A long finish az-6

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘God rest him, Beppe’s dead,’ was the reply. ‘If you want to pay market prices, drive into town. If you want home delivery, this is the going rate.’

  They paid, all but one, and Minot made his way home a hundred thousand lire nearer to being able to buy Anna from Beppe’s sons and heirs. They lived in the city, and not only were they uninterested in owning a truffle hound but they seemed blissfully ignorant of the animal’s real value. For the meantime Minot had kindly offered to take care of the bitch, and, needless to say, was putting her to good use, although he kept her in a shed outside the house because of the rats.

  The rats had made their appearance some years earlier: a brief incursion here, a nocturnal raid there, some grain missing from the supply Minot fed his chickens, a few chewed sacks of seed, and lots of hard, black droppings. Minot had already tried setting Anna on them once, one night when Beppe had to go to Turin for his younger son’s wedding and had let Minot borrow her in accordance with their long-standing arrangement. But Anna had been bred to sniff out truffles, and showed no interest in taking on an army of rodents.

  After that, Minot had resorted to the poison and traps, as well as ambushing them one night and shooting a dozen or so. He had even hacked one youngster in half with a shovel in his fury. But they kept coming, until one day — he still wasn’t sure why — he had set out some stale bread he had no further use for, unbaited this time. In the morning, it was gone. That evening he put down some more, together with a saucer of diluted milk.

  From that moment on, the attacks on his stores of seed and grain gradually diminished, then ceased altogether. It was as if he and the rats had arrived at an arrangement. Minot did not reveal this to anyone else, of course. People already thought that he was a little eccentric. If they learned that he was feeding rats, it would merely confirm their prejudices. But Minot couldn’t see why rats had any less right to live than several humans he could think of, always providing that they respected him and his property, of course. After all, they only wanted to survive, like everything else. Was that too much to ask?

  It was some months before his dependants risked appearing in person before their benefactor, and, when they did, it was at first the merest glimpse caught out of the corner of the eye, a flurry in the shadows at the edge of the room, the flick of a long thin tail abruptly withdrawn. Perhaps some folk-memory of the shotgun blasts which had decimated the pack still remained, or the squeals of the baby which Minot had cut in two with his spade.

  But at length these faded, too, mere myths and old wives’ tales that no one took seriously any more. The younger generation knew nothing of this house beyond the food and drink they found there every night. That was real enough; the rest just stories. So out they came, snouts twitching, red eyes alert, tails stirring like autonomous life-forms parasitic upon these parasites. Minot sat on the sofa and watched them take the nightly offering he had put down. From time to time they glanced up at him in ways he might, had he been inclined to sentimentality, have interpreted as gratitude. But Minot was a realist, and knew exactly the extent of the interest which the rats took in him. He liked it that way. Cupboard love was the one kind you could depend on.

  By now he fed his pets morning and evening, and they knew him well enough to venture up on to the sofa where he sat, even to the extent of perching on his legs and shoulders. He allowed them to scamper inquisitively about, squinting up at him and scenting the air, their whiskers keenly quivering, until he heard a car draw near and then pull up outside. With a brisk slap of his palms, he dismissed his familiars, stuffed the money which the truffles had brought him under the cushions of the sofa, and went to investigate.

  The vehicle parked outside turned out to be a Carabinieri jeep. Out of it, squeezed into his uniform like a sausage in its casing, stepped Enrico Pascal.

  ‘ Marescia,’ said Minot.

  Pascal winced.

  ‘My piles are killing me,’ he announced with an air of satisfaction, if not pride.

  ‘You spend too much time sitting at a desk!’ Minot returned. ‘Look at me. I’m out and about all day and half the night, and the old sphincter’s still as tight as a drum.’

  Pascal shook his head.

  ‘The doctor says it runs in the family. Can I come in?’

  Minot waved his hand carelessly. Enrico Pascal walked past him and stopped, surveying the floor in the room within.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got rats,’ he remarked, studying the droppings scattered about.

  ‘Eh, it’s hard to keep them out! Care for a glass of something?’

