A Long Finish - 6

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘He wasn’t, was he? Which is somewhat surprising, given the fact that he had both a strong motive and a perfect opportunity.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that!’ Tullio Legna insisted with undisguised anger.

  ‘Maybe that’s why I’m handling this case and not you, Dottor Legna,’ remarked Zen sweetly.

  He turned to Dario.

  ‘Go and find Morino, then bring the Faigano brothers up here.’

  The patrolman glanced at Tullio Legna, who stalked out of the room. Dario followed. Left alone, Zen wandered over to the window, collecting his thoughts for the coming performance. He had no doubts about the course he was taking. The encounter with Carla, and its unexpected but wholly logical conclusion, seemed to have clarified his mind like a breeze carrying off mist. He had been sleepwalking for too long. Now he was awake once more, responsible for his actions, and confident about the result.

  Nevertheless, despite the bravado with which he had answered Tullio Legna, he was well aware that it could all go very wrong. He felt like a sculptor confronting a block of expensive marble, sheer to all appearances but with a slight internal flaw. If he selected an instrument of the correct size and shape, and applied it with precisely the proper force at exactly the right place, the whole mass would open up and reveal its inner essence to him, and he could finish his work with ease. But if he miscalculated, he would be left with a botched lump of masonry which no amount of subsequent labour could ever repair.

  He turned round expectantly as the door opened, but it was only Nanni Morino, shuffling in with his notepad and a sheepish expression.

  ‘Ah, it’s you!’ Zen remarked coldly. ‘I gather you’ve been ratting on me to the chief.’

  ‘I was just keeping him informed about developments in the case,’ Morino replied with righteous embarrassment. ‘He has a right to know what’s going on in the section under his command.’

  ‘That’s all right. In your position, I’d probably have done the same. There’s no reason why you should risk your own career just to follow me.’

  ‘On the contrary, dottore,’ Morino protested, as Dario ushered in the Faigano brothers, ‘I’d follow you anywhere!’

  In a barely audible undertone, he added, ‘If only out of morbid curiosity.’

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ Aurelio Zen exclaimed, going round the desk to greet the new arrivals, his right hand held out. With expressions of mild bemusement, both brothers automatically responded. Maurizio’s hand was given a perfunctory shake, but Zen grasped Gianni’s and brought it up to his face for closer examination.

  ‘One of your nails is missing,’ he observed.

  Gianni snatched his hand away.

  ‘So?’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Working the land isn’t a desk job,’ Gianni returned with a touch of contempt.

  ‘Do you remember the occasion?’

  Gianni looked at his brother, frowning.

  ‘It was when we were bottling last year’s wine,’ Maurizio prompted. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Oh, that’s right! I’d forgotten.’

  ‘It’s common enough round here,’ Maurizio explained. ‘And that’s not counting the ones from the war. The Fascists used to specialize in that, when they ran out of more inventive ideas. They used to do it properly, with pliers. And slowly. Half the men round here are still missing a few. Once the roots get ripped out, the nail never grows back.’

  He glanced keenly at Zen, as though suddenly recalling the situation.

  ‘But why are you asking about this?’

  For a moment, Aurelio Zen looked puzzled. Then he waved at Nanni Morino, who was assiduously noting all this down.

  ‘Just “morbid curiosity”, to quote my colleague. I’ll only need to keep you a moment, and then Dario will take you downstairs and do the necessary for your release.’

  The brothers glanced at each other.

  ‘Release?’ queried Gianni.

  ‘Yes, it’s all over. Once I got the confession, of course …’

  ‘Minot has confessed?’

  Zen nodded briskly.

  ‘And that’s why I need your help. It was off the record, you see. No lawyers present, no witnesses, no notes taken. The cunning bastard waited until everyone else had left, and then confessed to the whole thing!’

  Zen burst into laughter.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it!’ he exclaimed in a tone of aggrieved admiration. ‘This Minot is certainly quite a character. He even told me why he’d done it, but as a challenge. “Now try and prove it!” he said. “You won’t be able to. There isn’t a scrap of evidence. You’ll never be able to take me to court, much less get a conviction.”’

