Sea of Troubles

by Donna Leon

  'If it ever gets to court,' Brunetti said absently, a remark not necessarily intended for the pathologist.

  'Well, that's your job. I just tell you what the physical evidence tells me. You've got to figure out why and how and who.'

  'Would that it were so easy,' Brunetti said.

  Rizzardi chose not to discuss the relative demands of their separate professions and ended the call, leaving Brunetti to go out to Pellestrina to begin to try to answer those questions.

  18

  Even though it was Sunday, Brunetti saw no reason why he and Vianello should not go out to Pellestrina in the hope of discovering something that might contribute to an understanding of Signora Follini's death. Bonsuan was not at all unwilling to take them out, insisting that the news in the paper bored him; since he didn't like soccer much he would just as soon not waste his time reading about the day's matches.

  As they stood on the deck of the launch at the Giardini stop, motor idling, waiting for Vianello to show up, Brunetti returned to Bonsuan's remark and asked, 'What sports do you like, then?'

  'Me?' Bonsuan asked, a delaying tactic Brunetti recognized from long familiarity with witnesses who found a question uncomfortable. 'Yes.'

  'Do you mean to play or to watch, sir?' Bonsuan asked evasively.

  By now more curious about the reason for Bonsuan's reluctance than to know the answer to the question, Brunetti said, 'Either.'

  'Well, I don't play sports, not at my age,' Bonsuan said in a manner that suggested no further information would be forthcoming.

  'But to watch?' Brunetti asked.

  Bonsuan looked off down the long, tree-lined viale that led to Corso Garibaldi, eager for a sign of Vianello. Brunetti watched the people walking by. After a long time, Bonsuan said, 'Well, sir, it's not like I know anything about it or I go to any special trouble to watch it, but I like to look at the sheepdog trials, on television. From Scotland, you know.' When Brunetti said nothing, Bonsuan added, 'And New Zealand.'

  'Not much coverage in the Gazzettino, I'd imagine,' Brunetti observed.

  'No,' the pilot answered, then, looking off towards the arch at the end of the viale, said, 'There's Vianello,' relief audible in his voice.

  The sergeant, today in uniform, waved as he approached and then jumped on deck. Bonsuan pulled away from the riva and headed towards the now familiar canal that led towards Pellestrina's peaceful observance of the Lord's Day.

  The fact that religion is a thing of the past and no longer exerts any real influence on the behaviour of the people of Italy has in no way affected their churchgoing habits, especially in the smaller villages. In fact, some sort of algebraic equation might well be made to connect the smallness of a parish and the proportion of people who attend Mass. It is those gross heathens, the Romans and the Milanese, who do not attend, the millions among whom they live keeping them safe from the eye and tongue of local comment. The Pellestrinotti, however, are conscientious in their attendance at Mass, regular attendance allowing them to keep track of the doings of their neighbours without seeming to pry, for anything that has happened, especially anything that could call into question either virtue or honesty, is sure to be discussed on the steps of the church on Sunday morning.

  It was there that Brunetti and Vianello awaited them, and awaited events, just before twelve, as the eleven o'clock Mass was ending and the villagers of Pellestrina were enjoined one final time to 'go in peace'.

  Religion, Brunetti reflected, as he stood on the steps, though he had never realized this until Paola had pointed it out to him, always made him uncomfortable. Paola had had what he considered the good fortune to be raised, more or less, entirely free of religion, as neither of her parents had ever bothered attending church functions, at least not those where religious observance of any sort was the reason for attendance. Their social position often required them to attend ceremonies such as the investiture of bishops or cardinals, even the coronation, if that is the proper noun, of the current Pope. But these were ceremonies which had to do not with faith but with power, which quality Paola had always insisted was the real business of the Church.

