Читать онлайн «Vendetta»

Aurelio Zen lounged on the sofa like a listless god, bringing the dead back to life. With a flick of his finger he made them rise again. One by one the shapeless, blooddrenched bundles stirred, shook themselves, crawled about a bit, then floated upwards until they were on their feet again. This extremely literal resurrection had taken them by surprise, to judge by their expressions, or perhaps it was the sight of each others' bodies that was so shocking, the hideous injuries and disfigurements, the pools and spatters of blood everywhere.

'He did it. '

Zen's mother was standing in the doorway, her nightdress clutched around her skimpy form.

'What's wrong, mamma?'

She pointed at the television, which now showed a beach of brilliant white sand framed by smoothly curved rocks. A man was swimming backwards through the wavelets. He casually dived up out of the water, landed neatly on one of the rocks and strolled backwards to the shaded lounging chairs where the others sat sucking smoke out of the air and blowing it into cigarettes.

'The one in the swimming costume. He did it. He was in love with his wife so he killed him. He was in another one too, last week, on Channel Five. They thought he was a spy but it was his twin brother. He was both of them. They do it with mirrors. '

Mother and son gazed at each other across the room lit by the electronically preserved sunlight of a summer now more than three months in the past. It was almost two o'clock in the moming, and even the streets of Rome were hushed.

Zen pressed the pause button of the remote control unit, stilling the video.

'Why are you up, mamma?' he asked, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice. This was breaking the rules.

Once she had retired to her room, his mother never reappeared. It was respect for these unwritten laws that made their life together just about tolerable from his point of view.

'I thought I heard something. '

Their eyes still held. The woman who had given Zen life might have been the child he had never had, awakened by a nightmare and seeking comfort. He got up and walked over to her.

'I'm sorry, mamma. I turned the sound right down…'

'I don't mean the TV. '

He interrogated those bleary, evasive eyes more closely.

'What, then?'