‘I’ll call the university and ask about the parcel and the replies.’ There was a pause, that, even over the phone, Brunetti sensed was important. ‘What about the Vice-Questore? Should I speak to him?’ Signorina Elettra finally inquired.
So long as the Vice-Questore was made to believe that Brunetti was doing no more than taking advantage of the fact that he was already on Sant’Erasmo to speak to the dead man’s family and ascertain his state of mind before his death, Patta would cause no trouble. He might even be pleased to have time to prepare some glittering prevarication for the press about the concern the police took over every citizen’s death.
‘It might be better to say nothing to him at the moment,’ Brunetti decided at last. ‘After all, it’s being treated as an accident.’
‘“Boat accident during the storm”,’ she affirmed, and then she was gone.
When he turned to look at Vianello, he saw that his friend was leaning forward, his head in his hands, moaning.
‘What’s wrong?’ Brunetti asked, fearing the heat had struck Vianello down.
The Inspector shook his head from side to side, then sat up and rested it against the partition behind him. Eyes closed, he said, ‘The more I hear, the more I begin to believe that you are giving serious thought to the possibility that a man killed himself because his bees were dying.’
Sweat covered Vianello’s face, and sweat had plastered his shirt to his chest. Brunetti looked around the embarcadero, but they were still the only people in it. ‘The boat’s coming, Lorenzo.’
Vianello opened his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. ‘It’s like trying to save Pucetti, only I can’t explain how it is. It doesn’t make any sense.’ He glanced sideways at Brunetti and threw his hands up. ‘But maybe it does.’
The boat pulled up and they got on. They moved to the shade and chose to remain outside to catch what breeze there was. Neither spoke during the trip to Sant’Erasmo.
As the engine shifted down, Brunetti said, ‘I’d like you to come with me to talk to Casati’s daughter.’ When Vianello didn’t answer, Brunetti said, ‘She’s the only person who might be able to tell me what he was really like.’
‘But you just spent ten days with him, didn’t you?’ Vianello asked.
‘Yes. He taught me a lot about bees and made me see how wonderful they are, he showed me how to be a better rower, and he told me about the fish and birds in the laguna and the tides, but he never told me much about himself. Sometimes he’d say things that weren’t clear to me, terrible things about death and destruction that I didn’t understand.’
Brunetti took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, using it almost as if it were a towel. ‘But I never really felt that I understood him,’ he admitted, folded his handkerchief and put it back in his pocket.
The sailor pulled back the metal bars, and the passengers began to file off the boat, all of them involuntarily flinching away from the sun as they stepped into its rays. Vianello stood with his arms folded, looking off in the direction of Venice.
Saying nothing more, Brunetti walked past Vianello, following the others, his hearing and sense of space searching for Vianello behind him. When he heard the Inspector’s footsteps and sensed his closeness, he felt relieved that he would not be alone when speaking with Federica and assessing whatever it was she said.
As they walked away from the dock, the sun did its best to pound them into the ground but managed only to exhaust and irritate them. After what seemed a long time, Brunetti turned into the path that led to the villa and held the door for Vianello. Inside, he led his friend towards the back of the house and into the kitchen.
Without bothering to ask permission, Vianello went to the refrigerator and pulled out a large bottle of mineral water. He opened a cabinet, closed it, opened another, and pulled down two tall glasses. He filled them both and handed one to Brunetti. After they’d emptied the glasses and set them on the counter, the Inspector asked, ‘Where can I wash my face and hands?’
Brunetti pointed down the corridor. The sound of a door opening and closing drifted back into the kitchen. Brunetti poured two more full glasses and carried them back to the sitting room where he had taken to reading and sat in the chair he thought of as his. He saw Pliny lying face down on the table beside him and left him there. He crossed his legs, leaned his head against the back of the chair, and waited for his friend to join him.
When Vianello did, he handed him one of the glasses, and the two men sat silently for a few minutes before Brunetti said, ‘He had terrible scars down his back. I saw them when we went swimming: horrible things. Burns. Rizzardi said it was chemicals, not a fire. I’ve never seen anything like them.’
‘Did he ever talk about them?’ Vianello asked.
Brunetti shook his head. ‘No, and I couldn’t ask. I acted as if they weren’t there.’
‘Of course,’ Vianello said but didn’t ask anything.
They sat silently, safe from the heat and sun, hearing nothing but the occasional buzz of a far-off motor or the squawk of a gull.
‘You really think he could have killed himself?’ Vianello finally asked.
Brunetti remembered the strange sensation that had overcome him as he first approached the capsized boat, although the nameless, formless sense of danger had burned away once he began to study the boat. Perhaps he was inventing the feeling, and it had been no more than the effect of hours under the sun and the delayed shock of having fallen into the sinkhole.
‘He might have,’ he said. ‘He knew too much grief.’
Vianello looked around this room as if to savour the peace of it. ‘He could walk out his front door and dive into the laguna. Where it’s clean. He had his boat in front of his house. He lived with his family.’ That was all he said, and Brunetti realized that, in modern times, these things probably didn’t count for very much any more. But on Sant’Erasmo, they did.
‘We should talk to his daughter,’ Brunetti said. It wasn’t an answer, but it might provide one.
They walked down the path to the little house, saw the fishing nets draped in the sun on both sides and, behind them on the right, a large trellis of grapes running towards the end of the garden, a small bicycle lying on its side beneath it.