A Noble Radiance

by Donna Leon

'Nothing yet, sir, but I've got a number of interesting leads.' This measured lie, Brunetti thought, would suggest that enough was happening to keep him on the case, yet would not seem so successful as to prompt Patta to ask for details.

  'Good, good,' Patta muttered, enough for Brunetti to infer that he was not at all interested in the Lorenzonis. He asked nothing; long experience had shown him that Patta preferred people to worm news out of him, rather than to tell them straightforwardly. Brunetti wasn't going to help him out.

  'It’s about this programme, Brunetti,' Patta finally said:

  'Yes, sir? Brunetti inquired politely.

  'The one RAI is doing about the police.'

  Brunetti remembered something about a police programme to be produced and edited in a film studio in Padova. He'd had a letter some weeks ago, asking if he would agree to serve as consultant, or was it commentator? He'd tossed the letter into his wastepaper basket and forgotten about it. 'Yes, sir?' he repeated, no less politely.

  'They want you.'

  'I beg your pardon, sir.'

  'You. They want you to be the consultant and to give them a long interview about how the police system works.'

  Brunetti thought of the work that waited for him, thought of the Lorenzoni investigation. 'But that’ s absurd.'

  'That's what I told them,' Patta agreed. 'I told them they needed someone with broader experience, someone who has a wider vision of police work, can see it as a whole, not as a series of individual cases and crimes.'

  One of the things Brunetti most disliked about Patta was the fact that the cheap melodrama of his life always had such bad scripts.

  'And what did they say to this suggestion, sir?'

  'They have to call Rome. That's where the original suggestion came from. They're supposed to get back to me tomorrow morning.' Patta's inflection turned this into a question and one that demanded an answer.

  1 can't imagine who could have suggested me for this sort of thing, sir. If s not anything I like or anything I want to be involved with.'

  'I've told them that,' Patta said, but when he caught Brunetti's look of sharp surprise, added, ‘I knew you wouldn't want to be taken away from this Lorenzoni thing, not after having just reopened it.'

  'And so?' Brunetti asked. 'And so I suggested that they choose someone else.'

  'Someone with broader experience?' 'Yes.'

  'Who?' Brunetti asked bluntly.

  'Myself, of course,' Patta said, tone level and in the instructional mode, as if giving the boiling point of water.

  Brunetti, though it was true that he wanted no part of a television programme, found himself unaccountably enraged by Patta's blithe assumption that he could take it for himself, just like that.

  'It was TelePadova, wasn't it?' Brunetti asked.

  'Yes. Whaf s that got to do with anything?' Patta asked. Television was television to the Vice-Questore.

  Caught in the grip of sheer perversity, Brunetti answered, Then perhaps they'll be aiming the programme at an audience in the Veneto, and they might like someone local. You know, sir, someone who speaks dialect or at least sounds like he's from the Veneto’

  All warmth disappeared from Patta's voice or manner. 'I don't see what difference that makes. Crime is a national problem and one that must be treated nationally, not divided up province by province, as you seem to think it should be’ His eyes narrowed and he asked, 'You aren't a member of this Lega Nord, are you?'

  Brunetti, who wasn't, didn't believe that Patta had any right either to ask the question or get an answer to it. 'I didn't realize you'd called me in to have a political discussion, sir’

  It was with evident difficulty that Patta, the bright prize of a television appearance dancing before his eyes, reined in his anger. 'No, but I mention it to you to point out the dangers of that sort of thinking.' He straightened a folder on the top of his desk and asked, voice as calm as if the subject was just being introduced, 'Now, what are we going to do about this television thing?'

  Brunetti, ever open to the seduction of language, was enchanted with Patta's use of the plural, as well as with his dismissal of the programme as a 'television thing'. He must want it desperately, Brunetti realized.

  'When they call you, just tell them that I'm not interested’

  'And then what?' Patta asked, waiting to see what Brunetti was going to ask in exchange for this.

