A Noble Radiance

by Donna Leon

  "That's correct.'

  ‘I can't allow that.'

  'Can't allow what, Vice-Questore? That the Lieutenant be transferred or that I suggest it?' 'Either. Both’

  Brunetti remained silent waiting to see how far Patta would go in defence of his creature.

  'You know that I have the authority to refuse to pass on these recommendations?' Patta asked and then added, 'all of them’

  'Yes, I know that’

  Then, before I make my own recommendations to the Questore, I suggest you retract the remarks you've made about the lieutenant’ When Brunetti said nothing, Patta asked, 'Did you hear me, Commissario?'

  'Yes.'

  'And?'

  'There is little that will make me change my opinion of the Lieutenant and nothing that will make me change my recommendation.'

  'You know nothing will come of your recommendation, don't you?' Patta asked, pushing the folder to the side, freeing himself from the risk of contamination.

  'But it will be in his file,' Brunetti said, even though he knew how easily things could be made to disappear from files.

  ‘I don't see what purpose that will serve’

  'I like history. I like things to be recorded’

  'So far as Lieutenant Scarpa is concerned, the only thing to be recorded is that he is an excellent officer and a man worthy of my trust’

  'Then perhaps you can record that, sir, and I’ll record my own judgement. And then, as always happens when history is read, future readers will determine which of us was correct.'

  ‘I don't know what you're talking about, Brunetti, about future readers of history or things needing to be recorded. What we need is mutual support and trust’

  Brunetti said nothing to this, not wanting to encourage Patta in his usual platitudes about the pursuit of justice and the enforcement of the law, which two things Patta saw as identical. The Vice-Questore, however, needed no encouragement and devoted a few minutes to this particular theme, while Brunetti wondered what questions to ask of Maurizio Lorenzoni. Regardless of the outcome of the autopsy, he wanted to continue to take a closer look at the kidnapping; the nephew, the golden boy of the family, seemed a good place to try next.

  Patta's raised voice cut into his reverie. 'If I'm boring you, Dottor Brunetti, just tell me and you can leave.'

  Brunetti got suddenly to his feet, smiled but did not speak, and left Patta's office.

  10

  When he got back to his office, the first thing Brunetti did was open his window and spend a moment looking down at the place where Bonsuan's boat was usually moored, and only after that did he go to his desk and open the autopsy report. Over the years, he had become accustomed to the idiosyncratic style of these reports. The terminology was all medical, naming bones, organs, and pieces of connecting tissue; the grammar was almost exclusively subjunctive and conditional: If we were dealing with the body of a person in good health', 'Had the body not been moved'. If I were asked to give an estimate.'

  Young, male, probably in his early twenties, evidence of orthodontal work. Estimated height 180 centimetres, weight probably not more than sixty kilos. The cause of death was most likely a bullet to the brain: attached was a photo of the hole in the skull, its lethal roundness in no way diminished by its smallness. A scratch on the inner surface of the left eye socket might have been left by the exit of the bullet.

  Here Brunetti paused and reflected upon the eternal caution of pathologists. A person could be found with a dagger through the heart, and the report would read, 'The cause of death appears to be...' He regretted that someone other than Ettore Rizzardi, the medico legale of Venice, had done the autopsy: after years of working with him, Brunetti could usually get Rizzardi to commit himself beyond the bland, speculative language of the reports he wrote, had once or twice even lured the pathologist into speculating on the possibility that the cause of death might be different from that suggested by the autopsy.

  Because the tractor had disturbed some bones and broken others, there was no way of determining whether the ring that was found with the body had been worn by the deceased. The first officers on the scene had found it but had not marked its exact location before giving it to the medico legale, so it was impossible to tell where it had lain in relation to the body, which had itself been further disturbed by their arrival.

  As well as a pair of black leather shoes, size 42, and dark cotton socks, the man had been wearing only blue wool slacks and a white cotton shirt when he was buried. Brunetti recalled the police report which stated that Lorenzoni had been wearing a blue suit when he disappeared. Because there had been heavy rains in the province of Belluno the previous autumn and winter and because the field lay at the base of two hills and hence tended to retain water, the decomposition of both fabric and flesh had been faster than normal.

