Donna Leon - Friends in High Places

‘How long would that be?’

‘Until she’s eighteen.’ Paola took another sip, and together they considered the prospect.

‘Would the Carmelites take her until then?’

‘Probably not,’ Paola said, voice rich with winsome regret.

‘Do you think this is why the Arabs let their daughters marry so young, to avoid all of this?’

Paola remembered the heated defence Chiara had made that morning of her need to have her own telephone. ‘I’m certain of it.’

‘No wonder people speak of the Wisdom of the East.’

She turned and set her glass in the bottom of the sink. ‘I’ve still got some papers to grade. Want to come and sit with me and see how your Greeks are doing on their trip home while I do it?’

Gratefully Brunetti got to his feet and followed her down the hall to her study.

The next morning, and with considerable reluctance, Brunetti did something he seldom did: he involved one of his children in his work. Raffi didn’t have to get to school until eleven and had a date to meet Sara Paganuzzi before then, so he appeared at breakfast looking bright and cheerful, qualities which seldom accompanied him at that hour. Paola was still asleep, and Chiara was in the bathroom, so they sat alone in the kitchen, eating the fresh brioche that Raffi had gone downstairs to get at the local pastry shop.

‘Raffi,’ Brunetti began, as they ate their first brioche, ‘do you know anything about who sells drugs here?’

Raffi paused with the remaining piece of brioche halfway to his mouth. ‘Here?’

‘In Venice.’

‘Drugs like hard drugs or light stuff like marijuana?’

Though he was faintly troubled by the distinction Raffi made and would have liked to know more about the reason for Raffi’s casual dismissal of ‘light stuff like marijuana’, he didn’t ask. ‘Hard drugs: heroin specifically.’

‘Is this about that student who OD’d?’ he asked, and when Brunetti looked surprised his son opened the Gazzettino and showed him the article. A postage-stamp-sized photo of a young man looked up at him: it could have been any young man with dark hair and two eyes. It could easily have been Raffi.

‘Yes.’

Raffi broke the remainder of his brioche in two pieces and dipped one into his coffee. After some time he said, ‘There’s talk that there are people at the university who can get it for you.’

‘People?’

‘Students. At least I think so. Well,’ he said after a moment’s reflection, ‘people who are enrolled for classes there.’ He picked up his cup and sat with his elbows propped on the table, the cup encircled in both hands, a gesture he must surely have picked up from Paola. ‘You want me to ask around?’

‘No.’ Brunetti’s answer was immediate. Before his son could respond to the sharpness of his voice, Brunetti added, ‘I’m just curious in general, wondered what people were saying.’ He finished his brioche and sipped at his coffee.

‘Sara’s brother’s there, in the Department of Economics. I could ask him what he knows.’

The temptation was strong, but Brunetti dismissed it with a bored, ‘No, don’t bother. It was just an idea.’

Raffi lowered his cup to the table. ‘I’m not interested in them, you know, Papà.’

Brunetti was struck by how deep his voice had become. Soon he’d be a man. Or maybe his need to comfort his father meant that he already was one.

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Brunetti said. He reached across the table and patted his son’s arm. Once, twice, and then he got up and went over to the stove. ‘Shall I make some more?’ he asked, carrying the coffee pot to the sink and opening it.

Raffi glanced down at his watch. ‘No. Thanks, Papà, but I’ve got to go.’ He pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and left the kitchen. A few minutes later, as Brunetti waited for the coffee, he heard the front door close. He listened to Raffi’s footsteps thundering down the first flight, but the sudden eruption of coffee wiped them out.

Because it was still early enough for the boats not to be crowded, Brunetti took the 82 and got off at San Zaccaria. He bought two newspapers there and took them to his office. No further mention was made of Rossi’s death, and the article about Marco Landi gave little more than his name and age. Above it there was the by now routine story about a car full of young people that had splattered itself, and their lives, against a plane tree at the side of one of the state highways leading to Treviso.

He’d read the same grim story so many times during the last few years that he hardly had to bother to look at this one to know what had happened. The youths – in this case, two boys and two girls – had left a disco after three in the morning and had driven off in a car belonging to the father of the driver. Some time later, the driver had been struck by what the newspapers ritually referred to as, un colpo di sonno, and the car had gone off the road and into a tree. It was still too early to know the cause of the attack of sleepiness, but it generally turned out to be alcohol or drugs. Usually, though, that wasn’t determined until the autopsy was performed on the driver and on however many others he had killed along with himself. And by that time the story had dropped off the front pages and been forgotten, replaced by the photos of other young people, victims of their youth and its many desires.

He left the newspaper on the desk and went down to Patta’s office. Signorina Elettra was nowhere in sight, so he knocked at the door and, when he heard Patta’s shouted response, went in.

It was a different man who sat behind the desk, at least different from the one who had sat behind it the last time Brunetti was there. Patta was back: tall, handsome, dressed in a lightweight suit that caressed his broad shoulders with respectful, gossamer fingers. His skin glowed with health, his eyes with serenity.

‘Yes, what is it, Commissario?’ he asked, looking up from the single sheet of paper which lay on the desk in front of him.

‘I’d like a word with you, Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said, coming to stand next to the chair in front of Patta’s desk, waiting to be told to sit down.

Patta flicked back a starched cuff and glanced down at the golden wafer on his wrist. ‘I have a few minutes. What is it?’

‘It’s about Jesolo, sir. And your son. I wondered if you’d come to any decision.’

Patta pushed himself back in his chair. Seeing that Brunetti could easily look down at the paper in front of him, he turned it over and folded his hands on its blank back. ‘I’m not sure that there’s any decision to be made, Commissario,’ he said, sounding puzzled that Brunetti should think of asking such a question.

‘I wanted to know if your son was willing to talk about the people from whom he got the drugs.’ With habitual caution, Brunetti restrained himself from saying, bought the drugs.

‘If he knew who they were, I’m sure he would be more than willing to tell the police whatever he could.’ In Patta’s voice he heard the same injured confusion he’d heard in the voice of a generation of unwilling witnesses and suspects, and on his face he saw that same patently innocent, faintly bewildered, smile. His tone invited no contradiction.

‘If he knew who they were?’ Brunetti repeated, turning it into a question.

‘Exactly. As you know, he has no idea of how these drugs came into his possession, nor of who might have planted them.’ Patta’s voice was as calm as his eyes were steady.

Ah, that’s how it’s going to be played, Brunetti thought. ‘And his fingerprints, sir?’

Patta’s smile was broad, and it appeared to be genuine. ‘I know. I know how that must have appeared when he was first questioned. But he told me, and he’s told the police, that he found the envelope in his pocket when he came back from dancing and reached into his pocket to get a cigarette. He had no idea of what it was, so, as anyone would do, he opened the envelope to see what was inside, and when he did that, he must have touched some of the packages.’