Blood from a stone

23

The next morning, as Brunetti stood alone in the living room, drinking his second coffee, the brightness of the day lured him out on to the terrace. Though it was hardly springlike, it was easily warm enough to allow him to stand there for a few minutes and watch the light reflected on the wet tiles of the roofs around and below him. There was no sign of a cloud; in fact, the light hurt his eyes, even at this hour. Much as he had welcomed the rain, he prayed that this brilliant day would last and give them all a chance to shake off the gloom of the previous days.
When he felt the cold begin to penetrate his jacket, he went back inside, set his cup and saucer on the table in the living room, then thought better of it and took it into the kitchen and put it in the sink. He considered taking scarf and gloves, but he decided to invest in hope for the day and so left them and put on only his overcoat before he let himself out of the apartment.
The weather seemed to have infected people on the street; even the newsagent, whose face was usually as grim as the headlines, managed a gruff ‘grazie’ as he gave Brunetti his change. Brunetti decided to walk: if this was the global warming that Vianello was always banging on about, then surely there were worse things facing the world.
He turned right along the Canale di San Lorenzo and paused to study the scaffolding on the old men’s home, searching for signs of progress. It appeared that the windows were finally in place on the third floor: Brunetti could not remember having seen them before. A workman climbed down the scaffolding and walked across the campo and Brunetti, his mind idling, followed him with his eyes. As the workman let himself into a wooden shack, Brunetti noticed two men sitting on one of the benches in the campo, two black men. The bench was set parallel to the canal and thus permitted the men to look across at the fa?ade of the Questura.
It was too far for him to be sure, but he thought the men were the one he had defined as the leader and the very thin young man who had raised his hand to Brunetti. Brunetti continued towards the bridge. He stopped there and gazed across the canal. He was sure the two men recognized him. Their heads moved closer together, and he watched them talk, saw their hands move as first one, then the other, gestured across the canal, either at him or at the Questura. The young man used his left hand to point; his right hand sat useless in his lap. No sound of voices came across the canal, and so it was rather like watching a television with the volume turned down. The older man turned away from the other and raised a hand in Brunetti’s direction, then waved his fingers quickly down towards the ground and then again, signalling Brunetti to come and join them. The man then turned back to the other, placed his hand on his knee, and spoke to him.
The younger man nodded, either in agreement or resignation.
A noise to his right caught Brunetti’s attention and he turned towards it. Beyond the other bridge, a police launch was turning into the canal, its blue light flashing. Heedless of the waves it created on either side, it came towards him, shot under the first bridge, and pulled noisily up to the Questura.
The pilot, the one who had taken him home for lunch, jumped on to the dock and secured the rope to a hawser, then stood back and saluted. First to step up on to the dock were two guards, both wearing bulletproof vests, machine-guns held across their chests. Then in quick succession came the Questore and then Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta. A moment later a man in a business suit whose face was vaguely familiar to Brunetti emerged from the cabin and followed the others. The guards seemed to pay scant attention to the men alighting from the boat, their eyes busy roaming up and down the calle and then across to the campo on the other side of the canal. Brunetti allowed his eyes to follow theirs and was not at all surprised to see that the two black men had disappeared.
He did not recognize either of the guards with the machine-guns and so remained where he was, making no attempt to approach the door of the Questura. The two guards went to the building, and one of them held open the door. When the three civilians were inside, the guards followed them. The door closed.
Brunetti went over to the pilot, who was securing the stern of the boat with a second rope. He noticed Brunetti approaching and saluted.
‘What’s that all about, Foa?’ Brunetti asked, hands in his pockets, tilting his head back towards the Questura.
‘I’m not sure, sir. I had to pick up the Vice-Questore at home at eight-thirty, and then we went to the home of the Questore and got him.’
‘And the guys with the guns?’ Brunetti asked.
‘They were with the one who gave me the order, sir, the civilian. He showed up here at about eight and handed me a letter.’
‘You still have it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No, he took it back right after I read it.’
‘Who was it from?’
‘I didn’t recognize the signature, or even the title: it was some sort of under-secretary to a secretary of a committee. But I certainly understood the letterhead: it was from the Ministry of the Interior.’
‘Ah,’ Brunetti sighed, but softly, more to himself than to Foa. ‘What did it tell you to do?’
