A Noble Radiance (30 page)
Authors: Donna Leon
His brother
registered the urgency in Brunetti's voice and asked no questions. 'For most of
them, yes.'
'Glucose, reading of
seventy-four.' 'That's for diabetes. Nothing's wrong with it.' 'Triglycerides.
Reading of, I think, two-fifty.' 'Cholesterol. A bit high but nothing worth
bothering about.' 'White cells, reading of one thousand.' 'What?'
Brunetti repeated the
number. 'Are you sure?' Sergio asked.
Brunetti looked
closer at the typed numbers. ‘Yes, one thousand’
‘
Hmm. That’ s hard to believe. Are you feeling all right? Do
you get dizzy?' Sergio's concern, and something else, was audible.
'What?'
'When did you have
these tests done?' Sergio asked.
'No, no. They're not
mine. They're someone else's.'
'Ah. Good’ Sergio
paused to consider this, then asked, 'What else?'
'What does that one
mean?' Brunetti insisted, troubled by Sergio's questions.
‘I
won't be sure, not until I hear the others.'
Brunetti read him the
remaining list of tests and the numbers to the right of them. He finished. 'That’s
it’
'Anything else?'
'At the bottom,
there's a note that says spleen function seems to be reduced. And something
about
..
‘ Brunetti paused and peered closely at the doctor's
scrawl. 'Something that looks like "hyaline" something.
"Membranes", it looks like.'
After a long pause,
Sergio asked, 'How old was this person?'
'Twenty-one,' and
then, when he registered what Sergio had said, 'Why do you say
"was"?'
'Because no one
survives with levels like that’
‘Levels of what?' Brunetti
asked.
But instead of
answering, Sergio demanded, 'Did he smoke?'
Brunetti recalled
what Francesca Salviati had said, that Roberto was worse than an American in the
way he complained about smoking. 'No’ 'Drink?'
'Everyone drinks,
Sergio.'
A sudden note of
anger flashed out in Sergio's voice. 'Don't be stupid, Guido. You know what I
mean. Did he drink a lot?'
'Probably more than
normal.'
'Any diseases?'
'Not that I know of.
He was in perfect health, well in very good health, until about two weeks before
he died.'
'What did he die of?'
'He was shot’
'Was he alive when he
was shot?' Sergio asked. 'Of cour
...'
Brunetti started to say, but then he stopped. He didn't know. 'We've assumed so’
‘I’d check,' Sergio said. 'I don't know that we can,' Brunetti said. 'Why?
Don't you have the body?' 'There wasn't much of it left’ 'The Lorenzoni boy?'
'Yes,' Brunetti answered,
and into the expanding silence he finally asked, 'What does all that mean, the
numbers I gave you for those tests?'
'You know I'm not a
doctor,' Sergio began, but Brunetti cut him off.
'Sergio, this isn't a
trial. I just want to know. Me, for myself. What do they mean, all those
tests?'
1 think if s
radiation poisoning,' Sergio said. When Brunetti didn't respond, he explained,
'The spleen. It can't have been that damaged if he had no organic disease. And
the blood count is horribly low. And the lung capacity. Was much of them left?'
Brunetti remembered
the doctor saying that they looked like the lungs of a heavy smoker, of a man
far older than Roberto, who had smoked for decades. At the time, Brunetti had
not questioned or pursued the contradiction between that and the fact that
Roberto didn't smoke. He explained this to Sergio, then asked, 'What else?'
'All of it - the
spleen, the blood, the lungs.'
'Are you sure,
Sergio?' he asked, forgetting that this was his older brother, just back from a
triumph at an international congress about radioactive contamination at
Chernobyl.
'Yes.'
Brunetti's mind was
off far from Venice, following the trail of Roberto's credit cards across the
face of Europe. Eastern Europe. To the breakaway republics of the former Soviet
Union, rich in natural resources that lay hidden beneath their soil and just as
rich in the armaments which the hastily departing Russians had left behind as
they fled in advance of their collapsing empire.
'Madre di Dio’
he whispered, afraid at what he understood.
'What is it,
Guido?'his brother asked.
