Free Blood Rain - 7 by Michael Dibdin Page A

the woman shuffled off across the little square in front of the police station. A lifetime of humiliation and submission seemed to have made it impossible for her to look up, so she did not notice the tall, gaunt figure gazing down at her from a balcony on the second floor of the Questura.
    In all, almost an hour had elapsed before Corinna Nunziatella pushed open the obscure side entrance to the Palace of Justice, whose self-locking door she had propped open with one of Agatella’s wash rags. A few minutes after that, minus coat, scarf and plastic bag, she walked blithely through the checkpoint into the DIA section and along the corridor to her office. Opening the door, she found Laurel and Hardy in possession of her office, one lounging in her chair, the other inspecting the map of the province of Catania hanging on the wall.
    ‘Ah, there you are!’ cried Corinna with a touch of irritation. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You know what? I gave you the wrong file! I’m so sorry. This is the one you want. No, no receipt necessary, thank you.’
     

 

     
     

     
     
    If it hadn’t been for the skateboarder, no doubt, everything would have been very different. In retrospect, it would have been almost reassuring to be able to believe that this too was part of one of the conspiracies by which he seemed to be surrounded. But there was not the slightest evidence to suggest that such was the case, any more than the periodic eruptions of Etna could be credibly linked — despite the ingenious attempts of the priests and believers of various religions, Christian and pagan — to divine retribution on the inhabitants of the city for exceptionally or exotically sinful behaviour in the preceding months.
    The fact of the matter was that there was this kid zipping down the pavement of Via Garibaldi at an amazing speed, avoiding the plodding pedestrians with even more amazing skill, a mere wiggle of the hips here and there sufficing to plot a curving trajectory through the obstacles thrown up in his path, until a woman ill-advisedly tried to take evasive action herself, forcing the skateboarder to make a sudden course correction at the last moment, which brought him into immediate and violent contact with a gentleman who had just crossed the street, carrying what appeared to be a cake carefully balanced on the palm of his right hand, and had now gained what he evidently thought of as the safety of the kerb, only to receive the careening skateboarder right in the gut, a full frontal encounter which left both lying winded on the ground.
    The youngster was the first to recover, and as the one with the most to lose from this encounter, he wisely grabbed his board and rattled off swiftly down a side-street. As for the man, several passers-by went to his assistance, checked that he was not injured, then helped him up, dusted him down and retrieved the parcel he had been carrying, which had gone flying into the windscreen of one passing car and then promptly been run over by another. The man thanked them for these ministrations, and then joined in the obligatory round of head-shaking and sighs accompanying a chorus of rhetorical questions about what young people were coming to these days.
    Once this ritual had been concluded, the participants went their separate ways, which in Zen’s case was home. No doubt due to delayed shock from his collision with the skateboarder, he did not at first notice that the supposed cake which Carla’s friend had delivered as a birthday present did not feel any different from the way it had when he left his office, despite having smashed into one car and been run over by another. It took another few moments for his jangled brain to come up with the obvious inference that whatever was inside the wrapping wasn’t in fact a cake. This was confirmed by a jagged tear at one corner of the shiny ivory wrapping paper, printed with the name of a nearby café and pastry shop, through which a section of