The Hunting Season

Book 2: Daniel Leicester

by Tom Benjamin

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Private Investigators

Synopsis

'A cleverly constructed plot, at once romantic and threatening, promotes Tom Benjamin to the first division of crime writers' Daily Mail

'Ideal holiday reading for those pining for the tastes and smells of the Mediterranean' The Herald

'Atmospheric and immersive' M W Craven

'An insider's view of life in the heart of Bologna - I felt transported there. Gripping plot and immersive description' Harriet Tyce

'Outstanding... an essential guide for armchair travellers to Italy' Publishers' Weekly

It's truffle season and in the hills around Bologna the hunt is on for the legendary Boscuri White, the golden nugget of Italian gastronomy. But when an American truffle 'supertaster' goes missing, English detective Daniel Leicester discovers not all truffles are created equal. Did the missing supertaster bite off more than he could chew?

As he goes on the hunt for Ryan Lee, Daniel discovers the secrets behind 'Food City', from the immigrant kitchen staff to the full scale of a multi-million Euro business. After a key witness is found dead at the foot of one of Bologna's famous towers, the stakes could not be higher. Daniel teams up with a glamorous TV reporter, but the deeper he goes into the disappearance of the supertaster the darker things become. Murder is once again on the menu, but this time Daniel himself stands accused. And the only way he can clear his name is by finding Ryan Lee...

Discover Bologna through the eyes of English detective Daniel Leicester as he walks the shadowy porticoes in search of the truth and, perhaps, even gets a little nearer to solving the mystery of Italy itself. A gripping and atmospheric thriller perfect for fans of Donna Leon, Michael Dibdin and Philip Gwynne Jones.

What readers are saying about The Hunting Season:

'Another beautifully written, assured and even read from Benjamin, full of wonderful nuggets of Bolognese history, which oozes class from the get-go' Trevor Wood

'The Hunting Season is another thrilling crime novel from Tom Benjamin, with an intriguing and twisty mystery that unfolds within Benjamin's acutely-observed descriptions of Bologna, its history and its people. Elegant prose, immersive detail and a gripping plot make the Hunting Season a perfectly-balanced crime read. I loved it!' Philippa East

'This second novel in the Daniel Leicester series is just as atmospheric and gripping as the first' Gregory Dowling

'A unique and compelling mystery' Emma Christie

'Loved it - an engaging hero, sharp dialogue and an ingenious plot that grips from the start. It'll make you want to visit' Philip Gwynne Jones

'The Hunting Season distinguishes itself with a dry wit... and its evocative, atmospheric descriptions of Italy' Dundee Courier

Release date: November 5, 2020

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

There was no hint of murder that morning; on the contrary, it was bright after a weekend of rain. Autumn had arrived late – floods had hit Spain and a string of Italian cities on the west coast, but Bologna had endured the bad weather with her usual equanimity. This was the city of porticoes after all, and built to withstand extremes.

My daughter Rose had already left for school, so I locked up. From our balcony, an undulating wave of terracotta rooftops swept down towards the centre, russet-damp tiles glowing beneath a sheen of steam and throwing the courtyard, indeed the rest of the city below the roofline, into dark contrast.

But like so much else in Italy, there was always sun if you knew where to look. I walked along our little Via Mirasole, then on to d’Azeglio, crossing the cobbled road and stepping up to the old orphanage – the Bastardini – where warm light flooded between the tall red-brick columns. I slowed along with the other pedestrians to savour every last lick of summer. The church bells, which seemed to keep their own hours, began to peal.

We had arrived at what I liked to think of as our ‘English summer’, when the relentless Italian heat had tapered off and the city became habitable again. Rose might mourn the end of weekends at the beach, but I felt like I could finally breathe again, and while for my fellow Bolognese it was a minor tragedy they marked by switching to dark colours, today I stuck to the cream linen jacket of British Summer Time. On the whole, I didn’t like to play the Englishman abroad, but it only felt fair to show my appreciation.

Even the broken lift at our office on Marconi did little to affect my mood, and after climbing four floors, I pushed through the varnished double doors, smiling at Alba, who rose from behind her desk. Her look of discomfiture alerted me to the couple waiting beneath the large abstract painting that dominated the reception.

‘Daniel. Here is the family Lee. They are American.’ She sat down, clearly relieved at having delivered a coherent sentence in English.

I knew instantly this would be about their child – the couple looked at me the way all parents did, as if I was a rescue vessel upon the horizon. But it was hope married with intense anxiety. Would they be able to attract my attention?