  The maresciallo grimaced.

  ‘Maybe a splash, just to keep my edge.’

  Minot nodded. The customs of the country dictated the consumption of a series of glasses of wine throughout the day, ‘just to keep an edge’. One was never drunk, it went without saying, but never entirely sober either.

  With his curiously feminine gait, Minot stepped over to the ancient refrigerator in the corner and pulled out an unlabelled bottle of the white wine named Favorita, a grape native to the area since the dawn of time and still cultivated by a few producers for private consumption.

  ‘Even worse than mine,’ commented Enrico Pascal, surveying the cluttered interior of the fridge. ‘I always assumed the wife was doing it on purpose, to make me lose weight. “You could make a fortune selling this as a miracle diet,” I told her. “One look and your appetite disappears for hours.” What’s this, then?’

  He pointed to a glass jar filled with some dark red liquid in which bits of meat were floating.

  ‘Hare,’ Minot replied, handing Pascal his wine. ‘Shot it just the other day. Do you like hare?’

  Pascal did not reply. He tossed off his wine and returned to the centre of the room, where he stood looking around in a lordly way. Minot resumed his seat on the sofa. There was a silence which persisted for some time.

  ‘Saturday morning about six…’ Pascal began at length, and then broke off.

  ‘Yes?’

  Enrico Pascal sighed deeply.

  ‘Where were you?’

  Minot reflected a moment.

  ‘Out,’ he replied.

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘After truffles.’

  With another wince, the maresciallo sank into a chair to Minot’s right, his back to the bleary light from the one window.

  ‘Yes, but where?’

  Minot smiled cunningly.

  ‘Ah, you can’t expect me to answer that!’

  ‘I’m investigating the death of Beppe Gallizio. I expect full cooperation from every member of the public.’

  The two men exchanged a glance.

  ‘It was over Neviglie way,’ Minot replied. ‘A likely looking spot I noticed a couple of weeks ago on the way back from making a delivery.’

  Pascal considered this for a moment.

  ‘But Beppe had taken Anna out that night,’ he said. ‘And you don’t own a hound of your own, Minot.’

  Instead of answering, Minot got up and went out to the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of wine.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he demanded, returning to the other room.

  Enrico Pascal shifted painfully from one buttock to the other.

  ‘At first, you see, we assumed that Beppe had killed himself,’ he announced discursively. ‘We may still come to that conclusion in the end. But in the meantime there are a few things which are bothering us.’

  Minot took a swig of wine, leaning against the mantelpiece above the cold grate.

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Well, there’s the gun, for instance. It’s Beppe’s all right, it was lying there beside the body and the only fingerprints on it are his. But Anna had been there, too, and Beppe had his mattock and his torch and all his truffle-hunting equipment with him. Why bother with that, if he’d meant to kill himself? And why bring his shotgun if not?’

  He sighed.

  ‘And then the technical people have been on to me with some problem
s they’ve been having.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I won’t bore you with the details. For that matter, I don’t really understand them myself. But when you fire a shotgun, it discharges nitrate on to your sleeve and hand. Now there were traces of nitrate on Beppe’s body and clothing, but they were apparently too weak and old to have been done that day. There was also something about the “angle of scatter”, or some such thing. They say that for the pellets which hit Beppe to have spread out the way they did, the end of the barrel must have been at least half a metre away, which would have been too far for him to reach the trigger.’

  Minot knocked back his wine.

  ‘But what has this to do with me?’

  His guest stood up and stuck his thumbs under the black belt of his tunic.

  ‘We have a witness who claims to have seen a truck like yours parked off the road a short distance from the wood where Beppe died.’

  Minot turned on him in an instant, his body tensed, ready to spring.

  ‘Who’s that? Someone with a grudge against me, I’ll bet. They all hate me, God knows why. I’ve never done them any harm, but they treat me like a leper!’

  Pascal did not lose his composure.