‘To follow the orders of the person who gave me the letter. And he told me who to pick up, and in what order.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said, doing his best to make it sound as though the news Foa gave him was of no particular interest to him. He thanked the young man and went back to the Questura and, once inside, up to Signorina Elettra’s office. When he went in, she looked up and asked, ‘You weren’t invited to the party?’
‘Hardly. Only the grown-ups.’ Then, after a pause, ‘You got any idea?’
‘None. The Vice-Questore called me from the launch and told me he’d be in a meeting with the Questore for a good part of the morning and to explain that to anyone who phoned for him.’
‘Did he mention anyone else?’ Brunetti asked, sure that Patta would not have missed the opportunity to drop the name, or at least the title, of any important person he had a meeting with.
‘No, sir, he didn’t.’
Brunetti thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Will you call me when it finishes?’
‘Do you want to see him?’
‘No. But I’d like to know how long their meeting lasts.’
‘I’ll call,’ she said, and Brunetti went up to his office.
He spent the next hour alternately reading the paper, which he opened across his desk, making no attempt to hide it, and walking to the window to stare for long minutes down into Campo San Lorenzo. The black men reappeared in neither place. Restless, he opened first one drawer of his desk and then the others and pulled out any object or paper he could justify throwing away. Within half an hour, his wastepaper basket was full and the open newspaper was covered with an assortment of objects he either could not identify or lacked the will to throw away.
His phone rang. Thinking it was Signorina Elettra, he answered by saying, ‘Are they gone?’
‘It’s Bocchese, sir,’ the technician said. ‘I think you better come down here,’ he added, and hung up.
Brunetti picked up the newspaper by its corners and dumped the objects back into his bottom drawer, kicked it shut, and went downstairs.
When Brunetti entered the laboratory, Bocchese was sitting at his desk, a place where Brunetti seldom saw him. The technician was always so caught up in cleaning, measuring, weighing things that it had never occurred to Brunetti that there might come a time when he simply sat and did nothing. ‘What is it?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Those fingerprints?’
‘Yes,’ Bocchese said. ‘There’s no match in the Interpol files for the dead man. Nowhere – neither in personnel files nor among people with a criminal record.’ He waited for Brunetti to digest this and then added, ‘But . . .’ When he saw Brunetti’s eyes flash towards him, he continued, ‘a flag went up when his prints were submitted, saying all requests for information should immediately be forwarded to our Ministry of the Interior.’
‘Did that happen?’ Brunetti asked, worried about the consequences.
Bocchese gave a small cough of audibly false modesty. ‘My friend thought it kinder not to burden them with his request.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Brunetti said, and he did.
‘He did say, though, that he had one other place he would try to look, but it might take some time.’ Before Brunetti could speak, the technician said, ‘No, I didn’t ask.’
Bocchese waved a hand in what might have been a comment on the reliability of friends and then said, ‘He also gave me a very strange answer about the print that was found at that house.’
‘What did your friend say?’ Brunetti asked, coming closer to the desk but not sitting.
‘The print is a match for one that belonged to Michele Paci, who was an officer with the DIGOS until three years ago.’
‘Belonged?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Yes. He died.’
Bocchese gave this time to sink in and then said, ‘When he told me, I asked him if it was possible that there had been a mix-up. But he told me he’d had the same reaction, so he’d checked it again. It’s a perfect match, probably because the DIGOS are so careful about taking prints when they set up files on their employees.’
‘Died how?’
‘The record doesn’t say. The entry says’ – and here Bocchese looked down at some papers on his desk – ‘“killed in the course of duty”.’
‘Then what’s his fingerprint doing on the door? And on that bag?’
The best Bocchese could do was shrug. ‘I checked it myself when his answer came in. The match is perfect. If the one in the Ministry files is his real print, then so are the other two.’
‘And that means he’s not dead?’
With not much of a smile, Bocchese said, ‘Unless he really did lend his hand to someone.’
‘You ever come across something like this?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No.’
‘Would it be possible for someone to have left it there deliberately? Someone else, that is?’ Brunetti asked, though it made no sense.
Bocchese dismissed the possibility.
‘So he’s alive?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I’d say so.’
‘And Interpol? Any results from them?’
‘They have no match for the print.’
‘Don’t they have the prints of other member police forces on file?’
‘I’d always thought so,’ Bocchese said. ‘But perhaps not DIGOS because they’re not exactly police.’
