Bardo suddenly flipped himself upright, barked once at Griffoni’s face, and jumped to the ground. He ran down the steps of the gazebo, his nails clicking all the way, and disappeared into the garden.
‘Will he be all right?’ Griffoni asked Bianchi, quite as though he too had watched the dog run off.
‘He’s a dog, remember,’ Bianchi answered. ‘He knows his way around.’ He lowered his head, then reached his good hand to the table beside him, felt its surface with his knuckles, and set the radio on to it.
‘Signor Bianchi,’ Brunetti said. ‘We’d like you to tell us about the accident that you and Signor Casati were involved in.’
‘What did he tell you about it?’ Bianchi asked in a peremptory voice.
‘We were swimming together, Signor Bianchi. He could hardly hide the results: I was curious about the cause.’ When, Brunetti wondered, had he learned to be so mendacious?
He looked back at Bianchi’s hands and saw that the old man had covered the stump with his left hand. Twenty years had passed, and Bianchi still thought of this. Brunetti remained silent, waiting to see how Bianchi chose to interpret his answer.
‘Why do you want to know?’ Bianchi asked.
Brunetti had thought about this on the way and answered putting a great deal of hesitation into his voice. ‘His daughter, whom I think you know, is very upset at her father’s death, to the point that she thinks it might not have been an accident.’
Hearing this, Bianchi put his good hand to his mouth.
‘She’s told me that,’ Brunetti went on, ‘in the last weeks of his life, he seemed troubled and nervous about something. She doesn’t know what it was. She asked him, she said, shortly before he died, if anything was wrong, but all he said was that it was something from his past that troubled him.’
Bianchi’s face tightened involuntarily. ‘And that’s enough to make you come out here to ask me questions?’ he asked.
‘It’s enough to make us curious,’ Brunetti said.
‘Don’t the police have better things to do with their time?’
Griffoni let out a guffaw and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Commissario. I wasn’t thinking,’ she said, her voice partially muffled by her fingers. She turned her head to face Bianchi when she added, ‘I shouldn’t have laughed.’
Brunetti had been looking at Bianchi when she made the noise and had seen tension flee from his face at her words.
In a sober voice, Bianchi asked, ‘And if you find nothing?’
‘Then I could at least reassure your friend’s daughter that it was an accident.’
Bianchi nodded a few times, then said, his voice struggling against what sounded like anger, ‘It wouldn’t be the first one.’ Brunetti decided not to respond and held a hand up to stop Griffoni from speaking.
After a very long time, Bianchi asked, ‘Did he tell you it was his fault?’
Brunetti tried to think of an answer that would disguise his ignorance yet make it sound as though Casati might have told him. ‘He said that he acted without considering the consequences of what he did,’ Brunetti began, watching Bianchi’s face. When he saw the old man’s lips tighten and his nostrils flare, he went on as though he’d only paused to find the right words to finish his sentence. ‘He didn’t want to say more than that.’
‘No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ The anger had grown more audible, no matter how hard Bianchi seemed to struggle against it.
‘Why not?’ Griffoni interrupted to ask, sounding honestly puzzled.
‘He didn’t consider the consequences of what he did?’ Bianchi repeated rhetorically, outrage finally unleashed to streak through his voice. ‘Of course he didn’t, the fool.’ Because his eyes were hidden behind his dark glasses, only his voice and the mouth that spoke the words conveyed his feelings. The voice had grown rough and loud, and his left cheek was flushed almost as red as the scar above it. His good hand abandoned the stump and tightened into a fist.
‘Did he tell you he smoked a cigarette in a place where it was forbidden?’ Bianchi began but stopped immediately as though that were enough.
Before Brunetti could answer, Griffoni said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand, Signore. What happened?’
‘He tripped,’ Bianchi answered, turning towards her. ‘We were in an area where barrels were stored. Some of them had leaked, but we didn’t know that. We were supposed to roll them out to the trucks and boats, but Casati wanted a cigarette, so he stopped to light one.’
On the last words, Bianchi’s voice veered out of control. He brought his good hand up, wiped the spittle from his mouth and rubbed it on the knee of his slacks. Brunetti saw a tremor run from his shoulders, down his arms to his two hands.
Bianchi took a few deep breaths and went on in a calmer voice. ‘I tried to stop him, but he told me to leave him alone. He lit the cigarette.’ As he said this, Bianchi’s left hand moved as though he were trying to hold the cigarette while his right struck the match. ‘Then he had to show me what a wise guy he was, so he put his head back and blew a line of smoke rings.’
Bianchi stared ahead, facing the past. ‘There was a piece of pipe or hose on the floor, half covered in liquid, but he didn’t see it. He stepped on it and it moved, must have rolled under his foot.’ Bianchi raised his head, and if he could have seen, he would have been looking at the ceiling. ‘That’s when he fell. He must have dropped his cigarette because, all of a sudden, he was on the floor and there was this line of light moving away from him. Towards the barrels.’
Bianchi pulled his attention back from the ceiling and returned to facing forward, straight between Griffoni and Brunetti. ‘That’s what I saw, that line of light, and then there was an explosion and heat and more light and then I didn’t see anything any more.’ He lowered his head and used the fingers of his left hand to rub delicately at the skin on the back of the other, reduced hand.
Silence descended on the gazebo and expanded until they heard a clicking noise on the steps. Bardo had returned. This time he ignored both Griffoni and Brunetti and, as though sensing Bianchi’s need, put his front paws on his knees and hopped on to his lap. He danced a few circles then settled comfortably and dropped his head on to his paws, eyes on Brunetti. Bianchi’s good hand went to the dog’s neck and began to scratch it gently.
‘How did you get out?’ Griffoni dared to ask.
Bianchi’s hand stopped moving; Bardo turned his head and licked it back into motion. ‘Davide carried me out of the warehouse before it burned down,’ he said, his voice suddenly calm, almost solemn. ‘I didn’t know that until later. Weeks. They took me to the hospital. All I remember from that time is the pain. And the darkness.’
‘How did you find out about what he did?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Someone from the company came to see me. He asked if I remembered what had happened to cause the fire. I said I didn’t.’