Donna Leon - About Face

Brunetti took his normal seat behind his desk, resisting the temptation to phone Signorina Elettra and ask if her foray into the computers of Signor Cataldo’s businesses could have been detected. To do so would require that he explain his curiosity, and that was something he preferred not to do. He had not lied: a search by the Finanza was far more likely than an attempt by some putative kidnapper to gain information about Cataldo’s wealth. A search by the Finanza, however, was far less likely than the one he had asked Signorina Elettra to perform, but that was hardly information that would have comforted Signora Marinello. He had to find a way to warn Signorina Elettra that her deft hand had faltered while inside Cataldo’s computer systems.

Though it made sense that a wife should be worried to learn that her husband’s business interests were being tampered with, Brunetti thought her reaction had been excessive. Everything she had said to Brunetti that evening at dinner had revealed a sensible, intelligent woman: her response to her husband’s information suggested a different person entirely.

After a while, Brunetti decided he was spending too much time and energy on something that was not related to any of his current cases. In order to make a clean break with it before getting back to work, he would go and have a coffee or perhaps un’ombra to clear his mind.

Sergio saw him come in and, instead of his usual smile, narrowed his eyes and moved his chin minimally to the right, in the direction of the booths near the window. In the last one, Brunetti made out the back of a man’s head; narrow skull, short hair. The angle was such that he could see, opposite the first man and facing him, the halo of another man’s head; wider, with longer hair. He recognized those ears, pressed down and out by years spent under a policeman’s cap. Alvise: and that identified the back of Lieutenant Scarpa’s head. Ah, so much for the idea that Alvise would return to the flock and mingle again as an equal with his fellow officers.

Approaching the bar, Brunetti gave Sergio an equally minimal nod and asked quietly for a coffee. Something in Alvise’s expression must have alerted Scarpa, who turned and saw Brunetti. Scarpa’s face remained impassive, but Brunetti saw that Alvise’s face was crossed by something stronger than surprise — guilt, perhaps? The machine hissed, then a cup and saucer rattled and slid across the zinc bar.

None of them spoke; Brunetti nodded at the two men, turned back to the bar and ripped open a packet of sugar. He poured it into his coffee and stirred it around slowly, asked Sergio for the newspaper, and spread the I l Gazzettino on the counter beside him. He decided to wait them out and settled in to read.

He glanced at the first page, where the world outside Venice was referred to, then skipped over to page seven, lacking the mental energy — and the stomach — to endure the five pages of political chatter; one could hardly call it news. The same faces had been appearing and the same things happening, the same promises made — with a few minimal variations in cast and title — for the last forty years. The lapels of their jackets expanded and narrowed as fashion dictated, but those same front trotters remained in the trough. They opposed this, and they opposed that, and by their selfless efforts they vowed to bring the current government crashing down. So that what? So that, next year, he could stand at the bar and drink a coffee and read the same words, now in the mouths of the new opposition?

It was almost with relief that he turned the page. The woman convicted of infanticide, still at home, still crying out her innocence through the mouths of yet another legal team. And who now responsible in her mind for the murder of her son — extraterrestrials? More flowers placed at the curve in the road where four more teenagers had died a week before. Yet more uncollected garbage filling the streets in the suburbs of Naples. Another worker crushed to death by heavy equipment at his workplace. Another judge transferred away from the city where he had begun an investigation of a cabinet minister.

Brunetti slid the Venezia section out from under the first. A fisherman from Chioggia, arrested for assault after coming home drunk and attacking a neighbour with a knife. Yet more protests against the damage done by the cruise ships using the Giudecca Canal. Two more vendors going out of business at the fish market. Another five-star hotel to open next week. The mayor denounces the increased number of tourists.

Brunetti pointed down to the last two articles. ‘Lovely: the city administration can’t give out licences for hotels fast enough, and when they’re not busy with that, they’re denouncing the number of tourists,’ he said to Sergio.

‘ Vottá á petrella , e tirá á manella, ’ Sergio said, looking up from the glass he was drying.

‘What’s that, Neapolitan?’ asked a surprised Brunetti.

‘Yes,’ Sergio answered, and translated: ‘Throw the stone, then hide the hand.’

Brunetti laughed out loud, then said, ‘I don’t know why one of these new political parties doesn’t take that as its motto. It’s perfect: you do it, then you hide the evidence that you did it. Wonderful.’ He continued to laugh, something in the honesty of the phrase having touched him with delight.

He sensed motion on his left, then heard the men’s feet as they pushed themselves out of the benches. He turned the page, allowing his attention to be caught by the news of the farewell party given at Giacinto Gallina for a third-grade teacher who was leaving after teaching forty years in the same school.

‘Good morning, Commissario,’ Alvise said in a small voice from behind him.

‘Morning, Alvise,’ Brunetti said, tearing his eyes away from the photo of the party and turning to greet the officer.

Scarpa, as if to emphasize the equality resulting from their superior rank, limited himself to a curt nod, which Brunetti returned before turning his attention back to the party. The children had brought flowers and home-baked cookies.

When the two were gone, Brunetti folded closed the paper and asked, ‘They come in here often?’

‘Couple of times a week, I’d say.’

‘Always like that?’ Brunetti asked, gesturing towards the two men walking side by side back towards the Questura.

‘Like it’s their first date, you mean?’ Sergio asked, turning to place the glass carefully upside down on the counter behind him.

‘Something like that.’

‘Been that way for about six months. In the beginning, the Lieutenant was sort of stand-offish and made poor Alvise work hard to please him.’ Sergio picked up another glass, held it up to the light to check for spots, and began to wipe it dry. ‘Poor fool, couldn’t see what Scarpa was doing.’ Then he interjected, conversationally, ‘Real bastard, that one is.’

Brunetti pushed his cup closer to the barman, who took it and placed it in the sink.

‘You have any idea what they talk about?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I don’t think it matters. Not really.’

‘Why?’

‘All Scarpa wants is power. He wants poor Alvise to jump when he says “frog” and smile whenever he says something he thinks is funny.’

‘Why?’

Sergio’s shrug was eloquent. ‘As I said, because he’s a bastard. And because he needs someone to push around and someone who will treat him like a big shot important Lieutenant, not like the rest of you, who have the sense to treat him like the nasty little shit he is.’

At no time in this conversation did it occur to Brunetti that he was inciting a civilian to speak badly of a member of the forces of order. If truth be told, he thought Scarpa a nasty little shit, too, so the civilian was merely reinforcing the received wisdom of the forces of order themselves.