Blood from a stone

13

Claudio Stein ran his business from a small apartment over near Piazzale Roma, at the end of a blind calle near the prison. Brunetti had been there many times. In his youth, he had gone with his father and had listened while the two men spoke of their shared past, both as young men in Venice before the war and then as young soldiers in Greece and in Russia. Over the course of the years spanned by the friendship of the two men, Brunetti had come to know all their stories: the priest in Castello who told them it was a sin not to join the Fascist party, the woman in Thessaloniki who gave them a bottle of ouzo, the wild artillery captain who had tried to kidnap them into his unit and had been turned away only by the sight of a pistol. In all of their stories, the two men emerged victorious: but then the fact that they had survived the war at all was, all things considered, sufficient sign of victory.
After years of listening to their stories, Brunetti eventually realized that the hero of all of the adventures that took place before the war was his father: extroverted, generous, clever, a natural leader of the neighbourhood boys. After the war, however, command passed to the far less volatile Claudio: cautious, honest, reliable and, in his relationship with his friend, protective and loyal. Claudio had learned how to deflect the retelling of stories when they veered towards subjects that might bring on one of the elder Brunetti’s cataclysmic rages: he always turned the conversation away from politicians, officers, or equipment and back to their repeated triumphs in the search for food and amusement. How many of these stories were true? Brunetti had no idea, nor did he care. He loved them and had always loved hearing them because of the pictures they gave him, however out of sequence or distorted by the lens of the teller, of the man his father had been before the war had had its way with him.
Claudio opened the door soon after his first ring, and the first thing Brunetti thought was that the old man had forgotten to put his shoes on. They embraced, and Brunetti took the opportunity to look down the back of the old man’s legs, but there indeed were the heels of his shoes. He stepped back and took another look and saw that it was nothing more than the inevitable betrayal of age that had slipped in and stolen five or more centimetres from Claudio since the last time they met.
‘How good to see you, Guido,’ the old man said in the same deep voice that had been a beacon of calm to Brunetti during most of his youth. He led Brunetti into the apartment, saying, ‘Here, give me your coat.’ Brunetti set his briefcase on the floor and removed his coat, waiting as Claudio hung it up. It had been Claudio, he remembered, who had given him a thousand lire for his sixteenth birthday, a fortune then, money he had taken to the neighbourhood bar and spent in a single night on buying drinks for his friends. Such were the times that most of the money had been spent on Coca-Cola and limonata: after all, wine was available at home, so why celebrate with that?
Claudio led them down the corridor and into the room he always referred to as his office, though it was simply a room in an apartment with a large desk, three chairs, and an enormous safe as tall as a man. In all the years Brunetti had come here, the surface of the desk had always been empty. Only once, and that was six years ago when he had come to interview Claudio in his official capacity as a policeman, had anything appeared on the desk. Then it had been nothing more than the soft suede jeweller’s case that had been left by a pair of swindlers who had somehow substituted it for the one Claudio had himself filled with the stones they claimed they were going to buy.
The case was a classic, a well-prepared sting that had probably taken the pair more than a year to set up. They had studied Claudio’s behaviour, befriended members of his family, and in the process had learned enough about his private life and his business to persuade him that they were old clients of his father, who had run the business before leaving it to Claudio.
On the day of sale, they had come to this same office, and Claudio had given them the pride of his collections, gems to a value so large that he had begun to sob after confessing everything to Brunetti. Carefully they had selected the stones, letting Claudio place them, one by one, in the suede case. At the very last, the one who subseuently turned out to be the leader had selected an enormous diamond solitaire ring and had placed it in the centre of the case, then watched as Claudio folded it closed and secured it with its bands of black elastic. ‘That way,’ the man had said, pointing at the little leather bump that indicated the ring, ‘you’ll be sure which case is ours.’
