Beastly Things (3 page)

‘The baggage handlers?’ Brunetti asked, though it was hardly necessary. He had been investigating them and arresting them for almost a decade.

‘
Sì
.’ Pucetti failed to restrain a hoot of wild success, and his dancing feet took two more triumphant steps.

Alvise and Riverre, intrigued, moved towards them.

‘What did you do?’ Brunetti asked.

With an act of will, Pucetti brought his feet together and lowered his hands. ‘I got into …’ he began and then, glancing at his fellow officers, said, enthusiasm fading from his voice, ‘some information about one of them, sir.’

All excitement disappeared from Pucetti’s manner; Brunetti took the hint and responded with studied indifference. ‘Well, good for you. You must tell me about it some time.’ Then, to Alvise, ‘Could you come up to my office for a moment?’ He had no idea what to say to Alvise, so inadequate was the man’s ability to grasp anything he was told, but Brunetti sensed he had to distract the two officers from paying any attention to what Pucetti had said or attributing to it any importance.

Alvise saluted and gave Riverre a look from which self-importance was not absent. ‘Riverre,’ Brunetti said, ‘could you go down to the man on the door and ask him if the package has arrived for me?’ To prepare for the inevitable, he added, ‘If it hasn’t come, don’t bother to tell me. It’ll come tomorrow.’

Riverre loved tasks, and to the degree that they were simple and explained clearly, he could usually perform them. He too saluted and turned towards the door, leaving
Brunetti
to regret he had not thought of some request that would have got them both out of the room. ‘Come along, Alvise,’ he said.

As Brunetti began to shepherd Alvise towards the door, Pucetti took his place at the computer and hit a few keys; Brunetti watched the screen grow dark.

3

BRUNETTI FOUND IT
perversely fitting to be going upstairs with Alvise, since making conversation with him was so often an uphill climb. He tried to stay on the same step as the slower-moving officer so as not to make even more evident the difference in their height. ‘I wanted to ask you,’ Brunetti invented as they reached the top, ‘how you think the mood of the men is.’

‘Mood, sir?’ Alvise asked with eager curiosity. To show his willingness to cooperate, he gave a nervous smile to suggest he would do so as soon as he understood.

‘Whether they feel positive about the work and about being here,’ Brunetti said, as uncertain as Alvise apparently was about what he might mean by ‘mood’. Alvise fought to preserve his smile.

‘Since you’ve known many of them for so long, I thought they might have spoken to you.’

‘About what, sir?’

Brunetti asked himself if anyone in possession of all his faculties
would
confide in Alvise or ask his opinion about anything. ‘Or you might have heard something.’ No sooner had Brunetti said that than it occurred to him that Alvise might take this as an invitation to spy and be offended by the offer, though for Alvise to take offence was as unlikely as his ability to see a hidden meaning in anything.

Alvise stopped at Brunetti’s door and asked, ‘You mean, do they like it here, sir?’

Brunetti put on an easy smile and said, ‘Yes, good way to put it, Alvise.’

‘I think some of us do and some of us don’t, sir,’ he said sagely, then hastened to add, ‘I’m one of the ones who do, sir. You can count on that.’

Prolonging the smile, Brunetti said, ‘Oh, that was never in doubt: but I was curious about the others and hoped you’d know.’

Alvise blushed. Then he said, voice hesitant, ‘I suppose you don’t want me to tell any of the boys you asked, eh?’

‘No, perhaps better not to,’ Brunetti answered; Alvise must have expected this answer, for no disappointment showed in his face. Conscious of how easily the kindness came into his voice, Brunetti asked, ‘Something else, Alvise?’

The officer put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, looked at his shoes, as if to find the question he wanted to ask written there, looked at Brunetti, and said, ‘Could I tell my wife, sir? That you asked me?’ He placed unconscious emphasis on the final word.

Only by force of will did Brunetti stop himself from putting his arm around Alvise’s shoulder to give him a hug. ‘Of course, Alvise. I’m sure I can trust her as much as I do you.’

‘Oh, much more, sir,’ Alvise said with accidental truth. Then, briskly, ‘Is that package big, sir?’

Momentarily at a loss, Brunetti merely repeated, ‘Package?’

‘The one that’s coming, sir. If it is, I could help Riverre bring it up.’

