Free Back to Bologna by Michael Dibdin Page A

usual academic tittle-tattle sent or forwarded by his friends and admirers all over the world.
    He clicked open the last unopened email message. The subject header was blank and the ‘From’ box contained only a Hotmail address consisting of a string of apparently random numbers. As for the message itself, there was no text, just a line drawing–an engraving, rather–of a male hand, the thumb and index finger almost joined to form a circle.
    Ugo gazed at it for some time, then walked through to his library, located in the former living and reception rooms of the villa, now knocked through to form one vast and tranquil space. Here he opened a drawer in a handsome rosewood cabinet and consulted the well-thumbed handwritten index cards inside. A minute or so later he had located the position of the volume and, having hauled over the wheeled ladder used for accessing the higher of the eight rows of shelves, was leafing through Andrea de Jorio’s classic 1832 text about southern Italian gestures and their origins in classical antiquity.
    Yes, there it was: ‘
Disprezzo
’, contempt. Although the tactful Neapolitan cleric had no more than hinted at this, the root significance of the sign was of course blatantly sexual. It was the most powerful non-verbal insult that existed, what de Jorio had termed ‘the superlative form’ of other offensive gestures.
    Basically, someone was telling him to fuck off.

9
    Barefoot and wearing her raincoat as a dressing gown, Flavia was savouring a cigarette and stirring a pan of sauce when there came a pattern of heavy raps at the door. She went to squint at the caller through the fish-eye lens, getting only a general impression of a hat, dark glasses and a heavy overcoat.
    ‘Who is it?’
    ‘Police.’
    She took another peek, then unbolted and opened the door. The man flashed a plastic card from his wallet. Flavia made out the word ‘Speranza’ but nothing more.
    ‘May I come in?’ he asked.
    He looked more like a secret policeman than the regular sort, thought Flavia, although such men did not present identification or ask permission to come in. But there was only one reason why the police should be interested in her and the other girls living in those rooms, and that was to effect their immediate deportation under the new immigration laws that had been rushed through to satisfy the xenophobic electorate of various politicians whose support was essential to the survival of the governing coalition.
    The intruder stood at the centre of the room, looking about him at the mattresses on the floor, the fruit crates used as cupboards, the pot of pasta sauce simmering on the hotplate, the length of blue nylon cord suspended between two bent nails and serving as a communal wardrobe. In an inversion of its normal function, Flavia wrapped the raincoat tightly about her body, still wet and cold from the primitive shower in the opposite corner.
    ‘Nice place,’ the man remarked.
    This was too obvious a provocation to merit a reply.
    ‘You sharing?’
    Flavia shook her head. There was just a chance of saving the other girls, if she could somehow get word to them before they came home. Didn’t they have to allow you a phone call here in Europe? The man was staring at their meagre possessions, in full view all around. There was still a chance, though, since these added up to less than a quarter of what the average Italian woman would have regarded as the basic minimum.
    The policeman took a studio photograph from the inside pocket of his double-breasted coat and showed it to Flavia.
    ‘You know this person,’ he said.
    She recognised Rodolfo’s flatmate immediately, although she had never seen him wearing a jacket and tie, but shook her head again. The intruder replaced the photograph and produced a shiny metal hip flask from which he took a long gurgling drink.
    ‘Sure you do,’ he said, wiping his lips. ‘Name’s Vincenzo. Vincenzo Amadori.’
    He swapped the flask for a packet of