by Donna Leon
‘I thought the NAS took care of all of that,’ he said.
‘Yes, they do, at least in Italy.’ She gave the computer keys an affectionate caress then whisked away a random mote of dust from the screen. Then, brightly, looking across at him, ‘It seems there is a small clause near the end of the ministerial decree, making provision for local entities to apply for supplementary funding.’
Conscious of how formulaic their conversation sometimes became, he asked, ‘Funding for what purpose, Signorina?’
‘To help with research at the local level into …’ she began. A quiet sigh escaped her lips and she held up a hand. The other, like the tongue of a mother cat too long prevented from licking its newest-born, began to smooth the keys, and her eyes fell to the screen. She tapped out a silent request.
Brunetti came around the desk and sat.
In less than a minute, she looked up at him, then back at the screen, and read, ‘“… at the local level to ensure that all efforts on the part of the competent Ministry to investigate and impede the counterfeiting of patented products be initiated and supported by supplementary funding in accordance with Regulation blah blah blah, subsection blah blah, with supplementary reference to Ministerial Decree blah blah blah, of 23 February 2001.”’
‘And when that is not pretending to make sense, what might it mean?’ Brunetti inquired.
‘It creates another pig’s trough where the clever can dine, sir,’ she said simply, her eyes still on the screen as though they delighted in dining off some rich interpretation of those words. When Brunetti did not respond, she went on, ‘And in essence it means that we are free to use the money as we please, so long as our intention is to investigate and impede the production of these products.’
‘That would certainly give the agency doing the investigating and the impeding a great deal of latitude in how to spend the money.’
‘They are not fools, these men in Brussels,’ she observed.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that it is another gift to bureaucrats who are as inventive as they.’ Then, after a pause meant perhaps to give weight to what was to follow, she added, ‘Or who have the perseverance to read through the four hundred and twelve pages of the decree to find that particular paragraph.’
‘Or to those who might receive a quiet, private suggestion about where it would be most profitable to direct their attention?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Do I detect the voice of a Euro-sceptic, sir?’
‘You do.’
‘Ah,’ she whispered; then, as if unable to prevent herself from asking, she added, ‘But that won’t stop you from keeping the computer?’
‘In the presence of a trough, it is difficult not to oink,’ Brunetti replied.
She looked at him, eyes wide with delight. ‘I doubt that I have ever heard a more apposite explanation of the failure of our political system, sir.’
Brunetti allowed a few moments to pass so that they might again enjoy the experience of having filled with rich meaning the spaces between their words. Signorina Elettra touched a few keys, then started to get to her feet.
Brunetti raised a hand to stop her. ‘Do you remember that trouble on the autostrada last year?’ Realizing how unclear his question was, he added, ‘With the farmers?’
‘About milk quotas?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about it, sir?’
‘A man was killed this morning. I’ve just come from talking to Rizzardi.’ She nodded to show that the news of the murder had already reached the Questura. ‘When I saw him – the man, not Rizzardi – I realized he looked familiar, and then I remembered that it was out there on the autostrada that I saw him.’
‘Was he one of the protestors?’
‘No. He was on the other side of the autostrada; his car was one of the ones blocked by the protest. I saw him there, standing with the other people who got stuck.’
‘And you remembered him?’
‘When you read Rizzardi’s report, you’ll understand,’ Brunetti said.
‘What would you like me to do, sir?’
‘Contact the Carabinieri. Lovello in Mestre was in charge of it. See if they’ve got photos or maybe a video.’ So many charges of excessive violence had been brought against the police and the Carabinieri in recent years that some commanders insisted on filming actions with a potential for violence.
‘And check with Televeneto,’ he added. ‘They had a crew out there, so they should have something: see if they’ll give you a copy.’
‘Was RAI there?’
‘I don’t remember. But the local people would know if the big boys showed up. If so, see if you can get them to send you copies of whatever they shot, as well.’
‘What does this man look like?’
‘He’s big, very thick around the shoulders and neck. Beard: he had it then, too. Dark hair, light eyes.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. I’ll tell them that so they can sort through the shots before they send me any.’
‘Good, good,’ Brunetti said.
‘He was stabbed, wasn’t he?’ she asked.
‘Yes. But Rizzardi said he had water in his lungs. They found him in a canal.’
‘Did he drown?’
‘No, the knife killed him.’
‘How old was he?’ she asked.
‘In his forties.’
‘Poor man,’ she said, and Brunetti could but agree.
6
THAT LEFT PATTA. The obligation to deal with his superior often filled Brunetti with an anticipatory weariness, as if he were a swimmer who had miscounted laps and suddenly realized he still had ten to do in water that grew increasingly chilly. Also, like any athlete in competition, Brunetti had made a study of the track record of his opponent. Patta was quick off the block, had no compunction about obstructing the path of other competitors so long as he could get away with doing so, but lacked staying power and often dropped back in any long competition. Unfortunately, no matter how far behind he might fall in a race, he could be depended upon to appear at the award ceremony, and the force did not exist that could prevent him from hauling himself up on to the podium the instant that medals started to be handed round.