  Because she was as devoid of faith as she was of the habit of religious observance, she had no grudge against religion, not at all, and viewed the peculiar ways in which people chose to observe its rules with anthropological distance. Brunetti, on the other hand, had been raised by a mother who believed, and though he had ceased to do so well before his adolescence, he nonetheless carried within him the memory of faith, though faith deceived. He knew his attitude to religion was adversarial, if not antagonistic; however much he tried to fight this, he could not escape it or the guilt it caused him. As Paola never ceased to remind him, 'I'd rather be a pagan suckled on a creed outworn...'

  All of this crowded into his head as he stood on the steps of the church, waiting to see who would emerge and what new information they would bring him. An organ pealed out, the purity of its tone speaking more to the quality of the sound system inside the church than to the talent of the organist. The doors swung open, the music swelled and cascaded down the steps, quickly followed by the first members of the congregation. Seeing them, Brunetti was struck, not for the first time, by how haunted the faces of people emerging from church were.

  Had they been a herd of animals, a flock of sheep jumping over a low stile into a new field, their sudden apprehension of a foreign presence could not have been more evident, nor could the wave of uneasiness that rippled from the front to the back of the group as each new member became aware of the potential threat that awaited them on the steps. Had Vianello not been in uniform, Brunetti had no doubt that many of them would have pretended not to have seen the two men. As it was, some of them still made a great business of not noticing them, though Vianello's white uniform hat was as glaringly evident as the halo on any of the saints left behind them in the church.

  Brunetti, making an attempt not to appear to be doing so, studied the faces of the people who walked past him. At first, he thought he was noticing the effect of their conscious efforts to look both innocent and ignorant, but then he realized that what he was seeing were the effects of a restrictive geography: many of them looked alike. The men were all short, their heads round, eyes close together. Their generally muscular build he attributed to the work most of them did, as must be the case with the sun-scored and deeply lined faces of all of them, even the youngest. The women showed more diversity of feature, though a common thickness seemed to have settled on the bodies of any of them over the age of thirty.

  This morning no one paused on the steps of the church to talk to their neighbours. Instead, the entire congregation responded to some common, urgent summons to their homes. To say they fled is to exaggerate. To say they moved away quickly and nervously is not.

  As the last of them moved off, Brunetti turned to Vianello, hoping to lighten his sense of discomfiture by asking if they should blame their failure on the sergeant's uniform. Before he could speak, however, he saw Signorina Elettra emerge from the bar that stood to the left of the church. That is, he saw her emerge from the bar briefly and then step partly back inside. She came out again, more slowly this time, and as she walked away from the door, he saw the reason for the delay: a young man held her hand and stood in the doorway, calling back to someone inside the bar. Whatever it was he said, it caused a shout of laughter from more than one voice, at which Signorina Elettra yanked his arm, finally pulling him from the doorway.

  The young man stepped towards her and with what seemed the ease of long familiarity put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. There was an utter lack of coquettishness in the way she responded, wrapping her left arm around his waist and falling into step beside him, moving towards the two policemen they had not yet seen. Considerably taller than she, the man leaned his head down and said something; Elettra glanced up at his face and answered with a smile Brunetti had never seen her use before. The man bent and kissed the top of her head, causing them to stop for a
n instant. When he lifted his head, he saw Brunetti and Vianello on the steps of the church and came to a sudden halt.

  Signorina Elettra, surprised, looked up at the young man's face, then followed the path of his eyes. The exclamation that emerged from her open mouth was drowned by the first peal of the church bells above them. She recovered her composure long before the twelfth bell struck, by which time she had redirected her attention, momentarily distracted by the unexpected sight of a policeman on the steps of the church, to the serious business of lunch with her new friend.

  After an hour of attempting to interview the people of Pellestrina, Brunetti decided it would be futile until they had all finished their lunch. He and Vianello therefore retreated to the restaurant and had a sober meal which neither of them enjoyed, despite the freshness of the food and the crispness of the wine. They decided to split up, hoping that the sympathy Vianello had established when he spoke to people would be sufficient to overcome the inevitable response to his uniform.

