Sea of Troubles

by Donna Leon

  'Picnic?' she asked, seeing that his hands were empty.

  He raised them and hooked his thumbs into what she had thought were braces. 'In here,' he said, turning halfway round and showing her a small black backpack, just large enough to hold a picnic lunch for two.

  Her smile was involuntary. 'Good,' she said. 'What did you pack?'

  'Surprises,' he answered, and this time she noticed the way his smile always began at his mouth and then crept up into his eyes.

  'Good. I just hope one of them is mortadella.'

  'Mortadella?' he asked. 'How did you know? I love it, but I never think anyone else does, so I never bring any. It's such peasant food: I can't imagine anyone like you eating it.'

  'Oh, but I do,' she said with real enthusiasm, ignoring his compliment, at least for the moment. 'It's true, isn't it? no one feels comfortable eating it any more. They want, oh, I don't know, caviare or lobster tails, or ...'

  'When what they're really lusting for,' he broke in, 'is a panino with mortadella and so much mayonnaise it drips out of the sandwich and down their face.' Casually, as though picnics were a habit between them, he linked his arm in hers and turned away towards the sea wall and the beach.

  When they reached the jetty, Carlo jumped up on to the first of the giant boulders, then turned and reached down to help her up. When she was beside him, he took her arm in his, and she was pleased to notice that he didn't point to every uneven rock or surface as though she were incapable of seeing them. More than halfway along, he paused, leaned down, and studied the rocks below. He told her to wait, then jumped down on to an enormous boulder that jutted out at a perilous angle. He stretched out his hand, and she jumped down beside him. There was an immense hole in the side of the jetty where some of the boulders had been ripped away by a storm: the resulting cave was just large enough for the two of them. It was empty of cigarette ends or discarded food wrappings, proof that it was effectively hidden from detection by the Pellestrinotti.

  The floor of the cave was a carpet of white sand, and some quirk of tide or pressure had left a flat-topped block jutting from the back wall. It served perfectly as a table; quickly Carlo covered it with the things he pulled from his pack. Like Indians, they sat cross-legged on the sandy floor to eat, the sun slanting, the waves slapping on the rocks below.

  Even without mortadella, the picnic was perfect, Elettra judged. Not only because of the thick sandwiches of prosciutto, each slice of bread heavily buttered, and the chilled bottle of Chardonnay, and not because of the strawberries that followed, each to be dipped in mascarpone in open defiance of all dietary sanity. She judged the picnic to be perfect because of the company: Carlo listened to her as though they were old friends, talked to her as though he'd known her for years, and all of those happy ones.

  He asked what she did, and she said she worked in a bank: very boring, but a safe job to have in times like these, with unemployment skyrocketing all about them. When she asked, he said he was a fisherman and left it at that. It was only by careful questioning that she got him to tell her that he had abandoned his studies when his father died two years ago, returning to Burano to be with his mother. She liked the way he spoke about it, as if entirely unconscious of how naturally he had assumed the responsibility for his mother.

  As they spoke about their families and their hopes, Elettra slowly became conscious of a growing undercurrent of excitement, though nothing either of them said or did could be judged to have produced it. The more she listened to him, the more she felt that this was a voice she'd listened to before and, she became aware, would very much like to hear again.

  When the sandwiches were finished, the wine drunk, the last of the mascarpone licked from greedy fingers, she noticed that he carefully picked up the empty wrappings and the napkins they'd used in place of plates and stuffed them in the empty backpack. He saw her watching what he was doing and said, grinning, ‘I hate it when the beaches are covered with junk.' With a self-conscious shrug he pulled up one side of his mouth in a grimace she had already come to recognize and like. 'I suppose it's stupid to bother, but it seems little enough effort.'

  She leaned forward and put her napkin into the pack on top of his. As she did so, her breast brushed against his arm, and she was shocked by the power of her response, one that had nothing at all to do with remembered pleasures but stunned her with the promise of future ones. He shot her a look almost stupid with surprise, but when she pretended to have been unconscious of the contact, he turned his attention to the backpack and pulled the strings tight.

