A Venetian Reckoning

by Donna Leon

  'Scarpa?' Brunetti asked when he came in.

  Vianello crumpled the pages of the newspaper together and pressed it down on the desk with an unverifiable remark about Lieutenant Scarpa's mother.

  'What happened?'

  With one hand, Vianello began to smooth out the pages of his newspaper, ‘I was talking to Riverre, and Lieutenant Scarpa came in.'

  Talking to?'

  Vianello shrugged. 'Riverre knew what I meant, and he knew he should have given you that woman's name sooner. I was telling him that when the lieutenant came in. He didn't like the way I was talking to Riverre.'

  'What were you saying?'

  Vianello folded the paper closed and then in half, then pushed it to the side of his desk, ‘I called him an idiot'

  Brunetti, who knew Riverre was one, round nothing strange in this. 'What did he say?' 'Who, Riverre?' 'No, the lieutenant.'

  'He said I could not speak to my subordinates that way.'

  'Did he say anything eke?’ Vianello didn't answer. 'Did he say anything else, sergeant?' Still no answer.

  'Did you say anything to him?'

  Vianello's voice was defensive, ‘I told him that the matter was between me and one of my officers, that it didn't concern him.'

  Brunetti knew he didn't have to waste time telling Vianello how foolish this was.

  'And Riverre?' Brunetti asked.

  'Oh, he's come to me already and told me that, as far as he remembers our conversation, I was telling him a joke. About a Sicilian.' Vianello permitted himself a small smile here. 'The lieutenant, as Riverre now remembers the incident, came in just as I was giving the punch line, about how stupid the Sicilian was, and the lieutenant didn't understand - we were speaking dialect - and thought I was talking to Riverre.'

  'Well, that seems to take care of that,' Brunetti said, though he didn't like the fact that Scarpa had taken his complaint to Patta. Vianello already had enough against him in that quarter, just by virtue of his so often working with Brunetti, and didn't need the opposition of the lieutenant as well.

  Abandoning the issue, Brunetti asked, 'Do you remember something about a truck that went off the road, up in Tarvisio, this autumn?'

  ‘Yes. Why?'

  'Do you remember when it was?'

  Vianello paused for a moment before he answered. 'September 26th. Two days before my birthday. First time it's ever snowed that early up there.'

  Because it was Vianello, Brunetti didn't have to ask him if he was sure of the date. He left the sergeant to return to his newspaper and went back to his office and to the computer sheets. A call had been made from Trevisan's office to the number in Belgrade at nine in the morning of 26 September, a call that lasted three minutes. The following day, another'call had been made to the same number, but this one came from the call box in the calle behind Trevisan's office. This one had lasted twelve minutes.

  The truck went off the road; its shipment was destroyed. Surely, the purchaser would want to know if it had been his cargo scattered out there in the snow, and there would be no better way to find out than to call the shipper. Brunetti shivered involuntarily at the possibility that people might, think of those girls as a shipment, their sudden deaths as a loss of cargo.

  He paged ahead to the date of Trevisan's death. Two calls had been made from the office on the day after Trevisan's death, both to the Belgrade number. If the first calls had been made to report a loss of cargo, could these later calls mean that, with Trevisan's death, the business passed to new hands?

  25

  Brunetti tried to quiet his uneasiness by hunting through the papers that had accumulated on his desk during the last two days. He found that Lotto's widow had, indeed, been interviewed and had said she spent the night of Lotto's death in the civil hospital, at the bedside of her mother, who was dying of cancer. Both of the ward sisters verified that she had been there all through the night. Vianello had interviewed her, and he had gone on, with his usual precision, to ask about the nights of both Trevisan's and Favero's deaths. She was in the hospital the first night, at home the second. Both nights, however, her sister from Torino was with her, and so Signora Lotto ceased to have a place in Brunetti's imagination.

  Suddenly he found himself wondering if Chiara was still engaged in her hare-brained attempt to get information from Francesca, and as he thought about it, he was overcome with something akin to disgust. He could allow himself the luxury of righteous indignation about men who used teenagers as whores, yet he had felt no equal repugnance to turn his own child into a spy. Until now.

