Cosi Fan Tutti - 5 by Michael Dibdin

Author:Michael Dibdin [Dibdin, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Police Procedural, Police, Mystery & Detective, Zen; Aurelio (Fictitious Character), Naples (Italy), Fiction, Police - Italy, Mystery fiction, Italy, General
ISBN: 9780679779117
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 1996-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

La sorte incolpa

‘No, that’s not the problem. It’s that you’re unlucky.’

The speaker - a woman, judging by the pitch of her

voice - was in police uniform. She was smoking a small

cigar and wearing dark glasses. The large room was dim, the shutters closed.

‘Anyone can be unlucky,’ Zen replied.

Vice-Questore Piscopo rapped her cigar, unloading a

neat package of ash into a steel ashtray on her desk.

‘Once, yes,’ she replied. ‘Several times, even. But there is a logic in this, as in everything else. Occasions do not contradict the rule. Statistically, you have proved to be unlucky.’

She lifted a paper from the file in front of her.

There’s a pattern here, dottore, which I recognized long before hearing of your latest problem - I refer to your allowing your wallet to be stolen. Apattern which none the less might have enabled me, in a certain sense, to predict it.’

A pause.

‘In Milan, you wrongfully arrest a man for the Tondelli murder and twenty years later he tries to kill you after his release from prison. In Rome, you single-handedly

“solve” the Moro kidnapping, unfortunately too late to

save the victim. Same thing two years later, in Perugia, with the Miletti family. In Sardinia, you concoct a convenient solution to the Burolo murders to satisfy your contacts at Palazzo Sisti - who then disappear from the

political spectrum within a year or so. As if to demonstrate the degree of your incompetence, you then go on to

make absurd allegations against a leading regional politician, now mayor of Venice and a close ally of our own

minister. And now this.’

Zen said nothing. In the ten minutes since he had been

admitted to the room, Vice-Questore Piscopo had said

nothing relating to the case in hand. It had been, he now realized, a mistake to mention the theft of his wallet. He did so by way of excusing his failure to appear earlier, but it merely made him look incompetent and helpless, and

confirmed the thesis which the authorities had apparently formulated as regards his record in general. When

Piscopo finally got around to mentioning the incident of the night before, her interpretation was fully in accord with the line already established.

‘On the basis of our investigation, we can rule out the possibility of a planned attack. The killers aboard the stolen municipal vehicle were unaware of the presence of the patrol car carrying your men until the traffic accident, in itself completely unpredictable, occurred.’

Zen gazed at the reflective lenses.

‘Who were they?’ he asked.

‘The gunmen?’

Another gesture indicating that this case had already

been filed away in a capacious category labelled weird

STUFF THAT HAPPENS WHEN AURELIO ZEN IS AROUND.

‘According to witnesses, there were anywhere from four

to eight men aboard the refuse truck. All were dressed in blue overalls, like regular municipal employees, but we have questioned all the personnel concerned with this

work and are satisfied that they are not involved.

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