Drawing Conclusions

5

By the time Brunetti awoke from a troubled sleep, everyone in the house had already left, and for half an hour he drifted in and out of wakefulness, recalling Signora Giusti’s exclamation, ‘She was a good neighbour,’ and the pasty red goo that had seeped into the white hair of that good neighbour. His selective memory found Marillo’s embarrassed reticence and replayed Rizzardi’s cool thoroughness. He turned on to his back and looked at the ceiling. Is that what he would want someone to say about him, someone who had lived near him for a number of years? That he had been a good neighbour? Nothing more to be said about a person after years of acquaintanceship?

After a time, he went out into the kitchen, grumbling at the day, and found a note from Paola. ‘Stop grumbling. Coffee on stove. Just light it. Fresh brioche on counter.’ He saw the second and the fourth, did the first and the third. While the coffee was brewing, he went to the back window and looked off to the north. The Dolomites were clearly visible, the same mountains that Signora Altavilla had turned her back on and that Signora Giusti would see from her fourth-floor windows.

Though Brunetti was the son, grandson, great-grandson – and more – of Venetians, he had always found greater comfort in the sight of mountains than in that of the sea. Each time he heard of the approaching Something that was going to wipe the slate clean of humankind or read about the ever-escalating number of ships filled with toxic and radioactive waste scuttled by the Mafia off the coast of Italy, he thought of the majestic solidity of mountains, and in them he found solace. He had no idea how many years man had left to him, but Brunetti was sure that the mountains would survive whatever was to come and that something else would come after. He had never told anyone, not even Paola, about this idea nor of the strange consolation he took from it. Mountains seemed, he thought, so very permanent, while the sea, ever changing, was to him visibly disturbed by what happened to it; further, it was a more evident victim of the damage and depredations of man.

His thoughts had just moved to the continent-sized mass of garbage and plastic that was floating in the Pacific Ocean when the sound of bubbling coffee pulled him back to a more modest reality. He emptied the pot into his cup, spooned in sugar, and pulled a brioche from the bag. Cup in one hand, brioche in the other, he returned to the contemplation of the mountains.

This time it was the telephone that grabbed his attention. He walked into the living room and, mouth busy with his brioche, answered with his name.

‘Where are you, Brunetti?’ Patta shouted down the line.

When he had been younger and more prone to acts of prankish resistance, Brunetti would have answered that he was in his living room, but the years had taught him to interpret Patta-speak, so he recognized these words as a demand that he explain his absence from his office.

He swallowed the last of the brioche and said, ‘I’m sorry to be delayed, sir, but Rizzardi’s assistant said that the doctor was going to call me.’

‘Don’t you have a telefonino, for God’s sake?’ his superior demanded.

‘Of course, sir, but his assistant said the doctor might want me to go and talk to him at the hospital, so I’m waiting for his call before I leave home. If I get to the Questura and have to go back to the hospital, it will waste-’

Even as Brunetti became aware that he was talking too much, Patta interrupted him. ‘Stop lying to me, Brunetti.’

‘Sir,’ Brunetti said, careful to replicate the tone with which Chiara had answered Paola’s last comment on her choice of clothing.

‘Get down here. Now.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Brunetti said and replaced the phone.

Showered and shaved and much restored by having drunk the equivalent of three coffees, added to which was the sugar-high provided by two pastries, Brunetti left his apartment feeling strangely cheerful, a mood that was reflected everywhere in one of those glorious sunny days when autumn and nature unite to pull out all the stops and give people something to cheer about. Though his spirit begged him to walk, Brunetti went only as far as the Rialto stop, where he boarded a Number Two heading towards Lido. It would save only a few minutes, but the tone of Patta’s voice had encouraged speed.

He had not had time to buy a newspaper, so he contented himself with reading the headlines he saw around him. Another politician caught on video in the company of a Brazilian transsexual; further assurances by the Minister of the Economy that all was well and getting better and that the reports of factory closings and unemployed workers were calculated exaggerations, a deliberate attempt on the part of the Opposition to instil fear and mistrust in the people. Another unemployed worker had set himself ablaze in a city centre, this time Trieste.

