Wishing to learn if Paolo Battestini had indeed been gay, Brunetti dialled the office number of Domenico Lalli, owner of one of the chemical companies currently under investigation by Judge Galvani. He gave his name, and when Lalli's secretary proved reluctant to pass on the call, said it was a police matter and suggested she ask Lalli if he wanted to speak to him.
A minute later he was put through. 'What now, Guido?' Lalli asked, having served Brunetti in the past as a source of information about the gay population of Mestre and Venice. There was no anger in the voice, simply the impatience of a man who had a large company to run.
'Paolo Battestini, worked for the school board until five years ago, when he died of AIDS.'
'All right,' Lalli said. 'What, specifically, do you want to know?'
'Whether he was gay, whether he liked adolescent boys, and whether there was anyone else he might have shared this taste with.'
Lalli made a disapproving noise and then asked, 'He the one whose mother was murdered a few weeks ago?'
'Yes.'
'These things connected?' 'Maybe. That's why I'm asking you to see what you can find out.' 'Five years ago?'
'Yes. It seems he subscribed to a magazine that had photos of boys in it.'
'Unpleasant,' came Lalli's unsolicited comment. 'And stupid. They can get all they want on the Internet now, though they still all ought to be locked up.'
Lalli, Brunetti knew, had been married as a young man and now had three grandchildren in whom he took inordinate pride. Fearing that he would now have to listen to an account of their latest triumphs, Brunetti said, 'I'd be grateful for anything you could tell me.'
'Hummm. I'll ask around. The school board, huh?'
'Yes. You know someone there.'
‘I know someone everywhere, Guido,' Lalli said tersely and without the least hint of boasting. 'I'll call you if I learn anything,' he said and, not bothering to say goodbye, hung up.
Brunetti tried to think of anyone else he could ask about this, but the two men who might have been able to help were on vacation, he knew. He decided to wait to see what information Lalli could provide before trying to get in touch with the others. That decision made, he went downstairs to see if there were any sign of Vianello.
15
Vianello had not yet come in. And as he was leaving the officers' room, Brunetti found himself face to face with Lieutenant Scarpa. After a significant pause, during which his body effectively blocked the doorway, the lieutenant stepped back and said, ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you, Commissario.'
'Of course’ Brunetti said.
'Perhaps in my office?' Scarpa suggested.
'I have to get back to my own office, I'm afraid’ Brunetti said, unwilling to concede the territorial advantage.
‘I think it's important, sir. It's about the Battestini murder.'
Brunetti manufactured a noncommittal expression and asked, 'Really? What about it?'
The Gismondi woman’ the lieutenant said and then refused to say more.
Though the mention of her name stirred Brunetti's curiosity, he said nothing. After a long time, his silence won, and Scarpa went on, 'I've checked the recordings of phone calls made to us, and I've found two calls in which she threatens her’
'Who threatens whom, Lieutenant?' inquired Brunetti.
'Signora Gismondi threatens Signora Battestini.'
'In a phone call to the police, Lieutenant? Wouldn't you say that was a bit rash of her?'
He watched Scarpa maintain control of himself, saw the way his mouth tightened at the corners and how he rose a few millimetres on the balls of his feet. He thought of what it would be like to be the weaker person in any exchange with Scarpa and didn't like the thought.
'If you could spare the time to listen to the tapes, sir, you might understand what I mean’ Scarpa said.
'Can't this wait?' Brunetti asked, making no attempt to disguise his own irritation.
As if the sight of Brunetti's impatience were enough to satisfy him, a more relaxed Scarpa said, 'If you'd prefer not to listen to the person who admits that she was probably the last one to see the victim alive threaten her, sir, that is entirely your own affair. I had, however, thought it would warrant closer attention.'
'Where are they?' Brunetti asked.
Feigning incomprehension, Scarpa asked, 'Where are what, sir?'
As he resisted the impulse to hit Scarpa, Brunetti realized how frequently this desire overtook him. He considered Patta a complacent time-server, a man capable of almost anything to protect his job. But it was the existence of the human weakness implicit in that 'almost' that kept Brunetti from disliking Patta in any but a superficial sense. But he hated Scarpa, shied away from him as he would from entering a dark room from which emerged a strange smell. Most rooms had lights, but he feared there existed no way to illuminate the interior of Scarpa, nor any certainty that what lay inside, if it could be seen, would provoke anything other than fear.
Brunetti's unwillingness to respond was so evident that Scarpa turned, muttering, 'In the lab,' and started towards the back stairway.
Bocchese was nowhere evident in the laboratory, though the prevailing odour of cigarette smoke suggested that he was not long gone. Scarpa went over to the back wall, where a large cassette player sat on a long wooden counter. Beside it lay two ninety-minute tapes, each bearing dates and signatures.
Scarpa picked one up, glanced at the writing, and slipped it into the machine. He picked up a pair of headphones and placed them over his ears, then pressed the PLAY button, listened for a few seconds, pushed STOP, fast-forwarded the tape and played it again. After three more attempts to find the right spot, he stopped the tape, rewound it a little, then handed the headphones to Brunetti.
Strangely reluctant to have anything that had been in such intimate contact with Scarpa's body touch his own, Brunetti said, 'Can't you just play it?'
Scarpa yanked the headphones from the socket and pressed PLAY.
'This is Signora Gismondi, in Cannaregio. I called before.' Brunetti recognized her voice, but not the tone, tight with anger.
'Yes, Signora. What now?'
'I told you an hour and a half ago. She's got the television on so loud you can hear it from here. Listen,' she said. The voices of two people who sounded as if they were having an argument drew close, then moved away. 'Can you hear that? Her window is ten metres away, and I can hear it like it's in my own house.'
'There's nothing I can do, Signora. The patrol is out on another call.'
'Has the call lasted an hour and a half?' she asked angrily.
‘I can't give you that information, Signora.'
'It's four o'clock in the morning,' she said, her voice moving close to hysteria or tears. 'She's had that thing on since one o'clock. I want to get some sleep.'
‘I told you the last time you called, Signora. The patrol's been given your address and they'll come when they can.'
'This is the third night in a row this has happened, and I haven't seen any sign of them,' she said, her voice shriller.
'I don't know anything about that, Signora.'
'What do you expect me to do, go over there and kill her?' Signora Gismondi shouted down the phone.
'I told you, Signora’ came the dispassionate voice of the police operator, 'the patrol will come when it can.' One of them hung up the phone and the tape wound on with a soft hiss.
An equally dispassionate Scarpa turned to Brunetti and said, 'In the next one, she actually threatens to go over and kill her.'