Beastly Things

by Donna Leon

  Her dark hair was cut close to her head, suggesting a boyishness that was quickly dispelled by her full bosom and the tight-waisted skirt she wore. Her legs, Brunetti noticed, were good, her smile relaxed and welcoming. When she reached them, she raised her hand and offered it, first to Vianello, who was closer to her, and then to Brunetti, then tilted her head back to get a better view of the two men, each so much taller than she.

  She indicated the building and turned towards it, not bothering to waste words against the noise.

  They followed her up the steps and into the building, where the noise grew less, and even less again when the woman reached behind them to close the door. They now stood in a small vestibule about two metres by three, cement-floored, utterly utilitarian. The walls were white plasterboard, without decoration. The only object in the room was a video camera suspended from the ceiling and aimed at the door, where they were standing. ‘Yes,’ she said, watching the relief on both their faces, ‘it’s quieter in here. If not, we’d all be driven mad.’ She was close to thirty, but not yet there, and had the easy grace of a woman at home in her body and with no anxieties about it.

  ‘I’m Giulia Borelli,’ she said, ‘I’m Dottor Papetti’s assistant. As I explained to your colleague, Dottor Papetti is in Treviso this morning. He’s asked me to help you in any way we can.’ She gave a small smile, the sort one gives to visitors or prospective clients. How many women would work at a slaughterhouse? Brunetti asked himself.

  Then, with a look of open curiosity, she asked, ‘You’re really the police from Venice?’ Her voice was curiously deep for so small a woman, musical with the cadence of the Veneto.

  Brunetti said that they were. Closer to her, he saw the freckles sprayed across her nose and cheeks; they added to the general impression of health. She ran the fingers of her right hand through her hair. ‘If you come to my office, we can talk,’ she said.

  The iron-rich odour had diminished here, as well. Would air conditioning do that? Brunetti wondered, and, if so, what would happen in the winter, when this part of the building was heated? He and Vianello followed her through a door and into a corridor that led to the back of the building. He was aware that his senses had been both battered and starved since he left the car. His hearing and sense of smell had been overloaded with sensation, shocked into a state where they might not be capable of registering any new smell or sound, while his sense of sight had been heightened by the blank room and corridor.

  Signorina Borelli opened a door, then stepped back to let them go in ahead. This room, too, was close to naked. There was a desk with a computer and some papers on it, a chair behind it and three in front, and nothing else. More unsettling, there were no windows: all light came from multiple neon strips in the ceiling that created a textureless, dull illumination that deprived the room of any sense of depth.

  She went behind the desk and sat, leaving them to take their places in front. ‘Your colleague said you wanted to talk about Dottor Nava,’ she said in a level voice. She leaned forward, body bent towards them.

  ‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Could you tell me when he came to work here?’ he asked.

  ‘About six months ago.’

  ‘And his duties?’ Brunetti asked, continuing to evade the use of either the present or the past tense and hoping he did so naturally. Vianello took out his notebook and began to write.

  ‘He inspects the animals that are brought in.’

  ‘For what purpose?’ Brunetti asked.

  ‘To see if they’re healthy,’ she answered.

  ‘And if they’re not?’

  Signorina Borelli seemed surprised at the question, as though the answer should be self-evident. ‘Then they aren’t slaughtered. The farmer takes them back.’

  ‘Any other duties?’

  ‘He inspects some of the meat.’ She sat back and raised one arm to point behind her to the left. ‘It’s refrigerated. Obviously, he can’t inspect it all, but he does look at samples and decides if it’s safe for human consumption.’

  ‘And if it’s not?’

  ‘Then it’s destroyed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s burned.’

  ‘I see,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Any other duties?’

  ‘No, only those two things.’

  ‘How many days a week is he here?’ Brunetti asked, as if he had not already had this information from the dead man’s wife.

  ‘Two. Monday and Wednesday mornings.’

  ‘And the other days? What does he do?’