  His phone rang and he answered it with his name.

  It was Paola, voice wildly out of pitch, calling his name. In the background, he heard even wilder noises, high voiced.

  •What is it, Paola?’

  'Guido, come home. Now. It's Chiara,’ Paola cried, voice raised to be heard over the wailing that came from somewhere else in the house.

  ‘What's happened? Is she all right?’

  ‘I don't know, Guido. She was in the living room, and then she began to scream. She's in her room, and the door's locked.' He could hear the panic in Paola's voice, like an undercurrent that pulled at her, and then at him.

  ‘Is she all right? Did she hurt herself?' he asked.

  ‘I don't know. But you can hear her. She's hysterical, Guido. Please come home. Please. Now.'

  'I'll be there as soon as I can,' he said and put the phone down. He grabbed his coat and ran from his office, already calculating the fastest way to get home. Outside, there was no police launch tied up to the embattadero in front of the Questura, so he turned to the left and started to run, coat flapping wide behind him. He turned the corner and started up the narrow calle, trying to decide whether to go across the Rialto Bridge or to take the public gondola. In front of him, three young boys walked arm in arm. As he approached them, he shouted out, 'Attenti', voice so loud as to remove all politeness from the call. The boys scattered to the sides and Brunetti hurried past them. By the time he got to Campo Santa Maria Formosa, he was winded and had to slow to a shambling trot Near the Rialto, he got caught in foot traffic and found himself, at one point, shoving past a tourist by pushing her knapsack roughly out of the way. Behind him, he heard the girl call out in angry German, but Brunetti ran on.

  Out from under the underpass and into Campo San Bartolomeo, he cut off to the left, deciding to take the gondola and avoid the bridge, heavy now with late-afternoon traffic. Luckily, a gondola was pulled up at the stop, two old ladies standing at the back. He ran across the wooden landing and stepped down into the gondola. 'Let's go,' he called to the gondoliere who stood in the back, leaning against his oar. 'Police, take me across.'

  Casually, as if he did this every day of the week, the gondoliere in the front pushed against the railing of the steps leading down to the boat, and the gondola slipped backwards into the Grand Canal. The one in the back shifted his weight and leaned into his oar; the gondola turned and started across the canal. The old women, strangers, grabbed at one another in fear and sat down on the low seat that ran across the back of the boat.

  'Can you take me to the end of Calle Tiepolo?' Brunetti asked the man in front.

  'You really police?' the gondoliere asked.

  'Yes,' he said, digging into his pocket and showing them his warrant card.

  'All right.' Saying this, he turned to the women in the back and said, in Veneziano, 'We've got a detour, Signore.'

  The old women were too frightened by what was happening to say anything.

  Brunetti stood, blind to the boats, blind to the light, blind to anything but their slow passage across the canal. Finally, after what seemed hours, they pulled up at the end of Calle Tiepolo, and the two gondoliere held the boat steady while Brunetti climbed up to the embankment. He shoved 10,000 lire into the hand of the man in front and turned up the calle, running.

  Brunetti had got his wind back in the gondola and raced up the calle towards home, then up the first three flights of stairs. He
took the fourth and fifth quickly, gasping, legs throbbing. He heard the door above him open, and he looked up to see Paola at the door, holding it open for him.

  'Paola,' he began.

  Before he could say anything more, she shouted down at him, 'I hope you'll be happy to see what your little detective found out for you. I hope you'll be happy to see the world you're taking her into with your questions and your investigations.’ Her face was flushed and she was explosive with rage.

  He let himself into the apartment and shut the door behind him. Paola turned away from him and walked down the hall. He called her name, but she ignored him and went into the kitchen, slamming the door. He went down to Chiara's door and stood outside it. Silence. He listened for sobs, for some sound that she was in there. Nothing. He went back up the hall and knocked on the kitchen door. Paola opened it and glared at him, stony-eyed.

