A Noble Radiance (16 page)

When the dishes were
done and slotted above the sink to drain, he said, 1 think I'll go up to
Belluno with Vianello tomorrow.'

The Lorenzoni boy?'

'Yes.'

'How was it for them,
when you told them?'

'Bad, especially for
the mother.'

He realized that a
mother's loss of her only son wasn't something Paola wanted to contemplate. As
usual, she used details to divert. 'Where did they find him?'

'In a field.'

'A field? Where?'

'In one of those
places with one of those strange Bellunese names - Col di Cugnan, I think.'

'But how did they
find it?'

'A farmer was
ploughing his field and turned up the bones.'

'God, how terrible,'
she said, and then immediately added, 'And you had to tell them that, and then
come home to that awful dinner.'

He couldn't keep
himself from laughing at this.

'What's so funny?'

'That the first thing
you think about is food.'

‘I get it from you,
my dear,' she said with what sounded like polite disdain. 'Before I married
you, I hardly gave food a second thought'

Then how'd you learn
to cook so well?'

She waved this away,
but he detected both embarrassment and a desire to have the truth coaxed from
her, and so he persisted, 'No, tell me: how did you learn to cook? I thought
you'd been doing it for years.'

Speaking very
quickly, she said, 1 bought a cookbook.'

'A cookbook? You?
Why?'

'When I knew that I
liked you as much as I did, and I saw how important food was to you, I decided
I had better learn how to cook.' She looked at him, waited for him to comment,
but when he didn't, she continued, 1 started to cook at home, and, believe me,
some of the first things I cooked were even worse than what we had tonight.'

'Hard to believe,'
Brunetti said. 'Go on.'

'Well, I knew I liked
you, and I suppose I knew I wanted to be with you. So I kept at it, and I just
sort
of...'

She broke off and
gave a gesture that encompassed the entire kitchen. 1 suppose I learned.'
'From a book?' 'And with some help.' 'From whom?'

'Damiano. He's a good
cook. And then my mother. And then, after we were engaged, from yours.'

"My mother? She
taught you how to cook?' Paola nodded and Brunetti said, 'She never told me.' 1
made her promise not to.'

‘I don't know,
Guido,' she said, obviously lying. He said nothing, knowing from long experience
that she'd explain. ‘I guess I wanted you to think I could do everything, even
cook.'

He leaned forward in
his chair and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her towards him. She tried
half-heartedly to twist away.
‘I
feel so silly, telling you after
all this time,' she said, leaning against him, bending to kiss the top of his
head. Suddenly, the idea came upon her from nowhere, and she said, 'My mother
knows her’
‘Who?'

'Countess Lorenzoni.
I think they're on the board of some charity together, or some
..
‘She broke off. 'I can't remember, but I know she knows
her.'

'Has she ever said
anything about her?'

'No, not anything I'd
remember. Except for this thing about her son. It destroyed her, or that's what
Mamma
says. She used to be involved in lots of things: the
Friends of Venice, the theatre, raising money for the restoration of La Fenice.
But when this happened, she stopped everything. My mother says she never goes
out, doesn't accept calls from anyone. No one sees her any more. I think
Mamma
said
it was not knowing what happened to him that did this to her, that she could
probably accept his death. But this way, not knowing if he's alive or dead
...
I can't imagine anything more horrible. Even knowing he's
dead is better man that’

Brunetti, who usually
voted in favour of life, ordinarily would have disputed this, but it was not a
subject he wanted to drag into discussion tonight. He'd spent the day thinking
about the disappearance and death of children, and he wanted nothing more to
do with it. Blatantly, he changed the topic. 'How are things at the idea
factory?' he asked.

She moved away from
him, took the cutlery from the side of the sink, and began to wipe it dry.
'About on the same level as dinner,' she finally answered. Piece by piece, she
dropped the knives and forks into a drawer. 'The chairman of the department has
insisted that we begin to pay attention to colonial literature’

'What's that?'
Brunetti asked.

