Michael Dibdin: And then you die

At Magra, just before the turn-off for La Spezia, they stopped for a coffee. While Gemma bought some salami, cheese and rolls to see them through the rest of the morning, Zen lifted the garbage bags containing Lessi's personal effects out of the car and carried them round to the rear of the service station. He opened one of the big dumpsters and tossed the bags inside. A broken pallet was leaning against the wall. He pulled off one of the lateral slats and used it to push the bags down, then to collapse a mound of stinking rubbish over the top of them.

Gemma returned to the car with the plastic bag of provisions. She looked flustered.

'You're never going to believe this, but I just ran into someone I used to know!' she blurted out, spinning the car round in reverse and heading off to rejoin the main highway.

'Who?'

'Oh, an old boyfriend. He came up while I was waiting at the cash register. Wanted to chat.' 'What did you say?'

'I gave him the story we agreed earlier, about going to see my sister. I couldn't think of anything else on the spur of the moment' To his surprise, Zen found himself more jealous than worried. 'How old?' 'What?'

'The boyfriend.'

Gemma laughed harshly as the headlights devoured the darkness before them. 'Oh for God's sake! But he knows.' 'Knows what?'

'That I was here, in the middle of the night' 'Going to see your sister.' 'But I'm not'

Zen patted her knee in a reassuring rather than erotic way.

'Don't worry. It doesn't matter. Your ex-boyfriend doesn't matter. Neither does your husband, who'll find out sooner or later that we used his boat. None of them matters as long as we keep our wits about us and our mouths shut. The only people who can betray us are us. The rest is just hearsay.'

They ran into the roadblock the other side of La Spezia, rounding a sharp bend on a minor strada statale high above the glimmering sea to their left. A blue carabinieri jeep was parked beside the road and a uniformed officer stood on the median line waving a wand with a reflective red circular tip.

Zen swore loudly. Gemma braked to a halt. The officer approached the driver's window while his colleague watched from the car, speaking rapidly on the radio.

'Your documents, please.'

Zen handed over his personal identity card, Gemma her driving licence. The officer stepped back and scanned them by the light of his torch.

'Where are you going?' he demanded.

'To Portunciulla,' Gemma replied.

'Why so late?'

'We have a boat at the marina there. We're off to Corsica for a few days and we want to make an early start.' The officer shone his torch into the interior of the car. ‘What’s that in the back?' 'Just stuff we need for our cruise,' said Gemma.

'Open it up’

Gemma gave Zen a panicked look as she pulled a latch under the dashboard. Zen got out and walked back on the opposite side of the car from the carabiniere, who opened the hatchback and shone his torch inside. He swept aside the coats covering the bundled form of Roberto Lessi's corpse.

'What’s that?' he demanded.

'Spars,' Zen replied. 'And a new mizzen sail. What’s all this about, if you don't mind my asking?'

The officer stared suspiciously at Zen's linen suit, then slammed the hatchback shut again.

'Bank robbery in La Spezia. We're checking all the roads out of town. What's a mizzen sail?'

Zen smiled the smile of a man who is glad to have been asked that.

'If s the small triangular sail set aft on a ketch. Very much like a jib, only mounted on a boom. Its main function is to increase stability when sailing close to the wind, particularly when…'

The officer handed him back their documents.

'All right, all right,' he said wearily. 'You can go.'

As if by mutual agreement, they drove off in total silence until they had rounded the next hairpin bend. Then Gemma let out a long, almost silent scream.

‘I don't know how much more of this I can take.'

'Plenty. You're as tough as an ox. Besides, there was no real danger. Those lads were just bored. We were probably the first vehicle to come along for an hour. I've done roadblocks myself, many years ago. If s a hell of a job. Either the car you stop is not the one you're looking for, in which case the whole thing is a waste of time, or it is, in which case you stand a good chance of getting run over or shot.'

'How do you know all those nautical words you dazzled him with?'

'I told you, I'm from Venice. If s in our blood. We drink it in with our mother's milk.'

Twenty minutes later, they reached the village of Portunciulla. Judging by what Zen could make out from the car, it had once been a small fishing port, but had now been taken over by holiday lets, second homes and the pleasure-boat business. The marina was situated on the northern side of the original harbour, a series of floating docks lit by overhead floodlights and protected by an artificial breakwater. Gemma stopped at the gate and identified herself to a scruffy youth with a gormless expression. He nodded slowly and vaguely, as though remembering some incident from a previous life. Then he went inside the concrete hut he had emerged from and returned with a set of keys.

'You'll be needing a hand with your stuff,' he said, pointing to the rear of the car.

'No thanks, we-can manage’ Gemma replied crisply, slipping him a ten-thousand-lire note. 'Did you refuel the boat?'

'All taken care of’ the youth replied listlessly.

Gemma drove through the car park to the landward end of one of the docks, then turned and parked so that the car was in shadow. They both got out. The youth was standing at the door of his hut, watching them.

'You stay here and mind the luggage’ Gemma told Zen. 'I'll take the groceries and open up the boat, then come back with a cart for our friend in the back.'

She turned away into the shadows leading down to the dock. Zen lit a cigarette and watched her walk along the pier and board one of the motor cruisers moored there. What a piece of luck, he thought. What an incredible piece of luck! Whoever would have thought it?

'Look at the moon!' said a voice behind him. 'Quant'e bella!'

He turned to find the scruffy youth gazing at him with an ecstatic expression. Zen did not reply.

'If s always beautiful’ the youth went on earnestly, 'but we can't always see it'

'No’

'And even when we can, half the time we don't' 'How very true’

The youth strode up to him and grasped his right arm tightly.

'Just imagine if the moon only came out every fifty years, like an eclipse of the sun. People all over the world would stay up all night to look at it, dancing and singing and weeping for joy!'

'Quite possibly.'

The rapt expression vanished from the youth's face like a patch of condensation off glass.

'But if s there all the time,' he continued in a voice drained of all emotion. 'It's staring us in the face, so we take it for granted’ Zen threw away his spent cigarette. 'An interesting thought,' he said.

The youth was now gazing in through the rear window of the car. The shrouded body seemed to glow in the moonlight.

'If s right there in front of us, so we don't even see it’ he murmured in the same affectless tone.

'Mmm’

He turned to Zen with a piercingly intense stare.

'Maybe that’s why we don't see God either.'

Zen heard a rumbling sound. Gemma was wheeling a small handcart along the dock. He peeled off some money and handed it to the youth.

'Listen, I've just realized that we forgot to bring any matches with us. Stupid mistake, but ifs the kind of little thing that can ruin your holiday. Do you think you could find us some? Or a lighter. Keep the change.'

The youth nodded dolefully and headed back to his hut as Gemma emerged from the shadows.