Beastly Things

20

THIS TIME, BOTH of them got into the back seat of the car. Though the day was by no means warm, Brunetti and Vianello rolled down the windows of the car and sat, heads leaning back against the seat, to let the air wash over them. The driver, aware of something he did not understand, remained silent but had the sense to use the car phone to call the Questura and ask that a boat be sent to pick the two men up when they got to Piazzale Roma.

On the way to the city, they passed through quiet countryside that was preparing to expand into the richness of summer. The trees had put out their first green shoots that would unfurl into the magic of leaves. Brunetti gave thanks for the green and for its promise. Birds Brunetti recognized but could not name sat amidst the green shoots, chatting with one another about their recent flight north.

They did not notice the villas this time, only the cars that came towards them or those that passed them and fell into line in front of them. Nor did they speak; neither to one another nor to the driver. They let time pass, knowing that time would take away the brightness of some of their memories. Brunetti returned his attention to the landscape. How lovely it was, he thought: how lovely growing things were: trees, grapevines just waking from the winter, even the water in the ditch at the side of the road would soon help the plants in their scramble back to life.

He turned back to face the oncoming traffic and closed his eyes. After what seemed only a moment, the car came to a halt and the driver said, ‘Here we are, Commissario.’ Brunetti opened his eyes and saw the ACTV ticket office and, beyond it, water and the embarcadero of the Number Two.

Vianello was already getting out of the other side of the car as Brunetti thanked the driver and closed the door gently. He was pleased to see Vianello say something to the driver. The Inspector smiled, smacked his hand lightly on the roof of the car, and turned towards the water.

They went down the low steps and off to the left, where they saw Foa’s assistant, talking to a taxi driver while keeping his eye on the place from which they were likely to appear. Brunetti was astonished to see that the young man looked exactly as he had some hours before. The pilot raised a hand to the brim of his cap, but it might as easily have been a wave of friendly recognition as a salute: Brunetti found himself hoping it was the first.

The pilot reached to hand him that morning’s Gazzettino, folded and stuck behind the wheel. But Brunetti needed to see distance and colour and beauty and life, not the close-together lines of the printed word, so he made no gesture to take it, and the pilot bent to turn on the engine.

‘Don’t go around the back of the station. Let’s go up the canal.’ That way, though the trip would take longer, they would avoid having to make the turn next to the causeway, where they would see the smokestacks of Marghera; they would also avoid having to pass between the hospital and the cemetery. Neither Brunetti nor Vianello spoke, though both chose to remain on deck in the sun. It beat down on them, warming their heads and causing them to sweat under their jackets. Brunetti felt his damp shirt clinging to his back, even felt a faint trickle just over his temple. He had forgotten his sunglasses and so, like some eighteenth-century sea captain, he shielded his eyes with his hand and looked off into the distance. And he saw, not a tropical atoll surrounded by pristine beaches and not the tempestuous waters of the Cape of Good Hope, but the Calatrava Bridge, appearing diaper-clad in its current state, with short-sleeved tourists hanging over the side to take a photo of the police launch. He smiled up at them and waved.

None of the three men spoke as they passed under the bridge, nor when they passed under the next one and the others, nor when they passed the Basilica, and San Giorgio on the right. What would it be, Brunetti tried to imagine, to see all of this for the first time? Virgin eyes? It came to him that this assault of beauty was the opposite of what had happened in Preganziol, though each experience was overwhelming, each ravishing the viewer in its own way.

The pilot glided the launch up to the dock in front of the Questura, hopped out with the mooring rope in his hand, and hitched it over the bollard. As Brunetti stepped from the boat, the pilot started to say something to him, but the engine gave a sudden burp and he jumped back on deck. By the time he cut the motor, Brunetti and Vianello were already inside the building.

Brunetti didn’t know what to say to Vianello: he could not remember ever being in this position, as though what they had just experienced together was so intense as to render all comment, almost to render all future conversation, futile. This awkwardness was broken by the man at the door, who said, ‘Commissario, the Vice-Questore wants to see you.’

