by Donna Leon
She nodded. ‘Fair enough. But it’s no use to him there.’ She considered her own words for a moment and then said, ‘It doesn’t matter where it goes, does it?’ Before either of them could speak, she went on. ‘He can’t put it in the bank. He can’t buy more boats or property because, if he continues to spend more than he earns, sooner or later the Guardia di Finanza will see the red flags and take a closer look at him.’
‘Then what does he do with it?’ Alaimo asked.
Griffoni held her hands up protectively in front of herself and said, ‘I have no idea.’ Then, with a smile, added, ‘What to do with too much money is not a problem I anticipate having, so I’ve never given it much thought.’
‘Why don’t we?’ Brunetti asked.
‘What?’ Alaimo asked.
‘Give it some thought,’ Brunetti answered.
‘I think we can be sure he’s not spending it to take care of widows and orphans,’ Griffoni said coldly.
‘He’s divorced,’ Alaimo added. ‘And he doesn’t seem to have a companion.’
‘Of which sex?’ Griffoni asked.
Brunetti turned to her suddenly. ‘That’s a strange thing to say.’
‘I suppose it is,’ she conceded, ‘but he sounds like a very strange man.’
‘Why?’ Alaimo asked.
‘Because he’s a homophobe, for one thing,’ she said, turning to Brunetti. ‘You told me what Duso said.’ Then she added, ‘Imagine what he thinks of Duso’s friendship with his nephew.’
‘He could just as easily be spending it on drugs,’ Alaimo interrupted, but they could hear that he didn’t really believe this.
Brunetti’s memory flashed back to something Paola had read to him early in their marriage, decades ago. He no longer remembered why she was reading the book: had she been teaching the American novel that year? She’d read him a scene in which a man secretly watched a woman lying on a bed in the building opposite. She had a secret hoard of gold coins, and as he watched, she pulled the coins close to and on to her naked body. With a start, he remembered the erotic rush he’d felt as Paola, golden-haired and lying on the sofa, read him the scene.
‘Would you accept women as a reason?’ Alaimo turned to Brunetti and asked, as though he believed their united male vote would settle the matter. Brunetti failed to speak; Alaimo shrugged.
‘Maybe it’s money,’ Brunetti said, surprising them.
‘What?’ Alaimo asked, as if reluctant to abandon a sexual motive for Borgato’s actions.
‘Just that. Greed. Money. Maybe he simply wants it, more and more of it.’ Brunetti considered the idea as though one of the others had offered it. ‘There are people like that. I’ve known one or two. It’s the motive for everything they do.’
As if speaking from far away or through a bad connection, Griffoni asked lazily, ‘Does it matter?’ When neither of the men answered, she said, ‘Really?’ Still neither man spoke, so she said, ‘It doesn’t matter why he does this; it matters only that he does it, and our main concern is that he can be caught while doing it.’
She looked back and forth between them, waiting for one of them to say something, and when they did not, she spoke into their radiating silence, ‘Which brings us back to the weak link.’
Somehow, Griffoni had become the master of the hunt: the two men pulled their chairs closer to the table and they began to plan just how to bring Pietro Borgato down.
25
They spent endless time in discussion about the best way to make use of Marcello Vio. Lunchtime came and passed; finally, alerted by hunger, Alaimo sent out for a tray of sandwiches and drinks. One of them suggested that they stop while they were eating and talk about something else, but they failed to find that something else and were soon back at finding a way to persuade Marcello to . . . here, the discussion fell apart because Griffoni used the word ‘betray’, and the two men said the word was too strong.
‘Would you prefer “deceive”, she asked them. Or, “mislead”?’ When neither of them answered, she added, ‘Or, “Give him over to the police”?’
This time, Alaimo chose to go to the door and ask one of the men sitting outside to bring three coffees. When he came back and sat down, he looked at her and said, grudgingly, ‘All right. “Betray”.’
Brunetti gave no indication of his approval of her having won the point and remained dispassionate, saying, ‘He’s got to tell us when and where.’
