Authors: Michael Dibdin
He turned and looked around, then strode into the main saloon where Gemma and Roberto Lessi lay stretched out opposite each other.
‘No, wait!’ Zen said feebly.
But it was too late. The man had found a recessed metal ring in one of the floorboards, and pulled it up to open a concealed hatchway down which he disappeared.
A door at the end of the saloon was open into a cabin with a large double bed. Zen went in, took a blanket from one of the closets and draped it quickly over Lessi’s corpse. A moment later the trawlerman returned.
‘Blockage in the fuel line,’ he said, wiping his hands on his sweatshirt. Often happens if the boat’s not used that much. It should be all right now.’
He looked around at the gaudy, vulgar luxury of the saloon.
‘Sleeping soundly, your friends.’
Zen laughed.
‘Yes, they are! We had a bit of a late night. So it’s all working normally?’
The man headed out on deck, then ran up the steps to the
cockpit
and pushed the ignition button. The engine fired immediately and settled into its previous regular throb. Zen took out his wallet.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘No, no, that’s all right. Law of the sea, isn’t it? We all help each other out. Never know when you might need it next.’
Nevertheless, he did not leave. Then Zen had an inspiration.
‘Did you have good fishing?’ he asked.
‘Not bad.’
‘Do you have a nice red mullet you could sell me?’
The man’s face creased in a broad smile.
‘We got some beauties. Hold on a moment.’
They went down to the afterdeck and he shouted something to one of the men on the trawler. A moment later, the other man reappeared and a large silvery-red object came flying through the air between the boats. Zen’s saviour caught it neatly and laid it out on the planking.
‘Still twitching,’ he remarked. ‘Only been out of the water an hour or so.’
‘How much?’
The man shrugged.
‘Whatever you think.’
Zen handed him a hundred-thousand-lire note.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘It’ll make a magnificent lunch.’
‘
Grazie a lei, e buon appetito
,’ he called, jumping back to the
fishing
boat, which nudged ahead and continued on its course.
Zen put the fish away in the fridge, then returned to the
cockpit
, engaged forward gear and revved the engine slightly. The boat obediently swung round on to its former course. He sat back on the stool and lit a cigarette, feeling pretty smug. He’d sorted everything out. It was all going to be fine.
When he finished the cigarette, he remembered that the anchor was still lying unsecured on the foredeck and went out quickly to retrieve it. A distant drone attracted his attention. To the south, a
big twin-rotor military helicopter was making its way up the coast. Zen bent down to pick up the anchor and then noticed a small rectangular black box lying just inside one of the scuppers. He recognized it immediately as the emergency communication device he had been given at the Ministry. It must have slipped out of his pocket when he fell. He bent and lifted it up, turning it to replace it. Only then did he notice that the red button on the front was glowing brightly.
It took him a moment to realize what had happened. The fall must have jarred the protective plastic cover loose, and then he had stepped on the device when he went aft to speak to the trawlerman. At which moment, at least fifteen minutes ago now, an all-points red-alert alarm call had gone out to the security
services
coded with the exact position of a boat carrying not just the indispensable Dottor Zen, supposedly menaced by an unknown but potentially deadly threat, but the bullet-ridden corpse of the late Roberto Lessi, late of the
carabinieri
’s elite ROS unit.
The helicopter was closer now, and heading straight towards the boat. Zen grabbed the black box and hurled it as far as he could into the sea. Please God the thing didn’t work underwater. He ran back to the cockpit and gunned the motor to its maximum power. The bow leapt up and a series of increasingly rapid smashing sounds from the oncoming waves made the entire hull shake. Everything not fastened down became mobile, pens and cigarettes and Zen’s coffee cup and plate spilling down off the ledge to the deck. Then the helicopter was on them, directly
overhead
now, the noise of its engines deafening. The boat bucked and shuddered as it slapped down the waves, turning the sea to either side into a creamy vector of foam.
‘What’s the hell’s going on?’
The voice was Gemma’s, but Zen did not turn. A moment later, she was in the cockpit with him.
