Vendetta: An Aurelio Zen Mystery by Michael Dibdin Read Free Book Online Page A

CHRONOLOGICALLY, CONCERNS A LFONSO AND G IUSEPPINA B INI . B INI ACTED AS CARETAKER AND GENERAL HANDYMAN AT THE VILLA, WHILE HIS WIFE COOKED AND CLEANED . B OTH HAD WORKED FOR B UROLO FOR OVER TEN YEARS . A T THE TIME OF THE MURDERS, THE COUPLE CLAIM TO HAVE BEEN WATCHING TELEVISION IN THEIR QUARTERS IN THE NORTH WING OF THE PROPERTY . T HIS IS SEPARATED FROM THE DINING ROOM BY THE WIDTH OF THE WHOLE BUILDING, INCLUDING THE MASSIVE EXTERIOR WALLS OF THE ORIGINAL FARMHOUSE . A S G IUSEPPINA B INI IS SLIGHTLY DEAF, THE VOLUME OF THE TELEVISION WAS TURNED QUITE HIGH . S UBSEQUENT TESTS CONFIRMED THE COUPLE’S STORY THAT THE GUNSHOTS WERE AT FIRST ALMOST INAUDIBLE . I T WAS ONLY WHEN THEY WERE REPEATED THAT A LFONSO WENT TO INVESTIGATE .
T HE EVIDENCE AGAINST THE B INIS NEVER AMOUNTED TO MORE THAN THE FACT OF THEIR PRESENCE AT THE VILLA AT THE RELEVANT TIME, BUT SINCE THE ONLY OTHER PEOPLE PRESENT WERE ALL DEAD AND IT WAS APPARENTLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY INTRUDER TO HAVE ENTERED THE PROPERTY, IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE THAT THE COUPLE CAME UNDER SUSPICION . H OWEVER, THE CASE AGAINST THEM, WHICH ALREADY LACKED ANY CONCEIVABLE VIABLE MOTIVE, WAS FURTHER WEAKENED BY THE DISCOVERY OF THE VIDEO TAPE RECORDING A LFONSO B INI’S EVIDENTLY GENUINE SHOCK ON DISCOVERING THE BODIES AND BY THE FACT THAT A METICULOUS SEARCH FAILED TO UNCOVER ANY TRACE OF THE MURDER WEAPON AT THE VILLA, WHERE THE COUPLE HAD REMAINED THROUGHOUT .
    Zen paused to give his numbed fingers a chance to recover. Next on his list was the vendetta theory, which involved filling in the background about the attempted kidnapping of Oscar Burolo. This had surprised no one, except for the fact that the intended victim had gotten away with nothing but a scratch on his shoulder. Goddamn it, people had murmured in tones of exasperated admiration, how does he do it? Kidnapping was notoriously a way of life in Sardinia, and what had Burolo done but choose a property on the very edge of the Barbagia massif itself, the heartland of the kidnapping gangs and the location of the underground lairs where they hid their victims? He was asking for it!
    And he duly got it. Fortunately for Oscar, the Lincoln Continental he had been driving at the time was a rather special model, built for the African president who figured in the fictitious slave story. Oscar did a lot of work in Africa, which he liked to describe as “a land of opportunity,” rolling his eyes comically to suggest what kind of opportunities he had in mind. The president in question was unfortunately toppled from power just after taking delivery of the vehicle and just before Oscar could collect on the contract the president had signed for the construction of a new airport in the country’s second-largest city, a job which had promised to be even more lucrative than most of those which Oscar was involved in.
    Where other companies might reckon on a profit margin of twenty or thirty percent, regarding anything above that as an extraordinary windfall, the projects which Burolo Construction undertook seemed able to generate profits that were often in excess of the total original budget. Oscar had earned the sobriquet King Midas for his ability to turn the hardest rock, the most arid soil, and the foulest marshland into pure gold. In the case of the African airport, his bill had already soared to a sum amounting to almost four percent of the country’s gross national product, but on this occasion Oscar was thus constrained to realism. Even if the new regime had been disposed to honour the commitments of the former president, it would have had considerable difficulty in doing so, since the latter had prudently diverted another considerable slice of the country’s GNP to the Swiss bank account that was now financing his premature retirement. All this was very regrettable, but Oscar was a realist. He knew that while governments come and go, business goes on forever. So rather than stymie his chances of profitable intervention in the