'How do you transport
that stuff?' Brunetti asked.
'What stuff?'
'Radioactive things.
Material, whatever it's called.' 'That depends.' 'On what?'
'On how much of it
there is and what kind it is.'
'Give me an example,'
Brunetti demanded and then, hearing his own insistent voice, added, 'It's
important.'
‘If it's the sort we
use, for radiotherapy, ifs shipped in individual containers’ 'How big?'
'The size of a
suitcase. Perhaps even smaller if it’s for a smaller machine or dosage’
'Do you know anything
about the other kind?'
'There are lots of
other kinds, Guido’ The kind for bombs. He'd been in Belorussia.'
No sound came through
the phone, only the well-crafted silence achieved by Telecom's new laser
network, but Brunetti thought he could hear the gears meshing in Sergio's mind.
'Ah’ was all his
brother said. And then, 'So long as the container is lined with enough lead, it
can be very small. A briefcase or suitcase. It’d be heavy, but it can be
small.'
This time it was from
Brunetti's lips that the sigh escaped. 'That would be enough?'
'I'm not sure what
you've got in mind, Guido, but if you mean enough for a bomb, then yes, that
would be more than enough.'
That left very little
for either of them to say. After a long pause, Sergio suggested, 'I'd check the
place where he was found with a Geiger counter. And the body.'
'Is this possible?'
Brunetti asked, not having to explain what he meant.
‘I think so, yes’
Sergio's voice blended the certainty of the expert and the sadness of the man.
'The Russians left them nothing else to sell.'
'God help us all,
then’ said Brunetti.
26
Brunetti's work had
long accustomed him to horror and the various indignities humans inflict upon
one another, indeed, upon anything near them, but nothing in his experience had
prepared him for this. To contemplate what his phone call to Sergio had
revealed was to contemplate the unthinkable. It was not difficult for Brunetti
to imagine traffic in armaments on however grand a scale; indeed, he could
easily accept the fact that guns would be sold, even to those the sellers knew
to be killers. But this, if what he suspected - or feared - was true, then it
went beyond any potential for evil he had formerly witnessed.
Not for an instant did
Brunetti doubt that the Lorenzonis were involved with the illegal transport of
nuclear material, and not for an instant did he doubt that the material would
be used for armaments: there is no such thing as an illegal X-ray machine.
Further, it was impossible for him to believe that Roberto could have organized
it. Everything he had learned about the boy spoke of his dullness and lack of
initiative: he was hardly the sort to mastermind a traffic in nuclear material.
Who better to do so
than Maurizio, the bright young nephew, the better choice of heir? He was
ambitious, a young man who looked forward to the commercial possibilities of
the next millennium, to the vast new markets and suppliers in the East. The
only obstacles to his leading the Lorenzoni business and fortunes to new
triumphs was his dull cousin Roberto, the boy who could be sent to fetch and
carry, rather in the manner of the friendly family dog.
The only doubt
Brunetti had was the extent of the Count's involvement in the business.
Brunetti doubted that something like this, an endeavour which could put the
entire Lorenzoni empire at risk, could have been carried out without his
knowledge and consent. Had he chosen to send his son to Belorussia to bring
back the deadly material? Who better and more invisible than the playboy with
the credit-card whores? If he drank enough champagne, would anyone question
what he had in his briefcase? Who inspects the luggage of a fool?
Brunetti doubted that
Roberto would even have known what he was carrying. His picture of the boy did
not permit that. How, then, had it happened that he was exposed to the deadly
emanation of the materials?
Brunetti tried to
imagine this boy he had never seen, pictured him in some flashy hotel, whores
gone home, alone in his room with the suitcase he was to take back to the West.
If there had been some leakage,, he would never have known, would have brought
back with him no more than the strange symptoms of malaise that had driven him
from doctor to doctor.
He would have spoken,
not to his father, but to his cousin, the boy who had shared youth and
innocence with him. And Maurizio would certainly have come quickly to suspect
what Roberto was describing, would have recognized the symptoms for what they
were: Roberto's death sentence.
