At a time when people in authority all over Italy are being prosecuted for corruption, there is a justified suspicion that Enzo Gavagnin, the head of the local Drugs Squad, is implicated.

He finds it in the complaints of the half crazy countess Ada Zulian that intruders are breaking into her mouldering palazzo, where his mother used to do the cleaning when he was a child.

Cristiana is the estranged wife of Dal Maschio, leader of the secessionist party Nuova Repubblica Veneta, which has risen in the wake of the Liga Nord and now looks close to success in the coming elections.

Flushed with success, Zen is planning to move to Venice permanently and set up house with Cristiana when a series of revelations following one after the other destroys his complacency.

In revenge Zen tries to turn Maschio's lieutenant Tomasso Saoner against him on the strength of their childhood friendship but only succeeds in driving his former schoolfellow to suicide.