'Well might you ask’
she replied, wiping a serving spoon. "Those people who grew up in
cultures where English is not the native language but who write in English’

'What’s wrong with
that?'

He's asked some of us
to teach this stuff next year’

'You?'

'Yes’ she answered,
dropping the last spoon into the drawer and slamming it closed,
that
class?'

"The Voice of
Caribbean Women.'"

'Because you're a
woman?'

'Not because I'm
Caribbean,' she answered.

'And?'

'And I've refused to
teach it.' 'Why?'

'Because they don't
interest me. Because I'd teach it reluctantly and badly.' He sensed equivocation
here and waited for her to confess it. 'And because I won't let him tell me
what to teach’

'Is this what’s been
bothering you?' he asked casually.

Though the look she
gave him was sharp, her answer was as off-handed as his question. ‘I didn't
know that anything was bothering me.' She started to add to this, but the door
slammed open, the children were back with the ice cream, and his question
remained unanswered.

That night, indeed,
Brunetti woke up at least twice, and each time he drank two glasses of mineral
water. The second time was just after dawn,

and when he turned
back from putting the glass down on the floor beside his bed, he propped himself
up on his elbow and studied Paola's face. A lock of hair curved down under her
chin, and a few strands stirred softly with her breathing. Eyes closed, all
animation erased, her face revealed only bones and character. Secret and separate,
she lay beside him, and he studied her face for some sign that would help him
to know her more absolutely. With sudden urgency, he wanted what Count Orazio
had told him to be untrue, wanted desperately for her, and for their life, to
be happy and tranquil.

Mocking this desire,
the bells of San Polo rang out six times, and the sparrows who had decided to
build a nest between the loose bricks of the chimney called out that it was
daylight and time to get to work. Brunetti ignored them and put his head back
down on his pillow. He closed his eyes, sure he'd never get back to sleep, but
soon discovered how easily he could ignore the call to return to work.

14

That morning,
Brunetti decided it would be wise to present Patta with what little information
he had about the Lorenzoni murder - it could be called that now - and he did so
soon after the Vice-Questore got to the Questura. Brunetti feared that there
would be repercussions from his own behaviour towards Patta the previous day,
but there were none; at least no obvious ones. Patta had seen the newspaper
accounts and expressed formulaic concern about the death, his greatest regret
apparently that it should have happened to a member of the nobility.

Brunetti explained
that, as he'd just happened to answer the call confirming the identification of
the dental records, he had token it upon himself to inform the parents. From
long experience, he was careful to display no interest in the case, asked

almost casually whom
the Vice-Questore wanted to assign to it, even going so far as to suggest one
of his colleagues.

'What are you working
on now, Brunetti?
^,

'The dumping out at
Marghera’ Brunetti answered promptly, making pollution sound more important
than murder.

'Ah, yes,' Patta
answered: he'd heard of Marghera. 'Well, I think that's something the uniformed
branch can handle.'

'But I've still got
to interview the Captain of the Port,' Brunetti insisted. 'And someone's got to
check the records of that tanker from Panama.'

'Let Pucetti do it,'
Patta said dismissively.

Brunetti remembered a
game he used to play with the children, when they were much younger. They would
drop a handful of spaghetti-length wooden sticks and then see how many they
could pick up individually without moving any of the other sticks. The trick
was to move extremely gently; one false move could bring everything tumbling
down.

‘You don't think
Mariani would do?' Brunetti suggested, naming one of the other two
commissari.
'He's
just back from vacation.'

'No, I think you
should handle this. After all, your wife knows people like this, doesn't she?'

‘People like this'
was a phrase Brunetti had for years heard hurled about as a pejorative, usually
racist, yet here it was, newly sprung from the lips of the Vice-Questore
himself, sounding for all the world like the highest possible praise. Brunetti
nodded vaguely, uncertain of the sort of people his wife might know or what
she might know about them.