And it had happened then, in the half-second between the time Claudio finished securing the package and the moment when he inserted it on the top shelf of the safe. Had one of them asked him a question, pulled out a cigarette case? Later, when he discovered the substitution, Claudio could not remember anything about that crucial moment when the two cases had been switched. He realized what had happened only two days later, when the men did not come back to pay him and collect their stones. Later, he said he knew already when he opened the safe and took the case, knew it though he could never believe that it was possible, that they could have managed to switch the cases, not with him there, not with him paying attention. But they had.
He had made Brunetti, after telling him how much the stones were worth, promise to tell no one: he knew he would not be able to endure the shame, were his wife to learn how great had been his carelessness, nor could he bear hers if she learned that the men she had so proudly spoken to about her husband one day on the train were the very men who had come back to cheat him.
That the men were subsequently arrested and jailed made no difference to Claudio, for the money had long since been lost in the casinos of Europe, and his insurance company had declared the claim unpayable because he had not submitted to them, when he applied for his policy, a complete list of the stones in his possession, their origin, price, weight, and cut. That Claudio was a wholesaler and thus had thousands of stones and would have had to spend months preparing the inventory was judged irrelevant in their decision to disallow the claim.
This stew of memories filled Brunetti’s mind as Claudio led him down the corridor towards his office. ‘Can’t I offer you something to drink, Guido?’ the old man asked as they entered the office.
‘No, nothing, Claudio. I just had a coffee. Perhaps when we’re finished.’ From long experience, he knew that Claudio would not take his place behind the desk until his guest was seated, so Brunetti pulled out a chair and sat, placing his briefcase between his feet.
Claudio walked behind the desk and sat. He folded his hands and leaned forward in a familiar gesture. ‘Paola and the kids?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Everyone,’ Brunetti said, part of the familiar ritual. ‘They’re all doing well at school. Even Paola,’ he added with a laugh. Then he asked, ‘And Elsa?’
Claudio tilted his head to one side and grimaced. ‘The arthritis is getting worse. It’s in her hands now. But she never complains. Someone told us about a doctor in Padova, and she’s been going to him for a month. He’s giving her some medicine from America, and it seems to help.’
‘Let’s hope it does,’ Brunetti said. ‘And Riccardo?’
‘Happy, working, and going to make me a grandfather for the third time in June.’
‘He or Evvie?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Together, I think,’ Claudio said.
Formalities disposed of, Claudio asked, ‘What is it you wanted to see me about?’ From force of habit, he wasted no time, even though life had slowed for him in the last few years, and he found himself with so much time that he would like to be able to waste some.
‘I’ve found some stones,’ Brunetti said. ‘And I’d like you to tell me whatever you can about them.’
‘What kind of stones?’ Claudio asked.
‘Let me show you,’ Brunetti said and reached for his briefcase. He opened it, pulled out the plastic bag that contained Vianello’s two mittens, and set it on the desk. Then he removed his handkerchief and placed it next to the bag. He glanced across at Claudio and saw both confusion and interest.
He started with the handkerchief, pulling at the first knot with his fingernails and then, when that was untied, the second. He let the corners fall to the surface of the desk and pushed the handkerchief closer to Claudio. Then he opened the plastic bag, removed the mittens and poured their contents on to the pile at the centre of the handkerchief. A few wayward stones rolled free across the surface of the desk; Brunetti picked them up and placed them on the pile, saying, ‘I’d like you to tell me about these.’
Claudio, who had probably seen more precious stones in his life than anyone else in the city, looked at them soberly, making no motion towards them. After more than a minute had passed, he licked the tip of his forefinger and placed it on one of the small pieces, picked it up and licked it. ‘Why are they mixed with salt?’ he asked.
‘They were hidden in a box of it,’ Brunetti explained.
Claudio nodded, approving of the idea.
‘Do you need them?’ he asked Brunetti.
‘Need them how? As evidence?’
‘No. Need them now, to keep with you, to take back with you.’
‘No,’ Brunetti, who had not thought of this, answered. ‘I don’t think so. Why? What do you want to do with them?’
