Pozzi’s expression changed, and he said, ‘I gave them nothing, Signore. I told them I understood their preoccupation, and I had no idea of making trouble for anyone, so long as they sent me here.’ Pozzi looked up and waved around the room. Then he smiled. ‘They’re businessmen; they understood the conditions: so long as I was here, I’d say nothing. It would not be in my best interests.’
‘Of course,’ Griffoni said and nodded in approval.
Brunetti decided it would be wise to lead Pozzi away from the topic of his dealings with GCM, and so said, ‘You mentioned Signor Casati.’
Pozzi cut him short. ‘He was a fool,’ he answered with a thin, mean-spirited smile. ‘The men who came to see me told me Davide spent three months in a public hospital. Can you believe?’ he asked with the astonishment a dowager would express at the idea of helping with the dishes.
Brunetti limited himself to raising his eyebrows and was happy to see Griffoni shake her head at the very thought.
Pozzi pulled the blanket up higher and said, smiling, ‘May I offer you something? A coffee?’
Brunetti saw that this was an opportunity for Pozzi to impress them by giving an order and having it obeyed, so he answered in his most polite manner, ‘That’s very kind of you, Signor Pozzi, but we had coffee on the way here, and we have to be back in the city for lunch.’
Griffoni leaned forward and smiled. ‘Perhaps another time?’ The words were filled with a warmth that suggested she’d gladly accept a later invitation.
She sat back in the chair, smiling, and crossed her legs. As she did, Brunetti saw a look of raw longing pass across Pozzi’s face, a look that brought back to life that younger, different man, the one with all of life ahead of him, and not the small, useless shell of a man who sat clutching at his blanket.
Griffoni might have seen the expression as well, for she said, her voice filled with curiosity that sounded real and concerned, ‘Could you tell us about the accident?’
Another savage smile swept across Pozzi’s face, driving the younger man back to where he had been sent the last time. Then he laughed, a rusty sound, as though he were imitating a noise he had heard long ago and thought he remembered well enough to imitate. This went on for a long time until Pozzi had to lean his head against the back of the sofa. His hand wiped at his eyes, and he pulled in deep breaths until his normal breathing returned.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said and stopped to take a few more breaths. ‘That’s what’s so funny: I have no idea.’
‘But you were there,’ she said.
‘I was there, yes, in my office at the back of the warehouse. I heard a noise, and at first I thought it came from one of the small tankers we were using to transport liquids. Sometimes they made a lot of noise when they banged into the loading dock. But when I heard it again, I realized it came from the other side of the building, not the side that ran along the canal.’ He tilted his head to his right to indicate a place behind him.
‘I walked,’ he began but stopped for some time after that verb, then continued, ‘over to the door, which led into the warehouse, and when I opened it, I saw that the central part of the warehouse was on fire and the noise was the explosion of barrels.’ He looked from Griffoni to Brunetti and back again, but neither of them spoke.
‘I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. All I saw was a strip of fire between me and the door. That was the only way out. Then I saw some men standing on my side of the fire and I started to run towards them. I don’t know why I did that; maybe I thought we’d be safer – somehow – if we were all together. When I got to them I saw that it was Casati and a man I couldn’t recognize, who was screaming and clawing at sticky stuff that was all over his face. He stood still and screamed until finally Casati picked him up and started running for the door, running through the fire, which I could see was only a narrow strip. I ran past them because I wasn’t carrying anyone, and I jumped over the flames.’ Pozzi paused, repeated the single word, ‘jumped’, and stopped. Then, as if he’d just come back from somewhere, he went on. ‘I saw the light outside and realized I was safe, but then something hit me from behind and knocked me over. That’s all I remember.’
Brunetti saw that, although Pozzi was shivering, his face was covered with sweat. Hurriedly Pozzi wiped his right hand across his eyes and left it there for a time, then wiped each eye separately; when he pulled it away, his face was dry.
Griffoni looked at Pozzi with an appreciative smile. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you must be quite a negotiator.’ When Pozzi did not respond, she added, ‘GCM must have seen the report from the firemen, that it was a short circuit.’
‘Of course,’ Pozzi said.
She smiled again.
‘So they knew the insurance company would have to pay?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Pay GCM, that is,’ Brunetti clarified. ‘As a company.’
Brunetti did not have to make the obvious point that GCM could then make its own decisions about compensation and the care of the injured workers. Nor did he have to remark on the legendary delays of both insurance companies and employers in matters of compensation.
Griffoni gave the room another once-over, nodding in approval at everything she saw. ‘Is all of this what you got from them?’ she asked, much in the manner of a teenager asking a rock star for an autograph.
Pozzi nodded but said nothing, glancing first at Griffoni and then at Brunetti. He gave Brunetti the impression that he was beginning to regret having been so forthcoming. Brunetti thought then of his mother and of the basic principles she had taught him when he was a child. Don’t lie, say please and thank you, be polite to old people and help them if you can, never tease a cripple, eat everything on your plate and do not ask for more, never borrow money, keep your promises.
‘Where would you go if GCM stopped paying for you here, Signor Pozzi?’ Brunetti asked idly, speculatively.
‘What?’ Pozzi asked, startled.
‘If, for any reason, GCM cancelled their contract here, as they did with the third bed? If they cancelled the first and the second, as well? Where would you and Signor Bianchi go?’
‘But why would they do that?’ Pozzi asked. His face was drained white, making the lines near his mouth suddenly deeper.
‘It was just a thought, Signor Pozzi,’ Brunetti said. He put his hand to his chin and did his best to appear to be mulling over Pozzi’s question. ‘You know an investigation into the clean-up of Marghera’s been going on for years,’ Brunetti continued, then waited until Pozzi nodded. He failed to remark that it had been going on so long that most people had forgotten about it. ‘If your former employer learned that new evidence had been produced about their part in the clean-up, do you think they might, er, review your position here?’