Death in a Strange Country

Vianello nodded and wrote in his notebook. Finished, he slipped it into his breast pocket and began to reach for his wallet.

‘No, no,’ Brunetti insisted. ‘I’ll get it. Go back to the boat and call about the divers. And have your men set up barricades. Get the entrances to the canal blocked off while the divers work.’

Vianello nodded his thanks for the coffee and left. Through the steamy windows of the bar, Brunetti saw the ebb and flow of people across the campo. He watched as they came down from the main bridge that led to the hospital, noticed the police at their right, and asked the people standing around what was going on. Usually, they paused, looking from the dark uniforms that still milled around to the police launch that bobbed at the side of the canal. Then, seeing nothing at all out of the ordinary beyond that, they continued about their business. The old man, he saw, still leaned against the iron railing. Even after all his years of police work, he could not understand how people could so willingly place themselves near the death of their own kind. It was a mystery he had never been able to penetrate, that awful fascination with the termination of life, especially when it was violent, as this had been.

He turned back to his second coffee and drank it quickly. ‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Five thousand lire.’

He paid with a ten and waited for his change. When he handed it to Brunetti, the barman asked, ‘Something bad, sir?’

‘Yes, something bad,’ Brunetti answered. ‘Something very bad.’

* * * *

2

Because the Questura was so near, it was easier for Brunetti to walk to his office than go back on the launch with the uniformed men. He went the back way, passing the Evangelical church and coming up on the Questura from the right side of the building. The uniformed man at the front entrance opened the heavy glass door as soon as he saw Brunetti, who headed for the stairway that would take him to his office on the fourth floor, passing beside the line of foreigners seeking residence and work permits, a line that extended halfway across the lobby.

His desk, when he reached his office, was just as he had left it the day before, covered with papers and files sprawled across it in no particular order. The ones nearest to hand contained personnel reports, all of which he had to read and comment upon as part of the Byzantine process of promotion through which all State employees had to go. The second pile dealt with the last murder in the city, the brutal, crazed beating to death of a young man that had taken place a month ago on the embankment of the Zattere. So savagely had he been beaten that the police were at first sure it was the work of a gang. Instead, after only a day, they had discovered that the killer was a frail wisp of a boy of sixteen. The victim was homosexual, and the killer’s father a known Fascist who had instilled in his son the doctrines that Communists and gays were vermin who deserved only death. So, at five one bright summer morning, these two young men had come together in a deadly trajectory beside the waters of the Giudecca Canal. No one knew what had passed between them, but the victim had been reduced to such a state that the family had been denied the right to see his body, which had been consigned to them in a sealed coffin. The piece of wood which had been used to beat and stab him to death sat in a plastic box inside a filing cabinet on the second floor of the Questura. Little remained to be done, save to see that the psychiatric treatment of the killer continued and he was not allowed to leave the city. The State made no provision for psychiatric treatment for the family of the victim.

Instead of sitting at his desk, Brunetti reached into one of the side drawers and pulled out an electric razor. He stood at his window to shave, staring out at the facade of the church of San Lorenzo, still covered, as it had been for the last five years, with the scaffolding behind which extensive restoration was said to be taking place. He had no proof that this was happening, for nothing had changed in all these years, and the front doors of the church remained forever closed.

His phone rang, the direct line from outside. He glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. That would be the vultures. He switched off the razor and walked over to his desk to answer the phone.

‘Brunetti.’

‘Buon giorno, Commissario. This is Carlon,’ a deep voice said and went on, quite unnecessarily, to identify himself as the Crime Reporter for the Gazzettino.

‘Buon giorno, Signor Carlon.’ Brunetti knew what Carlon wanted; let him ask.

‘Tell me about that American you pulled out of the Rio dei Mendicanti this morning.’

‘It was officer Luciani who pulled him out, and we have no evidence that he was American.’

‘I stand corrected, Dottore,’ Carlon said with a sarcasm that turned apology to insult. When Brunetti didn’t respond, he asked, ‘He was murdered, wasn’t he?’ making little attempt to disguise his pleasure at the possibility.

‘It would appear so.’

‘Stabbed?’

How did they learn so much, and so quickly? ‘Yes.’

‘Murdered?’ Carlon repeated, voice heavy with feigned patience.

‘We won’t have any final word until we get the results of the autopsy that Doctor Rizzardi is conducting this afternoon.’

‘Was there a stab wound?’

‘Yes, there was.’

‘But you’re not sure the stab wound was the cause of death?’ Carlon’s question ended with an incredulous snort

‘No, we’re not,’ Brunetti replied blandly. ‘As I explained to you, nothing will be certain until we have the results of the autopsy.’

‘Other signs of violence?’ Carlon asked, displeased at how little information he was getting.

‘Not until after the autopsy,’ Brunetti repeated.

‘Next, are you going to suggest he might have drowned, Commissario?’

‘Signor Carlon,’ Brunetti said, deciding that he had had enough, ‘as you well know, if he was in the water of one of our canals for any length of time, then it is far more likely that disease would have killed him than that he would have drowned.’ From the other end, only silence. ‘If you’ll be kind enough to call me this afternoon, about four, I’ll be glad to give you more accurate information.’ It was Carlon whose reporting had caused the story of the last murder to become an expose of the private life of the victim, and Brunetti still felt enormous rancour because of it.

‘Thank you, Commissario. I’ll certainly do that. One thing - what was the name of that officer again?’

‘Luciani, Mario Luciani, an exemplary officer.’ As all of them were when Brunetti mentioned them to the Press.

‘Thank you, Commissario. I’ll make a note of that. And I’ll be sure to mention your cooperation in my article.’ With no further ado, Carton hung up.

In the past, Brunetti’s dealings with the Press had been relatively friendly, at times more than that, and at times he had even used the Press to solicit information about a crime. But in recent years, the ever-strengthening wave of sensationalistic journalism had prevented any dealings with reporters that were more than purely formal; every speculation he might voice would be sure to appear the following day as an almost direct accusation of guilt. So Brunetti had become cautious, providing information that was severely limited, however accurate and true reporters might know it to be.

He realized that, until he heard from the lab about the ticket in the man’s pocket or until he got the report on the autopsy, there was very little hecould do. The men in the lower offices would be calling the hotels now, and they would inform him if they turned up something. Consequently, there was nothing for him to do but continue to read and sign the personnel reports.

An hour later, just before eleven, the buzzer on his intercom sounded. He picked up the receiver, knowing too well who it would be. ‘Yes, Vice-Questore?’

Momentarily surprised at being directly addressed, having hoped, perhaps, to have found Brunetti absent or asleep, his superior, Vice-Questore Patta, took a moment to respond. ‘What’s all this about the dead American, Brunetti? Why wasn’t I called? Have you any idea of what this will do to tourism?’ Brunetti suspected that the third question was the only one in which Patta took any real interest

‘What American, sir?’ Brunetti asked, voice filled with feigned curiosity.