Through a Glass, Darkly

'Same with the fluoric. We need it to smooth the surfaces on the big pieces. Well, it's the same in that we have to pay to get rid of it.'

'And mud, did you say?' he asked.

'From the grinding, when they do the final polishing,' she said, then asked, 'Would you like to see?'

'My father worked out here, but that was decades ago’ Brunetti said, in an attempt not to appear completely ignorant. 'Things have changed, I suppose.'

'Less than you'd think’ she answered. She stepped past him and waved an arm at the men who continued undisturbed in their ritual movements in front of the furnaces. 'It's one of the things I love about this’ she said, her voice warmer. 'No one's found a better way to do what we've been doing for hundreds of years.'

She leaned towards Brunetti and put her hand on his arm to capture his attention fully. 'See what he's doing?' she asked, pointing to the second of the maestri, who was just returning from the furnace. He took his place behind a small wooden bucket on the floor. As they watched, he blew into one end of the iron canna, inflating the blob of glass at the other end. Quickly, with the grace of a baton twirler, he swung the glowing mass until it was just above the bucket and squeezed it carefully into the cylindrical tub, moving it up and down and slipping it around until it slid inside. He blew repeatedly into the end of the pipe, each puff forcing a halo of sparks to fly from the top of the tub.

When he pulled the canna out, the blob was a perfect cylinder, now recognizable as the flat-bottomed vase it would become. 'Same raw materials, same tools, same technique as we were using here centuries ago’ she said.

He glanced aside at her and their smiles met, reflecting one another. 'It's wonderful, isn't it, something so permanent?' Brunetti said, not quite certain if that last word was the one he sought, but she nodded, understanding him.

'The only change we've made is to switch to gas’ she said. 'Aside from that, nothing's changed.'

'Except these laws Marco supports?' Brunetti asked.

Her expression changed and became serious. 'Is that meant as a joke?'

He had not intended to offend her. 'No, not at all,' he protested quickly. 'I assure you. I don't know what laws you mean, but what I know about your husband tells me they're probably ecological laws, in which case I'm sure they were necessary and well past time.'

'Marco says it's too little, too late,' she said, but she said it quietly.

This was not the place for a conversation like this, Brunetti knew, so he took a step away from her and closer to the workers, hoping to break the mood created by her last words. He pointed at the men near the furnaces and turned back to ask her, 'How many workers do you have here?'

She seemed relieved by the change of subject and began to count them off on her fingers. 'Two piazze, that's six; then the two men down at the dock and who do the packing and delivery; then three who do the final molatura, that's eleven; and then I'uomo di notte: that makes twelve, I think.'

He watched her tally the men again on her fingers. 'Yes, twelve, and my father and I.'

'Tassini's the uomo di notte, isn't he?'

'You spoke to him?'

'Yes, and he thought there would be no danger unless your husband were to come to the fornace,' Brunetti said, and then at her look of fear, he added, 'But he never comes here, does he?'

'No, not at all,' she said, voice rich with disappointment. Brunetti could well understand this. He had observed her passion for her work and for her husband. To have one excluded from the other, either by choice or decree, was understandably a difficult thing for her to bear.

'Did he once?' he asked.

'Before we were married, yes. He's an engineer, remember, so he's interested in the process of mixing and making glass and working it, everything about it.' As if to remind herself of one of those passions, she looked over at the men, the rhythm of whose work continued undisturbed by their talk: the first one was already working on an entirely different piece. Brunetti looked at them and saw the servente to the first maestro touch a pendulant drop of red glass onto one side of the top of what appeared to be a vase. The maestro's pliers smoothed the tip of the drop onto the vase, then pulled it, as though it were a piece of chewing gum, and attached the other end lower down on the vase. A quick snip, smooth the sides, and the first handle was made.

'They make it look so easy’ Brunetti said, his wonder audible.

'For them, I suppose it is. After all, Gianni's been working glass all his life. He could probably make some pieces in his sleep by now.'

'Do you ever get tired of it?' Brunetti asked.

She turned and looked at him, trying to assess how serious a question this was. Apparently she concluded that Brunetti meant it, for she said, 'Not of watching it. No. Never. But the paper part of it, if I can call it that, yes, I'm tired or that, tired of the endless laws and taxes and regulations.'

'Which laws do you mean?' Brunetti asked, wondering if she would refer again to the ecological laws her husband seemed so to favour.

'The ones that specify how many copies of each receipt I have to make and who I have to send them to, and the ones about the forms I have to fill in for every kilo of raw material we buy.' She shrugged them off. 'And that's not even to mention the taxes.'

If he had known her better, Brunetti would have said that she must still manage to evade a great deal, but their friendship had not advanced to the stage of having the taxman as a common enemy, at least not as an openly declared one, so he contented himself with saying, 'I hope you find someone to do the paper part so you can keep the part you like for yourself,'

'Yes,' she said absently, 'that would be nice.' Then, shaking off whatever the effect of his words had been, she asked, 'Would you like to see the rest?'

'Yes’ he admitted with a smile. 'I'd like to see how much it's changed since I was a kid.'

'How old were you when you first came out?'

Brunetti had to think about this for a while, running the years and paging through the list of the jobs his father had held in the last decade of his life. 'I must have been about twelve.'

She laughed and said, 'That's the perfect age for you to have become a garzon.'

Brunetti laughed outright. 'That's all I wanted to be’ he said. 'And to grow up and become a maestro and make those beautiful things.'

'But?' she asked, turning towards the main doors.

Though she could not see him, Brunetti shrugged as he said, 'But it didn't happen.'

Something in his tone must have sounded in a particular way, for she stopped and turned towards him. 'Are you sorry?'

He smiled and shook his head. 'I don't think that way’ he said. 'Besides, I like the way things went.'

She smiled in response and said, 'How pleasant to hear someone say that.' She led him through the doors and out into the courtyard, then immediately towards a door on the right. Inside, he found the molatura, where a low wooden trough ran along one entire wall, numerous taps lined up above it. Two young men with rubber aprons stood at the trough, each holding a piece of glass, one a bowl and one a plate that looked very much like the one the maestro had been making a little earlier.

As Brunetti watched, they turned the objects, holding first one surface, then another, to the grinding wheels in front of them. Streams of water flowed down from the taps over the grinding wheels and then over the pieces of glass: Brunetti remembered that the water would keep the temperature down and prevent the heat shattering the glass as well as prevent the glass particles from filling the air and the lungs of the worker. Water splashed down the aprons and over the boots of the workers onto the floor, but the bulk of it was washed into the trough and flowed to the end, where, grey with glass dust, it disappeared down a pipe.

Just inside the door Brunetti saw vases, cups, platters, and statues standing on a wooden table, waiting their turn at the wheels. He could see the marks left by the clippers and by the straight edges used to fuse two colours of glass together: the grinding would quickly erase all imperfections, he knew.

Raising his voice over the noise of the wheel and running water, Brunetti said, 'It's not as exciting as the other.'

She nodded but said, 'But it's just as necessary'

'I know.'

He looked over at the two workers, back at Assunta, and asked, 'Masks?'

This time she shrugged but said nothing until she had led him out of the room and back into the courtyard. 'They're given two fresh masks every day: that's what the law says. But it doesn't tell me how to make them wear them.' Before Brunetti could comment, she said, 'If I could, I would. But they see it as some compromise of their masculinity, and they won't wear them.'

'The men who worked with my father never did, either’ Brunetti said.

She tossed her hands up in the air and walked away from him towards the front of the building. Brunetti joined her there and asked, 'I didn't see your father in his office. Isn't he here today?'

'He had a doctor's appointment,' she explained. 'But I hope he'll be back before the end of the afternoon.'

'Nothing serious, I hope,' Brunetti said, making a note to ask Signorina Elettra to see what she could find out about De Cal's health.

She nodded her thanks for his wishes but said nothing.

'Well,' Brunetti said, 'I'll go back now. Thanks for the tour. It brings back a lot of memories.'

'And thank you for going to the trouble of coming out here to tell me.'

'Don't worry,' he said. 'Your father's not likely to do anything rash.'

'I hope not,' she said, shaking his hand and turning back towards the office and her world.

13

The following morning, Brunetti arrived at the Questura after nine and went into Signorina Elettra's office, having forgotten that this was the day when she did not come in until after lunch. He started to write her a message, asking her if she could find De Cal's hospital records, but the thought that either Patta or Scarpa could read anything left on her desk made him change it to a simple request that she call him in his office when she could.

Upstairs, he read through the reports on his desk, had a look at the list of proposed promotions, and then started to read his way through a thick folder of papers from the Ministry of the Interior relating to new laws regarding the arrest and detention of suspected terrorists. National law did not accord with European law, it seemed, and that in its turn failed to conform to international law. Brunetti read with mounting interest as the confusions and contradictions became increasingly evident.

The section on interrogation was brief, as though the person commissioned to write it wanted to get through the assignment as quickly as possible without taking a stand of any sort. The document repeated something Brunetti had read elsewhere, that some foreign authorities— left unnamed—believed that the infliction of pain during interrogation was permissible up 'to the level of serious illness'. Brunetti turned from these words to a consideration of the doors of his wardrobe. 'Diabetes or bone cancer?' he asked the doors, but they made no response.

He read the report until the end, closed it, and pushed it to one side of his desk. During his early years as a policeman, he remembered, people still argued about whether it was right or wrong to use force during an interrogation, and he had heard all of the arguments from both sides. Now they argued about how much pain they could inflict.

Euclid came to mind: was it he who had claimed that, given a lever long enough, he could move the Earth itself? Brunetti's experience and his reading of history had led him to believe that, given the right pressure, almost anyone could be moved to confess to anything. So it had always seemed to him that the important question to be asked about interrogation was not how far the subject had to be pushed in order to confess, so much as how far the questioner was willing to go in order to get the inevitable confession.

These melancholy thoughts remained with him for some time, after which he decided to go downstairs to see if Vianello was in. As he went down the stairs, he encountered Lieutenant Scarpa, coming up them. They nodded but did not speak as they registered one another's presence. But Brunetti was brought up short when Scarpa moved to the left, effectively blocking his descent.

'Yes, Lieutenant?'

Without introduction, Scarpa asked, 'This Hungarian, Mary Dox, is she your doing?'

'I beg your pardon, Lieutenant?'

Scarpa held up a folder, as if the sight of it would make things clear to Brunetti. 'Is she yours?' the lieutenant asked again, his voice neutral.

'I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Lieutenant’ Brunetti said.

In an intentionally melodramatic gesture, Scarpa raised the hand with the folder in the air between them, as if he had suddenly decided to auction it off, and asked, 'You don't know what I'm talking about? You don't know anything about Mary Dox?'

'No.'

Just as Assunta De Cal had done when confronted with evidence of knuckle-headed masculinity, Scarpa threw his hands up in the air, then stepped to the right and continued on up the stairs without saying anything further.

Brunetti went to the officers' room in search of Vianello. He found, instead, Pucetti, hunched over his desk and deeply engrossed in what looked like the same report Brunetti had just finished. The young officer was so engrossed in what he was reading that he did not hear Brunetti approach.

'Pucetti’ Brunetti said as he reached the desk, 'have you seen Vianello?'

At the sound of his name, Pucetti looked up from the papers, but it took him a few seconds to tear his attention away from them; he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. 'Excuse me, Commissario, I didn't hear you,' he said. His right hand still grasped the papers, so he was prevented from saluting. To compensate, he stood as straight as he could.

'Vianello,' Brunetti said and smiled. 'I'm looking for him.'

He watched Pucetti's eyes and saw him force himself to recall who Vianello was. Then Pucetti said, 'He was here before.' He looked around the office, as if curious to discover where he found himself. 'But he must have gone out.'

Brunetti let almost a full minute pass, and during that time he watched Pucetti return from the land where interrogation techniques were discussed with cold dispassion—if, in fact, that was the subject that had so fully captured the attention of the young man.

When he had Pucetti's full attention, Brunetti said, 'Lieutenant Scarpa asked me about a folder he had, dealing with a Hungarian woman named Mary Dox. Do you have any idea what this is about?'

Pucetti's face registered comprehension and he said, 'He came in here this morning, sir, asking about the same woman. He wanted to know if any of us knew about her case.'

'And?'

'And no one did.'

Aware of the uniformed staff's opinion of the lieutenant, Brunetti asked, 'No one did or no one said they did?'

'No one did, sir. We talked about it after he left, and no one knew what he was talking about.'

'Is this where Vianello's gone?'

'I don't think so. He didn't know anything, either. My guess is that he's just gone down to get a coffee.'

Brunetti thanked him and told him to continue with his reading, to which Pucetti did not respond.

At the bar near Ponte dei Greci, Brunetti found Vianello at the counter, a glass of wine in front of him as he leafed through that day's paper.

'What did Scarpa want?' Brunetti asked as he came in. He asked the barman for a coffee.

Vianello folded the newspaper and moved it to one side of the bar. 'I've no idea,' he answered. 'Whatever it is, or whoever she is, it's trouble. I've never seen him so angry.'

'No idea?' Brunetti asked, nodding his thanks to the barman as he set down the coffee.

'None’ Vianello answered.

Brunetti stirred in sugar and drank half the coffee, then finished it. 'You read these regulations from the Ministry of the Interior?' he asked Vianello.

'I never read their directives,' Vianello said and took a sip of his wine. 'I used to, but I don't care about them any more.'

'Why?'

'They never say anything much: just words, words all tortured so as to sound good while justifying the fact that they really don't want to achieve anything.'

'Anything about what?' Brunetti asked.

'You ever been sent to ask one of the Chinese where the cash came from to buy his bar? You ever been asked to check the work permits of the people who work in those bars? You ever been sent out to close down a factory that got caught dumping its garbage in a national forest?'

What struck Brunetti was not the subject of Vianello's questions—questions that floated around the Questura like lint in a shirt factory— but the cool dispassion with which he asked them. 'You don't sound like you care much’ he observed.

'About this woman Scarpa wants to know about?' Vianello asked. 'No, I don't.'

That made quite a list of things Vianello didn't care much about this morning. 'I'll see you after lunch’ Brunetti said and left, heading home.

On the kitchen table, he found a note from Paola, saying she had to meet one of the students whose doctoral work she was overseeing but that there was lasagne in the oven. The kids would not be home, and a salad was in the refrigerator: all he had to do was add oil and vinegar. Just as Brunetti was preparing to start grumbling his way through lunch—having come halfway across the city, only to be deprived of the company of his family, forced to eat heated-up things from the oven, probably made with some sort of pre-packaged whatever and that disgusting orange American cheese for all he knew—he saw the last line of Paola's note: 'Stop sulking. It's your mother's recipe and you love it.'

Left to eat alone, Brunetti's first concern was to find the right thing to read. A magazine would be right, but he had already finished that week's Espresso. A newspaper took up too much space on the table. A paperback book could never be forced to stay open, not without breaking the binding completely, which would later cause the pages to fall out. Art books, which were surely big enough, suffered from oil stains. He compromised by going into the bedroom and taking from his bedside Gibbon, whose style forced him to read in translation.

He took out the lasagne, cut it and put a chunk on a plate. He poured a glass of pinot grigio then opened Gibbon to his place and propped it up against two books Paola had left on the table. He employed a cutting board and a serving spoon to hold the pages open on both sides. Satisfied with the arrangement, he sat down and started to eat.

Brunetti found himself back in the court of the Emperor Heliogabalus, one of his favorite monsters. Ah, the excess of it, the violence, the utter corruption of everything and everyone. The lasagne had layers of ham and thin slices of artichoke hearts interleaved with layers of pasta that he suspected might have been home made. He would have preferred more artichokes. He shared his table with decapitated senators, evil counsellors, barbarians bent on the destruction of the empire. He took a sip of wine and ate another bite of lasagne.

The Emperor appeared, arrayed like the sun itself. All hailed him, his glory, and his gracious-ness. The court was splendid and excessive, a place where, as Gibbon observed, 'a capricious prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance'. Brunetti set his fork down, the better to savour both the lasagne and Gibbon's description.

He got up and took the salad, poured in oil and vinegar and sprinkled in some salt. He ate from the bowl, as Heliogabalus died under the swords of his guards.

On the way back to the Questura, Brunetti stopped for a coffee and pastry at Ballarin, then arrived just in time to meet Signorina Elettra at the front entrance.

After they exchanged greetings, Brunetti said, "There's something I'd like you to try and check for me, Signorina.'

'Of course’ she said encouragingly, 'if I can.'

'De Cal's medical records’ he said. 'His daughter said he had a doctor's appointment this afternoon, and a number of people have commented on his health. I wondered if there's reason for, well, for preoccupation.'

"That shouldn't be at all difficult, sir’ she said, pausing at the beginning of the second flight of steps. 'Anything else?'

If anyone could find out, it was she. 'Yes, there's one thing. Lieutenant Scarpa has been asking if anyone knows anything about a foreign woman, and I wondered if he's spoken to you.'

She looked frankly puzzled and said, 'No. He hasn't said a word. Who's the poor person?'

'A Hungarian woman’ Brunetti said. 'Mary Dox.'

'What?' she demanded sharply, coming to a halt. 'What did you say?'

'Mary Dox’ explained a puzzled Brunetti. 'He asked me, and it seems he went into the officers' room this morning to ask them if they knew anything about her.'

'Did he say what he wanted?' she asked, her voice calmer.

'No, not that I know of. When I saw him, he had a folder in his hand.' As he talked, the memory surfaced and he said, 'It looked like one of our files.' He hoped she would volunteer whatever information she had, but when she remained silent, he asked, 'Do you know her?'

After a pause he could describe only as speculative, she said, 'Yes, 1 do.' Her eyes shifted into long focus, as if the reason for Scarpa's curiosity might be found on the far wall. 'She's my father's cleaning woman.'

'The one you spoke to the Vice-Questore about?'

'Yes.'

'Did you give him her name?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes, I did, and the file number.'

'You think he could have passed them on to Scarpa and asked him to find out about her?'

'Possibly’ she said. 'But I left the information on his desk, so anyone could have seen it.'

'But why would Scarpa start asking about her unless Patta told him to do so?'

'I've no idea,' she said. She smiled and tried to dismiss the unease provoked by the idea that Scarpa was involved in something that concerned her, however tangentially. 'I'll ask the Vice-Questore if he needs any other information about her.'

'I'm sure that's what it is’ Brunetti—who wasn't—said.

'Yes, thank you’ she answered. 'I'll go and have a look for the medical records, shall I?'

'Yes’ Brunetti said, leaving her, and went back to his office, his mind a jumble of Scarpa, Heliogabalus, and the mysterious Mary Dox.

14

Most people dread middle of the night phone calls for their presage of loss or violence or death. The certainty that one's family is sleeping peacefully nearby in no way diminishes the alarm; it merely directs it towards other people. Thus Brunetti's fear was no less sharp when his phone rang a little after five the following morning.

'Commissario Brunetti?' inquired a voice he recognized as Alvise's. Had the call reached him at home at any other time of day, Brunetti would have asked the officer what man he expected to find answering the phone at his home, but it was too early for sarcasm: it was always too early for anything other than the literal with Alvise.

'Yes. What is it?'

'We just had a call from someone on Murano.' Alvise stopped, as if to suggest that this information was sufficient.

'What about, Alvise?'

'He found a dead man, sir.'

'Who?'

'He didn't say who he was, sir, just that he was calling from Murano.'

'Did he say who the dead man was, Alvise?' Brunetti asked as sleepiness retreated, to be supplanted by the careful, plodding patience one had always to use with Alvise.