‘First, I have to put them in hot water for half an hour or so and get rid of the salt,’ Claudio said. ‘That will make it easier to see how many there are and how much they weigh.’
‘Weigh?’ Brunetti asked, ‘as in grams and kilos?’
Returning his attention to the stones, Claudio said, ‘They’re not measured in kilos: you should know at least that much, Guido.’ There was no reproach in his voice, nor disappointment.
‘When you do that,’ Brunetti said, ‘will you be able to tell me what they’re worth? Or where they come from?’
Claudio pulled his own handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and wiped his forefinger clean with it. Then, using the same finger, he poked and prodded at the pile, smoothing out the hill Brunetti had created and moving the stones around until there was one level surface. He switched on a segmented desk lamp and angled the head until the light fell on the area directly in front of him. He opened the centre drawer in his desk and took out a pair of jeweller’s tweezers. With them, he selected three of the bigger stones, each slightly smaller than a pea, and set them on the desk in front of him. Idly, not bothering to look at Brunetti, he said, ‘The first thing I can tell you is that someone has selected these stones carefully.’ To Brunetti, they still looked like pebbles, but he said nothing.
From the same drawer Claudio took a jeweller’s loupe and a set of balance scales, then pulled out a small box. When he opened it, Brunetti saw a series of tiny cylindrical brass weights. Claudio looked down at the things on his desk, shook his head, and smiled at Brunetti, saying, ‘Force of habit, these scales.’ He opened a side drawer and pulled out a small electronic scale and switched it on. As the light flashed, revealing a window in which a large zero could be seen, he said, ‘This is faster and more accurate.’
Using the tweezers, he picked up one of the stones he had set aside. He placed the stone on the scale, turned it so that he could read the weight, added the second stone, and then the third. He reached into the drawer again and pulled out a black velvet pad about half the size of a magazine, which he placed to the left of the scale. With the tweezers, he set the three stones on the pad. He picked up the loupe and, as Brunetti watched the crown of his head move from left to right, examined the three stones in turn.
He set the loupe on the desk and looked across at Brunetti. ‘Are they African?’ Claudio asked.
‘I think so.’
The older man nodded in evident satisfaction. He picked up the tweezers and gently poked at the pile, pushing stones to one side or another until three more, each larger than the first three, lay in the middle of the small circles he had created. Claudio picked them up with the tweezers and set them on the velvet cloth, to the left of the others; with the loupe, he examined each of them thoroughly.
When he was finished, he removed the loupe and set it beside the handkerchief, then lined up the long tweezers parallel to the border of the smoothed-out cloth. ‘I won’t know for sure until tomorrow, when I can count them and weigh them, but I’d say you’ve somehow managed to acquire a fortune, Guido.’
Ignoring the verb and the question implicit in it, Brunetti asked, ‘How much of a fortune?’
‘It will depend on how much salt there is and whether the smaller ones are as good as I think those ones are,’ the jeweller said, pointing at the six stones he had examined.
‘If they aren’t cut, how can you tell what they’re worth?’ Brunetti asked. ‘They don’t have any – what do you call them? – facets.’
‘The facets come later, Guido. You can’t add them to a stone that isn’t perfect. Or, that is, you can add them, but only a perfect stone is going to give you the right lustre when you add the facets.’ He waved his hand at the pile of stones. ‘I’ve looked at only six of them. You saw that. But those look to me as though they might be perfect; well, at the very least of excellent quality. I can’t be sure, of course, that they’re perfect in nature or that they’ll be perfect when they’re cut and polished, but I think they might be.’ He glanced at the wall behind Brunetti for a second, then looked back at him and pointed at the stones. ‘It will be in the hands of the cutter. To bring out what’s there.’
As if suddenly eager to examine them again, Claudio picked up the loupe and screwed it back in place. He leaned over and again studied all six stones, working from left to right. At one point he took the tweezers and turned one of the stones over, then looked at it from this new angle. When he was done, he removed the loupe and placed it back exactly where it had been. He nodded, as if assenting to a question from Brunetti. ‘I don’t know when I’ve last seen such things.’ With the tweezers he touched a few of the stones lying in the pile, though there was nothing at all special about them, so far as Brunetti could see.