‘The consulate in Florence sent us.’ Mr Lee grabbed my hand. ‘They said you were the best English detective in Bologna.’ I nodded, although I would have taken it as more of a compliment if I hadn’t been the only English detective in Bologna.

The Lees were of East Asian origin. Korean, I guessed from the surname, although they were certainly outfitted in the uniform of middle-class America abroad – chinos and Ralph Lauren polo shirts, blue for him, pink for her. Given my current get-up, however, I was hardly one to talk.

‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘How can I help?’

‘It’s our son, Ryan,’ said Mr Lee. ‘He’s disappeared.’

That English sun was slicing through the blinds into the Lees’ eyes, so I pulled them closed. I kept the window behind open: the Comandante’s office had had the weekend to rid itself of the old man’s cigarette smoke, but I knew that even though he would refrain from lighting up in deference to the Lees, the legacy of his packet-a-day would reassert itself soon enough if I didn’t keep the air circulating.

The pair were sitting on the bottle-green chesterfield sofa. I took a matching armchair opposite alongside the Comandante. Between us and our would-be clients was a glass-topped art deco coffee table, upon it a clean crystal ashtray, a pair of rarely opened hardback books on Bolognese architecture and, within a rather beautiful amber-stained Lucite box, fresh tissues. It could have been a gentleman’s club or a therapist’s. It sometimes felt like both.

‘Ryan,’ said Mr Lee, ‘our boy, he’s a supertaster.’ He looked at me as if this explained everything. I looked at the Comandante, who clearly had no clue either. ‘It’s like perfect pitch,’ said Mr Lee, ‘only for taste. It means you’ve got more, literally more taste buds, but also … what are they? Smell? Smell buds? Anyway, cells or whatever’s in your nose, and they combine, and, well, you can taste things other people, no matter how well trained – and actually, he was really well trained – can. No computer can do that stuff. That’s what I said, wasn’t it, Mary? No computer’s going to be able to do that stuff, so Ryan, our Ryan’s going to be just fine.’ His voice broke. His wife took his hand and placed it on her lap. She began to explain.

While regular food tasters would sample food to assure its taste, smell, appearance and so on, supertasters, with their rarefied senses, were an elite breed and Ryan was flown in by clients around the world to check the quality of their wares.

The plan had been to meet them at the airport. He was often in Italy for work and they had always wanted to visit. This time they thought it would be great to meet up in Bologna, and maybe, if Ryan had the time, he could join them on trips to Florence and Venice.

Only he hadn’t been there when they arrived. They had waited, called his cell but it had gone straight to voicemail. They had sent messages, but he hadn’t replied – or even opened them, said Mr Lee – they had emailed from their hotel. That was two days ago, and there was still no trace.

‘This isn’t the same hotel Ryan’s staying at?’ I said.

Mrs Lee shook her head. ‘Well, it could have been, but we booked it online, it was an offer. We asked the desk if he was there,’ she added. ‘Just in case.’

‘So you don’t know where he is staying?’

They looked at each other. ‘I know this must seem terrible,’ said Mr Lee. Mrs Lee squeezed his hand. ‘But we didn’t think to ask. I mean, we just expected him to be at the airport, or to get in touch. Ryan travels a lot. He’s a freelance, has lots of clients. Always on the move … Italy, the South of France. His speciality is truffles.’

‘Then his client here …’

‘Like I said …’ Mr Lee managed to look both desperate and ashamed.

‘So we don’t know his client.’ They shook their heads. ‘Never mind. Has this kind of thing happened before? I mean, a sudden loss of contact, disappearance, that sort of thing?’

‘Never,’ said Mrs Lee. ‘He usually checks in every day. Calls, or at least sends me a message or email when he’s in New York. That’s his home; we live in the greater Vegas area, where he grew up …’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Even when he did the Appalachian Trail he called every few days and we were able to follow him on Facebook.’

‘And there’s been no activity there either?’ I asked. ‘Or on any other social media you’re aware of him using?’

‘Not since a couple of days before we set off,’ said Mr Lee.

‘And that was?’

‘A photo of a store window,’ he said. ‘Full of truffles, cheese. Those hanging sausages …’

‘Salami,’ said Mrs Lee.

‘Did it say where?’

‘Hold on.’ Mr Lee checked his phone, showed me the post. ‘Boscuri.’

I took a note. ‘We would like to have access to your social media, if we may. To see if we can find anything.’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Lee.

‘And you’ve contacted friends, family …?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Lee.

‘In your regular calls, he didn’t mention anything about the hotel?’

‘Only that it was nice, central.’