'No, sir.'

'Did he say where he was?' Brunetti asked.

'Where he works, sir.'

'Where is that, Alvise?'

'At a fornace, sir.'

'Which one?'

'I think he said De Cal, sir. I didn't have a pen. Anyway, it's on Sacca Serenella.'

Brunetti pushed back the covers and sat up. He got out of bed and looked at Paola, who had one eye open and was looking at him. 'I'll be at the end of the calle in twenty minutes’ Brunetti said. 'Send a launch.' Before Alvise could begin to explain why this would be difficult, Brunetti cut him off by saying, 'If we don't have one, call the Carabinieri, and if they can't come, call me a taxi.' He replaced the phone.

'Dead man?' Paola asked.

'On Murano’ he said, glancing out the window to see what sort of promise the day might hold.

When he looked back at her, her eyes were closed, and the thought struck him that she had fallen asleep. But before disappointment could register, she opened her eyes again and said, 'God, what a terrible job you do, Guido.'

He ignored the remark and went into the bathroom.

When he emerged, shaved and showered, the bed was empty, and he smelled fresh coffee. He dressed, remembering to put on heavy shoes in case he was going to spend time in the fornace, then went down to the kitchen and found her seated at the table, a small cup of coffee in front of her and a large cup of coffee with milk ready for him.

'There's sugar in it already’ she said as he reached for it. He studied his wife of more than twenty years, conscious that something was wrong with her but unable to recognize what it was. He studied her and she looked back at him, smiling quizzically.

'What's wrong?' Paola asked.

The fact that she had heard him say someone was dead should have been enough, but he continued to study her, trying to figure it out. Finally he saw it and blurted out, 'You're not reading.' There was no book, no newspaper, no magazine in front of her: she simply sat there, drinking her coffee and, it seemed, waiting for him.

I'll make more coffee when you're gone and go back to bed and read until the kids are up’ she said. Order returned to Brunetti's universe. He finished his coffee, kissed Paola, and said he had no idea when he'd be home but would call when he knew.

When he turned into the calle that led to the canal, the silence told him that the boat had not arrived. If he had given the order to anyone but Alvise, Brunetti would have thought this nothing but a short delay; as it was, he wondered if he would end up having to call a taxi. Occupied with these thoughts, he reached the edge of the canal and looked to the right. And saw what he had seen only in photos taken in the early part of the last century: the mirror-smooth waters of the Grand Canal. Not a ripple stirred the surface, no boats passed, not a puff of wind, no gulls paddled around. He stood transfixed and looked on what his ancestors had seen: the same light, the same facades, the same windows and plants, and the same vital silence. And, as far as he could distinguish the reflections, it all existed in double.

He heard the drone of the boat's approaching motor, and then it swept around the curve in front of the university and headed towards him. As it came, it destroyed the stillness ahead of it and left in its wake those many wavelets that, minutes after it passed, would still be splashing against the steps of the palazzi on both sides of the canal.

Brunetti saw Foa at the wheel and raised a hand in greeting. The pilot slid the launch towards the twin pilings, slipped the motor into reverse, and glided up to the dock with a touch as gentle as a kiss. Brunetti stepped aboard, wished the pilot good morning, and asked him to take him to the De Cal factory on Sacca Serenella.

Foa, like most pilots, had the grace of silence and did nothing more than nod to acknowledge Brunetti's request. He seemed to feel no need to fill up the journey with words. By the time they reached Rialto, the broad-beamed boats that hauled produce to the market had turned the stillness into memory. Foa swung into Rio dei SS Apostoli and directly past the palazzo in which some distant ancestor of Paola's had lived before being beheaded for treason. They shot out into the laguna where the first thing Brunetti saw, off to the right, were the walls of the cemetery and, behind it, banks of clouds scuttling towards the city.

He turned away deliberately and faced Murano, stood with the warmth of spring on his body; the boat swung past the island then slipped around to the right and into the Serenella Canal. Brunetti glanced at his watch and saw that it was barely six o'clock. Foa made another silk-smooth landing, and Brunetti stepped up onto the ACTV embarcadero.

'You can go back,' he told the pilot. 'And thanks.'

'Do you mind if I try to find a coffee and then come back and wait for you, Commissario?' Foa asked. He did not explain his reluctance to return to the Questura; somehow, Brunetti suspected it had nothing to do with not wanting to work.

'What you could do,' Brunetti said, 'is call Vianello at home and then go and get him and bring him here.' Brunetti had been too dulled by sleep and then distracted by the inevitable irritation of having to deal with Alvise to have thought of calling Vianello, but he would prefer to have the Inspector here with him.

Foa raised his hand minimally and smiled. Brunetti barely saw the pilot's hands move, but the boat swung away from the dock in a tight U, and then Foa gunned the motor, forcing the prow up above the water as he sped away in a straight line towards the city.

Brunetti turned into the field and followed the cement path towards the factory in the background. It came to him then that he had not thought to tell Alvise to send the crime squad. 'Maria Vergine,' he exclaimed aloud, taking out his telefonino. He dialled the central number of the Questura and spent a few minutes learning that, yes, a crime scene team had been requested: they were waiting for the photographer and would leave as soon as he arrived.

Brunetti hung up, wondering how long it would take them to get out to Murano. He continued towards the building, and as he drew close, he saw two men standing outside the sliding metal doors. They stood side by side, but they were not talking, nor did it seem they had broken off conversation when they saw him approach.

He recognized one of them as the maestro he had seen making the vase—had it been only two days before? Close to him, Brunetti only now noticed the deep acne scars on both his cheeks. The other man might have been any of the ones who had been working with or around him.

They glanced over at Brunetti and kept their eyes on him as he approached. Neither gave any sign that they had seen him before. As he drew up to them, Brunetti said, 'I'm Commissario Brunetti, from the police. Someone called to report finding a dead man.' He raised his voice at the end of this, turning it into a question.

The maestro turned and looked at the other man, who gave Brunetti an agonized glance and then looked at the ground, exposing the top of his head. Brunetti saw how sparse his hair was and how shiny the scalp beneath it.

'Was it you who found him, Signore?' he asked the top of the man's head.

The maestro held up an admonitory hand to catch Brunetti's attention. He raised one finger and waved it back and forth to silence Brunetti, then shook his head in the same rhythm, pointing at the other man. Before Brunetti could speak, the maestro placed his hand on the other man's sleeve and pulled him gently aside. Together they walked a metre or two away from Brunetti.

After a moment, the maestro came back. 'Don't ask him,' he said in a barely audible voice. 'He can't go back in there again.'

Brunetti wondered if the other man's guilt was preventing him from returning to the scene of the crime, but then he sensed the real fear and compassion that led the maestro to try to protect his friend. In the face of Brunetti's continuing silence, the maestro said, 'Really, Commissario, he can't. You can't do that to him.'

In what he hoped was a reasonable voice, Brunetti said, 'I won't force him to do anything. But I need him to tell me what happened.'

'But that's what I'm telling you,' the maestro said. 'He can't.'

Brunetti walked over and extended his hand to touch the arm of the silent man, hoping to give a sign of understanding or sympathy. He spoke to the maestro, as though he had become his companion's translator. 'I need to know what happened here. I need to know about the dead man.'

At those words, the man who had not spoken clapped his hand over his mouth and turned away. He gagged and took two steps onto the grass, brushing past Brunetti. He doubled over and retched again and again, though nothing came up but thin yellow bile. Spasms tore his body until he was forced to lean over and brace himself with his hands on his knees. Another wave struck him, and he fell to one knee, his head bent over, one hand on the earth. More bile came up.

Brunetti stood by helplessly. It was the maestro who finally intervened and helped the other man to his feet. 'Come on, Giuliano. I think you better go home. Come on, now.' Neither man so much as glanced at Brunetti, who stepped back and let them pass in front of him. He watched them until they reached the pavement running along the canal, where they turned to the left and disappeared in the direction of the bridge that crossed to the main part of the island. The men seemed to take some of the light with them, for just as they disappeared, clouds rolled in and blotted out some of the day.

Brunetti looked around and saw no one. He heard a boat pass on the canal; the tide was low, so all he saw was a man's head pass smoothly by, just above the height of the embankment. The man noticed Brunetti and smiled, and Brunetti thought of the Cheshire Cat.

He waited a minute, a minute more, as the boat's motor faded and nothing replaced it. He turned and approached the fornace; the metal doors had been pushed partly back. He slipped inside and paused a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness.

He had noticed the last time just how dirty the windows and skylights were, but because it had been full day, there had been enough light to work by. This morning, however, with the clouds darkening the sky, little light penetrated. He looked around for a light switch, but the sight of the closed doors of the two furnaces against the wall made him fear what turning the wrong switch might do to them. He knew that their temperature had to diminish gradually during the night, so as not to risk cracking the pieces that slept their way to solidity inside them.

He took a few steps deeper into the factory, drawn by the light that emerged from the open door of the farthest furnace. It illuminated the area directly in front of it and a bit to either side, but the rest of the enormous shed remained shadowy and dim.

He took another step, and it was then that Brunetti first became aware of a strange odour in the air; something sweet mixed with something foul and sour. Though it was springtime and trees and plants were already stirring into bloom, there was nothing floral about this scent. Nor was it like the rich fecund smell of the earth as busy plants renewed themselves and began to grow, though it was more the second than the first.

Brunetti looked around, wondering if something, some chemical or colourant, could have been spilled, but it was not exactly chemical, that smell. He approached the first furnace and, as he drew closer, felt the sudden increase of temperature, even through the closed door. The wave of heat drove him to the left, to the space between the first and second furnaces. The temperature dropped suddenly, and he felt almost chilled by the contrast with the searing heat in the radius of the first furnace.

As he drew closer to the second furnace, the heat leaped out at him again, stroking at the side of his arm and leg, warm at his face, offering to set him afire. Instinctively he held his hand up to protect his face and passed into the cooler zone beyond it.

The door to the free-standing furnace lured Brunetti. He was helpless to prevent himself from glancing towards the infernal depths. He squinted as the heat dried his eyes, blinking repeatedly. He stepped back, into a cooler zone farther from the door, glad of the sudden drop in temperature. The smell was much stronger here.

He looked around him, to left and right, but still he saw nothing untoward. He turned his attention back to the open door of the furnace, where the flames roared and hurled their heat at him. It had grown lighter while he was inside the building: perhaps the clouds had lifted or been blown away. The sun must just then have risen above the rooftops, for the first direct rays to come through the east-facing windows brought a sudden burst of illumination.

Brunetti noticed a shadow on the floor, just in front of the furnace, little more than two metres from him. He held his hand up again, this time to block the too-bright light from the open furnace, hoping that he would be able to make it out, whatever it was. But the radiance flooded around his outspread palm, forcing him to raise his other hand to create a broader shield. And he saw it, then, in the early light of the day. A man, a tall man, lay on the floor in front of the third furnace. Brunetti looked away and found himself facing the row of thermometers on the wall. Forno III had a temperature of 1,342 degrees centigrade while the temperatures of the other two were less than half of that. He had to step back from the heat, for even here it assailed and seared him.

The smell. The smell. Brunetti fell forward to his knees like an ox felled by an axe. He braced his palms on the burning floor and brought up bile and more bile as he felt the sweet odour on him, on his clothing, in his hair.

The maestro found him like that a few minutes later. He bent over Brunetti, helped him to his feet, and steadied him as they walked out of the factory. The maestro led Brunetti a few metres away from the door, then released his arm and stepped away as Brunetti bent over again. The maestro turned towards the canal and paid careful attention to a boat that was going by.

Brunetti dragged out his handkerchief and wiped at his mouth, then tried to stand up straight. It took him a full minute before he could look at the other man.

'Was it you who found him?' Brunetti asked weakly.

'No, that was Colussi, my servetto. He usually comes in about five to check the fornaci and anything we left cooling there.'

Brunetti nodded. The other man went on. 'He called me, but I couldn't make much sense of what he was saying. He kept telling me, "Tassini's dead, Tassini's dead." So I told him to go outside and wait for me, and I called the police and then came over here.' When Brunetti said nothing, the other man said, as if he felt the need to justify himself, 'You saw him. I had to take him home.'

'Where can we get something to drink?' Brunetti asked.

The maestro looked at his watch and said, 'On the other side of the bridge. Franco's usually open by now.'

It surprised Brunetti to find how unsteady he still was when he walked, but he fought against it and followed the other man. At the foot of the bridge was an old AMAV garbage tin, and Brunetti stepped aside to thrust his handkerchief deep into it.

On the other side of the bridge, the maestro led Brunetti to the left along the riva, then quickly turned right into a narrow calk. Halfway along, he stepped into a bar that smelled of coffee and fresh pastries. Just inside the door, the man stopped and offered his hand to Brunetti. 'Grassi,' he said. 'Luca.' Brunetti returned the handshake and brought his other hand up to pat the man on the arm by way of thanks.

Grassi turned away and walked to the bar. 'Caffe coretto,' he said to the barman, then gave Brunetti an interrogative glance.

'A grappa and a glass of acqua minerale non gassata’ Brunetti said, those being the only things he could think of that his body might accept.

'Give him the good grappa, Franco,' Grassi called after the barman. When the coffee and drinks came, Grassi picked up his glass and indicated one of the tables, but Brunetti shook his head, saying, 'A boat's coming out. I have to get back.'

Grassi spooned in three sugars, then stirred the coffee around a few times. Brunetti picked up the grappa, swirled it around in rhythm with Grassi's spoon, and drank it quickly. Almost before the taste registered, he drank down half of the water and stood quietly, waiting to see what happened. After a moment, he finished the water and set the glass on the counter, and nodded for another.

Brunetti had not recognized the dead man. 'How did he know it was Tassini?'

'I don't know’ Grassi answered with a tired shake of his head. 'When I saw him outside, all he said was that it was Tassini.'

It was difficult for Brunetti to articulate the next question for to do so was to recall what he had seen inside the factory. 'Did you see him?' He held up his empty glass to the barman.

'No’ Grassi answered. 'When I came in for you, I didn't look at him.' He shrugged at this admission. 'And when I got there after Giuliano called, he was standing outside, crying.' He gave Brunetti a quick glance. 'Don't tell him I told you that, all right?' Brunetti nodded. 'He told me Tassini was inside and he was dead. I tried to go in to see, but Giuliano grabbed my arm and pulled me back. He wouldn't let me go inside and he wouldn't tell me why.' He finished his coffee and set the cup down. 'So we stood outside and waited for someone to come. It must have been half an hour. He threw up a couple of times, but he still wouldn't tell me anything about it, just asked me to wait with him until you—the police—got there.'

'I see’ Brunetti said and picked up the second glass of water. He took a small sip, and his body told him that was enough for the moment. He set the glass on the counter.

'Why did you come inside?' Brunetti asked.

Grassi moved the empty cup to the side and said, 'When I got back and you weren't there, I thought something might have happened to you, so I went in to see if you were all right. But I didn't look at him.' He paused for some time. 'Giuliano told me about it, when I was taking him home, so I didn't want to see.' He shoved the cup to the other side of the counter and said, 'Poor stupid devil.'

Brunetti's attention was arrested by the second word: he was not certain whom the other man was talking about. 'Tassini?'

'Yes,' he said, his tone a mixture of dismay and affection. 'He was always falling over things, getting in the way, tripping over his feet. He told De Cal once that he wanted to work the glass, but none of us would have him. We'd seen him drop things for years: imagine what he'd do if he tried to work with us.' Grassi seemed to realize he had switched into the present tense and stopped. 'I mean, he was a good man: honest. And he did his job. But he's not a glassmaker, never could be one.'

'What did he do, exactly?' Brunetti asked, picking up his water and risking another small sip.

'He had to keep the places clean and take care of the fornaci at night.'

Brunetti waved a hand and said, 'I'm not sure I understand what that means, Signore. Aside from sweeping the floors, that is.'

Grassi smiled in return and said, "That was part of it: sweeping, both our place and Fasano's.

Well, after he started working for him, as well, that is. And making sure that the bags of sand didn't leak after they were opened.' He paused, as if he had never considered what the duties of l’uomo di notte might be.

'And he had to keep an eye on the temperature and the miscela during the night’ he continued. 'But he also had to see that the bags didn't tip over and get mixed up.' Grassi asked the barman for another coffee, and while he waited for it, he asked, 'You know about the miscela, don't you?'

Brunetti certainly remembered the word, but little more than that. 'Only that it's made of sand and other things,' he said.

The coffee came and Grassi stirred in three more sugars. 'Sand, yes’ he said, 'then the minerals for the right miscela. If the colour we want is amethyst, then we mix in manganese, or cadmium for red. Some of the bags look alike, so they have to be kept separate and upright. The stuff can't spill on the floor or we have an awful mess and have to throw it all away.' He looked at Brunetti, who nodded to show he was following.

'Starting when the rest of us get off work, l’uomo di notte shovels the miscela into the crogiolo, adding it according to the formula and stirring it, and then it heats all night long, so it's ready and we can start working at seven, when we come in.'

'What else did he have to do?'

Again, Grassi paused to try to remember what the dead man's duties would have been. 'Check the filters and maybe shift the barrels around.'

'What filters?' Brunetti asked.

'From the grinding wheels. It all gets filtered, the water they use when they're grinding, and then the gunk that's collected gets put in barrels. It's filtered a couple of times’ Grassi said without interest. 'I don't know about that stuff, really, only about glass.'

Grassi gave Brunetti a speculative look, as if weighing his audience, and then said, 'It's crazy, isn't it? They let Marghera pump any crap it wants to into the air or the laguna: cadmium, dioxin, petro this and petro that, and no one says a word about it. But if we let a cupful of powdered glass drain into the laguna, they're all over us with inspectors and fines. Some of them are so big it would put you out of business.' He considered what he had said and then added, 'No wonder De Cal's thinking about selling the place.'

Brunetti set this remark aside for future reference and returned to Tassini. 'Were these the sort of things Tassini said? About the environment?'

Grassi rolled his eyes. 'It's all he'd talk about. All you had to do was start him talking about these things and he was off, sometimes until we had to tell him to shut up. Poison this and poison that, and not only at Marghera. Even here, and it was poisoning us all.' He delved into memory, then said, 'I tried to talk to him a couple of times. But he wouldn't listen.' He leaned towards Brunetti and put a hand on his arm. 'I've seen the numbers, and I know we don't die the way they do in Marghera: they die like flies over there.' He moved back and removed his hand.

'Maybe it's the currents: maybe they take things away from here. I don't know. I tried to tell Giorgio this, but he wouldn't listen. He had his mind made up that we were all being poisoned, and that's what he was going to believe, no matter what anyone said.'

Grassi stopped talking for a moment, then added, with a note of real sadness in his voice. 'He had to believe it, didn't he? Because of the little girl.' He shook his head, at the thought of the child or at the thought of human frailty, Brunetti had no idea. Grassi spoke with a complete absence of disapproval; in fact, Brunetti could hear little but affection in his voice, the sort one has for a person who always manages to get everything wrong yet who never manages to alienate anyone in the process.

‘I think your boat's coming,' Grassi said.

Brunetti's question was no more than a tilting of his head.

'I don't recognize the engine, and it's coming fast, out from the city,' the maestro said. He pulled some money from his pocket and left it on the counter; Brunetti thanked him and they headed for the door.

When they reached the canal, Grassi was right: the police boat was pulling up to the ACTV embarcadero. On board were Bocchese and the crime team.

15

Brunetti waved to them from his side of the canal and crossed the bridge to meet them. Apart from Bocchese, there were two photographers and two technicians, all with the usual amount of equipment, which the men were busy unloading from the boat.