After a long silence, Brunetti asked, ‘You trust your friend?’
‘Not to tell anyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘As much as I trust anyone,’ Bocchese answered, adding, ‘which isn’t very much.’ When he saw Brunetti’s pained response to this, he added, ‘He won’t tell anyone. Besides, it’s illegal, what he did.’
Brunetti walked slowly back to his office, trying to make some sense of what Bocchese had told him. If the fingerprints had indeed been left there by an agent of the Italian Secret Service, Brunetti was into an investigation that could lead anywhere. He considered this for a moment, and then quickly realized how much more likely it was that the investigation would lead nowhere. Recent history was filled with examples of insabbiatura, the burying of an inconvenient case in the sand. He had worked on some in the past, and they always forced him to confront the extent of his own cowardice. Or his despair.
It nagged at Brunetti: if the man was not dead, then who had faked his death, his employer or himself? Or both? In any case, what sort of retirement had the man gone to? He’d been in the apartment of the dead man, perhaps both before and after his death. Brunetti forced himself to stop speculating about what else the man might have done.
On an impulse, ignoring the fact that he had asked Signorina Elettra to phone him, he left the Questura and walked down towards Castello. Perhaps the black men had gone to earth in their apartment. He tried to concentrate on what he saw as he walked, intentionally chose an indirect route in the hope that it would divert him from the thought of the dead man and the man who was not dead.
As he knew was likely to be the case, the shutters were closed on the windows of the house, and a padlock hung from the door. He had nothing to lose, so he went down to the bar on the corner and asked for a coffee. The same card game was in progress, though the players had shifted it to a table nearer the back of the bar.
‘You were in here before,’ the barman said, ‘Filippo’s friend.’ He said it with a certain amusement.
Brunetti thanked him for the coffee. ‘I really am, you know,’ he said. ‘But I’m also with the police.’
‘I thought so,’ the barman said, obviously pleased with himself. ‘We all did.’
Brunetti grinned and shrugged, downed his coffee and put a five-Euro note on the bar.
As the other man looked for change, he said, ‘You wanted to know about the Africans, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. I’m trying to find out who killed that man last week.’
‘That poor devil in Santo Stefano?’ the barman asked, as though he had Venice confused with some more wildly violent place, where it was necessary to specify the location of a recent murder.
‘Yes.’
‘Lot of people want to know about them, it seems,’ the barman said, making himself sound like someone in a film who expected the detective to do a double-take.
Much as he would have liked to please him, Brunetti said only, ‘Such as?’
‘There was a man in here asking about them a couple of days before he was killed.’
‘But you didn’t tell me about this then.’
‘You didn’t ask,’ the barman said, ‘and you didn’t say you were a cop.’
Brunetti nodded to acknowledge the man’s point. ‘Would you tell me about him?’ he asked in a perfectly conversational voice.
‘He wasn’t from here,’ the barman began. ‘Let me ask,’ he said and turned to the card players. ‘Luca, that guy who asked about the vu cumprà? Where was he from, do you think?’ Then, before the other man answered, the barman added, nodding towards Brunetti, ‘No, not this one. The other one.’
‘Romano,’ the man named Luca called back, laying a card on the table.
Brunetti had forgotten to ask Bocchese if the report said where Paci was from. ‘What did he want to know?’
‘If any of them lived around here.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘When I heard he wasn’t from here, I told him that none of them did and they wouldn’t try to, not if they knew what was good for them.’ In answer to Brunetti’s unspoken question, he added, ‘I figured that would convince him we didn’t want them here. Besides, the ones who came in here were always polite and quiet, paid for their coffee, said thank you. No reason to tell some stranger where they were.’
‘But you’re telling me.’
‘You’re not a stranger.’
‘Because I’m Venetian?’
‘No, because I asked Filippo about you, and he said you’re all right.’
‘Can you describe this man?’
‘Big. Little taller than you, but bigger, probably ten kilos heavier. Big head.’ He stopped.
‘Anything else you remember about him?’ Brunetti asked, wondering if there were some way Signorina Elettra could get into the personnel file of a deceased employee of the DIGOS.
‘No, just that he was big.’
From the card players, a voice called out, ‘Tell him about the guy’s hands, Giorgio.’
‘Yes, I forgot. Strange. The guy had hands just like a monkey’s, all covered with hair.’