  If she was puzzled by the question, she did not hesitate to answer it. ‘He has a private practice. Most of the examining veterinarians do.’ She smiled and shrugged, then said, ‘It would be hard to live on what they earn here.’

  ‘But you don’t know where?’

  ‘No,’ she said regretfully, then said, ‘But it’s probably in our files, on his application. I could easily find out for you.’

  Brunetti held up a hand both to acknowledge and decline her offer. In a friendly voice, he asked, ‘Could you give me a clearer idea of how things work here? That is, how is it that he inspects animals on only two days?’ He spread his hands in a gesture of confusion.

  ‘It’s quite simple, really,’ she said, using an expression most commonly chosen to begin an explanation of something that was not simple. ‘Most farmers get their animals here the day before the slaughtering, or the same day. That saves them the cost of keeping and feeding and watering the animals while they wait. Dottor Nava inspects them on Monday and Wednesday, and they’re processed after that.’ She paused to see if Brunetti was following, and Brunetti nodded. He was, as well, mulling over the verb ‘processed’.

  ‘And if he doesn’t see them?’ Vianello broke in to ask, also using the deliberately deceptive present tense.

  She raised her eyebrows, either at the discovery that the Inspector could speak or at the question itself. ‘That’s never happened before. Luckily, his predecessor has agreed to come in and do the inspections and continue with them until Dottor Nava comes back.’

  Imperturbable, Brunetti asked, ‘And the name of his predecessor?’

  She could not disguise her surprise. ‘Why do you want to know that?’

  ‘In case it becomes necessary to speak to him,’ Brunetti answered.

  ‘Meucci. Gabriele Meucci.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Signorina Borelli straightened up, as though she thought that would be the end of it, but Brunetti asked, ‘Could you give me the names of the other people Dottor Nava is in contact with here?’

  ‘Aside from me and the Director, Dottor Papetti, there’s the chief knacker, Leonardo Bianchi. He might know other people, but we’re the ones he deals with most frequently.’

  She smiled, but the wattage was now dimmer. ‘I think it’s time you explained why you’re asking all these questions, Commissario. Perhaps I watch too much television, but usually this kind of conversation takes place when someone has died and the police are trying to get information about him.’

  Her glance went back and forth between the two men. Vianello kept his head bent over his notebook, leaving it to his superior to answer.

  ‘We have reason to believe that Dottor Nava has been the victim of violence,’ Brunetti said, unable to resist the bureaucrat’s need to release information in small portions.

  Just then, as if to draw attention to the phrase, a shrill noise penetrated whatever acoustical insulation was meant to protect this room from the reality beyond it. Unlike the previous long cry, this one was not drawn out, only three short blasts like the ones that on the vaporetti were a command to abandon ship. There were three more cries, muffled this time, and then the animal making them was forced to abandon ship, and the noises stopped.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Signorina Borelli asked, visibly shaken.

  Confused for an instant by the object of her curiosity, it took Brunetti a moment to answer. ‘We think so, yes.’

 
‘What does that mean: you think so?’ she demanded, looking back and forth between them. ‘You’re the police, for heaven’s sake. If you don’t know, then who does?’

  ‘We still don’t have a positive identification,’ Brunetti said.

  ‘Does that mean you’re going to ask me to make one?’ she asked, voice hot with the outrage ignited by Brunetti’s last remark.

  ‘No,’ Brunetti said calmly. ‘We’ve already found a person to do that.’

  She leaned forward suddenly, her head extended like a snake about to strike, and said, ‘You’re cold-hearted, aren’t you? You tell me he’s been the victim of violence, but the fact that you’re here means he’s dead, and the fact that you’re asking all these questions means someone killed him.’ She wiped at her eyes as she spoke and seemed to have trouble finishing some of her words.

  Vianello looked up from his notebook and studied Signorina Borelli’s face.

  She propped her elbows on the desk and lowered her face into her upraised palms. ‘We find a good man, and this happens to him,’ she said. Brunetti had no idea how to interpret ‘good’, and there was no hint in her voice. Did she judge Nava to be a competent man or a decent one?