Brunetti introduced Bocchese to Grassi and explained to the technician that Grassi was one of the maestri who worked at the fornace where the dead man was. Bocchese and Grassi shook hands and then Bocchese turned and said something to one of his crew, who waved a lazy hand in acknowledgement. Boxes and bags piled up on the dock; Brunetti waited until it seemed everything had been unloaded and then led them down the dirt path towards the metal doors of the factory. He was surprised to see two men standing outside, one of them a man in police uniform—he recognized Lazzari from the Murano squad—and the other De Cal, who was waving his arms and speaking loudly.

De Cal saw Brunetti and stormed towards him, shouting, 'What the hell is it now? First you let that bastard out of jail, and now I can't even go into my own factory.'

More familiar with De Cal than the others, Grassi stepped forward and, gesturing at the technicians, who were now struggling into their disposable scene-of-crime suits, said, 'I think they want to go in there alone, sir.'

'Remember who you work for, Grassi,' De Cal spat with effulgent rage. 'For me. Not for the police. I give the orders here, not the police.' He put his face close to Grassi's. Brunetti could see that the tendons of his neck were swollen. 'You understand that?'

Brunetti moved up beside Grassi. 'Your factory is the scene of a death, Signor De Cal,' he said, noticing that Lazzari seemed relieved by his having taken over. 'The technical crew will be here for a few hours, and then the scene will be opened and your men can go back to work.'

De Cal came suddenly closer, forcing Brunetti to move back one step. 'I can't afford a few hours.' De Cal noticed, as if for the first time, the technicians and their equipment. 'These fools will be in there all day. How can my men work with them there?'

'If you prefer, Signore,' Brunetti said with his most official voice, 'we can get an order from a judge and sequester the site for a week or two.' He smiled. Grassi, he noticed, had taken the opportunity to disappear.

De Cal opened his mouth, then closed it and backed away, muttering. Brunetti heard 'bastard' a few times, and worse, but he chose to ignore the old man.

The technicians, who had set down their bags while all this was going on, now picked them up and moved towards the doors. Brunetti held up a hand to stop them. Turning to Bocchese, he said, 'If you have masks, you better use them.' The men set their bags down again and one of them hunted around until he found a stack of cellophane-wrapped surgical masks, which he passed out to the other men. Brunetti put out his hand and accepted one, ripped it open, and pulled the elastics over his ears. He adjusted the mask over his nose and mouth, then took a pair of plastic gloves from the same man and slipped them on.

One of the crew humped a long bag onto his shoulder: lights and tripods. He went in first and started looking around for an electrical socket. To no one in particular, Brunetti said, 'He's down by the free-standing furnace', and then joined the technicians entering the building.

His eyes had barely adjusted to the dimmer light when he heard his name called from the entrance and turned to see Vianello, wearing gloves but no mask. Brunetti held up a hand to Vianello and went over to the technician to ask for another mask. He took it over to the Inspector and said, 'You'll need this.'

Side by side, Brunetti fortified by the other man's presence, they went towards the third furnace but stopped a few metres from it and waited for the photographer to finish. Brunetti glanced at the gauges and saw that Forno III had risen to 1,348 degrees. He had no idea what the temperature just outside and below the door would be.

The photographer finished taking photos of the floor and moved in to take photographs of the dead man from all angles.

'Which doctor's coming?' Brunetti asked.

'Venturi’ Vianello answered with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

To Brunetti's right stood a row of the iron tools the glassblowers used: rods and pipes of all lengths and diameters. The work desk of the maestro was covered with clippers and pincers and straight-edged tools: none of them showed any signs of traces of blood. On the wall hung posters of naked women with enormous breasts, casting looks of sexual invitation at the dead man and the men who moved silently around him.

Brunetti stood to one side and studied Tassini's bearded face. He looked away, not wanting to see any more of the soiled body than he had to. The flash of the photographer drew his eyes back, and he saw that the end of one of the metal rods was trapped under Tassini's body.

He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Dottor Venturi, who had just set his leather case on top of the tools on the maestro's workbench. A pair of pliers fell to the ground. Brunetti walked over, bent down, and replaced them, saying nothing to Venturi. The doctor opened his bag, took out a pair of gloves, and put them on. He glanced at the dead man, sniffed, and made a face rich with disgust. Brunetti noticed that the lapels of his overcoat were hand-stitched. His black shoes reflected the light from the furnace.

'That him?' the young doctor asked, pointing at the dead man. No one answered him. He reached back into his bag and pulled out a gauze mask, then extracted a bottle of 4711 toilet water, opened it, and sprinkled it liberally on the gauze. He replaced the cap on the bottle and slipped it into place in his bag. He put the mask to his face and slipped the elastics behind his ears.

There was a dark green sweater folded over the back of the maestro's chair; Venturi picked it up and carried it over to the dead man and let it drop on to the floor beside him. He hiked up the left knee of his trousers and lowered himself beside the body, careful to place his knee on the sweater. He picked up the dead man's wrist, held it for a second, and then let it fall back to the ground. 'Not cooked yet, I'd say’ Venturi muttered, not under his breath, but at the volume a student might use to say something about the teacher during class.

He got to his feet and turned to Brunetti. Stripping off his gloves, he dropped them beside his bag on the maestro's workbench. 'He's dead,' Venturi said. He snapped his bag closed and picked it up by the handle. He turned towards the door.

'Excuse me’ Venturi said, then added, 'gentlemen.'

'You forgot the sweater,' Brunetti said, and then, after an even longer pause, added, 'Dottore.'

'What?' Venturi demanded, his voice unusually loud, even in here, with the fierce competition of the howling furnaces.

'The sweater’ Brunetti repeated. 'You forgot to pick up the sweater.' While he was saying this, Brunetti sensed Bocchese move to stand at his right, Vianello to his left.

Venturi ran his eyes across their faces, saw the sweat on Vianello's, Bocchese's narrowed eyes. He stepped back and reached down for the sweater. He picked it up by one sleeve and made as if to drop it in the centre of the workbench, but Vianello shifted his weight. The doctor leaned to his right and draped it across the back of the maestro''s chair. He picked up his bag.

None of the three men moved. Venturi took two steps to the left and walked around Bocchese. None of them bothered to watch him leave, so none of them saw him tear off his mask and drop it on the floor.

Bocchese called over to the photographers. 'You guys got it all?'

'Yes.'

Brunetti did not want to do it, and he was sure that neither Bocchese nor Vianello wanted any part of it. But the sooner they had some idea of what might have happened to Tassini, the sooner they could . . . they could what? Ask him more questions? Bring him back to life?

Brunetti banished these thoughts. 'You don't have to’ he said to the two men and walked over to Tassini's soiled body. He knelt down. The smell of urine and faeces grew stronger. Vianello walked over to the other side and Bocchese knelt beside the Inspector. Together, the three men put their hands under the body. It was hot under there, and Brunetti had the feeling that what he touched was slippery. He tasted the grappa in his mouth.

They turned the man over slowly. His face was swollen, and Brunetti saw a mark on the side of his forehead, just where his hair began. His left arm had been trapped under his body, and when they turned him over, it fell free and slapped to the ground, the sound muffled by the thick heat-resistant glove and arm protector he wore. Vianello and Bocchese got to their feet and walked towards the door. Brunetti willed himself to go through all of Tassini's pockets, took one more look at him, and abandoned the idea. Outside, he found Vianello leaning his back against the wall of the building. Bocchese stood on the edge of the grass, leaning over and bracing his hands on his knees. Neither man wore a mask.

Brunetti stripped off his mask. "There's a bar on the other side of the canal’ he said in what he hoped was a normal voice. He led the way, along the canal, up and down the bridge, and then towards the bar. By the time they got there, Vianello's face had returned to its normal colour and Bocchese had his hands in his pockets.

The lingering aftertaste of the grappa warned Brunetti against another one, so he asked for a camomile tea. Bocchese and Vianello exchanged a glance and then asked for the same. They remained silent until the three small pots of tea were set on the bar in front of them, when they each spooned sugar directly into the pots and took them and their cups over to a table by the window.

'Could be anything,' Bocchese finally broke the silence by suggesting.

Vianello poured out his tea and blew softly on the surface a few times and then said, 'He hit his head.'

'Or his head was hit’ said Brunetti.

'He could have stumbled on that rod,' Bocchese suggested.

Brunetti remembered the precision with which the factory implements were ordered. 'Not unless he was using it. The place is too neat: nothing else was left lying around, and there was glass at the end of it,' Brunetti said. 'So he was using it to make something. Or was just beginning.' He recalled what Grassi had said about Tassini, that he did not have the talent to be a glass-blower. But that might not have stopped him from trying.

'Maybe he did it to try to keep himself awake,' Bocchese suggested. 'Worked the glass.'

'He read’ Brunetti said. Both men gave him strange looks.

Bocchese finished his cup of tea and refilled it from the pot. 'That's not how you learn to make glass, playing with it alone in a factory at night.'

Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was after nine; he took out his telefonino and dialled the hospital number of Dottor Rizzardi. He recognized the doctor's voice when he answered.

'It's me, Ettore. I'm out on Murano. Yes, a dead man.' He listened for a while and then said, 'Venturi.' There was an even longer silence, this time on both sides. Finally Brunetti said, 'I'd appreciate it if you could arrange to do it.'

Vianello and Bocchese heard the murmur of Rizzardi's voice, but all they could distinguish clearly was that of Brunetti, who said, 'In a glass factory. He was in front of one of the furnaces.' Another silence, and then Brunetti said, 'I don't know. Maybe all night.'

Brunetti glanced at the posters at the end of the bar, fixing his attention on the Costiera Amal-fitana to keep it away from the words he had just spoken. Houses pitty-patted down the cliffs, holding on to whatever they could, and colours did whatever they pleased, never giving a thought to harmony. The sun glistened on the sea, and sailboats swept away to what the viewer knew were even more beautiful places.

"Thanks, Ettore,' Brunetti said and ended the call. He got to his feet, went over and put a ten-Euro bill on the counter, and the three men left.

When they got back to the factory, the ambulance boat from the hospital was just pulling away from the dock. There was no sign of De Cal, though three or four workmen stood outside the door, smoking and talking in low voices. Inside the building, the paper-clad technicians were busy packing up their equipment. Brunetti noticed that one of the long iron rods stood against the wall, its surface covered with grey powder. The floor was very clean: had Tassini swept it before he died?

Bocchese spoke to two of his men, then came back to Vianello and Brunetti. 'Some prints on that rod,' he said, 'and lots of smudges.' He allowed a moment to pass and added, 'Means he could have fallen on it.'

'On anything else?' Brunetti asked.

Before Bocchese could answer, one of his men pulled something out of his bag and walked over to the rod. The object he held proved to be a long, thin plastic bag, much like one used to wrap a baguette, though it was considerably longer. He slipped it over the top of the rod and pulled it down to the ground. He went back to his bag and got a roll of tape and used it to seal the bottom of what now looked like a plastic sheath. He twisted the tape to create handles on either end, turning it into a package that could be carried by two men without disturbing the surface where the fingerprints were.

'Might as well take a closer look,' Bocchese said, and Brunetti thought of the mark on Tassini's forehead.

As the technician turned away, Brunetti said, 'Let me know, will you?'

Bocchese answered with a noise and a sideways motion of his hand, and then he and the technicians filed out. A few minutes later, two of them came back and used the handles to take the iron rod out of the factory.

'Let's have a look around,' Brunetti said. Knowing the technicians had checked the floor and surfaces, Brunetti walked towards the back of the factory and a table with its surface covered with glass pieces.

They saw the lines of porpoises and the toreador in his shiny black pants and red jacket.

'De gustibus,' Vianello said, moving along the line of objects. A door led to a cell-like room in which stood a chair and a camp-bed. A copy of the previous day's Gazzettino lay open, spread across the chair, as though it had been placed there in haste. At the head of the bed a pillow stood propped against the wall, what looked like the indentation made by a head visible in it.

Brunetti took the newspaper by the two upper corners and lifted the pages onto the bed. Below it on the chair lay two books: Industrial Illness, the Curse of Our Millennium and Dante's Inferno, a paper-covered school edition whose worn look suggested it had been often read. Ignoring the first, Brunetti picked up the second book. The corners of many pages were torn and darkened with frequent handling; as he flipped through the pages, he found copious notes in the margins. Tassini had signed the book in red ink on the inside of the front cover, a mannered signature with unnecessary horizontal lines trailing around and away from the dot on the final i. The edition had been published more than twenty years before. Brunetti flipped through the pages again and noticed that there were notes in red and black but that the black handwriting appeared to have grown smaller and less attention-grabbing.

Vianello had moved over to look through a small window that stood behind the head of the bed. It gave a clear view back towards the glaring flames of the open furnaces. 'What is it?' he asked, nodding at the book in Brunetti's hands.

'Inferno.'

'Perfect place for it, I'd say’ the Inspector replied.

16

Brunetti took Tassini's books; he and Vianello left the little bedroom and walked back through the factory. Since one book was a paperback edition and the other a small schoolbook, he slipped them easily into the pockets of his jacket. He had just done this when De Cal catapulted himself through the main doors and directly towards them.

'I spend two thousand Euros a week on gas for the furnaces, for God's sake’ he began, quite as if he were reaching the end of a long explanation they had been resisting. 'Two thousand Euros. If I lose a day of production, who's going to pay me for the gas? It's not like these furnaces can be turned on and off like a radio, you know’ he said, waving distractedly towards the three furnaces, all of them open now.

'And I still have to pay the workers. I'm paying for them now. Your men are gone, and all you're doing is standing around, doing nothing. Which is exactly what the workers are doing, only I'm paying them to do it.'

Vianello and Brunetti approached him and stopped. De Cal continued. 'I saw them leave,' he said, pointing in the direction of the canal. 'I saw their boat go back to the city. I want to open my factory and get my men back to work. I don't want to pay them to stand around and talk while the gas burns and I have nothing to show for it.'

Brunetti could not prevent himself from saying, 'A man died here this morning.'

With apparent difficulty, De Cal prevented himself from spitting. 'He died this morning. He died yesterday. He died two days ago. What difference does it make? He's not here any more.' As he spoke, De Cal's voice grew increasingly out of control. 'It costs me money,' he shouted, the emphasis heavy on the last word, 'to keep my furnaces burning, and I pay my workers whether they're in here, working, or whether they're standing outside, convincing themselves what a nice fellow Tassini really was, after all.' He moved closer and stared up at Brunetti's face, then at Vianello's, as if searching for the reason they could not understand something so simple. 'I'm losing money.'

Neither Vianello nor Brunetti looked at the other. Finally Brunetti said, 'Your workers can come back in, Signor De Cal.'

Without bothering to thank him, De Cal wheeled around and went out the door. From inside, they could hear him calling to the workers, telling one of them to go and summon some others. Time to go back to work. Business as usual. Life goes on.

Suddenly Brunetti realized what he would have to do now, and was taken aback to think that he had so successfully ignored it. Tassini's wife, Tassini's family: someone had to go and tell them that things would never be the same again. Someone would have to go and tell them that their life, as they knew it, was over, that an event had come hurtling at them and destroyed it. He fought the urge to call the Questura and ask them to send a woman officer. He did not know the widow, had spoken only once with the mother-in-law, and his meeting with Tassini had lasted no more than a quarter of an hour, yet there was nothing for it but for him to go.

He turned to Vianello and explained what he was going to do and asked him to stay and talk to the workers and, if he could manage it, to De Cal. Had Tassini any enemies? Who else might have come to the factory at night? Was Tassini as clumsy as Grassi said?

Saying that he would see Vianello back at the Questura, Brunetti went out to the riva and headed for the police launch. Foa was in the cabin, one of the wooden doors to the control panel open as he wrapped electrical tape around a wire. When he heard Brunetti's steps on the dock, the pilot looked up and nodded a greeting, shoved the wire into place and closed the panel. He switched on the engine.

'I'd like to go to the Arsenale stop’ Brunetti said. He started to go down into the cabin, but as the boat swung out into the canal, he was stopped by the feel of the morning's softness on his face and decided to remain on deck. Though he tried to keep his mind blank, he was conscious of the way the breeze, and then the wind as they picked up speed, tugged at his jacket, at all his clothing, blowing away whatever still clung to him.

'We in a hurry, Commissario?' Foa asked as they approached Fondamenta Nuove.

Brunetti wanted this trip to last as long as possible; he wanted never to have to deliver this news. But he answered, 'Yes.'

I'll ask if we can go through the Arsenale, then,' Foa said, taking out his telefonino. He found a number programmed into the phone and spoke for no more than a moment. He put the phone in his pocket and cut hard to the left, and then arched around to the right, under the footbridge and straight through the centre of the Arsenale.

How many years had it been since the Number Five did this every ten minutes? Brunetti asked himself. Ordinarily Brunetti would have enjoyed the sight of the shipyard that had fuelled Venice's greatness, but at this moment he could think of little save the cleansing wind.

Foa pulled into one of the taxi slots beside the Arsenale stop and paused long enough for Brunetti to leap onto the dock. Brunetti waved his thanks to the pilot but said nothing about what Foa should do now: return to the Questura, go fishing—it was all the same to Brunetti.

He walked up Via Garibaldi, resisting, as he passed every bar, the desire to go in and have a coffee, a glass of water. He rang the doorbell to Tassini's home, saw that it was almost eleven, and rang again. 'Who . . .' he heard what he thought was a woman's voice ask, but then it was obliterated by a blast of static from the loose wires. 'Giorgio?' the same voice asked, ending on the rising note of hope.

He rang again and the door snapped open.

As he climbed the stairs, he heard quick footsteps above him, and when he turned into the last flight a woman appeared on the steps above him. She was taller than her mother and had the same green eyes. Her hair came down below her shoulders: there was a great deal of grey in it, and it aged her beyond her years. She wore a brown skirt and flat shoes, held a beige cardigan closed with her hands, as much for protection as for warmth.

'What is it?' she asked when she saw him on the stairs. 'What's wrong?' Her voice broke off, as if the sight of him—or, for one horrified moment Brunetti wondered, the smell of him— were enough to crucify hope.

He continued up the stairs, trying to banish pity from his face. 'Signora Tassini’ he began.

'What's happened to him?' she asked, her voice breaking on the last word.

From behind her, Brunetti heard what he did not immediately recognize as a familiar voice. 'What's wrong?' it called, then became familiar when she said, 'Sonia, come back up.' A moment passed, and the older woman's voice became more urgent. 'Sonia, Emma's crying.'

Caught between the perceived threat of Brunetti's presence and the real threat of her mother's warning, she turned and hurried up the stairs. Before she reached the door, she glanced back at Brunetti twice before disappearing into the apartment.

Her mother waited for him outside the door. 'What's wrong?' she demanded when she saw him.

'There was an accident at the factory’ he thought it best to say, though he no more believed in an accident than he believed in the Second Coming.

Those green eyes pierced him, and he wondered at how he had underestimated the intelligence in them. 'He's dead, isn't he?' she asked.

Brunetti nodded. From behind the woman came the sound of her daughter's voice, words mixed with noises as she crooned to her own daughter.

'What happened?' the older woman asked in a softer voice.

'We don't know yet’ he answered, seeing no reason to lie to her. 'He collapsed in the factory and wasn't found until this morning.' It was not a lie, though it was hardly the truth.

'What was it?' she asked.

'We don't know yet, Signora,' Brunetti said. "That will be established by the autopsy, I hope.' He spoke of it as though it were a normal procedure.

