Michael Dibdin - And then you die

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'Who's there?' he shouted, sitting up in bed.

There was silence again, then a rapid series of ratchety clicks. Zen climbed out of bed as the door resounded under a tremendous blow.

'Who's that?' he yelled again.

Another blow, then another. The door was of seasoned oak, at least a hundred years old. It wouldn't give, unless the intruder had an axe, but sooner or later the catch must.

Zen groped in his coat pocket and found the device he had been given at the Ministry the previous afternoon. He clicked the button at the side to turn it on, then slid up the shield over the glowing red button and pressed it as another earthquake-like tremor hit the door.

What happened then was the last thing he had expected: the sound of a phone ringing in the room next door. It was only a moment later that he remembered that the phone had been cut off. There was a brief whisper of speech, followed by a number of unidentifiable sounds, then silence.

It was broken a few moments later by a distant siren that veered ever nearer and louder until it wound down from a strident shriek to a mild burble outside the building. Blue flashing lights added an intermittent brightness to the glimmer in the room, while a furious pounding and ringing sounded out in the stairwell and from the street. After a while it ceased, to be replaced by the sound of clattering boots on the stone steps and then in the room outside.

‘Polizia’'

Zen felt a wave of overwhelming relief that made him realize just how scared he had been. He had heard that voice countless times before, and knew it well. It was the voice of a raw young patrol officer, himself scared even more, and knowing that his only hope of saving his reputation and possibly his life was to sound overwhelmingly masterful.

Zen unlocked and opened the door, and was immediately pinned in the glaring beams from two flashlights aimed right at his face.

'Good evening,' he said, holding up his empty hands. ‘I am Dottor Zen.'

The two policemen in the room lowered their torches, creating a more even light. 'What's going on?' barked one.

'We received an all-points emergency call to assist you,' said a slightly steadier voice. 'Someone broke into my apartment.'

'The door was open when we got here,' replied the steadier voice immediately.

'Probably a burglar’ said the first patrolman.

'There have been a number of attempts on my life recently’ Zen replied in a studiously casual tone, as though this sort of thing was all in a day's work for him.

'The lights don't work’ said the steadier voice. 'Maybe they cut the wiring.'

'No, the fuse blew and I haven't had time to mend it. Now could you just check that whoever it was isn't still here, and perhaps try and find out how he got in?'

One of the two torches started searching the apartment. The other headed out to the stairway.

'No one’ reported the first voice, returning to the room. He and Zen gazed at each other in the gloom hacked apart by his torch beam.

There was a rush of boots on the steps and his partner reappeared.

'The skylight at the very top of the stairs is wide open,' he announced. 'He must have been an agile little monkey, though. That window's a good three metres off the ground.'

'Well, thank you for your prompt response’ Zen said conclusively. 'Evidently on this occasion the whole thing was a false alarm If you'll just inform headquarters about that, I won't keep you from your regular duties any longer.'

He saw them to the front door of the apartment, then bent down and examined the door itself. There was no sign that any force had been used to open it. It was only when he straightened up again that he noticed Giuseppe, the janitor of the building. He was clad in pyjamas and a worn plaid dressing gown, and was lurking on the flight of stairs leading up to the landing.

'Is everything all right, dottore?’ he asked.

Zen took out the key to his apartment.

'You didn't give this to anyone while I was away, did you?'

Giuseppe's face assumed an expression of righteous indignation.

'Absolutely not! It was locked up in the safe the whole time along with the duplicate sets.' Zen nodded.

'Very well. I just wondered.'

'If you'd told me you were coming back, I'd have arranged for the electricity and gas to be on’ Giuseppe added. 'I'll do it tomorrow, first thing.'

'Don't bother. I shan't be living here any more.'

Giuseppe took a few moments to digest this statement. So did Zen himself.

'You're moving?' Giuseppe queried.

'I'm leaving. A new work assignment. I shan't be based in Rome any longer. I'll contact the owners and tell them to cancel the lease as soon as possible. They should be able to find a new tenant quite quickly. Unless you have someone in mind, of course.'

Giuseppe nodded in a dazed way. Clearly this, coming on top of the break-in and the appearance of the policemen, was just too much to deal with at this hour of the morning. He started to turn away, then paused.

'Maybe that colleague of yours would like it’

'Which colleague?'

'I don't recall the name. It was a long time ago, right after that terrible bomb business. He came by to pick up some papers from work you'd left in the apartment. When he handed me back the key, he said what a nice place It was.'

'You gave him the key?'

'Of course. He showed me his identification card. It was just like yours, dottт. Well, different photo and name, of course, but the real thing. And he said he worked with you, so I let him in. I mean, I knew you were in hospital, so you couldn't come yourself. That was all right, wasn't it?'

'Yes. Yes, of course. Good night, Giuseppe.'

'Good night, dottт.'

Zen went back inside, closing but not locking the door. What was the point?

'Don't look them in the eye, and never turn your back.'

This time the voice was in the air, not in his head. He could feel its vibrations, although he knew there was no one there. Then another voice, this one internal, added, 'They don't put the bottles in the box, they wrap the box around the bottles.'

He lit the knotted candles on the table and stood there in the gradually waxing light, staring at the chair in which his mother had always sat to watch banal television programmes which her addled mind had transmuted into richer, stranger material. Something was trying to tell him something, but what was it?

For the first time, it occurred to him to look at his watch. It was a little after three in the morning. After a momentary hesitation, he went back into his bedroom and found the shelf on which he kept his Pozzorario railway timetable, the front cover festooned with anachronistic advertisements for various hotels con tutti i conforti a prezzi modici. Not for the first time, he wondered if anyone ever selected a hotel on the basis of these rather desperate-sounding appeals, and if so who. The timetable itself was a year out of date, but Zen knew that the schedules of the night trains were virtually invariable. After a few minutes' search, he found an express from Reggio di Calabria to Milan that stopped at the station of Roma Tiburtina just after four o'clock. He repacked his bags, then called for a taxi. The dispatcher said that Taranto 64 would be there in about ten minutes.

Zen spent the interval wandering about the apartment, apart from his mother's room, which he did not enter, and wondering if there was anything he wanted to keep. Nothing, he concluded, with a surprising shiver of pleasure. He'd hire a company to haul everything away and dispose of it for whatever price they could get. He wasn't even going to think about it. It could all go.

A car drew up outside. Zen took a last look around the disturbingly notional space which had been his home for so many years and then, failing once again to be moved, picked up his bags, closed and locked the door and walked downstairs.

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