Friends in High Places - [Commissario Brunetti 09]

by Donna Leon

  ‘My God, what’s that?’ Vianello asked as their boat approached.

  ‘It’s that cruise ship that was built here. It’s said to be the biggest in the world.’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ Vianello said, head back and staring at its upper decks, which loomed almost twenty metres above them. ‘What’s it doing here?’

  ‘Bringing money to the city, Sergeant,’ Brunetti observed drily.

  Vianello looked down at the water and then up to the rooftops of the city. ‘What whores we are,’ he said. Brunetti did not see fit to demur.

  Bonsuan pulled to a stop not far from the enormous ship, stepped off the boat, and began tying it to the mushroom-shaped metal stanchion on the embankment, so thick it must have been intended for larger boats. As he got off, Brunetti said to the pilot, ‘Bonsuan, there’s no need for you to wait for us. I don’t know how long we’ll be.’

  ‘I’ll wait if you don’t mind, sir,’ the older man answered, then added, ‘I’d rather be here than back there.’ Bonsuan was only a few years short of retirement and had begun to speak his mind as the date began to loom, however distantly, on the horizon.

  The agreement of the others with Bonsuan’s sentiments was no less strong for remaining unspoken. Together, they turned from the boat and walked back toward the campo, a part of the city Brunetti seldom visited. He and Paola used to eat in a small fish restaurant over here, but it had changed hands a few years ago, and the quality of the food had rapidly deteriorated, so they’d stopped coming. Brunetti had had a girlfriend who lived over here, but that had been when he was still a student, and she had died some years ago.

  They crossed the bridge and walked through Campo San Sebastiano, toward the large area of Campo Angelo Raffaele. Vianello, leading the way, turned immediately into a calle on the left, and up ahead they saw the scaffolding attached to the fa ç ade of the last building in the row, a four-storey house that looked as if it had been abandoned for years. They studied the signs of its emptiness: the leprous paint peeling away from the dark green shutters; the gaps in the marble gutters that would allow water to pound down on to the street and probably into the house itself; the broken piece of rusted antenna hanging out a metre from the edge of the roof. There was, at least for people born in Venice - which means born with an interest in the buying and selling of houses - an emptiness about the house which would have registered on them even if they had not been paying particular attention.

  As far as they could tell, the scaffolding was abandoned: all the shutters were tightly closed. There was no evidence that work was being conducted here, nor was there any sign that a man had injured himself fatally, though Brunetti was not at all sure how he thought that fact would be indicated.

  Brunetti stepped back from the building until he was leaning against the wall of the one opposite. He studied the entire fa ç ade, but there was no sign of life. He crossed the calle, turned, and this time studied the building that faced the scaffolding. It too showed the same signs of abandonment. He looked to his left: the calle ended in a canal, and beyond it was a large garden.

  Vianello had, at his own pace, duplicated Brunetti’s actions and had given the same attention to both buildings and to the garden. He came and stood next to Brunetti. ‘It’s possible, isn’t it, sir?’

  Brunetti nodded in acknowledgement, and thanks. ‘No one would notice a thing. There’s no one in the building that looks across at the scaffolding, and there’s no sign that anyone is taking care of the garden. So there was no one to see him fall,’ he said.

  ‘If he fell,’ Vianello added.

  There was a long pause, and then Brunetti asked, ‘Do we have anything on it?’

  ‘Not that I know of. It was reported as an accident, I think, so the Vigili Urbani from San Polo would have come over to have a look. And if they decided that it was, an accident, I mean, that would have been the end of it.’

  ‘I think we’d better go and talk to them,’ Brunetti pushed himself away from the wall and turned to the door of the house. A padlock and chain were attached to a circle of iron set into the lintel to hold the door to the marble frame.

  ‘How did he get inside to get up on the scaffolding?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Maybe the Vigili can tell us that,’ Vianello said.

  * * * *

  They couldn’t. Bonsuan took them over in the boat, up the Rio di San Agostino to the police station near Campo San Stin. The policeman at the door recognized them both and took them at once to Lieutenant Turcati, the officer in charge. He was a dark-haired man whose uniform seemed to have been made for him by a tailor. This was enough for Brunetti to treat him with formality and address him by rank.

  When they were seated and after listening to what Brunetti had to say, Turcati had the file on Rossi brought up. The man who called about Rossi had also called for an ambulance after phoning the police. Because the much-nearer Giustiniani had no ambulances available, Rossi had been taken to the Ospedale Civile.

  ‘Is he here? Officer Franchi?’ Brunetti asked, reading the name at the bottom of the report.

  ‘Why?’ the lieutenant asked.

  ‘I’d like him to describe a few things to me,’ Brunetti answered.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Why he thought it was an accident. Whether Rossi had keys to the building in his pocket. Whether there was blood on the scaffolding.’

