‘You think I chose my stinking family?’ demanded Minot, his face taut with anger.
Zen sat down again, tapping the desk with the end of his pen.
‘Of course not,’ he said in a soft, soothing voice. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t care less about any of that. But I have a job to do, Minot, a case to solve. And at the moment you’re the prime suspect. We have witnesses who tie you into the killings of both Gallizio and Scorrone. The knife used to stab and mutilate Vincenzo was found at Gallizio’s house after he was shot. Scorrone told the Carabinieri about seeing your truck close to where Gallizio’s body was found, and a few days later he dies, too, and at about the time you made a delivery of wine to his azienda. There’s a pattern here, in other words, and it points to you.’
He paused, looking Minot in the eyes.
‘Unless, of course, you have any alternative suggestions to make.’
‘I have an alibi for Gallizio’s death,’ Minot gasped. ‘I was out after truffles with Gianni and Maurizio Faigano. They’ll vouch for me on that.’
Zen nodded.
‘Yes, but will you vouch for them?’
Minot looked at him acutely, his eyes dilating as though in an attempt to correct some error of vision.
‘But they’re not… I mean, you said…’
Zen gave him a devastatingly arch smile.
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t believe everything I say,’ he suggested.
Subject: interrogation of Faigano, Gianni Edoardo
Present: as above
Place and date: as above
Time: 08.11
Z: Not until ten? But I have an important case which I’m… Do you realize who you’re talking to? The suspect in question has requested the presence of a lawyer, as is his statutory right, and now you tell me… I thought I was in Piedmont, not Sardinia. Very well. All right. I’ll call back then. Dario, take him back down.
G: Wait a minute. What was that about?
Z: You told me last night that you weren’t prepared to make further statements without legal representation, Signor Faigano. I’ve just contacted our pool of court-appointed lawyers — I take it you don’t have someone on retainer yourself? — and find to my astonishment that the bastards… Substitute ‘lawyers’ for ‘bastards’, Morino. That they don’t get in to work until ten o’clock. I apologize for disturbing you. Were you asleep?’
G: What do you think?
Z: It’s too early to think. I’m just doing my job, that’s all. At least I’m awake, unlike those lawyers. Maybe a coffee would help. If anyone’s open at this hour. There’s a place I went to earlier, down by the station, but…
G: Alberto’s, on the corner where we met the other day. He’s open as soon as it’s light. He makes no money to speak of till mid-morning, but that’s the way Alberto is. If he isn’t working, he’s fretting.
Z: Got that, Dario? I’ll have it strong and short, in fact make it a double. And you?
G: The same. Why’s he taking notes?
Z: That’s his job. OK, Dario, off you go. No, leave the gun here. If Signor Faigano’s right, you won’t have any trouble getting served. Oh, for Christ’s sake, Morino, you’re not writing all this down, are you? This isn’t part of the interrogation, you idiot.
Z: For Christ’s sake, Morino, why aren’t you writing this down? That’s your job, you idiot. Don’t tempt me, Morino, I’ve had a hard night, just like Signor Faigano. Did you like the music we laid on, by the way?
G: It was all right. But we’ve got better stuff at home. My niece Lisa knows someone in Latin America who sends her tapes of the real thing, not these tame commercial groups.
Z: Your niece has good stuff, all right.
G: Meaning what?
Z: Speaking of her friend in Peru, she told me that she’d had to interrupt a chess game they were having the evening of the festa because you needed to make an urgent telephone call to Aldo Vincenzo. Oh, you don’t want to talk about that without your… I quite understand. No problem.
Z: I’ve been talking to Minot.
G: Who?
Z: What the hell’s his real name? Thank you, Morino. Signor Piumatti, popularly known as Minot, seemed convinced that you and your brother would give him the alibi he so desperately needs in the Gallizio case. Which would be a problem for me.
G: A problem? Why?
Z: Because this Minot is my principal suspect in the Vincenzo case. The problem is that I have no substantive evidence. It’s all a matter of circumstantial detail, a chain of connections and inferences. And, like any chain, it’s only as strong as its weakest link.
G: Meaning?
Z: The alibi I just mentioned. If Minot was out after truffles with you two the night Bruno Gallizio was killed, you see, then he can’t have killed Gallizio and planted the knife smeared with Aldo Vincenzo’s blood at the house. In which case there’s no proof that he killed Vincenzo either, and I’m back at square one.
G: That phone call.
Z: Yes?
G: I did make it.
Z: To Aldo Vincenzo?
G: Yes.
Z: A few hours before he was killed.
G: I didn’t know he was going to be killed.
Z: Of course not. But it was very late at night, and you’d both been at the festa earlier. Why didn’t you tell him whatever it was then?
G: Do you have children, dottore?
Z: Two, as it happens.
G: A boy and a girl?
Z: How did you guess? And you, Signor Faigano?