'Maria santissima’ she said and pulled out her battered packet of Nazionale blu. Brunetti had time only to read the enormous letters that promised death before she had a cigarette lit and the packet back in her pocket. 'Go inside,' she said. 'I'll come when I've finished this.'

Brunetti moved around her and went into the apartment. Tassini's wife sat on the stained sofa, the whimpering child cradled in her arms. She smiled and bent down to kiss the little girl's face. There was no sign of the boy, though he heard a semi-singing from the back of the apartment.

He went to the window and pushed aside the curtain to look out at the house across the calle. He saw bricks and windows and thought of nothing.

The first sign of the older woman's return was her voice, saying, 'I think you better tell her, Commissario.' When Brunetti turned back to the room, she was sitting on the sofa beside her daughter.

I'm sorry, Signora’ he began. 'But I have bad news. The worst news.' The woman looked up from her child but said nothing. She sat, looking at him, and waited for this worst of news, though she must have known what it was.

'Your husband,' he began, unsure of how to phrase it. 'Your husband was found in the factory this morning by one of the other workmen when he went in to work. He was dead.'

Before he could read her expression, she looked down at the baby, who had calmed and seemed to have drifted off to sleep. She looked back at Brunetti and asked, 'What happened?'

'We don't know that yet, Signora’ he said. Brunetti had no idea how to comfort this woman and wished her mother would do something or say something, but neither of them spoke or moved.

The baby gurgled, and the woman placed a hand on her chest. Speaking as much to the child as to Brunetti, she said, 'He knew.'

'Knew what, Signora?'

'Knew that something would happen.' She looked at Brunetti after she said this.

'What did he tell you, Signora?' She did not answer, so he said, "That something like this would happen to him?'

She shook her head. 'No, only that he knew things and that they were dangerous things to know.' Beside her, her mother nodded in agreement, at least in agreement that she had heard him say these things.

'Did he tell you what he thought the danger was, Signora? Or did he tell you what it was he knew?' In the face of their silence, he asked, 'Or did he tell you what the source of the danger was?'

The older woman turned her eyes to her daughter to see how great had been her burden of knowledge, but Tassini's wife said, 'No. Nothing. Just that he knew things and it was dangerous for him to know them.'

Brunetti thought of the information Tassini had talked about when they met. 'When I spoke to him . . .'he began, wondering if she would display surprise. When she did not, he went on, 'your husband said he had a file where he kept the information he found. He said he had papers that were important.' Her glance was steady: the file was no surprise to her.

I'd like to see if the file can help us understand what might have happened.'

'What's happened is that Giorgio's dead!' the older woman exploded. 'So there's no way his papers are going to help.'

Brunetti made no attempt to oppose her. 'They might help me’ he said.

Signora Tassini turned to her mother and placed the sleeping child in her lap. She got up and went into the back of the apartment, as if she was simply going to check on the other child.

From the other room, he heard her voice, soothing and calm, as she spoke to her son. In a few minutes she was back, carrying a manila folder. She handed it to him, saying, 'I think this is all I want to do for you, and I'd like you to leave now.'

Without thanking either of them, Brunetti stood, took the folder from her outstretched hand, and left the apartment.

17

As soon as he got outside, Brunetti opened the file. He had no idea what he had expected to find, but certainly something more than three sheets of paper with numbers on them. At the top of the first were the letters VR and DC, the second an obvious reference to De Cal. Lower down were two numbers: 200973962, and 100982915: amounts of money written without the commas? Bank codes of some sort? Phone numbers? The second sheet bore four numbers: the first part of each was written in Roman numerals, separated by a slash from a number written in Arabic numbers. At first he thought they might be dates, the month and then the day, but one of the second numbers was greater than thirty-one, eliminating that possibility. The third page had six pairs of numbers. The first pair read 45° 27.60, and 12° 20.90; the other pairs were almost the same, with slightly different final numbers. His first thought, because of the degree sign, was that this was a way to list the high and low temperatures of one of the furnaces, or perhaps each of them, but surely the temperatures were far too low.

Brunetti had never been good at crossword puzzles; quizzes and mental teasers had always bored him. He walked back towards the Questura and stopped at the bottom of Ponte dei Grechi, suddenly aware that he was lost in time. He saw that it was half-past twelve and called Paola to explain that he would not be home before the everting. She reacted to his tone more than to his message and told him only to eat something and to try to get home at a reasonable hour.

He went into the bar, where he had a panino and a glass of mineral water, then another panino when his body discovered how hungry he was. When he was finished—not satisfied but finished—he went down the riva and into the Questura. Foa's boat was moored in front, but there was no-sign of the pilot.

Inside, the officer at the door told him that Vianello was still not back. Brunetti left word for the Inspector to come up when he returned and went to find Bocchese in his lab.

The technician looked up when he saw Brunetti come in, then returned his attention to the table in front of him. At the end of his long work table was the iron rod, raised ten centimetres above the surface on a pair of wooden blocks, one beneath either end.

'Anything?' Brunetti asked, gesturing with his chin towards the rod.

Bocchese looked up from the pair of scissors he was sharpening and said, "The dead man's prints were all up and down the near end. There are partials under his, but he was using it for so long that his prints smeared or covered anything else.'

Brunetti looked at the rod, as if he might be able to discern some sign with his naked eye. The end near them held a blob of material that could have been a turtle: flat on the bottom, rounded at the top. 'What might have happened?' Brunetti asked, wise enough not to ask Bocchese what he thought had happened. Bocchese never answered questions like that: perhaps he refused to think in such terms.

Bocchese pointed to the turtle with the scissors and said, 'He might have been trying to make something out of glass. The furnace he was in front of was much hotter than the others: it was preparing glass for the next day. He was alone in the place, so he might have tried to make something. If he dropped the rod, the molten glass would be flattened on the bottom like this.'

'Could something have happened to him?' Brunetti repeated.

Bocchese looked up from the scissors and said, 'Guido, I can tell you what the evidence looks like. You have to figure out how it got to be that way.'

Ignoring this, Brunetti asked, 'You have a chance to look at the body?'

'There was a mark on his head. It could have happened when he fell. Hit his head against the door, maybe.'

'Any sign on the door?'

Bocchese took a sheet of the Gazzettino that covered his table, held it up in the air, and cut it in half with six sudden clips of the scissors. As one piece fluttered onto the table, he said, 'The temperature in the heart of the furnace was almost 1,400 all night, at the door a bit less. No physical evidence can survive that temperature.'

'On the floor?' Brunetti asked. 'On him?'

Bocchese shook his head. 'Nothing. The place had been swept clean.' He took another swipe at the remaining piece of Gazzettino. 'Part of his job, I'm told: sweeping.'

'You don't like it, do you?' Brunetti asked.

Bocchese shrugged. ‘I measure and I tabulate. You do the liking, Guido.'

Brunetti held up a hand in acknowledgement, thanked him, and turned to go. From behind him, he heard Bocchese say, 'But no, I don't like it.'

Back in his office, Brunetti spread the three sheets of paper on his desk, propped his chin in his hands, and stared at the numbers. Twenty minutes later, he got to his feet and went to the window, but the change in position brought him no closer to understanding.

He cast his memory back to his meeting with Tassini. The more he thought about it, the stranger Tassini's behaviour seemed. He had been both secretive and protective about what he knew, yet his behaviour had suggested that his information was of great import. He had said he read a lot and kept a record of his conclusions and that great men had helped him understand, but he had not explained what it was he understood. Nor had he made clear why De Cal so strongly wanted to keep his son-in-law from the fornace.

Tassini had said he was close to finding the final proof, but Brunetti had no idea what he had meant by that. What happened was that Tassini died, and his wife said he had been afraid of something.

Brunetti went back to his desk and stared at the numbers again.

Signorina Elettra found him like that some time later when she came in with a single sheet of paper in her hand. 'Commissario,' she said when he looked at her with troubled eyes, 'what's the matter?' When he failed to answer, she said, her voice softer, 'I heard about that poor man. I'm sorry.'

'He was too young,' Brunetti surprised himself by saying. After a moment, he said, 'I'm trying to puzzle something out.' Seeing her confused glance, he redirected his attention back to her and asked, 'What is it?'

'I've been looking around, and I thought you might be interested to see what I've found: it's the Carabinieri report.' Seeing his momentary confusion, she added, 'Of a visit Tassini made.'

Brunetti asked her to take a seat. She sat down, placed the sheet of paper on his desk, and said, "This is a copy of their report, though there's little enough to tell. Then there are some things I learned by speaking to people.'

'All right’ Brunetti said. 'Tell me.'

She pointed towards the sheet of paper. 'A friend of mine sent me a copy of their file. Tassini went in there a year ago to file a denuncia against his employer for operating an unsafe workplace. The record shows that the maresciallo there—over by Riva degli Schiavoni—told him he didn't have enough evidence and suggested he go and see a lawyer and try to bring a civil suit. That is, if Tassini wanted to persist in the complaint. They refused to let him file it officially'

'Did he do that?' Brunetti asked: 'find a lawyer?'

'I don't know. There's nothing else in their records, and he never came to us. I don't know whether I should check further.'

Brunetti shook his head at this. Tassini was beyond lawyers now. 'Anything else?' he asked.

'The De Cal factory, sir. I asked around and the word is he's very close to selling it.'

'Who did you ask?'

'A friend,' she answered, and that was that, Elettra as reluctant as he to reveal a source when it was not necessary to do so.

'Is there talk about who might want to buy it?'

'Since the Chinese haven't discovered glass yet,' she began, using the ironic tone she usually reserved for the acquisitive habits of Venice's Chinese, 'at least not Venetian glass, the only name that's been mentioned is Gianluca Fasano's. He owns the factory next door. My friend said De Cal's furnaces are much newer than his are.'

'He wants to continue running a glass factory?' Brunetti asked, thinking of the rumours about Fasano's political aspirations.

'What's more Venetian than Murano glass?' she asked, and it surprised him to realize that she was serious. 'It would be proof that he really does want to help the city come back to life.' Usually Signorina Elettra was incapable of speaking such words except in tones of mock solemnity, but this was hardly the case here. 'Well,' she added, 'for us, that is. For Venetians.'

'You believe him, then?' Brunetti asked, adding, 'even if he wants to become a politician?'

Sensitive to his scepticism, she tempered her enthusiasm and said only, 'He's the chairman of the glassmakers' organization: that's hardly a political position.'

It's a very good jumping-off point,' Brunetti said, his voice calm and objective. 'He could start on Murano and then move to Venice. You said it yourself: what's more Venetian than Murano glass?' He took her silence as assent and asked, 'How else does he propose to bring the city back to life?'

'He says that no more apartments should be sold to non-Venetians—' and before he could object or quote European law’she added—'unless they're made to pay a substantial non-residents' tax.' When Brunetti did not respond, she added, 'He says that, if they want to live here, then they should pay to do so.'

'Anything else?' Brunetti asked neutrally.

'Because the city always claims it has no money, he's suggested that the finances of the Casino be made public, so people can see how much is spent on salaries, and who gets them, and how much rent is paid by the people who run the restaurants and bars there. And who those concessions are rented to.' This sounded like sovereign good sense to Brunetti, who nodded to encourage her to continue. 'He wants the city or the region to go back to paying forty per cent of the cost of gas for the furnaces on Murano. Or else a lot of people are going to be out of work in a few years' time.'

When Brunetti made no comment, she added, 'And he's concerned about the risk to the laguna from Marghera. He asks why so few fines have been paid.'

'Penalize big business?' Brunetti asked, and immediately regretted the words.

'Or save the laguna,' she said, 'whichever you choose to call it.'

'Does he have any political backing?' Brunetti asked.

'The Greens like him, though he's not their candidate. I suppose he's hoping to do what Di Pietro did, start his own party. But I really don't know that.'

'Not with similar results, I trust’ Brunetti said, thinking of Di Pietro's failed campaign.

'The report's here, sir’ she said, pushing the page a bit farther across the desk. Not for the first time, Signorina Elettra's sudden change of subject made it clear that politics was something about which she preferred not to enter into discussion. But then she surprised him by adding, 'I'm not sure we see eye to eye on the need to protect the laguna, sir.' She got to her feet and walked over to the door.

'Thank you’ he said, reaching across to the paper. Because of the sudden shadow of formality, even reprimand, that had fallen, Brunetti decided not to show her the three sheets of paper from Tassini's file, and she did not linger to ask if there was anything else she might do for him.

18

After Signorina Elettra left, Brunetti asked himself, as would someone from the Disease Control Centre, in which direction the arc of ecological infection was now likely to be passing: whether from her to Vianello or from the Inspector to her. His imagination was seized for a moment by this image, and he found himself wondering what risk of contagion he experienced by working in such proximity to them and when he might begin to feel the first symptoms.

Brunetti believed that his concern for the environment and for the ecological future was stronger than that of the average citizen—only a statue could have resisted the constant harassment of his children—but he obviously must have been judged to have failed to live up to the standards established by his two colleagues. Given the sincerity of their beliefs, why then did Vianello and Signorina Elettra work for the police force, when they could be working for some sort of environmental protection office?

For that matter, why did any of them continue to work for the police? Brunetti wondered. He and Vianello had most reason, for it was a job they had done for decades. But what about someone like Pucetti? He was young, bright, ambitious. So why would he opt to wear a uniform, walk the streets of the city at all hours, and dedicate himself to the maintenance of public order? Even more confusing and enigmatic, however, was Signorina Elettra. Over the years, Brunetti had stopped discussing her with Paola, not so much because of any response he had observed in Paola as because of the way it registered in his own ears to hear himself praise or display such curiosity about a woman other than his wife. She had been at the Questura how long? Five years? Six? Brunetti had to confess he knew little more about her than he had when she first started working there: knew little more, that is, than that he could trust both her abilities and her discretion and that her mask of wry amusement at human foibles was just that, a mask.

He lifted his feet onto the desk, folded his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. He studied the middle distance as he considered everything that had happened since Vianello asked him to go out to Mestre. He ran the events through his mind like the beads of a rosary, each one a separate entity but each leading to and from another, until they led to Tassini's body lying in front of the burning furnace.

He had eaten nothing all day save two panini and now regretted it. The sandwiches had done little more than remind him about food without satisfying his desire for it, and it was now too late to get anything to eat at a restaurant while it was still too early to go home.

He leaned forward and picked up the three sheets of paper and looked at them, then let them float, one by one, back to the surface of his desk. He felt his left knee growing stiff, so he crossed his feet, which allowed him to bend the knee. As he turned in the chair to do so, he felt one of the books in his pockets strike against the back of his chair, reminding him of their presence.

He pulled them out, looked at the ecological frightener and tossed it onto the desk. That left him with Dante, an old friend he had heard nothing from for more than a year. By nature an optimist, Brunetti would have preferred to find Purgatorio, the only book in which hope was a possibility, but given the fact that the alternative was Industrial Illness, he chose the black misery of Hell.

As he had fallen into the habit of doing in recent decades, he opened the book at random, thinking that this might well be the way other people read religious texts: letting fate lead them to some new illumination.

He dipped in just as Dante, still new to Hell and still capable of pity, tried to leave a message for Cavalcante that his son was still alive, then followed his Guide deeper into the abyss, already sickened by the stench. He flipped quickly on and found Vanni Fucci's obscene gesture to God, and flipped on again. He read of Dante's violence towards Bocca Degli Abbati and felt a moment's pleasure that such a traitor was so viciously treated.

He turned back and found himself reading one of the passages bordered by the notes Tassini had made in red. Canto XIV, the burning sand and horrid stream and fiery rain, that whole grotesque parody of nature that Dante thought so well suited to those who sinned against it: the usurers and sodomites. Brunetti followed them as, beneath the flaming snow that fell all around them, Dante and Virgil moved deeper into Hell. There appeared the company of shades, one of whom Brunetti recognized, or remembered, as Brunetto Latini, Dante's respected teacher. Though Brunetti had never much liked the passages that followed—the praise of Dante's genius that he puts into Ser Brunetto's mouth and the outing of public figures—he read on to the end of the next canto. He flipped back to Tassini's heavy red lines under ' . . . the plain whose soil rejects all roots .. . The wood itself is ringed with the red stream.' In the margin, Tassini had written, 'No roots. No life. Nothing.' In black ink, he had written 'The grey stream.'

Brunetti flipped forward and came upon the hypocrites. He recognized them, with their voluminous cloaks, like the Benedictines of Cluny, all dazzle and golden and fair on the outside, leaden and heavy and dull on the inside, the perfect physical manifestation of their deceit, doomed to carry it and measure out their steps until the end of time.

The lines describing their cloaks were circled in green and linked by a line to the text on the facing page, Virgil saying, 'Were I a pane of leaden glass, I could no more instantly imitate your look.'

The phone rang, dragging Brunetti away from Hell. He let his chair fall forward and answered with his name.

'I thought I'd call,' Elio Pelusso said. An old classmate of Brunetti's, Pelusso now worked on the newsdesk of the Gazzettino and had in the past been both informative and helpful. Brunetti had no idea why Pelusso would call him, which meant he could not figure out what sort of favour Pelusso would be after.

'Indeed’ Brunetti said. 'It's good to hear your voice.'

Pelusso laughed outright. 'Have they been making you all take sensitivity classes so you'll know how to deal with the press?' he asked.

'It's that obvious, eh?' Brunetti asked.

'To hear a policeman saying he's glad to hear my voice gives me goose-flesh.'

'And if a friend says it?' Brunetti asked, making himself sound offended.

'Then it's different,' Pelusso said in a warmer tone. 'Do you want me to call again and we can start over?'

Brunetti laughed. 'No, Elio, not at all. Just tell me what you'd like to know.'

'This time I'm calling to tell, not to ask.'

Brunetti bit back the remark that he was going to write the date down so he would be sure to remember it and, instead, asked, 'Tell me what?'

'Someone I spoke to said that your boss has had a bug put in his ear by a certain Gianluca Fasano.'

'What sort of bug?'

'The sort that comes from people who don't like hearing that questions are being asked about their friends.'

'I suppose you wouldn't want to tell me who told you that, would you?' Brunetti asked.

'You're right. I wouldn't.'

'Is he reliable?'

'Yes.'

Brunetti considered this for some time. The waiter, either the waiter or Navarro. 'I was out at the glass factory next .to his,' he volunteered to Pelusso.

'De Cal's?' the reporter asked.

'Yes. You know him?'

'Enough to know he's a bastard and enough to know he's a very sick man.'

'How sick?' Brunetti asked. 'And how do you know it?'

'I've met him a few times over the years, but a friend of mine was in a room in the hospital with him, so I saw him there when I went to visit my friend.'

'And?' Brunetti asked.

'You know how it is in oncology,' Pelusso said.

'No one ever tells anyone what they think they don't want to hear. But my friend heard the word "pancreas" enough times to suspect it didn't make any difference what else they said.'

'How long ago was this?'

'About a month. De Cal was in there for tests. Not treatment, but they still kept him in for two days—long enough for my friend to come to hate him as much as he seems to hate his son-in-law’ the reporter said. Then, perhaps because he felt he had given enough information and had no return on his investment, he asked, 'Why are you interested in Fasano?'

'I didn't know I was,' Brunetti said. 'But now maybe I am.'

'And De Cal?'

'He's threatened the husband of someone I know.'

'Sounds like something he'd do,' Pelusso said.

'Anything else?' Brunetti asked, though he knew it was greedy to do so.

'No.'

'Thanks for calling,' Brunetti said. 'I have to think about this for a while.'

