A Noble Radiance (19 page)

The file on the
kidnapping had reported that the stone which blocked the gates on the inside
was twenty centimetres wide at its narrowest point, yet the distance between
the iron rungs of the gates, Brunetti saw when he held up his hand to measure
them, was just a bit broader than his palm, no more than ten centimetres. He
moved off to the left, following the wall, which was half again as tall as he.

'If they had a
ladder, I suppose’ Vianello called from where he stood, hands on hips and head
bent back, looking up at the top of the gates. Before Brunetti could answer, he
heard the sound of a car approaching from his left. A small white Fiat with two
men in the front seat came into view. It slowed at the sight of Brunetti and
the others, and the men in the car made no attempt to disguise their curiosity
at the sight of the uniformed men and the blue and white police car. They moved
off slowly, just as another car came from the right and passed them. This car,
too, slowed to allow the occupants to stare at the police in front of the
Lorenzoni villa.

A ladder, Brunetti
reflected, meant a van. Roberto had been kidnapped on the twenty-eighth of
September, so the autumn foliage on the bushes at the side of the road could
have provided sufficient cover for a vehicle of any kind, even a van.

Brunetti went back to
the gate and stood in front of the control panel of the alarm system attached
to the column on the left. He pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket and
glanced at it. Reading the numbers from it, he punched out a five-figure code
on the control box. The red light on the front of the panel went out, and a
green one at the bottom came on. A mechanical hum sounded from the back of the
column, and the iron gates started to swing open.

'How'd you know
that?' Vianello asked.

‘It was in the
original report’ Brunetti answered, not without a certain satisfaction at
having thought to write the numbers down. The humming stopped: the gates stood
fully open.

It's private
property, isn't it?' Vianello asked, leaving it to Brunetti to make the first
step and, with it, give the order.

‘Yes, it is’ Brunetti
answered. He walked through the gates and started up the gravel-covered
driveway.

Vianello motioned to
Pucetti to stay outside and himself followed Brunetti through the gates and up
the drive. Box hedges grew on either side, placed so close together as to
create almost solid walls of green between them and the gardens that were sure
to stand behind them. After about fifty metres, stone arches opened on either
side, and Brunetti went through the one on the right. When Vianello came
through behind him, he found Brunetti standing still, hands in the pockets of
his trousers, coat flung back on either side. Brunetti studied the ground in
front of them, a series of raised flowerbeds set within ordered gravel paths.

Saying nothing, he
turned and crossed the central path and went through the other arch, where he
again stopped and looked around him. The meticulous order of path and
flowerbeds was repeated here; a mirror image of the garden on the opposite
side. Hyacinths, lilies of the valley, and crocuses basked in the sun, looking
as though they, too, would like to put their hands in their pockets and have a
look around.

Vianello came to
stand beside Brunetti. 'Well, sir?' he asked, not at all sure why Brunetti did
nothing more than stand and study the flowers.

'No stones, are
there, Vianello?'

Vianello, who hadn't
paid attention, not really, to his surroundings, answered, 'No, sir. There
aren't. Why?'

'Assuming the layout
hasn't changed much, that means that they'd have to bring it with them, doesn't
it?'

'And carry it over
the wall with them?'

Brunetti nodded. 'The
local police did at least patrol the inside of the wall, the whole thing.
Nothing was disturbed on the ground under it.' Turning to Vianello, he asked,
'What do you think that stone weighed?'

'Fifteen kilos?'
Vianello guessed. 'Ten?'

Brunetti nodded.
Neither had to comment on the difficulty of getting something that heavy over
the wall.

'Shall we have a look
at the villa?' Brunetti asked, though neither he nor Vianello heard it as a
question.

Brunetti went back
through the arch; Vianello followed him. Side by side, they started up the
gravel pathway, which curved to the right. Off ahead of them a bird sang out
joyously, and the rich scent of loam and heat filled the air.

Vianello, who was
looking at his feet while he walked, was at first conscious only of small
stones splashing up towards his ankles and then of dust falling on to the tops
of his shoes. The sound of the shot registered only after this. It was quickly
followed by another, and the spurt of stones a metre behind where Vianello had
been standing showed that this one would have found its target. But as the
pebbles flew into the air, Vianello was already lying at the right side of the
path, knocked there by Brunetti, the force of whose lunging push propelled
him, stitimtnnmg,a few metres beyond-the fallen sergeant.

Without conscious
thought, Vianello pushed himself to his feet and, crouching low, ran towards
the hedge. The solid wall of branches provided no hiding place, only a dark
green wall against which his blue uniform would be less visible than again the
white gravel.

Another shot burst
out, and then another. 'Back here, Vianello,' Brunetti shouted, and without
looking to see where Brunetti was and still crouching low, Vianello ran
towards the sound of his voice, vision dimmed by panic. Suddenly someone
grabbed him by the left arm and dragged him off his feet. He saw an opening in
the hedge and lurched through it like a beached seal, capable in his panic only
of pushing himself forward with elbows and knees.

His wild thrusts
forward were stopped by something hard: Brunetti's knees. He rolled away,
stumbled to his feet, and drew his revolver. His hand trembled.

