A long finish az-6

by Michael Dibdin

  A vehicle pulled up outside. Zen walked over to the window, then went to the door and called to the uniformed officer getting out of the police car.

  ‘Wait there! I’ll be out shortly.’

  He came back into the room.

  ‘How do you get down to the cellar?’ he asked Lisa.

  ‘There.’

  She pointed to a door in the corner.

  ‘But there’s another way in, too, I suppose. For deliveries and so on?’

  ‘At the far end of the house,’ she confirmed. ‘A flight of steps goes down from the yard. Why are you asking all these questions?’

  ‘I’m just trying to get things straight in my mind. Just two more questions, and I’ll leave you to get on with your homework.’

  ‘Actually, I’ll probably watch TV!’

  Zen nodded and winked conspiratorially.

  ‘I’ll try to keep it brief. You mentioned just now that you inherited some money from an Aunt Chiara. Is that her picture?’

  He pointed to the framed photograph. Lisa nodded.

  ‘It was taken the day she was confirmed. Isn’t her dress fabulous? I wonder what became of it.’

  ‘So Chiara Vincenzo was your aunt?’

  Lisa laughed.

  ‘No, no, not really. I just called her that. And we never called her Vincenzo. She was always Signora Cravioli here.’

  ‘Did she come here often?’

  ‘Once a month or so. She walked here across the fields and stayed for about an hour. She’d never learned to drive, you see.’

  ‘Why did she come?’

  Lisa thought about this, as if for the first time.

  ‘I’m not really sure. She used to sit in the front room with Gianni, and… I don’t know what they did, really. They didn’t seem to talk much. It was odd, I suppose. But she was always very kind to me, bringing me little presents, some fruit or a cake she’d baked. I just took it all for granted.’

  Zen was silent for so long that the girl eventually added, ‘And your second question?’

  ‘Ah. I’m afraid that’s a little more delicate, signorina.’

  Lisa Faigano gave an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘Go on.’

  Zen looked down at his shoes.

  ‘Did Manlio Vincenzo ever propose marriage to you?’

  ‘Manlio? Of course not!’

  ‘He never mentioned the matter?’

  Lisa blushed charmingly.

  ‘He mentioned once that his father was keen on the idea. But that was just to warn me, in case I heard about it from someone else. It could have been an awkward situation.’

  ‘So neither of you took the idea seriously?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Zen walked over to the dresser and inspected the photograph again.

  ‘Did you tell your father or Gianni about it?’ he asked, without turning round.

  Lisa hesitated.

  ‘I wasn’t going to, but someone must have gossiped. We met in the village, and there were lots of people coming and going. One of them must have told Dad, because he brought it up over dinner.’

  Another pause.

  ‘I used to have a bit of a crush on Manlio at one time you see,’ she said all in one breath. ‘Just silly adolescent stuff, nothing serious. He never even knew about it, and I’d have died if he’d found out. But I used to keep a diary at the time, and my father read what I’d written about Manlio. He got in a raging fury and made me swear on Mamma’s grave never to see him or to speak to him.’

  Zen finally turned to face her.

  ‘Did he explain why?’

  ‘No. He just said there was a very good reason which he would tell me when I was older. But I was scared. I’d never seen Dad like that, so intense and angry. Of course I started imagining all sorts of things. I thought perhaps we might be related, Manlio and me. I’d always wanted a sibling, and it didn’t seem that far-fetched an idea, not round here. You hear all kinds of odd stories. About that man who was just here, for instance.’

  ‘Minot?’

  The girl’s cheeks turned even brighter pink.

  ‘They say his father was also his grandfather, if you see what I mean.’

  Zen clearly didn’t.

  ‘I mean that his mother was abused by her own father and Minot was the result,’ Lisa said quickly. ‘I don’t know if it’s true. He’s an odd sort, keeps to himself, and people are a bit afraid of him for some reason. They may just have made it all up, but I’ve heard similar things about other people, back in the old days. There wasn’t much else to do, I suppose, and this area was so isolated. Half the folk in the village had never even been to Alba.’