  Gianni Faigano nodded sourly.

  ‘That sounds like Minot all right. But where do we come in?’

  ‘Because I accept his challenge, and to win I need some background information.’

  ‘About what?’ asked Maurizio.

  Zen gave a declamatory sigh.

  ‘When I searched your house yesterday, following your arrest, I noticed an old photograph on display. It was a portrait of Chiara Cravioli, later Signora Vincenzo.’

  The silence which followed had a new quality, like a fresh sheet of sandpaper replacing one worn smooth.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ snapped Gianni.

  ‘Well, you see, Minot claims that she’s the reason he murdered Aldo.’

  ‘That’s absurd! He didn’t even know Chiara!’

  Zen gestured for calm.

  ‘One thing at a time, Signor Faigano, if you please. I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I’m telling the story back to front. It’s been a long night for all of us, and I’m getting confused. Let’s begin at the beginning.’

  He sat down, looking over some notes scribbled hastily on the back of various envelopes and departmental circulars.

  ‘Yes, here we are. According to Minot, he and this Chiara Cravioli were lovers long ago …’

  Gianni Faigano took a step forward.

  ‘That’s bullshit!’

  ‘Oh!’ called Dario from the door.

  His weapon was cocked and levelled. Maurizio gripped his brother’s arm and drew him back to his place.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Zen continued in the same bored tone, ‘Minot claims that he and Chiara used to be lovers. In itself, this is of no particular interest. But he also claims that the relationship did not cease once la Cravioli married Aldo Vincenzo. In fact, he went on to say, Manlio Vincenzo is not Aldo’s son at all, but the fruit of Minot’s loins.’

  Gianni Faigano stepped forward again, unable to control himself.

  ‘That’s a damned lie! A filthy blasphemy!’

  Zen gestured helplessly, as though to apologize for an unintentional gaffe.

  ‘I’m only telling you what Minot said. And the reason I’m mentioning it is in the hope that you might be able to corroborate his story. It would give me a motive, you see, which is the one thing I don’t have at present. Once I’ve got that, I’ll call a lawyer and formally charge Minot with murder.’

  He got to his feet, shaking his head.

  ‘But first I need a credible reason for him to have killed Aldo. If the victim first stole his girlfriend and then claimed Minot’s only son as his own, it all makes sense. Even the timing fits in. According to Minot, he’d wanted to get even with Aldo for years, but Chiara had forbidden it. She was apparently a conventional person, in that sense at least, and even though Vincenzo allegedly raped her to force the marriage …’

  Maurizio grasped his brother’s shoulders and held him still.

  ‘… Chiara took the view that she was married to him for better or worse, and made Minot swear on the ashes of their youthful love that he would not harm Aldo. So it wasn’t until she died that he was able to carry out his long-premeditated revenge.’

  Zen clapped his hands together.

  ‘It’s a pretty tale, and of course the press will eat it up. “Ex-partisan kill
s to avenge teenage sweet-heart! A love affair that triumphed over death!” But what I need is independent confirmation of this alleged love affair between Minot and Chiara Cravioli. And that’s where I was hoping that you might be able to help.’

  He gave the Faigano brothers an inane smile. Maurizio glanced hesitantly at his brother.

  ‘I’ve never heard anything about that,’ he said.

  ‘And you, Signor Gianni?’ asked Zen.

  Gianni Faigano did not reply. He no longer seemed agitated. He stood perfectly still, gazing down at the tiled floor with an air of almost beatific calm, his features relaxed, his bearing simple and natural.

  ‘Presumably one of you knew this Cravioli woman?’ Zen went on. ‘To keep her photograph in the living room like that, I mean. I didn’t notice any other pictures.’

  ‘I knew her,’ said Gianni Faigano at length.

  ‘And was she in love with Minot?’

  ‘Of course not! The whole idea’s a joke. A sick joke.’

  Zen shrugged.