  Toxicological examinations were being performed on the organs and would be ready within a week, as would the results of some further tests that were to be performed on the bones. Though the fragments of lung tissue were too badly deteriorated to make the conclusion reliable, there was evidence he had been a heavy smoker. Brunetti thought of what Roberto's girlfriend had said, and despaired of the usefulness of autopsies. A complete set of dental X-rays were contained in a transparent plastic folder.

  'The dentist, then,' Brunetti said aloud and reached for the phone. While he waited for an outside line, he flipped open his copy of the Lorenzoni file and found Count Ludovico's phone number.

  'Pronto’ a male voice answered on the third ring.

  'Conte Lorenzoni?' Brunetti asked.

  'Signor Lorenzoni,' the voice corrected, giving no indication of whether this was the nephew or the Count asserting solidarity with democracy.

  'Signor Maurizio Lorenzoni?' Brunetti asked.

  'Yes.' Nothing more.

  'This is Commissario Guido Brunetti. I'd like to speak to you or your uncle, if possible, sometime this afternoon.'

  'What is this in relation to, Commissario?'

  'Roberto, your cousin Roberto.'

  After a long pause, he asked, Have you found him?'

  'A body has been found in the province of Belluno.' 'Belluno?' 'Yes’

  Is it Roberto?'

  1 don't know, Signor Lorenzoni. It could be: if s the body of a young man about twenty, about 180 centimetres tall...'

  'That description would fit half the young men in Italy,' Lorenzoni said:

  'A ring with the Lorenzoni crest was found with him’Brunetti added.

  'What?'

  'A signet ring with the family crest was found with him.'

  'Who identified it?'

  'The medico legale’

  'Is he sure?'Lorenzoni asked.

  'Yes. Unless the crest has been changed recently’ Brunetti added in a level voice.

  Lorenzoni's question came after another long pause.'Where was this?'

  'In a place called Col di Cugnan, not far from Belluno.'

  The next pause was longer. Then Lorenzoni asked, in a far softer voice, 'Can we see him?'

  Had the voice not softened, Brunetti would have answered that there wasn't much to see; instead, he said, 'I'm afraid the identification will have to be done by other means.',

  'What does that mean?'

  "The body that was found has been in the ground for some time, and so there has been considerable decomposition.'

  'Decomposition?'

  It would help us if we could get in touch with his dentist. There's evidence that there was considerable orthodontal work.'

  'Oh Dio’ the young man whispered, and then said, 'Roberto wore braces for years.'

  'Can you give me the name of the dentist?'

  'Francesco Urbani. His office is in Campo San Stefano. He's the same dentist we all go to.'

  Brunetti made a note of the name and address. 'Thank you, Signor Lorenzoni.'

  'When will you know? Should I tell my uncle?' And after a pause, he added, but it wasn't a question, 'And my aunt.'

&nb
sp; Brunetti picked up the white-bordered dental X-rays. He could send Vianello to Doctor Urbani with them this afternoon. 1 should be able to give you some information today. I'd like to speak to your uncle, and your aunt, if that's possible. This evening?'

  ‘Yes, yes,' he answered distractedly. 'Commissario, is there a chance that this isn't Roberto?'

  That chance, if it ever existed, seemed to be growing smaller with each added piece of information. ‘I don't think if s very likely, but you might want to wait until we've spoken to the dentist before you tell your uncle.'

  ‘I don't know how I can tell him,' Lorenzoni said. 'And my aunt, my aunt.'

  Whatever the dentist said would only confirm what Brunetti's instincts knew was true. He decided he would speak to the Lorenzonis, all of them, and do it soon. ‘I’ll come and speak to them if you'd like me to.'

  'Yes, I think that's better. But what if the dentist says it isn't Roberto?'

  'In that case, I'll call you and tell you. At this number?'

  'No, let me give you the number of my cellular,' he answered. Brunetti made a note.

