Michael Dibdin - End games

But none of this weakened her resolve, any more than the impenetrable silence of God, the futile gesture of his Son and the impotent anguish of the Madonna stopped her from praying or going to church. Both the gods and the police were as capricious and vindictive as any of the humans they lorded it over, but every once in a while you might be able to catch their attention and put in a good word for someone. But first you had to make that effort. It might not be sufficient, but if you had any sense of decency then it was necessary. You had to be prepared to ask, to beg, to plead, to grovel. That was all that could be done, and Maria was determined to do it.

When the papers landed on Zen’s desk early that evening, his first reaction had not been to do with the contents but with the form they took. Written under the letterhead of the US consulate in Naples, the first instalment opened with a boilerplate statement to the effect that ‘this communication contains potentially sensitive classified material’ and hence was being sent in randomly sequenced segments via fax, since no ‘mutually agreed encryption protocols’ were in place between the agencies concerned and the use of email might therefore have constituted a ‘bilateral security hazard’.

I remember when we first got fax machines at work, Zen thought. They were cutting edge then, a status marker. If you didn’t have one, you weren’t important. Now they were virtually obsolete and sat gathering dust in some unvisited corner of the building. I’ve witnessed the birth and decay of an entire technology, he thought, not just in my lifetime but within recent memory.

The communication in question was terse in the extreme. Sent in response to a phone call Zen had made the previous evening, it stated that Roberto Calopezzati had been resident in the United States from 1953 until 1965. The American consular official went on to express a disingenuously arch bewilderment at the fact that it had been necessary to contact him for this information. Surely it would have been more convenient for Zen to obtain it from his own internal sources, given that the said Calopezzati’s twelve-year stay in the US had been under the auspices of the Italian government as a legal adviser at their embassy in Washington, DC.

Zen headed down the corridor to Giovanni Sforza’s office. Livid clouds were hanging low above the city like clusters of poisonous fruit, but the storm wouldn’t break. Inside the Questura, the atmosphere was as taut as overstretched sailcloth.

‘I need your help again, Giovanni. There’s an angle to the case that’s been bothering me. It may not be relevant, but if so then it’s a remarkable set of coincidences. According to the official records both here and in the United States, Peter Newman was born in the province of Cosenza under the name Pietro Ottavio Calopezzati. Later he became an American citizen, changed his name to Newman and as far as we know never returned to Italy until recently. In short, we appear to have a Calabrian who moves to the United States, styles himself Newman — uomo nuovo — and avoids any contact with his native country for over forty years. Then one fine day he returns, is kidnapped and is murdered in a highly theatrical way for no apparent motive whatsoever.’

Sforza nodded bureaucratically.

‘And your point is?’ he asked.

‘To prove that he was indeed the person mentioned in the records. The Calopezzati family have proved very hard to trace, but I’ve learned an interesting fact about Roberto, who would be Pietro’s uncle if the documents are correct. Our records contain no mention of him after the war, nor do any other related files. But I’ve learned from other sources that a person by that name worked at the Italian embassy in Washington for twelve years from 1953. I now need to know what became of him.’

‘What post did he hold at the embassy?’

‘Legal adviser.’

Giovanni Sforza evidently didn’t know what resonance the name Calopezzati had in Calabria, but the term ‘legal adviser’ had its significance for him.

‘Secret job,’ he said. ‘That would explain the security clearance level on that file you mentioned.’

Zen looked incredulous.

‘The servizi?’

‘Used to be their standard operating procedure. It wasn’t usually covert work. To save everyone time and trouble, and foster good relations with a trusted ally, they were declared to the host government. But it complicates your task. Those people change their identities like we change our socks, only they don’t wash the used ones, they throw them away. And they’re very reluctant to divulge any information about their personnel, present or past. To anyone.’

Zen shrugged.

‘Well, without it, this is all going to take a lot longer. And we don’t have that much time. Now the news of Newman’s death is out, I’m under severe pressure. If I happen to mention in an unguarded moment that my investigation is being impeded by some secretive 007s in Rome, they’ll be under a lot of pressure too. You might mention that in your sales pitch.’

‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best.’

In the corridor, Zen was accosted by Natale Arnone, a stack of papers in his fist.

‘The report from the Digos day team shadowing Nicola Mantega just came in,’ he said. ‘I know how busy you are, so I’ve filleted it for you.’

He handed over the sheaf of paperwork with a page containing heavy underlining uppermost.

‘Mantega met Tom Newman by chance in a cafe around lunchtime. They made small talk for a while — some archaeological matter — and then Newman told Mantega that his father had been murdered. Mantega appeared perturbed by this news and immediately borrowed the American’s mobile phone, presumably because he suspects his own is being tapped, to call that number in San Giovanni that we now have on intercept. There was no reply, but it switched over to an answering machine and Mantega left this message.’

His stubby forefinger, with its immaculately trimmed nail, indicated a transcribed passage on the page.

You crazy bastard! What do you think you’redoing? Newman’s son just told me that hisfather’s dead. Well, that’s the end of it as far asI’m concerned! I trusted you, Giorgio, and now Ifeel betrayed. It’s all very well for you, lying lowwith your friends out of harm’s way. I’m the onethe cops are going to put through the mincer. Ifthey do, and I still haven’t heard from you, I’ll tellthem everything I know. Names, numbers, dates, times, places, the lot! And don’t think you canblackmail me with that video. That was about akidnapping. This is manslaughter at the veryleast, and probably murder. I had nothing to dowith that and I’m sure as hell not taking theblame. I don’t owe you anything and I shall takeall necessary measures to protect my ownposition, so get in touch by tomorrow at thelatest. If you don’t, all bets are off, and you’ll findout just what I’m — ’

‘The machine cut him off at that point,’ Natale Arnone remarked when Zen had finished reading. ‘Shall we take him? He’s clearly been withholding evidence and would probably be ready to talk with a little persuasion.’

‘True, but who knows how informative or conclusive his evidence would turn out to be? No, on balance I want to leave him loose a little while longer, along with the man whose phone he called. But he must be watched night and day and we must be prepared for him to try and slip off to another covert meeting with Giorgio at some point. If he does, we have to be ready to move in this time and close the trap. How’s the surveillance operation on the house in San Giovanni going?’

‘All in place. They’re doubling up as a maintenance crew from the gas company during the day and a parked delivery truck overnight.’