borrowing a little oil or a couple of eggs from a neighbour. There’s no call for you to round us up at gunpoint over something like that.’
‘Let’s stick to the point, shall we? The sooner we get this cleared up, the sooner you can go home. Scorrone’s widow has testified that he went down to the winery after lunch to take delivery of a shipment of wine. We know that the wine was yours…’
‘We haven’t admitted that,’ Gianni put in sharply.
‘You don’t need to, although you would have improved your position by doing so. Scorrone kept an informal account book in which he recorded all shipments and deliveries, with the name of the producer, quantity and price paid. You’re clearly identified as the source of the two thousand litres of red wine due to be received that afternoon.’
He gave the brothers a moment to digest this piece of misinformation.
‘So what do you want from us?’ asked Maurizio.
‘The name of the person who made the delivery.’
Maurizio Faigano glanced away. Zen looked at his brother, who was studying a battered filing cabinet in the corner with mute intensity. A succession of disconnected noises wafted up from the street like fragments of wind- borne seed.
‘It was Minot,’ said Gianni.
Zen nodded.
‘I know.’
As though stunned by the failure of some party turn, Gianni Faigano stared at Zen with genuine rage.
‘Then what are we doing here, if you already know? First you tell us this is all you need to know, and now you claim that you knew all along!’
Zen fixed them with an intimidating glare.
‘The results of the autopsy held today confirm that Bruno Scorrone died as the result of injuries sustained in an assault with a broken bottle, the body later being dumped in the wine vat where it was found. Your friend Minot is thus our prime suspect at this point. I needed corroboration from you that he had indeed visited the winery at about the time Scorrone was killed.’
He looked back at the window, his back turned to the two brothers, observing their reflections in the glass.
‘Now we come to the matter of motive,’ he said. ‘After searching your house under the terms of a warrant I obtained this morning, I went to see Enrico Pascal, the local Carabinieri official. He told me various things of interest, notably that Bruno Scorrone had made verbal allegations which appeared to implicate this Minot in the death of Beppe Gallizio.’
‘What’s all this got to do with us?’ demanded Maurizio Faigano.
Zen turned round.
‘According to the maresciallo, Minot is citing you two as his alibi in the Gallizio affair.’
Another quick, mute, fraternal glance.
‘Apparently he claims that you were all three out after truffles that night. Is that correct?’
Silence.
‘Well?’
‘I want a lawyer,’ said Gianni.
‘So do I,’ said Maurizio.
Zen stared at them for a long time. Then he turned to Nanni Morino, who was just concluding another page of hieroglyphs.
‘How many cells do we have free?’
Morino consulted the ceiling.
‘All of them, at the moment. It’s been quite quiet recently.’
‘How many is all?’
‘Six. They’re down in the basement, three on one side and three on the other.’
Zen nodded lugubriously.
‘Do you like music, Morino?’
‘Music? How do you mean?’
‘I mean that half the cells here are going to be occupied overnight,’ Zen remarked dreamily, ‘and I don’t want any possibility of conversation between the detainees.’
It took Morino another moment or two to get it. Then his face lit up.
‘I’ve just got a new Sony boombox! Eighty watts RMS, with a superbass feature that makes the walls bulge.’
‘And what sort of music do you have?’
‘At the moment I’m into salsa. That’s a sort of Latin-American dance music which…’
‘Is it loud?’
Morino’s smile widened.
‘It’s loud.’
Zen yawned lengthily.
‘Excellent. In that case we can treat our house guests to an all-night crash course in the wonders of Latin- American culture.’
He picked up the phone.
‘Dario? Who else is on duty? All right, put him on the desk and get up to room 201 right away.’
‘Are you proposing to hold us here overnight?’ demanded Gianni Faigano.
‘That’s right.’
‘On what charge?’
‘Illicit trafficking in wine and probable tax evasion. You have indicated that you will not respond to my questions without the presence of a lawyer. It is too late to obtain the services of an avvocato at this hour, so I am obliged to detain you until tomorrow.’
There was a rap at the door and Dario appeared.
‘Take these two down to the basement,’ Zen instructed him. ‘Put them in separate cells as far apart as possible, and stay down there until relieved. I want you to make sure that they don’t have a chance to communicate before or after they’re locked up. Understood?’
Dario nodded.
‘No problem. Come on, you.’
‘And our third guest?’ queried Nanni Morino as the door closed. ‘This Minot, right?’
‘Ah, you’re the quick one!’ murmured Zen with a hint of irony. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’re going to have to drive out to Palazzuole tonight and bring this character in.’
Morino got to his feet.
‘It’s been a pleasure to watch you at work, dottore! Round here, of course, we don’t have much call for those kind of skills, but it’s a privilege to watch a virtuoso in action.’
Zen gestured awkwardly.
‘There was nothing to it, really.’
‘Nothing to it? On the contrary! The way you manipulated that pair into giving crucial evidence against this friend of theirs, and then pinned them down on an alibi which both they and we know is false… It was masterly! And your strategy was a stroke of genius. When everyone was expecting a frontal assault on the Vincenzo case, you attack instead on the flanks with Gallizio and Scorrone. All three murders are linked, of course, so if you nail this Minot for one of them, it’s just a matter of time before we get him for the others as well.’
He started towards the door.
‘Just a moment!’
Nanni Morino turned back with an expectant look. Zen coughed and, perhaps by association, lit a cigarette.
‘Thanks for the compliments.’
‘I meant every word,’ Morino assured him. ‘It was an inspiration and a privilege to…’
‘But we seem to be at cross purposes. I want this Minot brought in so that we can go to work on him. But I
