Uniform Justice (27 page)

‘We can talk to him alone.’

‘Won’t he want a lawyer?’

‘Not if he thinks he’s smarter than we are.’

‘And how will you make him think that?’

‘I’ll send Alvise and Riverre to bring him in.’

Brunetti was very pleased by the fact that Pucetti refrained from laughter or comment, seeing in his discretion sign of both the young man’s intelligence and his charity.

When Brunetti went downstairs an hour later, he found Paolo Filippi in the interview room, sitting at the head of the rectangular table, facing the door. The young man sat straight in the chair, his spine at least ten centimetres from the back, his hands carefully folded on the desk in front of him, like a general who has summoned his staff and waits impatiently for them to arrive. He wore his uniform and had placed his cap, neatly folded gloves carefully set on its crown, to his right. He looked at Brunetti when he and Vianello came in but said nothing to acknowledge their presence. Brunetti recognized him instantly as the boy whose ankle he had so delighted in kicking, and he saw that the recognition was mutual.

Taking his cue from Filippi’s silence, Brunetti walked to one side of the table, Vianello to the other. Brunetti carried a thick blue file, which he placed in front of him as he sat down. Ignoring the boy, he reached out and turned on the microphone, then gave the date and the names of the three people present in the room. He turned to face the boy and, in a voice he made sound as formulaic as possible, asked Filippi if he wanted a lawyer to be present, hoping that to the young man’s ears it would sound like the sort of offer a brave man would spurn.

‘Of course not,’ the boy said, striving for the tone of bored superiority used by mediocre actors in bad war movies. Brunetti gave silent thanks for the arrogance of the young.

Quickly, using the same formulaic tone, Brunetti disposed of the standard questions about name, age, place of residence, and then asked the boy what he did.

‘I’m a student, of course,’ Filippi answered, as though it were unthinkable that someone his age, from his background, could be anything other than this.

‘At the San Martino Academy?’ Brunetti asked.

‘You know that,’ the boy said.

‘I’m sorry, but that’s not an answer,’ Brunetti said calmly.

In a sulky voice, the boy said, ‘Yes.’

‘In what year are you?’ Brunetti asked, though he knew the answer and believed the information to be irrelevant. He wanted to see if
Filippi
had learned to answer questions without dispute.

‘Third.’

‘Have you spent all three years at the Academy?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Is it part of your family tradition?’

‘What, the Academy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course it is. The Academy and then the Army.’

‘Is your father in the Army, then?’

‘He was. He’s retired.’

‘When was that?’

‘Three years ago.’

‘Do you have any idea why your father retired?’

Irritated, the boy asked, ‘Who do you want to know about, me or my father? If you want to know about him, then why don’t you bring him in and ask him?’

‘In due course,’ Brunetti said calmly, then repeated, ‘Do you have any idea why your father retired?’

‘Why does anyone retire?’ the boy shot back angrily. ‘He had enough years and he wanted to do something else.’

‘Serve on the board of Edilan-Forma?’

The boy waved away the possibility with his hand. ‘I don’t know what he wanted. You’ll have to ask him.’

As if it followed in logical sequence, Brunetti asked, ‘Did you know Ernesto Moro?’

‘The boy who killed himself?’ Filippi asked, Brunetti thought unnecessarily.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, I knew him, though he was a year below me.’

‘Did you take any classes together?’

‘No.’

‘Did you participate in sports together?’

‘No.’

‘Did you have friends in common?’

‘No.’

‘How many students are there at the Academy?’ Brunetti asked.

The question puzzled Filippi, who turned to take a quick look at the silent Vianello, as if the other man might know why this question was being asked.

When nothing was forthcoming from Vianello, the boy said, ‘No. Why?’

‘It’s a small school, fewer than a hundred students.’

‘If you knew that, why did you ask me?’ Brunetti was glad to see that the boy was irritated at having been asked a question to which the police obviously already knew the answer.

Ignoring Filippi’s question, Brunetti said, ‘I understand it’s a good school.’

‘Yes. It’s very hard to get in.’

‘And very expensive,’ Brunetti observed neutrally.

‘Of course,’ Filippi said with no attempt to disguise his pride.

‘Is preference given to the sons of former students?’