He looked up from the headlines as they passed in front of the university. He saw nothing new there, either. How nice it would be if, one day, just as he was passing below the windows, Paola could fling one of them open and wave to him, perhaps call his name, shout out that she loved him absolutely and always would. He knew he would stand his ground and shout the same things back to her. The man next to him turned the page of his newspaper, and Brunetti turned his eyes back to the Gazzettino and the news that was never new. Teenage driver lost control of his father’s car at two in the morning and slammed right into a plane tree; old woman cheated out of her pension by someone claiming to be an inspector from the electric company; frozen meat in large supermarket filled with worms.

He got out at San Zaccaria and walked along the water, spirits whisked up and about by the sight of the motion of the wind on the waves. He turned into the front door of the Questura a few minutes before ten and went directly up to Patta’s office. His superior’s secretary, Signorina Elettra Zorzi, was behind her computer; she was bedecked, like unto the lilies of the field, in a blouse that had to be silk, for the pattern in gold and white would have been wasted on any lesser fabric.

‘Good morning, Commissario,’ she said formally as he came in. ‘The Vice-Questore is quite eager to have a word with you.’

‘No less so than I, Signorina,’ Brunetti answered and went over to knock on the door.

A bellowed ‘Avanti!’ caused Brunetti to raise his eyebrows, Signorina Elettra her hands from the keys.

‘Oh my, oh my, oh my,’ she said by way of warning.

‘I am just going inside and may be some time,’ Brunetti said in English, to her consternation.

Inside, he found Patta in his no nonsense commander-of-armed-men mode, one with which Brunetti was amply familiar. He adjusted his posture accordingly and walked to the seat Patta indicated in front of his desk.

‘Why wasn’t I called last night? Why was I kept in the dark about this?’ Patta’s voice was irate, but calm, as suited an official with a hard job to do and no help from the people around him, certainly not from the one in front of him.

‘I informed you about the death when I left our dinner, Dottore,’ Brunetti said. ‘By the time we finished our initial investigation, it was after three in the morning, and I didn’t want to disturb you at that hour.’ Before Patta could say, as he usually did at this point, that there was no time, night or day, when he was not prepared to assume the responsibilities of his office, Brunetti said, ‘I knew I should have done it, sir, but I thought a few hours would make no difference and we’d both be better able to deal with things if we had a decent night’s sleep.’

‘You certainly seem to have done so,’ Patta was unable to stop himself from saying. Brunetti ignored the remark or at least allowed no response to it to show on the bland face he raised to his superior.

‘You seem to have no idea of who the dead woman is,’ Patta said.

‘The woman upstairs said her name was Costanza Altavilla, Dottore,’ Brunetti said in what he tried to make sound like a helpful voice.

Barely managing to suppress his exasperation, Patta said, ‘She’s the mother of my son’s former veterinarian; that’s who she is.’ Patta paused to allow the significance of this to register on Brunetti, then added, ‘I met her once.’

It was seldom that Patta left Brunetti utterly without words, but Brunetti had, over the years, developed a defensive response even to that rare event. He put his most serious expression on his face, nodded sagely a few times, and let out a long, and very thoughtful, ‘Hmmmm.’ He did not understand why, time after time, Patta was deceived by this, as he was again. Perhaps his superior had no coherent memory, or perhaps he was incapable of responding to outward manifestations of extreme deference in any other way, as an alpha dog is incapable of attacking a dog that flips over and shows its soft underbelly and throat.

Brunetti knew that there was nothing he could say. He could not risk saying ‘I didn’t realize that,’ without Patta’s hearing sarcasm, nor could he ask Patta to explain a relationship the importance of which he must obviously think self-evident. And, to the degree that he valued his job, he could not express curiosity about the fact that Patta’s son had a veterinarian rather than a doctor. He waited, head tilted to one side in the manner of a very attentive dog.

‘Salvo used to have a husky. They’re very delicate, especially in this climate. He was plagued with eczema because of the heat. Dottor Niccolini was the only one who seemed able to do anything to help him.’

‘What happened, sir?’ Brunetti asked, honestly curious.

‘Oh, Salvo had to give the dog away. It became too much trouble for him. But he formed a good opinion of the doctor and certainly would want us to help him in any way possible.’ There was no doubt about it: Brunetti heard the sound of real human concern in Patta’s voice.

Even after all these years, Brunetti had not learned to predict when Patta, in some unguarded moment, would give evidence of fellow feeling with humanity. He was always unmanned by it, seduced into the suspicion that trace elements of humanity were still to be found in his superior’s soul. Patta’s recidivism into his ordinary heartlessness had not broken Brunetti of his willingness to be deceived.