  ‘I see,’ the lieutenant said, and reached for his phone.

  While they waited for Franchi, Turcati asked if they would like coffee, but both men refused.

  After a few minutes of idle talk, a young policeman came in. He had blond hair cut so short as almost not to be there and looked barely old enough to need to shave. He saluted the lieutenant and stood to attention, not looking at either Brunetti or Vianello. Ah, that’s the way Lieutenant Turcati runs his shop, Brunetti thought.

  ‘These men have some questions for you, Franchi,’ Turcati said.

  The policeman stood a bit more easily, but Brunetti saw little evidence that he had relaxed.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said but still did not look towards them.

  ‘Officer Franchi,’ Brunetti began, ‘your report on the finding of the man over near Angelo Raffaele is very clear, but I have a few questions I’d like to ask you about it.’

  Still facing the lieutenant, Franchi said, ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Did you search the man’s pockets?’

  ‘No, sir. I got there just as the men from the ambulance did. They picked him up and put him on a stretcher and were taking him toward the boat.’ Brunetti did not ask the policeman why it had taken him the same time to travel the short distance from the police station as for the ambulance to cross the entire city.

  ‘You wrote in your report that he had fallen from the scaffolding. I wondered if you examined the scaffolding to see if there were signs of that. Perhaps a broken board or a piece of fabric from his clothing. Or perhaps a bloodstain.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Brunetti waited for an explanation, and when it didn’t come, he asked, ‘Why didn’t you do that, officer?’

  ‘I saw him there on the ground, next to the scaffolding. The door to the house was open, and when I opened his wallet, I saw that he worked in the Ufficio Catasto, so I just figured he was there on a job.’ He paused and, into Brunetti’s silence, added, ‘If you see what I mean, sir.’

  ‘You said he was being carried to the ambulance by the time you got there?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then how was it you had his wallet?’

  ‘It was on the ground, sort of hidden by an empty cement bag.’

  ‘And where was his body?’

  ‘On the ground, sir.’

  Keeping his voice level, Brunetti asked patiently, ‘Where was his body in relation to the scaffolding?’

  Franchi considered the question and then answered, ‘To the left of the front door, sir, about a metre from the wall.’

  ‘And the wallet?’

  ‘Under
the cement bag, sir, as I told you.’

  ‘And when did you find it?’

  ‘After they took him to the hospital. I thought I should have a look around, so I went inside the house. The door was open when I got there, as I wrote in the report. And I’d already seen that the shutters just above where he was lying were open, so I didn’t bother to go upstairs. It was when I came out that I saw the wallet lying there, and when I picked it up, there was an identification card from the Ufficio Catasto, so I assumed he was there to check on the building or something like that.’

  ‘Was there anything else in the wallet?’

  ‘There was some money, sir, and some cards. I brought it all back here and put it in an evidence bag. I think that’s listed in the report.’

  Brunetti turned to the second page of the report and saw that mention of the wallet was made.

  Looking up, he asked Franchi, ‘Did you notice anything else while you were there?’

  ‘What sort of thing, sir?’

  ‘Anything at all that seemed unusual or out of place in any way?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing at all.’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said. “Thank you, Officer Franchi.’ Before anyone else could speak, Brunetti asked him, ‘Could you go and get that wallet for me?’

  Franchi looked toward the lieutenant, who nodded.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Franchi said and turned sharply on his heel and left the office.

  ‘He seems an eager young man,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Yes,’ the lieutenant said, ‘he’s one of my best men.’ He gave a brief account of how well Franchi had done in his training classes, but before he could finish, the young officer was back with the plastic evidence bag. Inside was a brown leather wallet.

  Franchi stood at the door, uncertain to whom to give the bag.

  ‘Give it to the Commissario,’ Lieutenant Turcati said, and Franchi couldn’t disguise his start of astonishment at learning the rank of the man who had questioned him. He walked over to Brunetti, handed him the bag, and saluted.

  ‘Thank you, officer,’ Brunetti said, taking the bag by one corner. He took out his handkerchief and carefully wrapped the bag in it. Then, turning to the lieutenant, he said, ‘I’ll sign a receipt for this if you like.’

  The lieutenant passed a sheet of paper across his desk, and Brunetti wrote the date, his name, and a description of the wallet. He signed it at the bottom and passed it back toward Turcati, before leaving the office with Vianello.

  When they emerged into the broadcalle, it had started to rain.

  * * * *

  9

  They made their way through the increasing rain back toward the boat, glad that Bonsuan had insisted on waiting for them. When they climbed on board, Brunetti looked at his watch and saw that it was well after five, which meant it was high time to go back to the Questura. They emerged into the Grand Canal; Bonsuan turned right and into the long S that would take them up past the Basilica and Bell Tower, down toward the Ponte della Pieta and the Questura.

