Half an hour later, Brunetti still sat in his office, uncertain about what he wanted to do. He had read his way through most of the papers accumulated on his desk and would have been able to recall them, so strongly had he forced himself to concentrate. But none of the cases required his attention. The one regarding the Bangladeshi porter who had stabbed another porter to death during a furious argument over territory at the train station had been solved within a few hours of the victim’s death; the body found floating in the laguna four days ago was quickly identified as a retired electrician who had had a heart attack and fallen out of his boat while fishing; the postman on the Lido who had set fire to the camper van of the new boyfriend of his ex-wife had been found and arrested.
Brunetti knew that he would use the speedy resolution of those cases to justify his investigation of a fifteen-year-old accident that might well not even be a criminal case.
Is this what retirement would be for him? he wondered. Sticking his nose into other people’s business whenever he had the feeling that something wasn’t consistent in a story? Must every death come in a tidy package before ex-Commissario Brunetti would leave it alone and let people get on with their lives?
He dialled Rizzardi’s number in the office at the morgue. The pathologist answered with his name.
‘It’s me, Ettore,’ Brunetti said. ‘I have a favour to ask you.’
‘Fine, thank you,’ Rizzardi said in a pleasant voice. ‘And you?’
‘It’s about patient records at the hospital. I thought you might know something.’ Rizzardi remained silent, so Brunetti plunged on. ‘From about fifteen years ago. I’m going to have a magistrate’s order that will let me have a look, but not for a few days, I’d guess, so as of the moment, I’m not authorized to ask questions or see files. Is there anyone in the Records Office who might be able to help?’
‘Are you talking about one of my patients, if I might call them that?’ the pathologist began. ‘Or one of the patients in the wards?’ If possible, Rizzardi’s voice had grown even more friendly, as if he were enjoying the exchange.
‘Someone who was taken to the hospital,’ Brunetti answered. ‘And who left.’
‘Why don’t you simply ask the Vice-Questore’s secretary to break into the system?’ Rizzardi asked affably. ‘Unless by now you’re able to do it yourself.’
‘Ettore,’ Brunetti said, ‘I think you’re not supposed to know about that. Or at least talk about it.’
‘Ah,’ Rizzardi answered. ‘Sorry. Secret best kept, I realize.’ The pathologist said nothing for so long that Brunetti thought he might have replaced the phone, but then Rizzardi said, ‘I have to disappoint you, Guido. The one person I knew in the Records Office – that is, knew well enough to ask this sort of favour – retired last year. There’s no one there now who’d be willing to circumvent the rules.’
‘Thanks anyway, Ettore,’ Brunetti said, then added, ‘Soon it’ll be like working in Sweden.’
‘I know,’ replied Rizzardi. ‘Shocking.’
10
Brunetti thought of looking online for the phone number but, instead, reverted to his Luddite ways and pulled the phone book from his bottom drawer. The only Cavanis, Pietro, was listed as living in Santa Croce.
The phone was answered by a machine that gave a message in gruff-voiced Veneziano, telling the caller to leave his name and number and what he wanted, and perhaps he’d return the call.
Brunetti gave his name and the number of his telefonino and said he’d like to speak to Signor Cavanis about an incident near Campo San Boldo some years before.
Restlessness attacked him. He remembered one of the phrases Paola had picked up from an American friend and had used to admonish the kids, ever since they were little more than babies: ‘You’ve got ants in your pants’, an expression that had delighted them for years. Brunetti stood and went to the window, telling himself it was to check the weather. What he saw surprised him: the morning’s clement sky had been replaced by a mass of dark grey clouds that tumbled and rolled over one another and promised nothing pleasant. He looked at his watch and told himself that, if he left now and walked quickly, he could get home before the rain threatened by those clouds could begin.
It started just as he reached the top of the Rialto bridge, so he cut left at the bottom of the steps and into the underpass. Through the arches on his right, he saw the rain intensify.
Within minutes, he could barely see the shops on the other side. It shouldn’t rain like this, not even at this time of the year. This was monsoon; this was the end of the world. He continued on to the turning, where he had a longer view across the small campo. He could barely make out the storekeepers on the other side, hurrying to carry inside the racks of scarves and trays of wallets standing in front of their shops.
He opened his umbrella and, persuading himself that the rain was less heavy, stepped into the by now almost empty calle and started walking quickly towards home. Before he got to the bridge, his shoes were soaked through, and the arms of his jacket proved incapable of keeping him dry beyond the radius of the umbrella.