‘Total chaos,’ Aldo Valentini repeated, leading the way back to the Questura. ‘Every day it turns out that another big name, someone you would have sworn was absolutely untouchable, is under investigation on charges ranging from corruption to association with the Mafia. Result, no one dares to do a friend a favour any more. Nothing would please me more than to see this country turn into a paradise of moral probity, but how the hell are we supposed to get by in the meantime?’

Zen nodded. This was a conversation he had been having at least once a day for several months. By now he had the lines off by heart.

‘It’s just like in Russia,’ he declared. ‘The old system may have been terrible, but at least it functioned.’

‘My brother-in-law’s just moved into a new house near Rovigo,’ Valentini continued. ‘The telephone people tell him he’ll have to wait six weeks to get a phone installed, so he gets on to the engineer and offers him a bustarella, you know. Nothing exorbitant, just the odd fifty thousand or so to move up to the top of the list.’

‘The normal thing,’ murmured Zen.

‘The normal thing. You know what the guy tells him? “No way, dottore, ” he says. “It’s more than my job’s worth.” Can you believe it? “It’s more than my job’s worth.”’

‘Disgusting.’

‘How the hell are you supposed to get anything done with that sort of attitude? It’s enough to make you sick.’

He tossed his cigarette into the canal, where a seagull made a half-hearted pass at it before landing on the gunwale of the outermost police launch.

Back in their office, a man stood framed in the sunlight streaming in through the window. He turned as Zen and Valentini entered.