‘For which part of it?’ Griffoni asked.
‘Transferring the women from the bigger ship to Borgato’s or where Borgato lands them?’
‘Since there’s nothing we can do legally when they’re in international waters,’ Alaimo said, ‘all we need is to know where the transfer will happen; then we track him until he lands on Italian territory.’
Alaimo went to his bookshelf and came back with a book of nautical charts. He paged through it for a moment, found what he sought, and placed it, open, on his desk. The others came to stand on either side of him while he ran his forefinger down the open expanse of the Adriatic and stopped at a certain point, tapped there, then moved his finger due west and up and down the coastline. ‘My guess is that it would have to be along here somewhere,’ he said. He slid his finger back across the water to the first point. ‘The ship would have to be here, twelve miles off the coast.’
He pointed to the names of some of the places on the coast. ‘These aren’t easy places to land a small boat; well, most of them aren’t.’
‘Why?’ Griffoni asked.
‘The water’s too shallow. A boat like the ones he has would run aground a few hundred metres from the beach at most of them. Well, depending on the tide. So they’d have to force the women to walk through the water, maybe even carry them.’
He leaned closer to the map to read the names of the locations. ‘My guess is that they’d want a place like this,’ he said, pointing to Duna Verde. He slid his finger farther north and stopped at Spiaggia di Levante. ‘This is a possibility, but storms sometimes change the shape of the sandbanks.’
Alaimo turned the map to make it even easier to read and finally tapped a few times at Cortellazzo. ‘That would be the best place,’ he said, ‘but it’s dangerous.’ Before they could ask, he explained. ‘The Piave enters the laguna there, and all it’s done for thousands of years is cut new channels and then wash them away. Even my best men wouldn’t try to get up that channel at night.’
‘If they knew the tide patterns?’ Brunetti asked. ‘Remember, Borgato’s spent most of his life on the water.’
Alaimo considered this, nodded, picked up the book and left the room. Griffoni got up and went over to the windows to look across at the Giudecca; Brunetti sat and waited, surprised by how little he really knew about the waters around Venice.
Within minutes, Alaimo was back. ‘One of my men grew up there. Yes, it’s possible. If you’re from there and know the tides.’ Griffoni walked back to her chair, but neither she nor Brunetti spoke.
Finally, Griffoni asked, ‘How do we get there?’
Brunetti’s voice was low when he said, ‘Before thinking about that, we should be sure Marcello Vio will cooperate.’
‘So here we are, back at the starting point,’ Alaimo said. He went to the door and pulled it open, called out that someone should come in and take the plates and cups away. No one spoke while a cadet cleared the table, and neither Brunetti nor Griffoni protested when Alaimo told the cadet to bring three more coffees.
‘It all depends on him,’ Alaimo said after they’d drunk their second coffees. Then, explaining the situation at the Capitaneria, he added, ‘I haven’t got the resources to patrol that area every night, and I haven’t got the legal right to board a ship in international waters.’
Brunetti raised his hands in a gesture of near-resignation. ‘So it has to be Marcello.’ The other two nodded, however reluctantly, and Br
unetti went on. ‘If his behaviour at Duso’s place was his reaction to what he saw, and did, that night, then there’s a chance he’ll agree to talk about it.’
‘Talking’s not enough,’ Griffoni observed coldly. Then, as if in opposition to her own remark, she began again, saying, ‘If he’s really the “bravo ragazzo” everyone says he is . . . ’ but she failed to finish the sentence.
Alaimo interrupted to do it for her. ‘Then he’ll tell us.’
‘He won’t do it,’ Brunetti said, seeing it clearly now. ‘He’s too afraid of his uncle. That’s why he was so slow going to the hospital. Two girls lying on the bottom of the boat, blood on them, and he didn’t speed.’ He raised his voice and concluded, ‘Think what would have happened if the police had stopped him for speeding and found the two girls.’ Before either could respond, he added, ‘Once he got them out of the boat, he went home as fast as he could because if he’d been stopped, he would have been fined for speeding, if at all.’
