Michael Dibdin - Dead Lagoon

‘How lucky we happened to meet! I was just going to ring you. I wanted to apologize for being so snappy at lunch.’

A trace of an answering smile appeared on Zen’s lips.

‘Dal Maschio told you to smooth things over, did he?’

Tommaso Saoner’s cheek twitched.

‘Don’t try and provoke me, Aurelio. I’ve offered you an apology and as far as I’m concerned the matter is closed. Just get on with your life and leave me to get on with mine, and we can still be friends.’

Zen shook his head decisively.

‘That’s no longer possible, Tommaso.’

Saoner stared fixedly at him for a moment. Then he shrugged.

‘So be it.’

He began walking again. Zen followed, a few paces behind. They passed through Campo Santa Fosca and rounded the corner of Palazzo Correr. Shortly after the next bridge, Saoner turned off to the right. When Zen entered the alley after him, Saoner wheeled round.

‘This is not your way home!’

‘Venice belongs to all its sons,’ Zen declaimed rhetorically. ‘The whole city is my home.’

Tommaso Saoner hesitated for a moment. Then he strode rapidly away, taking an erratic route through back lanes to the Ghetto Nuovo and across the San Girolamo canal, not pausing or looking round until he stopped in front of his house in Calle del Magazen. He was still fumbling in his overcoat pocket for his keys when Zen stepped between him and the door.

‘You can’t get away as easily as that, Tommaso.’

Saoner stared at him truculently.

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘It wasn’t just luck that we met this evening. I knew you’d be at the meeting and I followed you all the way from Campo Santa Margherita. We’ve got to talk.’

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

Saoner tried to push past Zen to the door. There was a brief scuffle, which ended with Saoner sprawling on the pavement.

‘I wouldn’t try and push me around, Tommaso,’ Zen said quietly. ‘I’ve dealt with much tougher customers than you in my time.’

Crouching on the ground, Saoner examined his glasses, which had fallen off.

‘I’ll have you charged with assault,’ he muttered, getting to his feet.

‘And I’ll have you charged as an accomplice in the kidnapping and murder of Ivan Durridge.’

A silvery sheen crept over the walls and paving as the moon showed for the first time above the houses opposite.

‘They didn’t kill Durridge!’ Saoner declared passionately. ‘The man jumped out!’

‘If he did, it was because he preferred to die quickly rather than suffer what the Croatians had in store for him. But you didn’t know he was dead, did you? You thought Durridge was in Croatia awaiting trial for his war crimes.’

‘Ferdinando explained the whole thing to me this evening. The only reason he hadn’t told me before was that he didn’t want to implicate me.’

Zen laughed in his face.

‘Don’t be so naive, Tommaso. The reason he didn’t tell you is that he doesn’t trust you. He thinks of you as another Massimo Bugno, a shallow, fair-weather vessel, useful for running errands around the city but not to be relied on when a storm blows up.’

‘That’s not true!’

There was real pain in Saoner’s voice.

‘It’s of no importance,’ said Zen offhandedly. ‘The essential point is that Dal Maschio masterminded the kidnap of Ivan Durridge and piloted the helicopter from which he fell to his death. We’re talking about the man who may be the next mayor of this city — and that’s just the first item on his agenda. Dal Maschio is ruthless, cunning and ambitious. He’s going to go all the way to the top, unless he’s stopped now. And we’ve got to stop him, Tommaso. You’ve got to help me stop him.’

Saoner grunted contemptuously.

‘You’re out of your mind. Who cares what happened to Ivan Durridge? The man was a war criminal, for God’s sake. All the Croats wanted was to do what the Israelis have done in the past, to grab the beast and bring him to trial. And all we did was to help them. It’s not our fault that the crazy bastard decided to jump out of the chopper. It’s got nothing to do with us, and nothing to do with the fine, positive ideals that the movement represents, and which I will never let you destroy with these shabby, cynical manoeuvres. Now get out of my way!’

Zen stood aside. Surprised, Saoner hesitated for a moment, wary of this sudden capitulation. Then he stepped towards the door, groping in his pocket with an expression of growing puzzlement. A gentle tinkling sound drew his attention.

‘Is this what you’re looking for?’

Zen dangled a set of keys in the air.

‘You dirty pickpocket! Give those to me!’

Zen slowly shook his head.

‘You need to spend some time alone, Tommaso, thinking over what I’ve just said. I don’t want you to rush your decision. You can have till morning if you like. But in the end you’ll agree to testify. I know you too well to…’

Saoner struck him across the face.

‘I’ll never betray the movement! Never, no matter what you do to me!’

Zen regarded him steadily, rubbing his cheek where the blow had landed.

‘I’m not going to do anything to you, Tommaso. You have to do it yourself.’

He dropped the keys into his pocket.

‘You can go anywhere you like, apart from crossing to the mainland. The use of phones is also prohibited, as is any attempt to involve anyone other than me. I won’t be far behind you, but as long as you don’t try and break these rules I won’t interfere.’

The two men stared long and hard at each other.

‘You’re crazy,’ Saoner muttered at last.

Zen shrugged.

‘One of us is. Some time between now and dawn we’ll find out which.’

At first Saoner made no attempt to get away. He set off at a moderate pace, as though out for a stroll to settle his stomach or thoughts before bed. By now the city had been given over to its cats. They appeared everywhere, perched singly on walls and lounging on ledges, clustered in silent congregation at the centre of a square, viciously disputing a scrap of food or absorbed in a fastidiously conscientious ritual of grooming.

Saoner walked the length of one of the long straight canals which trisect the northern reaches of the Cannaregio, then turned down through the meandering passages leading to the Strada Nova. For a moment it looked as though he were retracing the route he had taken in the opposite direction earlier, but when he reached the Rialto bridge he turned right and crossed over to the market area. As Zen reached the peak of the bridge, the variously inclined roofs glittered in the moonlight as though covered in frost.

Saoner was now some way ahead, threading his way through the stripped framework of the stalls used for the bustling vegetable market and into the covered portico of the Pescheria. Here the cats were especially sleek and numerous. They massed like rats, lured by the lingering odour of the fish-heads and entrails on which they gorged themselves by day, when the counters were loaded with slithering heaps of red mullet, sea bass, sardines, plaice, eels, crabs, scallops, cuttlefish, clams, mussels and all the rest whose names Zen knew only in dialect: branzin, orada, tria, barbon, peocio, passarin, dental…

By the time he realized what was happening, the only trace of Saoner’s presence was a distant clatter of running footsteps, so distorted by the echoing walls all around that it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. Zen closed his eyes and did a rapid mental scan of the district. The only exit which Saoner would have had time to reach led via a narrow bridge to a quay on the other side of Rio delle Beccarie. From there, two lanes led away from the water. No, there were three — but one was a dead end.