‘Did he say he was having any difficulties, problems?’ They shook their heads once more.

‘He never said much about his life,’ said Mrs Lee. ‘He was always asking us about ours.’

‘Ryan’s an only child?’

‘How did you know?’

Daily phone calls. Dutiful son. The sense that they had cast all their hopes and dreams into the sole life raft that was Ryan Lee. I shrugged. ‘You haven’t mentioned any other siblings. Well, our experts can check online, and in the meantime we will also contact the police – the hotel should have registered him when he arrived. You haven’t spoken to the authorities yet, I presume?’

‘The consulate said to get in touch with you first,’ Mrs Lee said.

The US consulate was as useless as the UK’s, I noted. But their laziness was our gain. ‘We’ll need his details, photograph, hobbies … I take it he isn’t married?’

Mrs Lee’s eyes widened. ‘I think we’d know.’

‘Girlfriend, then?’ I said. ‘Boyfriend?’ Now it was Mr Lee’s turn to look surprised.

‘He had a girlfriend at university,’ said Mrs Lee quickly. ‘But since he moved to New York …’ She shrugged. ‘So you’re saying you can help us?’

I glanced at the Comandante, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘We’ll get straight on it.’

Relief swept their faces, if only because something was finally being done, I supposed; they no longer felt alone.

‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ I added, but I was already thinking about hospitals for Alba to ring around.

As I led the Lees out, I pictured Ryan in a coma somewhere. Secure mental facilities? He was in his late twenties – the classic age for males to experience their first psychotic episodes. I added homeless shelters to the list. He could simply be sitting babbling and shoeless in a corner somewhere. Or worse. The morgue. She should try morgues first, I decided, if only to rule them out. We were by the lift. I shook their hands.

‘Really,’ I said, ‘try not to worry. I’m sure it’s just a mix-up.’

It seemed to help, Mr Lee in particular. I was ‘the best English detective in Bologna’, after all.

And kind words cost nothing.

The Comandante’s English language comprehension was excellent, but he had kept silent throughout most of the meeting. This was likely not due to his lack of language skills – I had heard him speak impeccable French – but to the importance of bella figura: literally cutting a ‘beautiful figure’. The Comandante’s English might be good, but it wasn’t good enough in his opinion, and the importance of making an impression was hard-wired into his generation, even if the young, like his son, my brother-in-law Jacopo, seemed to harbour few reservations about ejaculating English as if it consisted wholly of half-heard pop lyrics.

But the Comandante had certainly understood the Lees well enough and was now surveying me curiously across the table at Epulum, a classic ‘old man’s’ trattoria hidden behind a dark door beneath a narrow portico with grimy frosted glass shielding the clientele from curious passers-by. Beside the entrance was a yellowed menu barely legible behind a foggy plastic cover listing the classic Bolognese dishes: primi like tortellini in brodo and tagliatelle al ragù; secondi such as bollito al carrello – a boiled meat only true Bolognese could stomach – and braciola di maiale; and for the finale, a binary choice between zuppa Inglese – a Bolognese chef’s rather game punt at Victorian trifle – and ‘meringue’. The original prices in lire were scribbled out and replaced in biro with figures in euros slightly above the going rate.

The hunched padrone, almost certainly an octogenarian, appeared at our table, notebook at the ready.

‘I’ll take the cotoletta,’ said the Comandante. ‘With truffles, the white.’ The padrone nodded approvingly. ‘And he will take – pasta, right?’ I nodded. ‘The tagliolini with porcini mushrooms, and black.’

Without asking, the padrone poured a ruby-red Otello Lambrusco into the Comandante’s glass. I declined.

‘I’ve work,’ I said. ‘And you know, Giovanni, I’m old enough to order my own food, thanks.’

An amused smile fluttered behind the curtain of the Comandante’s neat grey beard. ‘But you like truffles? The white have just come in season, you know.’

‘So why, then, did you order me the cheaper black?’

‘Well, Alba’s always telling us we should make economies.’

‘And you thought the white would be wasted on the Englishman. I think that’s a little unfair.’

‘Can you taste the difference between black and white, then?’

‘Probably not,’ I admitted. ‘Can you?’ He frowned: how could I even doubt it? ‘If you ask me,’ I said, ‘it’s just marketing.’

The Comandante prodded a grissini breadstick toward me. ‘And that’s precisely why you got black.’

I poured myself a glass of sparkling water. ‘So tell me,’ I said. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ If he wasn’t lunching somewhere like this with one of his old cronies from the Carabinieri, Giovanni usually liked nothing better than to eat alone, accompanied by the latest lengthy comment piece by Ernesto Galli della Loggia in the Corriere della Sera.