  Tell me about this’ he said. Tell me what's going on.'

  He had often seen Paola angry, but he had never seen her like this, shaking with rage or with some deeper emotion.

  Instinctively Brunetti kept his distance from her, and keeping his voice calm, repeated, Tell me what's going on.'

  Paola gritted her teeth and sucked air through them. The tendons in her neck were strained and stood out in her flesh. He waited.

  Her voice, when it came, was so tight as to be almost inaudible. 'She came home this afternoon and said she had something she wanted to watch on the VCR. I was busy in my study, so I told her to go and watch it herself but keep the volume down.' Paola stopped speaking for a moment and looked at him steadily. Brunetti said nothing.

  She pulled more air in through her teeth and continued. 'After about a quarter of an hour, she started to scream. When I came out of the study, she was in the hall, hysterical. You heard her. I tried to hold her, to talk to her, but she couldn't stop screaming. She's in her room now.’

  'What happened?'

  'She brought home a tape, and she watched it.' 'Where did she get the tape?' 'Guido,' she began, still breathing heavily but more slowly now, ‘I'm sorry for what I said.’

  ‘It doesn't matter. Where did she get the tape?' 'From Francesca.'

  Trevisan?' ‘Yes.'

  'Did you see it?' She nodded. 'What is it?'

  This time she shook her head from side to side. Awkwardly; she raised an arm and pointed back towards the living room.

  'Is she all right?'

  'Yes. She let me into her room a couple of minutes ago. I gave her some aspirin and told her to lie down. She wants to talk to you. But you have to look at the tape first.'

  Brunetti nodded and turned towards the living room, where the television and VCR were. 'Should you be with her, Paola?'

  ‘Yes,' Paola said and turned back down the corridor towards Chiara's room.

  In the living room, Brunetti found the television and VCR both turned on, a tape in place, played out to the end. He pushed the rewind button and straightened up, waiting and listening to the snake-like hiss of tape from the machine. He thought of nothing, concentrated on emptying his mind of all possibility.

  The faint click brought him back. He pushed the play button and moved away from the screen, seating himself on a straight-backed chair. There were no credits, no introductory graphic, no sound. The luminous grey disappeared, and the screen showed a room with two windows high up on one wall, three chairs, and a table. The lighting came from the windows and he thought, from some source of light that stood behind whoever held the camera, for it was evident from the faint unsteadiness of the picture that the camera was hand-held.

  A noise came from the television, and the camera panned over to reveal a door, which opened, allowing three young men to push into the room, laughing and joking and shoving at one another. When they were just inside the room, the last one turned and reached back through the door. He pulled a woman into the room, and three other men crowded in behind her.

  The first three appeared to be in their early teens, two others were perhaps Brunetti s age, and the last, the one who followed the woman into the room, was perhaps in his thirties. All wore shirts and pants that had a faintly military look, and all wore thick-soled boots that laced up above the ankle.

  The woman appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties and was wearing a dark skirt and sweater. She wore no make-up, and her hair hung loose and tangled, as though it had been pulled free from a bun or a kerchief. Though the film was in colour, it was impossible to tell the colour of her eyes save that they were dark, and terrified.

  Brunetti could hear the men talking, but he couldn't understand what they said. The three youngest ones laughed at something one of the older ones said, but the woman turned to him and stared at him after he spoke, as if unable, or unwilling, to believe what she had heard, with unconscious modesty, she folded her hands across her chest and lowered her head.

  For a long moment, no one spoke and no one moved, and men a voice called out, very close to the camera, but none of the people in the screen had spoken. It took Brunetti a moment to realize that it must have been the cameraman who spoke. From the tone, it must have been a command or some sort of encouragement. When he spoke, the woman's head shot up and she looked towards the camera, but not into the lens, a bit to the left, at the person who held it. The voice near the camera spoke again, this time louder, and this tune the men moved in response to it.