To know this was to be forewarned, but to be forewarned served little purpose when one’s opponent was Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, Sicily’s best gift to the forces of order, kept for more than a decade at his position in Venice in anomalous defiance of the rule that high police officials were transferred every few years. Patta’s tenacity in his post had puzzled Brunetti until he realized that the only policemen who were systematically transferred away from the cities where they combated crime were those who met with success, especially those who were successful in their opposition to the Mafia. To manage the arrest of the highest members of a Mafia clan in a major city was to guarantee transfer to some backwater in Molise or Sardegna, where major crimes included the theft of livestock or public drunkenness.
Thus perhaps Patta’s professional longevity in Venice, where the mounting evidence of Mafia infiltration did nothing to spur his efforts to combat it. Mayors came and went, all of them pledging to correct the ills their predecessors had ignored or encouraged. The city grew dirtier, hotels proliferated and rents increased, every available inch of sidewalk space was rented out to someone wanting to sell unusable junk from a portable stall, and still the waves of promises to sweep away all these ills rose up ever new and ever higher. And there, becalmed at a safe distance behind the breaking wave, was Vice-Questore Giuseppe Patta, friend to every politician he had ever met, the now-almost-permanent face of the forces of order in the city.
Brunetti, however, a tolerant and moderate man, had trained himself to count his superior’s virtues rather than his faults, and so he acknowledged that there was no proof that Patta was in the pay of any criminal organization; he had never ordered the mistreatment of a prisoner; he would upon occasion believe incontrovertible evidence of the guilt of a wealthy suspect. Had he been a
judge, Patta would surely have been a thoughtful one, always ready to weigh the social position of the accused. In the broad scale of things, Brunetti often reflected, these were not ruinous weaknesses.
Signorina Elettra sat at her desk outside her superior’s office and smiled at Brunetti as he entered. ‘I thought I’d report to the Vice-Questore,’ he said.
‘He’ll be glad of the distraction,’ she said soberly. ‘His younger son just called to say he’s failed his exam.’
‘The less-bright one?’ Brunetti inquired, forcing himself not to refer to the boy as stupid, though he was.
‘Ah, Commissario, you force me to make a distinction that is beyond my powers,’ she said with a straight face and serious voice.
Some years ago, Roberto Patta had more than once come close to being arrested, saved only by his father’s position. His involvement with the sale of drugs, however, had come to an end in an early morning car crash in which his fiancée had died, and only his father’s position had kept him from being tested for alcohol and drugs until almost a full day after the accident, when both tests proved negative. With her death, however, something seemed to have snapped inside the boy, and he had abandoned – according to the rumours that circulated in the Questura – both drink and drugs and devoted his limited energies to finishing his degree and becoming an accountant.
It was a hopeless attempt. Brunetti knew it; Patta probably did, as well, yet the boy persisted, taking the same exams year after year, always failing them and determining each time to study harder and take them again, probably never pausing to consider that the state exams – should divine intervention confer his degree – would be even more difficult. Various officers whose children were in the same class as he repeated the stories about his dogged efforts, and over the course of years the common mind of the Questura had gone from considering him the spoiled child of a negligent father to the hard-working, if limited, son of a devoted parent. The mystery of it – fatherhood was always a mysterious thing to Brunetti – was Patta’s devotion to his two sons and his desire that they succeed in life by their own merits, an idea that had formed in him in response to the accident.
‘How long ago did he speak to him?’ Brunetti asked.
‘About an hour,’ she answered and then added in a different voice, ‘His father was busy talking on his telefonino so Roberto called me and asked me to put him through.’ She pulled her lips together in resignation. ‘He told me what had happened. He was crying.’
‘How old is he now, do you know?’
‘Twenty-six, I think.’
‘God, he’ll never make it, will he?’
She shook away the very possibility. ‘Not unless someone can fix things for him with the examining committee.’
‘He won’t do it?’ Brunetti asked, indicating with his chin the door to Patta’s office. ‘He’s done it in the past.’
‘He won’t do it any more.’
‘But why?’
‘God knows. It would be easy enough. He’s certainly cultivated the right people in the last decade.’
‘Maybe they don’t know whose son he is,’ Brunetti suggested.
‘Perhaps,’ she answered, clearly not persuaded.
‘So it’s really true?’ Brunetti asked, marvelling at a parent who would not bend a rule to help his child.
Brunetti crossed the room and knocked on Patta’s door.
‘Avanti!’ came the response, and Brunetti went in.
Patta looked older than he had the day before. He was still a fine figure of a man: muscular, broad-shouldered, with a face that cried out to be immortalized in bronze or stone. But there were faint hollows under his cheekbones this morning, something Brunetti had never noticed before, and his skin looked taut and almost dusty.
‘Good morning, Vice-Questore,’ Brunetti said, approaching the desk.
‘Yes, what is it?’ Patta asked, as though a waiter had approached his table while he was deep in conversation.
‘I wanted to tell you about the man who was found over near the Giustinian this morning, sir.’
‘The drowned man?’ Patta asked.
