Beastly Things (25 page)

Brunetti was tempted to say that none of the three of them had ever been convicted, either, and what did that prove? Instead, he said, ‘Shall we merely agree that Papetti’s relationship with Signorina Borelli is one he might not want his father-in-law to hear about?’ Vianello nodded. Signorina Elettra smiled.

‘What else did you find out about him?’ Brunetti went on.

‘They live very well, he and his wife and their children.’

‘What’s her name? I’ve forgotten,’ Vianello interrupted.

‘Natasha,’ Signorina Elettra said evenly.

‘Of course,’ the Inspector said. ‘I knew it was something fake.’

As if the Inspector had not spoken, she went on. ‘He has almost two million Euros in various investments, their home is worth at least that, he drives one of their two Mercedes SUVs, and they often go on vacation.’

‘It could be De Rivera’s money,’ Brunetti suggested.

Primly, as if cautioning an over-eager student, Signorina Elettra said, ‘The accounts are in his name only. And they are not in this country.’

‘I stand corrected,’ Brunetti said, then asked, ‘Signorina Borelli? Anything else about her?’

‘Though she was making less than twenty-five thousand Euros a year at Tekknomed, she somehow managed to buy, during the years she worked there, two apartments in Venice and one in Mestre. She lives in the one in Mestre and rents the ones in Venice to tourists.’

‘And Tekknomed chose not to bring charges against her when she left,’ said a reflective Brunetti. ‘She must have known a great deal about their accounts.’ Then, to Signorina Elettra, ‘Her bank accounts?’

‘I’m continuing my researches, Signore,’ she said primly.

‘Is there any evidence that her relationship with Papetti is sexual?’

She allowed herself a cool glance. ‘It’s impossible to find those things in the records, sir.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Continue your researches, then.’ To Vianello, he said, ‘I want to talk to Papetti.’

‘You have the endurance to go back to the mainland?’ Vianello asked with a smile.

‘I’d like to talk to him before more time passes.’

‘If you go, you should go alone,’ Vianello said. ‘It’s less threatening.’ He took a step towards Signorina Elettra and asked, ‘Do you think we could have a look at the records of the
macello
at Preganziol while the Commissario is away?’

Her response was an exercise in modesty. ‘I could try.’

Leaving them to it, Brunetti went downstairs and out to the boat.

27

BRUNETTI MARVELLED AGAIN
at how it was possible for people to live like this: driving around in cars, getting stuck behind long columns of other cars, eternal victims of the vagaries of traffic. And the air, and the noise, and the overwhelming ugliness of what he passed. No wonder drivers were prone to violence: how could they not be?

Signorina Elettra had called and made an appointment with Dottor Papetti, explaining that Commissario Brunetti was on the mainland that day and could easily stop by to talk to him about Dottor Nava: luckily, Dottor Papetti had no appointments that afternoon and would be in his office. She explained that Dottor Brunetti knew the way
to
the slaughterhouse.

Though the driver took Brunetti the same way, he recognized little of what they passed, road-memory or road-skill not being a talent he had acquired. He thought he’d seen one of the villas, but from a distance many of them looked the same. He did, however, recognize the lane that led to the slaughterhouse and then the gates behind which it stood. And, though it seemed less strong now, Brunetti also recognized the smell that swept at him from the back of the building.

This time it was Dottor Papetti who met him at the door. He was a tall man with receding hair that exaggerated the narrowness of his face and head. His eyes were round and dark and belonged on a fatter face. The lips were thin and drawn back in a formulaic smile. The shoulders of his suit were padded in a way that was out of fashion but that still managed to disguise his thinness. Brunetti glanced down and saw that his shoes were handmade; the narrowness of his feet probably made this necessary.

After surprising Brunetti with the strength of his handshake, Papetti suggested they go to his office. Papetti walked along beside him with the free-jointed motion of a heron in water; his head, on an inordinately long neck, shoved forward with every step. Neither man spoke; intermittent noises came from the back of the building.

Opening the door to his office, Papetti stepped back and said, ‘Commissario, please have a seat and tell me how I can help you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here during your visit.’

