Unto Us a Son Is Given

by Donna Leon

  ‘Oh, don’t be a sentimental fool, Berta,’ Rudy said but placed his hand on hers for a moment after he said it. She looked up at Brunetti and smiled, and he was aware of how men would have been dazzled by her in former years.

  The launch passed under the Rialto Bridge and continued for a while until Foa began to slow the motor, and soon they began to veer a bit to the right and towards the dock of the hotel. ‘Oh, this is so beautiful,’ Berta said, and this time her voice wavered. When she saw Brunetti looking at her with concern, she explained, ‘My husband and I always wanted to come here, but we always delayed it because of work or some other reason. And now I’m here on my own.’ She turned away and pressed her nose against the window as they approached the hotel. As the motor slowed and they headed for the dock, she clapped her hands together to banish such thoughts and turned to Brunetti. ‘Would you like to join us for a late lunch?’ She pushed up her sleeve and saw the time and so added, in descending tones, ‘Very late lunch.’

  Brunetti smiled and said, ‘It’s as if I’d accepted, but I do have to get back to work.’ When Rudy gave a sceptical humph, Brunetti said, ‘They might miss the boat.’

  That settled it, and Brunetti waited while two bellhops approached the boat: one jumped down to get the luggage, and the other stood on the dock, waiting to help Berta on to the quay. First, however, she went over to Foa at the wheel and said, in Italian spoken with a heavy Spanish accent, ‘Capitano, I want to thank you for your help. It’s the most beautiful ride I’ve ever had.’ Then, acting like anything but a proper English lady, she took Foa’s hand and pressed it between both of hers, saying, ‘There’s no way I could ever thank you enough.’ She gave his hand one last squeeze and turned to the steps. The bellhop took her arm, long practice allowing him to make it look as though the person needed no help, only assurance, as he all but lifted her up the steps.

  Rudy waved the bellhop away and pulled himself up the steps. Brunetti followed. There, smiling and saying nice things to one another, they parted. The two older people went into the hotel, and Brunetti and Foa returned to the Questura.

  19

  That evening after dinner, Brunetti decided to ask Paola if he should speak to her father about Signora Dodson, who surely must have been at the funeral in Madrid. Raffi had gone to a friend’s house to study with him, while Chiara was in her room, trying to do research about the connection between air pollution and Alzheimer’s.

  Brunetti and Paola sat facing one another, he in an easy chair, she on the sofa, two coffees on the table in front of them. ‘It’s strange,’ Brunetti said, ‘that in all these years, I’ve never heard Orazio mention her.’ He thought back to his conversation with Signora Dodson and realized she had never said she knew Orazio, only that Gonzalo loved him. He wondered if any of Gonzalo’s friends, aside from Rudy, knew her.

  Paola did not seem to find this particularly strange. ‘Lots of us have different spheres of friends, and many of them never meet the other set, sometimes don’t even know about them.’ She finished her coffee and replaced the cup, then said, ‘It’s one of the reasons funerals are so interesting: you see people show up you’d never expect to see there. It’s as if the dead person had lived in two separate worlds. Or three.’

  ‘But they’re both friends from the early part of his life,’ Brunetti said, as though this should make things different, unite them somehow.

  ‘They’re also friends from different continents, if I might remind you.’

  ‘I know,’ Brunetti said in that voice he used when he wasn’t persuaded and was merely stalling. His own life and background were entirely different: he and his friends had met as children and lived the major part of their lives in Venice. He’d been stationed in other cities, but they had been brief periods, none more than two years.

  Brunetti’s close friends – the ones with the rights of family members – were all Venetian, and they all knew one another. The only exception was Griffoni, but she fell into the category of work-related friends.

  The thought of Griffoni made him wonder if he’d got it wrong and perhaps it was entirely ordinary for people to have bulkheads between the compartments in which they kept their different friendships: school friends here; work friends there; friends they almost never saw. So, yes, it was possible that Gonzalo had never mentioned his best friend to his best friend.

