Michael Dibdin - And then you die

He had just reached this dispiriting conclusion when a series of loud electronic beeps sounded out the opening strains of the Italian national anthem. The other patrons of the cafe" turned with expressions of icy disapproval towards Snaebjorn Gudmundsson, who plucked out his cellphone and bolted for the door. An elderly man at the next table with a head like a block of wood squared off with an axe, prolific silver-black hair, the regulation-issue laser-blue eyes, monster teeth and no neck at all looked at Zen and said something incomprehensible but evidently uncomplimentary. Zen instinctively spread his palms wide, tossed his head back, shrugged, and replied 'Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh!', thus indicating that while he entirely agreed with the other man's deprecation of the indiscriminate use of mobile phones in public places, he was not his brother's keeper, still less Snaebjorn Gudmundsson's, and couldn't be held responsible for the tatter's thoughtlessness. The Icelander regarded this pantomime with growing alarm, then pointedly turned his back.

Zen followed suit, looking out of the plate-glass window to the street, where Gudmundsson was talking animatedly into the phone under the scrutiny of some swarthy vagrant standing barely a metre away and staring intently up at him. Finally the consul concluded his conversation and returned inside.

'Bad news, I'm afraid,' he said, sitting down at their table again. 'The results of the post-mortem were inconclusive. They want to consult the senior pathologist at the university, but he's away at a conference and won't return until tomorrow.'

'You mean we all have to stay here until then?'

'Not all. The police have decided that if a crime has taken place, the passengers seated outside the cabin in which the victim was seated can be ruled out. They and the crew are being allowed to leave tonight. The others, including you, must remain until a final verdict has been reached on the cause of death.'

Zen sighed disgustedly.

'But you have your orders from the Farnesina!' he protested. 'To expedite my departure in any way you can.'

'Unfortunately that exceeds my powers. All I can do is to offer you a comfortable bed and hospitality at my house until this matter is sorted out. I suggest we go there now, unless you'd like to return with me to the airport to collect your bags. They have been unloaded from the hold and are in storage.'

Zen thought for a moment.

'Did you tell the police that I would be staying with you?' he demanded.

'Yes. They naturally wanted to be assured of your whereabouts.'

'Who was that street person who was listening in to your conversation?' 'Who do you mean?'

'Some low-life standing there right beside you, listening to every word you said. You must have seen him.'

'I didn't. I was probably paying too much attention to what the police were telling me. But what about him?'

Zen shrugged.

'Nothing, probably. He just disturbed me somehow. I don't want everyone in town knowing where I'm going to be sleeping this evening.'

Snaebjorn Gudmundsson stared at him.

'You have reason to believe that you're in danger?' he asked.

Zen realized that he'd stumbled.

'A man in my position inevitably makes a lot of enemies,' he replied blandly. 'But never mind, I'm probably imagining the whole thing. I'm afraid this unexpected visit here has rather shaken me.'

'Of course, of course! So then, will you come with me, or go straight to my house?'

'Neither. I'd like to go out and walk around a bit, then meet you at your house later. I need some exercise, and some time to think.'

Gudmundsson looked doubtful for a moment, then nodded resignedly. 'Very well.' He got out his wallet.

'I'd better give you some money.'

'I can change some.'

'Not at this time of night.'

Zen glanced at the window again.

'What time is it?' he asked.

'A quarter to nine.'

'But when does it get dark?'

'It doesn't. The sun just dips briefly below the horizon around midnight and then comes up again about two in the morning. In between, there's a couple of hours of dusk, but no darkness. In the winter, of course, if s the other way round.'

He wrote something on the back of the receipt returned by the waitress, and handed it to Zen along with a couple of banknotes.

'That's my address and phone number,' he said. 'Just hand it to a taxi driver when you've had enough, or call me if you want company.'

Outside in the street, they separated. Zen drifted off, wondering at the invariable grey light. Summer days here in the north evidently didn't have the classic three-act structure that he'd grown up with. They just maundered on like some experimental film in which the whole point is that nothing ever happens. It was then that Aurelio Zen decided to do something he had not done for a very long time indeed, so long that the person who had done it seemed almost as much of a stranger as the genetically modified strangers thronging by in the street He decided to get quite deliberately and totally drunk.

He took out the banknotes which the consul had given him. They came to fifty thousand kronur, whatever that might amount to. He went into the first bar he came to and ordered a vodka. This was not something he normally drank, but it was one of those useful international products, like taxis, which were available everywhere and always called die same thing in every language. The vodka was served ice cold in a small shot glass. Zen downed three of them in short order, then headed out to the streets in search of more bars.

He found them quite easily. Indeed, after a while they began to find him. They were all more or less the same; dingy, poky, smelly little burrows with bad lighting and deafening music. But after a while he started to feel quite at home, despite the fact that the other clients were all half a metre taller than him and at least twenty years younger, with the studiously bored air of modern youth everywhere. On the streets he had noticed more of the short, dark, unkempt people like the one he had seen eavesdropping on Snaebjorn Gudmundsson's phone conversation, but they didn't seem to come into the bars. Couldn't afford the prices, probably. They looked a bit like the East European refugees and migrants flooding into Italy from Albania and Romania, another race entirely, wearing clothes from another era.

That was outside, though, where Zen no longer had any desire to go. He'd found a cosy nook at the back of a subterranean den where a few youngsters were half-heartedly dancing, and a lissom blonde refilled his shot glass as soon as he emptied it.

Later on the action on the dance floor hotted up considerably, until Zen seemed to be the only person in the place not flinging himself about to the battering rhythms of the sound system. Several of the girls were now dancing topless, their breasts jiggling about in a touching, natural, slightly comical way. Their partners too had stripped down to the absolute minimum. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat and testosterone.

Later still, the place was half empty, the lissom blonde ignored him, and the lights came brutally to life. Zen consulted his watch, but it was still on Italian time. Anyway, they were evidently closing. He got to his feet and shuffled over to the door. The streets were even more packed than the bar had been earlier. No one was dancing, but a couple of drunken scuffles broke out and were quickly subdued. The little, dark, shabbily dressed people were much in evidence too, looking on at the proceedings with that sly, half-mocking expression they all had.

Zen's first priority was to find a taxi and get himself driven to the consul's house, but that was not so simple. The streets where he was were all pedestrianized, and his enquiries were either ignored or elicited a broad gesture and a string of verbiage he couldn't understand. In the end he set off walking along the main street, confident that sooner or later he would find a taxi rank.