Donna Leon - About Face

‘Ah,’ Brunetti said, ‘so that’s when he sent you the photo.’

‘Very clever, Brunetti,’ Patta snapped. ‘Of course that’s when he sent me the photo.’

‘I see, I see,’ Brunetti said, stalling for time.

‘I’ve called the Lieutenant,’ Patta said, and again Brunetti washed all expression from his face. ‘But he’s in Chioggia and can’t get there until the afternoon.’

Brunetti felt his heart tighten at the thought that Patta wanted to involve Scarpa in this. ‘Excellent idea,’ he said, then allowed a bit of enthusiasm to drain from his voice as he added, ‘I just hope the. .’ He dragged his voice to a stop, then repeated, ‘Excellent idea.’

‘What don’t you like about it, Brunetti?’ Patta demanded.

Brunetti this time plastered confusion across his face and did not answer.

‘Tell me, Brunetti,’ Patta said, his voice slipping towards menace.

‘It’s really a question of rank, sir,’ Brunetti said hesitantly, speaking only to keep the bamboo shoots from being stuck under his fingernails. Before Patta could inquire, he explained. ‘You said the man who called was a captain. My only concern is how it’s going to look if we’re represented by a person of lower rank.’ He studied Patta’s body and saw the first tightening of the muscles.

‘It’s not that I have doubts about the Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘But we’ve had jurisdictional trouble with the Carabinieri before, and sending a person of superior rank would eliminate the possibility of that.’

Patta’s eyes were suddenly hooded with mistrust. ‘Who are you talking about, Brunetti?’

Looking as surprised as he could manage, Brunetti said, ‘Why, you, sir. Of course. You should be the person to represent us, sir. After all, as you said yourself, Vice-Questore, you’re the person in charge here.’ Though this rendered the Questore irrelevant, Brunetti doubted that Patta would notice.

Patta’s glance was fierce, filled with unvoiced suspicions, probably ones that Patta did not realize he felt. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he said.

Brunetti shrugged, as if to suggest it would have been only a matter of time before he had done so. Patta bestowed his most serious look on Brunetti, then asked, ‘You think it’s important, then?’

‘That you go, sir?’ asked an alert Brunetti.

‘That someone who outranks a captain should go.’

‘You certainly do, sir, and by a great degree.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about me, Brunetti,’ Patta snapped.

Brunetti made no attempt to disguise his inability to understand and said, fresh-faced, ‘But you have to go, Dottore.’ Brunetti suspected that a case of this nature was bound to gather national attention, but this was not something he wanted Patta to realize.

‘You think this investigation will drag on?’ Patta asked.

Brunetti allowed himself to measure out the tiniest of shrugs. ‘I have no way of knowing that, sir, but these cases sometimes tend to.’ Brunetti, as he spoke, had no idea what he meant by ‘these cases’, but the prospect of sustained effort would suffice to discourage Patta.

Patta leaned forward and put a smile on his face. ‘I think, Brunetti, since you were the person who liaised with him, that you should be the one to represent us.’

Brunetti was trying to find the proper tone of moderate resistance when Patta said, ‘He was killed in Marghera, Brunetti. That’s in our territory, so it’s our jurisdiction. It’s the sort of call a commissario would answer, so it makes complete sense for you to go out there and have a look.’

Brunetti started to protest, but Patta cut him short: ‘Take that Griffoni woman along with you. That way there will be two commissari.’ Patta smiled with grim satisfaction, as though he had just come up with a clever move in chess. Or draughts. ‘I want the two of you to go there and see what you can find out.’

Brunetti got to his feet, doing his best to appear disgruntled and unwilling. ‘All right, Vice-Questore, but I don’t think. .’

‘What you think isn’t important, Commissario. I told you I want the two of you out there. And while you’re there, it’s your duty to show this captain who’s in charge.’

Good sense intervened and prevented Brunetti from overplaying the role of bumbling reluctance: at times even Patta was capable of noticing the obvious. ‘All right,’ he limited himself to saying. All business now, he asked, ‘Where exactly was this man calling from, sir?’

‘He said he was at the petrochemical complex in Marghera. I’ll give you his number, and you can call him and ask where exactly,’ Patta said. He picked up his telefonino , which Brunetti had failed to notice resting just beside his desk calendar. He flipped it open with negligent ease. Patta, of course, had the most recent slim-line model. The Vice-Questore refused to use the BlackBerry he had been issued by the Ministry of the Interior, saying he did not want to become a techno-slave, though Brunetti suspected he rather feared its effect on the line of his jackets.

Patta pressed buttons then suddenly held the phone out to Brunetti, saying nothing. Guarino’s face filled the tiny screen. His deep-set eyes were open, though he was glancing off to the side as if embarrassed that someone would see him lying like this, so inattentive to life. As Patta had said, the chin was damaged, though destroyed might have been a better word. There was no mistaking the thin face and the greying temples. His hair would never grow grey now, Brunetti found himself thinking, and he would never get to call Signorina Elettra, if that had been his intention.

‘Well?’ Patta asked, and Brunetti almost shouted at him, so unnecessary was the question, so easily recognizable the dead man.

‘I’d say it’s he,’ Brunetti limited himself to saying, flipped the phone closed, and handed it back to Patta. Long moments passed, during which time Brunetti watched Patta wash everything save affability and the selfless desire for cooperation from his face. As soon as Patta began to speak, Brunetti realized that the same transformation had taken place in Patta’s voice. ‘I’ve decided it might be wiser to tell them he was here.’

Like an Olympic relay racer, Brunetti did his best to sprint up to the man in front of him, reach his hand forward while they were both running full tilt, and pluck the stick from him, allowing the other runner to slow down and eventually drop out of the race.

For a moment, Brunetti feared that Patta was going to press the call-back number and pass the phone to him: he would not trust himself if Patta did. Perhaps Patta saw this. Whatever did happen, Patta opened the phone again. He pulled a sheet of paper towards him, wrote down the caller’s number and slid the paper across the desk to Brunetti. ‘I don’t remember his name, but he’s a captain.’

Brunetti took the paper and read it a few times. When it was obvious that the Vice-Questore had nothing further to contribute, Brunetti got up and moved towards the door, saying, ‘I’ll call him.’

‘Good. Keep me posted,’ Patta said, his voice filled with the relief that came from so artfully having passed it all to Brunetti.

Upstairs, he dialled the number. After only two rings, a man’s voice answered, ‘ Sì ?’

‘I’m returning your call to Vice-Questore Patta,’ Brunetti said neutrally, having decided to use the weight of Patta’s rank for whatever it was worth. ‘Someone called from this number and spoke to the Vice-Questore, then sent a photo.’ He paused but there was no expression of acknowledgement or curiosity from the other end. ‘Vice-Questore Patta has shown me the photo of what appears to be a dead man, and from what the Vice-Questore has told me, he was killed in our territory,’ Brunetti went on in his most officious voice. ‘The Vice-Questore has tasked me to go out there and then report to him.’