'It's my single hope in life, to be of help to the forces of order,' Pelusso said in his most unctuous voice, waited for Brunetti's answering laugh, and when he heard it, hung up.

Inferno open in his lap, Brunetti wondered where Dante would have placed someone like De Cal. With the thieves? No, Brunetti had no reason to suspect he had ever stolen anything, save what the ordinary businessman was obliged to steal from the taxman in order to survive, and that was hardly to be considered a sin. Among the grafters? But how else to run a business? Brunetti remembered the man, his face red with anger, and realized that he would be among the wrathful and be torn limb from limb, like Filippo Argenti, by his fellow sinners. Yet if De Cal knew himself to be a dying man but still bent his mind to profit, then Dante might have put him among the hoarders and condemned him to push his heavy stone, for all eternity, against the stones of other men like himself.

Brunetti had once read in the science column of La Repubblica a report on experiments done with people suffering from Alzheimer's. Many of them lost the use of the brain mechanism that told them when they were hungry or full, and if given food repeatedly, would eat again and again, unconscious of the fact that they had just eaten and should no longer be hungry. He sometimes thought it was the same with people afflicted with the disease of greed: the concept of 'enough' had been eliminated from their minds.

He folded the papers in three and slipped them into the pocket of his jacket. Downstairs he left a note on Vianello's desk, telling the Inspector he had left for the day but would like to talk to him the following morning. Outside the Questura he gave himself over to what was left of the day. He went out to Riva degli Schiavoni and took the Number One to Salute, then headed west with no destination in mind, turning that decision over to his memory and his mood. He cut through the underpass by the abbey, down past building site after building site then left, down towards the Incurabili. Only a fragment of Bobo's fresco remained, glassed in now in order to save what was left from the elements. Had it been warmer, he would have had his first ice-cream of the year, not at Nico's but at the little place down by Ai Schiavi. He passed the Giustinian, crossed over to Fondamenta Foscarini and then went down to Tonolo for a coffee and a pastry. Because he had had no lunch to speak of, he had two: a cream-filled swan and a tiny chocolate eclair as light as silk.

In the window of a shop where he had once bought a grey sweater, he saw what might be its twin, but in green. The size was his and soon, without his bothering to try it on, so was the sweater. As he stepped out into the calle, he realized how happy he was, much in the way he had been as a boy to be out of school when the others were still inside, and no one to know where he was or what he was doing.

He went into a wine shop not far from San Pantalon and bought a bottle of Nebbiolo, a Sangiovese, and a very young Barbera. By then it was almost seven, and he decided to go home. As he turned into the calle, he noticed Raffi opening the front door of their building and called out to him, but his son didn't hear him and closed the door. Brunetti shifted packages, looking for his keys, and by the time he got inside it was too late to shout up the steps after his son.

As he turned into the final flight of stairs, he heard Raffi's voice, though he had seen him come in alone. This confusion was resolved halfway up the steps, when he saw Raffi, slouched against the wall outside the door, tele-fonino in hand. 'No, not tonight. I've got that calculus to do. You know how much homework he gives us.'

Brunetti smiled at his son, who held up a hand and, in a gesture of unmistakable male solidarity, rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, saying, 'Of course I want to see you.'

Brunetti let himself into the apartment, abandoning Raffi to what he assumed were the tender solicitations of Sara Paganuzzi. Inside, he found himself surrounded by the aroma of artichokes. The scent floated down the hallway from the kitchen, filling the house. The penetrating odour sent Brunetti's mind flashing back to the stench that had surrounded him twelve hours before. He set the packages on the floor and went down the corridor, away from the kitchen, and into the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, showered, his hair still wet, and wearing a pair of light cotton pants and a T-shirt, he went back down the hallway to get his sweater. Both packages were gone. He went down to the kitchen, where he saw the three bottles lined up on the counter, Paola at the stove, and Chiara setting the table.

Paola turned and made a kissing gesture towards him; Chiara said hello and smiled. 'Aren't you cold?' Paola asked.

'No’ Brunetti answered, turning back towards Raffi's room. As he walked down the corridor, his righteous indignation mounted: it was his sweater; he'd worked to pay for it; the colour was perfect for these slacks. He stopped outside Raffi's door, preparing himself for the sight of his son wearing his sweater, knocked on the door and entered when he heard Raffi's voice.

'Ciao, Papa,' Raffi said, looking up from the papers scattered over his desk. A textbook was in front of him, propped open by the ceramic frog Chiara had given him for Christmas. Brunetti said hello and gave what he thought was a quite thoroughly professional glance around the room.

'I put it on your bed,' Raffi said and went back to his homework.

'Oh, good’ Brunetti said. 'Thanks.'

He wore it to dinner, earning compliments from Paola and from Chiara, though she complained that men always got to wear the best sweaters and jackets and girls always had to wear pink angora and horrible things like that. Girls, however, did get first crack, it seemed, at fried artichoke bottoms and then at pork ribs with polenta. Not at all disturbed by the fact that it had just been carried home, Paola had opened the Sangiovese, and Brunetti found it perfect.

Because he had eaten the two pastries, Brunetti declined a baked pear, to the considerable surprise of the others at the table. No one asked after his health, but he did notice that Paola was particularly solicitous in asking him if he would like a grappa, perhaps with coffee, in the living room while the kids did the dishes?

She came in a little later, carrying a tray with two coffees and two ample glasses of grappa. She placed it on the table and sat beside him. 'Why did you take a shower?' she asked.

He spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred it, saying, 'I went for a walk, and it was colder than I expected, so I thought it would warm me up.'

'Did it?' she asked, sipping at her own coffee.

'Uh huh,' he said, finishing his coffee, and picked up his grappa.

She set her cup down, picked up her glass and moved back in the sofa. 'Nice day for a walk.'

'Uh huh’ was the best Brunetti could do. Then he said, 'I'll tell you another time, all right?'

She moved minimally closer to him, until her shoulder touched his, and said, 'Of course.'

'You're good at crossword puzzles and things like that, aren't you?' he asked.

'I suppose.'

'I have something I'd like you to look at’ he said, getting to his feet. Without waiting for her answer, he went out to the hallway to get the three sheets of paper from his jacket, and took them back into the living room.

He unfolded them, sat back down beside her, and handed them over. 'I found these in the room of someone who worked on Murano. I think he was killed.'

She took the papers and held them at some distance from her. Brunetti got up again, went down to her study, and came back with her glasses. After she put them on, she looked more closely at the papers, studying them. She tried to hold them in line with one another, but gave that up, leaned forward and spread them out on the table, pushing the tray to one side to make enough room for them.

Brunetti offered, 'I thought of bank codes, but that doesn't make any sense. He didn't have any money. I don't think he was very interested in it, either.'

Paola put her head down again and studied the papers. 'You excluded dates, too?' she asked, and he grunted in assent.

After some time, she said, "The first number on the first page is almost twice as big as the second one.'

'Does that mean anything to you?' he asked.

'No,' she said with a quick shake of her head. She said nothing about the numbers on the second and third pages.

So they sat, for another ten minutes, staring with futile attention at the papers. Chiara, on her way back to her room to continue her Latin homework, found them that way and flopped down on the arm of the sofa next to Brunetti. 'What's that?' she asked.

'Puzzles,' Brunetti answered. 'Neither of us can make any sense of them.'

'You mean the coordinates?' Chiara asked, pointing at the numbers that appeared on the third page.

'Coordinates?' asked an astonished Brunetti.

'Sure,' Chiara said in her most offhand manner.

'What else could they be? See,' she said, pointing at the degree sign after the first number, 'this is the degree, the minute, and the second.' She pulled the paper a bit closer and said, "This one is the latitude—that's always given first—and that one's the longitude.' She looked at the numbers a moment more and said, 'The second set is for a place that's got to be very near to the first, slightly to the south-east. And the third is to the southwest. You want to know where they are?'

'Where what are?' Brunetti asked, still slightly stunned.

"The places,' Chiara said, tapping her finger on the paper. 'Do you want to know where they are?'

'Yes,' Paola said.

'OK,' Chiara said and got to her feet. In less than a minute, she was back with the giant atlas she had requested for Christmas, the best Brunetti could find, more than 500 pages and published in England, its page spread almost as large as the Gazzettino's.

Chiara thumped it down on the table, covering the papers, then pulled them out by their corners. She had to use both hands to open the book to the middle, then started to page through it, occasionally glancing at the numbers, then at the book. With a snort of irritation, she turned back to the opening pages, ran her finger across the numbers at the top of a map of Europe, then down the right side of the page.

Carefully she turned the pages by their top corners until she found the page she was looking for, opened the book and let it fall flat, and they all found themselves looking at the laguna of Venezia.

'Looks like they're on Murano’ Chiara said, 'but you'd need a more detailed map—probably a nautical chart of the laguna—to find the exact places.'

Neither of her parents said anything; both were staring at the map. Chiara got to her feet again, saying, 'I've got to get back to the Gallic Wars’ and went to her room.

20

'Did she learn all that from reading those Patrick O'Brian books?' Brunetti asked when Chiara was gone.

He had intended the question as a joke, at least as a semi-joke, but Paola took it seriously and answered, 'They probably used the same notation for writing latitude and longitude in the nineteenth century: she's got the advantage of better maps.'

I'll never say another word against those books,' Brunetti promised.

'But you still won't try again to read them?' she asked.

Ignoring the question, Brunetti said, 'Do we still have those nautical charts?'

"They'd be in the box,' Paola answered, leaving it to Brunetti to go and hunt out the battered old wooden box in which the family kept their maps.

He was back with it in a few minutes, handed her half of the pile and started sorting through the others. After a few minutes Paola said, holding it up, 'Here's the big one of the laguna.'

It was a relic of the summer they had spent exploring the laguna in a battered old boat a friend had let them use. It must have been more than twenty years ago, before either of the kids was born. He remembered one star-scattered night when they had been trapped in a canal by the withdrawing tide.

"Those mosquitoes’ Paola said, her memory, too, drawn to that night and what they had done after spreading insect repellent on one another.

Brunetti dropped the maps he held on the floor and spread hers across the table. Unasked, she read him out the latitudinal coordinate of the first number while he ran his finger down the side of the map, stopping when he found the proper place. With his knees he pushed the table back to allow the entire map to fit flat on it. She read out the longitude, and he brought his finger slowly across the top of the map until he found that number, as well. He ran his left index finger down one of the vertical lines on the map; then the right followed a horizontal line until his fingers met at the point of intersection. The second point appeared to be little more than a few metres from the first.

"They're all on Sacca Serenella,' he said.

'You don't sound surprised.'

'I'm not.'

'Why?'

It took Brunetti almost half an hour to tell her, glossing over the precise circumstances of Tassini's death, to arrive at their search of the dead man's room, a room located not far from the point where those lines intersected, and then the grim meeting with his wife and mother-in-law.

When he finished, Paola went into the kitchen and returned holding the bottle of grappa. She handed it to Brunetti and sat next to him, then folded the map and dropped it on top of the others on the floor. She took back the bottle and poured them each another small glass.

'Did he really believe all that about having been contaminated and passing it on to his daughter?' Paola asked.

'I think so, yes.'

'Even in the face of the medical evidence?' Paola asked.

Brunetti shrugged, as if to show how unimportant medical evidence was to a person who chose not to believe it. 'It's what he thought happened.'

'But how would he be contaminated?' she asked. 'I'd believe it if he worked at Marghera, but I've never heard any talk that Murano is at risk, well, that the people who work there are.'

Brunetti thought back to his conversation with Tassini. 'He believed that there was a conspiracy to prevent him from getting accurate test results, so there would never be sufficient genetic evidence.' He read her scepticism and said, 'He believed it.'

'But what did he believe?' Paola demanded.

Brunetti opened his hands in a gesture of futility. 'That's what I couldn't get him to tell me: what he thought his problem was or how it would have affected the baby. All he'd tell me was that De Cal wasn't the only person involved in whatever was going on’ and before she could ask again, he added, 'and no, he didn't say what that was.'

'You think he was crazy?' Paola asked in a softer voice.

'I don't know about things like that,' Brunetti answered after considering the question. 'He believed in something for which there seems to be no evidence and for which he appeared to have no proof. I'm not ready to call that crazy'

He waited to see if Paola would remark that he had just described religious belief, but she was taking no easy shots that evening, it seemed, and said only, 'But he believed it enough to write down these numbers, whatever they are.'

'Yes’ Brunetti admitted. 'Doesn't mean that what he believed is true, just because he wrote some numbers down.'

'What about these other numbers?' she said, taking the other two sheets from the floor and placing them on the table.

'No idea’ Brunetti said. I've been staring at them all afternoon and they don't make any sense to me.'

'No clues?' she asked. 'Wasn't there anything else in his room?'

'No, nothing’ Brunetti said, and then he remembered the books. 'Just Industrial Illness and Dante.'

'Don't be cute, Guido,' she snapped.

He got up and went over to his jacket again; this time he brought back the two books.

Her reaction to Industrial Illness was the same as his, though she tossed it on the floor, not on the table. 'Dante’ she said, reaching for the book. He handed it to her and watched as she examined it: she opened to the title page, then turned to the publication information, then opened it in the middle and flipped through to the end.

'It's his school text, isn't it?' she said. 'Was he a reader?'

'There were a lot of books in his house.'

'What sort of books?' Like Brunetti, she believed that books served as a mirror of the person who accumulated them.

'I don't know’ he said. 'They were in a shelf against the back wall, and I never got close enough to read the titles.' He hadn't been conscious of examining them at the time, but now, recalling the room, he saw the rows of books, the backs of some of what might well have been the standard editions of the poets, and the gold-ribbed backs of the same editions of the great novelists Paola had in her study.

'He was a real reader, though’ Brunetti finally said.

Paola had the Dante open and was already lost in it. He watched her for a few minutes, until she turned a page, looked across at him with an expression of blank astonishment, and asked, 'How is it that I forget how perfect he is?'

Brunetti picked up the maps and put them back in the box. He closed it and left it on the floor.

Suddenly the accumulated weight of the day's events bore down on him. 'I think I have to go to bed’ he said, offering no explanation. She acknowledged his words with a nod and plunged back into Hell.

Brunetti sank immediately into a heavy sleep and was not aware of Paola when she came to bed. If she turned on the light, if she made any noise, if she stayed awake reading: Brunetti had no idea. But as the bells of San Marco rolled past their window at five the following morning, he woke up, saying, 'Laws.'

He turned on the light, raised himself onto his shoulder to see if he had woken Paola, and saw that he had not. He pushed back the covers and went out into the hallway, one side of which was lined with the books he thought of as his: the Greek and Roman historians as well as those who had followed them for the next two thousand years. On the other side were art books and travel books and, on the top shelf, some of the textbooks he had used at university as well as some current volumes on civil and criminal law.

In the living room he found Tassini's papers still on the table alongside Industrial Illness. He had a degree in law, had spent years reading and memorizing them: why had he not recognized the notation? If the first six digits were read as a date, the first came out as 20 September 1973 and the second as 10 September 1982. The last three numbers would then be the number of the law. He knew he had the volumes of the Gazzetta Ufficiale in his office and not here, but still he looked for them. His feet got cold so he took the papers and Tassini's book with him to the bedroom.

He climbed into bed, slapped his pillow into submission behind him, but then cursed under his breath and went back into the living room to get his glasses. Coming back into the room, he grabbed his new sweater and tied it around his shoulders, and got into bed again.

He let the sheets of paper drift into the valley between himself and his apparently comatose wife and opened Industrial Illness at the index.

He read until nearly six, when he set down the book and went into the kitchen, made himself caffe latte, and took it back into the bedroom. He sat, sipping at his coffee and watching the light on the paintings on the far wall.

'Paola’ he said soon after the bells had rung seven. And then again, ‘Paola.'

She must have responded to something in his voice rather than to her name, for she replied in an entirely natural voice. 'If you bring me coffee, I'll listen to you.'

For the fourth time, he got out of bed. He made a larger pot of coffee and brought two cups back to the bedroom with him. He found her sitting up, her glasses slipped down to the end of her nose, Tassini's book open on her knees.

He handed her a cup. She took it, sipped, and smiled her thanks. She patted the bed beside her and he sat. They drank some coffee. After a time, she pushed her glasses up onto her head. She said, 'I have no idea what you're doing, Guido. Reading something like this half the night.' With her free hand, she shut the book and tossed it on to the bed.

'I think I know what the numbers mean,' he said. 'He knew the laws that deal with pollution and he listed them in the proper legal way, only without the spaces between the dates and numbers.'

He expected Paola to ask what the laws were, but she surprised him by saying, 'How would he know the numbers of the laws?' In her tone, he detected more than a little of the scorn the educated reserve for those who aspire to their knowledge.

'I have no idea,' Brunetti confessed.

'Did he study law?'

'I don't know,' Brunetti said, realizing how little he knew about Tassini's past; the man had passed too quickly from suspect to victim.

'His mother-in-law said he wanted to be a night-watchman so he could sit there and read all night’ he told Paola.

With a smile, she said, 'I wouldn't be surprised if there was a time when my mother might have said the same thing about you, Guido,' but she leaned over and squeezed his hand to show she was only kidding. He hoped.

He got to his feet and took her empty cup. 'I think I'll go to the Questura’ he said, thinking that he would pick up the newspapers on the way and see how the story was being reported.

She nodded and reached for the book she kept on her night table. She put on her glasses and opened it. Brunetti picked up Tassini's book and went back out to the kitchen to put their cups in the sink.

On his way to the Questura, Brunetti bought the Corriere and the Gazzettino and unfolded them on his desk as soon as he got to his office. The death had taken place early enough the previous day for reporters to have had a full day to sniff around the factory, the hospital, and then around Tassini's home. There was a photo of Tassini, taken years ago, and one of the De Cal factory with three carabinieri standing in front of it: Brunetti had no idea that they had become involved. According to the accounts in both papers, Tassini's body had been discovered by a co-worker when he arrived at the factory to adjust the temperature of the new gettate that had spent the night in the furnaces. The man's body was lying in front of one of the furnaces, in a temperature estimated to be in excess of one hundred degrees.

The police had questioned Tassini's co-workers and family, but an official investigation would begin only after the results of the autopsy. Tassini, who was thirty-six, had worked at De Cal's factory for six years and left a wife and two children.

As soon as Brunetti finished reading the article, he dialled the telefonino of the medico legate, Ettore Rizzardi. The doctor answered with a laconic 'Si.'

'It's Guido,' Brunetti began.

Before he could continue, Rizzardi said, 'You are not going to believe this, but he died of a heart attack.'

'What? He wasn't forty yet.'

'Well, it wasn't that kind of a heart attack’ Rizzardi said, surprising Brunetti, who had not known there was more than one type.

"Then what kind was it?'

'From dehydration,' Rizzardi said and went on, 'He was lying there most of the night. The temperature did it. That idiot Venturi didn't bother to measure it, but the men at the fornace told me when I called. That is, they told me what it would have been if the temperature inside was about 1,400 and the door was open.'

'How much is that?' Brunetti asked.

'One hundred and fifty-seven’ Rizzardi answered, 'but that's just outside the door. Down on the floor, it wouldn't be as hot, but still hot enough to kill him.'

'What happens?'

'You sweat. It's worse than any sauna you can think of, Guido. You sweat and sweat until there's no more sweat to come out. And while it's coming out, it takes all the minerals with it. And once there are no more minerals, especially sodium and potassium, the heart goes into arrhythmia, and then you have a heart attack.'

'And then you die’ Brunetti completed.

'That's right. And then you die.'