The thought of having to talk to Patta came almost as a relief: the predictable unpleasantness of that experience was sure to nudge Brunetti back towards ordinary life. He glanced at Vianello and said, ‘I’ll talk to him, then come and get you, and we’ll go down to the bar.’ First the reintroduction to ordinary life and then the enjoyment of ordinary humanity.

Because Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, Brunetti knocked on Patta’s door with no advance warning of the level, or cause, of his superior’s irritation. He had no doubt that this was the Vice-Questore’s mood: it was only in moments of severe displeasure with his subordinate that the Vice-Questore could be moved to leave an order downstairs telling Brunetti to see him as soon as he came in. Before their meeting, Brunetti, like a gymnast about to leap up to grab the rings, took a few deep breaths and did his best to prepare himself for his performance.

He knocked firmly, made it as manly a sound as he could muster: three quick shots of noise announcing his arrival. Brunetti interpreted the responding shout as a request that he enter. Patta, he saw, was costumed for the role of country squire. The instant he saw him, Brunetti realized his superior had finally gone too far in pursuit of sartorial perfection, for he was today arrayed in a proper shooting jacket. A light brownish tweed, cut long and close to the body, it had the requisite brown suede patch at the right shoulder, a single pocket opposite on the left. Below were envelope pockets that could be easily unbuttoned to allow the wearer to reach for more shotgun cartridges. The white shirt Patta wore with it had a discreet check, and the green silk tie was covered with tiny yellow sheep that put Brunetti in mind of the ones in the mosaic behind the main altar in the Basilica of Saint’ Apollinaire in Classe in Ravenna.

Much in the manner of Saint Thomas, incapable of believing in Christ’s Resurrection until he put his hand into the wound in his Master’s side, Brunetti was overcome with the urge to go and place his cheek on the brown suede patch on Patta’s shoulder, for the patch was evidence, however outrageous, of all existence. In this instant, still battered by the experiences of the afternoon, Brunetti’s spirit needed proof that the ordinary, indeed, all of life, was still there, and what better proof was there than this absurd display? Here was Patta talking on the phone, here was consistency, here was Proof. The Vice-Questore glanced up and, seeing who it was, said something and replaced the phone.

Brunetti resisted the temptation to bend down and look under the desk to see if the Vice-Questore had chosen to wear what Brunetti’s reading of English novels had trained him to think of as ‘sturdy brogues’. At the desk, with an effort he fought down the urge to thank his superior for calling him back to life. Instead, Brunetti said, ‘Di Oliva said you’d like to speak to me, sir.’

Patta picked up a copy of Il Gazzettino, the newspaper that Brunetti had chosen not to read on the boat. ‘Have you seen this?’ Patta asked.

‘No, sir,’ Brunetti said. ‘My wife is making me read L’Osservatore Romano this week.’ He was going to add that it was the only newspaper that gave him a daily account of the appointments of the Holy Father, much in the manner of the Times with its calendar of the doings of the royals, but he was not sure – not having read the paper for decades – whether this was the case, nor would his gratitude allow him to goad Patta any farther. He contented himself, therefore, with the shrug of a true weakling and reached for the paper.

Patta surprised him by handing it to him gently and saying, ‘Sit down and read it. It’s on page five. Then tell me where the motive came from.’

Hastening to obey, Brunetti sat and opened the paper and quickly found the headline, ‘Mystery Man in Canal Identified as Local Veterinarian’. The article gave Nava’s name and age, said that he lived in Mestre, where he ran a private veterinarian clinic. It reported that he was separated from his wife and had one son. The police investigating his death were considering the possibility of a private vendetta.

‘“Vendetta privata”?’ Brunetti looked up to ask.

‘That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you about, Commissario,’ Patta said with sarcasm that halted just short of a leer. ‘Where did that idea come from?’

