Acqua Alta

Brunetti ripped his arm free and turned, but the young man was already at the door. He opened it, smiled at Brunetti, slipped out of the room, and closed the door behind him. From beyond it, Brunetti heard the unmistakable sound of a key being turned in the lock.

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Five

Quick footsteps disappeared down the hall. Brunetti turned to La Capra. ‘It’s too late, Signor La Capra,’ Brunetti said, straining to keep his voice calm and reasonable. ‘I know she’s here. You’ll just make things worse by trying to do anything to her.’

‘I beg your pardon, Signor Policeman, but I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,’ La Capra said and smiled in polite puzzlement.

‘About Dottoressa Lynch. I know she’s here.’

La Capra smiled again and waved his hand in a broad, sweeping gesture that took in the room and all the objects it contained. ‘I don’t see why you’re so insistent about this. Surely, if she were here, she’d be with us, enjoying the sight of all this beauty.’ His voice grew even warmer. ‘You hardly believe me capable of keeping such pleasure from her, do you?’

Brunetti’s voice was equally calm. ‘I think it’s time to end the farce, signore.’

La Capra’s laugh, rich with the sound of real delight, broke out when Brunetti said this. ‘Oh, I believe it’s you who is the farceur, Signer Policeman. You are here in my home without invitation; I would guess that your entry was illegal in itself. And so you have no right to tell me what I must and must not do.’ The edge on his voice sharpened perceptibly as he spoke until, when he finished, he was almost hissing with anger. Hearing himself, La Capra recollected the role he was playing, turned away from Brunetti, and took a few steps towards one of the Plexiglas cases.

‘Observe, if you will, the lines on this vase,’ he said. ‘Lovely, simply lovely, the way it serpentines around to the back, don’t you think?’ He made a gossamer loop in the air with his hand, imitating the flow of the painted line across the front of the tall vase inside the case he was observing. ‘I’ve always found it remarkable, the eye for beauty these people had. Thousands of years ago, and still they were in love with beauty.’ Smiling, transforming himself from mere connoisseur to philosopher, he turned to Brunetti and asked, ‘Do you think that’s the secret of humanity, then, the love of beauty?’

When Brunetti made no response to this banality, La Capra let the subject drop and moved to the next case. With a small, private laugh, he said, ‘Dottoressa Lynch would have liked to see this.’

Something in his voice, the tone of dirty secrets, made Brunetti glance across at the case in front of which the other man stood. Inside he saw the same gourd-like shape that he remembered from the picture Brett had shown him. Upright and striding to the left was a human-bodied fox almost identical to the one painted on the vase in the photo Brett had shown him.

Unbidden, the thought was there. If La Capra was willing to show him this vase, then it was clear he no longer had anything to fear from Brett, the one person who could identify its origin. Brunetti wheeled around and took two long strides towards the door. Just before it, he stopped, turned his body to the side, and raised his right leg. With all his force, he kicked out at the door just below the lock. The violence of the kick shocked his entire body, but the door didn’t move.

Behind him, La Capra chuckled. ‘Ah, you Northerners are so impetuous. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to open for you, Signor Policeman, no matter how hard you kick at it. I’m afraid you’re my guest until Salvatore comes back from his errand.’ With complete confidence, he turned back towards the glass cases. ‘This piece here is from the first millennium before Christ. Lovely, isn’t it?’

* * * *

Chapter Twenty-Six

When he left the gallery, the young man was careful to lock the door behind him, leaving the key there in the lock. He was amused at the thought that his father would be safe with a policeman, of all people. The idea was so incongruous that he laughed outright as he walked down the corridor. His laughter died away when he opened the door at the end of the corridor and saw that, outside, it still poured. How could these people live with this weather, and with that sea of filthy black water that swelled up from the very pavements? He refused to admit it to himself, but he was afraid of that water, of what his foot might come in contact with when he walked through it or, worse, what might rub itself up against his legs or trickle down inside his boots.

But this, he believed, would be the last time he’d have to walk through it. Once this was done, once this matter was cleared up, he could go back inside and wait for the disgusting water to go back into the canals, the laguna, the sea, where it belonged. He felt no affinity for these frigid Adriatic waters, so different from the broad sweep of pure turquoise that spread out across the tranquil surface of the Mediterranean in front of their home in Palermo. He had no idea what had brought his father to buy a home in this filthy city. His father insisted that it was for the safety of his collection, that there was little chance of robbery here. But no one in Sicily would dare to rob the home of Carmello La Capra.

He was sure his father did it for the same reason he had the stupid collection of pots in the first place: to rise in the world and be considered a gentleman. Salvatore found this absurd. He and his father were gentlemen by virtue of their birth; they didn’t need the opinion of these stupid polentoni to tell them that.

He glanced again across the flooded courtyard, knowing that he would have to pull on boots and plough through the water to cross it. But the thought of what he would do when he reached the other side was enough to buoy up his thoughts; he had enjoyed playing with l’americana, but now it was time to finish the game.

He bent down and dragged on a pair of high rubber boots, yanking hard to pull them up over his shoes. They came to his knees and gaped wide there, their tops hanging open and limp, like the petals around the centre of an anemone. He pulled the door closed behind him and stomped heavily down the outer stairs, cursing the driving rain. Pushing water in front of him with every step, he forced his way across the courtyard towards the wooden door on the other side. Even in the short time since he had locked the door on l’americana, the water level had risen and now covered the bottom panel. Perhaps she had been in there long enough to have drowned. Even if she had managed to pull herself up into one of the large niches cut into the walls, it would be quick work to drown her. He regretted only that he wouldn’t have time to rape her. He had never raped a homosexual before; not a lesbian, at any rate, and he thought it was something he might enjoy. Well, another