Donna Leon - Beastly Things

Vianello was already getting out of the other side of the car as Brunetti thanked the driver and closed the door gently. He was pleased to see Vianello say something to the driver. The Inspector smiled, smacked his hand lightly on the roof of the car, and turned towards the water.

They went down the low steps and off to the left, where they saw Foa’s assistant, talking to a taxi driver while keeping his eye on the place from which they were likely to appear. Brunetti was astonished to see that the young man looked exactly as he had some hours before. The pilot raised a hand to the brim of his cap, but it might as easily have been a wave of friendly recognition as a salute: Brunetti found himself hoping it was the first.

The pilot reached to hand him that morning’s Gazzettino , folded and stuck behind the wheel. But Brunetti needed to see distance and colour and beauty and life, not the close-together lines of the printed word, so he made no gesture to take it, and the pilot bent to turn on the engine.

‘Don’t go around the back of the station. Let’s go up the canal.’ That way, though the trip would take longer, they would avoid having to make the turn next to the causeway, where they would see the smokestacks of Marghera; they would also avoid having to pass between the hospital and the cemetery. Neither Brunetti nor Vianello spoke, though both chose to remain on deck in the sun. It beat down on them, warming their heads and causing them to sweat under their jackets. Brunetti felt his damp shirt clinging to his back, even felt a faint trickle just over his temple. He had forgotten his sunglasses and so, like some eighteenth-century sea captain, he shielded his eyes with his hand and looked off into the distance. And he saw, not a tropical atoll surrounded by pristine beaches and not the tempestuous waters of the Cape of Good Hope, but the Calatrava Bridge, appearing diaper-clad in its current state, with short-sleeved tourists hanging over the side to take a photo of the police launch. He smiled up at them and waved.

None of the three men spoke as they passed under the bridge, nor when they passed under the next one and the others, nor when they passed the Basilica, and San Giorgio on the right. What would it be, Brunetti tried to imagine, to see all of this for the first time? Virgin eyes? It came to him that this assault of beauty was the opposite of what had happened in Preganziol, though each experience was overwhelming, each ravishing the viewer in its own way.

The pilot glided the launch up to the dock in front of the Questura, hopped out with the mooring rope in his hand, and hitched it over the bollard. As Brunetti stepped from the boat, the pilot started to say something to him, but the engine gave a sudden burp and he jumped back on deck. By the time he cut the motor, Brunetti and Vianello were already inside the building.

Brunetti didn’t know what to say to Vianello: he could not remember ever being in this position, as though what they had just experienced together was so intense as to render all comment, almost to render all future conversation, futile. This awkwardness was broken by the man at the door, who said, ‘Commissario, the Vice-Questore wants to see you.’

The thought of having to talk to Patta came almost as a relief: the predictable unpleasantness of that experience was sure to nudge Brunetti back towards ordinary life. He glanced at Vianello and said, ‘I’ll talk to him, then come and get you, and we’ll go down to the bar.’ First the reintroduction to ordinary life and then the enjoyment of ordinary humanity.

Because Signorina Elettra was not at her desk, Brunetti knocked on Patta’s door with no advance warning of the level, or cause, of his superior’s irritation. He had no doubt that this was the Vice-Questore’s mood: it was only in moments of severe displeasure with his subordinate that the Vice-Questore could be moved to leave an order downstairs telling Brunetti to see him as soon as he came in. Before their meeting, Brunetti, like a gymnast about to leap up to grab the rings, took a few deep breaths and did his best to prepare himself for his performance.

He knocked firmly, made it as manly a sound as he could muster: three quick shots of noise announcing his arrival. Brunetti interpreted the responding shout as a request that he enter. Patta, he saw, was costumed for the role of country squire. The instant he saw him, Brunetti realized his superior had finally gone too far in pursuit of sartorial perfection, for he was today arrayed in a proper shooting jacket. A light brownish tweed, cut long and close to the body, it had the requisite brown suede patch at the right shoulder, a single pocket opposite on the left. Below were envelope pockets that could be easily unbuttoned to allow the wearer to reach for more shotgun cartridges. The white shirt Patta wore with it had a discreet check, and the green silk tie was covered with tiny yellow sheep that put Brunetti in mind of the ones in the mosaic behind the main altar in the Basilica of Saint’ Apollinaire in Classe in Ravenna.

Much in the manner of Saint Thomas, incapable of believing in Christ’s Resurrection until he put his hand into the wound in his Master’s side, Brunetti was overcome with the urge to go and place his cheek on the brown suede patch on Patta’s shoulder, for the patch was evidence, however outrageous, of all existence. In this instant, still battered by the experiences of the afternoon, Brunetti’s spirit needed proof that the ordinary, indeed, all of life, was still there, and what better proof was there than this absurd display? Here was Patta talking on the phone, here was consistency, here was Proof. The Vice-Questore glanced up and, seeing who it was, said something and replaced the phone.

Brunetti resisted the temptation to bend down and look under the desk to see if the Vice-Questore had chosen to wear what Brunetti’s reading of English novels had trained him to think of as ‘sturdy brogues’. At the desk, with an effort he fought down the urge to thank his superior for calling him back to life. Instead, Brunetti said, ‘Di Oliva said you’d like to speak to me, sir.’

Patta picked up a copy of Il Gazzettino , the newspaper that Brunetti had chosen not to read on the boat. ‘Have you seen this?’ Patta asked.

‘No, sir,’ Brunetti said. ‘My wife is making me read L’Osservatore Romano this week.’ He was going to add that it was the only newspaper that gave him a daily account of the appointments of the Holy Father, much in the manner of the Times with its calendar of the doings of the royals, but he was not sure – not having read the paper for decades – whether this was the case, nor would his gratitude allow him to goad Patta any farther. He contented himself, therefore, with the shrug of a true weakling and reached for the paper.

Patta surprised him by handing it to him gently and saying, ‘Sit down and read it. It’s on page five. Then tell me where the motive came from.’

Hastening to obey, Brunetti sat and opened the paper and quickly found the headline, ‘Mystery Man in Canal Identified as Local Veterinarian’. The article gave Nava’s name and age, said that he lived in Mestre, where he ran a private veterinarian clinic. It reported that he was separated from his wife and had one son. The police investigating his death were considering the possibility of a private vendetta.

‘“ Vendetta privata ”?’ Brunetti looked up to ask.

‘That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you about, Commissario,’ Patta said with sarcasm that halted just short of a leer. ‘Where did that idea come from?’

‘From his wife, from her relatives, or anyone that the reporter spoke to, or maybe he just liked the sound of it. God knows.’ Brunetti weighed for a moment the wisdom of suggesting that it could just as easily have been someone at the Questura, but wisdom and the knowledge that life was long silenced him.