Michael Dibdin - Dead Lagoon

Valentini looked doubtful.

‘I don’t know, Enzo. If I shed two cases the same morning, people might start to ask questions.’

Gavagnin took Valentini’s arm and led him away.

‘It’s just because of the possible conflict of interest. Naturally we don’t want our on-going investigation compromised, so it’s better all round if…’

The pair disappeared behind the glass panelling around Valentini’s desk, becoming fuzzy, unfocused images of their former selves. Zen went into his own cubicle and dug the phone book out of the desk drawer. He looked up Paulon, M and dialled the number.

‘Well?’

The reply was abrupt to the point of rudeness.

‘Marco?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘Aurelio.’

There was a brief pause.

‘Aurelio! How’s it going? I was reading about you in the paper just a while ago. That business in St Peter’s. I used to go fishing with him, I thought, and here he is consorting with Archbishops and the like! Gave me quite a thrill. Are you here in town?’

‘Yes. Can we meet?’

‘Of course!’

‘I need some advice, maybe some help.’

‘Well I’m out delivering all morning, but… Do you know the osteria on the San Girolamo canal, just opposite the church?’

Enzo Gavagnin backed out of Valentini’s cubicle, having concluded his business. He glanced shrewdly at Zen as he passed by.

‘What’s it called?’ asked Zen.

‘Damned if I know, tell you the truth! I’ve been going there after lunch every weekday for the last twenty years, but I’ve never bothered to ask about the name. Everyone calls it “The Hole in the Wall”. It’s got red paint on the windows. Opposite the church. What’s it about, anyway?’

‘I’ll explain later. Thanks, Marco.’

He stood up, buttoning his coat. The preliminaries were complete. It was time to go and pretend to do his job.

Her first thought, when the bell rings, is that it is just another trick, another in the succession of cruel practical jokes which seem designed to test her endurance, her fragile sanity. No one calls at Palazzo Zulian these days, except when her nephews drive over from Verona every weekend, as regular as the tides. But this is Tuesday, and Nanni and Vincenzo will be at work doing whatever it is they do…

The bell rings again, dispelling the lingering possibility that the whole thing had taken place in her mind. What happens twice is real, thinks Ada, sidling across the hallway to the room on the other side, overlooking the alley. An angled mirror fixed to a support just outside the window gives a view of the door, so that you can see who is calling without them seeing you, and decide whether to receive them. But immediately Ada whips her head back, for there in the glass is another face, looking straight back at her.

‘ Contessa! ’

A strange voice. Not one of her tormentors, or a new one at least. She risks another look. The gaunt figure in a black hat and overcoat is still there, staring straight up at the tell-tale. It’s no use hiding. If she can see him, he can see her. Stands to reason, Ada Zulian tells herself, reluctantly turning back towards the door and walking downstairs.

The stranger is tall and thin, with a hatchet face and clear grey eyes. His expression is stern, almost saturnine, yet his manner is courteous and respectful. He speaks the dialect with ease and precision, in the true Cannaregio accent — the purest in the city, Ada has always held. He hands her a plastic-covered card with writing and a photograph of himself. She frowns at the name typed in capital letters.

‘Zen?’ she says slowly.

She inspects him again, more critically this time.

‘That’s right, contessa,’ the man nods. ‘Angelo’s boy.’

Ada sniffs loudly.

‘Giustiniana’s, you mean. Your father had only one thing to do with it, excuse me. Fancy going off to Russia and getting himself killed like that, leaving his wife here all alone! At least my Silvestro fell defending our territories in Dalmatia. What has Russia to do with us, for heaven’s sake? Come in, come in, I’m feeling cold just thinking about it.’

While Ada locks and bolts the door again, her visitor stands looking about him in the bleary, uncertain light of the andron. The plaster feels clammy and cold and gives slightly to the touch like a laden sponge. A mysterious smile appears on the man’s face as he absorbs the dank odours and the watery echoes seeping in from the canal at the other end of the hall.

‘She used to bring you round here while she worked,’ Ada continues, leading the way upstairs. ‘And once she saw I didn’t mind, she’d leave you here while she went off to do other jobs. Of course you won’t remember, you were only a toddler.’

The man says nothing. Ada Zulian painfully attains the level expanse of the portego and waves him into the salon.

‘What brings you here, anyway? Your mother never calls any more, not that anyone else does either. Not since that trouble I had with Rosetta. Anyone would think it was catching!’

‘But I gather you’ve been having some more problems recently,’ the man remarks cautiously.

Ada Zulian looks at him.

‘Perhaps I have and perhaps I haven’t,’ she replies sharply. ‘What business is that of yours, Aurelio Battista?’

‘Well, since you informed the police…’

‘The police? What have you to do with the police?’

‘I work for them.’

Ada’s laughter startles the silence. The man looks taken aback.

‘What’s so funny?’ he demands.

‘The police? But you were such a timid little fellow! So serious, so anxious, so easily scared! That’s what gave me the idea in the first place.’

‘What idea?’

‘To dress you up as Rosetta! I still had all her dresses then, her little blouses and socks, everything. When I went to San Clemente, they took everything away and burnt it. But at that time I still thought she might come back one day. Really, I mean. Just walk in, as suddenly and inexplicably as she disappeared. I wanted to have everything ready for her, just in case. I wouldn’t have asked any questions, you know. I would have taken her back and carried on as though nothing had ever happened…’

She looks away suddenly, as though she had seen something move in the nether recesses. Only one of the windows is unshuttered, and the dim expanses of the salon are further multiplied and complicated by a profusion of mirrors of every shape and size, all framed in the same gilded wood as the furniture.

‘To tell you the truth,’ Ada goes on at last, ‘I think you helped keep her at bay. As long as you were there, running about in her dresses, Rosetta didn’t dare show her face.’

She sits down on a low, hard sofa covered with worn dark pink silk.

‘Either that, or it was the cause of the whole thing! Perhaps she resented the fact that I’d found someone to replace her, and decided to get her own back. It’s hard to say. But you did look sweet, Aurelio! If only I’d thought to take some photographs.’

The man has been standing looking at her with an air of deferential attention. Now he claps his hands loudly and starts striding about the room with quite unnecessary vigour.

‘Three weeks ago, contessa, you dialled the police emergency number and reported the presence of intruders in your house. A patrol boat was dispatched and the house searched from top to bottom. It proved to be empty. Subsequent investigations have failed to reveal a single fact to substantiate your allegations of trespass and persecution.’

He pauses impressively, looking down at the elderly woman perched on the antique settle.

‘Well, of course!’ she retorts. ‘Do you think they’re stupid?’

The man frowns.

‘The police?’