‘I’m concerned about this young man, Signor Ryan,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘It doesn’t look good.’

‘Well, perhaps Alba and Jacopo will turn something up.’

‘Even Dolores,’ I said. ‘I remain to be convinced.’ ‘I know.’ And I also knew he wasn’t talking about the search for Signor Ryan. ‘Although you could greet her a little less like you want to haul her in for questioning every time you see her.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ he said, ‘when she does something about her ridiculous hair and clothing.’

‘The fact that she doesn’t look like a private investigator is the point,’ I said. ‘Anyway – Jacopo hardly dresses like Sam Spade.’

‘Jacopo is my son. And he works on …’ he made a vague gesture, ‘computers. Dolores Pugliese is your, our, employee. And she is, now what is it they say? Client-facing.’

You’ve been gossiping with Alba, I thought, who was also no fan. ‘Jacopo is an employee too,’ I said brusquely. ‘And I employed Dolores because she’s bright, energetic, and clearly has an aptitude for our business, as she demonstrated on the Solitudine case.’ I sat back as the cameriere laid down our meals. ‘And anyway, we owed her.’

‘We paid her back generously, in my opinion,’ said the Comandante. ‘By securing her release from gaol.’

‘She’s a good kid,’ I said. ‘Your real problem is that she’s not a blood relative like Jacopo or Alba.’

The Comandante was leaning over his cotoletta Bolognese – breaded veal covered with prosciutto and smothered in melted Parmesan. He drew in the apparently refined aroma of additional white truffle, then looked up at me. ‘Neither are you,’ he said, although not unkindly, and the whole history of our relationship was conveyed within those steady grey eyes.

I certainly couldn’t have got away with addressing any other Italian boss of his age and stature with quite the same licence had he not been my father-in-law, but then, were he not my father-in-law, I wouldn’t have been sitting there in the first place.

When I had arrived in Bologna with my late wife Lucia more than a dozen years earlier, I had soon found myself helping out with the family business, first the security side – basically as a bouncer at a homeless shelter – then playing a more active role in Faidate Investigations, especially after Lucia’s death, when it had been touch and go whether Rose and I would stay. But the Comandante couldn’t bear to lose his granddaughter as well as his daughter, having only a few years previously also lost a wife, so we remained. In that sense – the work, I mean – I was one of the few lucky ones. The chances for foreigners of finding employment in Italy outside teaching English or some highly specialised discipline were approximately zero. The phrase muro di gomma – rubber wall – didn’t just apply to Italian officialdom’s notorious impenetrability, but also to the labour market. Only that weekend I’d read an item lamenting an expat survey voting the country one of the West’s worst places to live, despite remaining one of its favourite holiday destinations.

Was that it? Had Ryan Lee confused the two? Behaved like a cosseted tourist in Italy when he had crossed the threshold into the tenebrous ecology of Italia? This was apparently Giovanni’s fear.

‘Supertaster,’ he said. ‘A sort of food detective, specialising in truffles, that most expensive fungi. I wonder if the consul would have been quite so relaxed if an American private investigator looking into the diamond trade had gone missing.’

‘You noticed that too,’ I said. ‘Still, I’ve heard of “blood diamonds”, but “blood truffles”?’

‘You smile, my boy, yet it is a largely unregulated business, notoriously beyond the purview of the taxman. And once you step outside the law … well, you are always likely to come across unscrupulous individuals. It is not unknown for truffle hunters to take pot shots at each other, indeed for them to enter the woods and never return. Let us hope this is not one of those occasions.

‘Signor Ryan arrived just as white truffles have come into season. For a specialist, that doesn’t seem like a coincidence. A few shavings, barely a powdering on my cotoletta here, has almost doubled the price.’ He picked up a pane comune – an unsalted bread shaped like a clam that fitted in the palm of his hand. ‘Do you have any idea what a white this size would reach? Around two thousand euros.’

I looked at the bun as if it really were that precious.

‘And they’re currently digging them up in the hills around here,’ he said. ‘If they’re lucky. A really big one could reach ten times that price, or more. Perhaps Ryan had been called to verify a find.’ He shrugged. ‘One hypothesis.’

‘And something went wrong. He discovered something he shouldn’t have.’

‘Although experienced, he may have got out of his depth. The weak point of the young,’ said the Comandante, ‘especially, I imagine, individuals of the calibre of Signor Ryan, is confidence. Overconfidence.’ He waggled his grissini at me again. ‘That may be where the danger lies.’