‘Could you give me some idea of what they’d be worth, no matter how vague?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Just look at them,’ Claudio said, his eyes aglow with what Brunetti recognized as passion. Then, sensing the urgency in his friend’s voice, the old man brought himself back to the world where diamonds had value, not just beauty. ‘When the big ones are cut and polished, each one could be worth thirty, perhaps forty, thousand Euros, but the price will depend on how much is lost when they’re cut.’ Claudio picked up one of the raw stones and held it towards Brunetti. ‘If there are perfect stones to be had from these, they’re worth a fortune.’
Then what had they been doing, Brunetti wondered, in a room with no heat, no water, and no insulation? And what were they doing in the possession of a man who earned his living by selling counterfeit bags and wallets on the street?
‘How can you tell they’re African?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I can’t,’ Claudio admitted. ‘That is, not for sure. But they look as though they might be.’
‘What tells you that?’ Brunetti wanted to know.
Claudio considered the question, no doubt one he had heard before. ‘Something about the colour and light in them or off them. And the absence of the flecks and imperfections that you find in diamonds from other places.’ Claudio looked at Brunetti, then back at the stones. ‘To tell the truth,’ he finally said, ‘I probably can’t tell you why, at least not fully. After you’ve looked at thousands of stones, hundreds of thousands of stones, you just know – or at least you think you know – where they’re from.’
‘Is that how many you’ve looked at, Claudio?’
The old man sat up straighter, though the action made him no taller in his chair. He folded his hands in that professorial gesture and said, ‘I’ve never thought about that, Guido – it was just a phrase – but I suppose I have. Tiny sixteenth of a carat stones filled with imperfections, and some glorious ones that weighed more than thirty, forty carats, so perfect it was like looking at new suns.’ He paused, as though listening to what he had just said. Then he smiled and added, ‘I suppose it’s like women. It doesn’t matter what they look like, not really: there’s always something beautiful about them.’
Brunetti, in full agreement, grinned at the simile. ‘Is there any way you could be sure where they’re from?’ he asked.
Claudio considered this and finally said, ‘The best I can do is show a few of them to friends of mine and see what they think. If we all agree . . . well, then either they’re from Africa or else we’re all wrong.’
‘Can you tell where, specifically? That is, what country?’
‘Diamonds don’t acknowledge countries, Guido. They come from pipes, and pipes don’t have passports.’
‘Pipes?’
‘In the ground. Deep craters that are more like thin, deep wells than anything else. The diamonds were formed down there – kilometres down – millions of years ago, and over the years, they gradually work their way up to the surface.’ Claudio relaxed into the graceful authority of the expert, and Brunetti listened, interested. ‘They come in clusters, some pipes, or they can be single ones. But it’s possible that the clusters can cross what are now national borders and fall into the territories of two countries.’
‘What happens then?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Then the stronger side tries to take them from the weaker.’
As he had learned from his reading of history, Brunetti knew this was the normal operating procedure for most international disputes. ‘Is this the case in Africa?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Claudio said. ‘It gives those poor people another reason for violence.’
‘Hardly necessary, is it?’ Brunetti asked.
The sombre topic halted the flood of Claudio’s garrulity, and he said, ‘You can come and get them tomorrow.’ Then, as a joke, he added, ‘If you think I can be trusted with them, that is.’
Brunetti leaned forward and placed his hand on Claudio’s arm. ‘I’d like you to keep them, if you will,’ he said.
‘For how long?’
Brunetti shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Until I’ve decided what to do with them.’
‘Is this police evidence?’ Claudio asked, but he seemed interested in clarity, not security.
‘In a way,’ Brunetti said evasively.
‘Does someone else know you have them?’ Claudio asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank God,’ the old man said.
‘What difference would that make?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Then I’m less likely to steal them,’ Claudio said and got to his feet.