For a long time,
Brunetti sat at his desk and looked at the door to his office, thinking about
moral goodness and beginning to understand the relationships between one
phenomenon and another and the consequences of each. What he did not
understand, not yet, was how the Count had come to learn of this.
Cicero advised that
the passions be restrained. If someone murdered Raffi, his own son, in cold
blood, Brunetti knew he would not be able to restrain his passions, that he
would be savage, relentless, ruthless, would forget all policeman, be only
father, and hunt them down and destroy them. He would seek vengeance at any
cost. Cicero allowed no exceptions to his rules concerning moral goodness, but
surely a crime like this would free a father from the injunction to behave
considerately and understandingly and would give him the human right to seek
vengeance.
Brunetti pondered all
of this as the sun set, taking with it what little light filtered into his office.
When it was almost fully dark in the room, Brunetti switched on the light. He
went back to his desk, pulled out the folder from the bottom drawer, and read
through it again, very slowly. He took no notes, though he often glanced up
from it and across at the now-darkened windows, as if he could see reflected
therein the new shapes and patterns that his reading was creating. It took him
a half hour to read it all, and when it was finished, he placed it back in the
drawer, closed the drawer softly, with his hand, not his foot. Then he left the
Questura, heading towards Rialto and the Lorenzoni
palazzo.
The maid who answered
the door said that the Count was not receiving visitors. Brunetti asked her to
carry up his name. When she came back, her face tight with irritation at this
interruption upon familial grief, she said the Count had repeated his message:
he was not receiving visitors.
Brunetti asked, then
told, the maid to carry up the message that he was now in possession of
important information concerning Roberto's murder and wanted to speak to the
Count before reopening the official investigation of his death which, if the
Count still refused to speak to him, would begin the following morning.
As he expected, this
time the maid, when she returned, told him to follow her, and she led him, an
Ariadne without a string, up the staircases and through the corridors to a new
part of the
palazzo
, a part Brunetti had never seen before.
The Count was alone
in what must have been an office, perhaps Maurizio's, for it was filled with
computer terminals, a photocopier, and four telephones.
The clear plastic
tables on which all of these machines stood seemed out of place with the velvet
curtains, with the view from the ogival windows and the rooftops that lay
beyond those windows.
The Count sat behind
one of the desks, a computer terminal to his left. He looked up when Brunetti
came in and asked, 'What is it?' not bothering to stand or offer Brunetti a
seat.
‘I’ve come to discuss
some new information with you’ Brunetti answered.
The Count sat rigid,
hands before him. 'There is no new information. My son is dead. My nephew
killed him. And now he's dead. After that, nothing follows. There's nothing
more I want to know’
Brunetti gave him a
long look, making no attempt to disguise his scepticism at what he'd just
heard. 'The information I have might shed light on why all of this happened.'
'I don't care why any
of it happened’ the Count shot back. 'For me and my wife, it is enough that it
did happen. I want nothing more to do with it’
‘I’m afraid that’s no
longer possible’ Brunetti said.
'What do you mean,
not possible?'
'There's evidence
that something far more complicated than kidnapping was going on.'
Suddenly remembering
his duties as host, the Count waved Brunetti to a seat and switched off the
soft purr of the computer. Then he asked, 'What information?'
'Your company, or
companies, have a great deal to do with Eastern Europe’
'Is that a statement
or a question?' the Count asked.
‘I think it’s both. I
know you have dealings there, but I don't know how extensive they are.'
Brunetti waited a moment, just until the Count was going to speak, and then
added, 'Or just what sort of dealings they might be.'
'Signor
...
I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name,' the Count began.
'Brunetti.'
'Signor Brunetti, the
police have been investigating my family for almost two years. Surely, that’s
enough time for them, even the police, to have discovered everything about the
nature and extent of my dealings in Eastern Europe.' When Brunetti didn't
respond to his provocation, the Count asked, 'Well, isn't that true?'
'We've discovered a
great deal about your dealings there, yes, but I've learned something else,
something that was never mentioned in any of the information you, or your
nephew, supplied to us.'
'And what is that?'
the Count demanded, dismissing with his tone any interest he might have in
what this policeman could have to say.