'Good, then your
association with her family might help you here,' Patta said, suggesting that
the power of the state or the authority of the police counted for nothing at
all with 'people like this'. Which, Brunetti reflected, might well be the case.

He dragged out a very
reluctant, 'Well,' and then gave in, anything that could be construed as enthusiasm
carefully banished from his voice. If you insist, Vice-Questore, then I'll
speak to Pucetti about Marghera.'

'Keep me or
Lieutenant Scarpa up to date on what you're doing, Brunetti,' Patta added
almost absently.

'Of course, sir,' he
said, as empty a promise as he'd made in quite some time. Seeing that Patta had
nothing further to say to him, Brunetti got to his feet and left the office.

When he emerged,
Signorina Elettra asked, 'Did you persuade him to give it to you?'

'Persuade?' Brunetti
repeated, amazed that Signorina Elettra, even after all this time with Patta,
could actually believe that Patta was open to reason or persuasion.

'By telling him how
busy you were with other things, of course,' she said, Hitting a key on her
computer and sparking her printer into life.

Brunetti couldn't
help smiling down at her. 'I thought for a moment I'd have to use violence in
refusing to accept,' Brunetti said.

'You must be very
interested in it, Commissario.'

'I am.'

"Then perhaps
this will interest you’ she said, reaching forward and taking a few pages out
of the slot beneath the printer's mouth. She passed them to him. 'What is it?'

'A list of every time
one of the Lorenzonis has come to our attention.' 'Our?'

"The forces of
order.' 'Which includes?'

'Us, the
Carabinieri,
the
Customs Police, and the finance Police.'

Brunetti put a look
of false astonishment on his face. 'No access to the Secret Service,
Signorina?'

Her look was bland.
'Not until it's really necessary, sir. That's a contact I don't want to abuse
by overuse.'

Brunetti studied her
eyes, looking for a sign that she was joking. He was uncertain which would be
more unsettling: the discovery that she was telling the truth or the fact that
he couldn't tell the difference.

In the face of her
continued equanimity, he chose not to pursue this line of questioning and
looked at the papers. The first listing dated from October of three years
before: Roberto arrested for drunken driving. Small fine: case dismissed.

Before he could read
further, she interrupted him. ‘I didn't include anything there having to do
with the kidnapping, sir. I'm having a separate list compiled to deal with
that. I thought it would be less confusing.'

Brunetti nodded and
left, reading as he climbed the stairs to his office. The Christmas of that
same year - Christmas Day, in fact - a truck belonging to the Lorenzoni
transportation company had been hijacked from State Highway 8, near Salerno.
The truck had been carrying a quarter of a billion lire in German-made
laboratory equipment; the cargo was never recovered.

Four months later, a
random customs inspection of a Lorenzoni truck discovered that its cargo manifest
declared only half the number of Hungarian binoculars actually contained in the
truck. A fine was imposed and quickly paid. There was a lull of a year, during
which the Lorenzonis were not subject to the attentions of the police, but
then Roberto was involved in a fight at a disco. No criminal charges were
brought, but a civil suit was settled when the Lorenzonis paid twelve million
lire to a boy whose nose was broken in the fight.

And that was it:
nothing more. During the eight months that ensued between the fight in the
disco and his kidnapping, neither Roberto, his family, nor any of its
wide-flung businesses existed in any way whatsoever for the many police powers
which surveilled the country and its citizens. And then, like a bolt from quiet
skies, the kidnapping. Two notes, a public appeal to the kidnappers, and then
silence. Until the body of the boy was found in a field near Belluno.

Even as he thought
this, Brunetti asked himself why he was thinking of Roberto, and had done so
from the very beginning, as a 'boy'. After all, the young man, at the time of
the kidnapping and presumably at the time of his death, which seemed to have
happened soon thereafter, had been twenty-one. Brunetti tried to recall how
various people had spoken of Roberto: his girlfriend had mentioned his practical
jokes and selfishness; Count Orazio had been almost condescending; and his
mother had mourned her baby.