  ‘Not in this case, Minot. The witness in question was on his way into Alba early yesterday morning when he saw a vehicle parked in the copse to the left of the road, a red Fiat truck. He recognized it as yours, assumed that you were out after truffles and thought no more about it. Then he heard the news about Beppe’s suicide and called me to say that you might have heard or seen something.’

  He stared fixedly at his host.

  ‘So now I’d like to hear your side of it.’

  Minot sat down again. There was no point in trying to dominate the situation physically. Minot chit, they’d used to call him as a child — ‘Little Guglielmo’ — to distinguish him from another boy of the same name, a swaggering brute and bully known as Minot gross. The distinction ceased to have any meaning when the latter Guglielmo broke his neck while exploring the roof of an abandoned farm just outside the village, but somehow the mocking nickname had stuck.

  ‘I said I wasn’t there,’ Minot told Pascal. ‘I didn’t say anything about my truck.’

  The maresciallo raised one eyebrow and waited.

  ‘I was out with friends that night,’ said Minot, after a pause. ‘They brought the dogs, and they drove. When I got back my truck was here, but not where I’d left it. There was mud on the paintwork, too, fresh mud. Someone must have taken it while I was out. The key was in the ignition. I never bother to take it out. No one around here wants to steal an old crock like mine.’

  Enrico Pascal considered this.

  ‘And who were these friends?’ he asked.

  Minot shook his head decisively.

  ‘I’m not going to drag them into the shit.’

  Pascal twitched at the seat of his uniform trousers. He sat down again, drumming the fingers of one hand on his knee.

  ‘You’re making this very difficult for me, Minot,’ he said mildly.

  The answer was a laugh.

  ‘You haven’t always made things that easy for me, marescia! I’m finally getting my own back for…’

  He broke off abruptly. One of the rats had appeared on the back of the chair in which the Carabinieri official was sitting, and was now perched a few inches from his ear. Minot clapped his hands together loudly. The beast froze, then spun around in the air and vanished. Minot rubbed his palms together as though the slap had been a rhetorical gesture.

  ‘Here’s what I’ll do,’ he suggested in a conciliatory tone. ‘Let me have a word with these friends of mine. If there’s no problem, I’ll call you up and tell you their names.’

  ‘What makes you think there would be a problem?’

  Minot shrugged.

  ‘You never know, do you? Look at Lamberto Latini. He didn’t want anyone to know where he’d been that night, did he?’

  Enrico Pascal shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know, Minot. It’s very irregular. I mean, you could just go to them and work out a story together, construct an alibi for yourself…’

  Minot laughed.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Who’s going to take a risk like that for the likes of me?’

  Pascal seemed not to have heard.

  ‘I should really take you in right now,’ he murmured, as though to himself.

  ‘You don’t want another mistake, though, do you?’ Minot returned maliciously. ‘First Manlio Vincenzo, then Latini. If you get it wrong a third time, people are going to start making jokes. “Maybe he should save time and just arrest us all!” I don’t think you want that, marescia. In the city you might be able to get away with it, but out here in the country you need people’s respect and cooperation. Lose that, and your job becomes impossible.’

  Enrico Pascal stood up heavily.

  ‘You’ve got the whole thing worked out, Minot. I can’t afford another mistake, it’s true. On the other hand, I can’t afford to have two unsolved murders in my district either.’

  ‘What about this other policeman?’ Minot asked him. ‘The one who just arrived from Rome. He seemed to have some ideas about the Vincenzo business, at least.’

  Enrico Pascal stared at him closely.

  ‘You’ve met him?’

  Minot nodded and smiled.

  ‘Yesterday in Alba, at the market. The Faigano brothers and I were playing cards. He came over and introduced himself as a newspaper reporter from Naples. We pretended to believe him.’

  The maresciallo seemed staggered by this revelation.

  ‘But how did you know who he was?’

  ‘Because I’d seen him earlier in the street with Dottor Legna, who was treating him with great respect. I knew then he must be this “supercop” they’ve been talking about in the press. When he turned up in the bar, I recognized him right away.’

  He laughed.

  ‘So I started whistling the chorus to this old Fascist song! That’s what we used to do back in the war to tip each other off that there was an informer about. They couldn’t very well object, could they? We were just being patriotic.’