  'I'll be there at seven,' Brunetti said, intentionally omitting any qualification about what he'd do if the dental records didn't match.

  'Yes, at seven,' Lorenzoni said and hung up without bothering to give the address or instructions about how to get there. Presumably, in Venice the name would suffice.

  Brunetti immediately called down to Vianello's office and asked him to come up and get the dental X-rays. When the sergeant came in, Brunetti told him where Doctor Urbani's office was and asked Vianello to call from there with the results.

  What would it be like to have a child kidnapped? What if the victim had been Raffi, his own son? The very thought of it made Brunetti's stomach tighten with fear and disgust. He remembered the rash of kidnappings that had taken place in the Veneto during the 1980s and the burst of business it had provided for private security firms. That gang had been broken up a few years ago, and the leaders sentenced to fife imprisonment. With a twinge of guilt, Brunetti found himself thinking that this was not severe enough to punish them for what they had done, though the topic of capital punishment was such a red flag in his own family that he didn't pursue the logical consequences of this judgement.

  He'd need to see the wall, to see how easy it would be to climb over it, or to see how else the stone might have been put behind the gates. He'd have to contact the Belluno police to ask about kidnappings in the area: he'd always thought it the most crime-free province in the country, but perhaps that was the Italy of memory. Enough time had passed, so the Lorenzonis, if they had managed to borrow enough money to pay the ransom, might be willing to say so now. And if they had, how had they paid it, and when?

  Years of experience warned him that he was assuming the boy's death without final proof; the same years told him that final proof was unnecessary here. Intuition would suffice.

  His thoughts shifted to his conversation with Count Orazio and his reluctance to accept the other man's intuition. In the past, Paola had sometimes said that she felt old, that the best of life was past, but Brunetti had always been able to lure her away from such ideas. He didn't know anything about menopause: the very word embarrassed him. But could this be a sign that something like that was happening? Weren't there hot flashes? Strange cravings for food? - He realized that he wished it would be something like that, something physical and, therefore, something for which he was in no way responsible and about which he could do nothing. As a schoolboy, he had been told by the priest who gave religious instruction that it was necessary, before confession, to examine his conscience. There were, the priest had explained, sins of omission and sins of commission, but even then Brunettihad found it difficult to distinguish between the two. Now that he was a man, the distinction was even more difficult to grasp.

  He found himself thinking that he should take Paola flowers, take her out to dinner, ask her about her work. But even as he considered such gestures, he realized how transparently false they were, even to him. If he knew the source of her unhappiness, he might have some idea of what to do.

  It wasn't anything at home, where she was as consistently explosive as she'd always been. Work, then, and from what Paola had been saying for years, he could not imagine an intelligent person who would not be driven to despair by the Byzantine politics of the university. But usually the situation there enraged her, and no one embraced battle as joyously as did Paola. The Count had said she was unhappy.

  Brunetti's thoughts went from Paola's happiness to his own, and he surprised himself by realizing that it had never before occurred to him to wonder whether he was happy or not. In love with his wife, proud of his children, capable of doing his job well, why would he worry about happiness, and what more than these things could happiness be comprised of? He dealt every day with people who believed they weren't happy and who further believed that by committing some crime - theft, murder, deceit, blackmail, even kidnapping - they would find the magic elixir that would transform the perceived misery of their lives into that most desired of states: happiness. Brunetti found himself too often forced to examine the consequences of those crimes, and what he saw was often the destruction of all happiness.

  Paola frequently complained that no one at the university listened to her, indeed that few people ever bothered to listen to what anyone else said, but Brunetti had never included himself in that denunciation. But did he listen to her? When she railed on about the plummeting quality of her students and the grasping self-interest of her colleagues, was he attentive enough? No sooner had he asked himself this, than the thought snaked into his mind: did she listen to him when he complained about Patta or about the various incompetencies that were part of his daily life? And surely the consequences Of what he observed were far more serious than those of some student who didn't remember who wrote I Promessi Sposi or didn't know who Aristotle was.