  "Then make any suggestion you please, sir.' Patta's expression made it clear that he didn't believe a word of what Brunetti was saying. In the past, he'd had ample proof of his subordinate's instability: he'd once referred to a Canaletto his wife had hanging in the kitchen; Brunetti had himself turned down a promotion to work directly for the Minister of the interior in Rome, and now this, proof of sovereign madness if ever Patta had seen it: the flat rejection of a chance to appear on television.

  'Very well. If that's the way you feel about it, Brunetti, I'll tell them.' As was his habit, Patta moved some papers around on the surface of his desk, thus giving evidence of his labours. 'Now, what's happening with the Lorenzonis?'

  'I've spoken to the nephew and to some people who know him’

  'Why?' Patta asked with real surprise.

  'Because he's become the heir’ Brunetti didn't know this to be true, but in the absence of any other male Lorenzoni, he believed it a safe assumption.

  'Are you suggesting he's responsible for his own cousin's murder?' Patta asked.

  'No, sir. I'm suggesting he's the one person who appears to have profited the most from his cousin's death, and so I think he bears examination.'

  Patta said nothing to this, and Brunetti wondered if he were busy contemplating the interesting new theory that personal profit might serve as a motive for crime to see if it might be helpful in police work.

  'What else?'

  'Very little,' Brunetti answered. 'There are a few other people I want to talk to, and then I'd like to speak to his parents again’

  'Roberto's?' Patta asked.

  Brunetti bit back the temptation to answer that Maurizio's parents, one dead and one absent, would be difficult to speak to. 'Yes.'

  ‘You realize who he is, of course?' Patta asked.

  'Lorenzoni?'

  'Count Lorenzoni,' Patta corrected automatically. Though the Italian government had done away with titles of nobility decades ago, Patta was among those who would always love a lord.

  Brunetti let it pass. ‘I’d like to speak to him again. And to his wife.'

  Patta started to object, but then perhaps remembered TelePadova and so said only. Treat them well.'

  'Yes, sir,' Brunetti said. He toyed for a moment with the idea of again bringing up Bonsuan's promotion but said nothing and got to his feet. Patta returned his attention to the papers on his desk and ignored Brunetti's departure.

  Signorina Elettra was still not at her desk, so Brunetti went down to the officers' room, looking for Vianello. When he found the sergeant at his desk, Brunetti said, ‘I think it’s time we talked to those boys who stole Roberto's car.'

  Vianello smiled and nodded towards some papers on his desk. Seeing the rigorously clear type of the laser printer, Brunetti asked, 'Elettra?'

  'No, sir. I thought to call that girl who was going out with him - she complained about police harassment and said she'd already given them to you, but I still asked -1 got their names and then found the addresses.'

  Brunetti pointed to the paper, so different from the usual crabbed scrawl of Vianello's reports.

  'She's teaching me how to use the computer’ Vianello said with pride he made no attempt to disguise.

  Brunetti picked up the paper, holding it at arm's length to read the small print. 'Vianello, this is two names and addresses. You need a computer to get this?'

  'Sir, if you'll look at the addresses, you'll see that one of them is in Genoa, doing his military service. The computer got me that.'

  'Oh’ Brunetti said and looked more closely at the paper. 'And the other one?'

  'H
e's here in Venice, and I've already spoken to him’ Vianello said sulkily.

  'Good work’ Brunetti said, the only way he could think of to soothe Vianello's injured feelings. 'What did he say about the car? And about Roberto?'

  Vianello looked up at Brunetti; the sulks disappeared. 'Just what everyone's been saying. That he was unfiglio di papa with too much money and too little to do. I asked him about the car, and at first he denied it. But I told him there'd be no consequences, that we just wanted to know about it. So he told me that Roberto asked them to do it to get his father's attention. Well, Roberto didn't say that; it's what the boy said. In fact, he sounded sort of sorry for him, for Roberto.'

  When he saw Brunetti start to speak, he clarified his remark. 'No, not that he's dead, or not only that he's dead. It seemed to me like he was sorry that Roberto had to go to. such lengths to get his father's attention, that he could be so lonely, so lost.'

  Brunetti grunted in assent, and Vianello went on.

