Donna Leon - Beastly Things

‘I’m afraid I’m the person who does the asking, Signor Meucci,’ Brunetti said coldly.

Meucci sulked for a moment but then he answered. ‘She wanted someone who would maintain the three per cent.’

‘When did she tell you this?’

Meucci thought about this, then said, ‘She called me on the first – I remember the date because it was my mother’s birthday.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I didn’t have much choice, did I?’ Meucci asked with the petulance of a sixteen-year-old. And with the same moral clarity.

‘If she wanted you to go to Verona,’ Brunetti said, trying to clarify this, ‘does it mean she’s involved with other macelli ?’

‘Of course,’ Meucci said, giving Brunetti a look that suggested he was the sixteen-year-old. ‘There are five or six of them. Two near here and four more, I think, out around Verona: anyway, in the province. They belong to Papetti’s father-in-law.’ Then, unable to resist the temptation to goad Brunetti by showing that he knew something the other man did not, he asked, ‘How else do you think Papetti would get a job like that?’

Ignoring Meucci’s provocation, Brunetti asked, ‘Have you ever been to any of the others?’

‘No, but I know Bianchi’s worked at two of them.’

‘How do you know that?’

Surprised, Meucci said, ‘We got on well, working together the way we did. He told me about it, said he preferred Preganziol because he knew the crew better.’

‘I see,’ Brunetti said neutrally, then asked, ‘Do you know if she and Papetti are involved with them all?’

‘They visit them occasionally.’

‘Together?’ Brunetti asked.

Meucci laughed out loud. ‘You can put that idea out of your head, Commissario.’ He laughed so long it started him coughing. Panicked, he tried to get up but remained trapped in the chair, which he managed to lift from the floor in his attempt to stand. Brunetti rose to go around his desk to try to do something, but Meucci forced himself to sit back. The coughing spluttered out. He reached over and took a cigarette, lit it, and pulled life-saving smoke deep into his lungs.

Brunetti asked, ‘Why shouldn’t I think about it, Signor Meucci?’

Meucci’s eyes narrowed, and Brunetti saw the pleasure he could not disguise at having information that might be useful to Brunetti. Or to both of them. Meucci might be a coward, but he was not a fool.

Nor, it seemed, did he want to waste time. ‘What do I get in exchange?’ Meucci asked, stabbing out his cigarette.

Brunetti had known that something like this was bound to come, so he said, ‘I leave you alone at your private practice, and you don’t work in a slaughterhouse again.’

He watched Meucci calculate the offer, and he watched him accept it. ‘There’s nothing between the two of them,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’

‘She told Bianchi.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Brunetti said.

‘Yes, Bianchi. They’re friends. Bianchi’s gay. They just like one another, and they gossip together like teenagers: who they’ve had, who they’d like to have, what they did. She told him all about Nava and how easy he was. It was like a game to her, I think. Anyway, that’s the way it sounded when Bianchi told me about it.’

Brunetti made sure he looked very interested in what the other man was saying. ‘What else did Bianchi tell you?’

‘That she tried with Papetti, but he almost wet his pants, he was so frightened.’

‘Of her?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew the answer.

‘No, of course not. Of his father-in-law. He ever screw around on his wife, the old man would probably see he never did any screwing again.’ Then, reflective and expansive, Meucci added, ‘After all, the old guy’s turned a blind eye to the way Papetti’s been screwing the company for years, so it’s obvious that it’s only his daughter he cares about. She’s in love with Papetti, so De Rivera lets him do whatever he wants. I guess it’s worth it to him.’

Brunetti made no comment and, instead, asked, ‘Why’d she bother with Nava?’

‘The usual thing. She wanted him to approve the animals so they could get their cut from the farmers. The way it worked with my friend.’

‘And with you,’ Brunetti reminded him.

Meucci did not respond.

‘But not with Nava?’ Brunetti asked.

The thought of that restored Meucci’s good humour and he said, ‘No, not with Nava. Bianchi told me she was like a hyena. She fucked him, even told Bianchi how he was: not so great. And then he wouldn’t do what she asked him to do. So she threatened to tell his wife. But it didn’t work: he told her to go ahead, he still wouldn’t – he said he couldn’t, can you imagine that? – do it.’

‘When did she threaten to tell his wife?’

Meucci closed his eyes to think. Opening them, he said, ‘I don’t remember exactly: at least a couple of months ago.’ Seeing Brunetti trying to work out the timing, he said, ‘She told Bianchi it took her almost two months to get him to fuck her, so it would have been after that that she asked him to approve the animals.’

Brunetti, deciding to change tack, said, ‘The animals that are brought in – the sick ones, that is – why did Signorina Borelli want you to declare these animals healthy?’

Meucci stared at him. ‘I just told you,’ he said. ‘Don’t you get it?’

‘I’d prefer that you explain it to me again, Signor Meucci,’ said an imperturbable Brunetti, conscious of the future use that might be made of this recording.

With a small snort of disbelief or contempt, Meucci said, ‘They pay her, of course. She and Papetti get a part of what they’re paid for the animals once they’re declared healthy. And since she works there, she knows exactly how much they get.’ Before Brunetti could ask, he said, ‘I have no idea, but from things I’ve heard, I’d guess their cut is about twenty-five per cent. Think about it. If the animal’s condemned, the owners lose everything they would have got for it, and they have to pay to have it destroyed and then disposed of.’ With an expression he probably supposed demonstrated virtue, Meucci said, ‘I think it’s a fair price, when you consider everything.’

After a reflective pause, Brunetti said, ‘Certainly,’ then, ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

‘Well, maybe you should,’ Meucci said with the tone of the person who always had to have the last word.

Brunetti picked up his phone and dialled Pucetti’s telefonino number.

When the young man answered, Brunetti said, ‘Come up here, would you? I’d like you to take this witness downstairs to wait while a stenographer makes a copy of his statement. When it’s ready, have him read it and sign it, would you? You and Foa can witness it.’

‘Foa’s gone, sir. His shift ended an hour ago, and he’s gone home. But he gave me the list,’ Pucetti said.

‘What list?’ Brunetti had to ask, still lost in the world of animals.

‘The addresses of the houses along the canal, sir. That’s what he told me.’

‘Yes, good,’ Brunetti said, remembering. ‘Bring it up when you come, will you?’

‘Of course, Commissario,’ Pucetti said and hung up.

WHEN PUCETTI WAS gone, taking Meucci with him, Brunetti forced himself to resist the urge to open Foa’s list immediately. Better to start with a careful reading of the file Signorina Elettra had compiled on Signorina Borelli. Four years at Tekknomed, which firm she left suddenly and under a cloud, only to move effortlessly into a much more highly paid position as the assistant to the son of Tekknomed’s lawyer. Though he scorned the same prejudice in Patta and would confess his own only to Paola and then only when bamboo shoots were shoved under his fingernails, Brunetti considered a slaughterhouse an unseemly place for a woman to work, especially one as attractive as she. That being the case, one had then to consider what inducement might have taken her there.