  Suddenly disgusted with the futility of all of this, he got up and went over to the window. Bonsuan's boat was back at its moorings, but the pilot was nowhere in sight. Brunetti knew that his refusal to recommend Lieutenant Scarpa for promotion had cost Bonsuan his promotion, but Brunetti's near certainty that the Lieutenant had betrayed a witness and caused her death made it difficult to be in the same room with him, impossible for him to go on record as approving of his behaviour. He regretted that the price of his contempt for Scarpa would have to be paid by Bonsuan, but Brunetti could see no way clear of it.

  The thought of Paola returned, but he pushed it away and turned from the window. He went downstairs and into Signorina Elettra's office. 'Signorina,' he said as he went in, 'I think if s time to begin taking another look at the Lorenzoni case.'

  'Then it was the boy?' she asked, looking up from her keyboard.

  ‘I think so, but I'm waiting for Vianello to call me. He's checking the dental records.'

  'The poor mother,' Elettra said and then added, ‘I wonder if she's religious.'

  my?'

  'It helps people when terrible things happen, when people die’

  'Are you?' Brunetti asked.

  'Per carita’ she said, pushing the idea back towards him with raised hands. "The last time I was in church was for my confirmation. It would have upset my parents if I hadn't done it, which was pretty much the same for all my friends. But since then I've had nothing to do with it.'

  'Then why did you say that it helps people?'

  'Because it's true’ she said simply. 'The fact that I don't believe in it doesn't prevent it from helping other people. I'd be a fool to deny that.'

  And Signorina Elettra was no fool, well he knew that. 'What about the Lorenzonis?' Brunetti asked, and before she could ask, he clarified the question. 'No, I'm not interested in their religious ideas. I'd like to know anything I can about them: their marriage, their businesses, where they have homes, who their friends are the name of their lawyer’

  1 think a lot of this would be in Il Gazzettino’ she said. ‘I can
see what's in the files.'

  'Can you do this without leaving fingerprints, as it were?' he asked, though he wasn't sure why he didn't want to make it evident that he was looking into the family.

  'Like the whiskers of a cat’ she said with what sounded like real pleasure, or pride. She nodded down at the keyboard of her computer.

  'With that?' Brunetti asked.

  She smiled. 'Everything's in here’

  'Like what?'

  'Whether any of them has ever had any trouble with us’ she answered, and he wondered if she was aware of how entirely unconscious her use of that pronoun had been.

  ‘I suppose you could’ Brunetti said. 1 hadn't thought of that’

  'Because of his title?' she asked, one eyebrow raised, the opposite side of her mouth curved up in a smile.

  Brunetti, recognizing the truth of this, shook his head in silent negation. 'I don't remember ever hearing their name mixed up with anything. Aside from the kidnapping, that is. Do you know anything about them?'

  'I know that Maurizio has a temper that sometimes works to other people's cost.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'That he doesn't like not to get his way, and when he doesn't, his behaviour is unpleasant.' 'How do you know?'

  'I know it the way I know many things about the physical health of people in the city’ 'Barbara?'

  'Yes. Not because she was the doctor involved - I don't think she'd tell me then. But we were at dinner with another doctor, the one who substitutes for her when she's on vacation, and he said that he had a female patient whose hand had been broken by Maurizio Lorenzoni.'

  'He broke her hand? How?'

  'He slammed his car door on it'

  Brunetti raised his eyebrows. 'I see what you mean by "unpleasant".'

  She shook her head. 'No, it wasn't as bad as it sounds, not really. Even the girl said he didn't intend to do it. They'd had an argument. Apparently they'd been to dinner out on the mainland somewhere, and he'd invited her to the villa, the one where the other boy was kidnapped. She refused and asked him to drive her back to Venice. He was very angry, but he did finally drive her back. When they got to the garage at Piazzale Roma, someone was in his parking space, so he had to park right up against the wall. That meant she had to get out on the driver's side. But he didn't realize that and slammed his door just as she was reaching up to grab onto the frame to help pull herself out.'