"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 05" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

'Sorry!'
'Excuse me!'
The collision had only been slight, but the young man in
the leather jacket looked deeply startled, as Zen had
intended he should be. Close to, his sheen of toughness
fell apart like an actress's glamour on the wrong side of the
footlights. Despite a virile stubble, due no doubt to
shaving last thing at night, his skin looked babyish, and
his eyes were weak and evasive.
'It always happens!' Zen remarked.
The man stared at him, mystified.
'When there's no one about, I mean,' Zen explained.
'Have you noticed? You can walk right through the
Stazione Termini at rush hour and never touch anyone,
but go for a stroll up here and you end up walking straight
into the only other person about!'
The man muttered something inconclusive and turned
away. Zen set off in the opposite direction. Not only
would the encounter have shaken Leather Jacket, but it
would now be impossible for him to pass off any future
contacts as mere coincidence. That constraint would force
him to hang back in order to keep well out of sight, thus
giving Zen the margin he needed.
He made his way through a maze of gravelled paths
winding among sections of ruined brick wall several
metres thick. Lumps of marble lay scattered about like
discarded playthings. Isolated stone-pines rose from the
ruins, their rough straight trunks cantilevering out at the
top to support the broad green canopy. Here and there,
excavations had scraped away the soil to expose a fraction
of the hidden landscape beneath the surface. Fenced off
and covered with sloping roofs of corrugated plastic
sheeting, they looked like the primitive shelters of some
future tribe, bringing the long history of this ancient hill
full circle in the eternal darkness of a nuclear winter.
A line of pines divided this area from a formal garden
with alleys flanked by close-clipped hedges. Screened by
the dense thickets of evergreen trees and shrubs, Zen was
able to move quickly along the paved path leading to a
parterre with gravel walks, a dilapidated pavilion and
terrace overlooking the Forum. A fountain dripped,
bright dabs of orange fruit peeped through the greenery,
paths led away in every direction. In the centre, a flight
of steps led down into a subterranean corridor running
back the way he had come. Dimly lit by lunettes let into
the wall just below the arched ceiling, the passage
seemed to extend itself as Zen hurried along it. The walls,
rough, pitted plaster, were hung with cobwebs as large
and thick as handkerchiefs, which fluttered in the cool
draught.