Michael Dibdin - Dead Lagoon

‘It’s going to be a nightmare! The gang’s obviously suspicious. Instead of the usual straightforward drop they’ve told Sfriso to take the heroin to a bar in Mestre and await instructions. They’ll probably string him along for hours before they make their move.’

The phone started ringing. Valentini snatched it up.

‘Yes? Yes? Who? What?’

He laid the receiver down on the desk.

‘It’s for you!’

Zen walked over and took the phone from him.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Aurelio.’

It was Cristiana.

‘Well, hello there.’

Aldo Valentini dashed back to the door.

‘Best of luck!’ Zen called after him.

‘For what?’ asked Cristiana.

‘Colleague of mine. He’s got a difficult operation coming up. You came through on his line, for some reason.’

‘I don’t understand. When I asked for you, they said there was no one of that name in the building. What’s going on, Aurelio?’

Zen smiled ruefully. Already he had become a non-person.

‘I’ll explain later,’ he told Cristiana. ‘When can I see you?’

She sounded embarrassed.

‘Well, that depends when… when you’re free.’

‘About eight?’

‘Oh that’s too late!’

He frowned momentarily.

‘Too late for what?’

‘I mean… couldn’t we make it earlier?’

‘How early?’

‘Would about six be all right?’

Her tone sounded oddly constrained. Zen took this to be a good sign, evidence that she was in the grip of the same turbulence that was disturbing his own emotional life, drawing them both away from the tried and familiar towards a new future together.

‘Will that give you time to get home after work?’ he asked.

There was a brief silence the other end.

‘That’s not a problem,’ she said at last.

She sounded so strange that Zen almost asked her if she was all right. But these were not things to discuss on the phone. In a few hours they could work it all out face to face.

‘Then I’ll see you at six,’ he said.

There was a brief pause.

‘Goodbye,’ said Cristiana.

Zen hung up, wondering why she wanted to see him so urgently. Perhaps after what the switchboard had told her she was afraid that he was going to abandon her and take off back to Rome without any warning. He could see how plausible that might look from her point of view. His tour of duty in the city had come to an end, he’d had his bit of fun with her, now it was time to go home. Zen smiled. He’d soon set her mind at rest about that.

But first he had a less agreeable task to perform. Whatever the motivation for the dressing-down he had received at the hands of Francesco Bruno that morning, he could not deny that it had been richly deserved. He glanced at his watch. There was just time to call in at Palazzo Zulian and make his apologies before going home to keep his appointment with Cristiana. They might very well not be accepted, but under the circumstances it was the least he could do to try.

Yet instead of collecting his hat and coat and going out, Zen found himself picking up the phone again. Now that the sustaining momentum of the Durridge case had receded, he had lost his steerage-way and was drifting at the whim of every current. The thought of Ada Zulian reminded him of his mother, and he realized with a guilty start that he had not phoned her since leaving Rome a week before. Reluctantly, he dialled the familiar number.

‘Hello? Mamma? Are you all right? You sound different.’

‘It’s me, Aurelio.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Me, Tania. Remember?’

For a moment he wondered if he’d dialled the wrong number.

‘Tania!’ he exclaimed over-effusively. ‘How are you?’

‘Your mother’s out.’

‘Out? Where?’

For a moment there was no reply.

‘And you, Aurelio?’

‘Sorry?’

A sigh.

‘Where are you?’

‘Still here in Venice, of course. Where do you think? I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, but I’ve been very busy.’

‘Of course.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s all wrong.’

‘Sorry?’

‘STOP SAYING SORRY!’

‘Sorry. I mean…’

‘You’re not sorry, you don’t give a damn!’

There was a shocked silence.

‘You’re a heartless bastard, Aurelio,’ Tania said dully. ‘God knows why I ever got involved with you.’

Zen held the receiver at arm’s length a moment, then replaced it on its rest. He felt as though he had just had a bruising encounter with a rude, angry stranger in a language which neither of them spoke well. All that remained was a confused sense of bafflement, aggression and — above all — meaninglessness. For while the slightly bizarre tone of his conversation with Cristiana would be resolved the moment they met, his failure to communicate with Tania, both literally and figuratively, was caused by deep structural flaws in the relationship which could never be resolved. He felt absolutely certain of that now.

He gathered up his things and headed for the door. He was turning the handle when Valentini’s phone rang again. Thinking it might be some urgent communication about the drug bust, Zen went back to answer it. At first there seemed to be no one there. Then he distinguished a low sound of sobbing.

‘Aurelio, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I’ve been so lonely, and it’s been a terrible time. The landlord sent the bailiffs in. I got back from work to find the door barred and all my belongings piled up in the street. It would all have been looted if one of the priests from the College next door hadn’t kept an eye on it.’

She paused, but he didn’t speak.

‘I moved to a hotel for a few days, but as soon as your mother heard what had happened she invited me over here. She’s been wonderful, Aurelio. We’re getting on really well.’

She sighed.

‘I know I’ve been difficult, Aurelio, but you must try and undertand it from my point of view. I married young and it went disastrously wrong. I didn’t want to make another mistake I would live to regret. That’s why I’ve been so cautious about the idea of us living together. But you’ve been right to insist. Relationships never stand still. If people don’t grow closer together then they get further apart. For a while it was fine us being lovers and living separate lives, but not any more. That stage is over. We must move on.’

She paused. Again Zen said nothing.

‘I want us all to live together,’ Tania went on in a quiet, firm voice. ‘I want us to be a real family, to have a home and children and be together all the time. Your mother needs that. She needs company, particularly with you being away so much of the time. That’s why she’s always going off to babysit for those friends of yours, the Nieddus. That’s where she is now, by the way.’

Still Zen did not speak.

‘We don’t need to talk about this on the phone,’ Tania said. ‘I just wanted to let you know how I feel, and to know that you understand, and that you share that feeling. I’ve been so lonely, Aurelio, after that awful row we had last week. I don’t know what all that was about, or who was right or wrong. I don’t care. All I want to know is when you’re coming home.’

‘This is my home.’

There was a long silence.

‘What did you say?’ Tania asked at last.

He stared sightlessly at the desk, its surface wrinkled with the indentations of ball-point pens.

‘Aurelio? Are you there?’

Zen gripped the receiver tightly.

‘I said, this is my home.’

‘But what does that mean, Aurelio? What does it mean?’

He sat quite still, saying nothing. After a time there was a click the other end, then an impersonal electronic tone.