Michael Dibdin - Back to Bologna: An Aurelio Zen Mystery

Back to Bologna By Michael Dibdin Synopsis: When the corpse of the shady industrialistwho owns the local football team is found both shot and stabbed with aParmesan knife, Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen is called toBologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering slowly from surgery, and fleeing anequally painful crisis in his personal life, Zen is only too happy totake on what at first appears to be a routine and relativelyundemanding assignment. But soon a world-famous university professoris shot with the same gun, immediately after publicly humiliating Italy'sleading celebrity television chef, and the case intertwined withthe fates of an earnest student of semiotics and a mysterious youngimmigrant who claims to be from Ruritania spins out of control, and Zenis in no condition to rise to the challenge. There's also a wild card inthe pack Tony Speranza, Bologna's most flamboyant private detective. Back to Bologna is dazzlingly plotted,features a cast of vivid and idiosyncratic characters, and along the waydelivers both comic and serious insights into the realities of today'sItaly. "Well, I don't actually mean that, ofcourse," Nando went on. "Not literally." "No." "As in a knife through the heart." "For example." "You were speaking allegorically." "Er... yes." "My client's intention in allegedlyuttering the phrase "Someone should kill him" was entirely euphemistic, notto say parabolic' "Right. yes." "My client's intention in allegedlyuttering the phrase "Someone should kill him" was entirely euphemistic, notto say parabolic' "Right.

It's just that if the smarmybastard should happen to drop dead ..." "Which God forbid." '... then that would solve all ourproblems." "Says who? The next one could be evenworse." "Worse than Curti? You must bejoking." "Plus you're assuming that anyone in hisright mind would be prepared to buy a club where half the players are on aloan or time-share deal with other teams, and the rest will be soldoff at the end of the season to meet the budgetary shortfall. Itwould take years, not to mention very deep pockets, to turn i rossobluaround." "All right, so hold the heart attack,cancel the stroke. Now what? One more season like this and I'll..." d Nando broke off as the car's headlights pickedout an amazing pair of black legs displayed up to the white silktriangle of the crotch. "Keep your eyes on the road," Brunogrunted sourly. '... created several good chances,particularly in the second half, but this merely served to underline the thing thatBologna fans have been talking about all season, and in all honestyfor many seasons past, namely the lack of a world-class striker whocould capitalise on the many opportunities going to waste out there andput the ball in the net. created several good chances,particularly in the second half, but this merely served to underline the thing thatBologna fans have been talking about all season, and in all honestyfor many seasons past, namely the lack of a world-class striker whocould capitalise on the many opportunities going to waste out there andput the ball in the net.

The service from the wings and themidfield is always reliable and occasionally inspired, but when it comesto finishing it's the same sad story week after week..." Bruno yawned massively. - "So how are the kids?" he asked,cutting the volume of the radio to a plaintive whine. "All doing well except Carmelo. He's gotsome sort of canker on his ribs just below the wing. It must bebothering him because he keeps gnawing at it." "Can't you put some sort of bandage onit? Or just tie him up till it heals?" They drove past a rare prominence in thistwo-dimensional landscape, one of the vast tumuli where the city'sgarbage was interred, its burning vapours a perpetual flame ofremembrance. "They go crazy if you try and restrainthem.

I'm taking him to the doctor tomorrow. He needs to get on a courseof antibiotics." "They say now you shouldn't overdo thatstuff. Lowers your immunity to flu or something." "Birds don't get flu." "Sure they do. Remember that Chinesechicken scare?" "Carmelo isn't a chicken." Nando was a handsome hunk from some villagedown in the Abruzzi that Bruno had never heard of, whose latest doomeddream was to get his hands on the ten-cylinder, 500 bhp, 300 km/hGallardo coupe which the Lamborghini company had recently donated tothe Polizia di Stato for mutual public relations purposes. Built likea wrestler, with a neat black beard and an amiable but unfocusedsmile, he had for some reason married himself off to a skinny, neuroticharridan from Ferrara. Presumably to compensate for the fact thattheir marriage was and would remain childless, the couple kept a total ofeleven parrots and cockatoos in their two-bedroom apartment.

