Diego Marani - God's Dog

The woman looked around her, uncertain whether to talk or to remain silent. But she found Salazar’s provocations impossible to resist.

‘We don’t kill them, we save them! And we don’t ask for money, though they can give us money, if they want. We use it to finance the backstreet abortions. It’s the families who contact us. We have ourselves registered as visiting relatives and we go and live in relatives’ houses, to avoid suspicion. The relatives themselves go to stay in our safe houses while we are getting things sorted out. Sometimes we have to do a bit of jiggery-pokery to make things seem more plausible.’

‘Like photographs in family albums?’

‘Down to the last detail. We know your methods!’

‘And you go from hospital to hospital, so as to keep a low profile.’

‘That’s right, we’re constantly on the move, even from city to city.’

‘When did you realise who I was?’

‘It was pure chance. The morning when you went into the Bonardi flat, I’d forgotten my tube pass. So I went back, and when I arrived on the landing I heard noises. I lay in wait for you in the street and saw you come out.’

‘One can never be too careful…’

‘Listen, we haven’t got much time. When I’ve done the business with the stun gun, your pulse rate will be too low to register on the cardiac monitor, so the alarm will go off, and the flying squad will take you into the recovery room. That’s where we come on the scene. We’ll put you into a bogus ambulance and get you out of here, and we’ll have to sedate you, to get through the check points.’

‘But why do you want to save my life, Mrs…what should I call you? Bonardi? Loiacono?’ An expression of unease flickered over her face again.

‘I see you haven’t wasted any time…’

‘I’m a policeman…’

‘As you will have suspected, Loiacono is a false name, too.’

‘Well, I thought so. But it could be a clue.’

She bit her lip. ‘It could indeed,’ she said thoughtfully. Then, reverting to her previous briskness:

‘You could call me “death’s angel”. Isn’t that what you call us?’

‘All right, death’s angel. What do you want in exchange?’

‘Information. About the ceremony on Easter Day. About where the marksmen will be positioned; how many plainclothes policemen will be there, how to recognise them, what time will the pope be arriving on the podium, who will be with him, the route of the pope-mobile…that kind of thing.’

Salazar thought that it might be as well to make the bogus Mrs Bonardi believe that he had something to divulge. He tried to think who among the police had laid that trap for him; perhaps some corrupt secret service agent who wanted to trip him up? Perhaps his anti-reformist activism had irked someone? Or perhaps, more simply, he had trodden on the toes of some bad egg who had friends in high places?

‘And how can I be sure that it won’t be you who kills me?’

‘You can’t. But if you stay here, you’ll die anyway. Perhaps as soon as this evening. With this,’ the woman said, pointing to the tube with the drip she was still gripping between her fingers. ‘Between shifts, someone will come and inject another liquid into the bag.’

‘Is that what they do?’

‘We’ve seen all sorts.’

Salazar was exhausted. Now he could scarcely speak; he felt extremely weak, and his head was spinning. He looked the woman in the eye, seeking a sign of some emotion. Her mouth looked like a bloodless wound cut into the white flesh. She waved her hands around vaguely, one clutching the tube and the other the rosary, as though to tell him to hurry up.

‘I can’t stay long, inspector!’

‘The deal is done, death’s angel…I’m ready!’ Salazar said after a pause.

‘Good. This is what will happen: as soon as the relatives start leaving, I’ll put the stun gun under your armpit. The cardiac monitor alarm won’t go off immediately. I’ll have the time to get away.’

Salazar looked towards the blue square of window; in the spring sky, the first cold stars were coming out. Below, he could picture the Roman streets, the warm colour the buildings took on in the evening light. He felt a sudden stabbing in his chest, gave a hoarse gasp and lost consciousness.

Guntur was running along the edge of the Oosterpark towards the Nieuwe Diep. Only too late had he realised that that man was not Aren De Smet. He should have had his suspicions even at the station: when he met him on the platform where the train from Leyden had pulled in, De Smet was coming out of the subway, so he could not have just come off that train. Furthermore, he had nothing of the university professor about him, with that strange little leather bag on his shoulder. He was too elegant, and too athletic. Also, he was too African, too dark for what he was supposed to be. He even had an issue of the Nieuwe Afrikaanse Courier in his pocket. They had gone straight to the laboratory. Guntur had managed to get Django to speak while the man from Leyden listened from behind the terrarium. Then he had come forward, had pulled a recording device out of his coat pocket and held out the microphone towards the chimpanzee, attaching it to one of the bars. Guntur had objected: he didn’t want any recordings. The African had smiled politely and reassured him, explaining that he was making a recording so that he would be able to analyse the sounds made by the chimpanzee on his equipment. He assured Guntur that he had no intention of using the films for any other purpose, but he would leave him the recording device if that was what Guntur preferred.

‘If you like, you could come to my institute with the recording and help me while I scan it. Such a scan will enable me to locate the phonatory organs with extreme precision, together with the muscle movements and their link-up with the brain. Of course, an electroencephalogram would be even better; but I don’t suppose that would be easy.’

‘I’ve already tried. But I had to sedate him, and as a result his reactions were different: he couldn’t speak,’ Guntur had explained, now somewhat reassured, though there was still something which worried him. It was indeed Swahili that the man had been speaking when he talked to Django; Guntur had recognised a number of words. But the chimpanzee had been strangely nervous; he had made agitated gestures, waving his paws in front of his face, beating his chest and baring his teeth, as he did when he was irritated. Then he had climbed up on to the highest walkway and expressed his apparent disapproval of the man, who then seemed to lose interest, leaving the recording device running and looking around him. Guntur had thought that he was looking for a safer place to rest his microphone, and he had gone to the laboratory to look for some adhesive tape. On his return, he found his guest apparently measuring the width of the grille, casting glances in the direction of the fire escape running up the outer wall of the warehouses which bordered the first stretch of the canal. Seeing Guntur come in, the man had ceased his observations and come towards him, clearly enthusiastic.

‘It’s a sensational discovery. That was Swahili he was speaking, no two ways about it! Of course they’re just random ready-made phrases with no logic to them; but the animal can clearly speak!’ he said, almost squeaking with excitement as he picked up his tape recorder. That’s odd, Guntur had thought; it hadn’t seemed to him that Django had uttered a single word in the man’s hearing, only grunted and bellowed. But then he thought that perhaps the chimp had spoken when he had gone out to get the adhesive tape. As promised, the man had then handed over the recording device, though he’d asked him to think about his suggestion.