  Zen scribbled something in his notebook.

  ‘When did you meet Manlio in Palazzuole?’

  ‘Oh, that was later, after he got back from abroad. He phoned and said he had something important to discuss, and would I meet him at the bar in the village. I didn’t see why not. I’d completely forgotten about Manlio by then. Besides, I’d heard he’d met someone in America. Anyway, that’s when he told me about Aldo’s plans. He was just being kind, trying to protect me in case the whole thing came out somehow.’

  ‘And how did your father react when he heard that you’d disobeyed him?’

  Lisa looked away, out of the window.

  ‘It was even worse. He wasn’t angry. He just marched me to the telephone, made me phone Manlio and then stood over me while I told him never to call me again and a lot more cruel things I don’t want to repeat.’

  ‘What did Manlio say?’

  ‘He said, “Very well,” and hung up.’

  There were tears in her eyes now.

  ‘Why does it all have to be horrible? I don’t understand! I just don’t understand.’

  Zen was about to go and comfort her, but then thought better of it.

  ‘Well, thank you, signorina,’ he said, putting his notebook away. ‘I’m sorry I’ve brought back painful memories, but you’ve been very helpful. I’ll naturally let you know when you can expect your father and uncle home again. But supposing all this takes longer than I thought, is there somewhere you could go?’

  ‘There’s my aunt in Alba, my real aunt. But Dad’s not in any real trouble, is he?’

  ‘Not so far as I know. And, believe me, I’m just as anxious as you are to get this whole thing over with. In fact I can’t wait to get out of this place, to tell you the truth.’

  The girl made a face.

  ‘You’re not the only one.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Milan, to study mathematics.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next year. More precisely, in ten months, two weeks and six days. Do you know Milan?’

  ‘I used to work there.’

  Lisa looked at him eagerly.

  ‘Is it as ghastly as everyone says?’

  Zen smiled.

  ‘It’s even worse. Crowded, noisy, dirty and dangerous. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time there, signorina. If I don’t see you again, let me wish you the best of luck.’

  He opened the door and walked out, leaving the girl standing all alone in the large, empty house.

  ‘We want a lawyer,’ said Gianni Faigano.

  ‘That’s right,’ his brother added. ‘We have a right to legal representation.’

  It was twenty-past five in the afternoon. The sky was dulling, draining away to the west, chased by the long night coming. Aurelio Zen took off his overcoat and hat and laid them on the desk in the centre of the room.

  ‘A lawyer?’ he said. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘To protect our legal rights,’ replied Gianni.

  ‘With regard to what?’

  ‘Whatever this is about.’

  Zen sat down behind the desk, surveying the two standing men. There was a hard wooden stool facing the desk, but the only other chair was occupied by Nanni Morino, resplendent in a tweed jacket, canary yellow pullover, sky blue shirt and red tie. A legal notepad was propped open
on his knee, and in the intervals between taking down the proceedings in shorthand he concentrated on picking his teeth with a blade unfolded from a Swiss Army knife.

  ‘What do you think it’s about?’ Zen asked the Faigano brothers.

  ‘How the hell are we supposed to know?’ snapped Gianni. ‘The last time I saw you, you claimed to be a reporter for some paper in Naples!’

  ‘It’s for you to tell us what it’s about,’ Maurizio insisted stolidly.

  ‘Or our lawyer,’ added Gianni.

  Zen surveyed them with an expression of bewilderment.

  ‘It’s about wine, of course.’

  The two brothers conferred briefly and silently.

  ‘Wine?’ echoed Gianni.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Zen. ‘Specifically, the undocumented shipment you made to Bruno Scorrone the other day.’

  The ensuing silence was broken by the click of Nanni Morino’s dental aid returning to join its numerous relatives and then the squeaks of his pen.

  ‘That’s all?’ Gianni Faigano blurted out.