  'They drove the car to Verona and left it in a parking garage, then took the train home. Roberto gave them the money for it all, even took them to dinner afterwards’

  ‘They were still friends when he disappeared, weren't they?'

  ‘It seems so, though this one - Niccolo Pertusi -1 know his uncle, who says he's a good boy - but Niccolo said Roberto seemed like a different person the last few weeks before it happened. Tired, no more jokes, always talking about how bad he felt, and about the doctors he saw.'

  'He was only twenty-one,' Brunetti said.

  'I know. Strange, isn't it? I wonder if he was really sick.' Vianello laughed. 'My Aunt Lucia would say it was a warning. Only she'd say it was’ and here Vianello added creepy emphasis, '"A Warning"‘

  'No,' Brunetti said. 'It sounds to me like he really was sick.'

  Neither of them had to say it Brunetti nodded and went up to his office to make the call-—

  As usual, he lost ten minutes in explaining to various secretaries and nurses just who he was and what he wanted, then another five in assuring the specialist in Padova, Doctor Giovanni Montini, that the information about Roberto Lorenzoni was necessary. More time passed as the doctor had a nurse look for Roberto's file.

  When he finally had it, the doctor told Brunetti what he'd already heard so often he was beginning to feel the same symptoms: lassitude, headache, and general malaise.

  'And did you ever determine what the cause was, ‘

  Doctor?' Brunetti asked. 'After all, it’s surely unusual for a man in the prime of youth to have these symptoms?'

  It could have been depression’ the doctor suggested.

  'Roberto Lorenzoni didn't sound like a depressive type to me. Doctor,' Brunetti said.

  'No, perhaps not’ the doctor agreed. Brunetti could hear pages being turned. 'No, I've no idea what might have been wrong,' the doctor finally said. 'The lab results might have said.'

  'Lab results?' Brunetti asked.

  ‘Yes, he was a private patient and could pay for them himself. I ordered a whole battery of tests.' Brunetti could have asked if a patient with the same symptoms who was on the public health rolls would have been left untested. Instead, he asked, '"Might have said". Doctor?'

  'Yes, I don't have them here in the file’

  'And why might that be?' Brunetti asked.

  'Since he never called to make a follow-up appointment,. I suppose we never requested the results from the lab.'

  'Would it be possible to do that now, Doctor?'

  The doctor's reluctance was audible. 'It’s quite irregular.'

  'But do you think you could get the results, Doctor?'

  1 don't see any way that could help.'

  'Doctor, at this point, any Information we have about the boy might help us find the people who murdered him’ It had long been Brunetti's experience that, no matter how inured people might have become to the word ‘death', all of them responded the same way to the word 'murder'.

  After a long pause, the doctor asked, 'Isn't there some official way you can request them?'

  'Yes, there is, but it's a slow and complicated process. Doctor, you could save us a lot of time and paperwork if you'd request them.'

  'Well, I suppose so,' Doctor Montini said, reluctance again audible.

  Thank you, Doctor,' Brunetti said and gave him the fax number of the Questura.

  Having been finessed into sending the fax, the doctor took the only revenge he could. 'By the end of the week, then’ and hung up before Brunetti could say anything.

  20

  Remembering Patta's admonition to treat the Lorenzonis well - whatever that meant - Brunetti called the number of Maurizio's cellular and asked if he could speak to the family that evening.

  ‘I don't know if my aunt is able to see anyone’ Maurizio said, speaking over the noise of what sounded like street traffic.

  'Then I need to speak to you and your uncle’ Brunetti said.

  'We've already spoken to you, spoken to all kinds of police, for about two years, and what’s it got us?' the young man asked. The words, Brunetti realized, Came from the text of sarcasm, but they were spoken in the tones of grief .

  1 can understand your feelings’ Brunetti said, knowing this was a lie, ‘But I need to get more information from your uncle, and from you.'

  'What sort of information?7

  'About Roberto's friends. About a number of things. About the Lorenzoni businesses, for one.'