Traffic in nuclear
arms,' Brunetti said calmly, and only as he heard himself say the words did he
realize just how paltry was his evidence and how impulsive the haste with which
he had come halfway across the city to confront this man. Sergio was not a
doctor, Brunetti had not bothered to check either Roberto's remains or the
place where they were found to see if there were traces of nuclear
contamination, nor had he tried to learn more about the Lorenzonis' involvement
in the East. No, he had jumped up, like a child at the sound of the bells of
the ice cream truck in the street, and had come bustling across the city to posture
and play policeman in front of this man.
The Count's chin shot
up, his mouth tightened, and he started to speak, but then his eyes shifted
away from Brunetti and to the left, to the door to the room, where his wife had
suddenly and silently appeared. He stood and went towards her, and Brunetti got
to his feet to acknowledge her presence. But when Brunetti looked more closely
at the woman who stood in the door, he was not certain that this was the
Countess, this bent, curved, frail old woman who supported herself with a
wooden cane which she clutched in a hand that seemed a paw, or a claw. Brunetti
could see that her eyes had gone cloudy, as if the sudden onslaught of grief
had blown smoke into them.
'Ludovico?' she said
in a tremulous voice.
'Yes, my dear?' he
said, taking one arm and leading her a few steps into the room.
'Ludovico?' she said
again.
'What is it, dear?'
he asked, bending down over her, bending down more now that she seemed to have
grown so small.
She paused, placed
both hands on the top of the cane, and looked up at him. She glanced away, then
back.
‘I
forget,'
she said, started to smile, but then forgot about that, too. Suddenly her
expression changed, and she looked at her husband as though he were a strange,
ominous presence in the room. She raised one arm in front of her, her palm
splayed open towards him as if to protect herself from a blow. But then she
seemed to forget about that, as well, turned and, cane finding the way for her,
left the room. Both men listened to the tap of the cane as it disappeared down
the corridor. Then a door closed and they were conscious of being alone again.
The Count went back
to his seat behind the desk, but, when he sat down and faced Brunetti, it
seemed that the Countess had somehow managed to infect him with her age, for
his eyes had grown duller, his mouth less firm than when she came in.
'She knows,' the Count
said, voice black with despair. 'But how did you learn?' he asked Brunetti in a
voice as tired as his wife's had been.
Brunetti sat down
again and dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. 'It doesn't matter.'
'I told you that,'
the Count said. When he saw Brunetti's puzzled expression, he said, 'Nothing
matters.'
'Why Roberto died
matters,' Brunetti said. The only response he got for this was a quick shrug of
one shoulder, but he continued, 'Why he died matters because then we can find
the people who did it.'
'You know who did
it,' the Count said.
'Yes, I know who sent
them. We both know that. But I want them,' Brunetti said, half rising from his
chair and surprising himself with the passion with which he spoke but unable to
restrain it. ‘I want their names.' Again that fervent tone. He lowered himself
back into his chair and looked down, embarrassed at his own anger.
'Paolo Frasetti and
Elvio Mascarini,' the Count said simply.
For a moment,
Brunetti didn't know what he was hearing, and then when he understood, he
didn't believe; and then when he believed, the entire pattern of the Lorenzoni
killings that had started to form with the discovery of those tattered remains
in a ditch shifted again and came into a strange new focus, one far more
grotesque and horrible than those rotting fragments of his son. Brunetti
reacted instantly, but instead of staring up at the Count in astonishment, he
pulled his notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket and made a note of the
names. 'Where can we find them?' He forced his voice to remain calm, entirely
casual, while his mind raced ahead to all the questions he had to ask before
the Count realized how fatal his misunderstanding had been.
‘Frasetti lives over
near Santa Marta. I don't know about the other one.'
Brunetti had
sufficient control over his emotions and his face, and so he looked up and
across at the Count. 'How did you find them?'
'They did a job for
me four years ago. I used them again.'
This was not the time
to ask about that other job; he had only to find out about the kidnapping,
about Roberto. 'When did you learn about the contamination?' There could be no
other reason.
