A Long Finish - 6 Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    He knew, as they did, that the hound would have been instantly identifiable. All men of their age in the Langhe either kept a truffle dog themselves or knew someone who did. Their noises and utterances were as familiar as those of neighbouring children.
    ‘I thought it was Anna,’ said Maurizio.
    ‘Beppe’s dog?’
    ‘I might have been wrong.’
    They drank in silence for a while.
    ‘There are two ways we can handle this snooper from Rome,’ said Gianni. ‘Either we come up with a suitable suspect to hand him on a plate, or we just clam up.’
    ‘There already is a suspect,’ Minot pointed out.
    ‘But if they’re starting from scratch again, that means they don’t believe that he did it.’
    ‘And neither do I,’ said Maurizio. ‘What son would do something like that to his father? And still less a milksop like Manlio Vincenzo.’
    ‘They can be the worst if you push them too far,’ observed his brother. ‘They take it and take it for years, and then one day they crack. And God knows Aldo pushed Manlio. Remember what he said to him that evening at the festa , calling him a faggot and a queer in a voice you could hear all over the hall?’
    Maurizio shrugged.
    ‘It doesn’t matter what we think. The important thing is to work out what to tell this cop from Rome.’
    ‘Or what not to tell him,’ Minot put in.
    ‘Or both,’ said Gianni. ‘Like in the war. Remember our motto? “Tell them anything, so long as you tell them nothing.” That’s what we’ve got to do now.’
    Minot knocked back his wine.
    ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’
    ‘Oh, really?’ asked Maurizio with a sarcastic edge. ‘Have you got a valid licence to gather truffles? And what about receipts for all your transactions, showing that sales tax was duly paid? All of which income you will, of course, have declared on your …’
    ‘What the hell’s that got to do with it? There’s a lot of stuff I could tell the cops about you two, for that matter.’
    Gianni Faigano nodded earnestly.
    ‘That’s the whole point. We’re all in this together, like during the war.’
    ‘Except during the war you knew which side everyone was on. And we knew what we were fighting for.’
    ‘For our country, right? For our beliefs. Well, now we’re fighting for our community.’
    Maurizio sighed.
    ‘A community in which someone stabbed an old man to death and cut off his cock and balls.’
    Unexpectedly, Minot laughed, a tearing peal of hilarity with a slightly intoxicated edge.
    ‘That son of a bitch! If he’d known how he would end up …’
    Gianni nodded.
    ‘But the fact remains that whoever did it is living right here amongst us.’
    ‘Right here in the village,’ Maurizio chipped in, ‘where I’ve yet to hear a single person speak a sincere word of regret for the victim.’
    ‘It’s us against them,’ said Gianni. ‘What’s done is done. It’s time to get on with our lives.’
    Minot gave a series of earnest nods.
    ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s just like the