‘Is he still here?’ Brunetti asked, wondering if Patta had contacted Signora Altavilla’s son but unwilling to ask.

‘No, no. He got a job somewhere else. Vicenza. Verona. I forget which.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said, nodding as if he understood. ‘And is he still working as a veterinarian, do you think?’

Patta lifted his head, as if he’d suddenly detected a strange odour. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘We have to contact him. There was no address book in the apartment, and I couldn’t go upstairs at that hour to ask the woman who lives there. But if he’s still a veterinarian, he should be listed in one of those two cities.’

‘Of course we should contact him,’ Patta said with quickly manufactured irritation, quite as if Brunetti had opposed the idea. ‘I hardly thought I’d have to explain something that simple to you, Brunetti.’ Then, to prevent Brunetti from getting to his feet, he continued, ‘I want this settled quickly. We can’t have people in this city thinking they aren’t safe in their homes.’

‘Indeed, Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said instantly, curious to know who might have suggested to Patta that Signora Altavilla’s death might lead to thoughts of safety. ‘I’ll have a look, and I’ll call Signora Giusti…’

‘Who?’ Patta asked suspiciously.

‘The woman upstairs, sir. She seems to have known the dead woman quite well.’

‘Then she ought to know how to get hold of the son,’ Patta said.

‘I hope so, Dottore,’ Brunetti said and started to get to his feet.

‘What do you intend to do about the press?’ Patta asked him, voice cautious.

‘Have they been in touch with you, sir?’ Brunetti asked, settling back into his chair.

‘Yes,’ Patta answered and gave Brunetti a long stare, as if he suspected that either he or Vianello – or quite possibly Rizzardi – had spent the rest of the early morning hours on the phone to reporters.

‘What have they asked?’

‘They know the woman’s name, and they’ve asked about the circumstances of her death, but nothing more than they usually ask.’

‘What have you told them, sir?’

‘That the circumstances of her death are already under examination and we expect a report from the medico legale some time today or tomorrow.’

Brunetti nodded in approval. ‘Then I’ll see about getting in touch with the son, sir. The woman upstairs will surely know how to find him.’ Then, before Patta could ask, Brunetti said, ‘She was in no condition to answer questions last night, sir.’ When Patta did not answer, Brunetti said, ‘I’ll go and speak to her.’

‘About what?’

‘About her life, about the son, about anything she can think of that might provide us with reason for concern.’ He mentioned nothing about Palermo, nor did he say Vianello was going to speak to the neighbours below, fearing that Patta would jump to the conclusion that Signora Giusti was involved in her neighbour’s death.

‘“Concern”, Brunetti? I think it might be wiser to get the results of the autopsy before you begin to use words like “concern”, don’t you?’ Brunetti found himself almost comforted by the return of the Patta he knew, the master of evasion who so ably managed to deflect all attention that was not entirely positive or laudatory. ‘If the woman died a natural death, then it doesn’t concern us, and so I think we ought not to use that word.’

Instantly, as if he feared the press would somehow get hold of this remark and pounce upon its callousness, Patta amended it for those silent listeners, ‘Professionally, I mean, of course. At the human level, her death is, as is anyone’s, terrible.’ Then, as if prodded by his son’s voice, he added, ‘And doubly so, given the circumstances.’

‘Indeed,’ Brunetti affirmed, resisting the impulse to bow his head respectfully at the sibylline opacity of his superior’s words, and allowing a moment to pass in silence. ‘I believe there’s nothing we can say to the press at the moment, sir, certainly not until Rizzardi has told us what he found.’

Patta fell upon Brunetti’s uncertainty hungrily. ‘Then you think it was a natural death?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ Brunetti answered, keeping to himself the mark near the woman’s collarbone. If the physical evidence did point to a crime, it would fall to Patta to reveal this news, thus reaffirming his role as chief protector of the safety of the city.

‘When we have the results, you should be the one to speak to the press, sir. They’ll certainly pay more attention to anything that comes from you.’ Brunetti wrapped the fingers of his right hand into a fist. Not even a beta dog had to continue lying on its back for so long, he told himself, suddenly tiring of his role.

‘Right,’ Patta said, restored to his good humour. ‘Let me know what Rizzardi tells you as soon as you see him.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘And find her son. His name is Claudio Niccolini.’

Brunetti wished the Vice-Questore good morning and went to the outer office to speak to Signorina Elettra, certain that she would easily find a veterinarian of the name Claudio Niccolini somewhere in the Veneto.