  After a short time, and still not completely in control, she said, ‘If you have more questions, you’ll have to ask Dottor Papetti.’ She slapped both palms on the desk, and the noise seemed to calm her. ‘What else do you want?’

  ‘Would it be possible to look at your facility?’

  ‘You don’t want to,’ she said without thinking.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Brunetti said.

  ‘You don’t want to see what we do here.’ She sounded entirely calm and reasonable. ‘No one does. Believe me.’

  Few remarks could have as effectively steeled Brunetti’s intention to see what went on here.

  ‘We do,’ he said and got to his feet.

  19

  FOR ALL THE care they had taken in dressing, Vianello and Brunetti might as well have worn tuxedos to the slaughterhouse. The first thing Signorina Borelli did, in the face of Brunetti’s adamant insistence that they be taken to see where Dottor Nava had worked, was to phone the chief knacker, Leonardo Bianchi, and ask him to meet them in the changing room. Then she led them from her office, down a cement-floored corridor, up a double flight of stairs and into a spartan room that reminded Brunetti of the ones he had seen in American films of high schools: metal lockers lined the walls, a table in the centre was chipped and scarred with cigarette burns and spills of thick, dried liquid. Benches held crumpled copies of La Gazzetta dello Sport as well as discarded socks and empty paper cups.

  She led them silently across the room to a locker, took a key ring from her pocket and used a small key to open the padlock on the door. She reached in and pulled out a folded white paper jumpsuit of the sort worn by the men on the crime squad, shook it open and handed it to Brunetti, another to Vianello. ‘Take your shoes off to put it on,’ she said.

  Brunetti and Vianello obeyed the instructions. By the time they had their shoes on again, she had found two sets of transparent plastic shoe covers. Silently she handed them to Brunetti. He and Vianello slipped them on. Next came transparent plastic caps that looked like the ones Paola wore in the shower. They pulled them over their hair.

  Signorina Borelli looked them up and down, saying nothing. The door opposite the one they had used opened, and a tall bearded man came into the room. He wore a long smock that had once been white but was now grey: there were broad red smears across the front and sides. Brunetti looked at his feet and was glad she had given them the plastic covers.

  The man, whom Brunetti understood must be the chief knacker, nodded to Signorina Borelli and looked at the two men indifferently. She made no attempt to introduce them. The man said, ‘Come with me, gentlemen.’ Brunetti and Vianello followed Bianchi towards the door. When he opened it, cries and howls were newly audible, and heavy thumps and clangs came from beyond it.

  He led them down a narrow corridor towards a door about five metres ahead of them. Brunetti was intensely aware of the ruffling noise made by his protective suit and the slippery feel under his feet as his shoes slid around inside their plastic covers. He looked down to see what the surface of the floor was, the better to calculate the sort of purchase his feet would have. His step faltered for the briefest instant when he saw a bloody sole-print on the floor, heading their way. He moved his right foot quickly to the side and came down heavily in order to avoid stepping on the other print, too late realizing that it wouldn’t make any difference, not really; at least not beyond the level of superstition.

  Brunetti shot a quick glance behind him and caught sight of Vianello’s strained face; he quickly returned his attention to Bianchi’s back. Brunetti shivered: the increasing noise had obliterated other sensitivities, and he had not noticed the cold until now. Vianello made a humming noise that was barely audible. Noise and cold intensified as they got closer to the door. Bianchi stopped in front of it and put his hand on the metal bar that stretched across it. Push down, and the door would open.

  He stared at Brunetti, looked beyond him to Vianello, saying nothing, his question in his eyes. Brunetti had a moment’s uncertainty about the wisdom of all of this, but Nava’s wife had said that the veterinarian was troubled by something taking place here.

