Michael Dibdin: A long finish

Maybe it would be best just to bury it in his vegetable garden. He could do that unobtrusively enough, then rinse out the bottle and reuse it. Waste not, want not. It was a question of how far gone the contents were. If they’d started to decompose seriously, he’d have all the village dogs round there, scratching and sniffing. The neighbours might get curious.

Minot unscrewed the lid cautiously. The smell was definitely on the high side, but not unbearably so. On the surface floated a small grey pouch of flesh which he realized with a shock was Aldo Vincenzo’s penis. He smiled wryly, thinking of the power that organ had once wielded, of the pain and damage it had wrought. It had transferred the Cravioli estate to the Vincenzo family and made a hollow, self-pitying mockery of Gianni Faigano’s life. Look at it now!

It was at this moment that Minot felt a delicate shiver at his wrist, and looked down to see a rat sniffing at the open jar. Immediately some atavistic trigger was thrown. The rats were welcome to his bread, even some stale cheese or ham on occasion. When it came to human flesh things changed. Without the slightest reflection, Minot lashed out at the beast with his left hand, knocking it on to its back. It lay there, its pale furry stomach exposed and feet wiggling, as if astonished at this unwonted aggression. With a snort of disgust, Minot smashed his fist down on top of it.

But the rat was no longer there. With an astonishing spiral leap, it twisted up and around and sank its incisors into Minot’s hand. He yelled and lashed out with his other hand, knocking over the glass jar, which shattered on the floor. The rat had already vanished, along with all its fellows.

Minot inspected the wound. It looked insignificant, just a couple of punctures below the thumb. The real problem was the incriminating mess on the floor. With a heavy sigh, he set about cleaning it up, scooping the solid items on to an old newspaper and mopping the blood into a pail. He did his best, but in the event it wasn’t good enough to escape detection by the forensic team which arrived a week later. Aldo’s blood had not only coated the tiles but seeped into the cracks and crevices in the grout between them, from which it was laboriously removed, analysed and identified. Soon afterwards, police dogs discovered the shallow pit where Minot had hurriedly buried the whole mess. The case against Gianni Faigano collapsed and, protesting his guilt to the last, he was released.

But that was all in the future. Having completed his clean-up, Minot drove off to dispose of his truffles, which he did at a price which astonished him. As for the bite, he thought nothing more of it. There was a small red swelling and an irritating itching sensation, but that gradually subsided.

It wasn’t until the following day that other symptoms manifested themselves, a sort of feverish lassitude which felt like some virus or other; a mild case of flu, perhaps. Then that evening, while he was heating up some soup, Minot suddenly collapsed. To his astonishment, he was unable to get up again. In fact, he could hardly move at all, except for an occasional convulsive jerking of his limbs. He tried calling for help, but all that emerged was a feeble croak.

Minot was a notorious recluse, and several more days passed before his disappearance was remarked on. In the end it was Lamberto Latini who found him, having called by arrangement to collect an order of truffles placed during Minot’s earlier visit. By then nearly a week had gone by, and the corpse was almost unrecognizable. Denied their usual food, the rats had had to make do with what there was.