In front of him,
Brunetti stood at a narrow opening left in the hedge by the removal of one of
the bushes, his own revolver in his hand. Brunetti pulled himself back from the
opening. 'You all right, Vianello?' he asked.

'Yes,' was all he
could think to say. Then, 'Thank you, sir.'

Brunetti nodded, then
crouched low and stuck his head out briefly from behind the protective branches
of the trees.

'You see anything?'
Vianello asked.

Brunetti gave a
negative double grunt Behind them, from the direction of the gates, the sharp
double bleat of the police siren ripped through the air. Both men turned
towards it, listening to see if it drew any closer, but the noise seemed to
remain stationary. Brunetti got to his feet.

'Pucetti?' Vianello
asked, thinking it unlikely that the local police could have got there so
quickly.

For a moment,
Brunetti was willing to set out towards the villa in search of whoever it was
that had fired at them, but then the sound of the siren slipped into his consciousness
again, and good sense intervened.
"Let's
go back’ he said, turning towards
the entrance and starting towards it, the path studded by the ranks of raised
flowerbeds. 'He's probably called for help’

They kept close to
the hedge, and even when it curved sharply to the left and thus out of the line
of fire from the villa, they kept inside of it, both of them reluctant to set
foot on to the gravel path. Only when they were within sight of the stone wall
did Brunetti feel safe enough to push his way, not without difficulty, through
the thick branches and back on to the path.

The gates were
closed, but the police car was now parked directly in front, its passenger door
touching the gates and effectively blocking the exit.

When they got to
within a few metres of the gate, Brunetti called out, shouting above the
continuing sound of the car's pealing siren, 'Pucetti?'

An answering call
came from behind the car, but there was no sign of the young policeman.

'Pucetti?' Brunetti
called again.

'Hold up your gun,
sir,' came Pucetti's voice from behind the car.

Understanding
instantly, Brunetti raised his fist into the air, careful to show that he was
still holding the revolver.

When Pucetti saw it,
he came out from behind the car, his own gun in his hand, though pointed at the
ground. He reached in through the open window of the car, and the noise of the
klaxon stopped. In the sudden silence, he said, ‘I wanted to be sure, sir’

'Good’ Brunetti
answered, wondering if he would have thought to eliminate the possibility of a
hostage situation. ‘You call the locals?'

'Yes, sir. There's a
Carabinieri
station
outside of Treviso. They should be here soon. What happened?'

'Someone started to
shoot at us as we were walking up the driveway’

‘You see them?'
Pucetti asked.

Brunetti shook his
head and Vianello said, 'No.'

The young officer's
next question was cut off by the sound of a new siren, this one coming from the
direction of Treviso.

Above that noise,
Brunetti called out the numbers of the gate's code, and Pucetti punched them
in. The gate started to swing open, and even before Brunetti could suggest it,
Pucetti got into the car and angled it back, then drove it halfway through the
gates. He pulled the front sharply to the left and turned the car so that it
would block the gates with its front fender while still allowing them enough
room to pass through the gates on the other side.

The jeep that pulled
up behind their car held two
Carabinieri.
They stopped behind the police
car and the driver rolled down his window. 'What is it?' he asked, directing
the question at all three of them. Thin-faced and sallow, he sounded quite
calm, as though it were an everyday occurrence to be asked to respond to a call
that the police were under fire.

'Someone up there
started shooting,' Brunetti explained.

'They know who you
are?' the
Carabiniere
asked. This time his accent was clearer. Sardinian. Perhaps
he was accustomed to answering calls like this. He made no attempt to get out
of the vehicle.

'No,' Vianello
answered. 'What' difference does that make?'

They've had three
robberies out here. And then there was that kidnapping. So if they saw someone
coming up the driveway, it makes sense they'd start shooting. I would.'

'At this?' Vianello
said, rather dramatically pounding his open palm on the chest of his uniform
jacket.

'At that,' the
Carabiniere
shot
back, pointing to the revolver that was still in Brunetti's hand.

Brunetti interrupted
them. 'We've still been shot at, officer.' He bit back saying anything else.

Instead of answering,
the
Carabiniere
pulled his head back inside the jeep, wound up the window,
and picked up a cellular phone. Brunetti watched him press in a number, and
from behind him Pucetti whispered,
'Gesu
bambino.'

There was a short
telephone conversation, and then the
Carabiniere
dialled another number. After a
moment's pause, he started to speak and went on speaking for a while. He nodded
twice, pushed another button, and leaned forward to replace the phone on the
dashboard.

He opened the window.
‘You can go in now’ he said, gesturing beyond the gate with his chin.

'What?'Vianello
asked.

'You can go in. I
called them. I told them who you are, and they said you can go in’

'Who did you talk
to?' Brunetti asked.

'The nephew, what's his
name?'

'Maurizio’ Brunetti
volunteered.

'Yes. He's up there,
but he said he won't fire again now that he knows who you are.' When none of
them made a move, the
Carabiniere
urged them, 'Go ahead. If s safe.
They won't shoot any more.'

Brunetti and Vianello
exchanged a glance, and then Brunetti signalled with his hand for Pucetti to
remain by the car. Saying nothing to the
Carabiniere,
the two men went back through the
gate and again up the gravel drive. This time, Vianello looked ahead of him,
eyes sweeping from side to side as they moved away from the gate.