His thoughts were
interrupted by the entrance of Vianello. ‘I’ve decided I want to go up to
Belluno with you, Vianello. You think you could see about getting us a car?'

1 can do better than
that,' the sergeant answered with a broad smile. 'In fact, that's what I've
come about.'

Knowing he was
supposed to, Brunetti asked, 'What does that mean?' 'Bonsuan’ was the
sergeant's cryptic reply. 'Bonsuan?'

'Yes, sir. He can get
us there’

'I didn't know they'd
built a canal’

His daughter, sir.'

Brunetti knew that
Bonsuan's greatest source of pride was the fact that the three daughters he had
sent to the university had become a doctor, an architect, and a lawyer. 'Which
one?' he asked.

'Analisa, the
architect,' Vianello answered, and before Brunetti could ask, explained, 'She's
also a pilot. A friend of hers keeps a Cesna out at the Lido. If we want,
she'll drop us off up there this afternoon and then go on to Udine.'

'Let's do it,'
Brunetti said, catching from Vianello's tone the excitement of a day's outing.

She turned out to be
just as good a pilot as her father. Brunetti and Vianello, still caught up in
the enthusiasm and novelty of the idea, kept their noses pressed against the
small windows of the plane for most of the twenty-five minute flight. During it
- Brunettelearned two things he hadn't known: that Alitalia had refused to hire
her as a pilot because she had a degree in architecture and would 'embarrass
the other pilots' with her level of culture; and that vast stretches of land
around Vittorio Veneto were listed by the military as 'Pio XII', slang for
'Proibito',
and
hence could not be flown over. So the small plane carried them along the
Adriatic coast and then sharply to the northwest, over Pordenone and then to
Belluno. Below them, the earth changed from tan to brown to green and back
again as they flew over still-fallow fields or vast swathes of new plantings;
every so often a stand of fruit trees exploded in pastel blossoms or a sudden
gust of wind could be seen to hurl great handfuls of petals up towards the
plane.

Ivo Barzan, the
commissario
who
had seen to the removal of Roberto Lorenzoni's body from the field to the
hospital and who had then contacted the Venice police, was waiting for them
when the plane landed.

He took them, first,
to Doctor Litfin's house and walked with them to the dark rectangle near the
stand of trees. A single beige chicken pecked busily at the freshly turned
earth of the shallow pit, not at all disturbed by the snapping of the wind in
the strips of red and white tape which surrounded it. No bullet had been found,
Barzan told them, though the
Carabinieri
had twice gone over the field
with metal detectors.

As he looked down
into the pit and heard the chicken scraping and pecking, Brunetti wondered what
this place had been like when the boy died, if indeed he had died here. In
winter, it would have been grim and bleak; in the autumn, at least there would
still have been living things. And, at the stupidity of that thought, he
reviled himself. If death waits at the end of the field, it hardly matters if
the earth is strewn with mud or flowers. Hands in his pockets, he turned away
from the pit.

Barzan told them that
none of the neighbours had anything helpful to tell the police. One old woman
insisted that the dead man was her husband, poisoned by the mayor, a Communist
No one remembered anything unusual, though Barzan did have the grace to add he
thought it unlikely anyone could be very helpful when the police were no more
specific than to ask if anyone had seen something strange about two years ago.

Brunetti spoke to the
people across the road, an old couple well into their eighties, who tried to
make up for their inability to remember seeing anything by offering coffee
and, when all three policemen accepted, lacing it generously with sugar and
grappa.

Doctor Bortot, who
was waiting for them in his office at the hospital, said there was little he
could add to the report he had already sent to Venice. It was all there: the
deadly hole at the base of the skull, the lack of a clearly defined exit hole,
the extensive damage to and deterioration of the internal organs.