  ‘Minot isn’t anyone’s idea of Adonis, to be sure, but women can be funny that way. It isn’t so much the looks that get to them, I always say, it’s the force of personality. And Minot certainly has plenty of that, even now. Forty years ago, I can see him bowling over some impressionable young girl and …’

  ‘It’s an obscene pack of lies,’ Gianni Faigano stated in a quiet, hard tone. ‘A total travesty of justice.’

  Zen frowned.

  ‘I don’t see how justice comes into it. Minot’s not even under arrest yet. But since you two apparently can’t help me, I’ll have to try elsewhere. Somebody must know something. Why would Minot make up a story like that?’

  ‘Because he’s a dirty, scheming, treacherous piece of shit!’ retorted Maurizio Faigano.

  ‘Possibly, but I still don’t see what he hopes to get out of lying about it. Anyway, the local newspaper has been trying to get an interview from me ever since I arrived. This might be the moment to arrange for a non-attributable leak. I’ll make sure Minot’s story about him and Signora Cravioli gets maximum exposure and hope that something comes of it.’

  ‘You mustn’t do that,’ Gianni Faigano said with an air of finality.

  Zen looked at him oddly.

  ‘I mustn’t?’ he repeated with a sardonic smile. ‘And why not, might I ask?’

  For a moment it seemed as if Gianni was not going to answer this question. Then he pushed his shoulders back and looked straight at Zen with an air of renewed resolution.

  ‘Because it would make a mockery of everything.’

  ‘I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ Zen said impatiently. ‘In any case, I have no choice. There’s a murder to solve, and this is the only way to do it.’

  ‘It’s not the only way,’ replied Gianni Faigano.

  Zen stared at him in silence.

  ‘What would you need to get a proper confession?’ Gianni asked. ‘Not a teasing perjury like the one Minot tried to make you fall for. I mean something that would stand up in court, and which no one could challenge?’

  ‘Well, we’d need a lawyer to represent the deponent and certify that no improper methods had been used in obtaining the statement …’

  He waved his hands helplessly.

  ‘But it’s no use! Minot will never repeat what he said under those conditions.’

  ‘I’m not talking about Minot,’ Gianni Faigano remarked, as though Zen should have grasped this obvious fact.

  ‘Then who?’

  Maurizio grabbed hold of his brother once more, but with a desperation which suggested that he knew the effort to be futile. Gianni Faigano brushed him off and turned to Aurelio Zen with a perfectly serene expression.

  ‘I killed Aldo Vincenzo. Get a lawyer up here and I’ll tell you the whole story.’

  Like some children, the following day was born with a mild, sunny disposition which time merely focused and intensified. The air was still and bright, with just a hint of winter to add some welcome edge, the sky a flawless, bleached blue whose diffident haziness made it seem infinitely distant and desirable.

  On such a day, Zen felt, it would be a kind of sacrilege to stay cooped up in Alba, particularly after the spectacular breakthrough which had crowned his labours and brought his mission to a triumphant conclusion. He therefore arranged for a car to pick him up at his hotel and prepared to perform in person a task he could equally well have accomplished by telephone, or delegated, or even neglected.

  Before doing so, he called Carla Arduini. Following Zen’s declaration in the piazza outside the cathedral, her planned return to Turin had been delayed for twenty-four hours, at his expense. At this rate, he explained, outlining the successful conclusion of his investigation, they might even be able to leave together – with or without Lisa Faigano, who had angrily rejected Zen’s offer of asylum from the press once she learned that her uncle and father had been arrested for conspiracy to murder Aldo Vincenzo. In the meantime, at any rate, he had an errand to run in the country near Palazzuole. Would Carla care to join him?

  Twenty minutes later they were sitting side by side in the back seat of an unmarked police car provided through the offices of Tullio Legna. The only aspect of the situation which troubled Zen’s pleasure was that the Alba police chief himself was at the wheel. On the surface, Legna was his usual urbane self, but Zen quickly detected an undercurrent of pique, not to say hostility, in his continual expressions of amazement at the way in which Zen had ‘succeeded where all others had failed, and in so short a time, knowing nothing of the people and background involved’.