  After this, though she pretended to be interested in a large boat on the horizon that was visible from the opening in the rocks, she was conscious of his watching her. She sensed, rather than saw, his self-critical grimace, and then he asked, 'Coffee?'

  She smiled and nodded, but she was never to know whether his question filled her with relief or disappointment.

  16

  Brunetti, far from sitting by the waves and dipping fresh strawberries into mascarpone, found himself trapped in his office and buried under the waves of paper generated by the organs of the state. He had thought that, during Patta's absence and Marotta's withdrawal, it would fall to him to make decisions that would affect the way justice was pursued in Venice. Even if he could see to nothing more than assigning incompetent officers to work on minor cases such as complaints about over-loud televisions, thus freeing the better ones to work on more serious crimes, he would at least be working for the general good. But he had no time for things even as simple as this. In the absence of what he now realized must be the

  daily filtering done by Signorina Elettra, papers flooded into his office and soaked up all of his working hours. It seemed that the Ministry of the Interior was capable of producing volumes of regulations and announcements every day, making determinations on subjects as diverse as the necessity of providing a translator when foreign suspects were questioned or the height of the heels on the shoes of female officers. His eyes passed over them all; it would be untrue to say he read them, for that act implies at least a minimum of comprehension, and Brunetti quickly passed beyond that possibility into a numbed state where he read words and words and set the pages aside with no idea of what those words signified.

  He could not stop his imagination from drifting off to Pellestrina. He found time to speak to Vianello but was disappointed to hear how little the other man had learned. He was intrigued, however, when Vianello mentioned the strong sense he'd had when speaking to the people on Pellestrina that they all considered Bottin not to be one of them, for this confirmed a suspicion Brunetti had formed, he no longer remembered why. When Brunetti gave Vianello's remarks further thought, he found it even stranger. It was unusual in his experience for members of a community as tightly closed as that of Pellestrina to voice collective disapproval of one of their own. The secret of their survival had always lain in maintaining a united front against strangers, and no force was as alien as the police. He was struck by the repeated disparity between what was said about Giulio and what was said about Marco. Everyone mourned the boy's death, but no one on Pellestrina seemed to shed any tears for Giulio Bottin. What was even stranger was how careless they had been in making this known.

  The rising tide of paper swept these thoughts from Brunetti's mind for the next two days. On Friday he had a call from Marotta, who told him he'd be back from Turin on Monday. Brunetti did not ask if he had testified in the trial; he cared only that the other commissario take his turn at dealing with the papers.

  He and Paola were invited to dinner with friends on Saturday evening, so when the phone rang just before eight, just as he was knotting his tie, he was tempted not to answer it.

  Paola called down the hallway, 'Shall I get it?'

  'No, I will,' he said, but he said it reluctantly, wishing one of the children were there to answer it for him, lie, say they'd just gone out. Or say their father had decided to move to Patagonia and herd sheep.

  'Brunetti,' he answered
.

  'It's Pucetti, sir,' the young officer said. 'I'm in a phone booth by the dock. A boat just came in. A body's been fished up.'

  'Who is it?'

  'No idea, sir.'

  'Man or woman?' he asked, heart cold at the thought of Signorina Elettra.

  'I don't know that either, sir. One of the fishermen came in a minute ago and told the men at the bar what happened, so we all came out here to get a look.' Brunetti heard noises in the distance, and then the receiver was replaced.

  He put his own phone down and went back towards the bedroom. Paola, glancing up, saw the expression on his face. She wore a black dress, tight around the hips and cut very low at the back, a dress he thought he'd never seen before. She was just putting on her second earring but let her hands fall to her sides when she saw him. 'Well, I didn't much want to go, anyway,' she said, tossing the earring back into the drawer of their dresser, the top one, the one she used to hold jewellery and, for some reason he had never fathomed, the bottles of vitamins she took. Casually, like someone asking for a half-dozen eggs, she said, 'I'll call Mariella.'

