Cosi Fan Tutti by Michael Dibdin

Author:Michael Dibdin [Michael Dibdin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780571274116
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2010-09-21T16:00:00+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. A pattern 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. The truck itself went missing from the municipal depot two months ago.

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