Brunetti passed in front of him, saying, ‘I’m very glad you could find time to see me now, Dottor Papetti.’ Once both were seated, Brunetti added, in a voice from which he could not banish his gratitude, ‘I’m sure a man with your position has many responsibilities.’ Papetti smiled modestly in response to this: his smile made Brunetti remember a line he had read, he thought, in Kafka, about a man who had seen people laugh, ‘and thought he knew how to do it’.

‘Luckily,’ Papetti began, ‘well, luckily for you, two people cancelled meetings this afternoon, so I found myself
with
an opening in my schedule.’ He tried another smile. ‘It doesn’t often happen.’

His words at first created only a wild surmise, and then memory brought it to him: it was Patta’s voice the man was using. But was it Patta at his most cordial or his most devious?

‘As my secretary must have told you, I’d like to speak to you about Dottor Nava,’ Brunetti said, as one overburdened bureaucrat to another.

Papetti nodded, and Brunetti continued, ‘Since he worked for you, I thought you might be able to tell me something about him.’ Then, in a display of openness and candour, Brunetti said, ‘I’ve spoken to his widow, but there was very little she could tell me. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but they’ve been legally separated for some months.’ He waited to see what Papetti would say to this.

After a hesitation so brief as barely to have existed, he said, ‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t know that,’ rubbing the fingers of his left hand across the back of the right. ‘I knew him only because of his work at the
macello
, so I was not familiar with his private life.’

‘You knew that he was married, though, didn’t you, Dottore?’ Brunetti asked in his mildest voice.

‘Oh,’ Papetti said with an attempt at an airy wave of the hand, ‘I suppose I must have known, or at least assumed; most men his age are, after all. Or perhaps he mentioned his children. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember.’ Then, after the briefest pause, with what was meant to be a look of concern, ‘I’d like you to extend my condolences to his widow, Commissario.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Brunetti said with a nod that acknowledged Papetti’s feelings.

Brunetti let some time pass and then asked, ‘Could you
tell
me exactly what Dottor Nava’s duties at the
macello
were?’

Papetti’s answer came so fast it seemed he had been prepared for this question. ‘His job was really that of an inspector. He had to see that the animals that come to us were fit for slaughter, and then he had to inspect samples of the meat that came from them.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Brunetti said, then with the eagerness of a novice, he went on, ‘Your position must afford you some knowledge of the way all slaughterhouses work, Dottore. In general, that is. The animals arrive, are unloaded …’ Brunetti paused with another friendly smile and said, ‘We didn’t get much of an idea.’ Trying not to look embarrassed, he said, ‘My Inspector, he …’ He stopped and shrugged and then went on, ‘So please understand that I’m speaking out of ignorance here, Dottore. I’m merely trying to imagine how it might be; I’m sure you know far better than I.’ Trying his best to look uncertain, Brunetti asked, ‘Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the animals are unloaded or led in or however it is they’re brought there. And then, presumably, Dottor Nava would examine them to see that they are healthy, and then they would be taken into the slaughterhouse and killed.’ Dull people are repetitive, Brunetti knew, hoping that Papetti also believed this.

Papetti seemed to relax at this chance to remain far away from the particular. ‘That’s more or less what happens. Yes.’

‘Are there problems that you might encounter, or that Dottor Nava might have?’

Papetti pursed his lips in a gesture of thought and then said, ‘Well, as far as the slaughterhouse is concerned, if there should be a difference between our records of the number of animals brought in and what the farmers
claim
: that might be one. Or if there are delays in processing that force the farmers to keep their animals here longer than planned, with the resulting costs: that’s another.’ He uncrossed and recrossed his legs and said, ‘As for Dottor Nava, his concern would be any violation of EU regulations.’

‘Could you give me an example, Signore?’ Brunetti asked.

‘If the animals suffer unnecessarily or if the proper standards of cleanliness aren’t maintained.’

‘Ah, of course. Now it makes sense to me. Thank you, Dottore.’ Brunetti was pleased at how he must look, finally understanding all of this.

As if in response to Brunetti’s willingness to understand, Papetti said, ‘We like to think of ourselves as working with the farmers to help them receive a just price for the animals they’ve raised and brought to us.’

