Michael Dibdin - End games

Since leaving the Questura after having received Aurelio Zen’s bad news, he’d drifted at random through the streets, noticing everything with heightened awareness and interacting with whatever presented itself to his dazed consciousness. He’d bought some green peaches and fresh walnuts from one street vendor, and eaten them along with a chalky roundel of aged goat’s cheese sold by another vendor, who looked a bit like a goat himself — skinny, neurotic and driven, like the gormless offspring of some Spanish noble family.

Then there had been the cheap clothing stores run by Chinese immigrants around the bus station, the bijou boutiques on the upscale streets selling pricey goods for wedding presents and the home beautiful, and odd places with English names like Daddy amp; Son and Miss Sixty — the latter, it turned out, catering not to geriatric spinsters but the adorable young women of the neighbourhood who wanted retro Carnaby Street gear to show off their amazing legs. Tom had listened to a bootleg CD of Calabrian folk music blaring from another street stall and with the help of the salesman had managed to pick out some of the words: O sol, o sol, almo immortale, non t’asconder mai piu, che certo veggio s’io non ti miro, non poss’aver peggio. It was a hymn of praise to the sun, all about how when it is hidden from us we’re screwed. Pure paganism, but he was feeling pretty pagan himself. It was in the air here, in the pitiless light, in the facial expressions and body language of the people all around. His father was dead, the police chief had told him. Like this was the first time in the history of the world that someone’s father had died? The Greeks and Romans who’d run this place thousands of years ago would have understood that.

He’d bought the CD and felt it now in his pocket as he heard the melody again in his brain and looked at a passing woman, the fastenings of her bra standing out on her back under the tight top like widely spaced shoulder nipples. Then he saw a face he knew.

‘Signor Mantega!’

Tom sprang to his feet and shook hands with the notaio.

‘How have you been keeping?’ Mantega asked distractedly.

‘Pretty well, all things considered. What about you?’

Mantega looked startled, then made a large gesture and sighed deeply.

‘Ah, you know! Work, always work.’

‘Come and sit down,’ Tom urged.

He was feeling lonely and, with two drinks inside him, expansive, but Mantega demurred.

‘Actually, I’m in a bit of a hurry — ’

‘ Solo un momento. I need to ask you something.’

Mantega hesitated, but finally joined Tom at his table. He waved away the waiter and stared at Tom.

‘Well?’ he said pointedly.

‘It’s just this expression I heard today and didn’t understand, so I thought maybe it was dialect. La tomba d’Alarico. Does that mean anything to you?’

Mantega shrugged dismissively. He obviously couldn’t have cared less about Tom’s question, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to hold forth all the same.

‘But of course! Alaric was a barbarian chieftain who invaded Italy in the fifth century. He sacked Rome and then continued south, but died here in Cosenza and is believed to have been buried along with all the treasure he had plundered. There have been many attempts to find the tomb, all of them fruitless. When the Germans were in charge here during the war, they organised a particularly intensive search. The Goths were an important element in Nazi mythology. But even with all their resources, the results were once again negative.’

Tom shook his head in wonder.

‘I’d never even heard of Alaric. So the treasure’s still down there somewhere?’

Mantega shrugged impatiently. Now that he had said his piece, he had no further interest in this dusty subject.

‘Who knows? From time to time some enthusiast comes along and tries again, but without success so far as anyone knows.’

He yawned, and then as a show of politeness added, ‘Why are you interested in Alaric’s tomb?’

Tom gave him a conspiratorial smile.

‘You know that helicopter that’s been prowling about? Turns out it’s carrying some sort of electronic gear that can scan the subsoil. The company drew a blank down the main river-bed, so now they’re going to try the valleys higher up. At least it should be a bit quieter around here.’

Mantega gave a perfunctory nod.

‘Well, I must be going. Have you heard any further word from the police about negotiations for your father’s release?’

It was only then that Tom realised Mantega hadn’t heard the news yet. But he would eventually, and would find it very odd that Tom hadn’t told him.

‘He’s dead.’

Mantega, who had started to get up, abruptly sat down again.

‘What? How? When?’

‘A couple of days ago. They’ve been keeping it quiet until they definitively identified the body. I only just heard the news myself, so the reality hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I suppose I’m still in shock, you know?’

Mantega didn’t seem concerned about this aspect of the situation.

‘Is that your phone?’ he asked, pointing to a shiny silver telefonino lying on the table.

‘Got it just yesterday.’

‘May I borrow it for a moment?’ Mantega asked. ‘I have to make an urgent call and my own mobile has gone dead. You know how it is. I must have forgotten to recharge it.’

‘Help yourself,’ said Tom.

Mantega smiled his thanks. As if finding the street too noisy, he got up and walked into the open doorway of the cafe. Tom watched him idly, in between exchanging glances with a stunning brunette who had sat down at a neighbouring table soon after Mantega arrived and was now smoking a cigarette and talking on her headset. Tom scribbled ‘Lunch?’ and his new phone number on a scrap of paper, then signalled the waiter and told him to take it over to the woman. While this transaction was in progress, he glanced over at Nicola Mantega, who was apparently having a furious argument with someone. The waiter handed the woman the note. They spoke briefly and he pointed over at Tom. The brunette looked over, and for a moment their eyes met again. Then Mantega reappeared. He handed back Tom’s phone but did not sit down.

‘Sorry, but I have to run,’ he said, as breathlessly as though he already had been running. ‘I’ll be in touch shortly and in the meantime please accept my deepest sympathy for this shocking development. My poor boy! You must be devastated.’

Tom nodded vaguely.

‘Yes, I must.’

‘ A presto, allora.’

Mantega trotted off rapidly.

‘I’m not free for lunch,’ a voice said.

Tom looked up to find the brunette standing above him.

‘Oh, what a cute phone!’ she exclaimed. She switched it on, pressed some of the miniature buttons and scanned the screen.

‘You’re pretty cute yourself.’

The woman took this coolly.

‘You’re an American?’ she returned.

Tom smiled self-deprecatingly.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Oh, in Calabria, Americans are part of the family,’ she replied with a nicely flirtatious edge. ‘So many of our own people moved there.’

‘Yes, I know. In fact, I may be from this area myself, or at least my father seems…’

He broke off in confusion, but the brunette was now intent on an incoming call on her earpiece. She turned to Tom.

‘I must go.’

Tom gestured helplessly.

‘Okay, how about dinner?’

But she was already out of earshot, hastening along in the direction taken by Nicola Mantega.

For someone whose religious beliefs, theologically considered, amounted to little more than pagan agnosticism, Maria was a good Catholic. It was true that her views on the Trinity, which she thought of as the executive steering committee at the core of any stable family — the father, the mother and the eldest son — probably wouldn’t have passed muster with the Inquisition, had the Church still been taking a lively interest in the opinions of its dwindling flock instead of striving ever more desperately to maintain the ratio of bums to pews.