‘From his wife, from her relatives, or anyone that the reporter spoke to, or maybe he just liked the sound of it. God knows.’ Brunetti weighed for a moment the wisdom of suggesting that it could just as easily have been someone at the Questura, but wisdom and the knowledge that life was long silenced him.

‘You deny suggesting it?’ Patta asked, level-voiced.

‘Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said in his calmest, most reasonable voice, ‘it doesn’t matter where they got the idea.’ Knowing the crannies and dark corners of Patta’s brain as he did, Brunetti went on to say, ‘If you think about it, “personal vendetta” is far better than the idea that it was random assault.’ He was careful to keep his eyes on the paper and pay no attention to Patta as he said this, speaking as though he were engaged in idle reflection. It probably didn’t matter to Patta that a man had been stabbed and tossed into a canal, so long as the man was a local. Had he been a tourist, then the crime would have disturbed Patta, and had the victim been a tourist from a wealthy European country, there was no saying how strong the Vice-Questore’s response would have been.

‘Possibly,’ Patta said grudgingly; Brunetti translated this immediately into an unspoken ‘You’re probably right.’ He folded the paper closed, and set it in front of Patta. He pasted a look of dutiful eagerness across his face.

‘What have you done?’ Patta finally asked.

‘I spoke to his wife. His widow.’

‘And?’ Patta asked, but he said it in such a way that Brunetti decided that this was not the day to continue sparring with Patta.

‘She told me they were separated; there’s no question she wanted a divorce. He was involved with a woman colleague. Not at his clinic but at the macello where he worked: it’s just outside of Preganziol.’ He paused to give Patta the opportunity to ask questions, but his superior merely nodded. ‘His wife said he was troubled.’

‘Other than with this woman?’ Patta asked.

‘So it would seem from what she said, or from the way she said it. I wanted to get a sense of the place.’ More than that, Brunetti could not bring himself to say.

‘And?’

‘It’s not a nice place: they kill animals and cut them up,’ Brunetti said bluntly. ‘I spoke to the woman who must have been his lover.’

Before he could continue, Patta cut him off, demanding, ‘You didn’t tell her you know about their affair, did you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘That he was dead.’

‘How did she react?’

Brunetti had been thinking about this for some time. ‘She was angry that it took us so long to tell her, but she didn’t say anything particular about him.’

‘No reason to, really, I suppose,’ Patta said. Then, seeing Brunetti’s reaction and displaying a remarkable sensitivity to it, Patta hastened to add, ‘From her point of view, that is.’ Returning to his usual self, he demanded, ‘What’s a woman doing working there, anyway?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ Brunetti said, ignoring this echo of his own thoughts.

‘It doesn’t sound like you got much information,’ Patta said, sounding gratified to be able to say it.

Brunetti had, on the contrary, got too much information, but this was not something he wanted to discuss with Patta or, indeed, with anyone. He contented himself with giving Patta a serious look, then said, ‘I suppose you’re right, Vice-Questore. I didn’t learn much about what he did out there, nor how this woman might enter into things. If at all.’ He was suddenly too tired and – much as it disgusted him to admit it – too hungry to dispute things with Patta. He allowed his gaze to drift towards the window of Patta’s office, the one that looked out on the same campo as his.

He was suddenly tempted to ask Patta if he had ever considered the view from his window as a metaphor for the difference between himself and Brunetti. They both looked at the same thing, but because Brunetti’s view came from a higher place, it was better. No, perhaps wiser not to ask Patta this.

‘Well, get busy with it, then,’ Patta said in the voice he used when urged to be a mover of men and a creator of dynamic action.

Brunetti knew from long experience that this was the voice that was most in need of deference, and so he answered, ‘Sì, Dottore,’ and got to his feet.

Downstairs, Vianello was at his desk. He was not reading, nor talking with his colleagues nor on the phone. He sat at his desk, motionless and silent, apparently deep in consideration of its surface. When Brunetti came in, the other men in the room looked at him uneasily, almost as if they feared he was coming to take Vianello away because of something he had done.

