The Third Shadow

Thirty-two

As the son of a Middlesbrough docker and daughter of a Harrogate school headmaster, it's more than reasonable to say that mine and Heather's upbringings had differed somewhat. Hers had been a genteel world of classic literature and trips to the theatre, mine that more raucous one of football and pubs and prime time sitcoms. As we'd grown into adulthood it was natural therefore that our drinks of choice should reflect those of our formative surroundings: the northern working man's thirst for beer contrasted against the refined, wine-sipping ways of the middle classes.

It wasn't long into our relationship before she started to convert me, the second year of our marriage perhaps. I was the wrong side of thirty by this time, was starting to tire of the bloatedness which beer-drinking brings. Under her careful stewardship, I was soon able to tell the difference between a beaujolais and a chianti, a rioja and a pinot grigio. I learnt that, much like a single malt drinker, the glass should be gently agitated before taking first sip, that the sniff of the released aroma is half of the pleasure. In the same way that my father had dabbled with home brewing - the family Ford Cortina left to face the elements out on the street, the garage having become a mad scientist's lab of glass tubes and boiling pots - so I began to take an interest in the mechanics of wine production. It got to the point that I even began cultivating a vine in the back garden. Middlesbrough merlot, I wrote on the bottle labels. It had a certain ring.

Heather it was too who introduced me to Puglia. She'd seen an item on a travel programme on TV, insisted we go there for our next summer holiday - the first of three such trips during the final five years of our marriage. Cruising past roadside vines in the hire car during the final of then, I wondered what it'd be like to have a few acres, to make wine for a living.  The thought had been nothing more than a vague image at the time, a mere daydream - like a man might mentally slip behind the wheel of the Ferrari or Aston Martin swishing sleekly past his shoulder on the motorway fast lane. A few months later however, my life had changed. Been pulled apart, turned completely upside down.

This was the reverie reel projecting its flickering mental backdrop that next morning as the three-man Ministry of Agriculture inspectiom team snooped around among the vines. The chemical composition of the soil was tested at various different points. Trowels were set to work, the exposed roots  examined. Powerless, all I could do was watch, try to read the expressions on their faces, the knot of fear in my stomach ever tightening...

There was good news and bad news, they informed me once done. Due to the outbuilding and access track which separated the affected area from the rest of the vineyard, the virus was contained. Though the upper section would have to remain uncultivated for at least five years, and though the remainder would need a precautionary respray, my wine producer's licence could - pending further inspection - be upheld.

A quarter of my yield left to rot, another thick slice of the subsistence loan gone on pesticides... It was hard to see what the good news had been.

*

Nuzzo arrived early evening, the trail of thrown up dust still dissipating behind as he grimaced his way out of the driver's door. There was no verbal greeting, just a sad stoical nod as he entered the shade of the lean to, slumped down into the chair beside me. Both of us, beaten men. Bruised by circumstance.

We sat in companiable silence for a while, our gazes lingering on the distant horizon. "What happened to you ispettore? he finally began, neck twisted towards me. "It was three in the morning when I got your message."

"I hope I didn't wake you," I offered. I was aware of a slight slurring, each word stumbling into the next. The bottle of wine on the table between us, I was surprised to note, was already three-quarters down. I'd only uncorked it half an hour ago.

He didn't answer, his attention drawn to the freshly painted sign drying in the sun a little to our left. I'd found an old section of board in a dark corner of the outbuilding, hammered it to a spare vine stake. The tin of white paint I'd also unearthed had needed a little water and olive oil - not to mention  a lot of elbow grease - before becoming useable again. VINO SFUSO: wine on the tap. Beneath I'd brushed an arrow which would point Punto San Giacomo-bound motorists up the slope.

The comandante nodded to himself, as if coming to a hitherto unconsidered realisation.

"No, you didn't wake me."

He rubbed a hand over his face, this grey and sleep-deprived. I tried to remember the name of the superior he'd mentioned that day he'd taken me for ice-cream. Captain D'Ambra? The Lord alone knew what he'd had to say about recent developments. I recalled the penultimate of the Chief Supers I'd served under, a no nonsense Yorkshirewoman by the name of Lynette Dawling. She'd been capable of exhaling pure dragonfire for embarrassments much more minor than that which had befallen Nuzzo.

"It is the town festival in some weeks," he said suddenly, apropos nothing.  "The head of the organizing committee, he owes me a favour."

The town festival... Yes, I'd had a  wander along the previous year. After the sombre religious procession - at its head a statue of the madonna borne on several of the town's sturdiest shoulders - there was the traditional folk music of the tarantela and an all-night market spotlighting local crafts and produce.

"Maybe I can have a word. He gives you a stall. Prime position, in the piazza."

I turned to look at him: slouched, his shoulders hunched, double chin pressed up against breast. Older, yes. The Bracewell cased had aged him five years.

"That would... I mean..." Swallowing, I fixed him in earnest gaze. "I could do with a little help."

A dismissive hand was swept. "Di niente." It's nothing.

"Millwood," I began a few moments later. "The same week Duggan and Holloway left Cologne so hurriedly. He took some time off work."

The comandante glanced at me quizzically.

"I made a contact in Nottingham," I explained. "A journalist."

At this final word, his top lip twitched into a bitter kind of snarl. "Journalists! No better than mafia, you ask me. Just bullies, that is all." The words were snapped out with the authority of a man with recent personal experience on the subject. Then, calming himself a little: "This was that what you wanted talk about?" He seemed disappointed.

"No, there's something else."  I paused before continuing, considered my wording. Maybe it was nothing; almost certainly it was nothing in fact. Yet all the same, it was somehow nagging, persistent. "I remember that first night of the investigation. The hotline calls. There was one from someone who recalled seeing figures down on the beach in the vicinity of the holiday bungalow." An insomniac dogwalker, if I remembered rightly. He'd been standing on the headland.

There was another dismissive sweep of hand, sharper than the first - a sort of flat-palmed upward jab, one which left no ambiguities as to his opinion on the subject.

"The man is ninety years old! Is blind as a mole!"

Eighty-something in fact, I seemed to remember, but I doubted it made much difference.

"And then the timing," Nuzzo continued.  "It was completely wrong. An hour before Sarah said the brothers left."

This was true. A definite stumbling block, one I too of course had taken into account. But still, the thing had refused to quite go away completely...

"They came back," I responded. "Both of them. We know that now." Though my own eyes were directed at the sea, I could sense Nuzzo's gaze on me, as if struck perhaps by the quiet forcefulness of my tone. "I just think..." I paused again, unsure. I reminded myself  that this wasn't my case, that I was little more than a casual bystander. Turning to look at him, I took a deep, preparatory breath. "Well, that it's worth another look at I suppose."

He continued to observe me, seemed to reflect. As he did so, there was a now familiar double sweep of palm over his head.

"Okay, okay." His palms were now upturned, spread wide in conciliation. "If makes you happy, another look we will have." Sighing in defeat, he then struggled himself to his feet. "But you come with me, ispettore." There was a frowned nod at the near empty bottle of wine. "I will drive."