He glanced at Griffoni and saw from her expression that she agreed with him. And Alaimo, when Brunetti looked at him, was nodding.
‘Stalemate?’ Alaimo asked.
Brunetti shook his head and said only, ‘Duso.’
‘His friend?’ Alaimo asked.
Brunetti nodded.
‘What’s he got to do with this?’
‘Marcello went to Duso’s the night of Ferragosto and told him what he’d done. “We killed them. We killed them.” There was a full moon that night, so it would have been easy to see the Nigerian women in the water. Drowning.’
He watched as both of them reached for their phones. ‘There was a full moon the night of Ferragosto,’ he said. ‘We had dinner on the terrace, and we didn’t need candles.’
Griffoni raised a hand, as if to signal that it was her turn to talk. ‘The Nigerian woman said she saw a white man in the water, didn’t she?’
Brunetti nodded.
‘That must have been Marcello, then,’ she said.
After the three of them had sat silent for some time, Alaimo asked Brunetti, ‘Do you have a suggestion?’
Brunetti nodded again. ‘It’s probably a bad one, but it’s the only one I can think of.’
Neither spoke.
‘I need to speak to Duso again,’ Brunetti began. ‘And I need to persuade him to give Marcello some sort of tracking device.’ He looked at Alaimo and said, ‘You know what I mean: something that we can . . .’
Alaimo began to smile and finished the sentence for Brunetti: ‘Follow.’
A pause spread from them and filled the room, suddenly allowing them to hear boats passing in the Canale. Griffoni turned to her left and looked out the window. She gasped, slapping her hand across her mouth and shifting her weight forward as if in preparation to flee the room.
Both men turned and saw the enormous white wall passing the window on its slow imperial passage toward the terminal on the far side of San Basilio.
It was perhaps twenty metres from them, but its enormity made it seem far closer. They sat, like Hansel and Gretel and a friendly host, and watched the Witch of Destruction slip silently past them, allowing them ample time to view the side of her passing body. And then, as her tailless back-end passed in front of them, they saw the dark trail she left above and behind, sure to be cancelled by the next creature to pass or by a puff of benevolent breeze. The true price of her passing would be obliterated by the magic incantation of the forces that commanded the Witch and that transformed her horror into beauty and made her a princess to be desired by all.
Alaimo looked away first, perhaps because this was a spectacle granted to him every day, and he had grown numb.
Finally, Alaimo said, ‘We use a tracking device that fits in a watch.’
Seeing their curiosity, he said, ‘We’ve had people who load cargo take them off and stick them into stolen cars that were on ships sailing to Africa; one ended up behind a refrigerator in the galley of another ship; another one was on the wrist of one of the officers. So long as the transmitter functions, it can be traced by satellites to within ten metres of where it is.’
‘What happens if someone finds it?’ Griffoni asked.
Alaimo smiled, as though he’d expected the question, and said. ‘Because it’s nothing special – a plain metal watch that might have cost thirty Euros – they give it to one of their kids or take it home and leave it in a drawer and forget about it, or maybe they wear it. If they’re wearing it, they can just change the battery when it stops, and it will tell the time again.’
‘And getting it on one of Borgato’s boats?’ Brunetti asked.
‘Why not on to his nephew?’ Griffoni asked.
The men looked at her in surprise.
‘Not likely,’ said Alaimo.
Brunetti said nothing but considered the possibility. He turned his attention to the view of the Giudecca across the water. Duso lived on this side, somewhere near Nico’s.
Marcello, he kept thinking, might have told Duso even more about what happened on the boat and – if he had been the man who went into the sea – his vain effort to save . . . to save one of them? All of them? His soul?
If it had been Marcello, his leap into the water had failed to save the woman or the women, and there would be no changing that. With Duso’s help, Brunetti could offer him another chance.