'Any signs of violence?' Brunetti asked.

'There was a mark on his head, a bruise. The skin was broken, but there was no dirt in it and no traces of what he might have hit.'

'Or of what might have hit him?' Brunetti suggested.

'Or of what he came into contact with, Guido’ Rizzardi said in a firm voice. 'It bled for a while, until he died.'

Brunetti had already had Bocchese tell him that any sign of human tissue on the door to the furnace would have been destroyed by the fire, so he did not bother to ask.

'Anything else?' Brunetti asked.

'No’ Rizzardi said, 'nothing that you could think was suspicious.'

'Did you do it?' Brunetti asked, suddenly curious as to why Rizzardi knew so much about the state of Tassini's body.

'I offered to help my colleague, Dottor Venturi, with the autopsy. I told him I was curious because I'd never seen anything like this’ Rizzardi said in his dispassionate, professional voice.

But then his tone changed and he said, 'You know, it's true, Guido. I'd never seen anything like this: just read about it. You should have seen his lungs. I couldn't have imagined. Breathing in that heat: it made them produce so much liquid. I've seen it with smoke, of course,, but I had no idea that heat itself could do the same thing.'

'But it was a heart attack?' Brunetti asked, unwilling to hear more of Rizzardi's professional enthusiasm.

'Yes. That's what Venturi put on the death certificate.'

'What would you have put?' Brunetti asked, hoping Rizzardi would confirm his own suspicions.

'Heart attack, Guido. Heart attack. That's what the man died of, a heart attack.'

'One more thing, Ettore: is there a list of what was in his pockets?'

'Wait a minute’ the doctor said. 'I had the list here a minute ago.' Brunetti heard a click as the doctor set the phone down on his desk, then the rustling of papers. A moment later, he was back. 'A set of keys, a wallet with identification and thirty Euros, a handkerchief, and three Euros and eighty-seven cents. That's it.'

Brunetti thanked him and hung up.

20

After his conversation with Rizzardi, Brunetti decided to go down to the Archive and make copies of the laws Tassini's notes had referred to. Back in his office, Brunetti read through them. The 1973 law established limits for waste water that flowed into the laguna, the sewers, even the sea. It also established time limits within which the glass manufacturers had to install water purifiers and then established the agency that would inspect those purifiers. The law of 1982 imposed even stricter limits on the water system and addressed the acids that Assunta had mentioned. As Brunetti read of the limits and restrictions, he could not silence the small voice that asked him what had gone on before that and what had flowed into the laguna before these laws were passed?

Once he finished reading the laws, good sense urged Brunetti to go down to Patta's office and tell him about the contents of Tassini's file and what some of those numbers meant. He wanted to suggest that some sort of examination be made of the places indicated by the coordinates to see what basis Tassini's suspicions might have had, but long experience of Patta and the way he negotiated the shoals of city bureaucracy told Brunetti just how receptive his superior would be to this suggestion. If Pelusso was telling him the truth—and Brunetti saw no reason not to believe him—then Fasano had enough influence to be able to complain to Patta, and that suggested he was a man of greater influence than Brunetti had previously realized.

As he returned to his chair, one of Tassini's books struck the edge of his desk, once again calling Brunetti's attention to them. Where would Dante have put Patta, Brunetti found himself wondering. Among the hypocrites? The wrathful? Or perhaps he would have been merciful and placed the Vice-Questore outside the gate to Hell, among the opportunists. He opened Inferno to the title page and studied it for a moment. Canto I. Canto I. He turned a few pages, and there it was: Canto II, and then Canto III, and then Canto IV. Brunetti took a deep breath, amazed at his own blindness. He had had the book and Tassini's numbers in his hands at the same time and he had not seen it.

He took the copy he had made of Tassini's numbers, found the first, and opened Dante to Canto VII, line 103. 'L'acqua era buia assai piu che persa', 'The water was much darker than persa’ he repeated. 'What the devil is persa?' He looked at his watch, saw that Paola was likely still to be home, and dialled their number.

'Pronto,' she answered on the fifth ring.

'Paola,' he said, 'what's persa?'

'In what context?' she asked, displaying no curiosity as to the reason for his question.

'In Dante’ he said.

'I think it's a colour’ she said, 'but let me get the concordance.' In less than a minute she was back, and he heard her mumbling as she searched for the word, a habit Chiara had picked up from her. Finally she said,' "a colour between purple and black, but black predominates".' She waited for his response, and when he made none, she asked, 'Anything else?'

'Not yet. I'll call.'

Paola hung up.

Brunetti went back to the book. The stream that Dante was following eventually flowed into the Styx, but Tassini's reference was only to line 103, to the black water.

The next was no less grim: 'no green leaves but dark colours, no smooth branches, but gnarled and warped.'

He continued with Tassini's references: 'the banks were crusted over with a mould from the vapour below that sticks on them and fights with the eyes and nose.'

And the last: 'do not set your feet upon the burning sand.'

This was hardly the stuff of a major environmental scandal, but if Signorina Elettra was right and Tassini had the faith of a true believer, he would have interpreted these Dantean descriptions as he pleased and found whatever signs and portents he chose to find.

Brunetti decided to go down and talk to Patta, if only for the perverse desire to prove himself correct in his assessment of the man. Celestine V had renounced the papacy in order to avoid the power of office, had he not? How unlike Patta, who renounced every aspect of his work save for the power and perks of office. Having Patta run naked through a field of worms and maggots, weeping tears and blood, would perhaps be an excessive punishment for his negligence of office, but the contemplation of this image kept Brunetti occupied as he made his way to his superior's office.

Signorina Elettra glanced up from, some papers as he came in, and she smiled a peculiar kind of smile. 'I have some information about Signor Fasano, who would appear to be what he claims to be.'

'Good,' he had the presence of mind to say, and, 'thank you.' Then he asked, 'Is the Vice-Questore in?'

'Yes, he is. Would you like to speak to him?' she asked, as if Brunetti might have had some other reason to have come down two flights of stairs to ask if Patta were in. He tried to remember how absent of respect he had been when discussing Fasano with her the previous time: might this be the reason for her formality?

She picked up her phone and pressed a button, asked Dottor Patta if he would see Commis-sario Brunetti, replaced the phone, and nodded towards the door. Brunetti thanked her and went in without bothering to knock.

'Ah, Brunetti,' Patta said as he entered, 'I was just going to call you.'

'Yes, sir?' Brunetti said, making his way towards Patta's desk.

'Yes, sit down, sit down,' Patta said with a broad wave of his hand.

Brunetti did as he was told, all systems on high alert as they registered Patta's affability.

'I wanted to talk to you about this thing out on Murano,' Patta said.

Brunetti did his best to look mildly interested.

'Yes,' Patta said, 'I wanted to talk to you about this case you seem to be creating.'

'A man died there, sir’ Brunetti said, hoping to surprise Patta into a reconsideration of his own words.

Patta gave him a long look. 'Of a heart attack, Brunetti. The man died of a heart attack.' The affability had disappeared from his voice. When Brunetti said nothing, Patta added, 'I assumed you would have spoken to your friend Rizzardi by now, Commissario.' In the face of Brunetti's refusal to answer him, Patta repeated, 'He died of a heart attack.'

Brunetti sat silently. Apparently Patta had not finished. The Vice-Questore went on, 'I don't know if you've had time to formulate some theory of foul play here, Brunetti, but if you have, I want you to unformulate it. The man collapsed and died of a heart attack while he was at work.'

'He was a watchman, not a glass-blower’ Brunetti said. "There was no reason for him to be working near the furnace.'

'On the contrary,' Patta said with an equanimity that Brunetti found as puzzling as it was infuriating, 'it's just because he was a watchman that there are any number of reasons he could have been there. There could have been something wrong with the furnace, a sudden rise in temperature that he went to investigate. Someone could have left that rod there for him to trip over, or he could have been doing what a lot of them do out there at night: working a piece of glass for himself.' Patta's smile registered the plausibility of these things, and Brunetti wondered just where the Vice-Questore, a Sicilian, had learned so much about the art of making Murano glass. Scarpa was a possible choice, Scarpa who shared his superior's desire that the city be viewed as free of crime, and what better crime to keep from the records than murder? But Scarpa was no more Venetian than his master. Fasano, then?

Even before he spoke, Brunetti knew it was hopeless, with Patta so contentedly persuaded that the investigation—whatever pale, weak thing that might have been—was over. But still he said, 'I came to speak to you, sir, because of some papers that were in Tassini's possession.'

'How in his possession?'

"They were in his home.'

'And how is it that they happen to be in your possession, Commissario?'

'Because I took them away with me when I went to speak to his widow.'

'Have you made a formal report of this?'

'Yes’ Brunetti lied, knowing that Signorina Elettra could easily backdate his report, when he got around to writing it.

Patta did not question this. Instead he asked, 'And what are these papers?'

'Lists of numbers.'

'What sort of numbers?'

'There are references to specific laws and to specific geographic locations. And there are repeated references to Inferno. There was a copy of the poem in his room at the factory.'

'And is this book another item in your possession?' Patta asked.

'Yes.'

'Is that all there was, Brunetti? Or was there something other than—' Patta began, using the long-drawn-out enunciation one employs with a wilful or disobedient child—'references to laws and geographic locations and to Inferno?' Patta was unable or unwilling to resist the temptation to repeat Brunetti's words.

As though this had been a request for information rather than an insult, Brunetti said, "There has to be a reason he was keeping those numbers, sir.'

Patta made a business of shaking his head in feigned confusion. 'Specific laws and specific locations, is it, Brunetti? And what comes next, the winning lottery number for Venice? Or the geographic coordinates of where the extraterrestrials are going to land?' He got up from his chair and took two steps, muttering, 'Dante', as if to calm his troubled spirit. He persuaded himself to return and sit down again. 'Though it might come as a surprise to you, Brunetti, this is a Questura,' he said, leaning across his desk and pointing a finger at the Commissario, 'and we are police officers. It is not a tent in the middle of the desert where people come to you so that you can hold seances and read tarot cards.'

Brunetti glanced at Patta, then shifted his eyes to a spot on the desk between them. 'Do you understand me, Brunetti?' When the Commissario made no attempt to respond, Patta demanded, 'Do you understand me, Brunetti?'

'Yes, sir. I do,' Brunetti said, surprised at just how true this was. He got to his feet.

'And what are you going to do about those numbers, Brunetti?' Patta asked, voice acid with sarcasm and menace.

'I'll keep the references to Dante, sir. It's always good to know where to locate the hypocrites and the opportunists.'

Patta's face went rigid, but he couldn't prevent himself from asking for more. 'And your laws and your coordinates?'

'Oh, I don't know, sir,' Brunetti said, turning and making for the door. 'But it's useful to know what the laws are and exactly where you stand.' He opened the door, said 'Buon giorno' very quietly, and closed the door behind him.

21

When he emerged from Patta's office, Brunetti paused at Signorina Elettra's desk long enough to take the folder she handed him. He thanked her, checked that he had the paper on which he had written Tassini's coordinates, and went outside the Questura to the dock in front. There was no sign of Foa, whom he finally found down at the bar by the bridge, having a coffee and reading La Gazzetta dello Sport.

He smiled when he saw Brunetti come in. 'Would you like a coffee, Commissario?'

'Gladly’ Brunetti said, wishing he knew enough about some sport, any sport, to be able to make some appropriate conversation, but, instead, he could do nothing more than remark on how warm it was.

When the coffee was in front of him, Brunetti asked, 'Have you got one of those location-finding things, Foa?'

'A GPS, sir?'

'Yes.'

'In the boat, sir,' the pilot said. 'You need it?'

'Yes’ Brunetti said, stirring his coffee. 'You doing anything now?'

'Other than reading about these hopeless clowns’ Foa said, slapping the paper with the backs of his fingers, 'nothing. Why, you need to go somewhere?'

'Out to Murano’ Brunetti said. 'Yes.'

As they walked back to the launch, Brunetti explained about the numbers Tassini had written and did nothing to deflect Foa's compliments at having figured out what they were. After they climbed on board, Foa unlocked a panel on the dashboard and took out a glass-faced instrument. He showed Brunetti the GPS, which was little larger than a telefonino and served the double function of pointing to true North and giving the exact coordinates of the point where the instrument was. He set it on the ledge in front of him and switched on the engine. He pulled away from the dock and, after a moment, turned into Rio di Santa Giustina and took them quickly out into the laguna.

'How does it work?' Brunetti asked, picking it up. Because he had grown up without proximity to cars, he always blamed Venice for his mechanical and technological ineptitude, when he knew the real explanation was simply his lack of interest in the way things, especially gadgets, functioned.

'Satellites’ the pilot said, suddenly deciding to cut across the wake of a 42 on its way to the cemetery. The heavy bouncing of the launch forced Brunetti to grab the railing beside him, but Foa seemed to float and bob with the waves. The pilot took his right hand from the wheel and waved towards the heavens. 'It's full of them, circling around, registering, recording, keeping an eye on matters.' Foa waited a moment, and then added, 'Probably taking photos of what we eat for breakfast, too.'

Brunetti opted to ignore this opening, and Foa returned to more prosaic things. "The satellite sends down a message that tells you exactly where you are. Look at it,' he said, pointing to the face of the GPS, where two illuminated rectangles provided ever-changing digital readings. 'On the side there,' the pilot said, turning his attention from the waters in front of them and pointing to the face of the instrument, 'that's the latitude reading. And that's the longitude. It'll keep changing as long as we keep moving.' As if to show just how this worked, Foa swung the boat hard to the right, and then just as quickly to the left. If the latitude and longitude readings changed, Brunetti took no notice, for he was busy grabbing the railing again to keep from toppling out of the launch.

Brunetti handed the object back to Foa and devoted his attention to Murano, which they were approaching at considerable speed. 'You want to go back to where we went the last time?' Foa asked.

'Yes. And I'd like you to come with me.'

Foa made no attempt to hide the pleasure this gave him. He slowed the engine and slipped the boat up to the dock, then shifted into reverse until they were motionless in the water. A side current brushed them against the embankment; Foa leaped out and made the boat fast to a ring in the paving, then secured it at the bow with another rope.

Brunetti slipped the GPS into the pocket of his jacket and climbed up beside Foa. Together they started back towards De Cal's factory. 'You want to talk to the old man again?' Foa asked.

'No,' Brunetti answered. 'I want to find where these points are.' He took out his wallet and extracted the piece of paper on which he had written the coordinates.

Foa took the paper and read the sets of numbers. 'The latitude and longitude are right for the laguna,' he said, then added, "They've all got to be right around here.' Brunetti, who had a vague idea from having checked the nautical charts, nodded.

Together they skirted the factory building and went around to the left, towards the barren field behind it. The side of the building that they walked along, Brunetti was glad to notice, had no windows.

They stopped just where the dry grass began, and Brunetti took out the GPS. He started to hand the piece of paper to Foa, but he realized that the pilot would be more familiar with the instrument so gave him that, instead. Foa took one final look at the paper and set off in the direction of the water.

He walked across the field, his eyes fixed to the instrument, moving at an angle that took him slightly to the left, towards the laguna to the north of the island. Halfway between De Cal's factory and the water, he stopped. When Brunetti joined him, Foa pulled the hand that held the paper towards him and checked the second number.

His attention on the GPS, Foa moved to the left, heading for the fence that had once stood between De Cal's property and the land next door. All that was left to indicate its previous existence or function was a line of bleached stakes and sticks, like the bones of some desiccated land animal long ago devoured by marauders. As if to provide a clearer demarcation between the two properties, nothing grew on the strip where once the fence had stood: the grass began only about a metre to either side of the tangled sticks.

After a time, Foa stopped and studied the instrument, then moved a few steps closer to the fence. 'What was the last digit, sir? Of the second number?'

Brunetti glanced at the paper. 'Point ninety.'

Foa took two small sideways steps until he was astride the rotting pieces of fence. He kicked them aside. He looked at the GPS and moved minimally to the right in response to whatever he read there, then called back to Brunetti, 'OK, this is it. Whatever this guy thought was important, this is the first place where he wanted you to look.' He took the paper from Brunetti, studied it for a moment, then turned and looked at De Cal's factory. 'The second lot of coordinates has got to be inside that building’ Foa said.

He checked the GPS, and looked around them again. "The third place is probably inside that one’ he said, pointing to the factory that stood on the other side of the field, to the right of De Cal's.

Brunetti gazed around them. Could it be that something was visible from this point that might not be seen from another angle? They both turned in full circles and, without even discussing the possibility that they were meant to see something, dismissed it. Brunetti turned back towards De Cal's factory, and as he moved, both of them heard the squelching sound his foot made as he raised it. Neither had been aware of the dampness when they got there, but when they looked down and moved their feet, they saw the water quickly seep in to fill their footsteps.

The idea came to them simultaneously. 'I've got an empty bucket in the launch, Commissario. In case you'd like to take some of this stuff to Bocchese.'

'Yes’ Brunetti said, not at all sure what would be there but absolutely certain that something would be. He waited while the pilot headed for the factory and cut around it in the direction of the launch. Every so often Brunetti shifted his feet and heard and felt the sibilance of the mud.

Foa was quickly back with a pink plastic bucket and a small spade, the sort of thing a child would use for building castles on the beach. When Foa saw the attention Brunetti devoted to these objects, he pressed his lips together nervously and said, 'Well, I take the boat home with me on weekends sometimes, to work on the engine.'

'Does your daughter help you?' Brunetti asked.

'She's only three, sir’ Foa said with a smile. 'But she likes to come along when I go out in the laguna to dig for clams.'

'Better to go out there in a boat you know is safe, I suppose, especially if you have a child,' said Brunetti.

Foa answered with a smile. 'I buy my own gas’ he said, and Brunetti believed him. He liked the fact that Foa felt it important to tell him.

Brunetti took the shovel and dug it into the mud at their feet. Foa held the bucket for him as he spilled in a few shovelfuls, then placed the blade of the shovel flat on the ground and allowed some water to seep in. He added this carefully to the mud.

A man's voice spoke from their left. 'What are you doing?'

Brunetti stopped and stood upright. A man was approaching them from the factory he had been told belonged to Gianluca Fasano. 'What are you doing here?' the man demanded, clearly not at all impressed by the sight of Foa's police uniform. He was tall, taller than Vianello, and thicker, as well. The thick ridge of bone above his eyes cast them into shadow, even in this morning light. His lips were thin and cracked, and the skin around them looked irritated.

'Good morning’ Brunetti said, walking towards the man and putting out his hand. His gesture surprised the man into taking it. 'I'm Commissario Guido Brunetti.'

‘Talazzi’ he said as he shook Brunetti's hand. 'Raffaele.'

Foa approached, and Brunetti introduced the two men, who also shook hands.

'Could you tell me what you're doing?' Palazzi asked in a more moderate tone.

'I'm in charge of the investigation into the death of I'uomo di notte. He worked in your factory, too, didn't he?'

'Yes,' Palazzi said, then pointed down at the bucket. 'But what's that?'

I'm taking a sample of the soil from Signor De Cal's property there,' Brunetti said, indicating with the spade the place where they had been when Palazzi first saw them.

'What for?' Palazzi asked with real curiosity.

'To examine,' Brunetti said.

'Because of Giorgio?' Palazzi asked.

'You knew him?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, we all knew him,' Palazzi said with a bittersweet smile. 'Poor guy. I've known him for what, six years?' Palazzi shook his head, as if surprised to discover how long he had known the dead man.

'So you knew him before his daughter was born?' Brunetti asked.

'The poor devil’ Palazzi said. 'No one deserved that.'

