Acqua Alta

‘Over towards San Silvestro,’ Brunetti answered. ‘I wondered how bad Calle dei Fuseri is.’

The second attendant, taller and thinner, with wispy blond hair that stuck out under the edges of his watch cap, answered, ‘It’s always worse than the Piazza, and there weren’t any boards there when I went through two hours ago, on the way to work.’

‘We can go up the Grand Canal,’ the first one said. ‘We could drop you at San Silvestro,’ he offered, smiling.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Brunetti said, returning his smile and, like them, not unaware of the existence of overtime. ‘I’ve got to go back to the Questura,’ he lied. ‘And I’ve got my boots downstairs.’ That was true enough, but even if he had not brought them, he would have refused their offer. He did not relish the company of the dead and would have preferred to ruin his shoes than to share his ride home with a corpse.

Vianello came back in then and reported that there was nothing new to learn from the guards. One of them had admitted that they had been in the small office, watching television, when the cleaning lady came screaming down the stairs. And those steps, Vianello assured him, were the only access to this part of the museum.

They stayed until the body was removed, then waited in the corridor while the technicians locked the office and sealed it against unauthorized entry. The four of them went down the stairs together and stopped outside the open door of the guards’ office. The guard who had been there when Brunetti came in looked up from reading Quattro Ruote when he heard them come in. It always surprised Brunetti that anyone who lived in a city where there were no cars would read an automobile magazine. Did some of his sea-locked fellow citizens dream of cars the way men in prison dreamed of women? In the midst of the absolute silence that reigned over Venice at night, did they long for the roar of traffic and the blare of horns? Perhaps, less fantastically, they wanted no more than the convenience of being able to drive home from the supermarket, park the car in front of the house and unload the groceries, rather than carry the heavy bags along crowded streets, up and down bridges, and then up the many flights of stairs that seemed, inevitably, to lurk in wait for all Venetians.

Recognizing Brunetti, he asked, ‘Are you here for your boots, sir?’

‘Yes.’

He reached under the desk to pull out the white shopping bag and handed it to Brunetti, who thanked him.

‘Safe and sound,’ the guard said and smiled again.

The director of the museum had just been beaten to death in his office and whoever did it had walked past the guards’ station unseen, but at least Brunetti’s boots were safe.

* * * *

Chapter Ten

Because it was after two when Brunetti got home that night, he slept until well past eight the next morning and woke only, and grudgingly, when Paola shook him lightly by the shoulder and told him coffee was beside him. He managed to tight off full consciousness for another few minutes, but then he smelled the coffee, gave up and seized the day. Paola had disappeared after bringing the coffee, a decision the wisdom of which had been taught to her over the years.

When he finished the coffee, he pushed back the covers and went to look out of the window. Rain. And he remembered that the moon had been almost full the night before, so that meant more acqua alta with the change of tide. He went down the corridor to the bathroom and took a long shower, trying to store up enough heat to last him the day. Back in the bedroom, he began to dress and, while knotting his tie, decided he had better wear a sweater under his jacket because the visits he had already planned to both Brett and Lele would have him walking from one side of the city to the other. He opened the second drawer in the armadio and reached for his grey lambswool. Not finding it, he reached into the next drawer, then the one above it. Detective-like, he thought of the places where it could be, checked the remaining two, and then remembered that Raffi had borrowed the sweater last week. That meant, Brunetti was sure, that he would find it lying in a crumpled ball in the bottom of his son’s closet or in a bunched heap at the back of a drawer. The recent improvement in his son’s academic performance had not, alas, extended to habits of personal cleanliness or general neatness.

He went across the hall and, because the door was open, into his son’s room. Raffi had already left for school, but Brunetti hoped he wasn’t wearing the sweater. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to wear that sweater, and the more irritated he became at being frustrated in that desire.

He opened the cupboard. Jackets, shirts, a ski parka, and on the floor assorted boots, tennis shoes and a pair of summer sandals. But no sweater. It wasn’t draped over the chair, nor over the end of the bed. He opened the first drawer in the dresser and found an upheaval of underwear. The second held socks, none of them matching and, he feared, few of them clean. The third drawer looked more promising: it held a sweatshirt and two T-shirts that bore insignia Brunetti didn’t bother to read. He wanted his sweater, not publicity for the rainforest. He pushed aside the second T-shirt, and his hand froze.

Lying below the T-shirts, half hidden, but lazily so, were two syringes, neatly wrapped in their sterile plastic wrappers. Brunetti felt his heartbeat quicken as he stared down at them. ‘Madre di Dio’ he said out loud and looked quickly over his shoulder, afraid that Raffi would come in and find his father searching his room. He pushed the T-shirts back over the needles and slipped the drawer closed.

Suddenly, he found himself remembering the Sunday afternoon, a decade ago, when he had gone to the Lido with Paola and the children. Raffi, running on the beach, had stepped on a piece of broken bottle and sliced open the sole of his foot. And Brunetti, mute in the face of his son’s pain and his own aching love for him, had wrapped a towel around the cut, gathered him up in his arms and carried him, running all the way, the kilometre to the hospital that stood at the end of the beach. He had waited for two hours, dressed in his bathing suit and chilled to the bone by fear and the air conditioning, until a doctor came out and told him the boy was fine. Six stitches and crutches for a week, but he was fine.

What made Raffi do it? Was he too strict a father? He had never raised his hand to either child, seldom raised his voice; the memory of the violence of his own upbringing was enough to destroy any violent impulse he might have had towards them. Was he too busy with his work, too busy with the problems of society to worry about those of his own children? When was the last time he had helped either one with homework? And where did he get the drugs? And what was it? Please, let it not be heroin, not that.

Paola? She usually knew before he did what the kids were doing. Did she suspect? Could it be that she knew and hadn’t told him? And if she didn’t know, should he do the same, protect her from this?

He reached out an unsteady hand and lowered himself to the edge of Raffi’s bed. He locked his hands