"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 04" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

Thursday, 07.55 -- 13.20





All the talk at the cafe the next morning was of the over-
night swoop by the police and Carabinieri on leftist sym-
pathizers in Milan, Turin and Genoa. 'About time too,'
was the dentist's comment, but one of the craftsmen from
the basement workshops disagreed.
'The real terrorists don't have anything to do v,~ith those
sinistrini. It's just the cops trying to make a good impres-
sion. A week from now they'll all have been turned loose
again and we'll be back where we started!'
The barman Ernesto and the dentist looked at Zen, who
maintained a stony silence. The reason for this was neither
professional reserve nor disapproval of the craftsman's
cynical tone. Zen simply wasn't paying any attention to
the conversation. He had problems of his own that were
too pressing to allow him the luxury of discussing other
people's, problems which were quite literally closer to
home.
Once again he had stayed up until the small hours of the
morning, trying without success to find the missing link
that would explain the events of the previous days. Noi
only had he not succeeded, he wasn't even sure that
success was possible. The temptation to fit everything into
a neat pattern, he knew, should be resisted. It might well
be that two or more quite unrelated patterns were at work.
One thing was sure. During the three hours he had been
absent from home the night before, someone had entered
his flat and left an envelope filled with shotgun pellets on
the sideboard in the hallway. Zen had locked the front
door on leaving and it had still been locked on his return.
Questioning his mother obliquely, to avoid frightening
her, he had confirmed that she had not let anyone in. The
only other person with a key was Maria Grazia. Before
leaving for work Zen had interrogated her without result.
The key was kept in her handbag, which hadn't been lost
or stolen. Her family were all strict Catholics of the type
who would have guilt pangs about picking up a hundred-
lire coin they found in the street. It was out of the
question that any of them might have been bribed to pass
on the key to a third party. Zen also questioned
Giuseppe, who had duplicate keys to all the apartments.
He was equally categorical in his denials, and given the
fanatical vigilance with which he carried out his duties it
seemed unlikely that the intruder could have gained