  Paola interrupted his thoughts by asking, ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Attractive,’ he said almost without thinking. ‘She’s quick-witted and has a sense of humour. She must once have been a great beauty. She’s got the bones.’ He thought about this for a while and said, ‘I get the feeling that she doesn’t mind that her beauty’s … not gone, but fading. She’s still someone you’d turn to look at again.’

  ‘You liked her?’

  ‘Very much. She embraced Foa’s hand and thanked him for the ride up the Grand Canal. On the way back to the Questura, Foa said he’d never had anyone thank him like that: like they really meant it and were grateful to him for what he’d done.’

  ‘She’s lived in England so long, perhaps she’s acquired their politeness,’ Paola said.

  Brunetti laughed and tried to provoke her by saying, ‘I thought we Italians were the polite ones.’

  ‘Good heavens no,’ Paola said, sounding really surprised. ‘We’re gracious and charming, but the English are polite.’

  ‘I don’t understand the difference,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘That’s because you didn’t spend six years in a private girls’ school in England, Guido. Believe me, the English are polite.’

  Brunetti realized he didn’t want to argue the point and so picked up his copy of Sturmtruppen, telling himself this one was definitely going to be the last in the series he would read. And knowing he was lying.

  They had been sitting like that for some time, he entranced by his comic book and Paola captured by The Princess Casamassima, when his telefonino rang. It must be Raffi, Brunetti thought, calling to say he was still with his friend. Paternal radar had detected noise from the other end of the house, so Chiara was safe at home.

  The number had an English prefix. Well, it was an hour earlier there, so it wasn’t really a late-night call.

  ‘Brunetti,’ he answered.

  ‘Guido?’ a man’s voice asked, terror badly disguised.

  ‘Yes. Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me. Rudy.’ Then, as if Brunetti were going to ask for further identification, ‘Rudy Adler.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Rudy?’ Brunetti asked in a voice stripped of any sign of suspicion or authority.

  ‘It’s Berta,’ he said and made some soft, choking noises. ‘She’s dead, Guido.’

  Paola had set down her book when she heard Brunetti’s question and now, at the sight of his face, she leaned across the table and put her hand on his knee.

  ‘Tell me what happened, Rudy,’ Brunetti said in a toneless voice.

  ‘I don’t know. I have no idea. They’re letting me make one call.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘Tell me why.’

  ‘It’s absurd,’ Rudy said, voice veering higher at the end of the short protest.

  ‘Tell me what happened, Rudy.’

  ‘We had connecting suites. We always travelled like that when we went anywhere together. We always left the connecting door unlocked. It was a habit from when Gonzalo and I travelled with her.’ He stopped abruptly, then said, ‘I’m babbling, aren’t I?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Rudy. Take your time and tell me what happened.’

  ‘That’s what’s wrong. I don’t know.’

  Brunetti was familiar with the stunned confusion of people suddenly exposed to the vast reality of death. In many cases, it pummelled them to silence; other times, it squeezed speech from them in a constant stream, as if to cease talking would allow death to sneak back at them.

  He remained silent, certain that, sooner or later, Rudy would tell him. The silence expanded,
and Brunetti thought of the information he had to get: where was Rudy calling from? Why were the police with him? What had happened to Berta? And why was he being allowed only one call?

  Suddenly, Rudy started to speak again. ‘I came back from dinner a half-hour ago, stopped at the desk and asked if Signora Dodson was in her room. They told me she was, and I went up and knocked at her door. When she didn’t answer, I assumed she had gone to bed, and so I went to my own room and let myself in.’ He stopped, like a car with a sudden electrical failure.

  A key turned in Rudy’s mind, and he began to speak again. ‘Berta was on the floor in my room, near the connecting door.’ He stopped talking and took a few rasping breaths. ‘I thought she’d fainted or collapsed or something, so I went over to her, but as soon as I got closer – I don’t know why I thought this – I knew she was dead.’ He started to sob, great, racking sounds that came through the phone so loudly that Paola could hear them.

  ‘Rudy,’ Brunetti shouted. ‘Rudy. Rudy.’ The fourth time, Rudy came back and choked out, ‘What?’