'Soon after he got
back from Belorussia.'
'How did it happen?'
The Count folded his
hands in front of him and looked down at them. In a hotel. It was raining, and
Roberto didn't want to go out. He couldn't understand the television: it was
all in Russian or German. And this hotel couldn't - or wouldn't -find him a
woman. So he had nothing to do, and so he started to think about what we had
sent him for.'
He glanced across at
Brunetti. 'Do I have to tell you all of this?'
'I think I need to
know about it’ Brunetti said.
The Count nodded, but
really not in acknowledgement of what Brunetti said. He cleared his throat.
He
said
- he told Maurizio this later — he said that he got curious, wondered why we'd
bothered to sent him halfway across Europe to bring back a suitcase and that he
wanted to see what was in it. He thought it might be gold or precious stones.
Because it was so heavy.' He paused, then said, 'It was lined with lead.' He
stopped again, and Brunetti wondered what would make him continue.
‘Did he want to steal
them?' Brunetti asked.
The Count looked up.
'Oh, no, Roberto would never steal anything, and certainly not from me.'
"Then why?'
'He was curious. And
I suppose he was jealous, thinking that I would trust Maurizio to know what was
in the suitcase, but not him.'
'And so he opened
it?'
The Count nodded. 'He
said, he used the old-fashioned sort of can opener they had in the hotel, you
know, the sort with the triangular point, the kind we used to use for opening
beer.'
Brunetti nodded.
'If it hadn't been in
the room, he wouldn't have been able to open the suitcase, and then none of
this would ever have happened. But it was Belorussia, and that's the kind they
have. So he forced the lock and opened the suitcase.'
'What was inside?'
The Count looked
across at him, surprised. ‘You just told me what was in it’
'I know, but I want
to know how it was being shipped. What form was it in?'
'Small blue pellets.
They look like rabbit droppings, only smaller’ The Count held up the first two
fingers of his right hand to indicate the correct size to Brunetti and repeated,
'Rabbit droppings.'
Brunetti said
nothing; experience had taught him that there was a time when people had to be
left alone to go ahead on their own, at their own pace, or they would simply
stop.
Eventually the Count
continued. 'He closed the suitcase again after that, but he had left it open
long enough’ It wasn't necessary for the Count to explain long enough for what.
Brunetti had read the symptoms of what that exposure had done to him.
'When did you find
out that he had opened it?'
'When we sent the
material on, to our buyer. He called me to tell me that the lock had been tampered
with. But that didn't happen for almost two weeks. It went by ship.'
Brunetti let that go
for now. 'And how soon did he begin to have trouble?'
Trouble?'
'Symptoms’
The Count nodded. 'Ah’
After a short pause, he continued, 'About a week. At first I thought it was
influenza or something like that. We still hadn't heard from our buyer. But
then he got worse. And then I found out that the suitcase had been opened.
There was only one thing that could have happened.'
'Did you ask him?'
'No, ho. There was no
need for that.' 'Did he tell anyone?'
'Yes, he told
Maurizio, but not until he was very bad.' 'And then?'
The Count looked down
at his hands, measured a small distance with the fingers of his right, as if
again measuring out the size of the pellets that had killed his son, or that
had led to the killing of his son. He looked up. 'And then I decided what I had
to do.'
'Had to do?' Brunetti
asked before he could stop himself.
'Yes.' At first, he
thought the Count wouldn't explain this, but he went on. 'If it had come out,
what was wrong with him, then all the rest would have come out, too, about the
shipments.'
'I see,' Brunetti
said, nodding.
It would have ruined
us, and it would have disgraced us. I couldn't let that happen. Not after all
these years. These centuries.'
'Ah, yes,' Brunetti
whispered.
'So I decided what
had to be done, and I spoke to those men, Frasetti and Mascarini’
'Whose idea was it
about how it should be done?'
The Count shook this
aside as unimportant. ‘I told them what to do. But the important thing was that
my wife not be made to suffer. If she had learned what Roberto was doing, what
had caused his death
...
I don't know what would have happened to her.' He looked at Brunetti, then
down at his hands. 'But now she knows.'