  Zen frowned.

  ‘What else would it be?’

  Maurizio’s relief was evident in his laugh.

  ‘Well, you know, it’s just that we heard that you’d been sent up here from Rome to investigate Aldo Vincenzo’s murder. And then you tried to pump Gianni about it over lunch, so when your men came to bring us in we naturally assumed that…’

  The scene was a second-floor office in the Alba police station. It was small and dingy and had been unused for some time. A thick layer of dust covered every horizontal surface like a natural secretion.

  Zen got up from the desk and, with some difficulty, opened the window. It was evidently the first time in years that this had been done, and the musty, enclosed odours lingered in the air, mingled with currents from the cool darkness outside and the sounds of merriment and sociability drifting up from the street below.

  ‘Scorrone?’ Gianni Faigano remarked with exaggerated casualness. ‘Sure, we sent him some wine from time to time. When we had a back stock we couldn’t shift, or needed some cash right away. Bruno could always use some good stuff to bulk out his blend.’

  He paused and shot Zen a shrewd glance.

  ‘But I don’t understand why someone like you should be taking an interest in this sort of thing, dottore. We might have been in technical violation of some law or other, but people round here do it all the time. It’s like borrowing a little oil or a couple of eggs from a neighbour. There’s no call for you to round us up at gunpoint over something like that.’

  ‘Let’s stick to the point, shall we? The sooner we get this cleared up, the sooner you can go home. Scorrone’s widow has testified that he went down to the winery after lunch to take delivery of a shipment of wine. We know that the wine was yours…’

  ‘We haven’t admitted that,’ Gianni put in sharply.

  ‘You don’t need to, although you would have improved your position by doing so. Scorrone kept an informal account book in which he recorded all shipments and deliveries, with the name of the producer, quantity and price paid. You’re clearly identified as the source of the two thousand litres of red wine due to be received that afternoon.’

  He gave the brothers a moment to digest this piece of misinformation.

  ‘So what do you want from us?’ asked Maurizio.

  ‘The name of the person who made the delivery.’

  Maurizio Faigano glanced away. Zen looked at his brother, who was studying a battered filing cabinet in the corner with mute intensity. A succession of disconnected noises wafted up from the street like fragments of wind-borne seed.

  ‘It was Minot,’ said Gianni.

  Zen nodded.

  ‘I know.’

  As though stunned by the failure of some party turn, Gianni Faigano stared at Zen with genuine rage.

  ‘Then what are we doing here, if you already know? First you tell us this is all you need to know, and now you claim that you knew all along!’

  Zen fixed them with an intimidating glare.

  ‘The results of the autopsy held today confirm that Bruno Scorrone died as the result of injuries sustained in an assault with a broken bottle, the body later being dumped in the wine vat where it was found. Your friend Minot is thus our prime suspect at this point. I needed corroboration from you that he had indeed visited the winery at about the time Scorrone was killed.’

  He looked back at the window, his back turned to the two brothers, observing their reflections in the glass.

  ‘Now we come to the matter of motive,’ he said. ‘After searching your house under the terms of a warrant I obtained this morning, I went to see Enrico Pascal, the local Carabinieri official. He told me various things of interest, notably that Bruno Scorrone had made verbal allegations which appeared to implicate this Minot in the death of Beppe Gallizio.’

  ‘What’s all this got to do with us?’ demanded Maurizio Faigano.

  Zen turned round.

  ‘According to the maresciallo, Minot is citing you two as his alibi in the Gallizio affair.’

  Another quick, mute, fraternal glance.

  ‘Apparently he claims that you were all three out after truffles that night. Is that correct?’

  Silence.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I want a lawyer,’ said Gianni.

  ‘So do I,’ said Maurizio.

  Zen stared at them for a long time. Then he turned to Nanni Morino, who was just concluding another page of hieroglyphs.

  ‘How many cells do we have free?’

  Morino consulted the ceiling.

