Brunetti nodded in silent agreement. ‘What could do something like that?’ he asked, nodding towards the wound.
‘A knife. Wide-bladed. And whoever did it was either very good or very lucky.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Brunetti asked.
‘I don’t want to poke around in there too much, not until I can open him up and see it properly,’ Rizzardi said. ‘But if the angle is right, and that’s indicated by what I can see from here, then he had a clear path right to the heart. No ribs in the way. Nothing. Just the least little push, the least little bit of pressure, and he’s dead.’ Rizzardi repeated, ‘Either very good or very lucky.’
Brunetti could see only the width of the wound; he had no idea of the path it would have followed within the body. ‘Could it have been anything else? I mean, other than a knife?’
‘I can’t be sure until I get a closer look at the tissue inside, but I doubt it.’
‘What about drowning? If it didn’t get his heart, could he still have drowned?’
Rizzardi sat back on his heels, careful to pull the folds of his raincoat under him to keep them from the water below. ‘No, I doubt it. If it missed the heart, there wouldn’t have been enough damage to keep him from pulling himself out of the water. Just look at how pale he is. I think that’s what happened. One blow. The right angle. Death would have been almost immediate.’ He pushed himself to his feet and delivered the closest thing the young man was to get to a prayer that morning. ‘Poor devil. He’s a handsome young man, and he’s in excellent physical shape. I’d say he was an athlete or at least someone who took very good care of himself.’ He bent back over the body and, with a gesture that seemed curiously paternal, he moved his hand down across his eyes, trying to force them closed. One refused to move. The other closed for a moment, then slowly slid open and stared again at the sky. Rizzardi muttered something to himself, took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and placed it across the face of the young man.
‘Cover his face. He died young,’ muttered Brunetti.
‘What?’
Brunetti shrugged. ‘Nothing. Something Paola says.’ He looked away from the face of the young man and studied, for the briefest of instants, the facade of the basilica and allowed himself to be calmed by its symmetry. ‘When can you tell me something exact, Ettore?’
Rizzardi gave a quick look at his watch. ‘If your boys can take him out to the cemetery now, I can get to him later this morning. Give me a call after lunch, and I’ll be able to tell you exactly. But I don’t think there’s any doubt, Guido.’ The doctor hesitated, not liking to have to tell Brunetti how to do his job. ‘Aren’t you going to check his pockets?’
Though he had done it many times in his career, Brunetti hated this first invasion of the privacy of the dead, this first awful imposition of the power of the State on the peace of the departed. He disliked having to go through their diaries and drawers, to page through their letters, finger their clothing.
But since the body had already been moved from where it had been found, there was no reason to leave it untouched until the photographer could record where it lay in the precise posture of death. He squatted beside the young man and reached a hand into his trouser pocket. At the bottom he found a few coins and placed them beside the body. In the other there was a plain metal ring with four keys attached. Unasked, Rizzardi bent down to help shift the body to its side so that Brunetti could reach into the back pockets. One held a sodden yellow rectangle, clearly a train ticket, and the other a paper napkin, equally sodden. He nodded to Rizzardi, and they lowered the body back to the ground.
He picked up one of the coins and held it out to the doctor.
‘What is it?’ asked Rizzardi.
‘American. Twenty-five cents.’ It seemed a strange thing to find in the pocket of a dead man in Venice.
‘Ah, that could be it,’ the doctor said. ‘An American.’
‘What?’
‘Why he’s in such good shape,’ Rizzardi answered, entirely unconscious of the bitter incongruity of the tense. ‘That might explain it. They’re always so fit, so healthy.’ Together, they looked at the body, at the narrow waist that showed under the still-open shirt.
‘If he is,’ Rizzardi said, ‘the teeth will tell me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of the dental work. They use different techniques, better materials. If he’s had any dental work done, I’ll be able to tell you this afternoon if he’s American.’
Had Brunetti been a different man, he might have asked Rizzardi to take a look now, but he saw no need to hurry, nor did he want to disturb that young face again. ‘Thanks, Ettore. I’ll send a photographer out to take some pictures. Do you think you can get his eyes closed?’
‘Of course. I’ll have him looking as much like himself as I can. But you’ll want his eyes open for the pictures, won’t you?’
Just by a breath, Brunetti stopped himself from saying he never wanted those eyes open again and, instead, answered, ‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘And send someone to take the fingerprints, Guido’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Then call me about three.’ They shook hands briefly, and Doctor Rizzardi picked up his bag. Without saying goodbye, he walked across the open space towards the monumental open portal of the hospital, two hours early for work.
More officers had arrived while they were examining the body, and now there must have been eight of them, formed in an outward-facing arc about three metres from the body. ‘Sergeant Vianello,’ Brunetti called, and one of them stepped back from the line and came to join him beside the body.
‘Get two of your men to take him to the launch, then take him out to the cemetery.’
While this was being done, Brunetti returned to his examination of the front of the basilica, letting his eyes flow up and around its soaring spires. His eyes shifted across the
Vianello came up beside him. ‘I’ve sent him out to the cemetery, sir. Anything else?’
‘Yes. Is there a bar around here?’
‘Over there, sir, behind the statue. It opens at six.’
‘Good. I need a coffee.’ As they walked towards the bar, Brunetti began to give orders. ‘We’ll need divers, a pair of them. Get them busy in the water where the body was found. I want them to bring up anything that could be a weapon: a knife, blade about three centimetres wide. But it might have been something else, even a piece of metal, so have them bring up anything that might have made a wound like that. Tools, anything.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Vianello said, trying to write this in his notebook while walking.
‘Doctor Rizzardi will give us a time of death this afternoon. As soon as we have it, I want to see Bonsuan.’
‘For the tides, sir?’ Vianello asked, understanding immediately.
‘Yes. And start calling the hotels. See if anyone is missing from his room, especially Americans.’ He knew the men disliked this, the endless calls to the hotels, pages and pages of them on the police list. And after they’d called the hotels, there remained the pensions and hostels, more pages of names and numbers.
The steamy warmth of the bar was comforting and familiar, as were the smells of coffee and pastry. A man and woman standing at the counter glanced at the uniformed man, then went back to their conversation. Brunetti asked for espresso, Vianello for
Vianello downed his coffee in one gulp, set the cup back on the counter, and asked, ‘Anything else, sir?’
‘See about drug dealing in the neighbourhood. Who does it, and where? See if there’s anyone in the neighbourhood with a record of drug arrests or street crimes: selling, using, stealing, anything. And find out where they go to shoot up, any of those
‘You think it’s a drug crime, sir?’
Brunetti finished his coffee and nodded to the barman for another. Without being asked, Vianello’ shook his head in a quick negative. ‘I don’t know. It’s possible. So let’s check that first.’
