Michael Dibdin - A long finish

‘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 Zen’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.