  ‘All of them, at the moment. It’s been quite quiet recently.’

  ‘How many is all?’

  ‘Six. They’re down in the basement, three on one side and three on the other.’

  Zen nodded lugubriously.

  ‘Do you like music, Morino?’

  ‘Music? How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that half the cells here are going to be occupied overnight,’ Zen remarked dreamily, ‘and I don’t want any possibility of conversation between the detainees.’

  It took Morino another moment or two to get it. Then his face lit up.

  ‘I’ve just got a new Sony boombox! Eighty watts RMS, with a superbass feature that makes the walls bulge.’

  ‘And what sort of music do you have?’

  ‘At the moment I’m into salsa. That’s a sort of Latin-American dance music which…’

  ‘Is it loud?’

  Morino’s smile widened.

  ‘It’s loud.’

  Zen yawned lengthily.

  ‘Excellent. In that case we can treat our house guests to an all-night crash course in the wonders of Latin-American culture.’

  He picked up the phone.

  ‘Dario? Who else is on duty? All right, put him on the desk and get up to room 201 right away.’

  ‘Are you proposing to hold us here overnight?’ demanded Gianni Faigano.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘Illicit trafficking in wine and probable tax evasion. You have indicated that you will not respond to my questions without the presence of a lawyer. It is too late to obtain the services of an avvocato at this hour, so I am obliged to detain you until tomorrow.’

  There was a rap at the door and Dario appeared.

  ‘Take these two down to the basement,’ Zen instructed him. ‘Put them in separate cells as far apart as possible, and stay down there until relieved. I want you to make sure that they don’t have a chance to communicate before or after they’re locked up. Understood?’

  Dario nodded.

  ‘No problem. Come on, you.’

  ‘And our third guest?’ queried Nanni Morino as the door closed. ‘This Minot, right?’

  ‘Ah, you’re the quick one!’ murmured Zen with a hint of irony. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’re going to have to drive out to Palazzuole tonight and bring this character in.’

  Morino got to
his feet.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure to watch you at work, dottore! Round here, of course, we don’t have much call for those kind of skills, but it’s a privilege to watch a virtuoso in action.’

  Zen gestured awkwardly.

  ‘There was nothing to it, really.’

  ‘Nothing to it? On the contrary! The way you manipulated that pair into giving crucial evidence against this friend of theirs, and then pinned them down on an alibi which both they and we know is false… It was masterly! And your strategy was a stroke of genius. When everyone was expecting a frontal assault on the Vincenzo case, you attack instead on the flanks with Gallizio and Scorrone. All three murders are linked, of course, so if you nail this Minot for one of them, it’s just a matter of time before we get him for the others as well.’

  He started towards the door.

  ‘Just a moment!’

  Nanni Morino turned back with an expectant look. Zen coughed and, perhaps by association, lit a cigarette.

  ‘Thanks for the compliments.’

  ‘I meant every word,’ Morino assured him. ‘It was an inspiration and a privilege to…’

  ‘But we seem to be at cross purposes. I want this Minot brought in so that we can go to work on him. But I don’t think he did it.’

  Morino stared at him in amazement.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  Zen jerked his forefinger towards the floor.

  ‘Our friends downstairs. At least, one of them.’

  Nanni Morino looked down, scratching his eyebrow, as if reviewing the facts. Clearly they didn’t add up.

  ‘I don’t quite…’ he began.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Zen told him.

  Morino did so. Zen dragged his chair round from behind the desk and seated himself opposite the young inspector.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s go through the whole thing point by point. If we’re going to work this case together, we’d better get our agenda clear.’

  The telephone woke him, a salvation as cruel as a harpoon descending fathoms to skewer a drowning man and haul him, gored but alive, back to the surface. Blind blunders with the lamp followed, then the brutality of light masking a tumbler of water which spread a glistening trail across the glass-topped table before rolling over the edge and landing on the ingrowing nail of his big toe. And when he finally got the receiver to his ear…