Brunetti, enjoining himself to avoid the danger of overreaching, stopped himself from saying that he could not have put it more accurately. Instead, he muttered, ‘Indeed,’ and then said, ‘But if I might take us back to Dottor Nava, did you ever hear anyone at the
macello
say a word against him?’

‘Not that I can recall,’ Papetti answered instantly.

‘And you were pleased with his work?’

‘Absolutely,’ Papetti said with another swipe at the back of his hand. ‘But you have to understand that my function is primarily administrative. My direct contact with the people who work here is somewhat limited.’

‘Would any of the workers have informed you if there had been anything irregular in Dottor Nava’s activities?’ Brunetti asked.

After some consideration, Papetti said, ‘I don’t know, Commissario.’ Then, with a modest smile, he added, ‘I
doubt
that’s the kind of information that would be passed on to me.’ Could mere gossip percolate to so high a point?

Keeping his voice as casual as it had been since he began speaking to Papetti, Brunetti asked, ‘Do you think they’d tell you about Nava’s affair with your assistant, Signorina Borelli?’

‘How do you …?’ Papetti said, then did something Brunetti had never seen an adult do: he clapped both hands across his mouth. Roundness is an absolute. So Papetti’s eyes could not grow rounder, but they could grow larger. They did, and his face grew whiter as the blood drained from it.

He tried. Brunetti had to give him credit for that. Papetti laced his voice with indignation and demanded, ‘How do you dare say that?’ but it was a feeble attempt: both men knew it was too late in the game to try to change either his reaction or his words.

‘So they did tell you, Dottore?’ Brunetti said, finally permitting himself the smile of the wolf. ‘Or was it perhaps Signorina Borelli herself who told you?’

At first, from the noise Papetti was making, Brunetti thought the man was choking, but then he realized it was the sound of a man fighting off tears. Papetti sat with one hand over his eyes, the other draped across his bald forehead and skull in what seemed to be an attempt to hide. The noise persisted, gradually subsiding into deep heaves as Papetti caught his breath, then heavy breathing as he sat, his head and face still protected from Brunetti.

After some moments, Papetti took his hands away. The round eyes were encircled by red patches, and two more had appeared in the middle of his cheeks.

He looked at Brunetti and said, voice shaking, ‘You have to leave.’

Brunetti sat immobile.

‘You have to leave,’ Papetti repeated.

Slowly, Brunetti got to his feet, aware of who this man’s father-in-law was and aware from his own family of the lengths to which a wife’s father might go in defence of his daughter and his grandchildren. He took out his wallet and removed one of his cards. Taking a pen from Papetti’s desk, he wrote his
telefonino
number on the front of the card, then placed it on the desk between them.

‘This is my number, Dottore. If you decide you want to tell me more about this, you can call me whenever you wish.’

Outside, Brunetti found the driver leaning against the door of the car, eyes narrowed as he faced into the sun. He was eating an ice cream cone and looking very pleased with it. They drove back to Venice.

28

FEELING THAT TO
have been out to the mainland twice in one day – regardless of how inconclusive the meetings had been and regardless of the fact that thousands of people did the same two trips every day – was more than a full day’s work for him, Brunetti decided he did not have to return to the Questura. Instead, when the driver let him out at Piazzale Roma, he offered himself the chance to go for a walk and the chance to get home by any route he chose, so long as it got him home on time for dinner.

The softness of the late afternoon encouraged him to walk in the vague direction of San Polo, turning or stopping where whim indicated. He had known this part of the city decades ago, when he took the train daily to Padova to attend his university classes and chose to walk back and forth to the station because it saved him – how much had it been then? – the fifty lire of boat fare. It had been enough for a sweet drink or a coffee; he recalled with the affection age brings to the weaknesses of youth
how
he had chosen coffee only when with his classmates, giving in to his normal preference for sweet drinks when alone and there was no one to judge his choice unsophisticated.

For a moment, he considered stopping for one of those drinks, if he could only remember their names. But he was a man and had laid aside the things of childhood, and so he stopped for a coffee, smiling at himself as he poured in the second envelope of sugar.