Michael Dibdin - Back to Bologna

Another ten minutes passed before Bruno Nanni finally turned up.

‘So what’s this “important lead” you mentioned?’ Zen demanded once they had ordered their pizzas. ‘You were very mysterious about it on the phone.’

Bruno leant forward.

‘Well, apparently some anonymous informant called the Questura this afternoon…’

‘Claiming he knows who shot Edgardo Ugo,’ Zen interrupted. ‘Stale news, Bruno. The Carabinieri told me hours ago.’

‘You’ve been in touch with the Carabinieri?’

‘They got in touch with me. The officer in charge of the Ugo shooting is an old friend of mine and a fellow Venetian. He naturally wanted to compare notes.’

‘Did they tell you the name that the caller mentioned?’

Zen thought back.

‘No, actually they didn’t mention a name.’

Bruno smiled smugly.

‘They couldn’t, because we haven’t told them.’

‘How come you know all this, Bruno?’

‘Got it out of the duty sarge who took the call.’

Their pizzas arrived, and for some time both men were absorbed in eating.

‘Do you also know the name involved?’ asked Zen when his first wave of hunger had passed.

Bruno was in the middle of chewing a gargantuan bite and couldn’t reply immediately.

‘Vincenzo Amadori,’ he finally replied in a choked whisper.

‘Probably just a nuisance call.’

Bruno shook his head.

‘There’s been no public reference to the ballistics tie-in between the two cases,’ he pointed out. ‘The buzz around the Questura is that the same gun was definitely involved, but they’re not going to release that news to the media for fear of setting off an Uno Bianca feeding frenzy. It looks like they’re going to keep it under wraps for a while, with the excuse that further tests are needed, and hope to get a quick break in the case before they have to come clean.’

He finished his beer and signalled the waiter to bring a refill.

‘And without the knowledge that the same gun was used, there would be no point in anyone trying to smear Vincenzo with the Ugo affair. I doubt he even knew who Ugo was, never mind had a motive to shoot him.’

Zen felt a sudden sense of lassitude and indifference, a brief backwash from the storm that had so recently threatened to overwhelm him.

‘Well, that’s the basic problem with the whole investigation,’ he heard himself say, as though at a great distance. ‘On the face of it, the two victims had nothing whatever in common beyond the fact that they were well-known public figures in Bologna. There are plenty of killers who attack only certain demographic groups, usually prostitutes, but celebrity stalkers are invariably obsessed with one particular person. No others need apply.’

‘Perhaps there were two men involved,’ Bruno suggested, waving a forkload of pizza in the air. ‘One shot Curti for reasons of his own, the other Ugo ditto, but with the same pistol.’

‘You should retire and write thrillers,’ said Zen sarcastically. ‘Anyway, it no longer has anything to do with us. On the basis of the possible analogy you mentioned, the judicial authorities have handed over the Ugo case to our colleagues in the Carabinieri. Assuming that the ballistics tests verify the identity of the weapon concerned, they will get de facto control of the Curti murder as well, leaving us free to deal with such really important issues as policing football games.’

He broke off as a party of about a dozen entered the establishment, laughing and chatting loudly, filed past Bruno and Zen and took their places at the large table that had been assembled at the back of the room. One of the waiters appeared and collected the empty pizza plates.

‘Tutto bene, signori?’

Zen nodded, but Bruno scratched the back of his neck.

‘You go if you want, capo, but I’m still hungry.’

Aman in a filthy apron had just emerged from the rear of the premises to lay two plates of pasta on the counter next to the pizza oven. He was pudgy, with a bald head, a vestigial moustache, no eyebrows and an air of immense resentment.

‘Who’s that?’ Bruno asked the waiter.

‘The new help. Normo’s mother’s been taken poorly, so we had to get someone at short notice to do the made dishes.’

‘Is he any good?’

‘He’s only just started. A foreigner. I haven’t had any complaints. La nonna is keeping a close eye on him.’

‘God help him. Well, let’s see how good a team they make. Bring me a bowl of penne all’arrabbiata and half a litre of red.’

‘In that case, I’ll have a dessert,’ said Zen. ‘That chocolatey thing on the bottom shelf of the cooler.’

Behind them, the whoops, giggles and guffaws from the large table soon rose to such a level that there was no need for Bruno and Zen to try and find something to talk about.

‘One penne all’arrabbiata,’ the waiter shouted to the chef.

Shit, thought Romano Rinaldi, how the hell do I make that? But the vigilant crone perched on a tall stool in the corner was already on the job.

‘Don’t just stand there gawping! Get the pasta in! Two handfuls. Stir it well until it comes to the boil, the water’s getting gluey and it might stick. Drain that pot, refill it and switch to the backup. Warm up a ladleful of tomato sauce, add a pinch of chilli and…’

For the second time that day, Romano Rinaldi set a huge pan of pasta boiling. This time, though, he made sure that it didn’t boil over. This totally sucks, he thought. From being the celebrated and beloved Chef Che Canta e Incanta to being bullied and ordered around by some vicious granny who had once again got her hands on a man whose life she could make a misery, and was relishing every opportunity to do so.

And Romano gave her plenty. Not only did he not know how to cook, he deeply and indeed viscerally loathed the entire process. What he loved was celebrating the idea of tradition, of authentic shared experience and a stable and loving home life around the family hearth. Cooking was the medium he had chosen for this, but in itself it was a messy, painstaking, unrewarding and-as he had demonstrated so spectacularly that morning-potentially very dangerous form of drudgery that demanded total concentration and offered at best a sense of relative failure. Who has not always the impression of having eaten a better meal than the one set before them? It was a mug’s game, which was no doubt one reason why it had traditionally been left to women.

These large philosophical questions apart, Romano Rinaldi had ample specific reasons for feeling utterly miserable. A splitting headache for one, the result of his earlier indulgences and current lack of either drugs or alcohol to satisfy his urgent medical needs. Then there was la nonna, of whom the less said the better, and the unutterably vile surroundings in which he was forced to go about his distasteful and humiliating chores.

The pizzas that were the mainstay of the establishment were prepared and baked by the owner and his son in a spotlessly clean extension of the bar, in full view of the clientele. The kitchen area at the rear of the premises where he was penned up, well out of sight, was substantially smaller than any of the walk-in cupboards in Rinaldi’s Rome residence, and every surface was exuberantly filthy. The place looked like the scene of some Mafia settling of accounts after the bodies had been removed. Red splashes covered the pitted plaster walls, which were marked by long vertical gouges that might well have been made by the fingernails of some dying mobster. The floor was sprinkled with what at first looked like capers flung about with mad abandon, but turned out on closer inspection to be rat droppings. Rinaldi had been sorely tempted several times already to walk out and take his chances with the police. Even if he ended up getting convicted, could a prison term with hard labour be any worse than this?