‘Ah, of course,’ Brunetti said, feeling like the captain of the school soccer team asked by a first-year student if he wanted him to hold his ankles while he did sit-ups. Then, quickly, ‘No, thanks, Alvise. It’s very generous of you to offer, but it’s only an envelope with some files in it.’

‘All right, sir. But I thought I’d ask. In case it was. Heavy, that is.’

‘Thanks again,’ Brunetti said and opened the door to his office.

The sight of a computer on his desk drove all lingering concern with Alvise and his sensibilities from Brunetti’s mind. He approached it with something between trepidation and curiosity. He had been told nothing: his request to have his own computer was so old that Brunetti had quite forgotten both about the request and the possibility that one of his own might someday materialize.

He saw that the screen carried the command: ‘Please choose a password and confirm it. Then press “Enter”. If you want me to have the password, press “Enter” twice.’ Brunetti sat and studied the instructions, read them again, and considered their significance. Signorina Elettra – it could have been no one else – had organized this, had no doubt loaded the computer with those things he would need, and had set up a system that would make intrusion impossible. He began to consider the options: sooner or later, he would need advice, would work himself into a corner from which he would need to extricate himself. And she, being the mind behind the design, would be the one to help him. He did not know if she would need his password in order to untangle whatever mess he had made.

And he didn’t care. He hit ‘Enter’ once, and then once again.

The screen flickered. If he expected some acknowledgement from her to flash across the screen, he was disappointed: all that appeared was the usual list of icons for the programs available to him. He opened his email accounts, both the official one at the Questura and his personal account. The first held nothing of interest; the second was empty. He typed in Signorina Elettra’s work address, then the single word ‘
Grazie
’, and sent it off without signature. He waited for the answering ping of her reply, but nothing came.

Brunetti, proud of himself for having hit that second ‘Enter’ without having given it much thought, was struck by how technology had colonized human emotions: to tell someone your password was now the equivalent of giving them the key to your heart. Or at least to your correspondence. Or your bank account. He knew Paola’s, always forgot it, and so had written it in his address book under James: ‘madamemerle’, no caps, all one word, an unsettling choice.

He connected to the internet and was astonished by the speed of the connection. Soon no doubt he’d find it normal, and then he’d find it slow.

He typed in the correct name of the disease, Madelung, and was instantly confronted with a series of articles in Italian and in English. He chose the first and, for the next twenty minutes, doggedly read through the symptoms and proposed treatments, learning little more than Rizzardi had told him. Almost always men, almost always drinkers, almost always without a cure, with quite a high concentration of the disease in Italy.

He clicked the program closed and decided to take care of unfinished business: he called down to the officers’
room
to ask Pucetti to come up. When the young man arrived, Brunetti gestured to the chair in front of his desk.

Before sitting, Pucetti gave a look he could not disguise at Brunetti’s computer. His eyes shot to his superior and then back to the computer, as if he had difficulty pairing the one with the other. Brunetti resisted the impulse to smile and tell the young officer that, if he did his homework and kept his room clean, he’d let him take it for a ride. Instead, he said, ‘Tell me.’

Pucetti did not bother pretending not to understand. ‘The one we’ve arrested three times – Buffaldi – has gone on two first-class cruises in the last two years. He has a new car parked in the garage at Piazzale Roma. And his wife bought a new apartment last year: declared price was 250,000 Euros, but the real price was 350,000.’ Pucetti held up a finger with each fact, then folded his hands and put them in his lap to signify that he had nothing else to say.

‘How did you get this information?’ Brunetti asked.

The younger man looked down at his folded hands. ‘I had a look at his financial records.’

‘I think I could have figured that much out, Pucetti,’ Brunetti said in a calm voice. ‘How did you gain access to that information?’

‘I did it on my own, sir,’ Pucetti said in a firm voice. ‘She didn’t help me. Not at all.’

Brunetti sighed. If a safe-cracker files off a layer of skin to sensitize his pupil’s fingertips or teaches him how to blow a lock, who’s responsible for opening the safe? Each time Brunetti himself used his burglar tools to open a door, how much responsibility fell to the thief who had taught him how to use them? And, given that Brunetti had passed this skill on to Vianello, who bore the guilt for every door the Inspector managed to open?

