Donna Leon - Beastly Things

Slowly, Brunetti got to his feet, aware of who this man’s father-in-law was and aware from his own family of the lengths to which a wife’s father might go in defence of his daughter and his grandchildren. He took out his wallet and removed one of his cards. Taking a pen from Papetti’s desk, he wrote his telefonino number on the front of the card, then placed it on the desk between them.

‘This is my number, Dottore. If you decide you want to tell me more about this, you can call me whenever you wish.’

Outside, Brunetti found the driver leaning against the door of the car, eyes narrowed as he faced into the sun. He was eating an ice cream cone and looking very pleased with it. They drove back to Venice.

FEELING THAT TO have been out to the mainland twice in one day – regardless of how inconclusive the meetings had been and regardless of the fact that thousands of people did the same two trips every day – was more than a full day’s work for him, Brunetti decided he did not have to return to the Questura. Instead, when the driver let him out at Piazzale Roma, he offered himself the chance to go for a walk and the chance to get home by any route he chose, so long as it got him home on time for dinner.

The softness of the late afternoon encouraged him to walk in the vague direction of San Polo, turning or stopping where whim indicated. He had known this part of the city decades ago, when he took the train daily to Padova to attend his university classes and chose to walk back and forth to the station because it saved him – how much had it been then? – the fifty lire of boat fare. It had been enough for a sweet drink or a coffee; he recalled with the affection age brings to the weaknesses of youth how he had chosen coffee only when with his classmates, giving in to his normal preference for sweet drinks when alone and there was no one to judge his choice unsophisticated.

For a moment, he considered stopping for one of those drinks, if he could only remember their names. But he was a man and had laid aside the things of childhood, and so he stopped for a coffee, smiling at himself as he poured in the second envelope of sugar.

He emerged into Campo Santa Margherita, by day the same, normal campo it had been for centuries, with fruit and fish stands, a gelateria , a pharmacy, shops of all sorts, and the odd, elongated shape that made it such a good place for children to run after dogs or other children. Because he had given himself free time, Brunetti turned his mind away from the chaos that now plagued the campo at night and that had driven people he knew to sell their family homes, if only to escape the noise.

Had Gobbetti still been there, he would have stopped to buy a chocolate mousse to take home, but they had sold the business, and the pasticceria that had replaced them had not replaced the mousse. How replace the sublime?

The boats were moored on the other side of Ponte dei Pugni, one for fruit and one for vegetables, and he tried to remember if he had ever known them not to be there. If not, and they were permanently there, were they – at least in the philosophical sense – still boats? Musing on this, he got halfway across Campo San Barnaba before he decided he would like to go home and enjoy the rest of the evening’s softness from his balcony. He passed in front of the calle that led to his parents-in-law’s palazzo without giving a thought to stopping to see them. The idea was in his mind to go home, and go home he would.

To Brunetti’s great relief, everyone was there when he arrived, and to his greater relief, after they said hello and kissed him, they left him to whatever he chose while they went about the business of their lives. He poured himself a glass of white wine and took a chair out on to the balcony, where he sat for an hour, watching the light dim and disappear, sipping at his wine, and being grateful that the people he loved all had lives and things to busy themselves with that had nothing at all to do with the dreadful lies and deceptions with which his days were filled.

The next morning dawned sweetly for Brunetti, though that sensation diminished the nearer he got to the Questura and what he decided would have to be another conversation with Patta. He realized he had no choice but to tell his superior what he had learned and where those facts had led his suspicions. Like the composer of an opera, he had notes and arias, a range of singers, the sketch of a plot, but there was as yet no coherent libretto.

‘She’s Maurizio De Rivera’s daughter, and you think her husband knows something about a murder and isn’t telling you?’ Patta erupted after Brunetti recounted his conversation with Papetti. Had Brunetti told him that the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro was a hoax, Patta could have been no more indignant.

‘You know who he is, don’t you, Brunetti?’ his superior demanded.

Ignoring this, Brunetti said, ‘He might want to know what sort of man his daughter is married to.’

‘The truth’s the last thing a man wants to know about the man his daughter’s married to.’ Then, after a pause so long that Brunetti sensed Patta was taking careful aim, Patta let fire. ‘You should know that.’

Brunetti failed to contain his response, but he did manage to limit it to a glance, quickly turned away. It must, however, have sufficed to show Patta that he had finally gone too far, for he added immediately, in a transparent attempt to back-pedal, ‘You’ve got a daughter, after all. You’ll want to believe she’s married to a good man, won’t you?’

Brunetti’s heart was still pounding at the insult, so it took him some time to find an answer. Finally he said, ‘De Rivera might have different standards from other fathers, Vice-Questore. If his daughter or her husband were involved in this killing in any way, he might not be bothered by things like obstruction of justice, lying to a public official in the pursuit of his duties, perhaps even direct support in the commission of the crime.’ Then, after a pause, he added, ‘After all, he’s been tried for the first two.’

‘And acquitted,’ Patta snapped back.

Brunetti ignored the remark and went on, ‘Nava was stabbed in the back and somehow taken to a place where he could be pushed into a canal. That suggests the participation of two people.’ Brunetti was calmer now and in greater control of his voice.

‘And why does this have to involve Papetti?’ Patta asked loftily.

Brunetti stopped himself from blurting out that it simply felt right, well aware of how far he was likely to get with that. ‘It doesn’t necessarily, Dottore. But he knows something, or he knows things, that he’s not telling. He knew about the affair between Nava and Borelli: his surprise that I knew about it was evidence of that. And if he recommended her for the job as his assistant, then she’s got some hold on him,’ Brunetti said, dismissing out of hand the possibility of the generosity that is one of the first signs of love.

Patta drew his lips together in a tight, out-thrust circle, a habit Brunetti had come, over the years, to see as a visual suggestion that he was going to consider things reasonably. The Vice-Questore raised his right hand and studied his fingernails. Brunetti had no idea whether he actually saw them or if this was merely another physical manifestation of thought.

At last Patta lowered his hand and relaxed. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I want to bring the Borelli woman in here and ask her a few questions.’

‘Such as?’

‘I won’t know that until I have some more information.’

‘What information?’ Patta asked.

‘About some apartments she owns. About Papetti and Nava and how she got her job as Papetti’s assistant. And how her salary was decided. About the slaughterhouse and how well she knows Dottor Meucci,’ he added, a scenario taking shape.