  He knew men who kept secrets from their wives. He knew one married man who kept two mistresses and had kept them for more than a decade. He knew men who had managed to lose their businesses and homes before their wives had any idea they gambled. For a moment he contemplated the possibility that Paola had sold her soul to the devil in exchange for the mystic power to read his mind. No, she was too smart to make that bad a bargain.

  'Or do you want to call the Questura first?' she asked.

  He started to explain what it was but stopped himself, as if silence would keep Signorina Elettra safe. 'I'll use the telefonino,' he said and took it from the dresser where he had left it in anticipation of a peaceful evening with friends. Paola went down to the living room to make her call, and he punched in the familiar number of the Questura. He asked that a boat collect him and take him out to Pellestrina. He pushed the little blue button, dialled Vianello's number and, careful to remember the instructions he'd been given when issued the phone, pushed the blue button again.

  Vianello's wife answered. When she heard who it was she made no attempt at pleasantry, but said she'd get Lorenzo. The radar of policemen's wives knew when an evening was ruined: some were gracious, others were not.

  'Yes, sir?' the sergeant asked.

  'Pucetti just called. From a public phone. They've fished up a body.'

  'I'll be at the Giardini stop,' Vianello said and hung up.

  He was there fifteen minutes later, but he was not in uniform, nor did he do more than raise his hand in acknowledgement to Brunetti when the boat slowed without stopping to allow him to step on board. Vianello assumed he'd been told everything Brunetti knew, so he didn't waste time asking questions, nor did he voice Signorina Elettra's name.

  'Nadia?' Brunetti asked in the shorthand of long association.

  'Her parents were taking us to dinner.'

  'Anything special?' 'Our anniversary’ Vianello answered. Instead of apologizing, Brunetti asked, 'How many?' 'Fifteen.'

  The launch swung to the right, taking them down towards Malamocco and Pellestrina. 'I called for a scene of crime team to come out’ Brunetti said. 'But the pilot'll have to go around and collect them, so I doubt they'll be out any time soon.'

  'How do we explain getting there so quickly?' Vianello asked.

  ‘I can say someone called us.'

  ‘I hope no one saw Pucetti making the call, then.'

  Brunetti, who almost never remembered to carry his, asked, 'Why wasn't he given a telefonino?’

  'Most of the young ones have their own, sir.' 'Does he?'

  'I don't know. But I suppose not, if he called you from a public phone.'

  'Stupid thing to do’ Brunetti said, aware as he spoke that he was transforming the fear he felt for Signorina Elettra into anger at the young officer for provoking his fear in the first place.

  Brunetti's telefonino rang. When he answered it, the operator at the Questura said that a call had just come in, a man saying that a woman's body had been pulled up in the nets of a boat and had been taken to the dock at Pellestrina.

  'Did he give his name?' Brunetti asked. 'No, sir.'

  'Did he say he'd found the body?'

  'No, sir. All he said was that a boat had come in with a body, not that he'd had anything to do with it’

  Brunetti thanked him and hung up. He turned to Vianello. 'It's a woman.' The sergeant didn't say anything, so Brunetti asked, 'If all those boats have radios and phones, why didn't they call us?'

  'Most people don't much want to get involved with us.'

  'If they've got a woman's body in their fishing nets, it doesn't seem to me there's any way they can help getting involved with us’ Brunetti said, transferring a bit of his anger to Vianello.

  'People don't think of those things, I'm afraid. Perhaps most of all when they've got a woman's body in their nets.'

  Knowing the sergeant was right and sorry he'd spoken so sharply, Brunetti said, 'Of course, of course.'

  The lights of Malamocco swept by, then the Alberoni, and then there was nothing but the long straight sweep towards Pellestrina. Soon, ahead of them they saw the scattered lights of the houses and the straight line of lights on the dock along which the town was built. Strangely enough, there was no evidence that anything extraordinary had taken place, for there were only a few people visible on the riva. Surely, even the Pellestrinotti could not have been so quickly hardened to death.

