‘Neither for professional nor personal reasons, I’d say,’ Griffoni observed. ‘If I were to see more of it or to listen to any of them, I’d probably renounce my right to vote.’
Brunetti pressed a key and the participants and moderator went off to cyberspace, leaving a dark screen behind.
Griffoni sat back in her chair, and Brunetti noticed, as he had so many times in the past, just how long her legs were. ‘I remember the first time I went to dinner in London,’ she said. ‘Everyone at the table was English, except me, and after the first course I realized that only one person spoke at a time. When that person finished, someone else said something, and everyone waited until he or she was finished before commenting. Individually.’ She smiled, then laughed, at the memory.
‘At first I thought they were rehearsing a play or perhaps it was some sort of English party game, but then I realized that this is the way they behave.’
‘They wait in queues, too,’ Brunetti added.
They allowed the moment to pass in reverent silence and Brunetti said, ‘I’ve been thinking about Cavanis and what we need to know. Who his friends are. Or his enemies. Bocchese will be finished with the telefonino in a few hours, and we can check the numbers in the memory and the numbers he’d called recently.’
She nodded in agreement and added, pointing to the screen of the computer on which they had watched the programmes, ‘Aside from Victor Mature’s flapping nostrils as he accepted the robe, I didn’t see anything in those programmes that was interesting, and certainly nothing I could construe as a reason for what happened to him.’
Brunetti checked the time and raised his eyebrows when he saw that it was not yet noon, so endless had the programme seemed.
‘I’d like to go over and talk to the man in the bar again,’ Brunetti said. ‘With Vianello,’ he added.
She couldn’t disguise her reaction to the Inspector’s name, but Brunetti didn’t know whether she was offended or surprised.
‘It’s that kind of bar,’ he said in explanation. ‘If we walked in together . . .’
‘Whereas with Vianello there’ll be the glue of testosterone,’ she said.
‘Exactly.’
She snorted and gave a huff of exasperated acquiescence. ‘It’s a good thing Manuela’s horse is a female or they probably wouldn’t let me ride her,’ she said.
‘Have you?’ asked a surprised Brunetti.
‘No. This weekend. I’m not on duty, so I’m going out there.’
‘Do you miss it?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Riding?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you miss breathing?’ she asked.
He called Vianello and arranged to meet at the front door of the bar, then called Foa and asked him to take them over to Rio Marin. The same man was behind the bar and nodded to Brunetti in recognition, then meted out a brief nod to Vianello. They both asked for white wine, which Brunetti didn’t much want. The barman poured them without giving in to his evident curiosity.
Brunetti smiled and said, ‘I’ve a few more questions.’
‘I’ve been reading the papers and people in the neighbourhood have been talking about it,’ the barman told him.
‘They probably make more sense than the reports in the paper,’ Vianello said, a comment the barman met with a smile. ‘No one from the papers called to ask us for information, and we’re the police.’
Brunetti, who had seen a photo of the fa?ade of the apartment in that day’s paper, said, ‘They must have sent someone over here; that’s for sure.’
‘Only a photographer, but all he did was take a picture of the house. No one bothered to come in to ask questions.’ His displeasure at this injustice was clear.
‘Well, we have some,’ Vianello said with an amiable smile as he took a small sip of wine.
The barman leaned closer to him.
‘Was he a regular customer?’ Vianello broke the silence by asking.
The barman grinned. ‘Couple of times a day. He came in for coffee about noon and stayed to have a few glasses of wine.’
‘Breakfast?’ Vianello asked in a knowing way and smiled.
The barman smiled back. ‘I suppose you could call it that. Sometimes he’d come back here about four and have another coffee and some more wine.’
Vianello nodded as if this were an entirely normal way for a man to spend his day, as it might well be for some of the barman’s clients.
‘Once in a while he’d come in about eight for a drink, wait for friends, have a few glasses of wine, then maybe have dinner or keep drinking until he went home.’
‘Anyone particular he drank with?’ Brunetti asked.
The barman shrugged but didn’t answer at first, almost as if he were bound by his sense of professional ethics from discussing a client. Finally he said, but grudgingly, ‘Stefano dalla Lana, though he doesn’t drink much.’ It did not sound like a criticism, but it was hardly meant as a compliment. ‘He’s a teacher,’ he added, as if in exoneration.