  At the first two houses, Brunetti was told that they did not know Signora Follini at all well, one of me men even going so far as to say that he took his wife down to the Lido in the car once a week: at the local store the prices were far too high and many of the items on sale no longer fresh. The man was an embarrassingly bad liar, a fact which his wife tried to ignore by carefully arranging and rearranging four porcelain figurines which bore a vague resemblance to dachshunds. Brunetti thanked them both, and left.

  No one answered the door at the next two houses; the response might as easily have been the result of choice as absence. The third door, however, was opened almost before he finished knocking, presenting Brunetti with every policeman's dream: the watchful neighbour. He knew her from a single glance at her tight lips, recognized the type in her eager eyes and forward-leaning posture. The fact that she did not rub her palms together did not detract from the overall impression of satisfaction conveyed by her avid smile: here at last was someone who would share her shock and horror at the terrible deeds, commissions and omissions of which her neighbours were guilty.

  Her hair was coiled in a thin bun at the back of her head, recalcitrant wisps held down by a scented greasy pomade. Though her face was thin, her body was rounded, with no visible waist. Over a black dress that was slowly turning green with age and repeated washing, she wore a soiled apron which, years ago, might once have been covered with flowers.

  'Good afternoon, Signora,' he began, but before he could give his name, she interrupted him.

  'I know who you are and why you're here. It's about time you came to talk to me.' She tried to express disapproval, but it was impossible for her to suppress her satisfaction at his arrival.

  'I'm sorry, Signora,' he began, 'but I wanted to see what the others had to say before talking to you.'

  'Come in, come in,' she said, turning and leading him towards the back of the house. He followed her down a long, damp hallway, at the end of which light came from an open doorway into the kitchen. Here there was no change in temperature, no comforting warmth to compensate for the seaside dankness of the corridor, and no pleasant scents of cooking to cut through the oppressive smell of mould, wool, and something feral and animal he couldn't recognize.

  She directed him to a seat at the table and, without offering him anything to drink, sat down opposite.

  Brunetti took a small notebook from the side pocket of his jacket, opened it, and uncapped his pen. 'Your name, Signora?' he asked, careful to speak Italian and not Veneziano, knowing that the more formal and official this interview could be made to seem, the greater would be her pleasure and sense of gratification at finally having made the authorities aware of the many things she had nursed to her bosom all these thankless years.

  'Boscarini,' she said. 'Clemenza.' He made no comment and wrote silently.

  'And you've lived here how long, Signora Boscarini?'

  'All my life’ she answered, equally careful to speak Italian but not finding it at all easy. 'Sixty-three years.'

  Emotions or experiences he couldn't imagine made her look at least ten years older than that, but Brunetti did nothing more than make another note. 'Your husband, Signora?' Brunetti asked, knowing that she would be complimented by the assumption that she must have one, insulted to be asked if she did.

  'Dead. Thirty-four years ago. In a storm.' Brunetti made a note of the importance of this fact. He looked up again and decided not to ask about children.

  'Have you had the same neighbours all this time, Signora?'

  'Yes. Except for the Rugolettos three doors down’ she said, giving an angry toss of her chin to the left. 'They moved in twelve years ago, from Burano, when her grandfather died and left them the house. She's dirty, the wife’ she said in dismissive contempt and then, to make sure he understood why, added, 'Buranesi.'

  Brunetti grunted in acknowledgement, then, wasting no time, asked, 'Did you know Signora Follini?'

  She smiled at this, hardly able to contain her pleasure, then quickly smothered the expression. Brunetti heard a small noise and glanced across at her. It took him an instant to realize that she was actually licking her lips repeatedly, as if freeing them at last to tell the awful truth. 'Yes’ she finally said. ‘I knew her, and I knew her parents. Good people, hard working. She killed them. Killed them as if she'd taken a knife and driven it into her poor mother's heart.'

  Brunetti, looking down at his notebook to hide his face, made encouraging noises and continued to write.