Brunetti stopped at the desk of Masiero and asked in a normal voice if he had had any luck with the break-ins to the cars parked in the Municipal Garage at Piazzale Roma. The officer told him that, the night before, three of the video cameras in the garage had been vandalized, and six cars had been broken into.

Though he was not involved in the case and had no interest in it, Brunetti continued to question the officer about it, speaking more loudly than he ordinarily would. As Masiero explained his theory that the thefts must be the work of someone who worked there or of someone who parked his car there, Brunetti kept the edge of his attention on Vianello, who remained still and silent.

Brunetti was about to suggest disguising or camouflaging the cameras when he sensed motion from Vianello, and a moment later the Inspector was at his side. ‘Yes, a coffee would be good.’

Without another word to Masiero, Brunetti left the squad room and led the way down to the front door and then along the riva towards the bar up near the bridge. Neither had much to say, though Vianello did observe dully that it would probably be easier simply to check the schedule of the people working at the garage for the nights of the thefts. That failing, he went on, it would be easy enough to check the computer list of those who had used their entrance cards to park or remove their cars on the nights in question.

They entered the bar and, united in their hunger, stood and studied the tramezzini on offer. Bambola asked what they would like. Brunetti asked for a tomato and egg and a tomato and mozzarella. Vianello said he’d have the same. Both asked for white wine and took their glasses to the booth at the far end of the bar.

It was only a moment before Bambola was there with the sandwiches. Ignoring them, Vianello drank half his wine; Brunetti did the same, then nodded to Bambola, holding up his glass and pointing to Vianello’s.

He set his glass down and picked up one of the tramezzini, not bothering to see which it was. Hunger demanded haste, not consideration. Less mayonnaise than Sergio used, Brunetti determined with the first bite, and all the better for that. He finished his glass and handed it to the returning Bambola.

‘Well?’ Brunetti finally said as the barman went off with the empty glasses.

‘What did Patta say?’ Vianello asked, then smiled at Brunetti’s look. ‘Alvise saw you going in.’

‘He told me to get on with it, without specifying what he meant. I take it to mean the Borelli woman.’

‘It didn’t look like a place a woman would want to be,’ Vianello said, echoing his and Patta’s thought while somehow managing to make it sound less objectionable. Then the Inspector surprised him by saying, ‘My grandfather was a farmer.’

‘I thought he was Venetian,’ Brunetti said, one thing making the other impossible.

‘Not until he was almost twenty. He came here just before the First World War. My mother’s father. His family was starving to death on a farm in Friuli, so they took the middle boy and sent him to the city to work. But he grew up on a farm. I remember, when I was a kid, he used to tell me stories about what it was like to work under a padrone. The man who owned the farm would ride over on his horse every day and count the eggs, or at least count the chickens and then demand more eggs if he didn’t get the number he thought was right.’ Vianello looked out the window of the bar at the people walking up and down the bridge. ‘Think of it: the guy owned most of the farms in the region, and he spent his time counting eggs.’ He shook his head at the thought and added, ‘He told me the only thing they could do, sometimes, was drink some of the milk while it was set out to settle overnight.’

Caught by memory, Vianello placed his glass on the table, his sandwiches forgotten. ‘He told me he had an uncle who starved to death. They found him in his barn one morning, in the winter.’

Brunetti, who had heard similar stories when he was a boy, asked nothing.

Vianello looked across at Brunetti and smiled. ‘But it doesn’t help anything, does it, talking about these things?’ He picked up one of his sandwiches, took a tentative bite, as if to remind himself what eating was, apparently liked it, and finished the tramezzino in two more quick bites. And then the other.

‘I’m curious about this Borelli woman,’ Brunetti said.

‘Signorina Elettra will find whatever there is,’ Vianello observed, repeating one of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom of the Questura.

Brunetti finished his wine and set down his glass. ‘Patta wouldn’t like it to have been a robbery,’ he said, repeating another one. ‘Let’s go back.’