Michael Dibdin - A long finish

‘I don’t know. I remember tossing and turning in bed, dreaming vividly. The next thing I knew, I felt a sharp blow to my forehead. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. When I turned on the light, I found myself in the bathroom, covered in blood.’

Lucchese tugged at the final stitch.

‘What did you mean about the Vincenzo business?’ asked Zen. ‘I thought he was stabbed to death.’

‘That happened subsequently. The first blow was to the temple, with something edged but not sharp. Probably a spade of some kind, since there were also traces of dirt.’

He gave a final wrench and snipped the thread.

‘There you are! Bathe it periodically with a pad of gauze soaked in dilute hydrogen peroxide, then come back in a few days and I’ll remove the stitches.’

‘For someone who doesn’t take any interest in recent news, you seem to know a lot about the Vincenzo case,’ Zen observed ironically, as he replaced his jacket.

‘The doctor who examined the corpse is a fellow member of the Chess Club of Alba. No one’s actually played chess there for over a century, of course, but we still show up once a week to smoke and chat, the handful of us who are left. Every so often we make a token effort to elect some new members, but whenever someone is proposed, one of us always seems to feel that he wouldn’t quite fit in.’

Lucchese placed the instruments he had used in the sink and peeled off his rubber gloves.

‘How much do I owe you?’ asked Zen.

‘I’m not finished yet. Suturing that cut is something that any competent intern could do. Healing your spirit will be more difficult.’

Zen glanced at him sharply.

‘I’ll settle for the first, thank you. How much?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I insist!’

Lucchese turned to him and smiled wanly.

‘I’m afraid you can’t force me to accept your money, even if doing so might make you feel better about evading the real issue.’

‘I’m not evading anything!’

‘There’s no need to shout, dottore. I am simply pointing out that the reason you required medical attention this morning is almost certainly because you experienced an episode of somnambulism, vulgarly termed sleepwalking.’

Zen gestured irritably.

‘That’s ridiculous! I’ve never done anything like that.’

‘You will yet do many things you’ve never done before, the last being to die,’ Lucchese replied. ‘On the basis of what you’ve told me, I can see no other explanation. But I quite understand your reluctance to accept it. Somnabulism is a profoundly disturbing phenomenon, bridging as it does two worlds which sanity and civilization require us to keep separate. As a policeman, you might like to regard it as a form of dreaming which leaves footprints in the soil — or, in your case, bloodstains in the sink. It is invariably the result of some profound psychic trauma, this being the injury which I loosely termed spiritual. Whenever you wish to discuss it with me, I am at your disposal.’

He opened the door for Zen.

‘And then, and only then, will I present my bill.’

Back in the living quarters of the house, Tullio Legna was deep in conversation with a young woman whom Zen assumed must be Lucchese’s daughter. The two policemen took their leave and walked down the echoing exterior steps to the courtyard.

‘So what’s this “new development” you mentioned on the phone?’ demanded Zen gruffly. He was still disconcerted by his exchange with Lucchese, as though the doctor had scored a point over him in some way.

Tullio Legna smiled broadly.

‘Well, dottore, despite this little mishap, it seems that you’re in luck!’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Come and have a coffee and I’ll tell you all about it.’

Legna led the way down the street to the Piazza del Duomo, where the Saturday morning market was in full swing. The two men skirted the crowded, bustling lanes of stalls and entered a venerable cafe in a narrow side street on the west side of the cathedral.

Zen stood sipping a coffee and listening with half an ear to some tale about a local truffle hunter named Beppe Gallizio who had been found shot dead in a copse near Palazzuole. The stitches in his forehead were beginning to ache as the anaesthetic faded, but what most bothered him was the doctor’s words: ‘Healing your spirit will be more difficult.’ The man was clearly a charlatan, some sort of amateur psychoanalyst or New Age guru. He would go elsewhere to have the stitches removed.

‘… holding a knife stained with blood,’ Tullio Legna was saying. ‘He claimed to have found it on the table, but of course there’s no proof of that. On the basis of the preliminary tests the Carabinieri have done, there seems every possibility that it is the weapon which was used to stab and mutilate Aldo Vincenzo. You appreciate what that means, of course.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Zen vaguely.

‘Manlio Vincenzo will be released.’

‘He will?’

‘Of course! This Gallizio either committed suicide or he was murdered. If it was suicide, the knife must have been in his possession all along, in which case the presumption is that he killed Aldo. If, on the other hand, it turns out that Gallizio was murdered, then his killer — who was also Vincenzo’s — must have planted the knife at his house to throw suspicion for the original crime on a dead man.’

Zen frowned.

‘Yes, I see,’ he said.

Tullio Legna laughed.

‘It’ll take ages to work out what actually happened, but the beauty of it from your point of view is that it doesn’t matter. Your remit was to free Manlio Vincenzo, right? Well, he’s been in prison the whole time, and therefore can’t have had anything to do with Gallizio’s death and the incriminating knife. He’s off the hook, and so are you. The whole balance of the case has shifted. You’ve successfully fulfilled your assignment, and without even getting out of bed!’

The police chief of Alba paid the bill and led the way outside. He turned to Zen and shook his hand vigorously.

‘In a perverse way, I’m sorry it’s worked out so smoothly, dottore. It would have been good to have had you here longer and been able to show you some of the wonderful things which the Langhe has to offer. But I’m sure that you’re eager to get back to your family and friends, and at least you had a chance to sample our famous white truffles, eh? It’s been a pleasure working with you. If there’s anything more I can do for you before you leave, don’t hesitate to contact me. Arriverderci! ’

With that Tullio Legna walked off and was soon lost in the constantly shuffled pack of market shoppers and traders. Zen stood looking after him with the distinct feeling of having been seen off the premises — very elegantly and very painlessly, but also very finally.

He went back inside the cafe and ordered an amaro, a local variety of the sweet, sticky liqueur flavoured, in this case, with truffles. He knocked it back, lit a cigarette and reviewed the situation. According to the local police chief, who did not strike Zen as the type to lie about verifiable matters, the case he had been sent to solve had solved itself without him. There was therefore nothing to stop him from packing his bags and returning to Rome by the first available train. He might as well take a ticket all the way to Palermo, in fact, and save the bother of breaking his journey.

That consideration aside, the prospect of going home just at the moment was far from inviting. His tour of duty in Naples had ended in professional triumph and private turmoil. The most disturbing aspect of the latter had been the discovery that Tania Biacis, with whom he had once had a transient, desultory affair, was pregnant — and that, according to her, he was the father.