‘Your defence of Signorina Elettra is admirable, Pucetti,
and
your skill is a credit to her pedagogical capabilities.’ He refused to smile. ‘I had something more practical in mind with my question, however: what did you open and what information did you steal?’

Brunetti watched Pucetti fight down his pride and his confusion at his superior’s apparent displeasure. ‘His credit card records, sir.’

‘And the apartment?’ Brunetti asked, forbearing to remark that most people did not buy apartments with credit cards.

‘I found out who the notary was who handled the sale.’

Brunetti waited, irony carefully placed aside.

‘And I know someone who works in his office,’ Pucetti added.

‘Who?’

‘I’d rather not say, sir,’ Pucetti answered, his eyes in his lap.

‘Admirable sentiment,’ Brunetti said. ‘This person confirmed the difference in price?’

Pucetti looked up at this. ‘She wasn’t sure, sir, but she said that when they discussed the sale with the notary, they made no secret that the difference in price would be at least a hundred thousand.’

‘I see.’ Brunetti allowed some time to pass, during which Pucetti twice glanced at the computer, as if memorizing the name and dimensions. ‘And where does this lead us?’

Pucetti looked up eagerly. ‘Isn’t it enough to reopen the investigation? He makes about fifteen hundred Euros a month at that job. Where else does this money come from? He’s been filmed opening suitcases and taking things from them: jewels, cameras, computers.’ He paused, as though he were not the one who should be answering questions.

‘The filming was dismissed as evidence during the last
trial
, as you know, Pucetti, and we are not yet at a place where the mere possession of large amounts of money is proof that it was stolen.’ Brunetti kept calm, imitating the voice of the defence attorney the last time the baggage handlers had been accused of theft. ‘He could have won the lottery, or his wife could have. He could have borrowed the money from members of his family. He could have found it in the street.’

‘But you know he didn’t, sir,’ Pucetti pleaded. ‘You know what he’s doing, what the lot of them are doing.’

‘What I know and what a prosecutor can prove in a court of law are entirely different matters, Pucetti,’ Brunetti said, not without a note of reprimand in his voice. ‘And I suggest very strongly that you consider this fact.’ He saw the young man open his mouth to protest and raised his voice to stop him. ‘Further, I want you to go back and very carefully cancel any traces you might have left during your investigation of Signor Buffaldi’s finances.’ Before Pucetti could object, he added, ‘If you managed to find them, then someone else will be able to find that you have been there, and that information would render Signor Buffaldi untouchable for the rest of his career.’

‘He’s pretty much untouchable now, isn’t he?’ Pucetti said, voice just short of anger.

That was enough to spark Brunetti’s own. Impetuous boy, thinking he could change things: so much the way Brunetti had been decades ago, just sworn into the force and keen to work for justice. The memory calmed Brunetti, who said, ‘Pucetti, the system we have is the one we have to use. To criticize it is as useless as to praise it. You know and I know how limited our powers are.’

As if giving in to a force stronger than his power to resist it, Pucetti said, ‘But what about her? She finds out
things
, and you use them.’ Brunetti was again conscious of Pucetti’s zeal.

‘Pucetti, I saw your face when I told you to cancel your traces: you know you left some. If you can’t eliminate them, then ask Signorina Elettra to help you do so. I don’t want this case made more difficult than it is.’

‘But unless you use this …’ Pucetti said in a high voice.

Staring him down, Brunetti continued in a tight voice. ‘I have the information, Pucetti. I’ve had it since they booked the tickets for the cruises and bought the car, and bought the house. So go back and remove your traces, and don’t ever think of doing something like this without my knowledge, without my authorization.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Pucetti asked, in a voice that sought information, not sarcastic revenge. ‘About how you got it?’

How much to trust him? How to stop Pucetti from dragging them into a legal swamp while still encouraging him to take chances? ‘She doesn’t leave traces and you do.’

Then Brunetti picked up his phone and dialled Signorina Elettra’s number. When she answered, he said, ‘Signorina. I’m just going out for a coffee. Do you think you could step up to my office while I’m gone? Pucetti has some changes he has to make to research he’s been doing, and I wonder if you could help him.’ He paused for a moment while she answered, then said, ‘Of course I’ll wait until you come up.’ He replaced the phone and went to stand by the window until she arrived.