Thebirds perched on your shoulder, nibbled your ear and shat on yourjacket, and the whole place stank. Bruno had been there for dinner. Once. He and Nando were on their way back toheadquarters after having been called to the scene of an alleged burglary outin Villanova. The complainant was a slyly pugnacious electricalcontractor whose wife had just left him and gone home to live with hermother, taking their six-year-old son with her. He claimed to havecome home after work to find the apartment gutted of just abouteverything except the plumbed-in washing machine.

Since thesophisticated alarm system that he had himself installed had failed torespond, then clearly his estranged spouse, the only other person whoknew the deactivation code, must be the guilty party. It had taken over three hours to take theman's statement and to question his neighbours, none of whom hadnoticed anything amiss. Bruno more than half suspected that the electricianhad cleaned the place out himself over a period of several days, put thestuff in storage under a false name, and was now making a formal denuncia to back up an insurance claim and ensure that the 'thanklessbitch' who had made his life hell got a fair ration in return. As faras the police were concerned, it would almost certainly be atotal waste of time, demanding wads of completed forms, writtenreports and lengthy communication with the authorities in Ferrara,and never getting anywhere. Bruno didn't care, even though being rosteredthat night had meant missing Bologna FC's local derby at Ancona,postponed from shortly before Christmas after the original fixturewas cancelled due to a pitch invasion. He was bored and hungry andtired and looking forward to going off shift as soon as they got back tothe Questura, but at a deeper level he was still blissed out, eventhough months had elapsed since the miracle had occurred to cut shorthis 'hardship posting' in the far north of the country and bring himback to Bologna.

The young patrolman had stopped going to mass when heleft home, but he had recently paid several visits to San Domenico,his neighbourhood church, and on each occasion had set ten euros worthof votary tapers burning before an image of the saint in a chapel wherethey still provided real sweet-smelling beeswax candles, not themoulded plastic electric bulbs that were replacing them these days and whichalways reminded Bruno of an amusement arcade. Maybe it had even beenfifteen euros the first time. Anyway, at least he'd paid for them,unlike some people, hence the coin-in-the-slot replicas. % On a rational level, of course, he knewprecisely how his early return from the German-speaking Siidtirol region hadcome about, but this didn't alter the fact that a miracle of somesort had definitely been involved. Consider the odds. First, thishigh-flyer from the Criminalpol squad in Rome named Aurelio Zengets sent up to Bolzano on some shady case with important politicalramifications the exact nature of which Bruno had never understood.

Second,he, Bruno, is detailed to drive the ministerial envoy or whatever he wasto a windswept inn on a God-forsaken pass way up in the mountains on aback road to Cortina. Third, Bruno himself stuck in said inn for therest of the day while his passenger goes off with a young Austrianwitness to pursue his investigations -finally cracks up under thedour cloud of graceless silence and the glares of loathing lasered hisway by the locals, and finally freaks out completely at a cafe wherehe and Zen stop on the way back down the mountain, screaming actionably offensive abuse at the stocky, stolid Teutonic blockheads whohave made his life and those of all his fellow recruits a misery for monthson end. Fourth, instead of putting him on a charge for grosslyinappropriate behaviour such as to cause serious unrest in an area notoriousfor its political sensitivities and separatist aspirations, thisVice-Questore Zen offers, without even being asked, to try andhave Bruno transferred back to Bologna immediately, despite the factthat his posting still had over three months to run. Fifth, and mostunlikely of all, his benefactor delivers. Was that a miracle, orwhat? The two patrolmen were taking the shortest wayback into the city centre, along the state highway that parallelsthe A14 autostrada from Ancona and the Adriatic coast, looping throughthe unlovely dormitory suburbs to the north of Bologna to connectwith the spinal cord of the Ai. "Let's take that cocksucker," Nandosaid, reaching for the siren and lights. "Let's take that cocksucker," Nandosaid, reaching for the siren and lights.