"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 09" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

Wild follies and outrageous whims die with the outsized
ego that created them, and their corpses make depressing
viewing. Even drained and boarded over, a swimming-
pool is still a swimming-pool, but Oscar's designer beach
was an all-or-nothing affair. Once the plug had been
pulled and the machinery turned off, it stood revealed for
what it was: a tacky, pretentious monstrosity. The trans-
planted sand was dirty and threadbare, the rocks showed
their cement joints, and the mystery of those azure depths
stood revealed as a coat of blue paint applied to the vast
concrete pit where the body of some small animal lay
drowned in a shrinking puddle of water.
'We can get everything going again,' Bini assured his
visitor. 'It's all set up.'
But he sounded unconvinced. Even if some crazy
foreigner did buy the place, nothing would ever be the
same again. Villa Burolo was not a house, it was a
performance. Now the star was dead it would always be a
flop.
'Well, it certainly seems to be a very pleasant and
impressive property,' Zen remarked with a suitably Swiss
lack of enthusiasm. 'I'll just have a look around the
grounds, on my own.'
Bini turned back into the house, clearly relieved that his
ordeal was over.
When he had gone, Zen strolled slowly along the
terrace, rounding the comer of the original farmhouse.
Despite the encircling wire, there was no sense of being in
a guarded enclosure, for the boundaries of the property
had been cleverly situated so as to be invisible from the
villa. The view was extensive, ranging from the sea, across
the wide valley he had crossed in the Mercedes, to the
mountain slopes where the village was just visible as an
intrusive smudge.
When he reached the dining-room window, Zen looked
round to ensure that he was unobserved, then crouched
down to examine the slight discolouration of the
flagstones marking the spot where Rita Burolo had bled to
death. Another thing that made no sense, he thought.
None of the investigators had commented on the remark-
able fact that the murderer had made no attempt to find
out whether Signora Burolo was dead or not. As it hap-
pened, she had gone into an irreversible coma by the time
she was found, but how was the killer to know that? A few
minutes either way, a stronger constitution or a lesser loss
of blood, and the Burolo case would have been solved
before it began.
Nor was this the only instance in which the killer had
displayed a most unprofessional carelessness. For
although Oscar Burolo had concealed video equipment