Nothing. Please.’
‘All right. I’ll see you at eight. And thanks, Damiano.’
‘My pleasure. What is it you want to ask me about? Or would I say, “whom”? This way, I can sort through my memory, or I might even have time to make a few phone calls.’
‘Two men. Leonardo Mascari-’
‘Never heard of him,’ Padovani interrupted.
‘And Giancarlo Santomauro.’
Padovani whistled. ‘So you people finally tumbled to the saintly Avvocato, eh?’
‘I’ll see you at eight,’ Brunetti said.
‘Tease,’ Padovani said with a laugh and hung up.
At eight that evening, Brunetti, freshly showered and shaved and carrying a bottle of Barbera, rang the bell to the right of the small fountain in the Ramo degli Incurabili. The front of the building, which had only one bell and which, consequently, was probably that greatest of all luxuries, a separate house owned by only one person, was covered by jasmine plants which trailed up from two terracotta pots on either side of the door and filled the air around them with perfume. Padovani opened the door almost immediately and extended his hand to Brunetti. His grip was warm and firm and, still holding Brunetti’s hand, he pulled him inside. ‘Get out of the heat. I’ve got to be out of my mind to go back to Rome in the midst of this, but at least my apartment there is air-conditioned.’
He released Brunetti’s hand and stepped back. Inevitably, like any two people who have not seen one another for a long time, they tried, without being obvious about it, to see what changes had taken place. Was he thicker, thinner, greyer, older?
Brunetti, seeing that Padovani still appeared to be the thickset ruffian he very clearly was not, turned his eyes to the room in which they stood. The central part of it soared up two floors to a roof inset with skylights. This open space was surrounded on three sides by an open loggia reached by an open wooden staircase. The fourth side was closed in and must hold the bedroom.
‘What was it, a boathouse?’ Brunetti asked, remembering the little canal that ran just outside the door. Boats brought for repair could easily have been dragged inside.
‘Good for you. Yes. When I bought it, they were still working on boats in here, and there were holes in the roof the size of watermelons.’
‘How long have you had it?’ Brunetti asked, looking around and giving a rough estimate of the quantity of work and money that must have gone into the place to make it look the way it did now.
‘Eight years.’
‘You’ve done a lot. And you’re lucky not to have neighbours.’ Brunetti handed him the bottle, wrapped in white tissue paper.
‘I told you not to bring anything.’
‘It won’t spoil,’ Brunetti said with a smile.
‘Thank you, but you shouldn’t have,’ Padovani said, though he knew it was as impossible for a dinner guest to show up without a gift as it was for the host to serve chaff and nettles. ‘Make yourself at home and look around while I go and take a look at the dinner,’ Padovani said, turning towards a door with a stained-glass panel that led to the kitchen. ‘I put ice in the bucket in case you’d like a drink.’
He disappeared behind the door, and Brunetti heard the familiar noises of pots and lids and running water. He glanced down and saw that the floor was a dark oak parquet; the sight of a charred semicircle of floor that stood in front of the fireplace made Brunetti uncomfortable because he couldn’t decide whether he approved of the placing of comfort over caution or disapproved of the ruining of such a perfect surface. A long wooden beam had been set into the plaster above the fireplace, and along it danced a multicoloured parade of ceramic Commedia dell’Arte figurines. Paintings filled two walls; there was no attempt to order them into styles or schools: they hung on the walls and fought for the viewer’s eye. The keenness of the competition gave evidence of the taste with which they had been selected. He spotted a Guttoso, a painter he had never liked much, and a Morandi, whom he did. There were three Ferruzzis, all giving joyous testimony to the beauty of the city. Then, a little to the left of the fireplace, a Madonna, clearly Florentine and probably fifteenth-century, looked adoringly down at yet another ugly baby. One of the secrets Paola and Brunetti never revealed to anyone was their decades-long search for the ugliest Christ Child in western art. At the moment, the title was held by a particularly bilious infant in Room 13 of the Pinacoteca di Siena. Though the baby in front of Brunetti was clearly no beauty, Siena’s title was not at risk. Along one wall ran a long shelf of carved wood that must have once been part of a wardrobe or cabinet. On top of it rested a row of brightly coloured ceramic bowls whose strict geometric designs and swirling calligraphy clearly marked them as Islamic.
The door opened and Padovani came back into the room. ‘Don’t you want a drink?’
‘No, a glass of wine would be good. I don’t like to drink when it’s so hot.’
‘I know what you mean. This is the first summer I’ve been here in three years, and I’d forgotten how awful it can be. There are some nights, when the tide is low, and I’m anywhere on the other side of the Canal, that I think I’ll be sick with the smell.’
‘Don’t you get it here?’ Brunetti asked.
‘No, the Canale della Giudecca must be deeper or move more quickly, or something. We don’t get the smell here. At least not yet. If they continue to dig up the channels to let in those monster tankers – what are they called, supertankers? – then God alone knows what will happen to the
Still talking, Padovani walked over to the long wooden table, set for two, and poured out two glasses from a bottle of Dolcetto that stood there, already opened. ‘People think the end of the city will come in some major flood or natural disaster. I think the answer is much easier,’ he said, coming back to Brunetti and handing him a glass.
‘And what is that?’ Brunetti asked, sipping at the wine, liking it.
‘I think we’ve killed the seas, and it’s only a question of time before they begin to stink. And since the
It was a novel theory and certainly no less bleak than many he had heard, than many he himself half believed. Everyone talked, all the time, of the imminent destruction of the city, and yet the price of apartments doubled every few years, and the rents for those available continued to soar ever higher above what the average worker could pay for one. Venetians had bought and sold real estate through the Crusades, the Plague, and various occupations by foreign armies, so it was probably a safe bet that they would continue to do so through whatever ecological holocaust awaited them.
‘Everything’s ready,’ Padovani said, sitting in one of the deep armchairs. ‘All I’ve got to do is throw the pasta in. But why don’t you give me an idea of what you want so I’ll have something to think about while I’m stirring?’
Brunetti sat on the sofa facing him. He took another sip of his wine and, choosing his words carefully, began. ‘I have reason to believe that Santomauro is involved with a transvestite prostitute who lives and, apparently, works in Mestre.’
‘What do you mean by “involved with”?’ Padovani asked, voice level.
‘Sexually,’ Brunetti said simply. ‘But he also claims to be his lawyer.’
‘One does not necessarily exclude the other, does it?’
‘No. Hardly. But since I found him in the company of this young man, he has tried to prevent me from investigating him.’
‘Which him?’
‘The young man.’
‘I see,’ Padovani said, sipping at his wine. ‘Anything else?’
‘The other name I gave you, Leonardo Mascari, is the name of the man who was found in the field in Mestre on Monday.’
‘The transvestite?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘And what’s the connection here?’
‘The young man, Santomauro’s client, denied recognizing Mascari. But he knew him.’
‘How do you know that?’