  Brunetti lifted his chin in a signal that could have been command or encouragement. Bianchi turned away from him and pushed down on the bar, swinging open the door. Sound, cold, and light spilled over them. The cries and howls, whimpers and thuds mingled in a modern cacophony that assaulted more than their sense of hearing. Most sounds are neutral. Footsteps all sound the same, really: the menace comes from the setting in which they are heard. Running water, too, is no more than that. Bathtub overfilling, mountain stream: context is all. Unweave a symphony and the air is filled with odd, unrelated noises that no longer follow one another. A howl of pain, however, is always that, whether it comes from a beast with two or four legs, and a human voice raised in anger causes the same reaction regardless of the language in which the anger is expressed or whom it is directed at.

  The stimuli given to the other senses did not permit of pretty word or thought games: Brunetti’s stomach contracted away from a smell that was as strong as a blow, and his eyes attempted to flee from red in all its varieties and all its striations. His mind intervened, forcing him to think and in thought to find some escape from what surrounded him. He thought it was William James: yes, William James, the brother of the man his wife loved, a half-memory of something he’d written more than a hundred years ago, that the human eye was always pulled to ‘things that move, things that something else, blood’.

  Brunetti attempted to hold those words up in front of him, like a shield from behind which he could look at what was happening. He saw that they were on a grated catwalk protected on both sides by handrails and raised at least three metres from the work area beneath them. Seeing and not seeing, perceiving and failing to perceive, he guessed, from the sight of so much empty space beneath them, that the work was nearing its end. Six or seven yellow-booted men in white rubber coats and yellow hard-hats moved below them in the cement-floored cubicles and did things with knives and pointed instruments to pigs and sheep; hence the noise. Animals fell at the feet of the men, but some managed to flee, crashing into the walls before slipping and falling. Others, wounded and bleeding and unable to get to their feet, continued to flail about with their legs, feet scrambling against floors and walls, while the men dodged their hooves to deliver another blow.

  Some of the sheep, Brunetti noticed, were protected from the knives by their thick coats and had to be struck repeatedly on the head by what looked like metal rods that ended in hooks. Occasionally the hooks were used for other purposes, but Brunetti looked away before he could be sure of that, though the wail that always followed the desertion of his eyes left no doubt about what went on.

  The sheep made low, animal noises – grunts and bleats �
�� while the pigs struck him as sounding not unlike what he, or Vianello, would sound like, were they down there and not up here. The calves bleated.

  The smell bored into his nose: it was not only the iron-sharp tang of blood but the invasive stench of offal and excrement. Just as Brunetti realized that, he heard the water and gave unconscious, unknowing thanks for the sound. He looked to the source and saw one of the white-coated men below them spray an empty cubicle with what seemed to be a fire hose. The worker stood, legs widespread, the better to brace his body against the force of the jet of water that he sprayed across the floor of the cubicle, waving the stream back and forth so as to wash everything down an open grille in the cement.

  The walls of the cubicles were made of wire fencing, so water coursed into the adjacent one, swirling away the blood that ran from the nose and mouth of a pig that lay against a wall, feet scraping across the floor in a vain attempt to push himself farther from the man who stood above him. The man there used his metal pole, and when Brunetti looked back, the pig appeared to have taken flight and was ascending towards them, perhaps to leave this place behind and continue – who knew where? Brunetti turned away as the pig’s twitching body appeared beside him, joined to a metal chain by a hook through its neck. Brunetti looked for and found Vianello, but before either could speak, a rash of sudden red spots splashed across the Inspector’s chest. Vianello, stunned, glanced down and raised a hand to try to wipe the red away, but he never completed the gesture: the hand fell to his side, and he looked at Brunetti, face blank.

  A cranking noise made them return their attention to the twitching pig, which was now moving away from them towards the double plastic flaps of a broad door at the other end of the room. When he saw the pig’s body push the door open and disappear, Brunetti abandoned his quaint idea of intervention or salvation for the doomed beast.

  Brunetti cleared his throat and tapped Bianchi on the shoulder. ‘Where do they go from here?’ he asked above the clanks and cries.