Duso met Brunetti on the terrace in front of Nico’s. The hour had not yet been changed, so there was still daylight at six, and the weather had blessed them and remained warm even after the sun had disappeared behind the distant Euganean Hills. Few other people sat on the terrace: eight, nine, but all were wearing only sweaters and jackets, taking advantage of the sun’s lingering generosity.
Duso asked for a coffee and Brunetti for a Pinot Grigio.
While they waited for their drinks to come, they made the predictable comments about the shortening days, the weekend ahead, when the hour would be moved back and the arrival of winter given no more resistance. After that, they simply sat and gazed off towards the west as the light gradually dimmed itself.
‘Have you seen Marcello?’ Brunetti finally asked.
Duso nodded.
‘When?’
‘Last night. He met me after his first day back at work, and we had a drink together.’
‘How did he seem?’
Duso stared suspiciously at Brunetti for some time and finally asked, ‘Why are you interested?’
Brunetti saw no reason not to tell him the truth. ‘Because I have a son who’s a few years younger than he and you are.’ Brunetti was interrupted by the arrival of the waiter, who set their drinks in front of them, added small bowls with peanuts and chips, and went to another table to take the order.
‘What does that change?’ Duso asked, sounding curious, not aggressive. He sipped at his coffee, which Brunetti noticed he drank without sugar this time.
Brunetti tasted his wine. They knew him here, so the wine was good. ‘I suppose it makes me protective.’
‘Of the ones who are like your son?’
‘No. It would be a lie to say that. But of some of them.’
‘Which ones?’
Brunetti had never thought about this. It was an instinctive and impulsive response he had to some people, especially the young, even some of the ones he arrested. Perhaps he felt protective of the ones who reminded him of his own younger self. He set his glass on the table and grabbed a few peanuts. He put them, one by one, into his mouth while he thought about what to say.
After he’d swallowed them all and had another sip of wine, he said, ‘I feel it for the ones who find themselves in trouble and don’t realize that they’re good. In the ethical sense.’ Brunetti said, not liking the pedantic sound of it when he heard himself say it. As if to alter his remark in some small way, he added, ‘While other people don’t believe they are.’
> ‘Are you talking about the people you arrest?’
‘No. Well, perhaps some of them,’ Brunetti answered, reaching for more peanuts.
Duso pulled the dish of potato chips towards him and started eating. ‘So you think Marcello’s good?’ he asked, keeping his eyes on the chips.
‘He took the girls to the hospital, didn’t he?’
Duso’s hand froze halfway towards the bowl, and he gave Brunetti a look of open surprise. ‘What else could we do?’
Brunetti was struck by the spontaneity of Duso’s response. It was not a real question but a response provoked by shock. What else, indeed?
Brunetti thought he’d push him a bit farther and see the true direction of his feelings. Speaking with dispassion, he said, ‘You could have taken them back to where you met them. No one would have seen you, not at that hour. Just put them on the riva by the bridge and go home.’
The crumbled pieces of potato chip fell on to the wooden deck beneath their feet. Within seconds, the lurking sparrows were upon them, feasting, hopping on Brunetti’s feet in their greed.
It didn’t take Duso very long to work it out. When he did, he said, ‘That was some sort of test, wasn’t it?’ He spoke with shock he tried to present as contempt. ‘Of my “ethical sense”, as you call it.’ He grabbed at the napkins the waiter had left on the table and wiped at the grease and crumbs on his hand, then crumpled the napkins and tossed them on to the table. But, Brunetti observed, he did not get up and walk away.
‘Which you passed,’ he told Duso in a far softer voice.
‘So what?’ Duso asked aggressively.
Brunetti ignored the tone and answered the question: ‘So I believe you’re a judge of Marcello’s . . .’ Brunetti sat back in his chair and folded his arms. He looked down towards the church of the Redentore, built in thanks for the ending of the plague, almost five hundred years ago. That wasn’t done any more, making a change in the city, pledging something new. They just went back to business.
‘Excuse me, Commissario,’ he heard Duso say. ‘Are you all right? Would you like a glass of water?’