‘It is yours, then?’
‘I’ve never seen it before.’
Their eyes locked.
‘Then why did you ask where I got it?’ asked Pascal.
Minot’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly.
‘I mean, why are you showing it to me? Why did you bring it here?’
Enrico Pascal examined the knife carefully, as if it might provide the answer to these questions. It was old and well-used, with a worn wooden handle and a long, dull blade. Both were completely clean.
‘It turned up at Beppe’s house,’ he replied at last.
‘And what makes you think it’s mine?’
The maresciallo reflected briefly, as though trying to recall.
‘This witness I was telling you about,’ he said at last. ‘When I showed him the knife, he said he thought you had one like it.’
‘Come on, Pasca!’ Minot exclaimed angrily. ‘Stop teasing me! Just who is this supposed witness of yours?’
Now it was Enrico Pascal’s turn to smile.
‘If you were under arrest, Minot, I’d have to reveal that information. As it is, I don’t see any reason to — how did you put it? — “drag him into the shit”.’
Minot’s face had become a hard, furious mask.
‘Don’t play games with me, marescia! People who do that…’
He broke off.
‘Well?’ queried Pascal.
Minot looked at him.
‘I don’t forget, that’s all. I don’t forget and I don’t forgive. Treat me like a man, and I’ll treat you the same way. Treat me like a rat, and I bite back.’
He went inside and slammed the door, leaving Enrico Pascal standing on the doorstep.
‘While she was alive, my mother did all the cooking herself, right up to the end, when the pain got too much. So the only time I’ve ever had any occasion to fend for myself is when I lived abroad. Still, I’ll see what I can do. I arranged for a neighbour to come by and feed the hens, so there should be eggs, at least. But first let’s crack a bottle.’
Manlio Vincenzo led the way downstairs to a cellar which appeared even larger than the house above. Striding confidently between the bins of stacked bottles, all identical to Zen’s untrained eyes, he unerringly selected three from differing locations. Back in the cold, austere kitchen, he unwound a wire cage surrounding the stopper of one bottle and poured a golden froth into two long-stemmed glasses.
‘A moscato from east of Asti,’ he said, offering one to Zen, ‘but not like any you’ll have had before. This is the authentic thing, made in small quantities for friends by someone who knows what he’s doing. It’s powerfully aromatic, but very light and barely sweet.’
He sniffed and sipped, staring up fixedly at the exposed beams on the ceiling, then swallowed and nodded once.
‘Even better than it was last time I tried it. No one believes this stuff improves, though. The big producers have spent a fortune persuading people that it doesn’t, which in the case of their products is true, since they are biologically dead.’
He put his glass down and turned away, waving to Zen to follow.
‘Now let’s go and see what we can forage. This is rather fun, don’t you think?’
He scooped up a trug from a cabinet by the back door and led the way out into the yard. Before long they had gathered a dozen eggs from the hen coop, potatoes and an onion from a vegetable bin, as well as a selection of herbs. Back in the kitchen, Manlio diced the vegetables and set them simmering in oil. Then he went into a room next door, where whole hams and cured sausages hung from hooks in the ceiling, and removed a selection, before disappearing to yet another larder in another part of the house, returning with about a quarter of a wheel of Parmesan.
‘There’s no need to go to all this trouble,’ Zen remarked awkwardly, aware of his ambiguous status.
‘It’s no trouble,’ Manlio returned. ‘On the contrary. You have no idea of the pleasure in something as simple as making an omelette without having to think twice or explain what I’m doing or how I’m doing it. But the real reason for all this is that I want to try to get across to you that rather dry subject I broached earlier, but in a more liquid way.’
He carved off a chunk of the Parmesan and grated it into a bowl, then added the beaten eggs, tipped in the cooked vegetables in their oil with some salt and pepper, then stirred it all up and returned the mixture to the pan.
‘You need to taste the wine,’ he declared, as though uttering a philosophical imperative. ‘After all, that’s what it’s all about, in the end.’
With the same darting energy, he set about carving slices of raw ham and salami which he laid out on chipped, hand-painted platters. Then he opened the two bottles of red wine and poured Zen a glass from each.
‘Try this one first,’ he directed.
Zen did as he was told, and almost spat it out. To his palate, the wine tasted like ink: intense and bitter, sincero but distinctly uncharming.
‘Now this,’ said his host.
Once again Zen raised his glass, more cautiously this time. But this wine was much more welcoming, with a rounder, fuller, fruity flavour. Relieved, Zen immediately took a second gulp.
‘Well?’ Manlio Vincenzo enquired archly.
Zen pointed to the second glass.
‘I prefer this one.’
His host grinned.
‘Clearly you don’t know much about wine, Dottor Zen.’
‘I know that,’ Zen admitted sheepishly.
‘The first glass I offered you is our 1982 riserva. It recently fetched almost two thousand dollars a case at an auction in New York.’
Zen looked suitably impressed.
‘And how much does the wrong one cost?’
A pause and a distant smile.
‘No one knows. It’s never been put on the market, partly because it’s “wrong” in a legal sense as well. I made it myself from some stalks I brought back from France and planted on a section of land which got washed out in a landslide a few years back. My father was involved in a legal dispute with the local council about compensation and payment for a new retaining wall. I knew that was likely to drag on for at least a decade — my father was extremely litigious — and so I put in my own plants meanwhile. What you’re drinking is the result.’
‘Congratulations.’
Manlio Vincenzo got to his feet and went over to check on the eggs.
‘This is nothing to what I could make on favoured slopes with fully mature vines. What you’re tasting is a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. It would be interesting to try adding some Syrah, and maybe even mixing that in with the Nebbiolo. That’s what they’ve been doing in Tuscany for years now, having finally realized that Sangiovese usually isn’t terribly interesting, however “traditional” it may be. But up here tradition is still the word of God, protected by the full force of the law — and God help anyone who suggests otherwise.’
He flipped the frittata on to a plate, slipped it back into the pan to cook briefly on the other side, and then brought it to table.
‘Take that vineyard I just showed you,’ he said, serving Zen, ‘the one where my father died. It has good soil and ideal exposure. If we bottled it as a single-vineyard wine and gave it a dialect name, we could charge the same as Gaja does for his Sori Tildin or San Lorenzo. But that would be commercial suicide. We don’t have the marketing clout Angelo has, and we need the quality of that field and a few like it to keep our reserve Barbaresco up to par. So we hobble along, producing a good if no longer absolutely first-rate example of what is, in my opinion, a second-
