‘Of course not,’ the technician said, putting the paper down on his desk. ‘There’s nothing in the report that would give me any idea of what it was like.’
‘Does it make a difference, not knowing?’ Brunetti asked.
‘You mean in identifying what sort of knife it is?’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
Bocchese put his hand, palm down, on the paper, just at the wider end of the blade, as if to wrap it around whatever handle would be there. ‘It would have to be at least ten centimetres long,’ he said, his hand still flat on the paper. ‘Most handles are.’ Then, surprising Brunetti with the irrelevance of it, he added, ‘Even potato peelers.’
He removed his hand and looked at Brunetti for the first time. ‘You need at least ten to get a grip of any sort. Why’d you ask?’
‘Because he’d have to carry it, and if the blade’s twenty and the handle ten, then it would be an awkward thing to walk around with.’
‘Folded in a newspaper, in a computer case, briefcase; it would even fit in a Manila folder if you put it in on the slant,’ Bocchese said. ‘Make a difference?’
‘You don’t walk around with a knife that long unless you have a reason to. You have to think about how to carry it so no one will see it.’
‘And that suggests premeditation?’
‘I think so. He wasn’t killed in the kitchen or the workshop or wherever else a knife might be lying around, was he?’
Bocchese shrugged.
‘What does that mean?’ Brunetti asked, leaning one hip against the desk and folding his arms.
‘We don’t know where it happened. The ambulance report says he was found in Rio del Malpaga, just behind the Giustinian. Rizzardi’s says he had water in his lungs, so he could have been killed anywhere and put in the water, then drifted there.’ Seeing some invisible imperfection in the drawing, Bocchese picked up his pencil and added another faint line halfway down the blade.
‘It’s not an easy thing to do,’ Brunetti said.
‘What?’
‘Slip a body into a canal.’
‘From a boat, it might be easier,’ Bocchese suggested.
‘Then you’ve got blood in a boat.’
‘Fish bleed.’
‘And fishing boats have motors, and no motors are allowed after eight at night.’
‘Taxis are,’ Bocchese volunteered.
‘People don’t hire taxis to dump bodies in the water,’ Brunetti said easily, familiar with Bocchese’s manner.
After only a second’s hesitation, the technician said, ‘Then a boat without a motor.’
‘Or a water door from a house.’
‘And no nosey neighbours.’
‘A quiet canal, a place where there are no neighbours, nosey or otherwise,’ Brunetti suggested, starting to examine the map in his head. Then he said, ‘Rizzardi’s guess was after midnight.’
‘Cautious man, the Doctor.’
‘Found at six,’ Brunetti said.
‘“After midnight”,’ Bocchese said. ‘Doesn’t mean he went in at midnight.’
‘Where behind the Giustinian was he found?’ Brunetti asked, needing the first coordinate on his map.
‘At the end of Calle Degolin.’
Brunetti made a noise of acknowledgement, glanced at the wall behind Bocchese, and sent himself walking in an impossible circular path, radiating out from that fixed point, jumping over canals from one dead-end calle to another, trying, but failing, to recall the buildings that had doors and steps down to the water.
After a moment, Bocchese said, ‘Better ask Foa about the tides. He’d know.’
It had been Brunetti’s thought, as well. ‘Yes. I’ll ask him.’ Then he asked, ‘Can I have a look at his things?’
‘Of course. They should be dry by now,’ Bocchese said. He walked over to the table where the two men were still listing the things taken from the box, passed them, and opened the door to a storeroom to their left. Inside, Brunetti was struck by the heat and by the smelclass="underline" fetid, rank, a combination of earth and mould and abandoned things.
Neatly folded over an ordinary household drying rack were a shirt and a pair of trousers, a set of men’s underwear and a pair of socks. Brunetti bent to look more closely and saw nothing peculiar about them. Underneath stood a single shoe, brown, about Brunetti’s size. A small table held a gold wedding ring and a metal watch with an expandable metal band, a few coins, and a set of keys.
Brunetti picked up the keys without bothering to ask if he could touch them. Four of them looked like ordinary door keys, another one was much smaller and the last one had the distinctive VW that the manufacturer put on all of their keys. ‘So he owns a car,’ Brunetti said.
‘Like about forty million other people,’ Bocchese answered.
‘Then I won’t say anything about the house keys or the one for the mailbox,’ Brunetti said with a smile.
‘Four houses?’
‘My house needs two,’ Brunetti said. ‘Most of the houses in the city do. And two more get me into my office.’
‘I know,’ Bocchese said. ‘I’m trying to provoke you.’
‘I noticed,’ Brunetti said. ‘What about the smaller one? Am I right to think it’s for a mailbox?’
‘Could be,’ Bocchese admitted, in a tone that said it could just as easily not be.
‘What else?’
‘Small safe, not a serious one; tool chest; garden shed; door to a garden or courtyard; and I suppose I’m overlooking some other possibilities.’
‘Anything engraved in the ring?’
‘Nothing,’ Bocchese said. ‘Machine made – sold everywhere.’
‘Clothes?’
‘Most of then made in China – what isn’t these days? – but the shoe is Italian: Fratelli Moretti.’
‘Odd combination: clothing made in China and expensive shoes.’
‘Someone could have given them to him,’ Bocchese suggested.
‘Anyone ever give you a pair of shoes?’
‘Does that mean I should stop provoking you?’ the technician asked.
‘It would help.’
‘All right.’ Then, ‘You want me to guess out loud?’
‘That would help, too.’
‘I’ve had a look at the things he was wearing, and it doesn’t look like he was in a boat. His clothes are clean: no oil, no tar, none of the sort of thing you’d get on you if you were put in the bottom of a boat. Even if there’s no motor, they’re dirty things.’
‘And so?’
‘So I think he was killed on land, either on the street or in a house, and he was put in the water after he was stabbed. Whoever did it thought he was dead or was so sure of what they were doing that they knew he had no chance, and the canal was just a way to get rid of him. Maybe to give them more time to get out of the city, or maybe they wanted him to drift away from where they did it.’
Brunetti nodded. He too had been thinking about this. ‘A man lying in the bottom of a boat would always be visible from above.’
‘We’ll check for fibres, to see if he was covered or wrapped in something. But I don’t think that’s the case,’ Bocchese said, waving towards the shirt, simple white cotton, the sort of thing any man would wear.
‘No jacket, eh?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No. All he was wearing was the shirt and trousers,’ Bocchese said. ‘He must have been wearing a jacket or a sweater. Too cold last night to go out without one.’
‘Or he could have been killed in his own house?’ Brunetti suggested. It was his turn to provoke: he wanted Bocchese to agree with him before remarking that most people did not walk around in their houses with their keys in their pockets.
‘Yes,’ Bocchese said, sounding very unconvinced.
‘But?’
‘Rizzardi’s report says he has Madelung. He hasn’t sent the photos yet, but I’ve seen it before. It’s possible someone here has seen him. Or they’d know him at the hospital.’
‘Perhaps,’ Brunetti agreed, uncertain that anyone would recognize a photo of the battered face. Bocchese was being cooperative, so he decided not to mention the keys again.
‘Anything else?’ Brunetti asked.