‘What are you doing? You’re driving like a maniac!’
Zen could hear her clearly now, he realized, because the
helicopter
had gone, pursuing its unwavering course to the
northwest
. He watched it become small and insignificant, then throttled back and laughed abruptly.
‘Couldn’t help myself! The boy in me, you know. I just wanted to see how fast it would go.’
Gemma rolled her eyes.
‘I fell off the seating and banged my head on the table leg.’
‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’
All was quiet and calm again now.
‘Apart from that, did you sleep well?’
‘Like a baby. Boats always put me to sleep.’
‘Always?’ Zen enquired with an arch look.
‘Well, almost always. How have things been here?’
‘Very quiet.’
‘You must be exhausted.’
‘Not really. I’m enjoying myself. I’d forgotten how much fun boats are. There’s always something that needs attention. Keeps you awake and alert.’
‘Don’t you want a rest? I’ll keep lookout and call you if
anything
happens.’
‘Not until we’ve disposed of our passenger.’
‘And when’s that going to be?’
Zen pointed to the video screen.
‘When we get here. I don’t know exactly how long that will be.’
Gemma pushed a button to one side of the screen and read the overlaid display.
‘About forty minutes, at the present speed.’
‘I can hold out till then. Particularly with another cup of coffee.’
‘I’ll make some.’
Forty-three minutes later the beeper on the navigational
display
sounded again, announcing that they had arrived at the
reference
point which Zen had selected. By then he had brought the anchor aft and unhitched one of the mooring lines from its cleat and rolled it up beside the anchor.
Even Tommaso’s state-of-the-art echo sounder couldn’t cope with the depth of water under the hull, returning only
nonsensically
shallow readings based on some passing shoal of fish, but according to the chart they were in a zone over three hundred metres deep. Zen cut the motor and scanned the sea around them, first with the naked eye and then the binoculars Gemma found for him. The Italian coast was a ghostly memory swathed in haze, and the only vessels in sight were two freighters and a ferry, all hull-down on the horizon.
They carried the corpse out of the saloon and laid it down on
the aft decking, leaning up against the gunwale. It was stiff as a board by now, and much easier to handle. Zen climbed down the steps to the bathing deck suspended over the water aft, while Gemma levered up the other end of the body and tilted the whole thing over the edge while Zen took the weight and guided it down on to the plastic deck. He then returned for the anchor, while Gemma followed him down with the length of mooring line.
So close to the sea, the air smelt fresh and invigorating. Little wavelets splashed them from time to time as they wound the rope round and round the corpse at the neck and ankles. Zen then secured each end with a series of half-hitches and passed both through the eye of the anchor, before finishing off the job with a final set of knots and tying the two loose ends together in a reef knot. He rose, surveying his work.
‘That ought to hold him.’
‘Should we say something?’ asked Gemma.
‘Say what?’
‘I don’t know. Isn’t there some service for a burial at sea? “We commit thy body to the waves and thy soul to Almighty God.” Something like that.’
Zen grimaced.
‘Let’s just take care of the body part. You roll it over, I’ll lift the anchor.’
They worked the bundle to the very edge of the platform, where Zen laid the anchor gently on top of it like a wreath.
‘Right,’ he said with a sigh of relief. ‘One, two, three …’
The resulting splash was almost derisibly insignificant. For a few moments they were able to make out the white form
spiralling
down through the water, gradually shrinking and losing substance until it disappeared altogether. Gemma crossed
herself
.
‘What about the gun?’ she asked.
Zen clicked his fingers.
‘Good point.’
They climbed back up the ladder to the afterdeck. Zen went into the saloon, removed Lessi’s pistol from the drawer where he had stowed it, returned on deck and threw it overboard. Gemma emerged from the bathroom, where she had been washing her hands.
‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
Zen looked at her standing there in the sunlight with her
sturdy
, expectant expression. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, but it didn’t seem the moment, particularly since he had not washed his hands. Then he had an idea so totally crazy that he knew at once he would have to do it.