‘I should hope so,’ Filippi said.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because then the right people get in.’

‘And who are they?’ Brunetti asked with mild curiosity, conscious as he spoke that, if his own son were to use the phrase, ‘the right people’, in that same tone, he would feel himself to have failed as a parent.

‘Who?’ Filippi demanded.

‘The right people.’

‘The sons of officers, of course,’ the boy answered.

‘Of course,’ Brunetti repeated. He opened the file and glanced at the top sheet of paper, which had nothing to do with Filippi or Moro. He looked at Filippi, back at the paper, then again at the boy. ‘Do you remember where you were the night that Cadet Moro was …’ he began, deliberately hesitating after the last word before correcting it to, ‘died?’

‘In my room, I assume,’ the boy answered.

‘You assume?’

‘Where else would I be?’

Brunetti permitted himself to look across at Vianello, who gave the most minimal of nods. Brunetti slowly turned the page over and glanced at the next.

‘Was anyone in the room with you?’

‘No.’ The answer was immediate.

‘Where was your roommate?’

Filippi reached out and adjusted the folded
gloves
until they ran directly from the centre of the peak to the back of the cap. ‘He must have been there,’ the boy finally said.

‘I see,’ Brunetti said. As if unable to resist the impulse, he glanced across at Vianello. The Inspector gave another slight nod. Brunetti looked again at the paper and, from memory, asked, ‘His name’s Davide Cappellini, isn’t it?’

Filippi, suppressing any sign of surprise, answered, ‘Yes.’

‘Is he a close friend of yours?’ Brunetti asked.

‘I suppose so,’ Filippi said with the petulance that only teenagers can express.

‘Only that?’

‘Only what?’

‘That you suppose it. That you aren’t sure.’

‘Of course I’m sure. What else would he be if we’ve shared a room for two years?’

‘Exactly,’ Brunetti permitted himself to observe and bent his attention to the papers again. After what he realized was a long time, he asked, ‘Do you do things together?’ Then, before Filippi could ask who he meant, Brunetti clarified, ‘You and your roommate, Cadet Cappellini?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do things together,’ Brunetti repeated. ‘Study? Sports? Other things?’

‘What other things?’ Filippi demanded suspiciously.

‘Hunting?’ Vianello surprised them both by suggesting.

Almost as if he had forgotten the presence of
the
other policeman, Filippi whipped his head towards Vianello and demanded, his voice slipping up an octave, ‘What?’

‘Fishing? Hunting?’ Vianello asked with innocent curiosity, then added, ‘Soccer?’

Filippi reached a hand in the direction of the gloves but stopped himself and folded both hands together on the desk in front of him. ‘I want to have a lawyer here with me,’ he said.

Mildly, as though Filippi had asked for a glass of water, Brunetti said, ‘Of course,’ leaned forward, gave the time, and said into the microphone that the interview was being broken off.

25

WHEN HE SAID
that he didn’t know a lawyer, the boy was left alone in a room and allowed to call his father. A few minutes later he came out and said that his father would be there with a lawyer in about an hour. Brunetti called an officer to take the boy back to the room where he had been questioned and told Filippi that he would be left there, undisturbed, until his father arrived. Politely, Brunetti asked if he would like anything to eat or drink, but the boy refused. In the manner of his refusal, Brunetti saw generations of B movie actors spurning the handkerchief offered by the commander of the firing squad.

As soon as the boy was led away, Brunetti told Vianello to wait for Major Filippi and the
lawyer
and to delay them as long as he could before letting them see the boy.

Calling to Pucetti, he told him to go down and wait at the launch, that he’d be down in a moment.

‘Where are you going?’ interrupted a puzzled Vianello.

‘Back to the Academy. I want to talk to the Cappellini boy before they get to him,’ Brunetti said. ‘Let them talk to the boy alone as long as they want. If you have to, let them take him away. Just see that it all takes as long as possible. Do anything you can to delay them.’ He was gone even before Vianello could make any acknowledgement.

The launch stood before the Questura, the pilot gunning the engine in response to Pucetti’s excitement. Pucetti had already untied the moorings and stood on the dock, holding the boat close to the pier. Brunetti jumped on board, followed a second later by Pucetti, who lost his footing on the already-moving boat and had to steady himself with a hand on Brunetti’s shoulder. Full throttle, the launch sped out into the
Bacino
, straight across, then turned into the open mouth of the Canale della Giudecca. The pilot, warned by Pucetti, used the flashing blue light but not the siren.

