‘Yes,’ Brunetti said.
‘I’m Stefano dalla Lana,’ he said but did not extend his hand. ‘Ruggiero at the bar called and said you wanted to talk to me and would probably come to find me.’ Then, before either of them could ask, he added, ‘I thought it would be better to meet you here. My wife’s a very nervous person: it would upset her if the police came to the house.’ He pointed to one of the benches placed under the trees.
‘Of course,’ Brunetti said. ‘I’m sorry about your wife.’
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s just that bad news bothers her more than it should.’
He led them to a bench and sat in the middle, leaving room for them on either side. ‘What was it you wanted to know?’ dalla Lana asked. He had deep brown eyes from the sides of which radiated the lines that years of strain had left behind.
‘We heard that you were a friend of Pietro Cavanis,’ Brunetti began.
Though he must have known this was their reason for coming, his face tightened when he heard his friend’s name. He looked away, towards the church, and when he looked back at Brunetti, his eyes had grown moist. ‘I’d known him all my life. We went to school together,’ he said, then began to examine the roots of the tree, resting his elbow on his knee and cupping his hand over his forehead to hide his eyes.
Brunetti let the silence do what it wanted, stay as long as it pleased. A dog ran past, followed by two children, one of them on a scooter.
Dalla Lana looked up. ‘Excuse me, please. I still can’t get used to it.’
‘That he’s gone?’ Brunetti said.
‘I wish it were only that,’ dalla Lana said with a sad smile. ‘That he’d moved away or gone somewhere for a while. But that he’s dead . . .’ He broke off and pressed the same hand over his mouth. He shook his head repeatedly, as if the energy of that would be enough to change things.
Knowing that it was not, Brunetti waited a moment and then said, ‘The man in the bar told us that Signor Cavanis had been talking about a change in his life that was about to happen. Did he say anything about this to you?’ When dalla Lana did not respond, Brunetti continued, ‘Since you were his best friend – I wondered if he’d told you about it.’
Dalla Lana grasped his hands together and leaned forward to shove them down between his knees, then in that posture studied the pavement. ‘In school, we were the two dreamers. Pietro wanted to do something big in life: become a doctor and cure some terrible disease; become an engineer and invent something that would make life easier; or go into politics and make a difference to people’s lives.’
‘What did you dream?’ Brunetti asked.
Dalla Lana looked at him quickly, as if no one had ever asked him this question. ‘I wanted to write poetry.’
‘And what happened?’ Brunetti asked.
Dalla Lana shook his head again, started to speak but stopped, took a long breath and said, ‘Pietro was enrolled at the university to study engineering, but that summer his father died and he had to try to find work.’
‘As a baker?’
‘How did you know that?’ he asked, not attempting to hide his surprise.
‘The man in the bar told me.’
‘Did he tell you about his father?’
‘Only that he died,’ Brunetti said, giving half of the truth. ‘He said that your friend had to stop working some years ago.’
‘His liver.’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘It’s what killed his father,’ dalla Lana explained, then went on. ‘The owner offered him his father’s job. It was the only thing he could find. His mother had never worked, and his father’s pension wasn’t very big.’
‘I see,’ Brunetti said.
‘He had no choice,’ dalla Lana said, then, after a long time, ‘Bakers have to drink a lot because of the heat and because of the strange hours. That’s how it started. But it didn’t change him, not really. He was still a dreamer, even till the end. The last time we spoke, he was . . . well, he was dreaming.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He called once last week, but I couldn’t answer because I was in class, and then I forgot to call him back. Then he called me again on Saturday night. It was late, and he was drunk. He usually didn’t call me when he’d been drinking, but this time he couldn’t stop talking. He said he’d found a way to pay me back.’
He saw their failure to understand and said, ‘Over the years, I’ve helped him when I could. Never anything big. To help him pay a bill. Or for the rent.’ Seeing their faces, he said quickly, ‘That was only once. And it wasn’t very much.’ He looked down again, as if embarrassed.
‘What else did he say?’ Brunetti asked softly.
Head still lowered, dalla Lana sighed deeply. ‘I didn’t understand a lot of what he said. About always being in debt to me.’