'Deserved what, Signor Palazzi?' Brunetti asked and set the bucket on the ground, the better to convey the idea that he was mere for a long conversation. Foa moved his feet apart and relaxed.

"The baby. That she should be born like that. I've got two kids, and thank God they're normal.'

'Did you ever see Signor Tassini's daughter?'

'No, but he told me about her. He told us all about her.'

'Did he tell you why he thought she was that way?' Brunetti asked.

'Oh, Lord, he told us all a hundred times, told us until none of us would listen to him any more.' Palazzi thought about this and then said, 'I'm sorry now we didn't listen to him, now that he's gone. It probably wouldn't have cost us that much.' But then he thought better of it and said, 'But it was awful. Really. He'd start and he'd go on for an hour, or at least until you had to tell him to stop or you just walked away. He'd come in early sometimes, I think, just to talk to us about it, or stay after his shift was over in the morning.' Palazzi weighed it all up and said, 'I guess we stopped listening to him, or he realized we wouldn't listen to him. Anyway, he didn't have so much to say lately.'

'Was he crazy?' Brunetti surprised himself by asking.

Palazzi's mouth fell open at this affront to the dead. 'No. He wasn't crazy. He was just . . . well ... he was strange. I mean, he could talk about things, just like one of us, but as soon as some subjects came up, he was gone.'

'Did he ever threaten his employer, Signor De Cal? Or Signor Fasano?'

Palazzi laughed at the idea. 'Giorgio threaten somebody? You're the crazy one if you can ask that.'

'Did they ever threaten him?' Brunetti asked quickly.

This question really did astonish Palazzi. 'Why would they do that? They could have fired him. Just told him to leave. He was working in nero, so there was nothing he could have done. He'd have had to leave.'

'Are many of you working in nero?' Brunetti asked and regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

There was a long pause, and then Palazzi said, in a very formal, controlled voice, 'I wouldn't know about that, Commissario.' His tone told Brunetti how little Palazzi would know from now on. Rather than insist, Brunetti thanked him, shook his hand, waited for Foa to do the same, then bent and picked up the pink bucket. He abandoned the idea of going into the factory buildings to try to find the spots that would correspond to the other sets of coordinates.

Palazzi turned and started to walk across the field towards Fasano's factory, and it was then that Brunetti noticed the sun-faded letters painted above the back of the building. 'Vetreria Regini’ he made out.

'Signor Palazzi’ Brunetti called after the retreating man.

Palazzi stopped and turned around.

'What's that?' Brunetti asked, pointing at the letters.

Palazzi followed Brunetti's gesture. 'It's the name of the factory, Vetreria Regini’ Palazzi called back, saying it slowly, as though he doubted Brunetti would be able to read it without help.

He prepared to move off again, but Brunetti called after him, 'I thought it was Fasano's. In his family'

'It is,' Palazzi said. 'His mother's family' Palazzi turned and walked away.

22

Brunetti resisted the temptation to remain on Murano and return to Nanni's for fresh fish and polenta. Instead, he told Foa to take them back to the Questura, and when they got there, he asked the pilot to take the bucket to Bocchese and ask him to find out what was in the mud and water. Because Paola and the kids were at lunch with her parents that day, Brunetti ate at a restaurant in Castello, a meal he paid no attention to and forgot as soon as he left. After he had eaten, he walked down to San Pietro in Castello and went inside the church to have a look at the funeral stele with its carved Qur'anic verses. Continuing debate as to whether he was looking at evidence of cultural theft or multiculturalism in no way diminished his appreciation of the carving's beauty.

Slowly he made his way back to the Questura. Vianello came up a little before six, noticed the volumes of the Gazzetta on Brunetti's desk and asked what they were for. Brunetti explained, then asked the Inspector what he thought had gone on before the laws were passed.

"They did whatever they pleased’ Vianello said with predictable indignation, then surprised Brunetti by adding, 'but I doubt they did much harm on Murano.'

Brunetti pointed to the chair in front of his desk and asked, 'Why?'

Vianello sat. 'Well, it's a relative term,' he said, ' "harm." When you compare it to Marghera, that is. I know that doesn't change what happened on Murano. But Marghera's the real killer.'

'You really hate it, don't you?' Brunetti asked.

Vianello's face was deadly serious. 'Of course I do: any thinking person would. And Tassini said he hated Murano. But he never acted like he hated it.'

Brunetti failed to follow him. 'I don't understand.'

'If he had really believed it—that working for De Cal had caused what happened to his daughter—he would have done something to harm him. But all he did was talk to the men who worked with him at the fornace. And tell them that De Cal was to blame for everything.'

'Which means?' Brunetti asked.

'Which means it was just his guilt talking’ Vianello said.

This had always been Brunetti's opinion, so he let it pass unquestioned. 'But why do you hate Marghera so much?' he asked.

'Because I have children’ Vianello answered.

'So do I’ Brunetti countered.

'When you get home’ Vianello said, his voice suddenly moderate, 'ask your wife if she got the supplement to today's Gazzettino.'

'What supplement?'

Vianello got to his feet and moved over to the door. 'Just ask her’ he said. Standing at the door, he went on, 'I spoke to a few of De Cal's workers. They say business is bad, and everyone I spoke to heard he was selling, but everyone had heard he was asking a different price, though all of them were well above a million.'

'Anything else?' Brunetti asked.

'Tassini had been Fasano's uomo di notte only a month or two.'

'Before that?'

'He was already working as De Cal's uomo di notte; before that he worked in the molatura.'

'Is that a step up or a step down?' idle curiosity prompted Brunetti to ask. 'He had a wife and two kids to support.'

Vianello shrugged. 'I don't know. The guy who used to work for Fasano retired, and Tassini asked if he could have the job. At least that's what two of them told me. They said he liked working nights because it meant he could read, but they made it sound like he wanted to grow a second head.' Vianello laughed at this, and so did Brunetti, and the tension between them evaporated.

After the Inspector left, Brunetti used his curiosity about the Gazzettino supplement as an excuse to leave work early, which brought him home an hour before his usual time.

He went down to Paola's study and found her at her desk with what looked like a manuscript in front of her. He kissed her proffered cheek, then said, 'Vianello told me to ask if you read the supplement that came with the Gazzettino today.'

Her confusion was momentary, but then she set the manuscript to one side and bent to replace it with a disorganized pile of papers and magazines from the floor. 'He would ask about it, wouldn't he?' she asked with a smile, beginning to shuffle through the papers.

'What is it?'

She continued to hunt through the pile until she pulled something out and held it up in triumph. 'Porto Marghera,' she read aloud, 'Situazione e Prospettive.' She held it out so he could read the title on the cover. 'Do you think it's coincidental that this was given out with the newspaper at the same time as the trial is taking place?'

'But the trial has been going on for ever,' Brunetti objected. The trial against the petrochemical complex for its pollution of the land, the air, and the laguna had been dragging on for years: everyone in the Veneto knew that, just as they knew it would drag on for many more, or at least until the statute of limitations ran out and its spirit was subsumed into that heaven where expired cases went.

"Then let me read you one thing, and you tell me if you think it's coincidental’ she said, flipping the supplement over and running her eyes down the back cover. 'At the end, the writers express their thanks to those who have helped in the preparation of this supplement—a document that is meant to inform the people of the Veneto of any environmental danger resulting from the existence of the industrial plant in their back yard.' She glanced at Brunetti to see that she had his full attention and then continued. 'And just who is it that they thank for this cooperation?' she asked, running her finger, he assumed quite unnecessarily, down the last page. "The authorities of the industrial zone.'

When Brunetti remained silent, she tossed the supplement onto her desk and said, 'Come on, Guido, you have to tell me that's wonderful. That's genius. They prepare a document about this percolating industrial complex that's three kilometres from us, probably filled with enough toxins and poisons to eliminate all of the northeast, and who do they ask for information about how dangerous those substances might be if not the very authorities who run the complex?' She laughed out loud, but Brunetti did not join her.

Like the presenter of a television quiz show, she paused and gave him a mock-serious look, as if hoping to provoke a response by a display of eager curiosity. When he remained silent, she said, 'Or think of it this way: the next time Patta wants some crime statistics,, he should ask the boss of the local Mafia, or the Chinese Mafia, to prepare them for him.' She raised the supplement above her head and said, 'We're all crazy, Guido.'

Brunetti sat on the sofa, silent but attentive. 'Let me read one more thing, just one’ she said, opening the booklet. She flipped forward a few pages, then back. 'Ah, here it is,' she said. 'Just listen to this: "How to behave in case of an emergency." ' She pushed up her glasses, pulled the supplement a bit closer, and continued to read aloud.' "Shut yourself in your house, close the windows, turn off the gas, don't use the phone, listen to the radio, don't go outside for any reason." ' She turned to him and added, 'The only thing they don't do is tell us not to breathe.' She let the supplement drop and said, 'We live less than three kilometres from that, Guido.'

'You've known about this for years,' Brunetti said, letting himself sink deeper into the sofa.

'Yes, I've known about it,' she agreed. 'But I didn't have this,' she said, picking up the booklet again and opening it to the last page. 'I didn't have the information that thirty-six million tons of "material" flow through there every year. I've no idea how much thirty-six million tons is, and God knows they don't tell us what it's thirty-six million tons of, but I suspect it would take considerably less than that, in the case of fire, to ...' Her voice drifted off.

'What makes you think something like that will happen?' he asked.

'Because I spent an hour and a half today trying to give the new expiry date of my credit card to the phone company’ she shot back.

'The connection?' he inquired with Olympian calm.

'They sent me a letter, telling me the card had expired and asking me to dial their free number. When I did, I got the usual menu of cheerful suggestions: press one for this and two for that and three if you want to sign up for new services. And then the line died. Six times.'

'Why did you try six times?'

'What other choice is there? Even if I want to tell them to cancel the service, I still have to speak to them and tell them to do so and send the final bill to the bank.'

'And when is it that you are going to explain the connection with Marghera?' he asked, aware suddenly of how tired he was and how much he longed not to be involved in this conversation.

She removed her glasses, the better to see him or the better to fix him with her basilisk eye. 'Because the same people work in both places, Guido. The same people set up the programs and work on the safety systems. At the end of all of this, I was told, by the human being I finally managed to talk to, that I had to send the expiry date of the card to a fax number because their system did not allow her to take the information over the phone.'

Brunetti rested his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. 'I still don't get the connection,' he said.

'Because the person who failed to put the fax number on the letter they sent me could just as easily be the man whose job it is to turn a handle or a knob at one of the factories in Marghera and who, instead of turning it like this,' she said and waited for him to open his eyes. When he did, he saw her grab a giant, invisible wheel and turn it to the right. Turns it like this’ she continued, turning her hands to the left. 'And there goes Marghera, and there goes Venice, and there go all of us.'

'Oh come on,' he said, tired and irritated by her histrionics, 'you're being a catastrophist.'

'Just like Vianello?' she asked.

Brunetti no longer remembered how he had been dragged into this, but he no longer cared what he said. 'In his wilder moments, yes. You are.'

A tense silence had replaced the eager humour of her first remarks. Brunetti leaned down and fished up that week's Espresso. He flipped it open and found himself looking at the movie reviews. Doggedly he concentrated on reviews of films he would never, even in his wildest moments, think of seeing. Having finished reading these, he fanned through the pages and came to the lead story: the Marghera trial. He shut the magazine and let it drop to the floor.

'All right,' he said. 'All right.' He let some time pass and said, 'I've had a long day, Paola. And I don't want to spend what little is left of it arguing with you.'

His eyes closed, he heard her rather than saw her come close, and then he felt her weight on the sofa beside him. 'I'll go make dinner’ she said. Her weight shifted, and then he felt her lips on his forehead.

An hour later, as they sat down to dinner, Brunetti watched his children as the family ate and drank, and he listened to them complain about their teachers and the pressure of homework that seemed never to ease.

'If you want to go to the university,' he said, 'then homework's the price you have to pay.'

'And if I don't go,' Chiara asked, 'then what?' Brunetti failed to detect defiance in her words; he noticed that Paola had tuned into the question.

'Then I suppose you try to find a job,' Brunetti answered in a voice he attempted to make sound factual rather than critical. The choice seemed obvious enough to him.

'But everyone's always saying that there aren't any jobs’ Chiara complained.

'And that's what's always in the papers’ Raffi added, his fork poised over his swordfish steak. 'Look at Kati and Fulvio’ he said, naming the older brother and sister of his best friend. 'Both of them are dottori, and neither one of them has a job.'

"That's not true’ Chiara said. 'Kati's working in a museum.'

'Kati is selling catalogues at the Correr, you mean’ Raffi said. "That's not a job, not after six years at the university. She'd make more money if she sold shoes at Prada.' Brunetti wondered if Raffi considered that a better job.

'Prada's not the smartest place in the world to work if you want to get a job as an art historian’ Chiara said.

'Neither is the bargain basement at the Correr Museum’ her brother shot back.

Brunetti, who had seen the last exhibition there and paid more than forty Euros for the catalogue, hardly saw the museum shop as a bargain basement, but he kept this thought to himself and, instead, asked, 'What about Fulvio?'

Raffi looked down at his fish, and Chiara reached out to take some more spinach, though her knife and fork had been neatly lined up on her plate before. Neither answered, and the atmosphere filled with a palpable awkwardness. Brunetti pretended he had noticed nothing and said, 'Well, he's sure to find something. He's a bright boy.' Then, to Paola, he said, 'Would you pass me the spinach? If Chiara decides to leave any, that is.'

As she passed the dish to him, Paola gave every indication she had registered the response to Fulvio's name by ignoring it and saying, 'It's the same with my students. They write their theses, get their degrees, begin to call themselves dottore, and then think they're lucky if they can find a job as a substitute teacher in some place like Burano or Dolo.'

'Plumbing’ Brunetti interrupted, holding up a hand to gather their attention. "That's what I tell my children to study: plumbing. There's always work to be had. Lots of interesting company and plenty of work. Nothing good can come of reading all those books, sitting in libraries, talking about ideas: it's bad for the brain. No, give me a real man's job: fresh air, good pay, honest hard work.'

'Oh, Papa,' Chiara said, as usual, the first to get it, 'you are so silly sometimes.' Brunetti feigned not to understand her and tried to convince her that she should stop studying mathematics and learn to weld. Dessert interrupted his performance, and by then the ghost of whatever Fulvio was up to had been driven from the feast.

It was not until they were in bed, Brunetti exhausted by his day, that he asked, 'What about Fulvio?'

The light was already out, so he felt rather than saw her shrug. 'My guess is drugs,' Paola said.

'Using them?'

'Could be,' she answered, not at all persuaded.

"Then selling them’ he said and turned onto his right side to face her dim outline.

'More likely.'

'Poor boy’ Brunetti said, adding, 'poor everyone.' He shifted onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. 'Do you have any idea if . . .' he began, wondering at the extent of the boy's sales and whether it was a matter he should interest himself in professionally. And who would Ful-vio's customers be? The very question released the worm that was forever poised and ready to begin crawling towards every parent's heart.

'If what you want to know is whether Raffi is interested, I think we can be fairly sure he isn't. He doesn't use drugs.'

The policeman in Brunetti wanted to know why Paola could say this: what was her source, and how reliable? Had she questioned Raffi himself, or had he volunteered the information, or was her witness some other person with knowledge of the case or the suspects? He stared at the ceiling, and as he watched, one of the lights shining in from the other side of the calle was extinguished, leaving him in comforting darkness. How foolish, how rash to believe a mother's word as to the innocence of her only son.

He stared at the ceiling, afraid to question her. The window was ajar, and through it came the bells of San Marco, telling them that it was midnight, time to be asleep. Over it, he heard Paola say, 'It's all right, Guido. Don't worry about Raffi.' He closed his eyes in momentary relief, and when he opened them again, it was morning.

23

On his way to the Questura the following morning, Brunetti began to consider how best to raise the subject of Fasano with Signorina Elettra. He did not understand the reason for her apparent regard for the man: she usually had enough sense to hold politicians in utter contempt, so why had she chosen to stand up in defence of this one? Given the peculiarities of Signorina Elettra's prejudices, it might be nothing more than the fact that Fasano had not yet made an official declaration of his desire to enter into politics, and until such time she might be willing to continue to treat him as human.

Brunetti had been seeing Fasano's photo and reading his name in the Gazzettino for years. He was tall, athletic, photogenic, was said to be a good speaker and a well-regarded employer. Brunetti had met him and his wife at a dinner some years before and had a vague memory of him as being affable and of her as an attractive blonde, but he could summon up little more than that. He might have talked with her about a play they had both seen at the Goldoni, or perhaps it had been a film: he could not retrieve the memory.

He went into Ballarin and asked for a coffee and a brioche, still trying to recall anything else about the man that the waves of gossip had washed up into his memory over the years. Brunetti had the brioche halfway to his mouth when it occurred to him that the best way to gather information would be to go and talk to the man. He stood for a few seconds, brioche poised in the air, his head tilted to one side. A man eased by him to get to the bar and Brunetti caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Quickly he finished the brioche and the coffee, paid, and started back toward Fondamenta Nuove and the 42.

The route from the Sacca Serenella ACTV embarcadero was by now familiar to Brunetti. At the end of the cement walkway, instead of turning to the right and to De Cal's factory, he went to the left and approached the other building, which he had previously ignored. Built of brick, the factory had a high peaked roof with a double row of skylights. As with most of the fornaci, the entrance was through a set of sliding metal doors.

As he approached, he recognized Palazzi standing in front of the building, smoking. 'Good morning’ Brunetti said to the workman and raised a hand in greeting. 'Looks like it'll be a nice day.'

Palazzi returned an amiable enough smile, dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, grinding it into the earth with his toe. 'Habit’ he said when he saw Brunetti watching this. 'I used to work in a chemical plant, and we had to be careful with cigarettes.

'I'm surprised they let you smoke there at all’ Brunetti said.

"They didn't’ Palazzi said and smiled again. At the sign of Brunetti's answering grin, he asked, tilting his head backwards, towards the field that ran from the factories down to the water, 'You find anything out there?'

'No results yet’ Brunetti said.

'You expecting to find anything?'

Brunetti shrugged. 'The guy in the lab'll tell me.'

'What're you looking for?'

'No idea’ Brunetti admitted.

'Just curious?' Palazzi asked, taking out his cigarettes. He shook some forward in the packet and held them out towards Brunetti, who shook his head.

When Brunetti said nothing, Palazzi repeated, 'Just curious?'

'Always curious.'

'Because of Tassini?'

'Partly, yes.'

'What's the other part?'

'Because people don't like it that I come out here.'

'And ask questions?'

Brunetti nodded.

Palazzi lit his cigarette and pulled deeply on it, leaned his head back and let out a long series of perfect smoke rings that slowly expanded to the size of haloes before evaporating in the soft morning air. 'Tassini asked a lot of questions, too’ Palazzi said.

'About what?' The sun had grown warmer since Brunetti got off the boat. He unbuttoned his jacket.

'About everything’ Palazzi said.

'Such as?'

'Such as who kept the records of what sort of chemicals came in and went out and whether any of us knew anyone in the other factories who had kids with ... kids with problems.'

'Like his daughter?' Brunetti asked.

'I suppose so.'

'And?'

