"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 12" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

They exchanged a glance.
'In that case we're all cuckolds,' Zen replied lightly.
'That's why Mauro would claim that his vigilance was
completely justified.'
This time they both laughed.
Zen lit a Nazionale and studied the young woman sit-
ting opposite him, her legs crossed, her right foot rising
and falling gently in time to her pulse. Clad in the cur-
rently fashionable outfit of black mid-length coat, short
black skirt and black patterned tights, with bright scarlet
lipstick and short wet-look hair, she looked very different
from the last time he had seen her. Not that he minded.
The Tania he loved - he felt able to use the word now, at
least to himself - was invulnerable to change, and 'as for
this new image she had chosen to show the world, he
found it exciting, sophisticated and sexy. A week ago he
would have hated it, but the life which had almost
miraculously been returned to him in Sardinia was no
longer quite the same as it had been before he had passed
through that ordeal.
'But it must be a nightmare for you,' he said seriously. 'It
was bad enough having to live there before, but now
that his suspicions have been proven, or apparently
proven...'
'I don't live there any more.'
For a moment they both remained silent, the news lying
on the table between them like an unopened letter.
Tania lifted the pack of Nazionali and shook a cigarette
loose.
'May I?'
'I didn't know you smoked.'
'I do now.'
He held the lighter for her. She lit up and blew nut
smoke self-consciously, like a schoolgirl.
'He hit rne,. you see.'
Zen signalled his shock with a sharp intake of breath.
'So I hit him back. With the frying pan. It had hot fat in
it. Not much, but enough to give him a nasty burn. When
his mother found out I thought she'd go for me with the
carving knife, but in the end she backed off and started
babbling to herself in this creepy way, hysterical but very
controlled, saying I was a northern witch who had put her
son under a spell but she knew how to destroy my power.
It scared me to death. I knew then that I had to leave.'
'Where did you go?'
He dropped the question casually, like the experienced
interrogator that he was, as though it were a minor detail
of no significance.
'To a friend's.'
'A friend's.'