  Down in the cabin, Brunetti pulled his handkerchief and the wallet it contained from his pocket and handed them to Vianello. ‘When we get back, could you take this to the lab and have it dusted for prints?’ As Vianello took them, Brunetti added, ‘Any prints on the plastic bag will be Franchi’s, I’d guess, so they can exclude those. And you better send someone over to the hospital to get a set of Rossi’s.’

  ‘Anything else, sir?’

  ‘When they’ve finished, send the wallet up to me. I’d like to have a look at what’s in it.’

  ‘And could you tell them it’s urgent,’ he said.

  Vianello looked across at him and asked, ‘And when isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Well, tell Bocchese that there’s a dead person involved. That might make him work a little faster.’

  ‘Bocchese would be the first person to say that’s proof there’s no need for hurry,’ remarked Vianello.

  Brunetti chose to ignore this.

  Vianello slipped the handkerchief into the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and asked, ‘What else, sir?’

  ‘I want Signorina Elettra to check the records to see if there’s anything about Rossi.’ He doubted that there would be, couldn’t conceive of Rossi as ever having been involved in anything criminal, but life had given him larger surprises than that, so it would be best to check.

  Vianello raised the fingers of one hand. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but does this mean we’re going to treat it as a murder investigation?’

  Both of them knew the difficulty of this. Until a magistrate had been assigned, neither of them could begin an official investigation, but before a magistrate would take it on and begin to treat it as a case of murder, there had to be persuasive evidence of a crime. Brunetti doubted that his impression of Rossi as a man terrified of heights would count as persuasive evidence of anything: not crime and certainly not murder.

  ‘I’ll have to try to persuade the Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Yes,’ Vianello answered.

  ‘You sound sceptical.’

  Vianello raised an eyebrow. It sufficed.

  ‘He won’t like this, will he?’ Brunetti volunteered. Again, Vianello didn’t respond. Patta allowed the police to accept crime when it was, in a sense, thrust upon them and could not be ignored. There was little chance that he would permit an investigation of something that so clearly appeared to be an accident. Until such time as it could not be ignored, until such time as evidence could be presented that would convince even the most sceptical that Rossi had not fallen to his death, it was destined to remain an accident in the eyes of the authorities.

  Brunetti was blessed, or cursed, with a psychological double vision that forced him to see at least two points of view in any situation, and so he knew how absurd his suspicions must seem and could be made to seem by someone who did not share them. Good sense declared that he abandon all of this and accept the obvious: Franco Rossi had died after an accidental fall from scaffolding. ‘Tomorrow morning, get his keys from the hospital and have a look at his apartment.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Brunetti answered. ‘See if you can find an address book, letters, names of friends or relatives.’

  Brunetti had been so immersed in his speculations that he had not noticed them turning into the canal, and it was only the gentle thump of the boat against the Questura landing that told him they had arrived.

  Together, they climbed up to the deck. Brunetti waved his thanks to Bonsuan, who was busy mooring the ropes that held the boat to the quay. He and Vianello walked through the rain to the front door of the Questura, which was pulled open before them by a uniformed officer. Before Brunetti could thank him, the young man said, ‘The Vice-Questore wants to see you, Commissario.’

  ‘He’s still here?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘Yes, sir. He said I was to tell you as soon as you got here.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, and to Vianello, ‘I better go up, then.’

  They went up the first flight of stairs together, neither willing to speculate on what Patta might want. At the first floor, Vianello headed down the corridor that led to the back stairs to the laboratory where Bocchese, the technician, reigned, unquestioned, unhurried, and unwilling to defer to rank.

  Brunetti made his silent way toward Patta’s office. Signorina Elettra sat at her desk and looked up when he came in. She waved him toward her at the same time as she picked up her phone and pressed a button. After a moment she said, ‘Commissario Brunetti’s here, Dottore.’ She listened to Patta, replied, ‘Of course, Dottore,’ and replaced the receiver.

  ‘He must want to ask you a favour. It’s the only reason he hasn’t been screaming for your blood all afternoon,’ she had time to say before the door opened and Patta appeared.

  His grey suit, Brunetti observed, had to be cashmere, and the tie was what passed in Italy for an English club tie. Though it had been
a rainy, cool spring, Patta’s handsome face was taut and tanned. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed oval glasses. This was the fifth pair of glasses Brunetti had seen Patta wear in the years he’d been at the Questura, the style always a few months ahead of what everyone else would soon be wearing. Brunetti had once, caught without his own reading glasses, picked up Patta’s from his desk and held them up to take a closer look at a photograph, only to discover that the lenses were clear glass.

  ‘I was just telling the Commissario to go in, Vice-Questore,’ Signorina Elettra said. Brunetti noticed that there were two files and three pieces of paper on her desk that he was sure had not been there a moment ago.