  The pilot, who had not been out to Pellestrina during this investigation, started to pull the launch into the empty place in the line of fishing boats. Brunetti jumped up the steps and put a hand on his shoulder, saying, 'No, not here. Down at the end.'

  Instantly, the pilot reversed the engines, and the boat slowed, then started to pull back from the riva. 'Over there, to the right,' Brunetti told him, and the pilot brought the boat gently up to the dock. Vianello tossed the mooring rope to a man who approached them, and as soon as he had tied it round the metal stanchion, Brunetti and Vianello jumped from the boat.

  'Where is she?' Brunetti asked, leaving it to the boat's markings to explain who they were.

  'Over here,' the man said, turning back towards the small group of people who stood in the dim light cast by the street lamps. As Brunetti and Vianello approached, the group separated, creating a passage towards what lay on the pavement.

  Her feet lay in a pool of light, her head in darkness, but when Brunetti saw the blonde hair, he knew who it was. Fighting down a surge of relief, he drew closer. At first he thought her eyes were closed, that some gentle soul had pressed them closed for her, but then he saw that they were gone. He remembered that one of the policemen had explained the decision to bring up the bodies of the Bottins because there were crabs down below. He had read books in which the stomachs of people in situations like this were said to heave, but what Brunetti felt registered in his heart, which pounded wildly for a few seconds and did not grow steady until he looked away from the woman's face, out over the calm waters of the laguna.

  Vianello had the presence of mind to ask, 'Who found her?'

  A short, stocky man stepped forward from the shadows. 'I did,' he said, careful to keep his eyes on Vianello rather than on the silent woman over whom all of this was being said.

  'Where did you find her? And when?' Vianello asked.

  The man pointed in the general direction of the mainland, off to the north. 'Out there, about two hundred metres offshore, right at the mouth of the Canale di Ca' Roman.'

  When he failed to answer Vianello's second question, Brunetti repeated it. 'When?'

  The man glanced down at his watch. 'About an hour ago. I brought her up in my net, but it took me a long time to get her alongside the boat.' He looked back and forth between Brunetti and Vianello, as if searching to see which of them would be more likely to believe what he said. 'I was alone in my sandolo, and I was afraid I'd capsize if I pulled her in.' He stop
ped.

  'So what did you do?'

  'I towed her,' he said, obviously troubled by having to confess this. 'It was the only way to get her here.'

  'Did you recognize her?' Brunetti asked.

  He nodded.

  Glad not to have to look at Signora Follini, Brunetti let his eyes rove around the faces of the people above her, but Signorina Elettra was not among them. If they looked down at the body, their faces disappeared in the shadows cast by the overhead lights, but most of them preferred not to. 'When did any of you see her last?' he asked.

  No one answered.

  He caught the eye of the one woman standing in the group. 'You, Signora,' he said, keeping his voice soft, merely inquisitive, no trace of authority in it. 'Can you remember when you last saw Signora Follini?'

  The woman stared back at him with frightened eyes, then glanced to right and left. Finally she said, all in a rush, 'A week ago. Maybe five days. I went to the store for toilet paper.' Suddenly aware of what she had said in front of all these men, she covered her mouth with her hand, looked down, then quickly up again.

  'Perhaps we could move away from here,' Brunetti suggested, moving back towards the bright windows of the houses. A man approached from the direction of the village carrying a blanket. As he drew close to the body, Brunetti forced himself to say, 'You'd better not do that. The body shouldn't be touched.'

  'It's for respect, sir,' the man insisted, though he didn't look down at her. 'She shouldn't be left like that.' He held the blanket draped over one arm, a gesture that conveyed a curious sense of formality.

  'I'm sorry, but I think it's better,' Brunetti said, giving no hint of how deeply he sympathized with the man's desire. His refusal to let the man cover Signora Follini lost him whatever sympathy he might have gained by moving the crowd away from the body.

  Sensing this, Vianello moved a few steps further towards the village, put his hand lightly on the arm of the woman, and said, 'Is your husband here, Signora? Perhaps he could take you home.'