Michael Dibdin - And then you die

'Good for her’

De Angelis laughed.

'No, no. That’s just the set-up. Then she got really smart. Just before the dot.com market crashed, she sold out to a multinational distributor looking for a high-end flagship line.'

'But why would she do that, if the business was so successful?'

De Angelis held up his right hand, the fingers outspread. Zen shrugged impatiently.

'Cinque miliardi,' pronounced De Angelis distinctly. 'Five billion lire. She'd already quit her job here, of course. The last I heard, she's bought a fabulous abandoned monastery near her native village in the Friuli and is restoring it as a luxury hotel and resort for the discerning rich.'

Zen nodded vaguely. De Angelis slapped him on the stomach with the back of his hand.

'You should have stuck with her, Aurelio. Then you could have told Brugnoli where to put this McJob he's dreamt up for you.'

He glanced at his watch. 'Well, I must be going.'

'All right. But keep in touch. Come up to Versilia for the weekend some time. I'll be there till the end of the month. Bring the wife and kids too, if you want. There's plenty of room’

‘I might take you up on that.'

'You should.'

The two men shook hands with a certain constraint, and then Zen walked back to the railway station, where he picked up his bags from the left-luggage office and took a cab to his home in the Prati district.

It was as his 'home' that he still thought of it, but the moment he turned the key in the lock and stood on the threshold, he realized that here, too, things had changed. A shaft of sunlight created a rectangle of brilliance on the floor, casting the rest of the room into comparative obscurity. The light looked as still and solid as a marble plinth, and yet it was changing even as he gazed at it. That was the real problem, he thought. The boundary between the darkness and the light was shifting all the time, but too subtly for us to be aware of it, except when it was too late.

He had not been in the apartment for almost a year, and then only to make the necessary arrangements for his mother's funeral. Every horizontal surface was covered in a fine layer of dust, while cobwebs hung like wisplets of high grey cloud from the ceiling. Maria Grazia, the housekeeper and latterly Giuseppina's nurse, had long wanted to retire to her native village, but given the demands of Zen's job and his mother's state of health had loyally agreed on various occasions to stay on 'for the time being'. Following Signora Zen's death, however, she had finally given her notice. Oddly, Zen found himself missing her presence more than he did that of his mother.

He lifted the phone and was greeted by silence. Evidently it had been cut off for non-payment of bills. He walked over to the kitchen door and flicked the light switch. Nothing. Probably the gas and water didn't work either. This bothered him less than the phone being dead. He already felt sufficiently isolated and forgotten, an honorary member of the huldufolk.

On instinct, he dug his mobile phone out of his baggage and dialled Gilberto Nieddu.

The number rang and rang. Zen was just about to give up when a voice answered.

'Fuck off’ it said. 'I don't care any more, understand? It’s over. Just leave me alone, all right? Is that too much to ask?'

'You're not talking to me, Gilberto’ said Zen.

'Who's this?'

'Aurelio.'

'Who?'

Zen didn't answer. There was a silence. 'Oh. Yes. Hi, Aurelio.'

Well, thought Zen, this is different. Since emerging from his shadow persona as Pier Giorgio Butani, everyone he'd spoken to so far had been all over him with questions and theories and opinions about what had or hadn't happened to him in Sicily and since. Yet here was Gilberto, his closest friend, acting as though Zen had just got back from a week's walking holiday in the Dolomites.

'So who did you think was calling?' Zen asked.

'Oh, it doesn't matter.'

'What are you doing?'

'Drinking.'

'Drinking what?'

'Who cares?'

'Are you all right, Gilberto?' 'No.'

'Why? What’s happened?'

'Nothing. It doesn't matter’

Zen took a deep breath.

'Where are you?'

'At home.'

'Can I come round?'

'Suit yourself.'

'In an hour or two?'

'Whenever.'

'I've been travelling all night and I'm exhausted.' 'So you're not feeling chirpy? Good. I couldn't stand chirpiness.'

'I don't think there's much risk of that.'

Gilberto hung up. Zen followed suit, wishing he hadn't called in the first place. Since leaving the police and setting up on his own account in the security and electronic surveillance business, Nieddu's career had been a roller-coaster ride of success, failure and close brushes with the law. When Zen had last been in touch, enlisting his friend's help in extricating himself from a difficult situation he had found himself in during his posting to Catania, the situation had seemed to be improving. This latest contact seemed to confirm that, once again, the Sardinian had not overlooked an opportunity to plunge himself back into crisis.

Gilberto and his wife Rosa lived in Via Carlo Emanuele, near Porta Maggiore. They owned an apartment in a modern block, which had been borderline affordable when they bought it By now, it must have been worth a fortune. Zen walked up the gleaming stairs to the first floor and rang the bell. Outside the tall metal-framed windows, it was already dark. He had slept for over three hours.

He had to ring twice before the door opened and a man's face appeared. Unshaven, unfocussed, at once haggard and bloated, it was barely identifiable as that of Gilberto Nieddu.

'Oh, if s you,' he said, throwing the door open so violently that it slammed against the wall, and instantly turning back inside.

Zen followed, closing the door quietly behind him. The smells hit him first, a whole orchestra of them tuning up before the conductor arrived and they unleashed their full power. Once inside, the visual aspect kicked in. The pleasant, bright, orderly apartment Zen remembered had been transformed into an unrecognizable state of squalid disorder and abandon. In the living room, dirty clothes lay across the furniture and floor, an array of empty bottles and used glasses covered the table, and the air was blue with cigarette smoke. The kitchen to the left had piles of dishes and saucepans on every work surface, while still more were stacked high in the sink.

'Well, this is the scene of the crime, Dottor Zen,' Gilberto remarked with arch jocularity, reaching for one of the half-empty glasses. 'What do you make of it?'

Zen coughed apologetically. He did not sit down.

'It looks like Rosa's left you’ he said.

Nieddu laughed.

'Bravo! Nothing can escape the eagle eye and awesome intelligence of the renowned Aurelio Zen. He takes a few seemingly insignificant and unrelated clues overlooked by less astute observers, processes them faster than a supercomputer and lays bare the mystery which had baffled the finest minds of Europe. Yes, the little bitch has left me.'

Zen sighed heavily.

'When?'

'Four days ago? Three? Six? I forget. Who cares? She's gone, that’s all that matters. She's gone and she's not coming back. She made that very clear.'

He collapsed on the sofa, grabbed a bottle and poured some colourless spirit into the glass he had been using.

'Very clear indeed,' he added quietly, as though addressing the bottle.

'So where is she now?'

'Back home in Sassari with her younger brother,' Nieddu continued in the same quiet tone, all bravado gone. 'Who is threatening to come over shortly and break my legs.'

'And the children?'

'With her, of course. I came home one day to find the place empty, all their clothes and belongings gone, and a note on the table.'