Donna Leon - Fatal Remedies

As they were turning to go back to the apartment they both noticed a line of garage doors at the far end of the parking lot. It took them a while, testing all the keys on the locks of the first three doors, but finally one of them slid into that of the fourth door.

As he swung it open and saw the white panel truck parked there, della Corte said, ‘I guess we’d better call the lab boys back.’

Brunetti glanced down at his watch and saw that it was well after two. Delia Corte understood. He took the first car key and tried it on the lock of the driver’s door. It turned easily and he pulled it open. He took a pen from the front pocket of his jacket and used it to switch on the light above the seat. Brunetti took the keys from him and went round to the other door. He opened it, selected a smaller key, and opened the glove compartment. From the look of it the clear plastic envelope inside contained nothing but insurance and ownership papers. Brunetti took his own pen and pulled the envelope towards the light, turning it so that he could read the papers. The truck was registered to ‘Interfar’.

With the top of the pen he pushed the papers back and closed the glove compartment, then he shut the door. He locked it and went round to the rear doors. The first key opened them. The back compartment of the truck was filled, almost to the roof, with large cardboard boxes bearing what Brunetti recognized as the Interfar logo, the letters I and F, in black, on either side of a red caduceus. Paper labels were pasted to the centre of the boxes and above them, in red, was printed ‘Air Freight’.

All were sealed with tape and Brunetti didn’t want to cut them open: leave it for the lab boys. He put one foot on to the back bumper and leaned his head into the compartment close enough to read the label on the first box.

‘TransLanka’, it read, with an address in Colombo.

Brunetti stepped back on to the ground, closed and locked the doors. Together with della Corte he went back into the apartment.

The policemen were standing around inside, obviously finished with their search. As they came in, one of the local officers shook his head and Bonino said, ‘Nothing. There was nothing on him and nothing in this place. Never seen anything like it.’

‘Do you have any idea how long he’s been here?’ Brunetti asked.

The taller of the two officers, the one who had not fired, answered, ‘I spoke to the people in the next apartment. They said they think he moved in about four months ago. Never gave any trouble, never made any noise.’

‘Until tonight,’ his partner quipped, but everyone ignored him.

‘All right,’ Bonino said, ‘I think we can go home now.’

They left the apartment and started down the steps. At the bottom, della Corte stopped and asked Brunetti, ‘What are you going to do? Do you want us to take you to Venice on our way back?’

It was generous of him, would surely delay them an hour to make the trip to Piazzale Roma, then back out to Padova. ‘Thanks, but no,’ Brunetti said. ‘I want to talk to the people at the factory, so there’s no sense in my going with you. I’d just have to come back.’

‘What’ll you do?’

‘I’m sure there’s a bed at the Questura,’ he answered and walked towards Bonino to ask.

As he lay in that bed, thinking himself too tired to drop off, Brunetti tried to remember the last time he had gone to sleep without Paola beside him. But he could recollect only the time he’d woken without her there, the night all this had been shattered into life. Then he was asleep.

Bonino provided him with a car and driver the next morning and, by nine thirty, he was at the Interfar factory, a large, low building at the centre of an industrial park on one of the many highways that radiated out from Castelfranco. Utterly without concession to beauty, the buildings sat a hundred metres back from the road, besieged on all sides, like a piece of dead meat by ants, by the cars of the people who worked within.

He asked the driver to find a bar and offered him coffee. Though he’d slept deeply, Brunetti had not slept enough, and he felt dull and irritable. A second cup seemed to help; either the caffeine or the sugar would keep him going for the next few hours.

He entered the Interfar office a little after ten and asked if he could speak to Signor Bonaventura. On request, he gave his name and stood by the desk while the secretary called to inquire. Whatever answer she received was immediate and, as soon as she heard it, she set down the phone, got to her feet and led Brunetti through a door and down a corridor covered with light-grey industrial carpeting.

She stopped at the second door on the right, knocked, and opened it, and stood back to allow him to enter. Bonaventura sat behind a desk covered with papers, pamphlets and brochures. He stood when Brunetti came in but remained behind his desk, smiling as he approached, then leaned across it to shake Brunetti’s hand. Both sat.

‘You’re far from home,’ Bonaventura said amiably.

‘Yes. I came up here on business.’

‘Police business, I take it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Am I part of that police business?’ Bonaventura asked.

‘I think so.’

‘If so, it’s the most miraculous thing I’ve ever known to happen.’

‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ Brunetti said.

‘I spoke to my foreman a few minutes ago and was just about to call the Carabinieri.’ Bonaventura glanced down at his watch. ‘No more than five minutes ago and here you are, a policeman, already on my doorstep, as if you’d read my mind.’

‘And may I ask why you were going to call them?’

‘To report a theft.’

‘Of what?’ Brunetti asked, though he was pretty certain he knew.

‘One of our trucks is gone, and the driver hasn’t reported for work.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No. My foreman tells me it looks as if a good deal of merchandise is missing, too.’

‘About a truckload, would you say?’ Brunetti asked in a neutral voice.

‘If the truck and the driver are both missing, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?’ He wasn’t angry yet, but Brunetti had plenty of time to push him there.

‘Who is this driver?’

‘Michele de Luca.’

‘How long has he worked for you?’

‘I don’t know, half a year or so. I don’t concern myself with things like that. All I know is that I’ve seen him around here for months. This morning, the foreman told me his truck wasn’t in the lot where it’s supposed to be and that he hadn’t shown up.’

‘And the missing merchandise?’

‘De Luca left here yesterday afternoon with a full shipment and was supposed to bring the truck back here before he went home, then be here at seven this morning to pick up another shipment. But he never turned up and the truck wasn’t parked where it was supposed to be. The foreman phoned him, but there was no answer on his telefonino, so I decided to call the Carabinieri.’

It seemed to Brunetti an excessive response to what could well have been no more than an employee being late for work, but then he reflected that Bonaventura actually hadn’t made the call, so he kept his surprise to himself, waiting to see how the scene would be played. ‘Yes, I can see that you would,’ he said. ‘What was in the shipment?’

‘Pharmaceuticals, of course. That’s what we make here.’

‘And where were they going?’

‘I don’t know.’ Bonaventura looked down at the papers cluttering his desk. ‘I’ve got the shipping invoices here somewhere.’

‘Could you find them?’ Brunetti asked, nodding towards the documents.

‘What difference does it make where they were going?’ Bonaventura demanded. ‘The important thing is to find this man and get the shipment back.’