A Question of Belief

Brunetti tuned into Fontana’s answer in mid-sentence. ‘. . that made things change. When he didn’t talk about her — I noticed the change because he had been so taken with her — I asked about her, and he said he had been mistaken about her. And that was that. He refused to say anything else.’

‘Have you seen your aunt since his death?’

Fontana shook his head. He sat quietly for a while, and then said, ‘The funeral’s tomorrow. I’ll see her there. Then I hope I never have to see her again. Ever.’

Brunetti and Vianello waited.

‘She ruined his life. He should have gone to live with Renato when he had the chance.’

‘When was that?’ Brunetti asked.

When Fontana looked at him, Brunetti saw that his eyes had grown sadder still. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He could have, and should have, but he didn’t, and now he’s dead.’

Fontana got to his feet, reached across the desk and shook Brunetti’s hand, then Vianello’s. He didn’t bother to say anything else but walked to the door and let himself out of the office.

26

The silence in the room remained after Fontana left, neither Brunetti nor Vianello willing to disturb it. After some time, Brunetti got up from his desk and went over to the window, but he found no puff of air to ward off the sodden weight of the day or of Fontana’s words. ‘My family is sleeping under eiderdowns, and we have to go to a funeral tomorrow,’ he said, looking out the window.

‘Nothing better for me to do with Nadia and the kids gone,’ Vianello said wistfully. ‘I’ll probably start talking to myself soon. Or eating at McDonald’s.’

‘Probably less harmful to talk to yourself,’ Brunetti observed. Then, more seriously, ‘You listen while I talk, all right?’

Vianello folded his arms across his chest, and slid down in his chair with his feet stuck out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

Brunetti leaned back against the windowsill, propped his hands beside him, and said, ‘The DNA sample that Rizzardi took from Fontana’s body’s no use unless we can match it to someone. Penzo and Fontana weren’t lovers, for whatever that’s worth. The mother may have known he was gay, but she seems to have cared more about keeping the apartment. Fontana had some sort of crush on Judge Coltellini, and then it ended for reasons yet to be discovered. Fontana liked anonymous sex. Someone at the Tribunale is saying he liked dangerous sex. He argued with both neighbours; we don’t know about what. Some cases brought before Judge Coltellini have had inordinately long delays. Fontana wouldn’t talk about her. He wanted to move out of the apartment but probably lacked the courage to do it.’

Vianello crossed his ankles the other way. Brunetti went back to his desk and sat. ‘It’s a jigsaw puzzle: we’ve got lots of pieces, but we don’t have any idea how they fit together.’

‘Maybe they don’t,’ observed Vianello.

‘What?’

‘Maybe they don’t fit together. Maybe he picked someone up and brought him back to the courtyard. And things got out of control.’

Brunetti propped his head on one hand and said, ‘I’m hoping this suggestion doesn’t result from some idea that gay sex always has to be dangerous.’ His voice was neutral, but his intention was not.

‘Guido,’ Vianello said in an exasperated way, ‘give me some credit, all right? We’ve got lots of little facts and even more inferences, but we also have someone whose head was bashed against a marble statue three times, and that’s not something that happens to a good man, not unless he’s doing something very rash.’

‘Or dealing with a man who is not good and who is rash,’ Brunetti added quickly.

‘I think we. .’ Vianello began but was interrupted by Pucetti, who catapulted through the door, his momentum carrying him almost up against Vianello’s chair. ‘The Ospedale,’ he managed to blurt out, then leaned over to take two deep breaths. ‘We had a call,’ he said, but even as he spoke, Brunetti’s phone rang.

‘Commissario,’ a voice Brunetti did not recognize said, ‘the Ospedale called. Something’s going on in the lab.’

‘What?’

‘It sounds like a hostage situation, sir.’

‘A what?’ Brunetti asked, wondering if everyone there had been watching too much television.

‘It sounds like there’s someone locked in the lab, making threats.’

‘Who called you?’ Brunetti demanded.

‘The portiere. He said people escaped from the lab. One of them called him.’

‘What do you mean, “escaped”?’ Brunetti demanded. He covered the mouthpiece and told Vianello, ‘Go down and get Foa. I want a launch.’ Vianello nodded and was gone. Pucetti went out with him.

Brunetti returned his attention to the phone just in time to hear the explanation. ‘The portiere said that’s what the person who called him told him.’

‘What else did he say, the person who called him?’

‘I don’t know, sir. The portiere called 113, but there was no answer, so he called us. That’s all.’

‘Call him back and tell him we’re on the way,’ Brunetti said.

Outside, as he crossed the pavement to get to the launch, Brunetti realized he had left his jacket in his office, and thus his sunglasses. The morning light stunned him, and he jumped on to the boat half-blind. Vianello grabbed his arm to steady him and led him down into the cabin to escape the light. Even though they left the doors open, and Vianello slid open the windows, the heat battered them.

Foa did a three-point turn and took them up towards Rio di Santa Marina. He flicked the siren on and off to warn approaching boats that a police boat was coming the wrong way. He slowed to turn into Rio dei Mendicanti and pulled them up at the ambulance landing of the Ospedale. Brunetti and Vianello jumped on to the dock, Brunetti turned to Foa to tell him to wait for them, and they walked quickly into the Ospedale, trying to look like men in a hurry for medical reasons. The trip couldn’t have taken them five minutes.

Brunetti led the way, along the side of the cloister, then to the left and up the stairs towards the laboratory. The door to the lab stood at the end of a corridor, and in front of the door to the corridor stood five people, three of them wearing white lab jackets and two the blue uniforms of guards. Brunetti recognized one of Rizzardi’s assistants, Comei.

‘What’s going on?’ Brunetti asked him.

The young man’s staring blue eyes stood out alarmingly in his bronzed face. Vacation time was over.

It took him a moment to recognize Brunetti, but when he did, some of the tension disappeared from his face. ‘Ah, Commissario.’ He clutched Brunetti’s arm as if he were drowning and only Brunetti could save him.

‘What happened, Comei?’ Brunetti said, hoping to calm him with his voice.

‘I was in there, and suddenly she started to shout, and then she threw something. Then she knocked everything off her desk: there was glass and chemicals and blood samples. All over the place.’ He stared down at his feet, grabbed Brunetti’s arm, and said, ‘Oddio. Look, look what she did.’

Brunetti followed his pointing finger and saw a red stain on the front of the technician’s green plastic clog.

‘She’s gone mad,’ Comei said, and a sudden scream that carried down the corridor from the lab gave evidence of that.

‘Who is it?’ Brunetti asked.

‘Elvira, the technician.’

‘Montini?’ asked Brunetti.

Comei nodded absently, as if the name did not matter, and bent down. Gingerly, holding the cloth at the knee, he lifted the cuff of his trousers and exposed his ankle and the top of his naked foot. Four long splashes of