"I understand you work for the police, Dottor Zembla. I have a personal problem which you might be able to help me with. In return, I would be prepared to offer you a limited lease at a very reasonable rent on a small property I own near San Martino.'

Zen was lying on the bed, nude except for his socks, watching a Japanese cartoon featuring children with enormous eyes engaging in hand-to-hand combat with evil adversaries whose eyes were undesirably small.

'What sort of problem?' he said guardedly, flipping over to the neighbouring channel, where an overweight egomaniac with insincere hair was direct selling a 64piece set of silver-plated cutlery.

'It's something I'd rather not discuss on the telephone/ his caller replied coyly. 'Do you think it would be possible for us to meet briefly, say tomorrow?'

They made a date for the following afternoon in the bar of Zen's hotel. That morning at work he asked Giovan Battista Caputo if he knew anything about the Squillace family.

Caputo screwed his face into a mask of mental effort.

'Name rings a bell/ he said. 'Let me make a few calls.'

He returned fifteen minutes later with a precis of his efforts. Manlio Squillace, the capofamiglia, had died of a heart attack two years earlier following his arrest on charges of 'financial irregularities'. He had been an eminent local entrepreneur who had made a fortune from speculative land transactions in the sixties and seventies, and was widely rumoured to have been associated with organized crime. He was survived by his wife Valeria and two daughters, Orestina and Filomena.

It was the latter, Zen discovered that afternoon, who were the problem which Signora Squillace hadn't been prepared to discuss over the phone. They were in their early twenties, language students in their final year of university. With their looks and qualifications, to say nothing of the family connections, they could have had their pick of any number of nice boys from good homes and with excellent career prospects.