Donna Leon - Beastly Things

The iron-rich odour had diminished here, as well. Would air conditioning do that? Brunetti wondered, and, if so, what would happen in the winter, when this part of the building was heated? He and Vianello followed her through a door and into a corridor that led to the back of the building. He was aware that his senses had been both battered and starved since he left the car. His hearing and sense of smell had been overloaded with sensation, shocked into a state where they might not be capable of registering any new smell or sound, while his sense of sight had been heightened by the blank room and corridor.

Signorina Borelli opened a door, then stepped back to let them go in ahead. This room, too, was close to naked. There was a desk with a computer and some papers on it, a chair behind it and three in front, and nothing else. More unsettling, there were no windows: all light came from multiple neon strips in the ceiling that created a textureless, dull illumination that deprived the room of any sense of depth.

She went behind the desk and sat, leaving them to take their places in front. ‘Your colleague said you wanted to talk about Dottor Nava,’ she said in a level voice. She leaned forward, body bent towards them.

‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Could you tell me when he came to work here?’ he asked.

‘About six months ago.’

‘And his duties?’ Brunetti asked, continuing to evade the use of either the present or the past tense and hoping he did so naturally. Vianello took out his notebook and began to write.

‘He inspects the animals that are brought in.’

‘For what purpose?’ Brunetti asked.

‘To see if they’re healthy,’ she answered.

‘And if they’re not?’

Signorina Borelli seemed surprised at the question, as though the answer should be self-evident. ‘Then they aren’t slaughtered. The farmer takes them back.’

‘Any other duties?’

‘He inspects some of the meat.’ She sat back and raised one arm to point behind her to the left. ‘It’s refrigerated. Obviously, he can’t inspect it all, but he does look at samples and decides if it’s safe for human consumption.’

‘And if it’s not?’

‘Then it’s destroyed.’

‘How?’

‘It’s burned.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said.

‘Any other duties?’

‘No, only those two things.’

‘How many days a week is he here?’ Brunetti asked, as if he had not already had this information from the dead man’s wife.

‘Two. Monday and Wednesday mornings.’

‘And the other days? What does he do?’

If she was puzzled by the question, she did not hesitate to answer it. ‘He has a private practice. Most of the examining veterinarians do.’ She smiled and shrugged, then said, ‘It would be hard to live on what they earn here.’

‘But you don’t know where?’

‘No,’ she said regretfully, then said, ‘But it’s probably in our files, on his application. I could easily find out for you.’

Brunetti held up a hand both to acknowledge and decline her offer. In a friendly voice, he asked, ‘Could you give me a clearer idea of how things work here? That is, how is it that he inspects animals on only two days?’ He spread his hands in a gesture of confusion.

‘It’s quite simple, really,’ she said, using an expression most commonly chosen to begin an explanation of something that was not simple. ‘Most farmers get their animals here the day before the slaughtering, or the same day. That saves them the cost of keeping and feeding and watering the animals while they wait. Dottor Nava inspects them on Monday and Wednesday, and they’re processed after that.’ She paused to see if Brunetti was following, and Brunetti nodded. He was, as well, mulling over the verb ‘processed’.

‘And if he doesn’t see them?’ Vianello broke in to ask, also using the deliberately deceptive present tense.

She raised her eyebrows, either at the discovery that the Inspector could speak or at the question itself. ‘That’s never happened before. Luckily, his predecessor has agreed to come in and do the inspections and continue with them until Dottor Nava comes back.’

Imperturbable, Brunetti asked, ‘And the name of his predecessor?’

She could not disguise her surprise. ‘Why do you want to know that?’

‘In case it becomes necessary to speak to him,’ Brunetti answered.

‘Meucci. Gabriele Meucci.’

‘Thank you.’

Signorina Borelli straightened up, as though she thought that would be the end of it, but Brunetti asked, ‘Could you give me the names of the other people Dottor Nava is in contact with here?’

‘Aside from me and the Director, Dottor Papetti, there’s the chief knacker, Leonardo Bianchi. He might know other people, but we’re the ones he deals with most frequently.’

She smiled, but the wattage was now dimmer. ‘I think it’s time you explained why you’re asking all these questions, Commissario. Perhaps I watch too much television, but usually this kind of conversation takes place when someone has died and the police are trying to get information about him.’

Her glance went back and forth between the two men. Vianello kept his head bent over his notebook, leaving it to his superior to answer.

‘We have reason to believe that Dottor Nava has been the victim of violence,’ Brunetti said, unable to resist the bureaucrat’s need to release information in small portions.

Just then, as if to draw attention to the phrase, a shrill noise penetrated whatever acoustical insulation was meant to protect this room from the reality beyond it. Unlike the previous long cry, this one was not drawn out, only three short blasts like the ones that on the vaporetti were a command to abandon ship. There were three more cries, muffled this time, and then the animal making them was forced to abandon ship, and the noises stopped.

‘Is he dead?’ Signorina Borelli asked, visibly shaken.

Confused for an instant by the object of her curiosity, it took Brunetti a moment to answer. ‘We think so, yes.’

‘What does that mean: you think so?’ she demanded, looking back and forth between them. ‘You’re the police, for heaven’s sake. If you don’t know, then who does?’

‘We still don’t have a positive identification,’ Brunetti said.

‘Does that mean you’re going to ask me to make one?’ she asked, voice hot with the outrage ignited by Brunetti’s last remark.

‘No,’ Brunetti said calmly. ‘We’ve already found a person to do that.’

She leaned forward suddenly, her head extended like a snake about to strike, and said, ‘You’re cold-hearted, aren’t you? You tell me he’s been the victim of violence, but the fact that you’re here means he’s dead, and the fact that you’re asking all these questions means someone killed him.’ She wiped at her eyes as she spoke and seemed to have trouble finishing some of her words.

Vianello looked up from his notebook and studied Signorina Borelli’s face.

She propped her elbows on the desk and lowered her face into her upraised palms. ‘We find a good man, and this happens to him,’ she said. Brunetti had no idea how to interpret ‘good’, and there was no hint in her voice. Did she judge Nava to be a competent man or a decent one?

After a short time, and still not completely in control, she said, ‘If you have more questions, you’ll have to ask Dottor Papetti.’ She slapped both palms on the desk, and the noise seemed to calm her. ‘What else do you want?’

‘Would it be possible to look at your facility?’

‘You don’t want to,’ she said without thinking.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Brunetti said.

‘You don’t want to see what we do here.’ She sounded entirely calm and reasonable. ‘No one does. Believe me.’