Donna Leon - Beastly Things

‘I like it less and less,’ she finally said.

‘Because of how it tastes or because of what you read about it?’

‘Both.’

‘You’re not going to stop cooking it, are you?’

‘Oh course not, silly.’ Then, reaching to hand him her glass, ‘Especially if you go and get us more champagne.’

Visions of lamb chops, veal cooked in marsala, and roast chicken dancing in his head, he went into the kitchen to obey her.

On the way to the Questura the following morning, Brunetti stopped in a bar for a coffee and read the Gazzettino ’s account of the discovery of the body in the canal, followed by a brief description of the man and his probable age. In his office, he learned that there had been no report filed of a missing man, in the city or in the surrounding area. Within minutes of his arrival, Pucetti was at his door. Either the young man had managed to place a computer chip in Brunetti’s ear or, more likely, the man at the door had phoned Pucetti when his superior arrived.

When Brunetti signalled him to enter, Pucetti came in and placed a photo of the dead man on his desk. Brunetti had no idea how he had managed to isolate just one frame, but the photo was entirely natural and showed the man gazing ahead of him with a completely relaxed expression on his face. He appeared a different man from the one now lying in a cold room at the Ospedale Civile.

Brunetti gave a broad smile and nodded in approval. ‘Good work, Pucetti. It’s him, the man I saw.’

‘I’ve made copies, sir.’

‘Good. See that one’s scanned and sent to the Gazzettino . The other papers, too. And see if anyone downstairs recognizes him.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Pucetti said, left the photo on Brunetti’s desk, and was gone.

In her office, Signorina Elettra had today decided to wear yellow, a colour very few women could get away with. It was Tuesday, flower day at the market, and so her office – and presumably Patta’s – was filled with them, a civilizing touch she had brought to the Questura. ‘They’re lovely, the daffodils, aren’t they?’ she asked as Brunetti came in, waving in the direction of a quadruple bouquet on the windowsill.

The first stirrings of springtime would once have urged an unmarried Brunetti to say that they were not as lovely as the person who had brought them there, but this Brunetti limited himself to responding, ‘Yes, they are,’ and then asking, ‘And what excess of colour has transformed the Vice-Questore’s office?’

‘Pink. I love it and he dislikes it. But he’s afraid to complain.’ She looked away for a moment, back at Brunetti, and said, ‘I read once that pink is the navy blue of India.’

It took Brunetti a moment, and then he laughed out loud. ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said, thinking how Paola would love it.

‘Are you here about the dead man?’ she asked, suddenly serious.

‘Yes.’

‘Nothing from my friend. Maybe Rizzardi will have better luck.’

‘He could be from some other province,’ Brunetti suggested.

‘Possible,’ she said. ‘I’ve sent out the usual request to hotels, asking if they have a guest who’s missing.’

‘No luck?’

‘Only a Hungarian who ended up in the hospital with a heart attack.’

Brunetti thought of the vast net of rental apartments and bed and breakfasts in which the city was enmeshed. Many of them operated beyond all official recognition or control, paying no taxes and making no report to the police of the people who stayed there. In the event of the non-return of a guest, how likely were the owners to report his absence to the police and bring their illegal operations to the attention of the authorities? How much easier simply to wait a few days and then claim whatever the decamping client might have left behind in lieu of unpaid rent, and that’s the end of it.

Earlier in his career, Brunetti would have assumed that any self-respecting, law-abiding citizen would contact the police, certainly as soon as they read of the discovery of a murdered man whose description sounded so very much like the man staying in room three, over the garden. But decades spent amidst the prevarications and half-truths to which law-abiding citizens were all too prone had cured him of such illusions.

‘Pucetti has a photo from one of the videos. He’s sending it to the papers, and he’s asking if anyone recognizes him,’ Brunetti said. ‘But I agree with you, Signorina: people don’t disappear.’

BRUNETTI FOUND VIANELLO in the officers’ room, speaking on the phone. When the Inspector saw him, a look of great relief crossed his face. He said a few words, shrugged, said a few more, and replaced the phone.

Approaching, Brunetti asked, ‘Who?’

‘Scarpa.’

‘What’s he want?’

‘Trouble. It’s all he ever wants, I think.’

Brunetti, who agreed, asked, ‘What sort of trouble this time?’

‘Something about the receipts for fuel and could Foa be using the police account to buy it for his own boat?’ Under his breath, Vianello muttered something Brunetti pretended not to have heard. ‘Isn’t there something in the Bible about seeing things against other people when you don’t see the same thing in your own eye?’

‘Something like,’ Brunetti admitted.

‘Patta has Foa pick him up and take him to dinner in Pellestrina, and if it’s not a nice day, take him home, and Scarpa’s worrying that Foa’s stealing fuel.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Everybody’s nuts.’

Brunetti, who agreed with this proposition as well, said, ‘Foa wouldn’t do it. I know his father.’ This assessment made sense to both of them and served as sufficient validation of Foa’s integrity. ‘But why’s he going after Foa now?’ Brunetti asked. Scarpa’s behaviour was often confusing, his motives always inexplicable.

‘Maybe he has some cousin from Palermo who knows how to pilot a boat and needs a job,’ Vianello suggested. ‘Fat chance he’d have navigating here.’

Brunetti was tempted to ask if Vianello’s last remark had a double meaning, but instead he asked him to come out and sit on the riva with him and talk while they watched the boats pass.

When they were seated on the bench, the new sun warming their faces and thighs, Brunetti gave Vianello the folder that contained the photos. ‘Pucetti show you this?’

Vianello nodded as he took the photo and looked at it. ‘I see what you mean about the neck,’ he said and handed it back, then returned to their previous subject and asked, ‘What do you think Scarpa’s really up to?’

Brunetti raised his palms in a gesture of helpless incomprehension. ‘In this case, I think he’s just trying to cause trouble for someone who’s popular, but I don’t think there’s ever any understanding of what people like Scarpa do.’ Then he added, ‘Paola’s teaching a class in the short story this year, and in one of them, the bad guy – all he’s called is The Misfit – after he wipes out a whole family, even the old grandmother, he sits there calmly and says something like, “There’s no pleasure except meanness.”’ As if to emphasize the truth of this, two seagulls farther up the riva began to fight over something, both tearing at it while managing to squawk and flail violently at the same time.

‘I tell you, when Paola read it to me,’ Brunetti went on, ‘I thought of Scarpa. He just likes meanness.’

‘You mean that literally – that he likes it?’ Vianello asked.

Before Brunetti could answer, they were disturbed by the appearance from the left of a enormous – did it have eight decks? Nine? Ten? – cruise ship. It trailed meekly behind a gallant tug, but the fact that the hawser connecting them dipped limply into the water gave the lie to the appearance of whose motors were being used to propel them and which boat decided the direction. What a perfect metaphor, Brunetti thought: it looked like the government was pulling the Mafia into port to decommission and destroy it, but the ship that appeared to be doing the pulling had by far the smaller motor, and any time the other one chose, it could give a yank on the hawser and remind the other boat of where the power lay.