  'What about the businesses?' Maurizio asked, this time having to raise his voice over the background noise. Whatever he said next was blotted out by a man's voice speaking over what sounded like a public address system.

  'Where are you?' Brunetti asked.

  'On the 82, just pulling into Rialto,' Maurizio answered, then repeated his question, 'What about the businesses?'

  'The kidnapping could be related to them.'

  'That's absurd,' Maurizio said heatedly, his next words drowned out by the repeated message that Rialto was the next stop.

  'What time may I come and talk to you tonight?' Brunetti asked as if Lorenzoni had raised no objections.

  There was a pause. Both of them listened to the voice on the public address system, this time in English, and then Maurizio said, 'Seven,' and broke the connection.

  The idea that the Lorenzoni business interests might have been involved in the kidnapping was anything but absurd. Quite the contrary, the businesses were the source of the wealth that made the boy a target. From what he had heard about Roberto, it seemed unlikely to Brunetti that anyone would kidnap him for the pleasure of his company or the delights of his conversation. The thought had come unbidden, but Brunetti was ashamed at having entertained it even for an instant. For God's sake, he was only twenty-one years old, and he had been killed by a bullet through his head.

  Some odd linkage of ideas in his mind had Brunetti remembering something Paola had once said, years ago, when he told her about the way Alvise, the dullest policeman on the force, had been suddenly transformed by love, raving on about the many charms of his girlfriend or wife - Brunetti could now no longer remember which. He recalled laughing at the very idea of Alvise in love, laughing until Paola had said, voice icy, 'Just because we're smarter than people doesn't mean our emotions are any finer, Guido.'

  Embarrassed, he had tried to argue the point, but she had been, as she always was when intellectual truth was concerned, both rigorous and relentless. 'It's convenient for us to think that the nasty emotions, hate and anger, can adhere to the lower orders as if they owned them by right. So that leaves us, not surprisingly, to lay claim to love and joy and all those high-souled things.' He'd tried to protest, but she'd cut him short with a gesture. "They love, the stupid and the dull and the crude, quite as strongly as we do. They just can't dress their emotions up in pretty words the way we do.'

  Part of him had known she was right, but it had taken him days to admit it. He thought of that now: no matter how arrogant the Count or how spoilt the Contessa might have bee
n, they were parents whose only child had been murdered. That their blood and manners were noble did not exclude the fact that their grief was, too.

  He arrived at seven, and this time a maid let him into the Lorenzonis' home. She led him to the same room as before, and he found himself in the company of the same people. Only they were not the same. The Count's face was drawn more tightly over the bones beneath it, the nose sharper and more aquiline than before. Maurizio had lost whatever glow of health or, if nothing else, youth he had possessed the last time and seemed to be wearing clothes a size too large for him.

  But the worst was the Contessa. She sat in the same chair, but now she gave the impression that the chair was in the process of devouring her, so little of her body seemed to remain within its enveloping wings. Brunetti glanced at her and was shocked by the skull-like hollows in front of her ears, the tendons and bones visible in the hands that clutched the beads of a rosary.

  None of them acknowledged his entrance, though the maid spoke his name when she led him in. Suddenly uncertain how to proceed, Brunetti spoke to a point somewhere between the Count and his nephew. ‘I know this is painful for you, all of you, but I need to know more about why Roberto might have been taken and to discover who might have done it.'

  The Countess said something so softly that Brunetti didn't hear her. He glanced down at her, but her eyes remained on her hands and on the beads that slipped through her thin fingers.

  ‘I don't see why any of this is necessary,' the Count said, making no attempt to disguise his anger.

  'Now that we know what has happened’ Brunetti began, 'we'll continue our investigation’ 'To what purpose?' the Count demanded. 'To find the people who are responsible for this’

  'What difference will that make?' ‘Perhaps to prevent its happening again.' 'They can't kidnap my son again. They can't kill him again’

  Brunetti glanced down at the Countess to see if she was following what was being said, but she gave no sign of hearing. 'But they could be stopped from doing it again, to someone else, or to someone else's son’

  'That hardly matters to us,' the Count said, and Brunetti believed he meant it.