Donna Leon - About Face

Brunetti looked up and saw a dull greyness that must be the door they had used to come in; he was surprised to see they had come more than halfway round the tank. He turned back and let his eyes follow the beam of light: they were still four or five metres from the bottom. In the beam of light, the floor seemed to glisten and sparkle, as from some inner glow or source of light. It was not liquid for, like the mud outside, its surface was composed of stiff whirls and waves: the moving reflection transformed it to a wine dark sea.

A shiver passed down Vianello’s arm, and Brunetti was suddenly aware of the cold.

‘What now, sir?’ Pucetti asked, moving the beam back and forth in an even rhythm, ever farther from them. About twenty metres from them it lit up a vertical surface, and Pucetti allowed the light to move slowly up, as though asking it to climb the face of a mountain. The obstacle, however, proved to be no more than five or six metres high, for the face exposed by the light was the front of an assemblage of barrels and plastic containers: some black, some grey, some yellow. No great effort had been made to stack them neatly or in straight rows. Some of the barrels in the top row leaned tiredly against the ones next to them, and some in the outside rows tilted inwards like penguins huddling in the Antarctic night.

Without having to be told to do it, Pucetti ran the beam to one end of the pile, then moved it slowly back to the other end, allowing them to count the barrels in the front row. When the light reached the end, Vianello said softly, ‘Twenty-four.’

Brunetti had read once that barrels contained a hundred and fifty litres, or perhaps it was more. Or less. But surely more than a hundred. He tried to do the numbers in his head, but his uncertainty about the volume, as well as how many rows stood behind the ones they could see, meant that he could not estimate the total more than to say each row contained at least twelve thousand litres.

Not that the number meant anything, not without knowing the contents. After that, they could tabulate the extent of the danger. All of these thoughts, numerical and otherwise, went through his mind as the light played over the façade of barrels.

‘Let’s have a look,’ Brunetti said, keeping his voice down. He and Vianello descended to the bottom step. ‘Give me the light, Pucetti.’

Brunetti freed his arm from Vianello’s and stepped on to the floor of the tank. Pucetti passed the Ispettore and stepped down, then took another step, and joined Brunetti. ‘I’ll come with you, sir,’ the younger man said, shining the light on to the mud just beneath their feet.

Vianello lifted one foot, but Brunetti put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘I want to see how we get out of here, first.’ He was conscious of how softly they all spoke, as if to cause an echo might bring peril.

Instead of answering, Pucetti waved the beam of light back up the curving stairs, all the way to the top.

‘In case we have to move quickly,’ Brunetti said. In the glow from the flashlight, he reached out and took it from Pucetti’s hand. ‘Wait here,’ he said and moved off, his left hand sliding along the wall of the tank. He moved slowly until he found the door and then the inner keyholes of the two locks.

Not too far ahead he saw what he had hoped to see: the horizontal hand-bar of a smaller emergency exit cut into the larger door. Brunetti saw no written warning about an alarm nor any sign that it was wired to one. He pressed down on the bar, and the door swung outward on well-oiled hinges. The air brushed across his face, bringing different smells and a reminder of just how foul the air inside was. He toyed for a moment with the idea of leaving the door propped open, but decided against it. He pulled it closed, and the inner cold and smell returned.

He lit his way back to the others. Before he could say anything, Pucetti stepped closer and linked his arm in Brunetti’s, a gesture Brunetti found touchingly protective. Tentatively, arm in arm, they set off, careful of where they trod on the icy surface, pausing after every step to see that their feet were safely grounded on the frozen peaks and crevices of the floor. Caution slowed them, so it took them some time to reach the centre of the front line of barrels.

Brunetti ran the light across them, hunting for something that would disclose their contents or origins. The first three gave no indication of either, though the white skull and crossbones suggested the superfluity of such niceties. The next barrel had traces of white paper where something had been ripped away, leaving two faded Cyrillic letters. The container beside it was clean, as were the next three. Close to the end of the row stood a barrel with a sulphurous green trail leading from under the lid to a patch of dried powder in the mud in front of it. Pucetti released Brunetti’s arm and walked beyond the last barrel. Brunetti turned the corner and flashed the light along the side of the rows of barrels. ‘Eighteen,’ Pucetti said after a moment. Brunetti, who had counted nineteen, nodded and moved back to have a closer look at the corner barrel; he could see an orange label just below the lid. German was not a language he could read, but it was one he could recognize. ‘ Achtung! ’ Well, that left little doubt. ‘ Vorsicht Lebensgefahr .’ This one, too, had a leak near the top and a dark green stain in the mud below.

‘I think we’ve seen enough, Pucetti,’ he said and turned back to where he thought Vianello was waiting.

‘Right, Commissario,’ Pucetti said and started towards him.

Brunetti stepped away from Pucetti, called Vianello’s name and, when he answered, pointed the beam in the direction of his voice. Neither of them saw what happened. Behind him, he heard Pucetti take a sharp breath — of surprise, not of fear — and then he heard a long slithery noise that he was able to identify only in retrospect as the sound of Pucetti’s foot sliding suddenly forward on the frozen mud.

He felt something slam into his back and he had a moment’s terror at the thought that it was one of the barrels. Then a thud, then silence, then a sudden cry from Pucetti.

He turned slowly, moving his feet carefully, and pointed the light towards Pucetti’s voice. The young officer was on his knees, wiping his left hand across the front of his coat, moaning while he did so. He stuffed his hand between his knees and began to rub it back and forth against the cloth of his trousers.

‘ Oddio, oddio ,’ the young man moaned and astonished Brunetti by spitting on his hand before wiping it again. He scrambled to his feet.

‘Vianello, the tea,’ Brunetti shouted and turned to point the light wildly, no longer sure where Vianello was, nor the door.

‘I’m here,’ the Ispettore said, and suddenly Brunetti had him transfixed in the light, thermos in one hand. Brunetti pulled Pucetti forward and locked his own hand around his lower arm, shoving Pucetti’s hand towards Vianello. The young man’s palm and part of the back of his hand were covered with traces of some black substance, much of which he had managed to wipe on to his clothing. Amidst the black, the skin was red, in places peeling back and already bleeding.

‘This is going to hurt, Roberto,’ Vianello said. He raised the thermos above the young man’s hand, and at first Brunetti didn’t understand what he was doing. But when the liquid spilled out, steaming, he realized that the Ispettore hoped that it would cool at least minimally before hitting the burnt flesh of Pucetti’s hand.

Brunetti tightened his grip, but there was no need to do that. Pucetti understood and stood motionless as the tea hit and then splashed across his hand. Brunetti stepped back, the better to keep the light steady on what was happening. The stream fell, leaving a halo of vapour all around it. Time seemed without end. ‘Here,’ Vianello finally said and handed Brunetti the thermos.