‘Well?’ Patta asked, and Brunetti almost shouted at him, so unnecessary was the question, so easily recognizable the dead man.
‘I’d say it’s he,’ Brunetti limited himself to saying, flipped the phone closed, and handed it back to Patta. Long moments passed, during which time Brunetti watched Patta wash everything save affability and the selfless desire for cooperation from his face. As soon as Patta began to speak, Brunetti realized that the same transformation had taken place in Patta’s voice. ‘I’ve decided it might be wiser to tell them he was here.’
Like an Olympic relay racer, Brunetti did his best to sprint up to the man in front of him, reach his hand forward while they were both running full tilt, and pluck the stick from him, allowing the other runner to slow down and eventually drop out of the race.
For a moment, Brunetti feared that Patta was going to press the call-back number and pass the phone to him: he would not trust himself if Patta did. Perhaps Patta saw this. Whatever did happen, Patta opened the phone again. He pulled a sheet of paper towards him, wrote down the caller’s number and slid the paper across the desk to Brunetti. ‘I don’t remember his name, but he’s a captain.’
Brunetti took the paper and read it a few times. When it was obvious that the Vice-Questore had nothing further to contribute, Brunetti got up and moved towards the door, saying, ‘I’ll call him.’
‘Good. Keep me posted,’ Patta said, his voice filled with the relief that came from so artfully having passed it all to Brunetti.
Upstairs, he dialled the number. After only two rings, a man’s voice answered, ‘Sì?’
‘I’m returning your call to Vice-Questore Patta,’ Brunetti said neutrally, having decided to use the weight of Patta’s rank for whatever it was worth. ‘Someone called from this number and spoke to the Vice-Questore, then sent a photo.’ He paused but there was no expression of acknowledgement or curiosity from the other end. ‘Vice-Questore Patta has shown me the photo of what appears to be a dead man, and from what the Vice-Questore has told me, he was killed in our territory,’ Brunetti went on in his most officious voice. ‘The Vice-Questore has tasked me to go out there and then report to him.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ the other man said coolly.
‘I disagree,’ Brunetti answered with matching coolness, ‘that’s why I’m coming.’
Doing his best to sound like someone who was trying only to do his job, the other man said, ‘We’ve got a positive identification. We recognize the man as a colleague involved in one of our ongoing cases.’
As if the other man had not spoken, Brunetti said, ‘If you tell me where you are, we’ll come out.’
‘That’s not necessary. I told you, the body’s already been identified.’ He waited a moment then added, ‘I’m afraid the case is ours.’
‘And who are we?’ Brunetti asked.
‘The Carabinieri, Commissario. Guarino was with Nas, which I think doubles our authority to investigate.’
Brunetti said only, ‘I can certainly discuss it with a magistrate here.’
Stalemate.
Brunetti waited, sure that the other was doing the same thing. He reflected that waiting was what he had done with Guarino, what he had done with Patta, what he spent too much time doing.
Still no sound from the other end of the line. Brunetti broke the connection. Of course, Guarino would have to have been with the Nas, and how could anyone keep all of these acronyms straight? The Nuclei Anti-Sofisticazione section of the Carabinieri was supposed to see that environmental laws were enforced. Brunetti’s thoughts turned to the images of the garbage-filled streets of Naples, but they were pushed aside by the memory of the photo of Guarino.
He dialled Vianello’s number, but the officer who answered said the Inspector had gone out. Brunetti tried his telefonino, but it was turned off and not receiving messages. He called Griffoni and told her they were to go out to the scene of a murder in Marghera and that he would explain on the way. Downstairs, he went into Signorina Elettra’s office.
‘Yes, Commissario?’ she asked.
It didn’t seem the right time to tell her about Guarino, but then there was never a right time to tell people that someone had died.
‘I’ve just had some bad news, Signorina,’ he said.
Her smile grew more tentative.
‘Vice-Questore Patta had a phone call this morning,’ he began. Brunetti watched her response to his use of Patta’s title: it was enough to warn her that whatever she was going to hear might be something she would not like. ‘A captain from the Carabinieri told him that the man who came here earlier this week, Maggior Guarino, has been killed. Shot.’
She closed her eyes for a moment, long enough to hide whatever emotion this caused her but not long enough to hide the fact that she felt something.
Before she could ask anything, he went on. ‘They sent a photo, and they wanted to know if he had been here to talk to us.’
‘It really is?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Truth was mercy.
‘I’m very sorry,’ was all she could find to say.
‘So am I. He seemed like a decent man, and Avisani vouched for him.’
‘You needed someone to vouch for him?’ she asked in a voice that seemed to be seeking an outlet for anger.
‘If I was going to trust him, yes. I had no idea what he was involved in or what he wanted.’ Perhaps irritated by her manner, he added, ‘I still don’t.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that I don’t know whether the story he told me is true or not, and that means I don’t know why the man who called is interested in knowing why the Maggiore came here in the first place.’
‘But he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you for telling me.’
Brunetti went to meet Griffoni.
15
The shipbuilding works and the petrochemical and other factories littering the landscape of Marghera had exercised a fascination over Brunetti’s imagination ever since he was a boy. For a period of about two years, from when he was six until a bit after his eighth birthday, his father had worked as a warehouseman for a factory producing paint and solvents. Brunetti recalled it as one of the quietest and happiest times of his childhood, with his father steadily employed and proud to maintain his family with what he earned.
But then had come the strikes, after which his father had not been taken back. Things changed then and peace fled from their home, but for some years his father kept in contact with some of his fellow workers from the factory. Brunetti could still remember these men and their stories of work and each other, their rough good humour, their jokes, and their endless patience with his volatile father. Cancer had taken them all, as it had, over the years, taken so many of the people who worked in the other factories that sprang up on the edge of the laguna, with its welcoming and oh-so-unprotected waters.
Brunetti had not been to the industrial area for years, though the plumes from its smokestacks formed an eternal backdrop for anyone arriving in the city by boat, and the highest plumes of smoke could sometimes be seen from Brunetti’s terrace. He was always struck by their whiteness, especially at night, when the smoke swirled so beautifully against the velvet sky. It looked so very harmless, so pure, and never failed to make Brunetti think of snow, first communion dresses, brides. Bones.
Over the years, all efforts to shut down the factories had met with failure, often with the violent protests of the men whose lives might have been saved, or at least prolonged, by their closure. If a man cannot provide for his family, is he any longer a man? Brunetti’s father had thought not; Brunetti could understand only now why he thought that way.