Michael Dibdin: A long finish

‘I hear Bruno’s got a new car,’ said Gianni.

The sound of his words died away so rapidly that a few seconds later it already seemed uncertain whether he had actually spoken, or if it had just been some natural noise arising from the work on hand, or of digestion, superficially mimicking speech. More than a dozen bottles passed from hand to hand, and were duly filled, corked and labelled. Crouched in their dusty sails among the shadows above, gigantic spiders surveyed the scene.

‘One of those off-road jobs,’ Maurizio remarked. ‘And bright red, into the bargain.’

Another six or eight bottles moved from the drying rack to the filling pipe and then the labelling bench before his brother replied. ‘It’s green.’

For a while everything continued as before. Then the spiders suddenly scuttled away to the furthest corner of their webs and crouched down, making themselves small and still. A bottle had broken, scattering jagged chunks of brown glass about the floor and releasing tongues of spilt wine to scout out the terrain.

‘I’ve had just about enough of this damned argument!’ said Minot.

There was a long silence. No one spoke or moved. Then Gianni Faigano filled another bottle, which Maurizio corked and handed to Minot, who pasted on a label. The arachnids above crawled back to their vantage points and took up their octagonal surveillance once more, while the bottles resumed their progress from one end of the cellar to the other.

‘You know what gets me most about it?’ demanded Maurizio. ‘Aldo Vincenzo’s turned into a national celebrity! There isn’t a man, woman or child from here to Calabria who hasn’t heard his name. He deserved to die like a dog — unknown, unburied and unmourned.’

‘It’s our fault for letting those television people talk us into setting up their equipment on our land,’ muttered his brother.

Minot stroked his moustache with a sly expression.

‘I hear you did quite nicely out of it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, if you’d refused, they’d have found someone else.’

‘I just wish whoever did it had simply killed the old bastard and left it at that,’ snapped Maurizio. ‘No one would have taken any interest then.’

They were down to the last few dozen bottles now, all destined for a couple of local restaurants and a select number of private individuals in Alba and Asti who ordered the Faigano brothers’ wine year in, year out, knowing it to be at least the equal of that made by growers fortunate enough to own land which fell within the officially classified area of Barbaresco, Denominazione di Origine Controllata. The property belonging to Maurizio and Gianni Faigano was only a stone’s throw away from that of the Vincenzo family, but unfortunately on the wrong side of the stream which marked the boundary of the DOC zone. Because of this, the resulting product could only be sold on the open market as generic Nebbiolo, which commanded a tenth of the price.

‘I ran into the maresciallo at market this morning,’ said Minot, setting another completed bottle in its crate. ‘You know what he told me? Apparently the police are opening their own investigation. Not only that, they’re sending some big shot up from Rome to lead it.’

The two brothers exchanged a brief glance, then returned to their work. This went without incident, except when the wine started overflowing and Gianni Faigano ripped off a fingernail grabbing for the spigot. Minot retrieved the severed sliver.

‘I’ll keep this for good luck,’ he joked, as though atoning for his earlier outburst.

Once the final bottles had made their way through the production line, the three men stood up stiffly.

‘Not like you to drop a bottle, Minot,’ said Gianni, sucking his injured finger. ‘You’re not nervous, are you?’

‘Why should I be?’

Gianni smiled.

‘I just wondered, since you mentioned this new investigation of la cosa…’

‘I’m not nervous, I’m angry!’ Minot snapped back. ‘As if there weren’t enough real problems facing the country, without sending some bastard up from Rome to make our lives a misery.’

‘Speaking of bastards…’ said Maurizio.

Minot whirled round on him.

‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

Maurizio held up his hands.

‘The canine kind,’ he explained, alluding to one of the dialect terms for a mongrel.

‘Well?’ demanded Minot. ‘What about them?’

Maurizio hesitated a moment.

‘The day Aldo died, I happened to be outside the house here, clearing my head with some fresh air and a raw egg.’

‘And?’

‘And I heard a dog barking over on the Vincenzo land.’

‘Why do you keep going on about Aldo Vincenzo? Let the son of a bitch rot in peace!’

‘By all means. Only if there’s going to be another investigation, we’d better get our story straight.’

‘My story is straight!’

‘Of course, Minot,’ said Gianni evenly. ‘We know that. But some people may be more awkwardly placed, you understand? The owner of that dog, for instance.’

Minot turned to face him.

‘You recognized it?’

Gianni looked at his brother.

‘Why don’t you two go on upstairs? I’ll clean up down here and join you in a minute.’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Maurizio. ‘Come on, Minot. After helping us out like this, the least you deserve is a glass of something. I don’t know what we’d do without you, I don’t really.’

The earlier silence had been replaced by a verbosity almost equally oppressive. But Minot allowed himself to be taken in hand and steered up to the large sitting room at one end of the brothers’ house, where he accepted a glass of the wine he had helped bottle several years earlier. Maurizio left the open bottle on the table and sat down, shaking his head sadly.

‘All this, coming so soon after Chiara’s death,’ he sighed.

Minot sniffed.

‘You mean there’s a connection?’

‘For some of us there is,’ Maurizio replied, with a sigh. ‘I suppose it’s stupid, after all this time, but Gianni was hit hard when she died. In his mind, she was immortal.’

Minot stared into his wine and said nothing.

‘And just when he’d started to get used to the idea,’ Maurizio Faigano continued, ‘this happened. Every time someone mentions la cosa, it’s as if Chiara’s tomb has been descrated.’

Minot reached out and grasped Maurizio’s arm sympathetically.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

Maurizio nodded sadly. After a while, Minot let go of his arm and took another gulp of wine.

‘What was that about hearing some dog in Aldo’s vines the night it happened?’

Maurizio looked at him.

‘Oh, nothing, I suppose. I couldn’t see anything, what with the mist, but I thought I recognized the dog’s bark. You know how distinctive they are.’

The door opened and in came Gianni, a large smile on his rumpled, slept-in face.

‘Well, that’s all taken care of,’ he said. ‘How’s the wine, Minot?’

‘ Discreto,’ was the guarded reply. ‘Maybe I should have kept more for myself.’

He glanced at Gianni, who waved negligently.

‘I expect we can let you have a few bottles, in return for all the help you’ve given us. Eh, Maurizio?’

‘Minot was asking about the dog.’

‘Ah, yes! Maybe it was just a runaway. Who knows?’

‘Not with those fences that Aldo put in,’ said Minot.

Gianni poured himself a glass of wine.

‘Perhaps someone found a way through them. Or made one. All I know is that Maurizio heard this bastardin barking down there. Which is odd in itself. No one’s ever found any truffles on Vincenzo land, as far as I know.’

There was a silence.

‘So whose dog was it?’ asked Minot.