  Two of the young ones came up on either side of the woman and grabbed her by the arms. The one in his thirties came up to her and said something. She shook her head from side to side, and he punched her. He didn't slap her; he punched her just in front of the ear. And then, quite calmly, he took a knife from his belt and slit her sweater open, all down the front. She started to scream, and he hit her again, then pulled the sweater free from her body, leaving her naked from the waist up. He ripped a sleeve from the sweater and, when she opened her mouth to speak to him or to scream, he shoved it into her mouth.

  He spoke to the two men who held her, and they lifted her up on to the table. He gestured to the two older ones. They moved quickly around the table and grabbed her feet pinning her legs to the table. The one with the knife used it again, this time to slash her skirt from the hem to the waistband. He peeled it away from her, as if breaking open a new book to the centre pages.

  The cameraman spoke again, and the man with the knife moved around to the other side of the table; his body had been blocking the lens. He set the knife down on the edge of the table and unzipped his pants. He wore no belt. He clambered up on to the table and lay on top of the woman. The two men who held her legs had to back off a way so as not to be kicked by him as he thrust into her. He lay on top of her for a few minutes, then climbed down the other side of the table. One of the young ones went next, and then the other two.

  The sound grew confused, for the men were calling to one another and laughing, and the cameraman seemed to be egging them on. Like a low continuo, the woman moaned and whimpered through all of this, but it was almost impossible to pick up the sound she made.

  The last to use her were the two middle-aged men. One of them baulked at the table and shook his head, but this was met with hoots of derision, and so he too climbed on the table and took his turn. The last one, the oldest, was so eager that he pushed the other one from her body and mounted her.

  When all six were done, the camera moved for the first time and came in very close. It moved lovingly up and down her body, pausing here and there, wherever there was blood. It paused on her face. Her eyes were closed, but the voice that Brunetti was now thinking of as the cameraman's called softly to her, and she opened her eyes, just inches from the camera. He heard her gasp and heard her head crack against the table as she pulled it roughly to the side in a vain attempt to hide from the camera.

  The lens pulled back and more of her body came into the screen. When he was back in his original position, the cameraman called out again, and the first one who had used her picked up the knife. The cameraman spoke again,
more urgently, and the one with the knife, as casually as if he had been asked to prepare the chicken for that night's dinner, drew the blade across the woman's throat. Blood splattered across his arm and hand, and the other men laughed at the foolish look that filled his face as he leaped back from her body. They were still laughing as the camera slid in for one last look at her body. It didn't have to be particular any more: there was plenty of blood now. The screen darkened

  The tape continued to play, but the only sound was its quiet whirr and a faint humming sound that Brunetti, after a moment's confusion, realized was coming from himself. He stopped and tried to get up, but he was prevented by his hands, which he couldn't release from the edge of the chair. He looked down at them, fascinated, and willed his fingers to relax. After a moment, they did, and he got to his feet

  He had recognized enough of the language to know it was Serbo-Croat Months ago, he had read a brief article in Corriere della Sera about these tapes, made in the death traps that the cities of Bosnia had become, made and then brought out to be reproduced and sold. He had, at the time, chosen not to believe what he read, unable, even with what he had seen for these last decades, or perhaps unwilling, to believe his fellow man capable of this last obscenity. And now, like St Thomas the Doubter, he had plunged his hand into the open wound, and so he had no choice but to believe.

  He turned off the television and the VCR. He went down the corridor to Chiara's room. The door was open and he went in without knocking. Chiara lay propped up on her pillows. She had one arm wrapped about Paola, who sat on the ride of the bed, and in the other she held to herself a much chewed and battered toy beagle which she had had since her sixth birthday.

  lCiao, Papa!’ she said as he came in. She looked up at him but she didn't smile.

  ‘Ciao, angelo? he said and came to stand closer to the bed. ‘I’m sorry you saw that, Chiara.' He felt as stupid as the words.

  Chiara looked at him sharply, seeking a reproach in his words, but found none, only a searing remorse she was too young to recognize. 'Did they really kill her, Papa?' she asked, destroying at once his hope that she had fled from the video before the end.