  Despite his conviction that Legna had insisted on acting as chauffeur in order to spy on Zen’s last hours in his domain, and possibly even wring some last-minute credit from a casual indiscretion, Zen appeared to take it all in good spirits. He had merely been lucky, he claimed, and sooner or later the truth would have emerged anyway. But when they reached the gates to the Vincenzo property, he told Legna to pull up and let them out.

  ‘My daughter and I will walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘But don’t you want me to stay and run you back to town?’ Tullio Legna protested.

  Zen shook his head with a polite smile.

  ‘It’s a private call which may take some time, and I’m sure a busy man like you has plenty to do. Particularly in the present situation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s still the Gallizio and Scorrone cases unaccounted for,’ Zen reminded him. ‘Gianni Faigano explicitly denied any part in those events, and there’s no clear evidence linking him to either. Now that the Vincenzo affair has been cleared up, I imagine there’s going to be a lot of pressure on you to make an arrest in the two unsolved killings.’

  He held out his hand to Legna.

  ‘In a perverse way, I’m sorry it’s worked out so smoothly,’ he recited with an unctuous smile. ‘It would have been good to have been able to stay longer and see some of the wonderful things which the Langhe has to offer. But I’m eager to get back to my family and friends, and at least I had a chance to sample the famous white truffles and some good wine. It’s been a pleasure working with you. If there’s anything I can do for you once I’m back in Rome, don’t hesitate to contact me. Arriverderci!’

  Taking Carla by the arm, he started off briskly down the track leading to the Vincenzo property, leaving Tullio Legna no choice but to drive off.

  ‘You still haven’t explained why we’re here,’ Carla pointed out mildly.

  ‘Officially, because I need to tie up a few loose ends. But really that’s just a pretext. The fact is that I wanted to spend my last day here out in the country with you.’

  He hoped this was the right answer. Carla seemed to agree, or at least to feel that she ought to appear to do so, squeezing his arm affectionately. The rapport between them inevitably felt a little strained, since each felt the need to reassure the other, and slightly resented this.

  Reciprocity went this far, but Ze
n’s view of the situation was inevitably different from Carla’s. They both might be wondering how, or even whether, the relationship would work out, but he alone knew that it was not a destiny but a choice, and one that he had made; a lie he had sponsored in the interests of maintaining what had seemed a greater and more important truth.

  So in addition to whatever doubts Carla Arduini might have about this dramatic turn of events, Zen had to deal with a succession of nagging internal queries about whether he had done the right thing. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but then so had all the failed initiatives which littered his personal history, and which he now saw quite clearly for the disasters they were. Why should this be any different?

  That logic, though, would induce paralysis. Life was not a spectator sport, he told himself. You couldn’t opt out, and you couldn’t ever be sure of doing the right thing. All you could hope for, perhaps, was to do the wrong thing better, or at least more interestingly. Acquiring a twenty-something daughter about whom he knew next to nothing certainly promised to be interesting – and if it goes seriously off the rails, a weasel voice reminded him, you can always tell her the truth.

  They walked in silence down the track, through the mild air and the strata of sunlight, the Vincenzo house gradually emerging from behind its screens of soil and vegetation. There was a low rumble of machinery at work somewhere, as well as the distant and disconsolate barking of the dog, but the house itself appeared deserted. Zen freed himself from Carla’s arm and strode across the courtyard to the main door, which lay wide open. He knocked, without effect.

  ‘Hello?’ he called inside.

  The silence bulged lightly, like a silk drapery with a faint draught behind it. Zen rapped again, more loudly.

  ‘Anyone home?’

  He was on the point of turning away when an elderly woman suddenly appeared in a window on the second floor.

  ‘Sì’

  ‘Signora Rosa?’ asked Zen.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We came to see Dottor Manlio.’

  The woman sized them up shrewdly for a moment, then pointed to a row of buildings at the far end of the courtyard.