The first thrill of excitement was followed almost immediately by Brunetti’s embarrassment that, in the midst of death and deceit, he could still revel in the simple joy of speed. He knew this was no schoolboy holiday, no cops
and
robbers chase, but still his heart soared with delight at the rush of wind and the rhythmic thump of the prow against the waves.

He glanced at Pucetti and was relieved to see his own feelings reflected on the younger man’s face. They seemed to flash by other boats. Brunetti saw heads turn and follow their swift passage up the canal. Too soon, however, the pilot pulled into the Rio di Sant’ Eufemia, slipped the motor into reverse, and glided silently to the left-hand side of the canal. As he and Pucetti jumped off, Brunetti wondered if he had been rash to bring this sweet-tempered young man with him instead of someone like Alvise who, if equally decent, at least had the professional advantage of looking like a thug.

‘I want to frighten this kid,’ Brunetti said as they started up the
riva
towards the school.

‘Nothing easier, sir,’ Pucetti replied.

As they walked across the courtyard, Brunetti sensed some sort of motion or disturbance to his right, where Pucetti was. Without breaking his stride, he took a quick glance at him and was so surprised that he almost stopped. Somehow, Pucetti’s shoulders had thickened, and he had adopted the stride of a boxer or roustabout. His head jutted forward on a neck that, to Brunetti, looked suddenly thicker. Pucetti’s hands were curled, almost as if poised for the command that they be turned into fists, and his steps were, each one, a command that the earth dare not resist his passage.

Pucetti’s eyes roved around the courtyard, his
attention
turning with predatory haste from one cadet to another. His mouth looked hungry, and his eyes had lost all trace of the warmth and humour which usually filled them.

Brunetti automatically slowed his pace, allowing Pucetti to cut ahead, like a cruise ship in the Antarctic that moves aside to allow an ice breaker to slip in front of it. The few cadets in the courtyard fell silent as they passed.

Pucetti took the steps to the dormitory two at a time, Brunetti following at a slower pace. At the door to Filippi’s room, Pucetti raised his fist and banged on it twice, then quickly twice again. From the end of the corridor, Brunetti heard the yelp from inside and then saw Pucetti open the door and shove it back on its hinges so that it banged against the wall.

When Brunetti got to the door, Pucetti was standing just inside, his hands raised almost to the level of his waist; his shoulders looked, if this were possible, even thicker.

A thin blonde boy with acne-pitted cheeks was on the top bunk, half sitting, half lying, but pressed back against the wall, his feet pulled towards him, as though he were afraid to leave them hanging in the air so close to Pucetti’s teeth. As Brunetti came in, Cappellini raised a hand, but he used it to wave Brunetti closer, not to tell him to stop.

‘What do you want?’ the boy asked, unable to disguise his terror.

At the question, Pucetti turned his head slowly to Brunetti and raised his chin, as if
asking
if Brunetti wanted him to climb up on the bed and hurl the boy down.

‘No, Pucetti,’ Brunetti said in a voice generally used to dogs.

Pucetti lowered his hands, but not by much, and turned his head back to face the boy on the bed. He kicked the door shut with his heel.

Into the reverberating silence, Brunetti asked, ‘Cappellini?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where were you on the night Cadet Moro was killed?’

Before he thought, the boy blurted out, ‘I didn’t do it,’ voice high and himself too frightened to realize what he’d just admitted. ‘I didn’t touch him.’

‘But you know,’ Brunetti said in a firm voice, as if repeating what he’d already been told by someone else.

‘Yes. But I didn’t have anything to do with it,’ the boy said. He pushed himself farther back on the bed, but his shoulders and back were flat against the wall, and there was no place for him to go, no way he could escape.

‘Who was it?’ Brunetti added, stopping himself from suggesting Filippi’s name. When the boy hesitated, he demanded, ‘Tell me.’

Cappellini hesitated, calculating whether this current danger were worse than the one he lived with. Obviously he decided in Brunetti’s favour, for he said, ‘Filippi. It was his idea, all of it.’