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ I said. ‘I’m hardly a young man any more, Giovanni.’

‘Ah, but if there is one thing we can be sure about,’ his eyes twinkled, ‘it is that you will always remain considerably younger than me.’

We went to the counter to pay.

‘Mr Lee must have been visiting Boscuri for the truffles,’ said the Comandante.

‘Nothing like the Boscuri white,’ said the padrone. He gave the Comandante a knowing wink.

‘How is the market this year?’

The padrone made a satisfied smack of his lips. ‘Can’t complain.’

Giovanni chuckled. ‘I bet you can’t, you old dog.’ He checked his watch. ‘As Signor Ryan’s photo indicated, they also have some excellent local cheeses. If you leave now, Daniel, you might pick us up a nice piece of truffle-infused pecorino for this evening.’

‘Good job I didn’t have any wine, then.’ I was thinking about the tiring drive across the hills.

‘Well,’ said the Comandante. ‘You did say you had work to do.’

Propped in front of the till there was a delicate model of a pig, apparently crafted out of a single piece of chocolate-brown paper, but without the rigid, automaton-like folds of traditional origami. This may have been down to the delicate paper, a kind of crêpe that creased like tissue, and in consequence the animal appeared much more lifelike. It was quite the work of art.

‘Clever,’ I said.

The padrone shrugged. ‘Customer left it.’

Bologna sits on the edge of the Po Plain, at the foot of the Apennine mountain range which runs along the spine of Italy. In fact the city was constructed upon the skirts of its foothills so the gradient slopes progressively upwards as you head south from the railway station, through the historic centre, until you emerge at Porta San Mamolo.

Cross the Viale, the ring road marking the border of the old city, and within minutes you have exchanged the press of palazzi, churches and towers sprung from the city’s dark porticoes for jade-green slopes, precariously winding roads, and glimpses of ragged mountain peaks; Liberty villas, spa hotels, private hospitals, and, crowning the crest of almost every hill, monasteries. In a place where the mercury bounces around forty each summer, property prices rise with the gradient, and in the old days the Church had been careful to claim first dibs on the coolest climes. Those monks were no fools.

I had asked Dolores to accompany me to the countryside. She sat back in the passenger seat of the Fiat with her knees up against the dashboard like my fourteen-year-old daughter, although she was actually my twenty-three-year-old trainee investigator, a job title I had invented solely for her in the hope that it might remind her of her place. Some hope.

‘You’re kidding!’

‘Well,’ I steered the wheel fully one way, then the other, as we took the torturous route towards Boscuri, ‘I’m not going to force you. But I can see what the Comandante was talking about. Don’t get me wrong, I like the fact that you fit in with all the other … street people. The punkabbestie, spacciatori

…’ I meant beggars and drug dealers. ‘It’s one of the reasons we hired you, but it’s not just about them.

‘Look, Dolores, far be it from me to advise a lady on her … appearance, but you could consider a more … universal look.’ Her hair was shaved on both sides and blue on top. She had also recently acquired a silver septum ring, and every time I glimpsed it hanging between her nostrils I had to remind myself it was not a sinew of snot.

‘It’s him.’ She meant the Comandante. ‘Once a pig—’

‘Dolores,’ I said. ‘It cuts both ways. How can you expect him to treat you with respect if you speak about him like that?’ I shook my head. ‘I won’t have you talk about him, about any of your colleagues, that way. If it’s really so terrible, then you can always quit.’

She looked uncharacteristically humbled. ‘Sorry, Dan,’ she said. Muro di gomma didn’t just apply to foreigners, and she knew I’d given her a break. But I also knew I was partly to blame – I’d taken a shine to her when she had helped us gain entry into the world of the squatting movement, and I’d hoped to harness the same energy and street smarts to solve future cases. But I’d neglected to take the ‘trainee’ part of her job any more seriously than she had. I would need to direct that energy if I didn’t want to really lose her.

‘It’s just …’ she said. ‘He looks at me with such … contempt. I can’t help reacting to it.’ I couldn’t wholly disagree, but there was a lot of stuff to unpack here, from the Comandante’s own history battling would-be anarchists not unlike Dolores as an undercover carabiniere during the 1970s, to his not unreasonable expectation to be treated with the deference due to his status as the founder, and owner, of the business. They simply rubbed each other up the wrong way, but there could only be one victor in this battle of wills.

‘Don’t be fooled,’ I said. ‘In fact, I think he rather likes you.’

‘Likes me? Come on!’

‘Or rather, disa. . .