‘The report must have been confused, sir,’ Brunetti said, remaining at some distance from Patta’s desk. ‘There was water in his lungs: that’s in Rizzardi’s report. But he was stabbed before he went into the water. Three times.’
‘So it’s murder?’ Patta said in a voice that registered understanding but was devoid of interest or curiosity.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You better take a seat, then, Brunetti,’ Patta said, as though he had suddenly noticed that the man in front of him was still standing.
‘Thank you, sir,’ answered Brunetti. He sat, careful not to make any sudden moves, at least not until he figured out Patta’s mood.
‘Why would someone stab him and put him in the water?’ Patta asked, and Brunetti refused to allow himself to answer that, if he knew why, he could go out and arrest the person who did it and thus save them all a great deal of time and effort.
‘Do you have an identification?’ Patta asked before Brunetti could respond to his first question.
‘Signorina Elettra is working on it, sir.’
‘I see,’ Patta said and left it at that. Abruptly, the Vice-Questore got to his feet and walked over to the window. He stood gazing out of it for so long that Brunetti began to wonder if he should ask him something in order to recapture his attention, but he decided to wait it out. Patta opened the window and let a draught of soft air into the room, then closed it and came back to his chair. ‘Do you want it?’ he asked when he sat back down.
The options open to Brunetti made the question ludicrous. His choices were Pucetti’s baggage handlers, the anticipated increase in pickpocketing that springtime and Easter were bound to bring to the city, the never-ending illegal harvesting of clams, or a murder. But softly, softly, he warned himself. Never let Patta know what you are thinking, and never ever let him know what you want. ‘If there’s no one else free to handle it, sir. I could pass the Chioggia case’ – how much better than calling it the illegal clamming – ‘to the uniformed branch. Two of them are Chiogiotti and could probably use their families to find out who’s digging the clams.’ Eight years at university to chase after illegal clammers.
‘All right. Take Griffoni: she might like a murder for a change.’ Still, after all these years, Patta could astonish him with some of the things he said.
He could also astonish Brunetti with the things he did not know. ‘She’s in Rome, sir: that course in domestic violence.’
‘Ah, of course, of course,’ Patta said with the wave of a man so busy that he could not be expected to remember everything.
‘Vianello isn’t assigned to anything at the moment.’
‘Take anyone you want,’ Patta said expansively. ‘We can’t have something like this happening.’
‘No, sir. Of course not.’
‘A person can’t come to this city and be murdered.’ Patta managed to sound indignant, but there was no way to tell if his emotions were aroused by what had happened to the man or because of what would happen to tourism as a result. Brunetti did not want to ask.
‘I’ll get busy with it then, sir.’
‘Yes, do,’ Patta told him. ‘Keep me informed of what happens.’
‘Of course, sir,’ Brunetti said. He glanced at Patta, but he had started to read one of the papers that lay on his desk. Saying nothing, Brunetti let himself out of the office.
7
HE CLOSED THE door behind him. In response to Signorina Elettra’s glance, Brunetti said as he approached her desk, ‘He asked me to take the case.’
She smiled. ‘Asked, or did you have to encourage him?’
‘No, the suggestion was his. He even told me to ask Griffoni to work on it with me.’ If her smile had been connected to a dimmer, his words had turned the knob down. He went on, as though he had noticed nothing peculiar about her response to the attractive blonde Commissario’s name, �
�Forgetting she’s in Rome, of course. So I asked for Vianello, and he didn’t object.’
Calm restored, Brunetti decided to hammer it into place and asked, the idea having come to him while he was with Patta, ‘Isn’t there a new rule, some sort of statute of limitations, for students at the university?’ Even Patta did not deserve to be subjected, year after year, to the consequences of this farce.
‘There’s talk of changing the rules so that they have to leave after a certain time,’ she answered, ‘but I doubt that anything will come of it.’
Talk of normal things appeared to have restored her mood; to maintain it, Brunetti asked, ‘Why?’
She turned towards him fully and rested her chin on her hand before she answered. ‘Think about what would happen if everyone agreed to accept the obvious and hundreds of thousands of these students were sent away.’ When he did not comment, she continued. ‘They’d have to accept – and their parents would have to accept – that they are unemployed and likely to remain that way.’ Before Brunetti could speak, she voiced the argument he was about to make: ‘I know they’ve never worked, so they wouldn’t appear in the statistics as having lost their jobs. But they’d have to face the fact, as would their parents, that they’re virtually unemployable.’ Brunetti agreed with her, with a brief nod. ‘So for as long as they’re enrolled in a university, government statistics can ignore them, and they in turn can ignore the fact that they’re never going to have decent jobs.’ He thought she was finished, but she added, ‘It’s an enormous holding pool of young people who live off their parents for years and never learn a skill that would make them employable.’
‘Such as?’ Brunetti inquired.
She raised her hand and ran it through her hair. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Plumbing. Carpentry. Something useful.’
‘Instead of?’
‘The son of a friend of mine has been studying Art Administration for seven years. The government cuts the budget for museums and art every year, but he’s going to get his degree in Art Administration.’