Palazzi tossed his half-smoked cigarette beside the shreds of the other one and ground it out, too, then rubbed at the space with his toe until all sign of the cigarettes had been obliterated. 'Tassini didn't work with us until a couple of months ago. He was over at De Cal's for years, so we all knew him. Then, when the night man here retired, well, I suppose the boss thought it made sense to get him to work here, too. Not all that much for l'uomo di notte to do, after all.' Palazzi's voice softened. 'We knew about his daughter by then. From the guys at De Cal's. But like I told you yesterday, no one much wanted to listen to him or talk to him or get involved in his ideas.' Brunetti nodded to make it clear that he understood their reluctance, hoping to make Palazzi feel less uncomfortable about speaking of Tassini like this so soon after his death.

After a reflective, or respectful, pause, Palazzi added, 'And we all sort of felt sorry for him.' In response to Brunetti's inquisitive glance, he added, 'Because he was so clumsy: he was pretty much useless around the fornace. But all l'uomo di notte has to do is toss things in and stir them around, then keep an eye on the miscela and stir it whenever it's necessary.'

'Did he ask questions about anything else?' Brunetti asked.

Palazzi thought about this. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and studied the toes of his shoes. Finally he looked at Brunetti and said, 'About a month ago, he asked me about the plumber.'

'What about him?'

'Who he was—the one for the factory—and when was the last time he did any work here.'

'Did you know?' When Palazzi nodded, Brunetti asked, 'What did you tell him?'

'I told him I thought it was Adil-San—they're over by the Misericordia. It's their boat that comes out for pick-ups or when anything goes wrong: that's what I told him.'

'And when were they last out here?' Brunetti asked, though he had no idea why he was pursuing this.

'About two months ago, I think, around the time he started working here. The grinding shop was closed for a day while they worked on one of the sedimentation tanks.'

'Did Tassini know about that?'

'No: he was working nights, and they were finished and gone by the middle of the afternoon.'

'I see,' Brunetti said, though he didn't.

Palazzi looked at his watch. Seeing him shift his weight prior to moving on, Brunetti asked, 'Your boss around?'

'I saw him come in a while ago. He's probably in his office. Would you like me to find out?'

'No, thanks,' Brunetti said easily. 'If you'll tell me where it is, I'll find him. It's nothing important, just some bureaucratic questions about Tassini and how long he worked here.'

Palazzi gave Brunetti a long look and said, 'Odd that the police should send a commissario all the way out here to ask bureaucratic questions, isn't it?' He smiled and Brunetti wondered which of them had been conducting the interrogation.

He thanked Palazzi again, and the man turned and went back inside the factory. Brunetti followed him through the sliding doors and into the now-familiar gloom of the work space. The open rectangles of the furnaces glared at him from the far end of the room, light-rimmed figures moving around in front of them. He stood and watched them for a few minutes, saw them

bend carefully forward and slide the canes into the glaring light of the furnaces in the familiar rhythm. Something about the way they moved caught at his memory, but all he saw were men twirling the rods and inserting them into the fire, continuing to rotate them until they pulled them out, never pausing in the constant rotation: precisely what he had seen often over the last few days. He turned away.

Four doors stood along the right wall. Fasano's name was on the first. Just as he was about to knock, Brunetti realized what he had just seen in the glare of the furnaces. The maestri used their right hands to hold the end of the long rods, levering them from the position of greater strength. The glove and protective sleeves were worn on the left, the side closest to the fire. But Tassini had held his glass, and the phone, with his left hand, so he should have been wearing the sleeve and glove on the right.

Brunetti knocked, then entered at a shout. Fasano stood by the single window, bent close to something he held towards the light. He was in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his attention devoted entirely to the object in his hands.

'Signor Fasano?' Brunetti asked, though he recognized him from his photos and from their one meeting.

'Yes’ Fasano answered, glancing across. 'Ah,' he said when he saw Brunetti, 'you're the policeman who's been coming out here, aren't you?'

'Yes. Guido Brunetti,' he said, choosing to make no reference to the long-ago dinner party.

'I remember’ Fasano said. 'At the Guzzinis', about five years ago.'

'You have a good memory’ Brunetti said, which could mean either that he did or he did not recall the meeting.

Fasano smiled and walked over to his desk. He set the object on it—a tall filigree vase that tapered to a lily-like opening at the top—then came across and offered his hand to Brunetti.

'How may I help you?' Fasano asked.

I'd like to ask you about Giorgio Tassini, if I might’ Brunetti said.

'That poor devil who died over there’ he said, part question, part statement, pointing with his chin in the direction of De Cal's factory. 'It's the first time anyone's been killed out here for as long as I can remember.'

' "Out here," meaning Murano, Signore?'

'Yes. De Cal's never even had a serious accident before this’ Fasano said. Then he added, with something between relief and pride, 'Nor have we.'

'Tassini hadn't been working for you very long, had he?' Brunetti asked, 'before this happened?'

Fasano gave him a nervous smile and then said, 'I don't mean to be offensive, Commissario, but I'm not sure I understand why you're asking me these questions.' He paused, then added, 'Instead of De Cal, that is.'

'I'm trying to get an idea of what Tassini did, Signore. Or, in fact, anything about him that might help me understand what might have happened. I've already spoken to Signor De Cal, and since Tassini also worked for you . . .' Brunetti let the sentence drift away.

Fasano looked away. Unconsciously mimicking Palazzi's uncertainty, he put his hands in his pockets and studied the floor for some time, then looked at Brunetti squarely and said, 'He was working in nero, Commissario.' He took his hands out of his pockets and raised them in a consciously theatrical gesture. 'You're going to find out sooner or later, so I might as well tell you.'

'It's nothing that concerns me, Signor Fasano,' Brunetti said with easy grace. 'I'm not interested in how he was paid, only in what may have caused his death; nothing else.'

Fasano studied Brunetti's face, obviously weighing how much he could trust this man. Finally he said, 'My guess is that he was making glass.' When Brunetti did not respond, he clarified this by adding, 'Objects, that is. Glasses, vases.'

'Did he know how to?' Brunetti asked.

'He'd been working next door for years, so I'm sure he'd have picked up the basic skills, yes.'

'Did you ever see him working the glass? There or here?'

Fasano shook his head. 'No, I saw almost nothing of him here, after I hired him,' he said, sounding nervous when he used the word 'hired'.

'He worked nights’ Fasano went on quickly, 'and I'm here only during the day. But it's what most of the men who work the night shift do. They make a piece or two during their shift, let it cool, then take it with them in the morning when they go home. It's pretty much accepted, at least here, by me.'

'Why?'

Fasano smiled and said, 'So long as they don't put the name of the vetreria on it or try to sell it as the work of one of the maestri, it's harmless enough. I suppose, over the years, we've all come to turn a blind eye to it, and it's now a sort of thirteenth pay packet for them, certainly for those working the way he was.' He thought about this for a while, then added, 'And from what the men have told me, it sounded like Tassini had a hard time of it, what with his daughter and all, so why not let him do it?' When Brunetti did not comment, Fasano said, 'Besides, without the help of a servente, there really wasn't much he could make except the most simple sort of plate or vase.'

'Did the other workers know what he was doing?'

Fasano considered the question, then said, 'My guess is that they would have known. The workers always know everything that's going on.'

'You sound very untroubled by it.'

'I told you,' Fasano said, 'he deserved a bit of charity.'

‘I see,' Brunetti said, then asked, 'Did he ever talk to you about his theory that his daughter's problems were the result of the working conditions here?'

'I told you, Commissario: I spoke to him only when I hired him, and he was here just two months.'

With an easy smile, Brunetti said, 'I'm sorry; I didn't express myself clearly. I know he was here only a short time. I suppose what I should have asked was whether you ever heard talk from anyone that he was saying such things?' When Fasano did not respond, Brunetti gave a complicit smile and said, The workers always know what's going on.'

Fasano's hands went back into his pockets and he returned his attention to the tips of his shoes. His head still lowered, he finally said, 'I don't like to say these things about him.'

'There's nothing you can say that can do him any harm, Signore,' Brunetti said.

Fasano looked up at that. 'Well, then, yes, I did hear talk. That he believed he had breathed in chemicals and minerals while he was working for De Cal and that that was the cause of his daughter's ... of her problems.'

'Do you think that's possible?'

'You ask me a difficult question, Commissario,' Fasano said, trying to smile. 'I've looked at the statistics for the workers out here, and I've never seen anything that would suggest... well, that would suggest that what Tassini believed is possible.' He saw Brunetti's reaction and added, 'I'm not a scientist and I'm not a doctor, I know, but this is something that concerns me.'

'The health of the workers?' Brunetti asked.

'Yes. Of course’ Fasano said with sudden heat, adding, 'and mine.' He smiled to suggest he was joking. 'But it's not working on Murano that puts them in danger, Commissario: it's working so near to Marghera. You read the papers; you know what's going on at the trial.' Then, with a rueful half-smile, he amended that to, 'Or not going on.' He took a step to his left and raised a hand in the direction of what Brunetti thought was north-west. "The danger's over there,' he said; then, as if unwilling to leave Brunetti in any doubt, specified, 'Marghera.'

He saw that he had Brunetti's attention and went on, "That's where the pollution comes from; that's what puts my workers at risk.' His voice had grown stronger. "Those are the people who dump and pour and pollute, toss anything they want into the laguna or ship it south to be spread on fields. Not here, believe me.'

Fasano stopped, as if he had realized how heated his voice had become. He tried to laugh off his enthusiasm but failed. 'I'm sorry if I get excited about this’ he said. 'But I've got kids. And to know what they're pumping into the atmosphere and the water, every day, well, it makes me ... I suppose it makes me a little crazy.'

'And there's nothing coming from here?' Brunetti asked.

Fasano answered with a shrug that dismissed the very possibility. "There was never much of a problem with pollution here. But now they've got us so closely watched and measured and weighed, well, there's no chance we could get away with polluting anything.' After a moment, he added, 'For the sake of my children, I'd like to be able to say the same about Marghera, but I can't.'

Brunetti had built up, over the years, the habit of suspicion, especially when people spoke of their concern for the good of others, but he had to confess, if only to himself, that Fasano sounded very much like Vianello on the subject of pollution. And because of the trust Brunetti had come to invest in the Inspector, Fasano sounded sincere.

'Could pollution from Marghera have been the cause of Tassini's daughter's problems?' Brunetti asked.

Fasano shrugged again, then said, almost reluctantly, 'No, I don't think so. Much as I believe Marghera is slowly poisoning us all, I don't think it's responsible for what happened to the little girl.' Brunetti asked for no explanation, but Fasano went on to supply one. 'I've heard about what happened when she was born.'

When it was obvious that Fasano would not elaborate, Brunetti asked, 'Then why did he blame De Cal?'

Fasano started to answer, stopped himself and studied Brunetti's face for a moment, as if asking himself how far he could go with a person he did not know very well. Finally he asked, 'He had to blame someone, didn't he?'

Fasano turned aside and walked back to his desk, where he bent over the vase he had placed there. It stood about fifty centimetres tall, its lines perfectly simple and clean. 'It's beautiful,' Brunetti said spontaneously.

Fasano turned with a smile that softened his entire face. "Thank you, Commissario. Every once in a while, I like to see if I can still make something that isn't all squashed to one side or that has one handle that's bigger than the other.'

'I didn't realize you actually worked the glass’ Brunetti said, making no attempt to disguise his admiration.

'I spent my childhood here,' Fasano said, not without pride. 'My father wanted me to go to university, the first person in our family, so I did, but I always spent my summers here, at the fornace.' He picked up the vase and turned it around twice, studying the surface. Brunetti noticed that it had the faintest cast of amethyst, so light as to be almost invisible in bright light.

Still turning the vase and keeping his eyes on it, Fasano said finally, as though he had been thinking about it since Brunetti had first posed the question, 'He had to believe himself. Everyone here knows what happened when the little girl was born. I think that's why everyone was usually so patient with him. He had to blame something, well, something other than himself, so he ended up blaming De Cal.' He set the vase down on his desk again. 'But he never did anyone any harm.'

Brunetti stopped himself from suggesting that Tassini had done his daughter more than enough harm and said only, 'Did Signor De Cal ever have any trouble with him?'

He watched Fasano consider how to answer this. Finally the man said, 'I've never heard that he did.'

'Do you know Signor De Cal?'

Fasano smiled and said, 'Our families have had factories side by side for more than a hundred years, Commissario.'

'Yes, of course,' answered a chastened Brunetti. 'Did he ever say anything about Tassini or about having trouble with him?'

'You've met Signor De Cal?' Fasano asked.

'Yes.'

'Then can you imagine the workman who would give him any real trouble?'

'No.'

'De Cal would probably have eaten him alive if Tassini had so much as suggested he was responsible for the little girl.' Fasano leaned back against his desk, bracing his hands on either side of him. "That's another reason why Tassini had to keep telling other people, I think. He couldn't say anything to De Cal. He must have been afraid to.'

'It sounds as if you've given his accusations some thought, Signore,' Brunetti said.

Fasano shrugged. 'I suppose I have. After all, we work around these materials all the time, and the idea that they might be harmful to me, or to us, is one I don't like.'

'You don't sound like you believe they are, if I might say so’ Brunetti observed.

'No, I don't’ Fasano said. 'I've read the scientific papers and the reports, Commissario. The danger, I repeat, is over there.' Half turning, he pointed to the north-west.

'One of my inspectors believes it's killing us’ Brunetti said.

'He's right’ Fasano said forcefully. But he said no more, for which Brunetti was almost thankful.

Fasano pushed himself away from his desk, 'I'm afraid I have to go back to work’ he said.

Brunetti expected him to walk around and sit at the desk, but Fasano picked up the vase and went and stood by the door to his office. 'I want to grind off a few imperfections’ he said, making it clear that Brunetti was not invited to join him.

Brunetti thanked him for his time and left the factory, heading back towards the pier.

24

Brunetti took the 42 back to Fondamenta Nuove and then, because it was near, walked towards the Fondamenta della Misericordia. He stopped for a coffee and asked where Adil-San was, learning not only where to find them but that they were honest and busy and that the owner's son had recently married a girl from Denmark he had met at university, and it wasn't expected to last. No, not because of the girl, even if she was a foreigner, but because Roberto was a donnaiolo, and they never change, do they, they never stop chasing women? Nodding his head in acknowledgement or appreciation of this information, Brunetti left the bar and took the first right, following the canal until he saw the sign on the opposite side. Up and down a bridge and then back and into the plumbers' office, where he found a young woman sitting behind a computer.

She looked up and smiled when he came in, asking what she could do for him. Her mouth was perhaps too big, or her lipstick too dark, but she was lovely, and Brunetti found himself flattered by her attention. 'I'd like to speak to the manager, please’ he said.

'Is this about an estimate, sir?' she asked, her smile growing warmer and suggesting to Brunetti that perhaps her mouth was really just the right size.

'No. I'd like to ask him about a client,' he said taking his warrant card from his wallet.

She looked at it, at him, then back at the photo. 'I've never seen one of these before,' she said. 'It's just like on television, isn't it?'

'A bit, I suppose. But not as interesting,' Brunetti said.

She looked at the card again, then handed it back to him. 'I'll go and tell him, all right, Commissario?' she asked and got to her feet. Thicker in the waist than he had expected, she was still pleasant to watch as she crossed the room and pushed open a door without bothering to knock.

In a moment she was back at the door. 'Signor Repeta can see you now, Commissario,' she said.

When Brunetti entered, a man about his own age was just getting to his feet behind his desk. He came towards Brunetti. Like the girl in the outer office, he had a large mouth; her dark eyes, as well.

'Your daughter?' Brunetti asked, waving towards the door, which was now shut.

The man smiled. Is it that obvious?' he asked. Like her, his entire face softened when he smiled, and he had the same thickness of build.

'The mouth and eyes’ Brunetti said.

' "Signor Repeta," she always calls me when we're working,' the man said with a smile. He wore a pair of black woollen trousers and a pink shirt with sleeves rolled back to the elbows, exposing the thick forearms of a worker. He motioned Brunetti to a chair, retreated behind his desk and asked, 'What can I do for you, Commissario?'

'I'd like to know what sort of work you do for the Vetreria Regini,' Brunetti said.

It was obvious that the question puzzled Repeta. After a moment, he answered, 'What I do for all of the vetrerie I have a contract with,' he said.

'Which is?'

'Oh, of course,' Repeta said. 'There's no way you'd know that, is there? Sorry.' He brushed his right hand through his greying hair, leaving part of it standing up in spikes. 'We service their water systems and dispose of the waste from the grinding room.'

Brunetti gave a layman's smile and held up his palms, men asked, 'What does that mean to someone like me, Signore?'

Like many men wrapped up in their work, Repeta struggled to find the words with which to make things clear. 'I suppose all the service part means is that we make sure they can turn the water in the factory on and off and adjust the rate of flow in the grinding shop.'

'Doesn't sound very complicated’ Brunetti said, but he said it gently, as though both of them took the same delight in its simplicity.

'No,' Repeta admitted with a smile, 'it's not complicated, not at all. But the tanks are.'

'Why?'

'We've got to see that the water flows from one to the next slowly enough to allow for sedimentation.' He saw the look on Brunetti's face and picked up a letter lying on his desk. He glanced at it, flipped it over, and picked up a pencil. 'Here, look’ he said, and Brunetti moved his chair over next to the desk.

Quickly, with the ease of familiarity, Repeta drew a row of four equally sized rectangles. A line, presumably meant to indicate a pipe, led from a point near the top of one to the next, and then another led to the third; after the last one, it slanted down and disappeared off the bottom of the drawing.

Pointing to the first rectangle, Repeta said, 'Look, the water from the molatura flows out of the grinding shop and into the first tank, carrying away everything that's been ground off. The heavy particles begin to sink to the bottom, while the water flows to the next one, where more of it drops down and is deposited. And so on and so on’ he said, tapping the point of the pencil against the third and fourth rectangles.

'At the end of it, all of the particles have settled to the bottom of the tanks, and the water that flows out of the last one’ he said, trailing the pencil along the diagonal line that flowed off the page, 'goes into the drain.'

'Clean water?' Brunetti asked.

'Clean enough.'

Brunetti studied the drawing for a moment and then asked, 'What happens to the sediment in the tanks?'

'That's the second part of what we do,' Repeta said, pushing the paper away from him and returning his attention to Brunetti. 'They call us when they've drained the tanks and we go out and take the sediment away.'

'And?'

'And deliver it—well, it's really a kind of heavy sludge—we deliver it to the company that disposes of it.'

'How?'

"They fuse it, melt the glass particles and the minerals get fused into the glass’

'What minerals are there?' Brunetti asked, interested now.

'As many as are used in making glass’ answered Repeta. 'Cadmium, cobalt, manganese, arsenic, potassium.'

'How do they get into the water?'

'Because they're in the glass. When it's ground, the particles are carried away by the water and out into the tanks.' He put the paper back in front of him and pointed with the pencil to the first rectangle, then tapped it all along the row. 'The water also keeps the powder from getting into the lungs of the men doing the grinding.'

'How many vetrerie do you do this for?'

'More than thirty, I'd say, but I'd have to look at my client list.'

'And how often do you make pick-ups?'

"That depends on how much work they have. Maybe every three months, maybe six. We go out whenever they call us. It depends.'

'Does that mean the same day?' Brunetti asked, thinking of a plugged sink in the kitchen, running over.

'No,' Repeta said and laughed. "They usually call us and make an appointment a week before they need us. That also gives us the chance to schedule five or six pick-ups in one day.' Repeta glanced across to see that Brunetti was following and added, 'Saves us money, doing it that way. The charge for the trip is standard, no matter how much we pick up. I mean, we charge according to the weight of what we take away, but the charge for the pick-up is always the same, so it's best for them to have us come only when their tanks are full.'