  ‘Give the phone to one of the policemen.’ When Rudy started to ask, ‘Wha—’ Brunetti said, even louder, ‘Give the phone to one of the policemen.’

  He heard some fumbling and then a man’s voice said, ‘It’s Tomasini, Commissario.’

  ‘The man with you speaks some Italian, so please speak to me in Veneziano and talk very quickly. Tell me what’s going on.’

  Tomasini took off like a rocket: ‘The desk called us, said there was a dead woman, looked suspicious. We came on a boat.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Me, Alvise, and Pucetti. We’re on night duty this week. The two men on patrol in San Polo are on the way.’

  ‘What happened to the woman?’

  ‘The crime crew’s on the way. So’s Rizzardi. I know you prefer him.’

  ‘What does it look like, Tomasini?’

  ‘I’d say someone choked her until she died. But that’s just what it looks like to me. Her neck.’

  ‘Take the man downstairs and put him in one of the salons.’ Brunetti thought of whom he could have stay with Rudy: Alvise was an idiot; Pucetti was bright and would notice things. ‘You stay downstairs with him until I get there, and—’

  ‘You need a boat, Commissario?’ Tomasini interrupted to ask.

  ‘No, it’s faster if I walk.’

  ‘All right, sir.’ A pause and then he asked, ‘Should I seal the rooms?’ For the love of God, that meant he hadn’t done it already.

  Very calmly, Brunetti said, ‘Yes. Both rooms. Put Alvise and Pucetti in front of the two doors and tell them that no one – and I mean no one – goes into those rooms until the crime squad gets there.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Anything else?’

  ‘No,’ Brunetti said and broke the connection. He turned to Paola. ‘You heard?’

  ‘If the crime squad is going, then the poor woman’s dead, and if the police are at what I think must be her hotel, then it wasn’t an accident.’

  He nodded. ‘She was found in Rudy’s room. At least that’s what I think he said.’ He stood and dropped the comic on the table, embarrassed to have been reading such a thing when Rudy called.

  ‘I’ll go over there now,’ he said. ‘Poor woman. To come here and have this happen.’

  ‘It’s no more terrible that it should happen here than anywhere else, Guido,’ Paola said, then immediately asked, ‘This will take a long time, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Go to bed. I’ll wake you up when I come in,’ Brunetti said, knowing that, if waking Paola had been the thirteenth labour of Hercules, even the hero could not have done it once she was asleep.

  He kissed her goodbye, put on a light overcoat, and let himself out of the apartment.

  Because the hotel where Rudy and Signora Dodson had booked rooms was on his side of the Grand Canal, it took Brunetti less than ten minutes to reach it. When he approached the entrance, at the end of a narrow calle, he saw two uniformed officers standing outside the main door. They both saluted. ‘Any sign of the boys from the lab?’ he asked.

  ‘They’d come up the Grand Canal,’ one of them said, ‘and dock at their porta d’acqua. Maybe we’d hear them coming, but we can’t see them from here.’

  Brunetti nodded and asked, ‘Have people gone in or come out?’

  ‘Two couples came in, sir. We went to the desk with them and made sure they were staying in the hotel.’

  ‘Anyone leaving?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘No one that we’ve seen, sir,’ the same man answered. ‘Not since we got here. About ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Brunetti said. ‘Stay here until I send someone down to tell you …’ he began but realized he didn’t know when their shift ended. ‘… when you can leave,’ he concluded and entered the hotel.

  A man in a dark grey suit stood behind the front desk. Brunetti gave his name and showed his warrant card. He’d seen the man at his barber’s a number of times and nodded to him. His nametag said he was Walter Rezzante.

  ‘Could you tell me where my men are?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Room 417, Signore.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he answered, not moving from his place in front of the desk. ‘And Signor Adler?’

  ‘He’s in the club lounge, sir. One of your men is outside the door,’ Rezzante said in a voice so low it was sure not to travel beyond Brunetti’s hearing.

  Brunetti nodded. ‘Signor Adler and the lady arrived about two. I’m curious about what they did after they got here.’

