"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 07" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

wittily. 'But what it is, quite simply, is that the tape you
gave us back is not the same tape that you took out.'
'What do you mean, not the same?'
'I mean it's not the same. It's blank. There's nothing on
it.'
'But... but...' Zen stammered.
'Also, the tapes we use here are specially made up for us
and are not available commercially, whereas what you
handed in is an ordinary BASF ferrous oxide cassette
obtainable at any dealer.'
'But that's absurd! You must have muddled them up
somehow.'
At that moment, the other clerk interrupted to hand Zen
the file he had requested. But his colleague had no inten-
tion of letting Zen get away with his clumsy attempt to
shift the blame for what had happened.
'No, dottore! That's not the problem. The problem is
that the tape you brought back is a blank. Raw plastic.'
~34
Zen fiddled nervously with the Spadola file.
'What exactly are you accusing me of?' he blustered.
The clerk gestured loftily.
'I'm not accusing anyone of anything, dottore. Natur-
ally, everyone knows how easy it is to push the wrong
button on one of those machines and wipe out the pre-
vious recording..'
'I'm sure I didn't do that.'
'I know you didn't,' the clerk replied with a steely smile
that revealed the trap Zen had almost fallen into. 'Our
tapes are all copy-protected, so that's impossible. Besides,
as I said, the brand was different. So a substitution must
have taken place. The question is, where is the original?'
There was a crash as the Spadola file fell to the floor,
spilling documents everywhere. As Zen bent down to
pick them up, the assembled clerks signalled their col-
league's triumph with a round of laughter.
Zen straightened up, holding a video cassette.
'46g29 BUR 43$/K/95,' he read from the label. 'Isn't that
the one you've been making so much fuss about?'
'Where did that come from?' the clerk demanded.
'It was inside the file.'
Without another word, he went back to picking up the
scattered documents. The clerk snatched the tape and
bustled off, muttering angrily about checking its auth-
enticity.
Zen wasn't worried about that, having played it
through the night before, after he and Gilberto spent the
best part of an hour rewinding the damn thing into the
cassette by hand. His mother had gone to bed by then,
still blissfully ignorant that a stranger had entered the