up. So they replaced him with Enzo Gavagnin, who was not just a member but one of Dal Maschio’s lieutenants. Like you.’

He stared across the table at Saoner, who had stopped fiddling with his fish.

‘Gavagnin may have been braver than Bugno, but he wasn’t very bright. It was he who tipped me off to the link between the Nuova Repubblica Veneta and the Durridge case in the first place. When I had Bon brought in for questioning, Gavagnin revealed that both Bon and he were members. And the next thing I know there’s an expensive lawyer by the name of Carlo Berengo Gorin beating at my door.’

He observed Saoner flinch, and nodded.

‘You know him, don’t you? And I learned from…’

He paused. He had almost named Cristiana!

‘… from a friend that Dal Maschio does too. I suppose he’s the party lawyer.’

Tommaso Saoner feigned a bored shrug.

‘What’s all this got to do with me?’

Zen unhurriedly ate some grilled sardine before replying.

‘Domenico Zuin has made a full confession of his part in the kidnapping of Ivan Durridge. It was made freely, in the presence of Zuin’s legal representative, and I have it in my office now, ready for delivery to the Deputy Public Prosecutor.’

‘I repeat, what’s it got to do with me?’

Zen looked him in the eye.

‘You were once my best friend, Tommaso. I’m giving you a chance to get out while there’s still time.’

Saoner stared at him, his expression alternating between anxiety and anger.

‘And what makes you think anyone will believe whatever pack of lies this man has trotted out?’ he sneered.

Zen shrugged.

‘I’m sure that Zuin has trimmed some of the details, and twisted others to cast himself in a good light. For example, he claims that he never left the boat, and that it was Gavagnin and Bon who took the foreigners ashore. That may well be a lie. I couldn’t really care less.’

He stripped the bones of his last sardine, exposing the succulent flesh.

‘What foreigners?’ Saoner asked with deliberate casualness.

‘He doesn’t know who they were or where they were from. He didn’t recognize the language they spoke, but it wasn’t Italian. There were four of them, all young and tough-looking. Zuin picked them up from a hotel near the Fenice in his taxi, along with Bon and Gavagnin. Bon had told him that the men wanted to be landed on the island in the lagoon which he and Bon had explored earlier with Bugno.’

He pushed his plate aside and lit another cigarette. Saoner’s food lay untouched.

‘In the late morning, while the tide was still high enough, Zuin ferried them all over to the ottagono. He claims that the foreigners went ashore with Gavagnin and Bon while he returned to the city and got on with his work. Of course he subsequently heard about the disappearance of the American, like everyone else. But he’d been paid, and it was none of his business.’

‘That’s all?’ Tommaso inquired ironically.

‘It’s enough.’

Saoner laughed contemptuously. Zen regarded him with a serious expression.

‘Look at it this way, Tommaso. Zuin landed six men on the island. We know that Giulio Bon took Durridge’s boat, just to confuse the issue, and as the tide was ebbing he must have left fairly soon afterwards. We also know that Durridge was still on the island shortly after one o’clock, when he spoke briefly to a relative on the telephone. By then it was too late to approach the island from the water. And yet when Franco Calderan returned at five o’clock from visiting his sister on the Lido he found the place deserted.’