  Pascal sniffed loudly.

  ‘Passing himself off as a reporter, was he? These Criminalpol types, I suppose they’re trained to do all that undercover stuff. Well, at least you’ve seen him and spoken to him. He hasn’t bothered to get in touch with me. But then why would he? I’m just a country bumpkin trying to keep order here in the village.’

  He nodded to Minot.

  ‘Well, I’d better be going.’

  They walked together to the front door.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ said Pascal, turning on the threshold.

  He took something from his pocket.

  ‘I think this is yours.’

  Minot stood looking down at the knife lying on Pascal’s outstretched palm.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he said.

  ‘It is yours, then?’

  ‘I’ve never seen it before.’

  Their eyes locked.

  ‘Then why did you ask where I got it?’ asked Pascal.

  Minot’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly.

  ‘I mean, why are you showing it to me? Why did you bring it here?’

  Enrico Pascal examined the knife carefully, as if it might provide the answer to these questions. It was old and well-used, with a worn wooden handle and a long, dull blade. Both were completely clean.

  ‘It turned up at Beppe’s house,’ he replied at last.

  ‘And what makes you think it’s mine?’

  The maresciallo reflected briefly, as though trying to recall.

  ‘This witness I was telling you about,’ he said at last. ‘When I showed him the knife, he said he thought you had one like it.’

  ‘Come on, Pasca!’ Minot exclaimed angrily. ‘Stop teasing me! Just who is this supposed witness of yours?’

  Now it was Enrico Pascal’s turn to smile.

  ‘If you
were under arrest, Minot, I’d have to reveal that information. As it is, I don’t see any reason to — how did you put it? — “drag him into the shit”.’

  Minot’s face had become a hard, furious mask.

  ‘Don’t play games with me, marescia! People who do that…’

  He broke off.

  ‘Well?’ queried Pascal.

  Minot looked at him.

  ‘I don’t forget, that’s all. I don’t forget and I don’t forgive. Treat me like a man, and I’ll treat you the same way. Treat me like a rat, and I bite back.’

  He went inside and slammed the door, leaving Enrico Pascal standing on the doorstep.

  ‘While she was alive, my mother did all the cooking herself, right up to the end, when the pain got too much. So the only time I’ve ever had any occasion to fend for myself is when I lived abroad. Still, I’ll see what I can do. I arranged for a neighbour to come by and feed the hens, so there should be eggs, at least. But first let’s crack a bottle.’

  Manlio Vincenzo led the way downstairs to a cellar which appeared even larger than the house above. Striding confidently between the bins of stacked bottles, all identical to Zen’s untrained eyes, he unerringly selected three from differing locations. Back in the cold, austere kitchen, he unwound a wire cage surrounding the stopper of one bottle and poured a golden froth into two long-stemmed glasses.

  ‘A moscato from east of Asti,’ he said, offering one to Zen, ‘but not like any you’ll have had before. This is the authentic thing, made in small quantities for friends by someone who knows what he’s doing. It’s powerfully aromatic, but very light and barely sweet.’

  He sniffed and sipped, staring up fixedly at the exposed beams on the ceiling, then swallowed and nodded once.

  ‘Even better than it was last time I tried it. No one believes this stuff improves, though. The big producers have spent a fortune persuading people that it doesn’t, which in the case of their products is true, since they are biologically dead.’

  He put his glass down and turned away, waving to Zen to follow.

  ‘Now let’s go and see what we can forage. This is rather fun, don’t you think?’

  He scooped up a trug from a cabinet by the back door and led the way out into the yard. Before long they had gathered a dozen eggs from the hen coop, potatoes and an onion from a vegetable bin, as well as a selection of herbs. Back in the kitchen, Manlio diced the vegetables and set them simmering in oil. Then he went into a room next door, where whole hams and cured sausages hung from hooks in the ceiling, and removed a selection, before disappearing to yet another larder in another part of the house, returning with about a quarter of a wheel of Parmesan.