‘Let’s have lunch,’ he said.
Gemma wrinkled her nose.
‘Motorway cheese and salami? I don’t think I’m that hungry.’
‘I have other plans.’
He went back up to the cockpit and consulted the chart. Yes, there it was. He clicked around, set the new course and engaged the engine. The boat nosed about towards the south-east and set about its business of showing the waves who was boss.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Gemma.
‘I’m going to sleep. Keep an eye out for other shipping, and wake me in plenty of time if anything is getting too close.’
‘All right, but where are we going?’
Zen smiled mysteriously.
‘To prison.’
‘Prison?’
He nodded.
‘Like in that board game. “Go to jail. Go directly to jail”’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
Being born is confusing. Dying may well prove to be even more so. Even waking up is pretty damn confusing. Such were Aurelio Zen’s initial thoughts on emerging from a seamless, dreamless sleep. Why me? Why here? Why now?
The answer to these questions, when it popped up, seemed incontrovertible. In his mindless exhaustion, he had lain down on the very spot where Roberto Lessi’s body had been lying for all those hours. This surely meant bad luck. Even monks and nuns were threatening enough, their presence demanding a discreet jiggle of the testicles as an antidote against that other world of chastity. But there was no
gesto di scongiuro
effective against death, and he had been rubbing up against it for hours, and asleep, to make it worse.
But was Lessi’s spirit a threat, he wondered, still lying in the
shallow depression which he and his victim’s corpse had made in the leather cushions. His mother had spoken to him in the
apartment
in Rome, but that had come as no surprise. He had always known that she had the power to get in touch with him at any time she wanted. But Lessi? ‘We commit thy body to the waves and thy soul to Almighty God.’ No, Lessi didn’t have that kind of power, of that Zen felt certain. Maybe his friends did, though.
‘They don’t put the bottles in the box, they wrap the box around the bottles.’ That teasing phrase was clear enough now. He had been telling himself that there was more than one
solution
to a problem. His mind had always worked like that, in a facetious, allusive way, but its insights usually turned out to have been correct. Too bad he hadn’t understood them at the time. And what had his mother told him? ‘Just don’t ever turn your back on them, that’s all. Don’t look them in the eye and never turn your back.’ She’d been right, as always. He’d got away with it this time, but as he stood up he vowed never to turn his back on anyone ever again.
It was only once he was vertical that he realized the real reason why he had woken in the first place. The boat was completely still and silent. His first thought was that the motor must have failed again, but that wouldn’t explain the lack of motion. Really
disturbed
now, he ran out on to the afterdeck. A pile of woman’s clothing lay strewn on the planking. He looked about him. The first thing he saw was land, some kind of rocky shoreline. They must have run aground, he thought guiltily. He’d fallen asleep and Gemma had somehow stranded the boat.
But where was Gemma? No sign of her in the cockpit or on deck, apart from her discarded clothing. He called her name loudly several times. No answer. God, no! Had she fallen
overboard
, as he himself so nearly had?
‘
Ciao, caro!
’
The voice came from behind him, from the land. He turned and beheld through the midday heat haze the figure of Gemma waving to him from a sandy beach. Zen looked about in
puzzlement
. The boat appeared to be securely moored at anchor in a few metres of water in a small bay protected from such wind as there was by a low headland. The land behind the beach rose steeply in a jumble of shrubs, bushes and stunted trees. There
was no sign of any paths down to the water, and no other boats in sight.
‘It’s lovely here,’ called Gemma. ‘Come on over.’
‘How?’
‘Swim! I did.’
‘I don’t have my costume.’
‘Neither do I. This is underwear.’
Zen gestured vaguely. There didn’t seem to be any way out. He returned to the saloon and stripped off, then ventured back out on deck. Feeling as embarrassed as a schoolboy, he climbed down the ladder to the bathing deck again, then dived in and swam ashore. The water was warm and silkily salty. He shook
himself
off and walked up to where Gemma was lying, then threw himself down beside her on the hot sand.