  ‘After I checked them in,’ Rezzante said, ‘Signor Adler went up to his room with the bellhop and then came down and spoke to me about reserving rooms for three people next month. As well as the two rooms he and Signora Dodson …’ Brunetti watched him run into the wall presented by the need to choose a tense for the verb. ‘… reserved,’ he chose to say, avoiding the problem. Then, perhaps from the habit of always speaking for the hotel, he added, ‘It wasn’t easy, but I found them rooms; the hotel might be new, but it’s already become quite well known.’

  Brunetti nodded as if this were common knowledge. ‘And the lady?’ he asked. ‘Did she leave the hotel?’

  ‘I assume so, sir. She asked me for a map, and when I gave it to her, she asked me for the shortest way to get to Campo Santa Margherita. I showed her on the map,’ he said and looked at Brunetti as if to suggest how meaningless a map is to anyone unfamiliar with the city. ‘She spoke passable Italian, so I told her she could easily ask people on the street.’

  Brunetti nodded.

  ‘Did you see her again?’

  ‘No, sir. We don’t have actual keys here, so there’s no need for people to come back to the desk. The guests are given their key cards when they register.’ He looked at Brunetti, as if asking him to understand. ‘People seem to like the greater privacy this offers. They can come and go as they please.’

  ‘Of course,’ Brunetti said, though he preferred the old system of leaving the key at the desk.

  ‘Could she have had dinner here?’

  ‘That’s unlikely, sir. We had a birthday dinner in the hotel tonight, for forty people, so the restaurant was closed, even to guests.’ Rezzante thought of something and held up his hand to signal Brunetti to be patient. He punched some keys on his computer, then more. The screen blinked a few times, then he said, ‘There’s no sign that she used room service, so if she ate anything, she didn’t eat in the hotel.’ Brunetti stopped himself from saying that Rizzardi would find what she had eaten and wished he could have stopped himself from thinking it.

  ‘Because of the dinner, it was very busy here tonight, sir.’ Rezzante’s voice grew warmer, almost confiding. ‘We’re short-staffed too: the night clerk is down with flu, so we’re all working twelve-hour shifts.’

  ‘Did you see Mr Adler come in?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. Shortly before midnight. He used the stairs,’ Rezzante added, as if noting unusual behaviour he thought might somehow prove important to the
investigation. ‘A few minutes later, he called me on the house phone, sounding entirely out of control. He kept saying, “She’s dead. She’s dead.”

  ‘I thought at first that he might have had too much to drink, but then I remembered how he was when he came in: completely calm and in control of himself. And then I thought maybe he’d had a phone call and been told of someone’s death. I asked him that.’

  The man’s face had grown more and more agitated as he spoke and was now covered with a film of perspiration. Brunetti wondered if he had gone up and seen what had happened but knew this was not the time to ask him. Rezzante needed to talk his way free of the worst of it before Brunetti could ask him about it.

  The man sighed deeply. ‘He said, no, it was there, in his room. His friend was there, and he thought she was dead. He asked me what he should do, and I told him I’d come up.’

  ‘You didn’t think to call 118?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘No, sir,’ Rezzante answered. ‘Not before I saw what had happened. I didn’t want any unnecessary disturbance at the hotel.’ When Brunetti nodded, he continued, saying, ‘You can imagine how our guests would react to an ambulance coming up the Grand Canal with its siren blaring.’

  Brunetti was left with no response. ‘And then?’ he asked.

  ‘Luckily, there was still someone in the kitchen, cleaning up from the dinner, so I called Franca and asked her to cover the desk for me. Then I went upstairs. ‘The door to his room was open. Signor Adler was standing beside it. He had one hand braced against the wall as if he were afraid of falling.’ He stopped.

  ‘And then?’ Brunetti said softly.

  ‘I went into the room and saw the woman lying on the floor.’ Rezzante looked at Brunetti and gave an awkward smile that showed a smoker’s teeth. ‘I knew she was dead, but the sight of her still shocked me. So I took my telefonino and called the police.’