  Again she paused, made the licking noise, then went on. 'She was a whore and a drug addict and brought disease and disgrace on her family. I'm not surprised that she's dead or that she died the way she did. I'm just surprised that it took so long.' She was silent for a moment, and then added, in a voice so unctuous Brunetti closed his eyes, 'God have mercy on her soul.'

  Allowing the deity sufficient time to register the request, Brunetti then asked, 'You said she was a prostitute, Signora? While she was here? Was she still?'

  'She was a whore when she was a child and a young woman. Once a woman does that sort of thing, she's defiled, and she never loses the taste for it.' Her voice reflected both certainty and disgust. 'So she must have been doing it now. That's obvious.'

  Brunetti turned a page, mastered his expression, and looked up with an encouraging smile. 'Do you know anyone who might have been her client?' He saw her begin to answer, then think of the consequences of false accusation and close her mouth.

  'Or suspect anyone, Signora?' When she still hesitated, he shut the notebook, placed it on the table, capped his pen and placed it on top. 'It's often just as important for us, Signora, to have a sense of what's going on, even if we don't have proof. It's enough to start us on the right road, to know where to begin to look.' She said nothing, so he went on, 'And it's only the most courageous and virtuous citizens who can help us, Signora, especially in an age when most people are all too willing to close their eyes to immorality and the sort of behaviour that corrupts society by destroying the unity of the family.' He had been tempted to refer to 'sacred unity', but thought it might be excessive and so contented himself with the lesser nonsense. It sufficed, however, for Signora Boscarini.

  'Stefano Silvestri.' The name slithered off her lips: the man who had been so careful to explain that he took his wife to the larger stores on the Lido once a week. 'He was always in the store, like a dog sniffing at a bitch to see if she was ready for him.'

  Brunetti received this information with his accepting noise but made no motion towards his notebook. As if encouraged by that act of discretion, she went on: 'She tried to make it look like she wasn't interested, made fun of him whenever anyone was around, but I know what she was up to. We all did. She led him on.' Brunetti listened calmly, trying to recall if this woman had been on the steps of the church and wondering what going to Mass might mean for someone like her.

  'Can you think of any other man or men who might have been involved with her?' he asked.

  'There wa
s talk’ she began, all too eager to let him know. 'Another married man’ she began, lips wet and eager. 'A fisherman.' For a moment, he thought she was going to name him, but he saw her consider the consequences, and she said only, 'I'm sure there were many more.' When Brunetti remained silent in the face of this slander, she said, 'It's because she provoked them.'

  'Of course’ he permitted himself to say. Which would be worse, he wondered: death at sea or another thirty-four years with this woman? He sensed that she was willing to tell him nothing more, assuming that what she had given him was information and not mere spite and jealousy, he got to his feet and picked up his notebook and pen. Slipping them into his pocket, he said, 'Thank you for your help, Signora. I assure you that everything you've said will be kept in the strictest confidence. And, speaking personally, I would like to remark that it is rare for a witness to be so willing to give us this sort of information.' It was a small shot, and it seemed to pass her by, but it was still a shot and it made him feel better. With every expression of politeness, he took his leave, glad to escape from her house, her words, and the sound of that flicking, reptilian tongue.

  As they had agreed, he and Vianello met at the bar at five. Each ordered coffee, and when the barman moved off after setting the small cups down in front of them, Brunetti asked, 'Well?'

  'There was someone. A man’ Vianello said.

  Brunetti tore open two packets of sugar and poured them into his coffee, stirred it and drank it in one long sip. 'Who?' Vianello, he noticed, still drank his coffee without sugar, a habit his own grandmother had believed 'thinned the blood', whatever that meant.

  'No idea. And it was only one man who said anything, something about the way Signora Follini was always up before dawn, even though the store didn't open until eight. It wasn't actually what he said so much as the way he said it, and the look his wife gave him when he did.'